periodic personal perceptions
My friend Richard just returned from a trip to Burning Man in the Nevada desert. I haven’t heard the stories yet, but Rich is a great photographer and he’s taken some spectacular photos. Check them out on his site. I find it a bit tricky to navigate his pictures, so here are a few tips: the albums are organized from newest to oldest, and the Burning Man pictures start in the folder with this icon:
A few weeks ago, I had dinner with an impressive couple. Colin Angus was the first person to circumnavigate the globe under human power – mostly rowing and cycling. His fiancée Julie joined him for part of the trip and became the first woman to row the Atlantic. They showed me an early cut of their 60-minute film, and it was excellent—they had some really incredible stories. To me, the most amazing part was cycling through Siberia in the winter, with average temperatures of -50°C. There were plenty of other great episodes in their trek: rowing from Alaska to Kamchatka, dealing with hurricanes on the Atlantic, and some anecdotes that I don’t want to reveal until they’ve at least released the film – it will hopefully be coming to an outdoors film festival near you, followed by a book in the spring. See their itinerary on their website, and check out some of the photos.
Perhaps I should feel like a neglectful gardener, leaving this blog to shrivel up and die over the dry summer. But I don’t.
A quick summary of the highlights: undergrad classmates Zhan and Ed came out for a visit in July, which included a Whistler hike, and watching a Jeopardy winning friend take home a cool 50 grand. I visited London, England in late July to attend my high school friend Geoffrey’s wedding in Winchester. I met up with other old friends there: Rachel and Anna were at the wedding, and Jacqueline from Australia is working for the BBC in London now. Some vacation pictures are up on my Flickr page with more to come.
August flew by far too quickly. I was working like mad, and preparing for my move to Toronto. Most of my free time was spent visiting with various friends, old and new; I’ll miss them all. The rest of it went to working on a new website for the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition, which should be going up soon. The highlight of the summer was my brother’s wedding to the lovely Jasmine at the end of August. We had a great, debauched wilderness bachelor party near Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, polishing off an entire Texas mickey of rye and too much beer to count. The wedding itself was perfect in every way, with a great crowd of family and various friends.
My work at TransLink wrapped up well; I’ll put up a post later describing that work, once I’ve figured out what I can actually say in a public forum like this.
And now I’ve just landed in Toronto. I have a miniscule apartment waiting for me once the labour day weekend winds up. I found it over the Internet (yay, viewit! thanks to sabrina for putting me onto that tool) and Paul inspected it for me before taking it. I just took a look at the place from the outside last night, and it looks like a great building and a spectacular neighbourhood (Queen just west of Bathurst). Now I’m gearing up for a return to school and the completion of my career change: transportation planning, here I come.
Over and out. And maybe now that I’m back at the blog, I can develop a less boring and functional speaking style. But don’t count on it – I’m a bureaucrat now.
It’s been a good few months for my fiction consumption. After losing interest in science fiction after high school, and getting really into non-fiction, I haven’t really read much. Vacations are good for my intake, and so is riding transit to work. I’ve had a bit of both in 2006, and so far I’ve made it through the following books, fiction and non-fiction:
… plus the recently mentioned Paris 1919. By my recent standards, this is a redoubtable feat: two books a month! (Even if 40% of those were still non-fiction…)