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...

I've been wanting to get recycling going here in the building for a while. They don't offer it because a) it's zoned commercial so it's not free, and b) it's a high traffic, sketchy area and anywhere that you put out a bin, it's going to be rifled through and trash thrown into it, which they then charge you a fine for.

But screw that, I figured there has to be a way better than driving our stuff across town to a recycling centre.  Found this, which would be cheap and convenient, but they don't offer locked carts.  I asked what other options we'd have, and she said that the driver can't go inside a building, but it can be behind a locked gate that he would be given a key/passcode for.  Well, there's not really anything like that here.  But... wait, says Chris... if he can have a key for a gate, why can't we lock the bin on our own? 

"Well.. yes... I guess there's no reason you couldn't do that!" 

Oh, if I had a nickel for every time someone's said that to me  :) 

Home brew strap/lock coming up!

Then we get to be the building heros for maybe five minutes at least...

~~~

In other home brew news, we went to the Maker Faire on the weekend, albeit briefly due to the choir craziness.  Man oh man it was amazing.  And we only saw like half of it and didn't have time to actually participate in the tons of activities.  I missed a Nabaztag hacking booth, waaaah!  We were totally drooling over the rapid prototyping equipment.  These guys are running an interesting service.  Pay monthly to get access to work on all their machinery.  Pay for only the materials you use.  Groovy.

Whew, so much going on that I can hardly keep up. 

Things currently occupying my consciousness...

Well, I'm typing this on my new (used) MacBook.  I've had very little (almost no) time to do anything with it other than installing Firefox and some couch surfing.  So far I'm most impressed with the matte black finish  :)  Love the keyboard, although it's really going to take a while to get used to the keyboard shortcuts.  Looking forward to spending more time on it and really making it my own.

Trying to plan out scheduling and internet connectivity for some time at the cottage in Muskoka this summer.  Ah the joys of a portable job!  I think we're going to put Ubuntu on a small form factor PC for up there, and see how family and friends take to adopting Linux...

Oh yes, and voip!  That will be a fun experiment.  Trying to find a pay-as-you-go service with a call-in number in the 905 area code.

Starting to get going on my real vision for StG.TV, but not having a lot of time lately.  Various client sites in panic mode.  Chris and I have agreed that we will shift our hours so that I have a bit of extra time to focus on the project and grad school application stuff this year.

Ah and choir!  Our concerts this weekend went quite well... a couple of relatively minor goofs during the shows, but I'm really feeling a personal triumph.  I rocked my solo despite being petrified each time up until just a week before the concerts.  We're just about to get the recordings from March's concert, so I'm hoping May's won't be too far behind.

Ordered an evaporative cooler from NewEgg today to try and get some cooler air and humidity going in this place on roasty days.  

Going to a work retreat next weekend, and possibly London in June... and then Barcelona for a retreat and DrupalCon in September!

Can't remember if I actually posted about this, but we booked our wedding site for next year  :)  Casa Loma on November 15th!  Haven't really done much other than get that set, since all the dates up until then were already booked over a month ago, yeesh.

I still can't stop thinking about how beautiful Meagan was at the wedding.  I can't wait to see the professional photos.

Finally cleaned this messy loft up over the past few days.  It was so bad, my feet were always black from walking around inside.  That can't be good.  

Time to get Zoe shaved soon... I think she's uncomfortably warm some days.  I know I am  :P 

Uhmm... this post isn't nearly as interesting in real life as it sounded in my head  :)

Yay for filing!  I can see my desk again.  I'm finally reading Getting Things Done and it's very motivational.  We had been meaning to clear out some filing space, but the book reminded me how important it is to have a place for papers.

Getting things out of my head and onto paper/screen is seriously helping my mood.  Feeling slightly less overwhelmed...

This year is looking so much brighter than most of 2006.

I'm feeling happier, calmer, and more able to deal with the ups and downs. I was really starting to panic at my sensitivity to so many situations. Usually I'm, well, excitable, but able to handle things. It was at the point where setbacks were constantly freaking me out. So much change. Starting to feel some momentum again. Boy have I ever learned the value of momentum.

Landed fFree passes to the MacWorld Expo (priority code: DIGG [thanks stevie!]).  On that note, OMFGIPHONEWANTWANTWANT!  Wish the bugger was 3G though.

