World Travels: Paris, Toronto, NYC

 I expected to never visit again.

I expected to have a few months off.

I expected to not to have to travel anymore.

But, as the famous Scottish poet, Robert Burns, said:

The best laid schemes of Mice and Men
oft go awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

In September I took a short contract with a company, which is based in Paris... which ended up including a trip back to Paris for a few days.  Although I spent most of my time in meeting rooms, I had one morning on the weekend to do some exploring. I discovered a lovely area in the 5th arrondissement, Rue Mouffetard, which probably what Rue Cler was like before Rick Steeves wrecked it for the locals.  For those who read this site looking for Rue Cler tips - my tip is, after visiting Rue Cler 5 or 6 times, go to Rue Mouffetard instead.

In November I was in Toronto for a meeting, and took the opportunity to make a weekend trip down to New York City with two friends.   Aiming for a culinary experience, with every restaurant checked it would meet a high Zagat score, we took time to visit Babbo, ACME, Lavo, Beau Marchais, Mission Chinese, and Pure Thai.  Everything was amazing, except for the service at Beau Marchais!

I convinced my fellow travelers to deviate from the plan and take another trip over to Sullvian Street Bakery, to experience where the root of the NY Times no-knead bread I make at home comes from.  I also picked up Jim Lahey's new My Pizza book from the bakery while we were there, so look for some pizza this Christmas holidays if you visit.

Sprinkled somewhere between meals we took some time to walk the High Line, and see parts of the west side from up above.

I have more pictures to post, and will hopefully get to them when I have another break!

The news of my death has been greatly exaggerated....

I can't believe I haven't posted since February... When I left my job I was all like "Holy crap, look at all the time I will have to blog!"  Now, after 8 months off I am all like "Holy crap, I'm so busy I need a vacation from my vacation so I can blog!".

I'm supposed to be taking a break. In reality, I have:

- Gone to Disneyland.
- Gone to Hornby Island.

- Gone into my office to study for my Patent Agent Exam
- Gone to Hornby Island again
- Gone to Vancouver
- Gone to Hornby Island again, again.
- Gone into my office again to continue to study for my Patent Agent Exam.
- Gone to Toronto
- Gone into my office again to (again) continue to study for my Patent Agent Exam.

Seems like a short list, but in all the 8 months I don't ever recall having more than a few days in the past few months to just lounge around. It seemed like the amount of case law I memorized was inversely proportional to my days off....

On my Hornby Island vacation, I took the time to build a small shed.  By "small" I mean big enough to be a "man-cave" (as my neighbor calls it), and by "shed" I mean, well, I'm not sure what I mean. What I don't mean is a shed to store stuff for the kids, or the wife, or basically anything but tools and a Foosball table.



(And my thanks to Doug for helping get the roof up + ensuring I had a good staple gun to get the shingles on!)

Now that I am back in town, I'll aim for some regular blog updates... I hope. Lots of changes in life, but seemingly no time to contemplate or write about them online.....

New Beginnings

Well, I resigned from my job last week.

"It's like Halley is the Godfather Part Two. That was an incredible movie, might be better than the original, all right? But no matter how much you love The Godfather Part Two, you still have to see the original to understand and appreciate the sequel"

- John Cusak's character, Jonathan Trager, in the movie Serendipity

I started 14 years ago as employee #201 in a small Victoria based technology company, and I leave as employee #125,000 (give or take a few) of a global fortune 500 company.

Along the way I have had more experiences than I ever imagined I would have when I started. I have traveled the world multiple times over, traversing England, France, India, Indonesia and selected cities (both good and bad!) across the USA and Canada. I had to figure out how to prepare for presentations from scratch while on 12 hour airplane rides in coach, do conference calls at 2am on a windy country road in the back of tuk-tuk's, and more importantly, how to pack for a 2 week business trip with only 1 carry-on suitcase. Sorting my "travel suitcase" this week gave me currency in about 7 varieties, and almost enough to stock a game of monopoly for the kids.

I met a lot of great people all over the world, and wouldn't trade the past 14 years for anything. LP-ette and the kids, on the other hand, are looking forward to me being home and taking a family vacation that does not involve me being on blackberries, apples or any other sort of technical fruit.

So what next, you ask?

Last September I signed up to write some legal exams in 9 weeks, which will consume all of my time, so my first order of business next week is to pack my truck (and dog!) and head away for a studying sabbatical on Hornby Island. I am looking forward to the cold and wet, my body warmed by statutes, regulations and applicable Supreme Court of Canada case law.

After that, who knows, but I am sure my Godfather Part Two will be more of an adventure than Godfather Part One.