9

Flickr turned 9 this weekend, and the challenge was to take a picture of "9". I was out of ideas and came up with this at the last moment. I wish I had fancier editing tools, or some way to blur parts of photos or something. I took this with my phone, and I had a decent focus on the 9, but some of the other keys came out sharper than I'd hoped. Oh well. I don't plan on winning any photography contests anytime soon.

I have been on Flickr for about 7 1/2 years. My first upload was August 15, 2005.



From my 2004 trip to Japan and Southeast Asia. Not even a digital photo. I had to scan that baby to get it online :-)

Over the years, I have uploaded over 6300 photos. The majority are from trips. My photos are organized with tags, and the two most common, not entirely surprisingly, are japan and france, with paris and egypt not far behind. Other tags include camping, apartment, puppy, and, somewhat oddly, volleyball.

The photo that has been viewed the most, with over 1,000 views?


Since that same photo is the one that has been favourited the most, which is the second-most favourited photo, with 4 people (rather than 5) calling it a favourite?


I have 108 sets grouped into 19 collections. Some of them are embarrassingly small. Some of them are embarrassingly incomplete. Some of them are either too large or too thorough. Someday I'll go through and compile a "Best Of". Someday I might actually get up-to-date on what's in there. At least, there's always hope.

Some of my favourite photos are from the Inuyama Festival in April 2007. You get the chaos and splendour of the one-day festival that takes over the town, and the magic of the lanterns on the shrines in the evening. It's a mini-Takayama Festival. I also took one of my favourite shots ever that day, far from the madness, noise, and bustle of the festival:



It's far from a perfect shot, but while the sky and water are grey, the walkway along the riverbank is paved and impersonal, and the distant landscape is bleak and industrial, the focus for me is on the ladies picknicking in the foreground, enjoying each others' company and relaxing on the mild, late spring day.

So this one time? In Vancouver?

I went to a conference in Prince George, B.C.,* near the end of June, and afterwards, spent a day and a half in Vancouver visiting with my good friend Donna.



I first met Donna 18 years ago when my family moved to Thornhill. We used to walk home from school together, about a 40-minute walk.** Donna and I have not lived in the same city for well over 12 years now - probably longer - so I only get to see her once or, if I'm lucky, twice a year. Not nearly enough.

Arriving late in Vancouver on a Friday night and then leaving just after lunch on Sunday afternoon means you call your visit "a day and a half in length", but it really is just one day. We had grand plans for our day together, the majority of which were quickly scuttled by car troubles. Doing the Grouse Grind*** had to give way to walking to the Canadian Tire to buy a new car battery and then walking back to Donna's place with the car battery in the baby stroller and the baby strapped to his mom.**** In the rain.

But we did get to chat till late together, and we did get to go for breakfast together (twice!), and we did get to wander the streets together, and we did get to generally hang out and catch up. Later on the Saturday, once the car problems were resolved, the sun was coming out so we drove out to West Vancouver to meet up with Donna's husband Matt once he got off work, and we walked the seawall.

That was the point when I remembered I had packed a camera:







I think something is wrong with my camera, however. Because other than the one I posted above, the only picture I got of my lovely hosts is of their backsides:



And despite him being one of my favourite babies of all time, I didn't manage to get a single photo of little Jacob, though I did manage to get no less than 5 - five! - shots of this little guy:



Neither as cute nor as cuddly, not by a long shot.

You can see the full set of West Vancouver seawall photos, including a surprise a little cuddlier than the giant slug, on my Flickr pages.


* It rained the entire time in PG. And my hotel was in the middle of nowhere. The conference was about copyright issues, so not very photographic. So I have no pictures of PG, other than my hotel room.

** We never walked to school together, just home. I think because I mostly would get a ride down with my dad in the mornings. There was also a school bus that I avoided like the plague - I think I took it to school about 3 times in one year.

*** I'm not saying we would have done the Grouse Grind, just that it quickly became not-an-option.

**** I got to pretend I had a child, as I pushed the stroller, albeit a child with wires and acid. LOL :)

"Good evening, shoppers. There is a seniors' special in Aisle 7."

