At the beginning of 2010 I posted a set of goals for the year. Now that the year is over, I should probably review those.

I'd say the biggest accomplishment of last year was finding, buying and moving into our new home. As I mentioned in the original post, the process of buying a home would quite possibly conflict with many of the other goals. The house plus Kim's cancer diagnosis did kind of put a hold on most things in November and December, but overall I'm really happy with how last year went.

Anyway, last year I managed to blog 65 times while my goal was to blog once a week. I didn't quite manage to accomplish that frequency, but I did far surpass the implied quantity so that is pretty good.

As for climbing I did get out a bunch and I did do five times a month for more than half the months of last year. However I did not get out as much as I would like. I managed to place second in my division at a bouldering competition at John's new climbing gym. I was really happy with that and am looking forward to competing in another comp at the same gym next weekend.

I had a lot of fun taking photos last year and am happy with the results. I haven't really even picked up my camera since last October though so I really need to get back on that.

I did a lot of new cooking last year and as a result I feel much more confident in the kitchen now. This is another area of my life that I have neglected recently though and I mainly blame the new house for that problem. I tend to get home later at night now so I don't do as much cooking during the week. I think I need to shift to cooking more on the weekends so that there are delicious leftovers for week nights.

I started a personal programming project last year, a web-based recipe storage app as I suggested in my original goal list. I did not finish it, but I had fun playing with databases, AJAX and the Prototype library. I also did a lot of good stuff at work so I'm not too worried about missing this goal. The point was to do some new software dev stuff and I certainly did that.

Although moving to a new house has had a negative effect on some of my goals, it has definitely improved my reading. I've finished almost two dozen books since moving in December and I'm so happy to have done so. Yay for the TTC!

My travel last year didn't involve any fun Canadian trips, but I did go to China which was awesome! Our travel plans this year are obviously going to be affected by Kim's recovery, but I think we'll ease back into the travel stuff with some smaller trips within Canada so I'll get to do the Canada thing eventually after all.

The other big deal from last year was Kim's diagnosis and original hospitalization and treatments. I can honestly say I wasn't prepared for anything like that, but I guess it was one of those "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" events. It definitely provided me with new perspective on life and my own long term plans for it.

Anyway, that's my review of my 2010 with respect to my goals. I plan on posting again soon with new goals for 2011.

Kim had her fourth round of chemotherapy Friday and it went as well as usual. The only new thing to report is that they've reduced her dosage of one of the chemotherapy drugs (Oncovin also known as Vincristine). A common side-effect of this drug is numbness and tingling in the fingers and Kim's had that since she started treatment. The concern is that this side-effect can sometimes become permanent. They didn't want to reduce the dosage initially due to concerns about the efficacy of the treatment. Now that they are comfortable the treatment is working they are slowly reducing the dose (she got 75% of her usual dose this time). Kim says that she can already feel the difference in her fingers so that is very promising.

My previous post on UBB was a little rambly so I'd like to take a moment to restate my views in a more succinct manner.

I find nothing inherently wrong with the idea of paying for Internet access based on the amount of bandwidth you consume. My problem is that the CRTC is allowing major telecoms to dictate policy on how Canadian consumers should be billed for Internet usage. Major telecoms whose primary revenue streams will soon be destroyed by the Internet, the thing they are trying to alter policy on.

I'm actually a bit disappointed that the national debate seems to just be centred around the UBB stuff and not around the larger issue of the sorry state of telecommunications in Canada in general.

I wrote recently about how awesome our new Internet from Teksavvy is. Unfortunately that is about to change. The CRTC recently approved an application put forth by Bell and supported by Rogers to allow those companies to force third party ISPs which rent network capacity from Bell or Rogers to implement bandwidth caps and to charge high amounts of money for bandwidth overages. This is known as Usage-Based Billing (UBB).

This means that Teksavvy will be reducing my monthly bandwidth cap from 200GB to probably 25GB. Also, they are being forced to charge $2/GB for overage. This will essentially kill the advantage Teksavvy has over Bell or Rogers. At face-value, this is sorta fair, since Bell/Rogers are responsible for installing and maintaining the network infrastructure (infrastructure that was in part funded through taxpayer-funded subsidies, but that's a separate issue).

