i've recently started a new project in Canada's national capitol, Ottawa.  i've had a long fascination with Ottawa because it is the home of some of Canada's most historic and important institutions - Parliament, the Supreme Court and the National Gallery of Canada to name just a few.  i used to watch the House of Commons Question Period on public television and felt that i could directly observe (if not quite participate in) the process of democracy shaping my world.

these days i have quite a different feeling than i did twenty-some years ago.  each week that i've been here, i would walk down Wellington Street past Parliament and the Supreme Court and the National Archives and wonder how the world got this way. debates about constitutional reform seem like a thing of history.  discussions about human rights and legal ethics are things that we engage in regarding other countries, but there appears to be so little attention paid to these matters here (at least in the popular press).  maybe all of the really hard questions have been dealt with and we Canadians are just doing our best to keep our heads above water while the globe's economic and political structures pitch and sway with dervish-like abandon. 

i really don't mean for this to seem disdainful or contemptuous.  Canadians are fiercely proud of their incomparable good fortune - we have an abundance of everything that is scarce in the rest of the world combined with a degree of safety and security that is virtually unprecedented in the history of the world.  i know that i am fiercely proud of this state of affairs - even as i worry that we are not as contemplative or vigilant a nation as i feel that we used to be.  

however, my ruminations do make me feel that it is important to speak up against something like SOPA.  SOPA has the power to destabilize the very internet - the thing that pays my salary and gives me freedom to access information in a way that i can directly control.  the internet has broken my dependence on mass media for ideas and information, and has empowered me to draw my own conclusions on what the world is and where it is heading by allowing me to find a contemplative and vigilant community that cares about issues of concern, rather than the biased concerns of populist media conglomerates susceptible to corporate interests.  while SOPA is not directly about quashing the democratic voice of the people of the world, it has the power to censure and constrain it, and that is why i think that it is harmful.  the thin edge of the wedge.  the edge of the slippery slope.   

there are altogether too many fronts on which our modern society is on the brink.  therefore, i feel that it is not too much trouble for me to participate in what might be the largest online protest in the history of online to voice my concern.  i hope that during this week, you will think about this issue and do what you can to express your concern in what way you can as well.

thanks for your attention.  

- g

after a suitable pause to mourn the passing of one of the great heroes of my day, steve jobs, i am back to the reality of my move.

i was somewhat overwhelmed today by the amount of work that i have yet to do before i leave and so i took some extra time off from work to try and recover lost ground. i sent the last of the stuff i intend to send by parcel post, and am left with the bare minimum of stuff that i think that i will need to move across country and to survive while i re-establish myself in toronto once i get there. i won't have time to get my car fully checked out and serviced before i depart, so i hope that i've taken good enough care of it over the years that it won't let me down on the road.

tomorrow, i abandon my desk, bed and sofa. that will leave me with a few knapsacks of clothes, toiletries, and a box of computer stuff to truck across the country, along with two cats, cat food and a litter box. for travelling light, there's still a lot of preparation involved.

i have not had the opportunities to say goodbye to a lot of people here who i really cherish. it's a crime really, but a lot of it has to do with work that i was doing to help a friend, so i hope that things will balance out karmically.

lots to do tomorrow. many loose ends to tie off before i start the full-court press to pull up all the pegs and get mobile sunday. things will get hectic, but then i will be able to really enjoy the drive out east.

- g

this is me totally failing to provide a better post than what i promised yesterday.  

reiterating that if you move more than 50km, take that week off from work.  and make sure no one needs you to do anything in the short term.

i'll explain later.  ...but don't hold your breath.

- g

i packed the last of my clothes and stuff that will not be needed until i arrive or that won't be travelling with me. i am now officially living out a suitcase for the next two weeks. if i see you in that time, forgive my clothes for smelling musty or of cat panic. i have three or four more days of work, after which time i will break down my computers and i will really be living on the fringes.

working while you're moving is a challenge. if you have to move across the country, i highly recommend taking the time off from work to focus on the move, rather than trying to elegantly coordinate your schedule, workload and move timetable. it will end up in a chaotic mess and things will invariably get missed. i speak from experience because i've never ever followed this advice.

i did have a chance to have a very grand dinner with some very old and dear friends tonight. i will miss them a lot. but it has been a great opportunity to spend time with them here and reconnect. if nothing else comes from this experience, i will have gained more incentive to use google chat or Skype when i move back to toronto.

tomorrow, i ship almost the last of my things and take a bunch of stuff to my parents house for storage. i have my desk, my sofa and my bed remaining. that's pretty scant places for my cats to run and climb and lounge on. but fortunately all of those things have a place to go on this end, so i'm clear to travel light.

wow - this was a terrible post. sorry for just phoning it in. i'll try and put more though into tomorrow's post.

- g

today didn't go quite as expected. all i was hoping to accomplish was to drop off some shelves to my parents and maybe move some boxes around. instead, i spent the entire afternoon cleaning my dad's basement apartment.

his condition doesn't make him as sensitive as he should be to the state of things around him, and he's seemed to be content with his accommodations for a long time. but with a week left in the city and limited time left to look after him directly, i felt that i needed to do as much as i could to sort him out and make him as comfortable as i could. so i moved all of his boxes and files and furnitures and dusted and washed and wiped everything down. for three solid hours i cleaned and sorted and organized. the chaos seemed limitless.

while i was down on my hands and knees, scrubbing tiles cindarella-style that had not been cleaned in what looked like a decade, i felt really really good. it wasn't much, but i was finally looking after my parents. honouring them if you will. i realize that this is just the start of my responsibility and that it will get harder before it gets easier, but i was really glad to have a chance to do this for him.

in the end, my dad's suite is going to look very much like my old place, which is comfortable and tidy. i think that it will be a huge improvement. and it also justifies my shedding of all of my stuff. if it makes my father a little more comfortable until he can join me out east, then it's a success all around.

one more week. that's all the time i have to do a mountain of work.

- g