Last day. It's been a busy week. I'm trying to wrap up work on an important design document, mapping out the user login process with connections through to another system that maintains user security rules. But I also managed to send in my time reports for the next 10 months... I guess I'm really committed now!

First plans: golf game with Bruce Hill on Monday, helping Kelly with the Exultate database on Tuesday, joining the project team for dinner on Wednesday... And trying to figure out how to not waste all of my time and still have a good time!
posted by Tom at 9:58 AM | link | (0) comments

5 1/2 days left. The countdown continues.

I had to work really late last night preparing a document for today and missed choir rehearsal. But with the end in sight, it all seems very bearable. The project's got a weird dynamic at the moment, though; the bank leadership are hunkered down working on planning the next phase and there's not a lot of communication going on. Not really my problem, but it's still a concern.

In the previous post I mentioned that I am rehearsing with TMC. I had a call from Diane English yesterday confirming that I have a paid position singing with them until Christmas. I'm not sure how much it pays, but it's sure going to be better than nothing! Also, it looks like I might be able to substitute for Bruce Hill at Exultate's Christmas concert... Still to be confirmed.
posted by Tom at 1:41 PM | link | (0) comments

I'm now in the position of learning the same music (Orff Carmina Burana) for two different choirs (Exultate & Toronto Mendelssohn Choir) at the same time. Conductor's interpretations, pronunciation of some words, etc. may vary -- and I'm singing second bass for Exultate and baritone for TMC. However, I am getting paid for the Mendelssohn choir rehearsals and concert, which is a pretty sweet deal. Looks like I'll be with them until Christmas.

The weather in T.O.'s become hazy in the last couple of days, after the beautiful weather of last week. It's depressing and grey. On the plus side, my pictures from Algonquin came out very nicely and have been cheering me up. You can see them here.

Looks like I'm going to be able to go on two choir tours next July: with Calvin Presbyterian to Scotland, and then over to St. Petersburg to meet Consort Caritatis. Then right back to work!
posted by Tom at 11:52 AM | link | (0) comments

A week since the World Trade Center/Pentagon attacks, and it's clear the world simply isn't going back to how it was last Monday. Sure, daily routine hasn't changed too much, but there's a lot of bitterness, a lot of fear, and a lot of anger. The only thing missing seems to be real, concrete answers. Do we know bin Laden really is behind this attack? Does attacking Afghanistan hurt him, or simply provide more recruits? Are we willing to follow the U.S. into a messy guerrilla war with no clear enemies? And what can we do to prevent Pakistan's nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of supporters of the Taliban?

David Letterman had a moving show last night. Inspired by Guiliani, he went back to work, but was clearly struggling with how he could do his job (providing comic relief and social satire) without making light of the tragedy. His monologue at the beginning, usually a run of the mill standup comedy routine, was replaced by a heartfelt, grief-ridden everyman commentary on the incomprehensible nature of the attack and the heroism of many of the respondants. His guests, Dan Rather and Regis Philbin, were equally moved, although Regis did a brilliant job of lightening the tone of the show in a self-depreciating way.

In the mean time, we're all back to work here in Toronto. I'm counting down my days until FlexLeave (now 8 1/2) and trying to wrap up as much as possible (although there have been a number of external delays recently, so I won't get the satisfaction of seeing it all done). I walk to work by the U.S. Consulate every day, and every day wish I'd thought to buy some flowers to add to the piles in front. In the mean time, the weather has been gorgeous all week. What a weird world we live in.
posted by Tom at 11:48 AM | link | (0) comments

Well, nothing like a single horrific event to change how the day looks. The disaster in New York and Washington shocked us all, and I had number of personal connections to it which brought it close to home. Thankfully, it seems that all of my friends and family are safe and were not in the immediate area, but especial thoughts go to Paul Golding, Olga Leslie and Lewis Chilton who work and live in New York and New Jersey. But two years ago I was working in the World Financial Center and walked through the World Trade Center every day on my way to work. Some of the first pictures I took with my digital camera were of the World Trade Center. I stayed in the hotel in the World Trade Center. Yikes.