When I bought this a few weeks ago, Randal said out loud what I had been secretly fearing in my heart - that a day-of-the-week pill dispenser is what old people buy. Yup, this is now the only way I can keep track of what day it is - Tuesday: have I had my pills yet today? (Don't worry; I took this photo yesterday - yes, I know today is Wednesday.)

sigh - I'm sure Depends, dinner at 4 p.m., and people ceding their seat to me on the bus is not far behind.*


Something else to which I have resorted in my old age: liquid diets:


Yeah, OK, maybe not.

Jerome and Nadia came over the weekend before last with a bunch of things they had brought back for us from my parents' house in Toronto, and to thank them, we made cream soda ice cream floats. They were so pretty! And tasty, too. As if that needs to be pointed out.


Finally, I am now going to post what is hopefully the last photo with snow in it for this winter.**

Compare last week Tuesday with this week Tuesday:



There's hope yet, no?


* Seriously, though, I am currently on anti-coagulants for a blood clot I suffered on the flight home from Egypt (yeah, as if going to Egypt in January wasn't exciting enough on its own), and I have to take a different amount of pills most days, so in my defence, this really is the only way I can keep track. At least, that's what I will tell the social services people when they try to cart me away to a long-term care home.

** Dang. I just jinxed myself real good, didn't I?

You Know What We Did Last Month? (#2)

We climbed up and into some really old pyramids. I mean, really, really old. This is the so-called "Bent Pyramid". It dates back to about 2600 B.C., during the reign of the pharaoh Sneferu, and is one of the earlier pyramids. It's "bent" because they realized partway through that the angle was wrong and had to be changed. It was too steep initially. It was built at 55 degrees but partway through was changed to 43 degrees. A second, nearby pyramid (the "Red Pyramid") built shortly afterwards also by Sneferu was at 43 degrees.

Ironically (or maybe not), this is not actually one of the pyramids we climbed inside. It's not currently open to tourists.

I will start putting some pictures up this weekend. I promise.

You Know What We Did Last Month?

We were in Cairo! There were markets! There were no protests! Kate and Sally were there, too! It was humid and rainy and dusty and FANTASTIC!

Pictures will slowly follow. I have been sick and under the weather since our return. I will also blog about some of our trip, as it was quite blog-worthy (even without protests threatening our departure). However, I am also going to pick one photo from each day to continue the Shutterbug Challenge which I set myself at the beginning of the year.

T minus 5-point-5

Guess I should stop goofing around on the computer and finish packing, huh?

(Click on the photo to go to the original page to see all the items in their detailed glory.)

pixxiefish, egyptian walker

We leave for Egypt in 10 days.* I can't wait to ride the rollercoasters around the pyramids!!!

* Did I mention we're going to Egypt? ...Uhh, we're going to Egypt!

New Year, New Blog Post

Happy New Year, everyone!

I hope you all rang the new year in in style. We decided to take it easy and stay home (my brother had invited us over, but we'll go next weekend instead). We ordered Indian take-away, which I went to pick up around 6:45. The excitement of the evening was that when I arrived at the restaurant, I realized I had a purse but no wallet. Gah. So I drove home (luckily not too far) and then back out again. The second excitement of the evening was that, while I was inside the restaurant picking up the food, someone parked and blocked the exit to the parking lot where I was. Double gah. Luckily it was a larger lot and I could exit from another spot. But it was annoying!

And you see - THIS is why I don't blog on a daily basis. But I'm going to try to be better. (No, that is not a New Year's Resolution. If it is, it's DOOMED to be broken.)

Anyway, so we ate Indian take-away - very dee-lish and lots of leftovers await us. We started watching a new (to us) TV show, called Avatar: The Last Air Bender. It's a Nickelodeon cartoon that ran a few years ago for 3 seasons, and they recently made a live-action movie which is apparently terrible. But the cartoon was great! I highly recommend it.

Then it was 9:30, so we decided to watch The Matrix. I hadn't seen it in a year or two, and it's aged quite well. What a great film. We are debating whether to watch the other two Matrix movies this weekend as well...they're not as good...

At 11:58, we managed to get a live Internet feed of the ball dropping in Times Square on the TV via my computer. (Almost didn't make it!) Somewhat anti-climactic, I found. I seem to remember in the past that the ball dropped much farther, for much longer. This was a short drop (yes, still spread over 10 seconds), with a bunch of distracting advertising. Blech. I think I am just turning into a cranky grump.

