beautiful thing #1 - the man of the hour – goncalo rodrigues:  thought is often described with hydrological metaphors (depth and shallowness, streams of consciousness, etc) and the unusual depth of goncalo’s intellect is a marvel unto itself.  his understanding of technology, and so many things in this world, uncompromisingly demonstrate uncanny depth.  i’m disappointed by the fact that i haven’t had more opportunities to work with such a hard-working, hard-playing colleague like him now that he’s leaving for sabbatical.  however, the fact that he’s leaving on sabbatical and not leaving for good gives me encouragement that these opportunities might arise in the future.  best of luck, G-Rod!

beautiful thing #2 - the camaraderie of imason:  our head of delivery arranged for us to have special t-shirts made to send off our colleague in style and unity.  so for the entire celebration, we all had our shirts on and became a celebratory force to be reckoned with!  we took over brin (which in itself is a lamentable underachievement), we took over the brasserie (somewhat better an achievement, but it would have been ever better if nariman had gotten that waitress’s number)… and from there, i’m not sure.  DB and i had other plans for the evening after 10:30…

beautiful thing #3 – jim and han: such a great pair!  always fun and always exceptional!  they have a great relationship – a very real relationship – full of challenges and joy.  they’re both so worthwhile and wonderful, and they somehow manage to make allowances for one another, even though that’s a pretty hard thing to do – especially for couples in their 20’s.  i think that jim would have to be one of the best guys that i’ve met in toronto or anywhere else, and i’m proud to call him my friend.  han is such a peach, i can hardly believe that she’s real.  seeing them together and happy always reminds me that the world is a pretty freaking cool place to be.

beautiful thing #4 – kimi’s hair: (this evening, i gave myself permission to notice all sorts of wonderful things) kimi has the greatest hair – shiny wavy locks that effortlessly spiral  in magical rivulets, echoing the alpha-helical shape of the keratin proteins that compose the hairs themselves.  she hides the magestic  glamour of these mystic shapes on a daily basis by laboriously straightening her hair, for which i regularly chide her.  but this evening, tired from the cn tower climb, she didn’t have the energy to mask the radiant waves of ebony light that stream from her crown, and the world was made a little brighter by its presence.

beautiful thing #5 – the men of imason: imason have the hottest developers in canada.  i’ve travelled from coast to coast, and worked with all sorts of teams of developers and all kinds of IT teams, and our guys stand second to none of them in terms of capability, but less importantly from a getting-the-job-done point of view, also in charm and style.  not one of them exudes the typical “master of the universe” arrogance of a technocrat, or the “better-than-you” attitude so common among high-billing-rate professionals.  they’re all comfortable, easy-to-get-along-with, dapper, handsome and imminently likeable.  i often wonder how i was ever allowed to join such a fantastic club!

beautiful thing #6 – the bosnian party: at 10:15, DB and i left goncalo’s celebration and headed off to my very first bosnian dance party.  it was held at the guvernment on queens quay.  generally speaking, i’m not one for cultural gatherings, but this sounded intriguing.  and it was not disappointing, everyone there was incredibly beautiful and lively (except for this one arrogant, stocky, muscly little guy, but even he was amusing in his own way).  the men were well groomed and stylish, the women were all gorgeous and vital. unfortunately, the statistically improbably aggregation of beautiful women with long black hair and sexy dresses became a sort of personal hell of torture, given my most recent romantic aesthetic.  being my first bosnian party, i was content to sit back and observe all of the joy and excitement happening around me.

beautiful thing #7 – trying something new and unexpected:  it would have been easier to stay with my homies  and to see what the rest of the evening had in store at G-Rod’s – to maybe go out dancing somewhere but not really expand my horizons.  it was a great treat to do something spontaneous and different and new again!  i met DB’s friend, Vanja ,who runs a fantastic pastry shop not too far from here, and he was very generous and kind.  it’s fantastic to meet people like that in toronto, a place where it would be too easy for anyone to take advantage of any new person he or she meets.  what a great time!