The other connection goes back to my Amiga days, with the Flight Simulator programme. The Amiga version had a pretty basic map of Manhatten, but it did have models of the World Trade Center, and it was a lot of fun to try and fly a Cessna or Learjet between the twin towers. My first thought, yesterday morning, was that some idiot in a Cessna had tried exactly that, and missed...

There's a real feeling of grimness in Toronto today. Almost nobody is smiling, even though business is proceeding as usual. We've all been hurt by this, and it's not clear when we'll be healed. I hope the leaders involved have the wisdom to realize that their approach should be twofold: defend and deter against future attacks (with whatever retribution is necessary), but also understand the source of the anger and work to counter it. Yesterday proved that the western world has made enemies of very intelligent people, who were able to turn simple resources into effective weapons. The only long-term defense possible against this is to stop creating such enemies in the first place.
posted by Tom at 11:47 AM | link | (0) comments

Boy, nothing like a few days back at work to sap the energy. I could have used an extra couple of hours' sleep this morning. Still, I think we're on the brink of making some serious progress on the project; we've finally worked our way through Royal Bank's byzantine strategic sourcing processes and should be receiving one (1) brand new multi-hundred thousand dollar Sun server and four (4) brand new quad-CPU Windows 2000 servers today for our development environment. (No, Philip, we can't put Linux on them; the application we're installing only runs on Windows 2000.)

The other main news this week is the start of the choral music season. Exultate started up Tuesday with rehearsals of Carmina Burana for the 20th Anniversary concert in October. I haven't performed Carmina Burana for over a decade, but it's a lot of fun to sing and it's coming back to me quite quickly. On the down side, John's not sure about keeping me in the choir due to my maddening tendancy to want to flit around the world and miss whole months of rehearsals; this won't be getting better during my LOA, so after the first concert of the season I may be out for the rest of the year.

Yesterday was my first rehearsal at Calvin Presbyterian, singing for the wonderful Stephanie Martin. We covered a lot of ground in two hours, and the choir's standards seem pretty high. Plus Steph's a great conductor, the choir is full of fun people, and they do a lot of social stuff together... I think I'm going to really enjoy singing with them.

On deck for the weekend: dinner at Christopher's tonight (whee!! ), Molly's 30th birthday party tomorrow (huzzah! ), and Kate coming back into town on Sunday. We're planning to spend the afternoon going around the art gallery.

Only three weeks of work left...

posted by Tom at 10:33 AM | link | (0) comments

I had a wonderful trip up to Algonquin Park last weekend, organized by Patrick. We spent 8 days trekking around the park, heading in from Magnetewan Lake on the west side to Lake La Muir in the middle and back. We moved camp every day, and had portages as long as 2.6km (carrying canoe & packs) so my recent health kick paid off big time. All the same, I felt noticably fitter towards the end of the trip.

Labour day weekend, and Sunday was a lovely day for sleeping in, reassuring the cat (doesn't like me going away), and doing a massive food expedition to Loblaws (with important side stop at the LCBO) as the last gasp of my extended loan of my parents' car. Kate showed up yesterday around 5pm, raving about how wonderful direct flights from Victoria to Toronto are (vs. stops in Vancouver and Calgary). I cooked dinner last night for her, Dave & Robyn, Joyce, Patrick, Paul and Kelly... As usual, my plans exceeded my arms and dinner (intended for 7:30) ended up more than an hour late... but it was very successful overall. I ran the barbeque out of propane, so I guess that was the last one for the summer.

Nice to be home. Exultate starts up today, work trip to the ball game tomorrow evening, Calvin choir tomorrow, then only three weeks of work left prior to my LOA! 19 days left, including today, which is almost over... Not that I'm counting!
posted by Tom at 3:43 PM | link | (0) comments