Dennis has a new Blogsite!

Hey guys, well as fond as you all are of my current blog, I've moved over to MSN "My Space" which I will now keep as my updated blog. This site will no longer be updated. You can now see my most recent pictures and links there.

Only people on my MSN list can see it so if you want me to add you to my list my MSN passport is dennis.m.woo@gmail.com

Here's the URL to the NEW & Improved Adventures of Dennis:

http://spaces.msn.com/members/denniswoo/

Visit it, let me know what you think, and please do change your links on your websites accordingly. Visit regularly....I'm trying to keep that one more up-to-date =).

Planning your career

So as I sit here in my office, I find myself thinking about what I want to be when I grow up....don't get me wrong..yes I am 24 years old but I find that I still don't know what I actually want to do with my life. Frankly I just have too many things that interest me. I find merchandising fascinating, I find oil and gas fascinating, business, science and the list could keep going on and on.

When I presented my mid-term presentation for the Petro-Canada executives back in March, one of them called me on this. He said "Dennis you have such great work experience all over the place and you are quite an accomplished young fellow. Where do you see yourself settling down and building a career?" Well he got me....and I at first started to dodge the question....but then apologized for that. I spoke to him after and told him that I would try to find an answer for him or at least a better one that what I gave him that day before my first term with Petro-Can was up.

This is the answer I'm going to give to him before I leave to head back to school.

"My personality is what drives me to succeed. If I am interested and motivated in something, I can acheive some great results. I am one of those people who can take any situation, good or bad and turn it into a positive learning experience....many people say that they have this ability, but I've proven time and time again that while the environment may not be ideal, I've always managed to come out on top as a better person.

With that said, as engineering as my background, analytics are my specialty, but not my passion. I view analysis as a means to an end to accomplish something tangible. I am a sociable person and like working in teams and synergistic work groups to drive results. For now, I like to be on the move, dealing with real issues and real problems. For the past 8 months at Petro-Canada, I've experienced all that oil refining has to offer, from crude purchasing to retail sales of petroleum products. While I don't pretend to be an expert in any of these areas, I have an appreciation for the complicated supply demand dynamics present in the oil business.

I am a people person, and therefore like to interact with others on a daily basis. Combined with my background in process improvement, retail merchandising, store operations and now oil and gas, I feel that the place where I would like to start building my career within Petro-Canada would be in the Retail Site Management or Convenience Retailing Divisions. I can harness my experiences there and challenge my interpersonal skills. Doing so will allow me to further develop my professional career. Looking further than that, only time can tell. Goals can always change, but for now that's where I would ideally like to be."

Now the only thing is for Petro-Canada to want me back =)

Bad at Posting
I know I'm always bad at posting but hey, I only do it when the mood feels right or when I feel that I have something interesting to share with you all. So here it is =)

Being a father
Last weekend on father's day, I went to the driving range, and the lady there thought I was a father and gave me 50% off my bucket of balls. Just this past weekend, I went over to Selene's sister's house for Stephen, Elena and Adrianna's birthday party. They were turning 6, 4 and 1 respectively. It got me thinking about kids and being a father. I absolutely adore kids. They are quite possibly the most fascinating beings on this earth. How a child knowing absolutely nothing at all learns how to get attention, how to be happy, sad. How a baby can tell it's mom that she's hungry. How the learn to speak, walk, make faces etc. Everyone says I have a friendly face, and that's why kids love me. I think I just relate to them at the same level =). The development of a child is totally in the hands of the parents. What kind of parent will you be? Will you be one that will let them do all the things your parents wouldn't let you do as a kid, or would you be the exact opposite and be as strict as your parents were on you? I'd like to think my parents did a pretty darn good job of raising me, but that's a slightly biased opinion. I think if I could raise my children like my parents raised me, I think I have a good chance at being a great parent. How does a parent know how to raise a kid? It's not like they know how before they have a kid. I guess it's based on how they were raised. That's why children of abusive parents repeat the cycle when the abused child becomes a parent and why children are the best reflection of their parents.

To be honest with you all, most guys my age can't stand the thought of kids. While I know I'm nowhere ready to raise a child, I love thinking about what my children will be like and how to be a good role model to them. It's a lot to live up to, especially when a baby depends 100% on you for protection and survival. As for the number of kids that I want...I think 3-4 is probably a good number =)...2 boys and 2 girls......what do you think? How many would you want?

