cube life remastered

Before I left Toronto I was heard to say on several occasions that if I took a job sitting at a desk again it would be for myself, which is, and isn't really, exactly what I've done. I've been at AppNeta for just over a month now and while "technically" I don't own the place it still feels like working for myself. 

I was well passed the danger zone of going obsolete in the skills department at my last job and treading into only-employable-in-my-niche territory. I feel lucky to have skittered sideways into a company working on pretty modern stacks and doing interesting stuff. 

I dunno if I buy all that "you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with" stuff and I'm pretty sure I don't want to surround myself with smart people who'll argue with me, though whenever I've spent time with friends like that I learned quite a bit despite my tendency for dogged single mindedness. And there are some seriously smart characters rolling around the new gig.

yankee yankee juliet -> yankee victor romeo

I've spent the past six months living and working in Victoria at a very chill place which I am a bit sad to say goodbye to. As it stands my work there is done and a month or so ago I began looking for something new to do with my time. A fella I met while touring last summer invited me to join him on his next adventure, riding from Nelson BC to Dawson City Yukon. I gave it a lot of thought but in the end decided it was time to return to work before my edge was too far gone to get back.

With that in mind I cast about at a handful of places in Victoria and in Vancouver looking for something nerdy to do with my time and a place called AppNeta made me the most interesting offer so I've made my way to the mainland and tomorrow I'll be heading in to the first "real" work I've had since I left the bank last May.

I figure any company that has a three foot wide ball of ethernet cable hanging from the ceiling and concerns themselves with inquiring about a potential employee's foosball prowess is the sort of place I'd like to spend my time.

In a bit of random topic change, I noticed that bicycle trailers were very popular in Victoria however the whole time I was there I think I saw maybe one store bought trailer on the road. The rest were crazy home brew concoctions that had me wondering why I'd spent so much money on mine in the first place. After a few weeks of seeing these things rolling around the city I decided to start cataloguing them for posterity. Here are a few of the more interesting ones ...

(I guess the symbols are for ... safety?)

So that was my winter an a very small nutshell. Summer time in Vancouver should be interesting. As it happens I discovered I know more than the one person here I thought I did, an old friend noticed my location change on facebook and invited me round to meet for a BBQ this afternoon so I'm about ready to locate a few beers and make my way over to meet some new folks and gnosh some grilled goodness. Hope your Sunday afternoon is even better than mine promises to be!

island life

I've been on Vancouver island for a while now and am starting to get back into island mode. After visiting some old friends the weekend I arrived my grandad who's been here twenty years broke his ankle walking his new puppy and asked me to stay at his place and help out a bit while he mended up. So I spent  about a month in a little place called Youbou helping to housebreak Cleo. It was a nice break after the pace of the ride and gave me a chance to quickly stitch together some of the extra videos I hadn't uploaded from the trip.

(cute puppy is cute)

Once the cast was carved off and my dad rolled into town after finishing up work and travelling a bit I figured it was time to keep on keepin on so I made my way back to Victoria to set up shop. I've been here a couple weeks checking things out, getting the lay of the land, and carpet bombing the city with resumes. I've also tracked down a bunch of old friends, some I haven't seen in fifteen years! Lots of catching up to do, plenty of marriages, kids, and careers going on in the intervening years to hear about.  My old room mates Chris and Stacey kids have done that thing wee ones do and gotten quite a bit bigger since we last met up. And more hilarious.

(Austin rocking a merman look)

I'm not quite settled into a routine yet, but I've got more interviews coming up this week and should be well on my way to hunkering down for the winter with a gig and a crib that don't involve pedalling and tent poles before too long. In the meantime, the sky is blue and I'm gonna go find a part of town I haven't explored yet ...

toronto to victoria by the numbers

Tomorrow I'll be shoving off on the last 100km push to my final destination, mile 0 of the trans Canada highway in Victoria. With that bit of certainty figured out I've been able to work out some final numbers about the trip so here goes!

• Days on the road: 68
• Days visiting, working, etc: 40
• Total kilometers traveled: 4548
• Lifts by car: 2
• Total kilometers pedaled: 4358
• Mountain passes ascended: 4 (4347 m climbed)
• Dollars spent: ~3500
• Pounds shed: ~55
• Parties crashed: 3
• Couches crashed: 7
• Animal attacks: 0
• Bug bites: countless!
• Levels of awesome: >9000

Stay tuned for end of the trek photos and video this weekend! 

from rockies to water

The last couple weeks I've been making my way over mountains, through valleys, and towards the Pacific ocean, and it's been about as awesome as that sounds. After leaving Alberta I ran into Dave of Watch My Back again in between Banff and Lake Louise. Once we'd gone our separate ways in Alberta I didn't figure on seeing him again so it was pretty cool to catch up and compare notes before we rolled off in opposite directions.

Immediately following that random meeting I got horrendously drenched in a cold nasty downpour and decided to seek out a roof and a warm bed in Lake Louise at this funky hostel.

With clothes dried and a night of real bed rest in me I set off to conquer the rest of the rockies, heading across the trans Canada to my first big departure from highway 1 since Ontario onto the Coquihalla, where I found some great spots to camp and among other folks met this cute retired couple Don and Irene at a little fishing spot I'd stopped to rest at.

They invited me round to their place to fill up my water bottles, then plied me with snacks and peppered me with questions about my trip. They also told me (like many others and incorrectly) that "It's all downhill from here!".

No it's not. At no point in the freakin Rocky Mountains is it ever all downhill. Don't believe the hype.

Anyway, this week I made it to the much discussed city of Vancouver where I met up with fellow rider and geek Brent who I hadn't seen since Thunder Bay and who handily beat me to the coast by almost a month. This tidy bit of pedalling had afforded him the time to finish up his bike mapping iPhone app which he'd been testing and tweaking on the trip and get it approved in iTunes. He kindly offered me space in his new crib while I picked up some work and generally enjoyed having arrived at the ocean. We also sampled some local eats, including a sushi binge I'd been looking forward to and a vegan burrito joint that had a lot of ... character I guess is the word. Oh yeah and of course we hit the beach with Brent's friend and neighbour Jamie to throw some lines in and watch the waves crash. It was quite stressful.

Which brings us up to today, where I have plans to head down to Horseshoe Bay and make my way to the final leg of my journey down Vancouver Island to Victoria. I'll be visiting some old friends and family, dipping a wheel in the Pacific, and hanging up my bike gloves within the next week or so. Oh and one other bit of excitement today, I spoke to my brother Terry who told me his wife has gone and come up with a new life form last night! My niece Isla was born healthy last night and the lot of them are tired and very happy. It'll be a while before I get to meet her myself, but here's a sneak preview I spied on Facebook.