beautiful thing #8 – random canada’s next supermodel snapshot:  now, i didn’t notice this until i got home and reviewed the photos the next day, but look at this young woman.  she has perfect features… fantastic eyes, sculpted cheeks and gorgeous lips… and that LOOK – nothing says “get the f*** away from me” like that glare!  oi vey.  there’s beauty in that simple look to be sure.  eep.

beautiful thing #9 – discovering the definition of the term “junk in yo’ trunk”:  there was a moment during the party that DB and i simultaneously observed this young lady “dancing” to a more upbeat number.  again, i don’t typically get taken in by this or that random body part, but this girl had grace, dynamism and raw energy that could not be denied or ignored.  DB was kind enough to pretend to be posing for a photo so that i could get this shot for my blog.  it’s the second cheapest thing that i’ve put into it in the past half-year, so i’ve been careful to make sure that it was worth the sacrifice.

we left at 2am and i was fairly wrecked for all of saturday.  it was a busy week – lots of extra work, training in mississauga, making a new good friend, joining two meetup social groups, climbing the world’s largest free-standing structure, celebrating the departure of a beloved colleague and being surrounded by hot, undulating bosnians.  if this week is any indication, it’s going to be a fantastic summer.

- g

adventure cost:
a couple of rounds at brin: $40.00
overpaying for dinner and martinis at the brasserie: $60.00
cover at the guvernment: $10.00
a couple of rounds at guvernment: $40.00
way-overtipping the coatcheck twice because i lost my chit for my bag: $10.00
taxi home because i had missed the last subway home: $23.00

last year, i missed the opportunity to participate in the challenge of climbing the stairs of the cn tower, and i was absolutely not about to pass on the chance to do it this year.  on wednesday, a friend of mine in edmonton was considering taking a highly sought after job that would mean taking a step down a rung of the “job title ladder”, but a huge climb upwards and outwards in terms of professional breadth and career development.  i think that the obviousness of my choice told me a lot about myself that i’ve probably known, but not thought about for some time, whereas her utter confusion and uncertainty spoke volumes about her.  this continuum of commitment presents itself to us every single moment of every single day, but it somehow never gets easier to deal with.

 climbing stairs sounds simple – you lift one leg forward and upwards and place it on a step.  then, you push your weight down on the first leg, shifting your weight forward, and you use the momentum of your weight transfer to swing your second leg (if a second leg is available) forwards and upwards past the first leg to the step above it.  and then you repeat the process in mirror fashion.  the entire process often takes less than a second and requires virtually no effort or thought for the vast majority of human beings.  therefore, the choice to perform this action 1,776 times is undiluted by complexities of consequence or alternative.

choosing to leave a job, or a home, or a lover, seem  completely different activities  entirely.  after you take the first step, it often becomes very difficult to see the consequences beyond the second or third step.  i think that is why so many decisions create so much stress and fear in so many of us.  the risk that the second step will present impossible challenges or hardship that we cannot possibly be prepared to face scares us all.  and the third step – well, there’s clearly an “escalating” probability that that step will be altogether so dangerous and complicated that no one no matter how capable or competent would ever have the means to deal with it.  far better to stay on the landing and look up at what only “could be”.

race time came and our team assembled.  seven great people and me, all choosing to maniacally perform a feat which taken as a whole is so abnormal, so depleting, and strangely, so lacking in achievement (reckoned here by the futility of taking absolutely the least convenient, most strenuous, and least desirable path up a tower, only to take the fastest, most expedient, least exhausting means down to the original starting point) for the sake of what?  challenge and achievement for its own sake?  financial contribution to a cause that might never be won?  to have a fun time and get some exercise?  self knowledge? every participant had their own reason for participating and i have to believe that each and every one of these reasons is an excellent one, because we all committed to this approach of taking the next step forward, no matter how difficult or tiring the last 999 steps were, and knowing full well that the next 777 of them would be harder still.

