It's been much too long since I've taken the time to type a little here.
Life has been grand. It seems that each aspect of life I've wanted to improve has come to realization with ease. For a change I'll have a post where I'll just talk about my life.
Work: I've been enjoying working for an Energy Efficiency Consultancy immensely. There's a small indoor garden in sight from where I sit, I'll likely be bringing a full-size upright piano there shortly as I shall get to in "Home:". Work so far has included tasks like, write a environmental communication program for a major city mall, call the City of Edmonton and see if we can rent a hybrid bus, trade mark the following in Australia, update these websites, organize a design charrette, present on carbon footprint at an Elementary school, study for LEED accreditation as we'll pay for you to take the test. Work has been great. Daily hustle and bustle, interesting co-workers, and excitement about the upcoming eco-village project this company is planning.
How did I get to this? By attending events that I was interested in. I can pinpoint this position to a friend I made as a result of going to an ecosolar home tour two summers ago. Do what you love. Isn't life too short to do anything else? I laugh about how I'd written a personal mission shape a few months ago involving getting the energy consumption per capita in North America down to a number comparable to other First-world countries. Per capita, Canada and the US average more than double the energy intensity than Western Europe, Japan, South Korea etc. And here I am working for a company that intends to create a community of carbon neutral homes.
Home: I've found it a much greater nuisance to eat vegetarian since coming back to Canada. That difficulty will end shortly. I've often wondered what it would be like to live in a housing co-operative. This will start on Saturday. They do the grocery shopping via bicycle trailer. The meals cooked in the home are vegetarian. Cooking duties are shared. Communal purchases are made. The house is beautiful, old, well-maintained, clean. The location is fantastic. The people living there? Fascinating. Why wouldn't I want to live there? They have a piano too. :)
How did I get to this? By calling all the co-ops in locations where I would like to live. Also, possibly as a result of having past Board experience due to my doing what I love, what I feel is right. Good karma one could say. Do what you love.
Entertainment: The other weekend a friend and I took in all the scrap metal and other recyclables I'd collected over the years. In the process we invented a game. We took a car tire to knock loose car batteries frozen to the ground. Redneck curling. Cleaning up, having fun, earning money, not a bad way to enjoy a Saturday morning. I bought a piano a few weeks back. One that I believe will come back to life quite nicely. It plays, albeint not perfectly. Some notes ring due to the hardening of the hammers with age. Best I can tell it's not much more difficult to work on than say building a bicycle wheel. A few thousand parts, yes, but often 88 copies of the same part, again and again. I've been enjoying learning how this instrument works. Just hundreds upon hundreds of adjustments to be made. It looks like I'll be taking this piano to work, yes, my work place is that progressive, as there is no need for two pianos in the housing co-op.
I've been playing with bicycles a lot lately. Back to EBC on Wednesday nights. Yay for the amazingly simple and efficient machine known as the bicycle. I've also joined a Toastmasters club and already look forward to speaking publicly at the meetings as opposed to cowering in fear. At this point, the weekly meetings qualify as entertainment as well. Still need to get piano lessons going, join a choir, and perhaps start swimming again. Need to do more outdoors as well. Though the 90 minutes per day on the bicycle for commuting means I get my exercise.
How did I get here? Not much to be said about the entertainment really. Just being myself I suppose. Do what you love.