Back and More

I’m really tired as I write this — it seems I’ve been tired a lot lately (lack of sleep per­haps due to the unusual hot nights we’ve been get­ting this week, etc.). Nev­er­the­less, I wanted to try and update this blog before it got much more stale. And it was get­ting quite stale indeed. No crunch left at all. (See, I told you I was get­ting tired).

So what has hap­pened in the past 3 weeks or so?

1. The rest of the trip went with­out any trans­porta­tion prob­lems (aside from a cou­ple of hours on the run­way at Laguardia, but from what I hear, that’s par for the course for most US travel this summer.)
2. I got to hear my Nom­i­na­tive Pre­lude: Cas­tles in the Air played by the pianist to whom it was ded­i­cated, Pat Plude, and it was a great expe­ri­ence. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard any­thing that I’ve writ­ten, and I’ve come to the con­clu­sion that I have to try to write more music. It’s just a hard thing to do, requir­ing a lot of time and energy, so I think I’ll only do it, for the time being, unless I know I’ll get a per­for­mance. I have enough unper­formed music (an Orches­tral Tone Poem, a cou­ple of cham­ber works — one for Vio­lin, Viola and Piano, a short work for Piano, Celeste and Vibra­phone, a study for 2 pianos that I wrote in col­lege, and a half of a Cham­ber Opera — all that have never been heard out­side of my mind or their notes banged out in a prac­tice room or piano some­where) to last me for quite a while, thanks.
3. I saw a few old friends at the Walden School Reunion, but sur­pris­ingly, the years that I attended (the late 70s) were some­what under­rep­re­sented. I saw plenty of peo­ple who were older than I was by about 20 or 30 years, and also sev­eral who were 20 years my junior, but few who were my age. It made for a unique social situation.
4. I had a great time vis­it­ing my par­ents, and was able to enjoy some quiet hours surf­ing the web on their back deck. Warm, breezy after­noons in the shade with hum­ming­birds and wi fi, as well as gourmet meals (both out and at home) are what I will remem­ber the most from this trip.
5. That missed oppor­tu­nity on the road was yet another of those times in life where you think you’ve missed the boat, only to find a much bet­ter ves­sel float in behind it. Yes, another oppor­tu­nity pre­sented itself a week and a half ago. I had an inter­view at IBM (yes, that IBM) for a 6-month con­tract as an Infor­ma­tion Architect/UI Designer. There was a mes­sage from them in the affir­ma­tive before I made it home from the inter­view (!). A new record, the guy at the agency plac­ing me said. So in about 11 days, my life changes sig­nif­i­cantly, as I say good-bye to my cur­rent part-time employer, and hello to a new con­tract in Burn­aby. It’s a bit of a dis­tance from here (about an hour’s com­mute on the buses and sky­train). Hope­fully I’ll be able to use that time to catch up on pod­casts and books on tape. Too bad that I can’t com­pose on the sky­train. I think I’ll ded­i­cate my next blog post­ing to my old employer, who deserves some men­tion (I’ve always been really care­ful about the work vs. per­sonal life vs. loud mur­mur thing.)
6. We cel­e­brated Canada Day this year with some (tem­po­rary) tat­toos of the Maple Leaf (see above). We’ve even had a chance to cel­e­brate my new con­tract with a lovely din­ner at Bridges with a view of the sunset.

Have I got­ten caught up? Well, a few other things:

In 4 days, we’ll have been liv­ing in British Colum­bia 2 years. We took out a 2-year mort­gage on this condo, so with any luck, we’ll be all paid-up in about 6 days. We haven’t thought about a mort­gage burn­ing party (It sounds so won­der­fully 1960-ish, doesn’t it?) but maybe we’ll do that.

The time spent trav­el­ing truly showed me that I do indeed belong here in Van­cou­ver. Despite some nice expe­ri­ences on my trip to the East­ern US, I did really miss this place, and was extremely happy to return to the beau­ti­ful city and moun­tains I now, with­out any doubt, call home.