Headvoice

Finishing Up

Balancing Act

Having lived in apartments for most of my adult life, I have not experienced the process of an entire neighborhood upgrading to new water mains. They started in the middle of October and just now finishing up. We were connected to the new pipes last Friday, with only a 40 minute spate of no water.

But the interesting aspect of it for me was watching the work take place. At some points the entire house was shaking. Poor Luigi has no idea how his quiet little world was taken over the lines of dump trucks lining the streets and front end loaders spinning around and digging deep trenches across front lawns.

On another topic, the synergy that has greeted my decision to start my own company has hit a perfect balance already. It was during a morning bath on November 15th when it presented itself, seemingly fully formed at the time.

Now, just a few weeks later I have four brilliant and talented pro's as my initial team. We have a great name, a registered domain and a powerful content management system installed to build the site on...

I'm contacting business contacts slowly, asking them for input and I have not received anything but positive comments and offers to help me get launched.

And this morning the scale read 171 rather than the 193 it did one year ago. My blood pressure is normal again and the medication I was taking isn't necessary now... time for Act III.

Out of the Tunnel

Well, it only makes sense now. Start your own business. And I have.

Let the games begin!

Upgrades

How does one guarantee a tedious weekend? Take one part new driveway roof supporting pillar breakage repair with upgrading 5 web sites to a new version of Movable Type.

I know it may sound very "specific" but then again, it could be construed as amusingly idiosyncratic as well.

Huh?

The other shoe dropping

Since 9/11 every time I have been back home in the US the levels of polarization have risen. That's a long time now. Friends and family were anxious and fearful about the future from the attack that September and it kept getting worse over these past five plus years.

When I was in London last spring I was actually nervous when conversations turned to current events and politics. I was the only American at the table. And that haunting followed me back to Canada.

I expect people to be responsible. The more we take care of ourselves, the less we need to entrust to our governments. Libertarian.

Today is a good day. Divisiveness has been voted out, and hopefully with the politics of fear. A war for the wrong reasons has been called for what it is.

Let's have some hope again. After all, isn't that the opposite of terror?

Project Purge-way and Dual Voting

The final installment of my six month purge-a-thon was last week. It occurred to me that this was the first time in a very long time that all of my belongings were actually in the same place. No wonder I was drowning in old stuff.

Clothing was taken care of already. What was left was boxes of jazz and zip disks, (remember them?) and files, photos, proposals, presentations and slides. In the early 90's I had a fairly lucrative freelance business doing presentation graphics for lecturing physicians in New York. Lots of faxes and original documents from this time remained. Also, pay stubs from almost 8 years at Andersen Consulting were in a box with binders of HMO info. Cuff links and a ring that was worn by my Grandfather in an old jewelry box were nestled next to six leases from my old apartment in new York.

I sat in the living room making three piles. Trash, shred and keep were the categories of the day. It took two days, but I am more organized than I have ever been in my life. The jury is still out as to whether this is simply more neurotic behavior or a very sedate mid-life crisis.

One other thing that has lingered on the to-do list too long was putting together the application for Canadian citizenship. I have been eligible for a couple of years now, and Mark has been eligible for decades, so we did it together. It took an afternoon, of form filling and documentation prep mostly, but we also had to get photos taken at a local shop that met very stringent requirements.

In about a year, I should be able to vote the bastards out in the States and in Canada. Please vote!

Lakeside with Luigi