I would like to point out a few things that are awesome with this picture:

First, the office side of our loft is kicking some serious tech butt. I mean, c'mon... cabling, soldering gear, compressed air, cable ties, tools, power strip, set of drawers filled with countless tech bits (just off camera to the left), all within arm's reach. Good lighting, peripherals handy... what more could a geek ask for?!

Also note the installation of Ubuntu onto this lovely small form factor PC we just put together for the cottage. I'm both excited and nervous, being a relative Linux n00b and setting it up for family. But hey, it beats having them know just enough about Windows to be dangerous, and being a bazillion miles away when they get the thing loaded with spyware.

I think I'm both the saviour and bane of existence of family and friends who hang out up there. It's going to be rigged with high speed internet over fixed wireless for six months of the year, and I'm attaching a computer to the wall. I mean.. I know this is the place that people go to get away from tech... but really, you can just ignore it if you want!

The plan is thus: we're going to be working remotely from the cottage (in Muskoka, a couple hours north of Toronto) for most of July, hence the need for intarwebs up there. We're also bringing Chris's sons up there the whole time! Beats hanging out with us boring people in an Oakland warehouse :) I'm so excited. Not only have I not spent much time at the beloved cottage since childhood, but the boys will get to do all sorts of cool stuff... tubing, finding interesting people to hang out with, sailing, swimming, hiking, etc etc.

Yes, this will be the view out our "office" window for a month... please, hold your sympathy cards until the end.

We'll also be going up to Deep River to see Marg shine in the lead of Evita at the end of the month, then spending some time in Toronto too (and going to see Evil Dead, go Nug!).

The cottage itself is even getting a little bit of fame, as it is apparently featured in the current edition of all magazines in The Beer Store throughout Ontario, in a feature on, uh, beer + cottages. So if anyone happens to pick it up, check for my photo credit :)

Flights are booked in this complicated little dance that involves us flying to Madison on the 5th to retrieve the boys, and then driving on up to Muskoka. We'll be rolling back into California on the 2nd of August. Suzann is graciously being surrogate kitty mom for the month.

So right now, we're working our butts off for CivicActions after just having closed yesterday on our part of the first stage of a major project, and kicking off on another even more major one tomorrow, which is the new website for... dun dun dun... Amnesty International! Such an exciting and huge project. So psyched.

My role: theme (ie. take their graphic designs/branding -> Drupal template) a base Drupal install in two weeks (and I work part time on it)... in English and Arabic. Suddenly wishing I'd pursued that desire to learn some Arabic after taking that singing class...