I called my mom, and then we watched more cartoons. First, another episode of Air Bender. Then, one of the craziest, most twisted things I have ever seen, Happy Tree Friends. I still shudder slightly thinking about it. It stars a bunch of cute, cuddly, happy cartoon animals...and I'm just starting to wonder if this is a show for kids or not...when all of a sudden one of the bears gets pinned on a giant stick and his heart is torn right out. Uh, yeah. Not for kids. Got it. LOL.

After that, we needed something to cheer us up again. We put on a show called Invader Zim, which was bizarre and amusing. But one of the characters sounded just like Kevin McDonald, from Kids in the Hall, another show we started re-watching recently, and it was driving us CRAZY! Turns out, yup, it's Kevin McDonald. Cool.

Anyhow, that was New Year's.

So...I haven't been blogging but I really should have been. I've been busy as a beaver for the last month or so putting up old pictures on Flickr. This was spurred by two things: (1) I felt guilty, and (2) I was worried following a hard drive crash that Randal suffered sometime in November. He has lost most of his photos from Japan onward! I figured if I get them up on Flickr, at least I will always have a copy available in some form.

So what do I have?



- a TON of photos from Paris and Strasbourg, where we went in June 2009. That collection is almost complete, two days left to go! I might blog about some of it separately, at some point. (Don't hold your breath.)



      

- camping at Charleston Lake, camping at Bon Echo, camping at Voyageur. We also went camping at Murphy's Point, but, alas, the photos from that trip were on Randal's hard drive.





- my family proves they are able to do more together than play Rockband, and we all go hiking in Gatineau Park on the Thanksgiving weekend.




- I've also done a TON of knitting, if you're into that kind of thing.



I plan on blogging again later today about my New Year's Resolutions...not that I have any...not that I'm not perfect already...plus what we did at Christmas.

How I missed the Ottawa Tulip Fest again

I started to write this post a few weeks ago, about the two back-to-back conferences that I went to in May. But then the entry started to get longer and longer, as I went through more and more of my conference notes. I have 10 pages of typed notes so far, and I'm not even on conference #2! So I'm not going to post any of that here, though if anyone is interested, I can send you my notes.

Then it occurred to me that, perhaps far more interesting than the conferences themselves, was the fact that, while I have lived in Ottawa almost 3 years now since returning from Japan (and for 2 years before that), I have managed to miss Tulip Fest almost every single spring of those three years. Or, rather, I have indulged in tulips elsewhere.

In May 2008, we were in Quebec City.


In May 2009, I was in Halifax.


In May 2010, I was in Hamilton (and also Windsor, but I didn't see any tulips there).*


Following this realization, I completely forgot (again) to finish this draft post. The pictures made it up on Flickr but this entry sat here, unfinished but not unloved. Until now.

So anyway, from May 8-12, I was in Windsor, Ontario, at the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Law Librarians. It was, comme toujours,** a great conference. I didn't particularly like the venue (Caesar's casino in Windsor), and the city of Windsor was uber-depressing,*** but the sessions themselves were fantastic, and I came out with some good ideas and inspiration.


My boss Margo and I, doing a good job of pretending it wasn't wicked cold and windy.**** Click here for a few more pics of Windsor-Detroit.

I left CALL early on the last day to hightail it up to Hamilton, for the Workshop in Instruction in Library Use (WILU). This is an awkwardly named conference, but it was incredibly excellent. It's basically for librarians (and others) interested in information literacy, and I'm thinking I'd like to add it to my annual conference repertoire.

WILU finished at lunchtime on Friday. Afterwards, my colleague Andrée and I went to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, and then, since we were both headed to various corners of Toronto for the weekend, Andrée gave me a ride into town.


Hot! Lovely! Beautiful! ...The weather was sunny and pleasant, too, and the tulips were colourful. Click here for the full set.

And that, albeit in a less literary fashion than Mr. Dickens, is my Tale of Two Cities. And I'm going to post it before forgetting about it again. Will attempt to be more interesting next time. ...Well, there's always hope.


* For the record, if anyone cares, in May 2005, which was my first spring here, we were in Amsterdam, but after its tulip season. In May 2006, I think I may have caught a tulip or two between three (3!) visits to Toronto (mentioned here and here. In May 2007, we were in Japan with nary a tulip to be seen (they're in bloom in March and April).

