Saskatchewan Plates

I have completely ignored this. If it’s any consolation, may other things went way side with it. In leu of a proper post, I give you this gem that sums up a number of things quite nicely.

For me, gushing about Vancouver has become a cliche. Since moving there for the first time four years ago, my prattlings about the city have made up a sizable chunk of the content on this blog. But there’s a very good reason.

Vancouver is a bit like my disneyland. It’s filled with the sights, smells, and sounds I love. The people in it seem relaxed and there’s certainly excitement in the air because of the Olympics. There’s no chaos, no discontent even in the busiest of streets (I’m looking at you Robson). And I’m always there with friends.

My 48 hour trip this weekend was no exception and the guest appearances were many. Lunch with Cloe, dinner, drinks, and dancing with Kevin, Shannon, and Jeff. I finally got to try The Salt Tasting Room and the Lamplighter seems to have adopted the half-alive crowd for our benefit. I wandered the downtown streets with Cloe and Gage parting the crowds, managed to catch up for a few hours with Dan and Paula and the latest addition to their family, and then capped off the night over beers with James, Davin, and Kerr. Special thanks to Kevin for being the most gracious of hosts and putting up with me for the weekend. And the weather was unseasonable perfect, with some familiar drizzle to send me off this afternoon.

When I took my job, I promised myself to get back to Vancouver in 2010. Unfortunately, things in San Francisco are going well enough that I may not be able to keep it. But my occasional pilgrimages remind me that the date is still out there, marked with a red circle on some future calendar of mine and I’m damn excited for its arrival.

I’m killing time in the boarding lounge in Calgary after the fastest consecutive security screens I’ve ever had. My good fortune with the TSA has given me two hours to jot down some of the post-holiday trip reflections. For the most part, it’s nothing I haven’t felt or likely posted somewhere in the archives of this blog, but I appreciate the therapeutic benefits of keying it out.

I remember when I left for Waterloo back in 2003. People asked me “When are you coming back?” Depending on the person, I would often soften the response but the answer in my head was “Never”. After seven years though, I’d be lying if I said I was as resolute as I was back then. Every single one of my trips home rattles my resolve just a little bit more. Others that left have plans to return home or already have in some cases. As Jer points out in our occasional video chats, we had (and still have) a very good thing going in Saskatoon.

The usual disclaimers apply: Returning permanently wouldn’t be the same as the concentrated hang outs that happen over my short trips and not everyone would be as willing or interested in my forced intermingling. But it’s certainly an intoxicating thought.

On the runway this morning as my flight was taxiing for take off, the pilot momentarily pressed on the throttle only to immediately pull back. In tandem, I could hear some airplane instrument chime from my first row seat in response to their action. As it did, my heart skipped a beat at the thought of a mechanical failure marooning me in Saskatoon for one more night. Alas, no encores of last night’s trip to O’Shea’s were in store (thanks to everyone that made it out!), but it does serve to illustrate my attachment.

I’ve given a fair amount of thought to the idea over the last few days, but unfortunately no conclusions were reached despite the suitable timing for a new set of resolutions. I know there’s a set of things I want (nay need!) in my life that I currently don’t have and it’s not hard to identify the things that would need to be sacrificed in order to avail myself of them, for lack of a less sterile word. It’s a tradeoff I’ve rarely made before and it’s got me to where I am today, but certainly at some cost. Now that I’m halfway through my twenties and a quarter century into life, I’m giving a lot more thought as to whether the on-going cost is too high.

I’ve been blessed with incredible fortune, family, and friends over the last year and decade, and I’m thoroughly excited about what these new ones will hold.

Happy New Year!

It’s the very last day of 2009 making it the last possible moment for me to publish my music picks from both the last year and the last decade. I had planned fancy descriptions for all of these, but time constraints as a result of excessive holiday celebration have tied my hands. Thus I present four categories of musical picks: Top New Albums of 2009, Top New (to me) Albums of 2009, Top Singles of 2009, and the Top 40 albums of the decade. There’s probably a couple of questionable picks on the decade list as a result of me including a few albums that, while I don’t particularly love now, were fairly instrumental in my musical upbringing through the highschool years. You’ll know them when you see them.

Without further ehdo:

Top New Albums of 2009

1. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
2. Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More
3. Vitalic – Flashmob
4. The Rural Alberta Advantage – Hometowns
5. Burial/Four Tet – “Moth / “Wolf Cub”

Top New (to me) Albums of 2009

1. Fujiya & Myagi – Transparent Things/Lightbulbs
2. Cut Copy – In Ghost Colors
3. Yogoman Burning Band – Yogoman Burning Band
4. Paramore – Riot
5. Lovage – Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady to

Top New (to me) Singles of 2009

1. Das Racist – Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Wall Paper Remix)
2. Friendly Fires – Skeleton Boy
3. Ohbijou – Black Ice
4. Jay-Z – Empire State of Mind
5. Miley Cyrus & Nortorious BIG – Party and Bullshit in the USA

