I feel compelled to write something since I've not in a couple of weeks and I just left things hanging in the middle of vacation. I like the idea of writing, and I love to read, but when it comes down to it I am just not very motivated to express myself via blog on a regular basis.
A few things, as they come to me...for those who haven't read anything by Salman Rushdie, and who think you might appreciate some challenging and brilliant writing, pick up a copy of The Satanic Verses, Midnight's Children, or Shalimar the Clown. I'm actually reading the latter now, and I am loving it 100 pages in. It goes from poetic to concise and from reflective to irreverent...I can't really convey the brilliance that is Rushdie, so you can just read.
I'm taking some training at work this week that involves receiving the results of a consulting/influencing skills survey from some of my colleagues, and I'm learning that I need to be more assertive when talking about my ideas. More than one person said I had valuable things to say but back down too quickly. That's really useful to know, but I think it's going to be difficult to overcome my natural disinclination toward sales.
Also, I tried to mail a box to Mexico City yesterday. I stopped into FedEx after work with the box containing about $25/1.5 lbs. worth of giftage from me and Nicole (one of my direct reports) for Tania (my other direct report). After a few minutes of elaborating on how there would be duties and fees to pay for shipping internationally, which I decided was okay with me, the FedEx employee then said something like, "Oh, yeah, and the shipping itself will also be over $100." My response was, "Are you kidding?" And unfortunately he wasn't. The tab would have come to $117 and some change, which he attributed to gas prices, etc. But Mexico D.F. is not that much farther away than California (a fact I pointed out as I politely declined to ship), and I fly myself there with the box in tow (among other things) for under $300. What the crap?
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Maine, at last!
After three days of riding with Mark, Jeff, and Heather, I'm in Maine. Comments from the journey thus far:
Day 1 was exciting but not so scenic. Lots of Michigan and the part of Ontario that looks like Michigan, although stopping for lunch in Detroit was a highlight. The Canadians hassled us on the way into the country, possibly randomly or possibly because Jeff accidentally drove past a stop sign before the customs booth. In any case, we had to pull off to the side and have them search the car, and then we were made to go inside to immigration and have someone officially let us into the country. Jeff and I were bitter toward Canada after that -- after all, it's like the same country, really! Between the border and Toronto, our first stopover spot, we drove through the heart of a couple of thunderstorms that unleashed massive amounts of large water missiles on us. We reached Toronto around 7, checked into the hotel, and then found a nice, hip Italian restaurant to eat at. I was a particular fan of the fact that they had an "All Ontario" section of the menu, with items made of local ingredients.
On day 2, Mark and I got up around 6:30 and went for a walk through downtown Toronto, getting our socks, shoes, and sub-knee portions of our pants soaked. But it was cool, and nice to see at least a little bit of Yonge Street on foot. Before leaving the city, we all stopped by a nearby grocery store to pick up lunch supplies in order to make the drive go faster with fewer stops. Then we got our coffee and some breakfast for the road. New York let us back into the US without a fight, which we appreciated. I've since proceeded to eat a lot of maple flavored everything...although this technically began with maple cheesecake at dinner in Toronto. We drove through the Adirondacks, which were beautiful. Mountains, trees, and rushing rivers...just gorgeous, everything I'd hoped for from upstate New York. In the early evening, we reached the ferry dock and enjoyed the ~50 minute cruise across to Burlington, Vermont, our second night's stopping spot. It was a beautiful ride across Lake Champlain, with mountains in the distance on both sides and the sun setting with a brilliant pink to the west. After checking into the hotel, we went to dinner on Church street, a bustling retail and restaurant strip in downtown Burlington. I proceeded to become very sleepy and crabby, but managed to eat my salad anyway.
Day 3 is today. After I got up and showered, Jeff and Heather had gone to take a dip in the pool, and Mark and I left to take a stroll along the lakefront. It was a great and refreshing way to start the day. We left Burlington a little after 9, riding past the University of Vermont campus, which was beautiful. We stopped in Montpelier, where Mark, Jeff, and I spent a few minutes browsing through the state capitol (Mark and I have a quest to hit all of the US state capitols.) It was a really neat building, with old, historic furnishings still intact, and a manageable, not over-the-top size, which I suppose is appropriate for the capitol of a state as small and practical as Vermont. The town also seemed very nice, with a lot of shops and restaurants. That's how a lot of our drive has been so far, though, small towns strung together in the middle of some of the most amazing scenery you can imagine. There are an incredible number of ice cream shops, and we've taken to watching for giant ice cream cone cutouts, blow-ups, and statues along our travel route. At one place where we stopped yesterday, I got a medium waffle cone, and it appeared to contain a full pint of ice cream, piled on it precariously. It was deliciously overwhelming. We managed to cover the width of Vermont and New Hampshire and get to our final destination, Bar Harbor, Maine, before 6. We ate at a nice diner in Littleton, New Hampshire, for lunch -- a really idyllic small New England town. After checking in at our really nice, cozy bed and breakfast here in Bar Harbor, we all headed out to dinner at a seafood restaurant (where else?) downtown. I'm looking forward to exploring the shops and the national park here more over the next few days...but for now, I think that's an exhaustive amount of detail.
