I have committed the profoundly naïve: I attempted to see two major American cities in four days. Let it be said that while it's definitely possible, I don't recommend it -- especially if your feet aren't very cooperative. Here, on day four in my Washington DC hotel room, my feet are dangling off of the bed and are in considerable pain. The tiny blisters on my toes are a testament to my daring, as well as my ignorance concerning the task.

Now with that out of the way, here's a quick run-down of my various sights and experiences :-)

NYC

New York is BIG. I know that it looks rather tiny on the map, but trust me, it's massive. With 8 million people in the city alone and 20million in the surrounding area, New York is too big to really experience in two months let alone two days. Like most places worth seeing, I think that someone has to live there to really understand it. For my part, I was just happy to have a few days to take it in. For the majority of my trip (save for a quick ride on the Staten Island Ferry) I was Manhattan Guy, so everything that follows can only apply to that tiny island.

I'll start with the simple: navigation. Manhattan is a narrow sliver island with only a few major avenues running North/South and more than one hundred streets running East/West. As a result of this sort of layout, walking 3blocks East is roughly equivalent to walking ten blocks North anywhere on the island. People jaywalk like crazy there, right in front of cops in fact. I can only assume that it's totally legal there. Traffic is always rough, regardless of the time of day, and is in fact just like you see in the movies: about 90% cabs... except that they're not yellow, but rather a kind of nasty orange colour.

As for sightseeing, I went a little crazy. In the space of two days, I managed to visit every landmark in the city and see/do exactly what I wanted to, which in most cases was just see that place and try to understand what it must be like to walk in its shadow every day. I went to Central Park, which again, is well reflected in the movies. It's a massive park nested in the midst of millions of people crammed onto an island. And it's not a park as you might have come to expect in your own town, no Central Park has a giant pond, a carousel, a baseball park and dozens of quiet trails, bridges, trees, and creeks. It's the result of more than one hundred years of curating and management... it's amazing.

I also found time to visit the United Nations, Ground Zero, The Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, Madison Square Gardens, Grand Central Station, and the studios for CBS & NBC as well as Ed McMahon's theater where David Letterman does his show now. As per Stephen's advice, I took the (free) Staten Island Ferry just long enough to get reasonably close to the Statue of Liberty, and I even found the LEGO store... how awesome is that?

Some interesting tidbits about New York:

• The street food is amazing. There's nothing quite like lamb souvlaki on a pita at 11pm at the corner of Madison & 51st. I also tried both the bagels and the pretzels. Sadly, I was unimpressed on both fronts.
• The city hums, but it doesn't seem to sit well with me. It could be the American flags everywhere, or the general lack-of-pleasantries common with Americans, but I didn't feel very comfortable there.
• While cabbies are everywhere, they're not as crazy or chatty as the ones you see in movies. In my time there, I took 3 cabs: the first one was an old, Asian man, super-friendly, who'd been doing this for 23years. After all this time, his English was still pretty sketchy, but I appreciated his take on what it's like to do this kind of work for so long. The other two drivers however were like riding with a robot: little or no conversation, and very broken English when we did have to communicate.
• Rockefeller Center has tables & chairs out front in the summer since it's obviously too cold for an ice rink.
• The subway system isn't nearly as impressive as I was expecting. Obviously, I was only around for a couple days and only rode it twice, but I got the distinct impression that it was built for commuters rather than residents. Its cars are smaller than Toronto's, lacks helpful signage and doesn't service large portions of the island. Also, it smells like Toronto's subway system, which isn't a good or a bad thing, just an interesting curiosity.

Washington DC

After walking my feet off in NYC, I took a quick nap overnight and headed to Washington DC by train the next day. Let me just say that if the option is available, train is definitely the way to travel. Walk a few blocks to the station, wait less than a half hour to board, ride in comfort with free wifi and a power outlet for a few hours and then walk a few minutes to your hotel. It's cheaper, faster, cleaner, and far more comfortable. Also, the free wifi let me play Gowalla all the way from NYC to DC ;-)

Washington DC is a tiny town masquerading as a state within the larger state of Virginia. For the most part, the city appears to be a collection of government buildings peppered with statues and monuments all in the classical style. More than a few times I've found myself comparing DC to a modern Rome with all of the buildings still standing.

