Well, after nine months on and off working here in Philadelphia, it's finally over. I am getting up super early tomorrow for my last trip to PHL to fly back home to Saskatchewan. I'm going to be getting in around 10:30am and I think I'm going to take the rest of the day off.
My last few weeks here have been pretty much business as usual. I've felt under the weather a lot, so I spent most of last weekend in bed. I managed to head out and catch Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which was a good flick. That style of filmmaking really illustrates what the movies are all about. I also headed out on the town a couple times. Last week me and John went into the city to get a cheesesteak from Pat's and then did too much drinking downtown at the Independence Brew Pub and the Irish Pub. Last night, we went out for sushi and saki before getting a bottle of Black Velvet and heading back to the hotel to commiserate the end of the project. It was great to hang out with him away from work, especially since he recently got notice that he is being deployed to Iraq :(
This weekend should hopefully be a quiet one. Poker is scheduled for Saturday night so that should be fun. I still have no idea where I'm going to be working next. I pretty much have a position set up to work in Connecticut until the end of the year, but I am trying to get on another project in Dallas instead. We'll see!
I don't know about you, but I've never been in a hurricane before. I have, however, suffered from the aftermath! Hurricane Jeanne has finally made its way to the Northeast, and OH MY GOD is it ever raining. I couldn't even drive my regular route home because the street was completely flooded - like 3 feet deep at least! It took me a half-hour to get home instead of my usual leisurely five-minute drive. When I finally made it to the hotel I was completely soaked from head to toe! I've never seen so much rain in my entire life!
I haven't been able to read a real book for a few months now, but I realized that I forgot to write anything about the last couple of books that I finished.
The first one was The Affluent Society, by John Kenneth Galbraith. It was a well-researched and well-thought out essay about how people's notions of economics and productivity are still based on the ones from the 18th and 19th centuries when production was so very important. His argument is that we should no longer be obsessed with production and measuring it since we as humanity are capable of producing far more than we need. The two main points of his book were that we need to find a way to value public goods as much as private ones, and that by reforming our unemployment policy, we would be able to better manage employment in today’s society where many people have jobs but do no work of real value (in terms of producing products that we actually need). The book was written in the 1950's, but you can see how pretty much all of it still applies today. It gave me real pause for thought about why we measure the success of our society in terms of GDP, and how we might better put our resources to use.
The second book I read was called Pit Bull: Lessons from Wall Street's Champion Trader by Martin "Buzzy" Schwartz. It was basically an autobiography of Buzzy's life as a day-trader, and was mostly comprised of him bragging about all his accomplishments. It was neat to get a "view from the floor" at a number of different markets, but I think biggest lesson I learned is that I am probably not cut out for day-trading. In the end, the stress and the sheer amount of work involved nearly killed him (literally). I think that's something I can probably do without!
Yes, I did just make a reservation for Sofi and I's honeymoon for April 12th to 18th at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, thank you for asking!
