Off By One

Char and I just spent the weekend in Jasper, one of the few vacations we’ve taken both in north america and on short notice.

It was really, really nice.

We didn’t really do a lot; lounged around the hotel, lazed in the pool, walked a bit. Maligne Canyon is freakin’ gorgeous when frozen, and the road to Maligne lake is something special in itself.

Delta(n): A change, eg the difference from one period to the next.

Time: As far as we measure it, five hours different.

Place: Approximately 11,000 km away from where I was 32 hours ago. Specifically, -46.6167, -23.5333

Language: Most people I’ll deal with this week won’t speak English. The people with whom I’ll deal most do. I speak maybe five words of the local language.

Weather: It’s currently 28º, about 35º warmer than it was 32 hours ago

Culture: The hotel powers down all of its outlets when I’m not in the room. Houses in this neighborhood all have wrought-iron fences to protect their parking spaces. The hotel is still all beige, just like hotels in Canada.

I don’t know how significant this is, really. I’ve covered it on my traveling weblog before, but there is something fundamentally dislocating about this kind of distance. I’m at best an indifferent traveler, preferring to be at home where all of my comforts are. It’s made more interesting by the fact that I’m in the middle of no small amount of upheaval on the home front.

For the last few who haven’t heard, we got the house, and will be moving into our very own home on January 23rd. We have, then, four months to prepare it for the arrival of theour baby. Luckily, there’s not a lot that needs doing in a hurry, it’s pretty much ready.

Those of you who read this are probably already aware of my feelings on the subject, but they bear repeating: We don’t plan to become one of those couples with no life other than our child. Our friends are infinitely precious to us, and we’ll be doing our damnedest to ensure that we remember that in the years to come. We’re moving, which makes it harder (as I said in a comment on the last post) but that just means that when I meet Mel for coffee in the morning it’s a bit more of a detour for me

Well, shit. Another week, another dry spell on the blog.

Actually, two weeks. My, how time flies…

So, I was in Omaha for a week doing some integration work for the team, taking the opportunity afforded by proximity to get some grotty little details hammered out and hopefully to sell my southern compatriots on the value of the tools we make up here. I think I was successful, but I haven’t heard a lot out of them this week (mainly because I’ve skipped the morning meetings, being disinclined to lean too heavily on the good graces of my carpooling coworker).

This past week…

Well, I’ve got a new respect for (and fear of) character set encodings. And, if you wonder what that means, there’s A) wikipedia and B) wikipedia.

Suffice to say it’s hellish, but I believe that the end is nigh. I think I’ve got the very worst of it nailed, and I hope to be on to something less nightmarish next week.

and I wanted to work Catch-22 into that title, but couldn’t.

So, in response to some vigourous prodding last night, I felt it was time to dust this off and get back to keeping people apprised of my life.

Here’s the skinny, since… holy shit! November 6! It’s been almost four weeks!

Since then, I have:

• Travelled to the Dominican Republic (where we were all amiss in not posting to Morruz)
• Dislocated my shoulder… again. That sucked. Worse? I was just playing volleyball in a pool, not even doing anything interesting. Funny thing is, though, when I went to a medical supply store to get some foam to pad the horrid sling I took home with me, the lady running the store told me that my injury seems to be quite common in volleyballers, at least anecdotally.
• Got my performance review at work, for which the term “glowing” might be an understatement.

And you wonder why I don’t post? My life is dull, dull, dull.

It hasn’t even been that interesting of a time, politically. I’ve kept my eyes on the news, but there’s been little out of the ordinary to spark thought or discussion, either north or south of the border.

Um… I’ve read some good books, lately. Is that interesting?

Expect more later. I’m just barely awake, and Char just fed me coffee.

Well, I can’t say that this past weekend was a terrific one.

Oh, the details were mostly good. I had a good trip with Char, during which she either slept or was happy to chat with me continuously about a whole host of interesting things (PolySci == good conversation). However, the details — from some social awkwardness at the wedding itself (on my part, sadly) to some bad news from home (ask Char; it’s her story to tell) meant that the trip turned out to be less happy than I’d hoped.

I wish it had been more cheery, but I suppose I still enjoyed the trip; the company was excellent, and even if the details were bad it doesn’t mean that there was no value in it.

Well, I’ve returned from my Japanese Odyssey, and now I get to spend this whole week swamped with school work, work work, and un-jetlagging.

It’ll be grand.

Check out Morruz for the next few weeks; I’ll be posting there in preference to here, whilst traveling.

The view from the plane on the way into San Jose airport is one that made me wish I had a camera. There’s something … amazing about the vast swathes of light sprayed across the black, slashed here and there with the deeper darkness of the bays and inlets that litter this part of the coast.

I couldn’t help but think; I’d give anything to see the earth from space. That’s my fondest dream, my deepest single desire. That being said, I don’t know that it’s comparable to the beauty of a strip of light that stretches a significant fraction of the length of a continent, a monument to both excess and achievement that changes the dark face of the world in a way that I would be able to see, even from the vantage I crave.

The earth from space would be beauty, but it would be a mindless, undirected beauty. The cityscape, the glowing spray of seeds spread across the coast beneath my plane, is a beauty that springs from the minds and hands of men, and more than any natural thing it puts poetry in my heart.

(Note: No actual poetry was produced in the writing of this post. Count yourselves fortunate.)

My father and sister are traveling to Chile and Peru for a good, long time. Because I think this is kind of cool, I’ve set up a blog for them over at Morruz.

Well, it so happens that if I sit out on our balcony in the resort, I actually piggyback the wireless connection (poorly-secured) of someone in the neighborhood. They’re not very security-conscious (their router has the default password, a bad idea in general) but I’m grateful for it.

It’s hot here, but friendly. The crowd is almost 100% older than Char and I — mostly yuppies and retirees — but I’m an old man at heart, so I fit right in

I’m going to take it lazy. Reading is going to be the thing I do most of, I think. That, and sunburn.

Also, although this is a bit less Mexico and a bit more personal, I chipped a tooth on my tongue ring this morning at breakfast. I stopped, thought about it for a second, and then decided that this is basically the last straw. Moments later, for the first time in years, I now have no body jewelery. Over the course of the day, I’ve realized just how much I actually fidget with it, as I have tried and failed to flick it about 6 times just today.

I don’t know how I feel about it being gone, but with the rate at which the tongue heals, even now, 12 hours later, it is too late to go back.