There's a pretty obvious racial divide here. While there's clearly a healthy mix of black & white in DC, a stroll through Union Station or down Pennsylvania Avenue will illustrate the imbalance. While I've seen a number of black people walking about with bluetooth headsets & blackberries, in two days here and I've not seen a single white person in a service-related job. It's as if the white population has "allowed" the blacks into the management sector, but somehow sees itself as "above" working at McDonald's or waiting tables. I've only been here two days though, so could be totally wrong on this one.

Like NYC, I went a bit crazy with the sightseeing here, and my feet may never forgive me. As soon as I arrived yesterday, I dumped my gear in my hotel room and started gallivanting. I visited the Library of Congress and did a quick tour through there, took some pictures at the Capitol, and then headed down to the National Archives, The Washington Monument, The Smithsonian, The WW2 Memorial, The Vietnam War Memorial, The Korean War Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial.

Yesterday's highlight though was without a doubt, the National Archives, where I actually saw the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. The documents are ancient and faded, most of the text of which has been nearly erased with time. Regardless, it was rather inspiring to actually see it and read the words "We the People" knowing the reasoning behind those words. As Canadians, I think we often forget how different we are from the Americans: the Ideas that formed this country are very different from those that formed our own. Frankly, I think that even though we've been neighbours for all this time, there's still a lot we have to learn from each other on this front.

That night I gave my feet a nice hot bath and slept in today to recover before heading out to Arlington National Cemetery. Let me just tell you that no matter how big you think it is, no matter how strongly you might think it will affect you, you really can't prepare yourself for that place. There are over 350 000 people buried there, for each headstone, one life... and the stones go on, and on, and on, and on. Past presidents are buried here, including JFK, but I spent my time just trying to take in the acres of death. Over 200years have past since that place was founded, and nowadays they bury around 25 people as a daily average. It's a testament to patriotism and to the judgement of American leadership.

The last stop on my trip was to the White House, a palace surrounded by iron fences and concrete barricades. I took in the view from behind the distant gate, and didn't go for the tour (if there in fact was one). After Arlington, I wasn't really interested.

DC is an interesting town, with ancient classical buildings everywhere you look, and metal detectors in its food courts. It's the kind of place that everyone should visit at least once, but I don't think I'll be coming back.

So that's it for my trip. I had a really good time travelling, but will be glad to be back on Canadian soil tomorrow. America is scary, but that's a topic for another blog post some other time. I'll leave you with a link to my Gowallawalk map, a plotting of various places I've been, including all of the spots I visited on this trip.

I know what you're thinking, and for the most part, it's totally true: these things are boring. There was no shortage of people asking to speak to amendments, amend amendments, or just completely go off on irrelevant tangents, but that's all sort of the point. This is democracy at work: an informed group of people coming together to talk about what we, as a party, want to do in the future.

The process (at least for the Greens, I can't speak for other parties) is twofold: policy and constitutional motions, or in other words, what we stand for, how we will govern ourselves. For my part, I spent my workshop time (the portion of the day in which we break into smaller groups to discuss one of the two aforementioned tracks) in the policy conversations because that's where hang my hat: in the heart of the process, rather than the method.

We talked about and changed party policy on everything from the authority and ownership of the Bank of Canada, to the decriminalisation of polyamory. Some of these motions passed, while others were met with rather strong opposition, but everyone was candid and civil, and in the end we learnt to speak with one voice.

On the issue of polyamoury, one of the most controversial motions, I personally spoke to the plenary session (where everyone, from all groups gather to approve/reject the findings of the workshops), a rather intimidating act I must say. I stood in support of the motion, calling for "moral courage" to stand on what's right, though politically inconvenient and was joined by a number of others who felt much the same.