Here are a few preliminary travel options I've gotten from the travel agent, for those of you’re considering flying down to Mexico for me and Sofi's wedding in the spring:
Regina-Puerto Vallarta / 28Mar05 - 04apr05Palladium Hotel All Inclusive-Double - $1439.00 per personTriple - $1379.00 per personQuad - $1349.00 per personTAXES- $202.70 per person**All prices are in Canadian dollars and include flights**********************************************************Calgary-Puerto Vallarta / 27mar05-03apr05AS 698 27mar05 YYC/LAX 0720A/0932AAS 278 27mar05 LAX/PVR 1100A/0352PAS 239 03apr05 PVR/LAX 0508P/0616PAS 699 03apr05 LAX/YYC 0743P/1153PQualton Club and Spa All Inclusive-Single- $1539.00 per personDouble- $1179.00 per personTriple- $1109.00 per personTAXES- $126.05 per person**All prices are in Canadian dollars and include flights**********************************************************Calgary-Manzanillo / 27mar05-03apr05AS 698 27mar05 YYC/LAX 0720A/0932AAS 256 27mar05 LAX/ZLO 1048A/0357PAS 245 03apr05 ZLO/LAX 0446P/0611PAS 699 03apr05 LAX/YYC 0743P/1153PQualton Club and Gran Bahia Resort and Spa All Inclusive-Single- $1869.00 per personDouble- $1399.00 per personTriple- $1339.00 per personTAXES- $108.32 per person**All prices are in Canadian dollars and include flights**********************************************************Calgary-Guadalajara / 27mar05-03apr05CO 1983 27mar05 YYC/IAH 0656A/1205PCO 2599 27mar05 IAH/GDL 0220P/0439PCO 2684 03apr05 GDL/IAH 0524P/0740PCO 1980 03apr05 IAH/YYC 0850P/1156PFiesta Americana Guadalajara (Not all inclusive)Single- $2129.00 per personDouble- $1529.00 per personTriple- $1379.00 per personTAXES- $108.32 per person**All prices are in Canadian dollars and include flights
A flight to Guadalajara (about one hour north of Guzman, where the wedding will be), is generally around $1100/person. We were thinking that it would be better to get an all-inclusive package at a resort somewhere because as you can see above, it's probably not going to be much more than what a flight alone would cost. Our thoughts were that people could fly down as part of an all-inclusive package to Manzanillo or Puerto Vallarta (where there are direct flights from Regina, which is a big bonus), stay at the resort for a few days, and then just hop on a bus to come and stay in Guzman for the three days around the wedding. Other than being a bit long (5 hours), the bus trip would be cheap (i.e. less than $100) and staying in a hotel in Guzman is super cheap as well (like $40 to $50 per night).
As you can see, the packages above are for a one-week stay. I know that some folks (i.e. Brad and Steff and probably a lot of my family) want to stay longer than that, but the travel packages for April are not yet available. I will keep you all posted as I learn more. The good news is that the wedding is on the last weekend of busy season, so the prices should hopefully drop off a lot after that.
What do you think, folks? Do any of you have any particular preferences or ideas for what the plan should be?
Well, folks, the last few weeks have been pretty much business as usual here in Philly. Aside from work and such, I really haven't been up to much aside from doing some wedding planning and watching Team Canada beat the rest of the world's ass in hockey. It was a great tournament, but I'm sure we're all pretty bummed that it will be the last hockey of that calibre for a while. I'd just like to thank every single member of the NHLPA for being the greedy bastards that they are in not agreeing to a salary cap (among other concessions they simply have to make), especially since every other major sport has one and hockey is, at best, a "B" sport in North America. Don't fool yourselves, people, the league is losing tens of millions of dollars per season; the people at fault in this contract dispute are definitely the players. Grow the fuck up, you babies!
This past Friday, I took a drive to the airport and flew to Mexico once again. Sofi and her uncle picked me up at the airport, and we didn't get into Guzman until about midnight, so that was pretty much it for the day. On Saturday after breakfast, me and Sofi went to visit with the priest to fill out all the necessary paperwork for the wedding and to give him a chance to get to know me. I'm happy to report that the Bishop has allowed us to get married in a Catholic ceremony at the church, so everything is pretty much set in that department. Afterwards, we had a great lunch with Sofi's mom and her youngest sisters before me and Sofi went to the theatre to watch The Bourne Supremacy, which, as I've said before, was a great show. After the movie, we went to this restaurant on the 2nd floor of the downtown square overlooking the park. We had some brews and some food before calling it a night. Yesterday, my flight left at 3:15pm so there wasn't much time for anything but visiting, but there's nothing I'd rather do on a Sunday afternoon! Sofi and her mom and sister drove me to the airport and we said our goodbyes, which, as usual, was not very fun. The flight back was pretty good since I had great seats on both connections and my laptop managed to stay awake the whole trip, but I didn't make it home to the hotel until like 1am, which, needless to say, made work pretty rough today. Still, I wouldn't trade the opportunity for anything - I had a great weekend and I'd love to do it again! I'm not sure whether I'll be able to do so before the wedding, though, since my contract in the USA is almost over :(
As of right now, I am scheduled to be coming home on Friday, October 1st, but there is a small possibility that I could be coming home either earlier or later, depending on how things go, but for sure no later than October 8. I am still working on figuring out what my next work engagement will be, but I'm hopeful it will be another project in the USA (the current front-runner is Chicago), since my Visa doesn't expire until January, I've been able to travel to Mexico a lot more than usual, and I save a lot of money when I'm down here - which really helps the ol' wallet (which will come in handy considering I'm getting married in six and a half months!). Other than that, I'm going to be hunting from Oct 27 through Nov 2, which promises to be a blast since this year Nick (a.k.a. Tackleberry) is going to be able to join us!
