I admit that my posting has been light as of late, but most of my Web related production has been for the travel blog that I mentioned in my last post... it will be put up once I get back. I am leaving on Wednesday evening. In the meantime, I do have to go to work still on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. Not that there is much to do. We had a VP from the company that took us over sitting behine me all of last week, so it was kind of difficult just trying to look busy all of the time. And there wasn't really anyone around to go to coffee with, so I pretty much stuck by the desk most of the day planning for my trip. Oh well, everything is pretty much out of my control anyways, I'll get laid off when the powers that be decide that I should.

Just walked by my condominium which I am scheduled to get next May.... I can't really see it being finished on time, they haven't even really poured the foundation yet....

Just got my hostel membership also. Only a week until my trip! I'm in the process of creating a travelogue of the trip, will post a link to it soon.

Back to not doing a whole lot here at work, just trying to kill the day by taking walks down Queen Street, and trying to beat the heat in this reduced air conditioned environment. I'm going on vacation in less than two weeks... when I return, I will start seriously checking out the job market and my options on what to do for the future. Just need to clear my mind first.

Yeah, I've been reading "A Widow for One Year" by John Irving forever. It takes me a while to read novels, because the only time that I really pick them up is when I am on the subway and don't have a newspaper to read. But I am almost finished, have already bought my next John Irving book as I go through his collection, "Hotel New Hampshire".

The Right Now column is wildly out of date; I'll fix it soon.

Damn computer viruses.... it's interrupting my summer of slack at work...

Sigh... I'm a dumbass.

Anyways, just over two weeks away until I go to Holland and Belgium. I was planning to borrow a backpack, but I'm going to get a really great deal from a local on-line retailer called forestwolf.com. The backpack that I'll get from them is a bit bigger than what I was planning, but at 40% less than what they charge for the same backpack at one of the major downtown outfitters, I'm not going to complain, and other than the size, it has everything I was looking for.

Yes, I am very aware that I haven't posted to my blog since I got back from Massachusetts over two weeks ago. Back to posting again for the time being, at least until I go to Holland and Belgium in a couple of weeks.

Thursday night was when the big blackout happened here in Ontario and throughout the northeastern United States. I got off lucky as I had taken off work a bit early, so I was already out of downtown, but got stuck in the subway when the power outage happened. Took about 45 minutes to get out of there, man, was it ever hot in there. Then I popped up onto Yonge Street around St. Clair and just walked forever until I got to Sheppard, where I was able to catch a bus to my car. It wasn't too bad really, everyone was friendly and were relieved when we learned it wasn't terrorism-related. It was great how people were just volunteering to direct traffic to make up for the non-functioning traffic lights, and people were even giving out free water to relieve all of us walkers. Was an interesting evening. I salute the great people of Toronto for keeping the calm, and making it a memorable night without any major incidents.

I am worried though about someone I know who was supposed to write a makeup exam that evening that she needs the mark for in order to register for a program at U of T this fall. I really hope that this doesn't adversely affect her. It's too complicated to explain.

Someone sent me this link to a great music video of the blackout by a local videographer as he saw it on Thursday night..