Top 40 Albums of the Decade

1. Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning
2. Justice – Cross
3. Stars – Set Yourself On Fire
4. Broken Social Scene – You Forgot it in People
5. !!! – Louden Up Now
6. Death Cab For Cutie – Transatlanticism
7. LCD Soundsystem – LCD Soundsystem
8. Mark Ronson – Version
9. Deltron – Deltron 3030
10. The Streets – Original Pirate Material
11. The Postal Service – Give Up
12. The Decemberists – The Crane Wife
13. Cadeaux – Physical City
14. Radiohead – In Rainbows
15. Daft Punk – Discovery
16. Jamiroquai – A Funk Odyssey
17. Zero 7 – Simple Things/When It Falls
18. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Yanqui U.X.O.
19. The Rapture – Pieces Of The People We Love
20. Corb Lund – Hair In My Eyes Like A Highland Steer
21. Manitoba/Caribou – Up In Flames/The Milk of Human Kindness
22. Shout Out Out Out Out – Not Saying Just Saying
23. DJ Shadow – In Tune and On Time
24. Sufjan Stevens – Seven Swans
25. Reverie Sound Revue – Reverie Sound Review
26. Andrew W.K. – I Get Wet
27. Wolf Parade – Apologies To The Queen Mary
28. Iron & Wine – Our Endless Numbered Days
29. Arcade Fire – Funeral
30. Interpol – Turn on the Bright Lights
31. Blink 182 – Enema of the State
32. Four Tet – Pause
33. Raising The Fawn – The North Sea
34. Thunderbirds Are Now! – Justamustache
35. Dashboard Confessional – Swiss Army Romance
36. Death From Above 1979 – You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine
37. Chad VanGaalen – Infiniheart
38. Thom Yorke – The Eraser
39. Matthew Good – Avalanche
40. Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand

For the interested parties
Flight from Calgary (YYC) to Saskatoon (YXE) – Air Canada 8592
Depart: Calgary (YYC), 10:55pm MST
Arrive: Saskatoon (YXE), 1:00am CST(+1 day)

Let me poke a hole in my tough, plaid-accented, male exterior for a second to lay a truth out there: I’m lonely.

I can think of all sorts of potential contributors: First time living on my own, move to the city has left me disconnected from my regular coworker social group, new role has involved a lot less travel, new role hasn’t really generated a lot of new friends, lack of any meaningful relationship with a significant other, general “winter” doldrums, the fact that 2009 was a shitty year for music, new reliance on public transit, I’m just making this up as I go along now.

The hardest part of coming out and admitting that to myself is that I really don’t have a plan for how to rectify the situation. I’ve got lots of suggestions such as classes, meetups, online dating, and so on. This all feels so incredibly foreign though. Making new friends is one thing when you’re forced into a situation where everyone else is at the same disadvantage. It’s much harder when it’s just you and that’s a wall I’m having a hard time breaking through.

Not sure what I’ll do, but I do know something will need to change. In the meantime, I’m two weeks out from a return trip home for the holidays, which I’m notably excited for. Hard to argue with an instant (if temporary) fix for all the problems listed above.

The Tragically Hip – Wheat Kings

I listened to a lot of The Tragically Hip growing up. Not because I liked them, but because my dad did. I personally wasn’t a fan of the band until I left Saskatoon. Now I argue that Up To Here is one of the greatest Canadian Rock albums of all time. It’s also completely impossible to listen to Wheat Kings without being thrust back into warm summer nights in Saskatoon. I thought I was an isolated case, but I’m happy to see Jer afflicted with the same condition.

It doesn’t stop at The Hip either. I’ve watched a couple of jPod reruns during my recover this weekend, a show that’s particularly heavy on the CanCon. I get shivers watching the end of the first episode, kids in toques overlaid wandering around a snowy Vancouver with Stars. I’m so Canadian it hurts.

On the wisdom tooth front, I’m up to white bread and pasta and I’m looking less like Lennie Small everyday. Getting one tooth out wasn’t that hard, but I think I’ll have to hold off on getting any future teeth out until I have a girlfriend around. What’s the point of being out of commission for an entire weekend when there’s no one around to take care of you?

Not much else to update on. Work’s a little ugh right now, but it’s t-minus a month til the Christmas holiday so I should be able to make it through.

I wish I was more like Ted Mosby.

I’m back in San Francisco after my third trip to Vegas this year/ever, second in a month. It’s excessive I know, but also a really unlikely pairing. I’m not much of a clubber, I don’t gamble particularly well, and I’ve never taken in a show, but I always have a damn good time – something I can directly attribute to the clutch crew of collaborators I’ve had on all of these trips.

This time was no different.

I boarded my flight back to SF this afternoon with a notably strong feeling of euphoria. It’s easy to attribute it to the tail end of a Craps adrenaline high, but I want to also call out the full weekend without any worry about work surrounded by a few amazing friends. In my mind, the euphoria was a result of the stress-happiness ratio swinging back into black with authority.