Photos from this year's GREAT CANADIAN CABIN PARTY, courtesy of Steff's new camera and the reason Brad can't afford to buy groceries:
 129.22 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |  133.71 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |  91.94 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |
 93.43 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |  183.53 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |  213.61 KB 768 x 1024 9/14/2004 |
 142.93 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |  142.62 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |  136.67 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |
 206.63 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |  176.05 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |  193.54 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |
 200.40 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |  114.72 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |  185.13 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |
 224.88 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |  151.41 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |  115.42 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |
 80.38 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |  204.15 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |  168.22 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |
 128.81 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |  143.41 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |  204.69 KB 1024 x 768 9/14/2004 |
.JPG) 178.33 KB 768 x 1024 9/14/2004 |
This year my remembrance of September 11th, 2001 is greatly affected by the many changes in my life over the past year.
I have lived for most of this year less than two hours from New York, just over two hours from Washington, D.C., and just over three hours from where the heroic passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 won the first victory of the war on terror.
I have met people who have spent months and years overseas since the attack bringing justice to the world.
I now have friends, co-workers, and colleagues with family and loved ones serving overseas in the defense of North America.
I now have a close friend who will more than likely be going overseas in the near future to fight for my way of life.
I have been to the Pentagon.
I have been to Ground Zero:
Still, the one thing that has not changed in my life in the past year is my belief that the world today is much different than the one I grew up in, and that we must act accordingly.
Though no one seems to explicitly do so, today's debate surrounding terrorism can ultimately be framed as a difference between two political philosophies: preemption vs. reaction. Before the attack, I too believed it was unreasonable for one country to strike another without an imminent threat of attack. Today, I now realize, and we have all experienced, the cost of such complacency. In the words of Sen. John McCain, "... there is no avoiding this war. We tried that, and our reluctance cost us dearly."
R.E.M. tour dates:
November 15--Winnipeg--Centennial Concert Hall--9/17 on sale November 17--Calgary--Saddledome--9/17 on sale November 19--Seattle--McCaw Hall--10/2 on sale November 20--Seattle--McCaw Hall--10/2 on sale November 21--Vancouver--Orpheum--9/17 on sale
Now how am I supposed to go to any of these shows if I have no idea where I am going to be living in October and November? Grrr...
Well folks, I'm back in Philly, and the weather is nice so I can't complain. Things have changed even more at work - pretty much everybody is gone, and now I'm the only one left to finish up one project by the end of the month. My buddy John is on vacation right now but will be showing up again next week to (hopefully) give me a hand getting to the finish line.
I had a great holiday weekend as I took advantage of one of the few holidays that Canada and the USA share. I hopped in a plane Saturday morning and went down to Mexico to spend the weekend with Sofi. We had a great time touring Guadalajara on Saturday, checking out a brand-new mall there. We even saw a great flick, Collateral. On Sunday, the two of us had our pictures taken by a photographer that we will hopefully be able to use for our wedding invitations or something similar. Afterwards the whole family went out to the hideaway in the hills for a great afternoon lunch. It was sad to get on the plane again on Monday but hopefully I will again be back in the next couple of weeks!