Amsterdam. Day three. First impressions: Flat. Lots of bicycles, whose drivers have the fearless 'as a matter of fact I DO own the road' attitude that only a very well established series of victories over the car can bring. Wide bicycle-only lanes in most roads. A mob of British lager louts off for a weekend of heavy drinking and worse. Big banners warning of pickpockets, and the taxi driver advising that wallets should be carried in the front pocket. Canals everywhere, very much in use. Elegant thin canal-side houses dating from the eighteenth century, with hooks sticking out under every gable, apparently for hoisting furniture to the upper floors.

Most of the course faculty team (nine faculty members, two faculty coaches from St. Charles, one overworked technician from the Paris office) got in Friday afternoon, and we went out for a bit of an explore. The weather was quite cold--mid teens after Toronto's high 20's--and I'm regretting having only brought one jacket. Chris, Ivy and I had dinner in a cafe by one of the canals and got acquainted, then joined up with a larger crowd for a trip out to a Chinese restaurant near the hotel. I quickly ran out of energy and retired for the night, slept 10 hours.

Yesterday, Saturday, was the first day of faculty prep. We worked from 9 to 5, going through the structure of the course, splitting into threesomes for the three class sections, running through a couple of the exercises to get a feel for the problems we would be asking the students to handle. Dinner was a wonderful Indonesian cuisine involving bowls of rice and a selection of small dishes, rather like the Spanish tapas. Then we went out and found some tables beside another canal (they're everywhere) and drank beer. The weather's warming up, which should continue throughout the week.

Today is self-study day, where we work through the presentations and learn the material. Although I'm familiar with all of the basic concepts taught in the course, I seem to have the least experience with some of the technologies we're discussing--actually setting up ASP's and JSP's and Websphere and MTS and so on--so I have some studying to do. So far, jet lag doesn't seem to have been much of an issue, but I anticipate some difficulties staying awake today.

It's going to be a great week! I feel like I've missed a lot of things in my description of the days so far, and it's only day three...
posted by Tom at 4:10 AM | link | (0) comments

At the airport, on my way to Amsterdam. Work got really busy in the last week -- spent a few hours on the weekend editing the Commitment to Deliver Product Technical specs for my project, and then worked late on Wednesday this week finishing a first pass of through another version for a different business unit. Still, I wrapped up everything on schedule today, so I'm off with a clear concience.

Some good things this week, too: Tuesday, Carrie Loffree was in town. It was great to see her, particularly since this is likely to be her last trip to Canada for quite a while. She's moving (permanently, for now) to Hungary. Robyn, Dave, Ali and I met up with Carrie and Istvan (sp? oops) at Myth, a very nice restaurant on the 'wrong side of the river' (in this case, East of the Don). I have a good picture of Carrie and Istvan on my digital camera, but uploading it will have to wait until I get back as I didn't bring the cable with me. Had a lovely evening, but I broke a promise to attend Arianne Kwek's graduation piano recital, which is marring my clear concience from work.

All in all, I haven't had much time to plan or think about Amsterdam, and I'm going to have to do some reading on the flight. Whee!
posted by Tom at 7:14 PM | link | (0) comments

Ok, it's official: Ikea rule the world. Not only are they the most convenient place to shop for furniture (which I knew already), they also turn out to be practically the only place you can buy bookcases. I spent a full day last Saturday cruising through the other stores and didn't find anything practical in any of them. Then when I flipped through the Ikea catalog, I discovered that a carefully selected set of Billy's (Ikea's main bookcase brand, beloved for new homeowners everywhere) could add up to 141.5 inches width. My dining room measured 142 inches wide. Who am I to argue with fate?

I put in new bookcases in the dining room, including one which has doors (liquor cabinet!), and they've swallowed an amazing amount of stuff that was sitting in piles distributed around my home. I also lined up a kitchen contractor to come in and measure the kitchen for new cabinets, etc. I'm not sure about these guys... It's not clear to me they're going to have patience while I work out exactly what each of the little details should be like.

Other news: played squash with Sean Morley and Tim Dennison last night, and managed to win one game against Tim. (We won't talk about the other four games, two against Tim and two against Sean.) We then enjoyed a beer, they talked me into joining the club again, and I had a great dinner with Tim at the Japanese restaurant down the street (while Sean went home to his insistent wife). :-)

So, happy happy.

Today the smog is simply awful. It looks thick enough to walk on from up here at Scotia Plaza. Disgusting.
posted by Tom at 9:07 PM | link | (0) comments

A good and useful weekend. The main activity of note was the Trinity reunion (yes, it has been ten years already) which featured get-togethers on Friday and Saturday. Some observations: a LOT of Trinity types seem to have become lawyers, as in, way more than half of those in attendance. Scary. Also, interesting how some people looked unchanged, while for others the ten years have clearly had an impact. And I was pleased to find everyone very approachable, much less scary than I guess I had made them out to be during my awkward undergraduate years. Finally, everyone seems to go to bed much earlier than they used to... Both nights wrapped up before closing time.

In other news, when I got my film developed last week a bunch of pictures from two years ago showed up, including some great shots of my favorite (ok, only) sister Kate from her visit to Toronto (last summer? I think?) They're in the Photo Gallery, along with some photos from the reunion. [Later note: the reunion pictures are no longer on the site.]

The weather's been wet and cold for the last few days, further postponing the day when I'll finally need to start watering the cornucopia of plants that Mom planted two weeks ago. I'm off to Chicago tonight for a workshop, and it looks like the Amsterdam trip at the end of the month is also a go. Time to dig out the upgrade coupons... ;-)
posted by Tom at 3:26 PM | link | (0) comments