Protect yourself against Fraud!!!

This is a great bit of advice that I thought I'd share with the rest of you. Recently there has been a lot of theft of people's credit cards, bank cards and what not. Social Engineering, where people pretend to be someone of authority to get you to offer personal information about yourself VOLUNTARILY is on the rise. Here are just a few tips on how to keep yourself safe from fraud.

1. The next time you order checks have only your initials (instead of first name) and last name put on them. If someone takes your checkbook, they will not know if you sign your checks with just your initials or your first name, but your bank will know how you sign your checks.

2. Do not sign the back of your credit cards. Instead, put "PHOTO ID REQUIRED".

3. When you are writing checks to pay on your credit card accounts, DO NOT put the complete account number on the "For" line. Instead, just put the last four numbers. The credit card company knows the rest of the number, and anyone who might be handling your check as it passes through all the check processing channels won't have access to it.

4. Put your work phone # on your checks instead of your home phone. If you have a PO Box use that instead of your home address. If you do not have a PO Box, use your work address. Never have your SIN# printed on your checks. (DUH!) You can add it if it is necessary. But if you have it printed, anyone can get it.

5. Place the contents of your wallet on a photocopy machine. Do both sides of each license, credit card, etc. You will know what you had in your wallet and all of the account numbers and phone numbers to call and cancel. Keep the photocopy in a safe place. I also carry a photocopy of my passport when travel either here or abroad. We've all heard horror stories about fraud that's committed on us in stealing a name, address, SIN, credit cards.

If you lose your wallet or if it is stollen:
1. Cancel the credit cards immediately. But the key is having the toll free numbers and your card numbers handy so you know whom to call. Keep those where you can find them.

2. File a police report immediately in the jurisdiction where your credit cards, etc. were stolen. This proves to credit providers you were diligent, and this is a first step toward an investigation (if there ever is one).

3. Call the two national credit reporting organizations immediately to place a fraud alert on your name and Social Insurance number. This is the most important thing to do. Now, here are the numbers you always need to contact about your wallet, etc. has been stolen:

• Equifax Canada: 1-877-249-2705
• TransUnion: 1-877-525-3823

Hopefully you'll never lose your wallet but if you do...now you know what to do!

Belated Valentines Day...

It's a few days after Valentines Day and may people have been asking me what I did for the big Vday...to be quite honest I didn't do anything....now before you go and judge me saying that I'm a bad boyfriend let me tell you the whole story.

For the past 2 weeks I took Selene out to dinner for Winterlicious to 3 awesome restaurants....Far Niente, Pangaea, and the Rosewater Supper Club, the last dinner of which was on the Thursday before Vday....we had agreed that that was our "official" v-day dinner... If I could have I would have met Selene for a quiet nite in for V-day but unfortunately she had to work late until 10 pm at her client's office....so I didn't get to see her. But on Tuesday, when she told me she was getting off work around 8 pm, I zipped to her place after work and cooked her a surprise romantic dinner. Now I know you're saying that I can't cook but believe it or not, I've picked up some useful tricks as of late =). ..I'd like to think that I'm better than the average male of my species =) We had Tortellini with a red wine, tomato, zucchini meat sauce =)...it's not a $500 dinner but hey....it's not bad don't you think? Plus it was made with love.....

Judge me now, but do you still think I'm a bad bf? *wink*...plus isn't it better to be sweet and kind all the time instead of just on one day that Hallmark created to get men off their lazy asses?

To everyone, Happy Belated Valentines Day and hope you got to spend it with loved ones.

End of Hockey =(...but hey I have 24!!

So I sat in my office listening to Gary Bettman address the hockey nation informing us that the 2004-2005 NHL season has been cancelled. Now as most of you know, I'm a huge die-hard hockey fan...but my position is with management and the owners. Players already make too much money and from a business sense, no organization can operate by giving away 75% of their revenues to their employees....it's just ridiculous. If the NFL and the NBA and the MLB can have salary caps and they're all bigger market sports, why can't hockey accept the same. Good for the owners for holding to their values...and shame on the players.

Unfortunately, I don't think this issue will be resolved any time in the near future. From the looks of it, it is quite possible for next season to be cancelled.