The real problem is the artificially low bandwidth caps and the ridiculous prices the major telecoms charge for overage. These caps are fairly recent changes to Internet plans provided by Bell/Rogers, changes that started appearing just as Internet-based content distribution companies like Netflix started becoming popular. Bell/Rogers claim the caps are needed to help manage network congestion due to the much higher load from all the video streaming people are doing. Perhaps this is the case, although it doesn't seem to be that big of a problem in places like the US, much of Europe or Japan and South Korea.

The real concerning thing about all of this is the fact that Bell/Rogers are not just providers of network capacity, they are also content distributors (Rogers Cable and Bell Satellite). Plus their method of content distribution is fast becoming obsolete. The future is clearly on-demand streaming of content over the Internet, in a manner independent of your Internet provider. Obviously this is bad for Bell/Rogers since it would mean their long standing monopoly on content distribution is about to end. And like many large companies, instead of innovating they are lobbying the government to change the rules to artificially prolong their dated business models.

Many European countries solved this massive conflict of interest long ago. They split the telecom companies into network providers and content distributors. The network providers are responsible for the care and growth of the network and they sell bandwidth to anyone at rates that approximate free market conditions (ie. based on supply/demand with buffer for profit). The distributors rent capacity and pass along those cost to their customers. This seems like a pretty reasonable set up to me. If the costs of providing network capacity go up due to congestion or whatever then the network providers can raise prices accordingly and the reason for price increases is not muddied by monopolistic, anti-competitive practices.

The sad thing about all this is that there are going to be many new and interesting opportunities related to content distribution for enterprising companies. Such opportunities will pass by Canada without stopping due to the restrictive nature of our Internet infrastructure. And customers will miss out on cool new things, and the government will miss out on new tax revenue from companies that will avoid servicing Canada. Netflix in HD is basically unusable with most Canadian Internet plans.

Finally, it's the job of the CRTC to prevent conflicts of interest like this. Seems like they failed. So what good are they?

If you've read this far, perhaps you'd be interested in signing the online petition against UBB and maybe even writing to your MP to protest this decision.

Over the past two weeks Kim has received a couple tests (chest CT scan and a Gallium test) to help determine the progress of her treatment. Fun facts about the tests, the radiation dosage of a chest CT is equivalent to about 400 normal chest x-rays or three years of standard background radiation and the Gallium that is used is stored in a thick lead tube until the moment before it is injected. Eeek?

Kim has been going extra stir-crazy being in the house on her own all day so we decided to send her to her parent's house for a week so she could spend some time there and maybe see some of her family who also live in the area. She left on Wednesday afternoon and was planning to stay until next Wednesday. But on Thursday we got a call from the doctor asking Kim to come in on Friday because they wanted to discuss the results of the tests. This was a bit disconcerting because we had expected to get the results of the tests at her next regular appointment.

Anyway, Kim's mom drove her back to Toronto Thursday night and we all went to the appointment today in a fairly apprehensive mood. However, everything is OK. The CT scan showed signs of an infection (the reason for the early appointment), but Kim has no symptoms and the doctor's manual exam of Kim showed no problem either. Since there are no problems the doctor suggested that it was probably just a minor infection that Kim's body is successfully dealing with. It was a little crappy that Kim had to come back so soon after leaving, but we're grateful to have a doctor that is so concerned with Kim's well-being.

As for the progress of Kim's treatment, there has been a significant reduction in the size of the largest of Kim's tumours and the others are also breaking down as well. The scans revealed that there are no new tumours, so it seems like the treatment is working. However the doctor also said there is still a long way to go and Kim will most likely need the full eight treatments.

Tomorrow Kim's going back to her parent's house to finish her visit.

Hey Everyone. Sorry for the lack of updates, nothing bad happened I was just tired and lazy.

