Had a superb weekend down by the bay soaking up the great music of Summerfolk in mostly perfect weather. This felt like a vacation for me. I saw a few people I knew and Bob came by for a bit on Saturday evening, but it was just great doing my own thing with nobody else to worry about. Managed to support the vendors a bit, too, when I found the perfect case for my new iPod.
One of the blogs I follow offers this selection of videos as the most inspiring on YouTube. Note that the first features Randy Pausch, who died recently. I dare you to watch them all without getting out your hankie.
I got an upbeat email from our Zimbabwe cousin, now released from his ordeal in jail and back home in Harare. He's looking forward to seeing his brother shortly for a two-week visit, but meanwhile enjoying Olympic coverage on TV. There are plans in the works for our annual UK reunion, probably in October.
I'm back in beautiful New Brunswick this evening for a week of working with a favourite client. This time the week in Saint John will be punctuated with one day in Fredericton. It was a lovely day to drive down to the airport from home, with the fields looking lushly green. The smooth (if slightly delayed) flight was made quite entertaining by a witty Westjet flight attendant. This is the second time I've made this trip on Westjet and both times the attitude of the staff has made a mundane experience very easy to take.
Yes, I do spend all of my working life and much of my recreational life on the 'net, but I'm always ready to be delighted by technology anew. This week's wonder in the candy store is the tracking service from Fedex. I ordered my new iPod (the Touch, not the Phone , cuz Rogers is getting enough of my money already) on the weekend and Apple kindly provided a link for me to track its progress. My new toy is taking an interesting trip. It left Kunshan, China, on Monday, got to Shanghai Tuesday, then Anchorage later the same day (although with the time zones, it seemed to go backwards a bit). This morning in the wee hours it arrived in Newark and already as I drink my morning tea, it sits tantalizingly in Mississauga. It's scheduled to make it into my hands by tomorrow.
I am sad to report that our pheasant chick, Creemore, met a grisly end with an unknown predator, likely a rodent, although my only basis for that conjecture is the size of the remaining entry points to the cage. Nature laughs at our crude barriers.
We have been concerned about our Lady Amherst female, Cornelia, as she has spent most of the last three weeks in her brood box. Today we found out why she was so diligent. This morning she was anxiously cooing at two tiny chicks trotting around in the pen. There may be more in the brood box, but I haven't looked yet. What puzzles me is how she got the little ones down from the box to the ground, a distance of about five feet.
I'm in San Francisco for the week and so far all I've seen is an evening view on the trip into the city from the airport. Today was spent in hotel meeting rooms and now I'm too exhausted to do more than look out on a wonderful view from the 33rd floor of this posh hotel. I can see the harbour, nicely wreathed in fog around the edges, and a bit of what might be the Golden Gate Bridge. As I was driven in last night, I thought about the last time I came here, about 27 years ago. Nothing is familiar now, but I remember coming by taxi from the airport to a hotel with my two boys, who had been angels on the plane. Noel was 7, Evan 3 1/2, and I was dismayed to find my feet swollen considerably during the flight, a situation probably aggravated by my pregnancy. The boys were sick that night, so we got little sleep, but we all recovered by the next day and had a trip to Sausalito before heading south to see other places. I wonder if either of them has any memory of that trip.
One of our first dates, way back when, was a canoe outing on the Credit River. Bob and I have been canoeing since, but not at all since we moved to our Owen Sound house. Until today. One of my urgent items to get done before I leave town next week was to reduce the number of cattails in the pond. We decided to try a different approach this year, because last year's squelching around in wellies and wetskins was really difficult. So Bob got the canoe down to the pond and piloted me here and there while I yanked cattails left and right. Very efficient, although the canoe had to be hosed down afterwards -- cattails come up pretty muddy. Now the lily pads and irises have room to spread out.
I'm speechless now because my speech is done. I presented my piece on dealing with office clutter this afternoon to a receptive and appreciative audience at the Editors' Association of Canada's national conference. I was glad to be presenting after other sessions, because they were informative and diverting enough to keep me from getting too nervous before my turn. Several people came to me afterward to ask questions or thank me, saying how they planned to go home and try out some of my ideas -- that's the best thanks I could have hoped for. I have lots more to say on the subject -- yeah, you can't shut me up now. It will become fodder for my new site (in development, but live in an alpha version). And now I've got to work on a better version of my speech.
Nature really has the last word when it comes to life and death around the pond. We noticed Mama Duck flying off suddenly last Sunday afternoon, then we saw there were no eggs left in the nest. No sign of struggle or evidence of what creature feasted on the eggs. In a way, I'm glad she didn't waste too long in such a hazardous spot. She can start again somewhere less open, I hope.
For those of you who are friends with Claire on Facebook, check out the spectacular pictures one of her friends just posted of her working with the birds at the Edinburgh Zoo.