my friend and i spoke for half an hour on our cell phones as she drove to her new home in edmonton’s sprawling suburbia and i wandered aimlessly around the base of the tower that i was to climb the next evening.  we discussed literally dozens of possible branches to which her imminent decision could lead, the possible outcomes that were clear and certain, and many of the ones that were not.  over the course of the conversation, it struck me that it didn’t matter which turn she took – to take the job or to stay at her present one – the (admittedly metaphorical) consequence would be the same: there would be another different step waiting for her immediately afterwards.  and so it is with so many of the choices we make and even with the ones that are thrust upon us.  we move a leg forward and upwards, shift our weight, and repeat in mirror fashion.  step one is necessarily different than step two, and even though step two might look different than step two(a), step three awaits with equal certainty, and in any case, the participant’s response must be the same.  move forward and upwards, shift, repeat.

i pride myself on my health and fitness, my above-averageness, and the joy that my lack of infirmity brings me on a daily basis.  i was proud of my achievement of 21:16, even though i had planned to finish much quicker.  i was also proud of my friends who finished faster than me, in my friend jim’s case, considerably faster than me, because i also admire his abilities and his appreciation for life and his own abilities.  i was proud of the people who finished after me, because i knew just how hard a challenge this was, how easy it would be to give up and fold and quit the challenge half-way.  and i was even proud of the people who had to stop and give up, because they had made the decision to try – to take that first step.

my friend decided not to take the new job, citing many excellent reasons.  i was a little disappointed at her for not trying the new challenge, but i was also proud of her decision to commit to what for her had been a complicated and difficult choice.  step 2 and step 2(a) for her were not so very different after all.  i was no more or less proud when 30 minutes later, she reversed her decision and then decided to take her new job, because like i said, step 2(a) and step 2 were not so very different. 

so, i think that is the nature of all choices.  while they can never actually be unmade, every time we make a choice for this or that thing, we immediately open ourselves to the next and different step – the next decision to make .  even if the decision looks a lot like taking a step backward, it’s really a completely different step.  we are every day and every hour and every second moving forward and upwards, even if sometimes, as they do in the seemingly endlessly vertical tunnel that is the base of the cn tower, all the steps look the same.  every step brings a slightly (on in some cases, radically) different challenge and might make us more and more weary and cause us more and more hesitation and reluctance, to the very point where we just don’t remember why we took that first step in the beginning – where we just want to get on that elevator and stop climbing.  you lose your breath, your chest tightens, sweat streams into your eyes and to the corner of your lip, your legs turn to stone, the coursing blood in your temples drum out conscious thought, and even your hands go numb – you choke on the effort that it has taken to come only this far and you wretch at the distance yet to be travelled, knowing how depleted and disheveled you are after only this much of the journey.  the way that i’ve chosen to stay focused is to remember how simple the whole thing really is.  keep moving that leg forward one step at a time.  until the elevator ride.

thursday was a good day.

- g

song of the day for climbing up very large freestanding buildings: one step closer, linkin park

ok, i've procrastinated pretty seriously on the fundraising aspect of this activity, but it's still an important event. imason and i are sponsoring two teams to climb the 1,776 stairs up the cn tower this upcoming thursday. it would be greatly appreciated if you could show your support for the fabulous work that the incredible organization the world wildlife fund have done for conservation and the preservation of endangered species throughout the world. but even more important, it would be great if you could help me to dig myself out of the hole of commitment that i've made to raising the $500 or so in the next three days. $20s and $50s sponsorships will be rewarded by a visit from me in the year 2007 and possibly a kiss or a slap on the back, depending on the size of the contribution. or, rather, if you do pledge me, i promise NOT to perform the previously cited acts of gratitude. thanks all!!!!

click here to pledge me!!

- g