** "Comme toujours" = all two times I have been.

*** We were originally going to go to Detroit to sit in a pub to watch a Detroit Red Wings game. The Wings got eliminated right before the conference began, however, so we didn't bother crossing the border, though it was right there, and I have trouble ignoring borders that are, like, right there. After hearing from a few people who did cross over to Detroit, I have decided it really wouldn't have been worth it. Although it looks pretty from across the river, with big shiny buildings, it's apparently as desolate and depressing as Windsor. Sorry Windsor-Detroit.

**** I'm not sure why, but Margo and I seem to be starting an annual tradition of travelling to cold places together.

This is awesome

Why? Because we're camping in Bon Echo this long weekend, so really, the weather could not be any more perfect than this. :)

Sweet Home Halifax

As I start gearing up for this year's CALL (Canadian Association of Law Libraries) conference,* my thoughts turn fondly to last year's CALL conference. Or rather, more precisely, the location of last year's conference, which was in Halifax.



As most of you know, while I wasn't born there, I grew up just outside Halifax, in a now-thriving suburb of Dartmouth (itself a suburb of Halifax, or rather, more accurately, now amalgamated into the Halifax-Dartmouth moniker) called Cole Harbour. Yes, that Cole Harbour.**

We moved there when I was about 2 1/2, and we left a few months before my 12th birthday, from 1979 to 1988. Consequently, I did all my grade school there. I have very fond memories of growing up at the edge of Cole Harbour (we were almost at the boundary line for Lawrencetown).

I returned to Halifax for my graduate studies, doing both my Law degree and my Master in Library and Information Studies*** at Dalhousie from 1999-2003. I was last in Halifax in May 2003 for my graduation ceremonies,**** so it was a real treat to be able to go back last spring, in May 2009.

I took lots of pictures, which you can view on my Flickr site here. You will also perhaps remember me blogging about the first half of the trip here, here, here, here and here. But if you were basing it on the photos alone, you would almost not know I was at a conference, since all the photos are very decidedly of the tourist variety. In a nutshell:

1) I wandered the waterfront and downtown.


2) I went on the Harbour Hopper.


3) I meandered through the Public Gardens.


4) I took the ferry to Dartmouth and visited ye ol' homestead in Cole Harbour.


5) I got chilled to the bone by wind and rain at Peggy's Cove.


6) I was further drenched by wind and rain in Mahone Bay.


7) I refused to let the wind and rain dampen my spirits at the enchanting village of Blue Rocks.


8) I cheered the slight lifting of the fog***** at Lunenberg.


What the photographic record fails to confirm, however, is that in addition to water and ships and fishing villages and quaint buildings, copious amounts of martinis were also consumed in the company of good friends. My bad - I will have to make sure that the next time I travel, I bring along my camera-which-photographs-friends.



* It's in just under 3 weeks. However, even more pressing, I am doing a short presentation at CALL this year, and my slides and presentation notes are due on Friday. This means I had better start them. Like, now. This year it is in Windsor, Ontario. I can't promise 150 photos, however.

** And no, I didn't know Crosby growing up. Not everyone out East knows everyone else out East. That, and he was a year old when we moved away from Cole Harbour. He wasn't playing hockey yet. A friend of mine whose ex-boyfriend used to coach peewee hockey out there did, however, see him play numerous times, and yes, the rumours are true - he really was as good back then as we all hear now.

*** None of this IM nonsense for me.

**** And my grandmother had just passed away the day before the ceremony, so I wasn't feeling entirely festive.

***** It's the freakin' Maritimes. We'll take whatever we can get to pass for "good" weather.

The only picture I took 3 years ago today...

Three years ago today,* I was on a train with Randal, bound for Takayama, a town known as "Little Kyoto", which is located a couple of hours north of Gifu City. A famous festival happens there every year, and we were lucky enough to be able to stay with our friend Nancy who was living up there, and take it all in.


* Granted, things get a bit messed up when trying to determine exactly when 3 years ago today was, because of the whole international dateline problem. However, I am not getting into the semantics of that argument - 3 years ago today, April 13, 2010, was April 13, 2007, even though I was in Japan and so really 3 years ago "today" for the Japanese should actually be April 14.

Let the countdown begin!

We are going here* in 7 days, and I must say, it's lookin' mighty fine!