I just landed a Drupal contract, with another one in the works, which should be both a lot of fun and some much-needed income. I got into the choir, as mentioned before. We had our first rehearsal last night, and of course worked on the pieces that I practiced precisely the least :P So I didn't exactly blow anyone away with my preparation, but I did my best. It's a phenomenally talented group. I hope I can pull some of you Northern Californians out of the woodwork to catch a concert or two :D

Beautiful songs, mainly French (thank god for being Canadian), some insanely complex/fast pieces. Have a listen to #17 here. Meagan I think you'd like that one.. it's all about dryads and other delightful creatures :) But holy hell I don't know how to sing French that fast.

It's starting to really feel like home, getting involved with things locally, meeting people, etc. Actually it feels like we have a real bedroom now too. We put up the curtain track and finished the "closet" area. Pics to follow.

I also unfortunately found out that my new billing service (Verotel), while wonderful, does not operate in quite the way I thought it did, so I'm having to re-think the way I was going to run the new site. Oy. But I'm working on it. Will likely be going back to more of a membership model than the planned downloads a la carte. It's a constant reminder why so few people do what I'm doing... I must be nuts.

Word of the day: loup-garou. It means werewolf in French :)

Been shivery cold at night in this place with no heat, even with a space heater beside the bed with a closet rod thing rigged up to actually direct the heat UNDER the duvet  :P

Fondly remembering the long-ago days when I had a heated water bed, I came across the delightful concept of a heated mattress pad and found this deal to score a king sized one for $29.

Can't wait to try it out! 

Building a loft bed (among other things) in the small room as a bedroom for Chris's older son when he's here.

IT'S ALMOST DONE, IT'S ALMOST DONE!

And there's sawdust freaking EVERYWHERE. 

Would you believe that the entire long wall doesn't have studs?  There's some metal crap and the original posts on the outside of the wall and some framing around the outlet and heater... but nope, no usable studs.  So we had to put those extra supports in below.

But this is a damn sturdy bed.

The boards and cinderblocks were a nice touch, but now thanks to a Christmas/wedding present from Chris's mom, we now have a proper TV stand! This but rotated 90 degrees:

Zoe thinks it's the greatest cat cubby ever.

Got another Christmas present hand-delivered to us on Saturday, but that one wasn't nearly so pleasant...

I am getting SO much freaking spam all of a sudden. I woke up to like 300 this morning. Wtf?

Edit: DSPAM stopped working and I hadn't noticed.  Oops  :P

Finalizing the initial immigration paperwork stuff today. Ah I long for the days when life was simpler. It's a neverending parade of life altering decisions and events. I can't believe Christmas is in two weeks. It feels more like early fall here than winter. I do miss the snow :(

My dad is coming out to visit just after Christmas. I really miss him. Not like I saw him or my sister or everyone on a weekly basis or anything, but it's been many months and that's just... strange.

Some people have been paid out, at least partially, by Paymonde. There's hope of actually getting some of my money I suppose, but I'm not going to count on it for anything.

*sigh* There's just so much constantly going on that it takes so much physical and mental energy to simply live through it, let alone talk about it like I want to.

Ok, ok, this re-hurting of my back has scared enough sense into me. People keep talking about this taking months to heal, resting, needing to take really good care of it... and I'm finally listening. The back itself is feeling somewhat better but now I have this wonderful stabbing pain in my left butt cheek and down my entire leg (yes, sciatica of some sort). Yes, "taking it easy" for another month or two is seriously going to suck, but not nearly as much as it would to drag this out any longer.

Good thing I have a built-in massage therapist (ok, he's not technically one, but he gives really damn good massages) whenever I need it :)

Painkillers keep me from tensing up too much, and I'm going to do my absolute best to still take a rest and go lay down off and on. And I'll start sitting on my ball chair a little bit as I feel up to it. And gentle stretching.

~~~

After finishing the second coat of paint at least in the bedroom part of the loft, we got the clothes rods up behind the bed and were able to unpack the last boxes, move back the furniture, clean up the plastic, etc etc. It feels so wonderful to have a big, open bedroom space again! This truly is the best living space ever.

Mmmm I've been really enjoying cooking lately, but we're going out for a nice dinner tonight :) We got some sushi-making supplies today to finally try our hand at it sometime soon. Anyone else made sushi before?

Welllll, that's one coat done on the big wall. It took three tries with the colour, but this shade is perfect! It looks fantastic with the deep purple, and makes the textures of the ceiling really pop. But not at no cost -- I've been back to flat on my back in bed all evening :\ Twisty and reachy on ladder no good. Doing the first part the other day was fine... it was the rotating while on the ladder that killed me today. Le sigh.