In the end however, the majority voted it down, in large part due to a lack of understanding of what was being moved (the workshop worked very hard to adjust the motion but it still needs work), as well as a lack of knowledge about the very real fact that conjugal relationships in excess of two people are illegal in this country. Here's the law, in case you were curious:

1. Every one who
   1. practises or enters into or in any manner agrees or consents to practise or enter into
      1. any form of polygamy, or
      2. any kind of conjugal union with more than one person at the same time,
      whether or not it is by law recognized as a binding form of marriage, or
   2. celebrates, assists or is a party to a rite, ceremony, contract or consent that purports to sanction a relationship mentioned in subparagraph (a)(i) or (ii),
   is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.
Section 293(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada

Translation: if you're in a conjugal poly relationship, or even attend a wedding-ish party in support of a poly relationship, you're a criminal, and could potentially be thrown in jail for up to five years.

I stood for this because it's the Right thing to do, and even though it didn't pass this time around, I'm confident that with a little work on the education front, we'll see it through in the near future.

So that's it for me right now. Short synopsis: democracy exciting, you should try it :-) My next post, if I can cobble the time together, will be from New York, and/or Washington DC.

I've made a special effort to get out to see as many people as possible, as well as re-sample the various tasty food joints scattered around town. I've also been playing Gowalla like a madman. More than 1500 check-ins in only a few days, acquiring all but one of the items. Big thanks to Stephanie who emailed me the locations of a few she found with Gowallatools, that was really cool of her.

Outside of the fluffy Gowallaness, I've taken a lot of time to reacquaint myself with the city. I've been thinking about moving back here ever since I left, and I want to take this opportunity to try to re-imagine my life had I never left, or if I were to return some day soon. It's not something I can really have covered in the few short days I've been here, but I hope to have something worked out before I leave.

A lot of it has to do with my social network. In Vancouver, I feel as though my friends there see me as the person I was back in 2001 when I ran away from that place. Here, I see the person I want to be in the eyes of my Toronto friends.

Tomorrow afternoon I'll be renting a bike and Stephen & I will go for a ride across town. I hope to visit High Park, and maybe even Robin (HEY ROBIN, TXT ME BACK ALREADY!) Then I'm hoping to see Tanya in the evening as well. Coming up this weekend is the Green Party National Convention, which so far doesn't look all that exciting but I'm hoping that looks are deceiving on this one. After that, I'm headed to NYC, then DC, then back here for Sheena's Wedding and then back to my other home in Vancouver. Keep your eyes on Twitter feed for more up-to-the-present detail and pictures, and I'll try to post again here soon.

I may also decide to abandon all attempts at making it pretty... 'cause well... I suck at that :-)

Violence has its place, and that place is when words are no longer enough. Anyone paying attention to what's going on in the world can tell you that the gap between the rich and the poor is dangerously wide and that the priorities of the rich minority are not in the best interests of the poor majority. Ecological disasters like the BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico and the recent world-wide economic collapse are symptoms of a greater problem, one the "civil" protesters are campaigning for... if only someone were listening.

But no one is listening... at least no one with any measurable power. Instead, our leaders erect fences and spend billions dollars on making sure that the voices of the people aren't heard at these events. They take our money and construct elaborate indoor lakes to placate the media, while they conduct the business of governance behind closed doors. This is not democracy, and people insisting that standing in a street and waving a sign is the best response to such injustice just don't get it: we should be angry! Those are our streets, our spaces, and our leaders, talking about issues that relate directly to our lives and they shut us out with wire fences, concrete walls, and thousands of violent police? Where's the rage?

Martin Luther King had it right when he said that "a riot is the language of the unheard". The overwhelming majority of Canadians want action on things like the environment, peace, the economy, and poverty, but rather than moving on these issues, our leaders consistently work against our interests. Chants and sign-waving clearly aren't getting it done, and so a few among us have started smashing things. It's not intelligent, it's not tactical, it doesn't even have to make sense. It's rage, and it's not only justified in such a situation, but called for.

That video clip is about oppression:

1. Convince the majority that opposition isn't worthwhile.
2. Beat the remainder into submission.
3. Simultaneously encourage and incite violence from the reactionary minority, so that the press sides against them. This returns us to #1.