Current Weather Updated: Friday, January 22, 2010, 9:00 MST

Cancún, MX

28°C
Partly cloudy

• Feels Like: 38
• Wind: S 15km/h
• Relative Humidity: 70%
• Pressure: 101.16 kPa
• Visibility: 11.0 km
• Ceiling: 1800 ft

Long Term Forecast Updated: Friday, January 22, 2010, 3:53 MST

	Friday Jan. 22	Saturday Jan. 23	Sunday Jan. 24	Monday Jan. 25	Tuesday Jan. 26
	Sunny	Sunny	Sunny	Cloudy	Sunny
High	30°C	30°C	30°C	29°C	24°C
Low	24°C	24°C	26°C	23°C	20°C

* Where?

Halifax, Day Four

Went to two really excellent sessions today: The Technology of Law, and Best Practices: Training Our Users. The first was a presentation by a law professor who runs the website Jurist, and was about the need to teach law students (or other legal practitioners) not only how to be information-literate, but also how to use technology to its full potential in the practice of law. Very interesting, and I plan on learning more about what is happening in this field. It has inspired me! In the "Best Practices" session, we heard from 3 speakers on tips and ideas for training library users. The first spoke about telephone training, the second about social media and Facebook and library guides, and the third about teaching across the generational gaps. Some good ideas in that session.

I skipped out on the last session with the intention of going shopping. Ran into David M. from Dal Law Library, and he joined me on my brewery and art gallery tour, then we went for a drink and a bite on the waterfront. It was so nice out, we sat out on the patio overlooking the harbour. It was just lovely. Then I headed back to the hotel, with another quick store stop or two. Dropped my stuff off at the hotel, combed my hair, then headed back to the conference hotel via cab with Margo.

This evening was the closing banquet. I made a giant mess of a delicious lobster. Then we were entertained by Irish and Scottish dancing, and regaled by a band with an extensive repertoire of Irish songs and sea shanties. We were also taught how to play the spoons, though I don't think I'm very good. Robin N. and I left around 11:30. I dropped her off at her hotel, then came back here. Now I just want to sleep, but we have to check out tomorrow, so I should probably re-pack my things first. Tomorrow morning there are a few more conference festivities, and then I am moving myself and my things over to the Dalhousie residence hall for two nights.

I don't know if I will have access to the Internet at the Dal residence, so this might be my last entry for a few days, unless I hit an Internet cafe, a wireless hotspot, or, god forbid, a library.

Halifax, Day Three

I have less than 10 minutes before we head out of the hotel again. Thankfully, and as a direct consequence, this will be a short post.

Today dawned bright and sunny and mild. (It's still May in Halifax, so I hesitate to use the word "warm".) So I put on my sundress, my flats, a jean jacket and a big scarf, and headed out to the conference hotel with Margo around 8:00 a.m. They were serving free breakfast, so it was worth our while to get out so early.

Plenary session at 9:00. Topic was recent developments in Canada's immigration and refugee policy. Speakers were Markham MP Paul Calandra and Halifax immigration lawyer Lee Cohen. Session was interesting, though not overly informative. Calandra talked about all the great things the federal government is supposedly doing; Cohen told some heartfelt stories. I think I know too much about immigration and refugee issues, and so am a bit cynical. Sorry.

The next session I went to was on embedded librarianship. Basically, this is the idea that librarians don't need to be in the library, but are often more effective outside the library, working in their organization directly. The session was interesting, though not earth-shattering (for me, at least). Working at the Library of Parliament last year, I already was a kind of embedded librarian - I was nowhere near the actual library, and I worked alongside, with and for, the analysts in the legal division. The library, at the LOP, was more a concept or idea than an actual physical place, at least for those of us in the research divisions. Anyway, the only thing truly controversial about the session was a couple of comments the speaker made about how she didn't think library schools were taking in the right types of students. I don't think that is necessarily true, though to some degree, library schools are more interested in filling seats with bums than with brains. I think the problem is more that library schools, at least in the U.S. (where the speaker was from), do not always teach library students the wide range of skills that they will need to survive once out in the real world. Some library schools focus very closely on technical skills. Many U.S. schools do not teach management skills, or how-to-deal-with-people skills. That's the real problem, in my opinion.

Anyway, must move on.