Christmas was much better than expected. Christmas Eve I decided to make a roast chicken dinner for Kim, her mom and myself. So I went to the butcher at the end of our new street and got a fresh chicken! They were very nice there, but they didn't have any small chickens so I ended up with a full roaster. This turned out for the best because Kim's dad and siblings decided to all come up and join us for supper and to stay overnight. They brought all their presents so that everyone could open presents on Christmas morning here together! It was lots of fun and it was cool that we had so much space for everyone to stay overnight. Also, the chicken and potatoes turned out amazing!

On Christmas day everyone went home, and Kim and I shopped online for a new TV, our Christmas present to each other. We found a good one at a good price (Samsung LED) and ordered it!

I had the whole week after Christmas off work, so I spent the time unpacking and setting up the house. I made tons of trips to Canadian Tire, Home Depot and other stores and did things like change the locks, install a medicine cabinet and run Ethernet cable from the basement to the office on the 2nd floor. By the time I went back to work the house was in great shape.

New Year's Eve we spent at Chris and John's house. Chris received a pasta maker for Christmas and so they made fresh pasta for us! It was delicious and we had lots of fun playing Wii and watching Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

On the Sunday after New Year's my mom and brother came to visit for the day to bring us presents from my side of the family. It was a second Christmas! We had good food and my mom also took me to Ikea to buy a couple things for the house, including a nice TV stand for our new TV.

Last weekend Mike came up to stay for a couple nights to round out his holidays here in Canada and his parents came up on the Saturday to visit our house, bring us some awesome cheesecake and to go out for lunch at the Stockyards which is this awesome smoked meat place on St. Clair. It was a really great weekend for sure.

Finally, this week, our TV was delivered! It's great to finally join the high-definition world. I haven't got it totally configured yet, but it seems like it will be pretty awesome.

Today was Kim's third chemo treatment, and it went about the same as the second (ie. really well). The doctor is still pleased with her progress and her general health and she told us that Kim will undergo "re-staging" before the fourth treatment (meaning they redo the CT and Gallium scans in order to get a more exact measurement of the progress of the treatment so far).

This weekend I intend to do a bit of cleaning, get more acquainted with the fancy TV features and hopefully finally get back to rock climbing (it's been at least two months since the last time I was out).

Today Kim got sick enough of losing hair by the handful to allow me to cut it all off. She has a really positive attitude about it all though, making jokes and such so things are good. Kim's doing well health-wise too, the second chemo treatment didn't seem to bother her stomach much.

As for the house, we're all unpacked and well on our way to getting settled. I've made lots of trips to Canadian Tire and Home Depot already.

Kim had her second round of chemotherapy today and it went extremely smoothly. She was just an outpatient this time and St. Michael's has a really nice area set up with comfy chairs and TVs where the cancer patients can sit while they get their medicines given by IV. It took most of the day to go through the four drugs, but nothing eventful happened and Kim's now sleeping soundly. Only 4-6 more rounds to go!

Our Internet was connected today! Yay! We managed to avoid both Bell and Rogers by going with TekSavvy Cable Internet and the first six hours seem to have gone really well. The installation was fast and painless and I checked a random Internet speed test and verified that we are getting 18Mbps download and 1Mbps upload! The monthly bandwidth cap is 200GB which is plenty adequate and it only costs $42.95/month. Also, there is no fixed length contract so if things go bad we can quit at any time. I feel fortunate to live in a city where there are alternatives to the stupid Rogers/Bell duopoly.

The rest of the house is coming along well. We got the kitchen and master bedroom pretty much set up and our new washing machine and dryer are awesome. We made our first of many trips to Canadian Tire today too.

On the cancer front, Kim's hair has started falling out which is expected I guess, but still a bit distressing. Her neck tumours are noticeably smaller though so I suppose the treatment is working. She goes in for blood work on Wednesday and then assuming her white blood cell count is good she'll get her second round of chemotherapy on Thursday. Kim's mom and sister are coming to stay with us for the treatment and for Christmas so that will be nice.

We're moved in and leeching wireless Internet from a neighbour until tomorrow when our Internet will be hooked up. The house is chaos, but it's also good. The move went super smoothly thanks to the awesome help of many friends and family.