With that said, I have found myself missing hockey but not really craving it....mainly because I've found a new TV show to watch....do any of you watch 24??? I love that show. I watched one episode like 3 weeks ago and am hooked on it for good. I downloaded all the previous episodes this season and I'm going back and downloading Seasons 1-3. It is quite possibly the best show I've watched in a long time....if you haven't watched it...WATCH IT =) I guarentee you'll love it...it has Dennis' stamp of approval.

Does Evil Exist??

I think that this is something that we all struggle with. People always say, if God is so good and powerful, why do bad things happen on Earth, why do we have evil. I found this interesting except online and it's very interesting how the reasoning goes about the existence/non-existence of evil. It may be a little much thinking for a Monday, but hey give it a read =).

" The university professor challenged his students with this question. Did God create everything that exists? A student bravely replied, "Yes, He did!" "God created everything?" the professor asked. "Yes, sir," the student replied. The professor answered, "If God created everything, then God created evil since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are then God is evil." The student became quiet before such an answer. The professor was quite pleased with himself and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth. Another student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a question, professor?" "Of course," replied the professor. The student stood up and asked, "Professor, does cold exist?" "What kind of questions is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?" The students snickered at the young man's question. The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Everybody and every object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have too little heat. The student continued, "Professor, does darkness exist?" The professor responded, "Of course it does." The student replied, "Once again you are wrong, sir,darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact, we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present." Finally the young man asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?" Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course as I have already said. We see it every day. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil." To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith, or love, that exist just as does light and heat. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light." The professor sat down. "

The young man's name ---- Albert Einstein

New Look

So I decided that my blog site needed to get a little colour in it. I was getting bored with it. Lately I haven't really felt like writing my thoughts on the web. I think part of it might be that I'm getting lazy. I promise I will try to get back at this thing. What do you think of the colour scheme....like it?

Petro-Canada

It's now been 1 month into my 8 month work term at Petro Canada and what can I say, I'm learning a heck of a lot about the oil and gas industry. It's really quite amazing how gasoline and oil affect eh economic fabric of the country and the world. I'm one of those lucky people who seem to get positions where I can learn an industry in depth. I had retail experience and now I'm getting the oil business. While at first it was a little overwhelming absorbing all the acroymns and terminology I'm slowly getting the hang of it. I was getting a little frustrated at first at myself but I had to remind myself about the learning curve. We'll see what the following months hold for me

Readjusting to a new schedule

Throughout the time Selene and I have been together, we have gone through various phases, as I'm sure most couples do. It started off with us seeing each other everyday, working on school stuff together all the time. Then I decided to go to work for a year on coop and she finished undergrad. That was a change in itself. Then I went back to school and she started her master's program. Now we have entered the next stage of our relationship...the working world. We're both working now....she's downtown working for PriceWaterhouseCooper and I'm in Mississauga working for PetroCan. It's really different because I get to work around 7:30 am and leave around 5 pm where as she works from 9 am until 9 pm....the long hours of an accountant. In any case, I rarely see Selene during the week and most of our time together is spent on weekends. I know people say that seeing your significant other twice a week is good, but it's something new for us since we used to see each other almost everyday if not every other day. The good thing is that our relationship has evolved and matured to the point where we trust each other and we both realize that we both have busy schedules.....have any of you experienced this?

CSIE Conference a huge success

So as some of you may or may not know, I've been planning a conference for the Canadian Society for Industrial Engineering. It was on January 20-23 2005 and was a huge success. Something amazing about Industrial Engineers is that they must be the nicest engineering discipline ever. They party hard, drink like fishes but when the time comes to be professional and mature, they pass with flying colours. Being the director of sponsorship we helped fund the conference. I was able to get the following companies to sponsor us: Van Robb, MDS Sciex, Hbc, RBC Capital Markets, Accenture, Canadian Tire, Exel, Slim Technologies, Stranexus, Visual8, LXLI, Loblaws, Workbrain, Laubrass, CIBC World Markets, and Shoppers Drug Mart....pretty impressive huh? I'm in the process of putting up the pictures so please stay tuned for that =)

Aging???

Are you all starting to feel a little old? I am....I can no longer eat all the foods that I want without feeling ill. I can't drink as much as I used to, and I find that around 11 pm I get really tired. While I do go clubbing sometimes, I much prefer just hanging out at a restaurant or someone's place just to chat....