Lunch was served in Pier 21, just behind the conference hotel. I sat with Robin N. from LOP, and Mark and Maggie, friends of mine from library school. We ate salad, chicken in a cream sauce with veggies, and a delightful custard pie of some sort for dessert. There was an awards ceremony, and thankfully all the speeches were short and sweet (a skill I must still learn, obviously). Then we were regaled by Bruce Nunn, a/k/a Mr. Nova Scotia Know-It-All. I used to listen to him on CBC Radio, and would sometimes see him on CBC News in Halifax. He was very entertaining.

Post-lunch sleepiness having kicked in, I went back to the conference hotel for a session on sharia and talmudic law. It was very informative and two areas of law I think we will need to acquire resources in over the next year or two as they become more popular.

Margo and I skipped out on the last session to come back to our hotel to unwind for a bit, but now we are heading back out for the first of two back-to-back receptions. Then I am headed to The Fireside again for post-reception food (might not be hungry for the salmon, however, depending on how much they feed us) and drinks (on the other hand, there is always room for more drinks).

Halifax, Day Two

So yesterday I never made it to Spring Garden Road, as I wandered along the waterfront, taking pictures, etc. Then back to the conference for a short reception. Met some pretty cool people, including a bunch who have similar jobs and concerns to mine. If only I weren't so busy conferencing, I could sit down and have a real pow-wow with some of these folk.

Was on my own for dinner. I decided to hit Rogue's Roost on Spring Garden*, which is a restaurant with a delightful microbrewery. I had a raspberry wheat ale and chicken fingers. Then I headed back to the hotel, around 9:30.

Earlier in the day, Margo had told me she was planning on going after dinner down to The Lower Deck, where Signal Hill was playing. I was thinking about heading out again to see if I could find her when she walked in the room. She hadn't been down yet, so we headed out together. Signal Hill was great! We didn't stay very late, though, as I had an early morning ahead.

This morning I woke up at 6:00 since I had a First-Timers' Breakfast at 7:30.** Actually made it almost on time. Then I went to a meeting of the academic law libraries. It was interesting to hear the updates from the other libraries, though we didn't have time to make it through all of them.

At 9:30 a few hours of meetings of various committees were scheduled. I could have gone to some of these, but on Saturday night I had convinced Margo that we should skip these and go on the Harbour Hopper instead. It was awesome! It was cold and gray, like your typical Halifax spring day, but we had a great time. It was just Margo and I, and two older ladies on a road trip from North Carolina. Normally they won't run the Hopper with less than 8 people, but they decided to take us out anyway. For those of you who might not know, the Harbour Hopper is an amphibious vehicle which was formally an American army vehicle used in the Vietnam War, now painted with giant frogs on the side and with nicely cushioned seats installed. The tour spends 30 minutes driving around town, and then 30 minutes in the water. Pictures to follow.

We then got back to the business of conferencing, showing up back there just in time for lunch. Then I went to a bunch of mini vendor demos which lasted all afternoon. We crashed back at our hotel for about an hour (by which time it was pouring rain, but hey, at least we weren't still on the Harbour Hopper) and then went to a reception which was being held at the famous Pier 21.

Pier 21 was very cool. We watched a multimedia presentation on the history of Pier 21, which was the first port of entry for many of Canada's immigrants who arrived between 1928 and the 1960s. There was also lots of yummy food. Food and museuming, always a nice combination.

Now I am headed off to bed. Tomorrow is a full day of conferencing, followed by - count 'em - two receptions, and then I plan to go to The Fireside (yes again) for more martinis and salmon.

* So I guess I did make it there after all.

** Note to future conference organizers: Scheduling the First-Timers' Breakfast for 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning is just MEAN.

Halifax, Day One*

Arrived in Halifax last night at 5:11. Margo, the director of the library where I work, was also on my flight though we did not sit together. The shuttle bus to Halifax was leaving at 5:25. Miraculously, both of our suitcases were among the first ten pieces of luggage to hit the baggage carousel, so we booted it to the shuttle bus and were on our way.