I'll be the first to concede that violence is not the answer here, but the time for chanting and sign-waving is through. I don't want to hear any more of this "if the violent people would just stop, then maybe they'd listen" business because sadly, that's just not true. Something has got to be done, or soon it might not just be a Starbucks and a few police cars that get smashed.

This time around, we didn't talk about my current employer so much as how my life was moving in general. I was on the verge of my 31st birthday and coming out of both a romantic relationship and a (thankfully unrelated) business co-founding partnership and "what's next" was the primary topic of discussion.

He asked about my political career, specifically whether I'd run in the next election, and I explained that I'd love to if the riding association in North Vancouver-Seymour is unable to find a candidate, but outside of that, every topic we hit on didn't produce any enthusiasm from me. The truth is, I haven't been motivated by much since I moved here. I've been unable to get excited about the activist scene, and frankly my job stopped being interesting over a year ago.

This line of thinking gets worse when I consider that about six months ago I was in the very same position I am now. I was re-evaluating my whole reasoning for being in Vancouver and was so desperate for something to hold me here that I jumped at the chance to start a company with a stranger -- which for the record is not a good idea :-)

Since our conversation though, I've come to realise that too many of my decisions in this life so far have been ones governed by how those actions might affect others. This isn't to say that I've been a terribly selfless person, rather that I've let my own happiness be hindered by whether or not decision x was a Right decision, or whether it would make people I love unhappy.

I'm not going to do that anymore.

This can mean a variety of things. I might take dance classes, or join a choir, or even take this job. I might move to Stockholm, Amsterdam, Berlin, or Seoul too... I'm not sure yet. I'm just done with letting my happiness be governed by externalities.

31years in... I guess it's better late than never.

Merry Wang, an old friend of Noreen's from way back finally got around to marrying her boyfriend and she was kind enough to let me come along so I could see her in her pretty dresses (I love weddings!)

This isn't a self-reflective post or anything like that. I was just reminded tonight about how I don't blog enough anymore and I thought that this was a perfect excuse.

Merry was stunning in her wedding dress. The reception seems to have gone off well, and everyone seems to have had fun. I even ran into Katie Rife, a girl I knew back in high school who followed a similar path to my own: she got the hell out of this place and moved somewhere exciting, only to return later, unsure of what to do with her life. While for me it was writing code in Toronto, for her it was getting a Masters in percussion in San Francisco, but I get the feeling that we're in much the same boat.

My brother did the music for the night. (I got in as his "assistant") and I got to spend some time with Noreen as well which was nice because I've missed her. I'll see her again for a Noreen-centric shindig on Monday though. I hear she's bringing me some Cap'n Crunchberries from Americaland!

That's all to report at the moment. It's just nice see people you care about being happy :-)

It's time that we all wake up and accept that Israel's actions are those of a terrorist state. No other nation in the world is afforded the kind of support the West gives them, especially in light of the crimes committed by their government.

The Gaza blockade is now in its fourth year. The people in that region are being denied everything from food to musical instruments, and now Israel has attacked ships flying flags of NATO and EU countries in international waters. Whether or not you can accept that opposition to Israel is not the same as antisemetism is no longer the issue. Israel is using Western support in the form of military and financial aid to do evil.

Note however that I am not making the case for the Palestinians here. Frankly, I don't think that Hamas is any better than the Israeli government. No, this is just a plea that we take a moment to understand the situation for what it is and act accordingly.

Our politicians, and even our media are terribly afraid of being branded antisemetic and so the cheerleading for Israel continues. Seeing the situation for what it is: two terrorist governments duking it out with millions of civilians in-between, has to start with us.

Your action-list:

1. Accept the above
2. Contact your MP and help them understand that you and many others have accepted this and that it's about time that they started representing you and call for sanctions.
3. More ideas are welcome.

One truth about web development though is that these things never go they way you plan them. Plan for a Facebook-like site and you'll never get there because the investment of time, energy and money is just so high that the site will never get off the ground without going live (at least partially) at first. So I'm not bothered by the fact that we've cut a number of features -- it's normal, and we'll launch on the 15th with something that's both useful and pretty.

