Month: July 2018

Trip

Lovely trip so far. I assumed a lot of this trip would be spent dealing with helping my cousin, but circumstance seems to be that we haven’t ended up being able to do much for him, which is a little bit of a bummer, but it’s certainly a heck of a lot easier.

We’ve spent most of the vacation at the lake. Started out in Montreal for a day, since I’ve been near Montreal a few times, but never actually in it. We went to the science museum in the morning, and hung out with my friend Alex & his girlfriend in the afternoon. Ate Texas Barbecue the first night, and basically tapas the second day. No smoked meat, no poutine. WTF. The science museum was excellent. Big exhibit on Dreamworks (which is weird, since our friend used to work there) which was neat – maquettes, concept art, etc. A neat super-wide screen dragon flight clip, based on the How To Train Your Dragon series.

We then went upstairs, where most of the interactive exhibits are, and one of the things we had to do was try to make a little device to pull a weight down an alley that a fan was blowing down. I ended up making a binder-clip & straw “car”, which did the job, but K stuffed some foam into a tube & the tube did just about as good a job. :O

Got to Lake Meech that evening, and met up with Jussi & Kim, Kari-Michael & Deb, and hung out a bit. I think most of what we did Monday & Tuesday was just hang out & talk. Nick, Kim’s nephew (I have no idea what that makes us as relations, but it’s always nice to hang out with him), was there as well, and it turns out he knows some of Ei-Nyung’s co-workers! We might end up at the a conference he recommended this year re: accessibility. That could be pretty cool.

We went to the Ottawa Science & Tech museum, and saw the Lego Art of the Brick exhibit. Great to see in person – I’d seen pics for ages. The whole museum is really impressive, though the iPod they had on display is newer than the one in my closet. :\

Still, if you’re ever at a Wheel Of Urine, you’ve gotta spin it.

Today we hung out, went to the beach, didn’t do a ton of anything, which was great. It was the first day that J & K actually went *in* the lake, instead of just looking at the fishes, and I think they had a good time.

It’s nice up here. Hot as hell this week, but Jussi & Kim have a great setup here, and it’s also interesting to hang out with them – they eat simply, but well – the food’s nothing like what we make at home, but it’s also super delicious. It’s nice. Slower. Things can take a little more time. Obviously that’s vacation speaking, but it’s nice to slow down a bit sometimes and just relax.

I’ve been reading Dan Pfeiffer’s Yes We (Still) Can, and he was at one point hospitalized for stroke-like symptoms brought on from extreme stress & really high blood pressure. I feel like that’s where I’m at a good portion of the time. Being able to take a minute & slow down, brew coffee slowly, cook a simple meal, and just stare at the lake for a bit… yeah. It’s what I needed.