When I get a cut or a bruise, it takes weeks for it to heal. Not like when I was a teenager where the cuts would heal by the next day. When I work out, I feel the pain like 2-3 days after....not the next day.

Ahhh the beauties of growing old....I mean "maturing" =)

Snow Day...
So last night the man upstairs decided to dump a whole lot of snow on us Torontians...and when it snows there's not really a lot to do in the house except shovel and do house work. I know I haven't update this blog site since the summer but now that I have some spare time I guess I'll use this "free time" opportunity to tell you all what I've been up to for the past few months....

Going Back to School...
So as many of you know, after my third year in engineering I went on a internship at Hbc for 16 month. Well this fall it was time to stop working and head back to school. I'll be honest with you all, school is a lot different than work. At school, your very much your own boss. Everything you do affects you and you only. You can choose to study if want to, go out when you want to, or skip class if you want to. At work, you have to pull your weight because people on the team are counting on your to be a piece to the puzzle. With that said, it took a little while for me to get back into the groove of things. I find school actually a little easier than working. In school, things are very structurered and in a sense simplified. Problems in the real world don't always have an easy or logical solution. I actually enjoyed the opportunity to sit in class and learn. I guess that's what working does to you. I allows you to mature and appreciate your education. With that said, looking back on the semester, I think I had the best school semester ever..all my exams when relatively well and now I'm ready to enjoy Christmas.

Going back to Work soon!...
Well only being back at school for 4 months, I'm going to be back at work again. I'm part of a joint Engineering/MBA program at U of T. ...within 6 years 8 months, I'll have 4 years of engineering, 2 years of MBA, and 2 years of work experience all condensed into a shorten timeframe. Only working 16 months full time, I still need another 8 months before starting my MBA at Rotman in the fall of 2005. Starting in January, I'll be working for 8 months at Petro Canada in its Integration and Optimization Department understanding how the oil and gas industry works. I'm pretty excited to say the least to start working for another Canadian iconic company!

Thesis almost done....
As part of the special program I'm in, I have to finish an undergraduate engineering thesis in a shortened timeframe as well. Let me tell you it's no easy task to do a full year thesis in half a year. My topic was entitled "An examination of providing wireless video services over cellular networks in Canada". Basically I was working with one of the Canadian telecommunications service providers to do a market study of the standards for video, estimate the profitability of introducing the new wireless video services, and develop a plan for implementation. Long story short, I learnt a lot about telcom industry...I'll post it up when it has been finalized =)....

Xmas time....
Well as per usual, the holidays are here and that means a lot of family functions to go to. As per usual, I'm split between Selene's family and my own...and since both families like to eat a lot...it's a lot of feasting =)....hopefully I don't gain too much weight.

Well that's my short little update. I'm sure I'll be updating this more often seeing as how I don't have school anymore so drop me a line and let me know what you've been up to!

Merry Christmas and Have a great new year!!!

An interesting life question..
So it's my last day here at Hbc and I really don't have very much to do so I thought I'd blog and discuss an interesting question my mom raised today at breakfast. If you had a choice, what would you choose: to live as a world hero/superstar and die at 40 or live a normal life until 90?? Initially I said I would want to live a normal life until 90....that way I get to see my children grow up, have grandchildren, see the world change. But then as I thought about it more, how often do people just live "normal" boring lives, care about superficial things and just go about their day to day activities like a shell of a person....is that any way to live??? I guess I equal a "normal" life to the life I'm living now =)...but I think my life is blessed and that I'm quite fortunate for what I have...financially sound, good family life, health, a beautiful girlfriend, a career....so what do I have to complain about....

But then there's the other side...if I could live as a hero...like Mario Lemieux or Joe Sakic or Bill Clinton and die at 40 would I take it??? I'd make millions, make my mark in history and live forever in textbooks, and in people's memory...I could do good work for people that I wouldn't have the opportunity to do in my "normal" life...

I guess it comes down to the question of quality of life...would you take 20 amazing years living every dream or 100 years doing what you're suppose to do but never truly living.....I'd take the former.....

The lesson in all of this is that I think whatever we do we should try to do it to the best of our ability and have no regrets in life. Do what you want to do, follow your dreams (within reason) and balance your life in perfect harmony....balance is key....