Upon check-in at the Delta Barrington, it turned out that Margo had been upgraded from a queen room (which would have two beds) to a king (I guess she forgot to tell them there were actually 2 people staying in the room). There was a queen with a pull-out available, but a bunch of hockey teams are also staying in town, and they were in that section of the hotel, and we were warned it would be loud. So we are sharing our giant bed until at least tomorrow, at which point we might switch rooms, though it doesn't really matter to me. I don't think I could even find Margo on that bed even if I wanted to! LOL

We went for dinner at The Fireside last night, which is hands-down my favourite restaurant anywhere. The Fireside alone is almost reason enough to move back to Halifax. We were joined by Sarah S., Andrea N., and David M., all of whom I went to library school with, way back when. I had my usual: pecan-encrusted salmon and MARTINIS (a melon ball and a black russian). Monday night is Martini Madness Night, so I may just have to return.

Back to the hotel by about 10:45, and managed to get the Internet working by plugging in the same cable I had tried plugging in earlier in the day. This time, for some odd reason, it worked. Yay me! Lights out by midnight.

This morning, I had a pre-conference session that I was attending on "Making and Presenting the Business Case". It was quite good. These are things that are not obvious to me - I have not yet had the pleasure\honour of having to cajole management into buying a certain product, or (heaven forbid) of having to justify my own job or my library's existence. But I have just recently embarked on a long-term project with a couple of the professors at the law school on developing some legal research materials, and I've been lucky enough to so far leave the please-give-us-money document-drafting to one of the other team members. However, it is a skill I should learn, so I found this session quite useful.

That finished at noon, and I wandered down to the waterfront just in time to be serenaded, along with many others, by a tall ship sailing slowly out of the harbour, with a band playing and all the sailors lined up and singing some songs very loudly. It was magical. I didn't have my camera on me! Boo. But I whipped out my cell phone and took a couple of bad pictures. Once I figure out how to transfer pictures to my computer (I don't have a cable, but I think I can maybe email them via phone - technology confuses me sometimes), I will post here. I believe the ship was Chilean.

Then I went to catch the end of the Farmer's Market, in the Brewery buildings. It ends at 1:00, so I just made it. I had almost no money left, unfortunately, so couldn't buy very much. I spent my last dollars on some Indian chicken curry and a samosa, plus some omiyage for my dog.

Ate my lunch in the hotel room. I have just made reservations for next Friday night to stay in a B&B in lovely Mahone Bay. I wanted to stay here, which was recommended to me by my friend Cheryl who stayed here a few months ago, but ironically they are not taking bookings for next weekend because the owners will be in Ottawa! So I am staying here.

Now I am headed out to do some shopping. First I must cross the road to Scotia Square and go book a vehicle for next Friday-Saturday. Then, since my hotel is attached to the Barrington Place Shops, that will be my next stop. Must go search out the doll house store that I loved so much as a child, except I think I did that once when I was living here during grad school and I think it might be gone now. Then across the street to the Urban Cottage, to find second-hand housewares that will fit in my suitcase. Then, if I have time, I'll wander down Spring Garden Road.

* Title not meant to imply that these entries will be daily undertakings, but I will do what I can.

New Year 2009, brought to you by...

Fêtez la Fête nationale!

À l'honneur de la fête de Saint-Jean-Baptiste, j'ai mis mes photos de notre voyage à Québec en mai sur Flickr.



Any excuse is as good as another, right? Anyway, we celebrated Saint-Jean-Baptiste by driving back from Toronto to Ottawa (ie., not at all). Toronto was, as always, good, though we didn't do much. We ate sushi. We met up with our friend Shoshanah for some (more) shopping and sushi. I got my hair cut. We bought a bunch of prints for our townhouse. The dog got wet in the rain, and wetter in my mom's gardens. There was hail and a funnel cloud (didn't see either, sadly).

A good time was had by all.

This post got me to thinking, however, and I have realized that in 3 of the past 4 months of May, we have travelled somewhere.

Last year, in May 2007, it was to Kyushu.*


The strange but cool Canal City in Fukuoka.

The year before, we didn't go anywhere exotic, though I note, looking through my archives, that we did go to Toronto for a weekend right at the beginning of the month. To be fair, though, we were gearing up for a year in Japan and so not really able to take off at the drop of a hat.

In May 2005, we went to Amsterdam.


A rare, non-canal shot of Amsterdam.


So we'll have to figure out something neat for next year... Suggestions?


* I am embarrassed to note that I have completely neglected to ever finish uploading the Kyushu pictures - Nagasaki, which I think is my favourite city in all of Japan, is noticeably absent! I will rectify this oversight soon!!!