Archive for ◊ June, 2009 ◊

30 Jun 2009 Back In The Game
Author: Gail |  Category: Unabashed Geekiness, Urban Life  | Tags:  | 4 Comments

back in the game

I am pleased to announce that my failing 80GB hard drive, circa 2004, has now been replaced with a new 250GB hard drive. I now have the long and boring chore of reinstalling (or at least attempting to reinstall) my many, many applications and setting up my preferences again. Five years of applications means this is going to take me forever…

Tomorrow is Canada Day and the first day in a very long time where I have zero commitments, work or otherwise. I’m working early Thursday and Friday, so I’m not road tripping or going anywhere, but I’ll take the opportunity to try and clean up my disaster of an apartment and tackle the electronic backlog.

Photo: chess players out on the front lawn of the Metropolitan United Church, Queen Street, Toronto.

game on

29 Jun 2009 6am
Author: Gail |  Category: Mobile Blogging  | Leave a Comment

28 Jun 2009 Mobile Blogging For Now
Author: Gail |  Category: Mobile Blogging  | Leave a Comment

My five-year old Powerbook G4 is in the shop this weekend and at least tomorrow, hence all the mobile blogging when I would LOVE to be posting DSLR photos from the trip and the weekend. It’s Pride Week and today’s the parade, but I’m volunteering at The Bride’s Project. Fancy’s checking it out, though, before she heads back to Ottawa. I hope it doesn’t rain!

And I hope the hard disk isn’t too far gone to retrieve everything… all my photos and music are located on external drives, but I don’t want to lose all my application settings (eg. Firefox, Safari bookmarks are saved daily through Mobile Me). I’ll find out soon!

27 Jun 2009 Just Hangin’
Author: Gail |  Category: Mobile Blogging  | Leave a Comment

26 Jun 2009 9pm
Author: Gail |  Category: Mobile Blogging  | Leave a Comment

26 Jun 2009 5pm
Author: Gail |  Category: Mobile Blogging  | 4 Comments

26 Jun 2009 6am
Author: Gail |  Category: Mobile Blogging  | Leave a Comment

25 Jun 2009 Juice Whistle
Author: Gail |  Category: Europe, Videoclips  | 2 Comments

My host in Bratislava, Matej, playing the “juice whistle”. He says there are a million names for this instrument, but this is what he came up with for English.

Right now Matej is somewhere along the Trans-Siberian Railway! Last week I was on a mission in Vienna to find him the latest edition of Lonely Planet’s guide for the Trans-Siberian Railway because it’s cheaper than buying it in Bratislava. (It took some pavement-pounding on Tuesday, but in the end it was mission accomplished!) A couple of days before I went to see Matej, his visa for Russia was approved and he was planning to set off on his trip two days later, but thankfully (for me) it was postponed because otherwise I might not have seen him at all. Matej took some time to bake me a birthday cake (I’ll upload that photo along with the rest of the birthday food pics — of which there are MANY) and he even made me dinner! What a guy! I’m excited for him, he’ll be travelling for two months with a tent and staying in rural villages along the way. As much as I enjoy modern tech gadgetry, Matej’s journey is the one I’d choose if I had two months.

25 Jun 2009 Bratislava Preview
Author: Gail |  Category: Europe  | 2 Comments

Bratislava

A few photos of historic Bratislava and the Danube River from the Parliament grounds.

Bratislava

Slovak Parliament

Bratislava

24 Jun 2009 Random Notes From The Groggy
Author: Gail |  Category: Food + Drink, Linkage, Randomage  | Leave a Comment

La Casa Del Caffe Tazza D'Oro

Man, this stuff is good. Christine showed me La Casa Del Caffe Tazza D’Oro (close to the Pantheon) when we were in Rome, and I had the best latte ever. I bought 250g of the stuff that day, and my bag had this wonderful aroma all day long.

espresso from Rome

I’ve been asked a few times lately if I get jet lag, and my response is always no, since I don’t follow any sort of daily sleeping routine. I don’t really have an internal body clock or circadian rhythm as far as I can tell. But I do deprive myself of sleep for long periods of time for the sake of getting things done, probably too much if truth be told. But when I do sleep, it’s always quality sleep — top shelf — so in some respects I’m better off than, say, a light sleeper or someone who takes forever to wind down. I fall asleep immediately and I don’t wake up for anything (not even the bathroom) until I’m done or the alarm goes off.

On that note, a bit of a random brain dump before I try for an early night and ignore the ‘To Do’ backlog:

  • I got some light ribbing yesterday from a few people at work who noticed I’d been away: “Didn’t you just start? And you went on vacation?”
  • I arrived home to a heatwave in Toronto;
  • I arrived home to a municipal worker’s strike, too;
  • You know what? Heatwave + garbage strike = EWWW!
  • An interesting project in vicarious living, Emily Zinneman (Meg Tilly‘s daughter) moves to Vancouver and offers up 52 weeks of her next year to be lived according to the whims of 52 other people;
  • I clearly didn’t bring back nearly enough chocolate from Vienna or Bratislava;
  • One of my favourite travel-related blogs written by a nomad named Amylin happens to feature a write-up about a nomad base in Amsterdam called Casa Robino, which I’ve been curious about for a while — check it out if nomadic living interests you in any way;
  • I hope the couple from Connecticut Christine and I met in Rome last weekend get in touch, they were great dinner companions;
  • I booked an appointment for Beano’s vaccinations — yikes, remember last time I took him to the vet?
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