Of course like any index, it will be back into the red eventually, probably very soon as Friday is my appointment with the wisdom tooth fairy. But, to keep the financial metaphor going, I’m going to have to be more proactive about investing in this area going forward. It felt damn good to be that happy, though a little bittersweet to realize I may be feeling a little bit more blah on average than I thought.

In any case, if anyone else is making the trek to Vegas and wants to add a +1 to their Ocean’s X, you give me notice and I’ll be there. And, if you look at most of my travel: the epic BC road trip of 2005, the epic dominican trip of 2008, the epic east coast road trip of 2008, Greece, Japan/China/Taiwan, and even all the little trips to the lake – I can conclusively say that I love traveling, as long as I’m doing it with awesome people.

(Cue sappiness for Dave) And thankfully, I have no shortage of awesome people to call on.

Edit: Somewhat related and also awesome:

Today was a mixed bag of emotions.

Step one: Sell the car – I actually lucked out and found a buyer within the company so I didn’t have to go through the hassle of craigslisting. On my final drive down to the valley, the vars aligned and my ipod generated one last classic top-down playlist. It included Justice (the first CD I ever played in the car), some road-trip Karaoke favorites like Sublime, the Two Koreas, and Corb Lund, and, while Don’t Stop Believing would have been a great ending song, the ipod chose Let it Die by Feist to pull into the parking lot one last time.

And like that, it belonged to someone else, keys and all. It’s a remarkable feeling to trade a sleek, designed marvel of technology for a thin slip of paper with a series of numbers printed on it.

Step two: Have a number of efforts at work fall through simultaneously – To a certain extent, I’m still trying to find my role on my new team. And, while I’ve been trying to stretch my legs a bit lately, a number of my proposals got blasted down in the span of a few hours, which left me reevaluating what I thought my role was.

Step three: Have hard work on my previous role pay off – Nice to hear that you’ve made an impact, which is impressive at a company that moves so fast that it’s hard to keep up let alone leave a mark.

Step four: Night plans fall through – Traffic and public transit conspire to scrap plans on the town, and with no feasible plan B I stayed in to…

Step five: Re-live childhood by playing old SNES games – I dug out the classics: Mario Kart, Super Mario RPG, Earthbound, Zelda. I definitely did not play through all of them. But they all triggered flashbacks to simpler times.

Therefore, emotional rollercoaster.

I would like to say I’m going to have time to decompress, but I think I’ll be in the office Saturday and then helping out with recruiting Sunday. And next weekend is a return trip to Vegas, which should be the end of travel until the return trip to the frozen tundra to celebrate the calendricly related births of both Christ and myself.

I was lucky enough to get back to Waterloo for a recruiting trip this week. The actual work portion was excellent. The non-work portion was eye opening.

I got to see a ton of people still in the area: Gee and Laura, Trish (She’s technically in Toronto), Tammy, Heather, Jarrett (technically in Ancaster), Andy, Shahnaz, and Nathan. I even ran into Dan and Paula who were visiting at the same time, and caught a quick coffee with Jamie in Toronto. I missed Lindsay and Gent this time around.

Waterloo fits like a pair of warn in jeans. There was no teething, no awkward warming up period. It was like I’d never left. I clipped down the 85, cursing the same old construction, across to university and then two years into the past. I hit lots of the old spots: Ethel’s, the Duke, the Spur (now the Texas Chainsaw), the Heuther, PBT, Curry in a Hurry. I walked up and down King street and around the campus. It was an incredibly comforting feeling to be that familiar with the surroundings. I also realized how much I miss seasons and weather. It was windy and rainy the entire time I was there, but I loved the cold and crisp breaths as I walked between buildings on campus. I loved the warmth of Ethel’s as I hurried out of the rain for a beer. Making my way around southern ontario in weather that was anything but idyllic felt almost like a return to normality.

That said, the most important thing I realized was that, despite how much I feel like I belong in Waterloo, I don’t. I realized that my deep emotional connection to that place is only tangentially based on the broken sidewalks that connect the establishments I frequented over those 5 years.

Waterloo, now, is entirely a city of memories. Remembering all those cold nights in line for Phil’s, or sitting at the bar at Ethel’s for Tacos with Kenshi and Gee, or Morty’s with the Garner Four. All the walks back from late lectures, or to the computer labs with Ed, Zam, and Brad. Remembering the summer nights hanging around on the construction in front of Echo Base, playing Mario Kart (Alex losing at the last minute!) in the old Albert house, hanging out in the Doug Fir lounge, or even our initial escapades from residence. Every square inch of that town is a reminder of some past event and even the mundane ones are fond. It’s a suburban time capsule of five incredible years.

I miss that time deeply, but a proper return to Waterloo would not bring that back, or more specifically, it would not bring the people back. Without the people over those five years, Waterloo would as much meaning as any other small college town. So it’s all of the Waterloo faces I have to thank. I can’t figure out a way to say this with less corniness, but having the opportunity to meet so many amazing people and spend the last five years with them was a blessing.

What I realized at the conclusion of my trip is that cities and places are merely the sets, the backdrops for memories. It’s the actors on the stage, not the stage itself, that make memories cherished.