After 5 years, it appears my time in Kingston is almost at an end. I am off to Ottawa this weekend to sign a lease for an apartment. I came to Kingston in the fall of 2001 for school. After first year I returned to camp for the last time. That was the last time (except my trip to Europe) I have been out of Kingston for any length of time. I spent every other summer here and stayed in Kingston over a year after graduating to work.

I have greatly enjoyed my time in Kingston and am very glad I came here to go to Queen’s. I am however now looking forward to moving on, moving to a larger city and looking for a new job. The thing I am most looking forward to is not having to move in another year. In my 5 years in Kingston I will have lived in 6 different locations. One for each year of school (including residence in first year), and the extra location comes from a sublet last summer. It was not the way I thought things would work out when I came here, it is just how it happened.

So I am back in job hunt mode. I am not doing a whole lot right now because I am getting ready to move but I have sent out a bunch of resumes over the past month. I am currently talking to two companies about possible positions and I think (hope) it will be easier to get things going once I am in Ottawa.

Something else I am looking forward to in Ottawa is more ultimate frisbee. Ottawa has the largest ultimate league in the country and maybe in North America. I will just need to figure out how to get to the games as I don’t yet have a car and the fields are not close to where I will be living.

I will have some more thoughts on my time in Kingston later, but for the moment I need to get things organized for what will hopefully be my last move for a little while.

Kingston has been pretty good to me over the past five years, however there are some things I am looking forward to with my impending move to Ottawa. For instance, a real transit (bus) system. Kingston Transit is horrible. Even during rush hour the main buses only run every 15 minutes and in off peak times and weekends many run only once an hour. It makes getting anywhere outside of downtown a real pain. Ottawa on the other hand has a really good transit system. I will be living right beside one of the transit terminals and therefore have easy access to downtown and the surrounding area.

I am not a huge shopper, however when I need / want to get something it is nice to be able to do so. In Kingston there is a lack of accessible stores, mainly because of the poor transit system. The only shopping mall is about a 40 minute bus ride away which means a trip there can easily end up taking half a day because you then have to wait for a bus to take you home. It can be hard to find that much time and forget about buying big ticket items because you don’t have any way of getting them home.

There are many things about Kingston that I do like that will be different in Ottawa. If you live near downtown Kingston you can get everywhere by walking. There is no need for a car or the bus, almost everything one could want is no more then 20 minutes away by foot. This fact has definitely saved me a bunch of money over the years.

Kingston is, for the most part, a nice quiet town. You can go for a walk by the lake and just relax around town. Since the core of the town is relatively small, both in space and people, it feels very laid back which I like. I will also miss Queen’s, both the place itself and the people. I have spent pretty much all of my time in Kingston on campus. While it can be a bit harsh sometimes in the winter, I really like walking around campus and randomly running into people that I know. Since the student housing area is fairly small very often when you go out to run into people that you know on the street which is nice. It helps make the city feel small and welcoming.

So, I am off to Ottawa in a short while to sign a lease for an apartment, after that, there is no turning back.

I think one my favorite things in Kingston has been Kingston Ultimate. My first summer in Kingston (between second and third year) I was looking for some people who where interested in playing pick-up semi regularly. A random person said something about a group of people playing ultimate around St. Laurence College so I decided to check it out. The first time I went out to find the pick-up ultimate it must have been the wrong day/time as no one was there. However I really wanted to play so I made a second attempt and found the game.

Three and a half years later I can look back and say it has been a great time. Ultimate players are generally a warm and welcoming group of people and this is exactly what I found. I roughly knew how to play when I joined up, and the other players where happy to teach me more advanced strategies.

The Kingston league holds pick-up games twice a week which are open to anyone and league games Wednesday evenings. I think I like pick-up a slight be more then the league games just because of the type of ultimate that is played at pick-up. The regulars are a bit higher caliber then average so it is always a good and intense game. It also goes longer then league games as there is no time constraint which I really like. I will generally be more tired after a pick-up game then after a league game.

Ultimate is also very popular in Ottawa, they have more players playing in ultimate leagues then anywhere else in the country. The only real problem I will have is how to get to the fields as they are not really close to the city. I am hoping to I will be able to find someone in my area I can car pool with.

I have about a week and a half left with Kingston Ultimate, then I shall have to say goodbye. It's been fun, I'll miss you.

I strongly recommend avoiding all things Sony. I personal problem with Sony dates back to August 2005 when I bought a CD that was produced by Sony. Due to Sony’s digital rights management (DRM) software on the CD I was unable to put the music on my iPod or even listen to the music in iTunes. Due to this I have no purchased any music since and am not planning on doing so in the near future.

This was before Sony’s huge DRM misstep. It was later discovered that some Sony CDs installed a rootkit on users computers that introduced a vulnerability that could allow a cracker (hacker) to take over their computer. Sony ended up issuing a recall for the affected CDs.

Sony’s next problem is with their PS3 system and Sony’s new Blue Ray DVD drives (which the PS3 will use). The DVD drives have repeatedly been delayed and as a result so has the PS3. In recent surveys where users have been asked which next generation video game consol they will purchase the PS3 has faired the worst.

Sony’s latest (still unfolding) issue is the recall by De ll and Apple of over 5 million Sony made laptop batteries.

Sony is currently stumbling around not being able to complete anything successfully. For this reason I will not be purchasing any Sony products for at least the next year if not longer and I would suggest to everyone to do the same.