In summary, it's lovely here. :)
Day 1 was exciting but not so scenic. Lots of Michigan and the part of Ontario that looks like Michigan, although stopping for lunch in Detroit was a highlight. The Canadians hassled us on the way into the country, possibly randomly or possibly because Jeff accidentally drove past a stop sign before the customs booth. In any case, we had to pull off to the side and have them search the car, and then we were made to go inside to immigration and have someone officially let us into the country. Jeff and I were bitter toward Canada after that -- after all, it's like the same country, really! Between the border and Toronto, our first stopover spot, we drove through the heart of a couple of thunderstorms that unleashed massive amounts of large water missiles on us. We reached Toronto around 7, checked into the hotel, and then found a nice, hip Italian restaurant to eat at. I was a particular fan of the fact that they had an "All Ontario" section of the menu, with items made of local ingredients.
On day 2, Mark and I got up around 6:30 and went for a walk through downtown Toronto, getting our socks, shoes, and sub-knee portions of our pants soaked. But it was cool, and nice to see at least a little bit of Yonge Street on foot. Before leaving the city, we all stopped by a nearby grocery store to pick up lunch supplies in order to make the drive go faster with fewer stops. Then we got our coffee and some breakfast for the road. New York let us back into the US without a fight, which we appreciated. I've since proceeded to eat a lot of maple flavored everything...although this technically began with maple cheesecake at dinner in Toronto. We drove through the Adirondacks, which were beautiful. Mountains, trees, and rushing rivers...just gorgeous, everything I'd hoped for from upstate New York. In the early evening, we reached the ferry dock and enjoyed the ~50 minute cruise across to Burlington, Vermont, our second night's stopping spot. It was a beautiful ride across Lake Champlain, with mountains in the distance on both sides and the sun setting with a brilliant pink to the west. After checking into the hotel, we went to dinner on Church street, a bustling retail and restaurant strip in downtown Burlington. I proceeded to become very sleepy and crabby, but managed to eat my salad anyway.
Day 3 is today. After I got up and showered, Jeff and Heather had gone to take a dip in the pool, and Mark and I left to take a stroll along the lakefront. It was a great and refreshing way to start the day. We left Burlington a little after 9, riding past the University of Vermont campus, which was beautiful. We stopped in Montpelier, where Mark, Jeff, and I spent a few minutes browsing through the state capitol (Mark and I have a quest to hit all of the US state capitols.) It was a really neat building, with old, historic furnishings still intact, and a manageable, not over-the-top size, which I suppose is appropriate for the capitol of a state as small and practical as Vermont. The town also seemed very nice, with a lot of shops and restaurants. That's how a lot of our drive has been so far, though, small towns strung together in the middle of some of the most amazing scenery you can imagine. There are an incredible number of ice cream shops, and we've taken to watching for giant ice cream cone cutouts, blow-ups, and statues along our travel route. At one place where we stopped yesterday, I got a medium waffle cone, and it appeared to contain a full pint of ice cream, piled on it precariously. It was deliciously overwhelming. We managed to cover the width of Vermont and New Hampshire and get to our final destination, Bar Harbor, Maine, before 6. We ate at a nice diner in Littleton, New Hampshire, for lunch -- a really idyllic small New England town. After checking in at our really nice, cozy bed and breakfast here in Bar Harbor, we all headed out to dinner at a seafood restaurant (where else?) downtown. I'm looking forward to exploring the shops and the national park here more over the next few days...but for now, I think that's an exhaustive amount of detail.
In summary, it's lovely here. :)
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Unorthodoxize
I've been going through another bout of "What am I doing with my life?" lately, which is largely spurred by the book that I'm reading. It's called Take this Bread, and it's the memoir of a woman who inexplicably wanders into a church after somewhere around 35 years of being perfectly content with not being religious, takes communion, and evolves into a Christian over the following months. For her, this doesn't mean adopting a creed and starting to behave nicely, but really digging into the action that seems imperative as a result of her faith -- feeding people. It's a pretty incredibly different perspective from my own since I grew up going to church, and behaving nicely was the first cardinal rule I was taught. Sometimes I think I need a good dose of misbehavior to break me from some of my less savory orthodox inclinations and assumptions. It's been largely the social requirements of being part of a "church" (at least as I perceive them) that have kept me shying away from even attempting to attend services for the past four years. But with or without a disciplined regimen, I think I need a change of some sort, a spiritual renewal that isn't just a nice front, which will affect my life in a pretty major way. I've thought that for years now, and to be honest, I'm not sure that I won't just continue to think it for another couple of years before I am resolved to do something about it. I don't think it's going to leave me alone until I act, though, which must be a good thing.
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