This weekend, I'm up in Kelowna with The Fam. Bowing to pressure from the parents, I've brought Stephanie with me to finally meet them and it was a little rough on her but she's managed admirably. The full family showed up for dinner though, which was more of a surprise than she was probably prepared for, but she seems alright. Most of you reading this blog know that my parents are pretty cool people, but it's rough your first time out if you're in the Girlfriend role, and she seemed to do alright :-)

As for how we got here, yes, I drove. Some of you may find it hard to believe, but I am in fact a licensed driver, capable of traversing rain, snow, and hail-drenched highways -- a feat I was forced to perform yesterday, on a moonless night. The highways were really quite scary, but we did fine, so a big :-P to the doubters out there :-)

We've got one more half-day here tomorrow and then we're heading back home. I have to get some work done in that time, but tonight I think I'll just get some sleep because I'm really quite tired. Steph's hopped up on candy at the moment though so I may have to kick her out of the room. As a closing note, I'm sorry that I've not been posting much in here lately. I've just been too overrun with work to do on these three fronts. I'm not going to abandon this site, but it's likely that I won't be posting as often as I have in the past. I do have a private post up though for those who are interested :-)

I'm busy. Incredibly busy. Some time ago Shawna pointed me to an article about how busy people live a sort of half life. We never do anything completely, are never able to invest ourselves in something whole-heartedly because we're constantly juggling too much. This has always been a problem for me, but at least now I'm starting to recognise it. The next step of course is to do something about it... suggestions are welcome :-)

So, lets chronicle this latest incarnation of "busy" shall we?

Let's start with the awesome. There's a girl. I've mentioned her before, but now that we're officially together (Facebook says so!), I want to gush a little more again. All that stuff in the aforelinked post is totally true. My heart skips when she smiles and she gets excited about the coolest, nerdiest things. We have a lot in common and this has led to a number of fun conversations and potentially a new project or two. It's all that good stuff that a new relationship is supposed to be, with the promise of some staying-power to boot. I'm going to work really hard not to screw this one up :-)

There's also the paying job, a.k.a., my role as senior programmer at Work [at] Play. They've got me doing a lot of Drupal work lately (boo!), but in the wake of my trip up to DjangoSki, there's a chance that we'll be doing a big project in Django soon (yay!). This is rather exciting, since I'm probably the best versed Python/Django person in the office, so I'd be working in more of a mentorship role rather than just a grunt programmer.

Then there's my new company: theChange.com. Bigger, meaner than a job, starting a business is exhausting work. I suppose that it wouldn't be so rough if you could build the company 9-5, Monday-Friday, but when you have to eat, it's a little more taxing. We have 3hour meetings now, twice a week, after I've been working for a previous 8, and we've broken down the "stuff to do" list into 5 (well, 4 now) week increments in preparation for our Big Public Launch in April. Annalea is super-hardcore, and an amazing person to work with... I just don't know if I have the energy some days.

Lastly, my father is working on a project of his own that he hopes will help my parents retire. It's a complex machine that requires, at the heart of it, a Sheevaplug running software I've written to handle talking to a PLC and magnetic card reader. It's some fun and crazy code, and so far, it's mostly worked... mostly.

Outside of the above, much of my former priorities are fading away. My involvement with the Greens has tapered off considerably, though that's due in large part to the absence of an election (or sitting government) for some time. My work with the VPSN pretty much died over the summer with our last cataloguing of the CCTV cameras in the city. I don't really miss the VPSN stuff, but my work with the Greens was really rewarding.

I suppose that somewhere in there, I'm supposed to find some personal time, but if I ever do, it always ends up being an evening of me wrestling with the fact that I could(should?) be working on our site. Mentally, I'm rather worn out of late.

And that's it for me. I'll do what I can to come up with something super-exciting for my next post. ...or maybe it'll be a lame meme. I haven't done one of those for a long time. Suggestions?