TODAY WAS A VERY MEANINGFUL DAY...

You know that you are on vacation when:
1. You can blog about the events of the day, everyday.
2. You actually do enough things everyday that are worth blogging about.

Perhaps it is more common in North America to be comfortable with vocational stability: having a permanent position, a fixed remuneration scheme and predictable timelines (like when to work and when not to work). And because of this, it takes that much more courage to depart from this bubble of comfort. So, many kudos to C for his recent decision to venture into doing his own thing. I had a good time catching up with him and T over Italian cookies and Perrier.

What does it mean when you can still get together with former colleagues, even though the previous office has been completely dismantled? It means that we had a good thing going, that we created a culture that made work fun (which actually led to some real, fiscal upsides for the company). I was so delighted that all of my former team from the previous Toronto office (including my former director) got together today at Spring Roll for lunch. Everyone is either working at a different company, or gliding on their severance parachutes and still looking. I've known it before, but I really, really appreciate now just how good of a work environment I was part of for the last year before EPCOR Ontario went through its transition.

It doesn't really make sense for me to purchase anything in Ontario if I know that I can buy it in Calgary for at least 8% less. I was pondering this as I walked from Spring Roll (Yonge and Eglinton) down to the Eaton Centre. Taking in the Yonge Street experience when one is a visitor (despite having grown up with it) is interesting - I found that I noticed even the little things and somehow appreciated, as if for the first time, the shades that make it uniquely Toronto. I was drawn into Sam The Record Man, a mainstay landmark that I've unconsciously passed many times. I somehow gravitated to their electronica section and thought that I probably couldn't find some of this music in Calgary (not that I've looked, but I was justifying a purchase, you know). Anyways, new tunes on my MP3 player:










(one is an interesting collection of well-known classical pieces that have been fused with electronica backbeats; the other is by Massive Attack, a group that pioneered the whole trip-hop scene in the U.K. back in the 80's - they are also responsible for the theme song from House)- click below to hear samples - haha! I figured a way to trick Youtube into allowing me to upload songs!!)




Ah, nostalgia at Fairview Mall's Rainbow Cinemas. I caught the matinee showing of Glory Road, which is a mildly touching screen adaptation of the real life story of the 1966 Texas Western Miners NCAA championship b-ball team. It follows a typical Disney family-oriented film formula, so it's nothing to write home about (i.e. no one dies and it's a happy ending). Plus, the atmosphere was enhanced(?), as it always is at these matinee showings, by a bunch of obnoxiously loud teenagers.

ALL YOU CAN EAT SUSHI WITH 9 OF MY CLOSEST COLLEGE BUDDIES. Nuff said.

Another impromptu visit. After the sushi feast, I gave a call to my best man, S. He happened to be home and I told him I wanted to pay him a visit. Him and his brand new, humungous house! His master bedroom is probably bigger than the condo that he lived in for the past few years! He hosted about 35 people for a New Year's dinner and I can see that he would not have had any problems fitting them all in. It was a short, but worthy visit. But, I will be seeing both S and I in Calgary in about a month's time. Yeah! Another excuse to go have steak!