In the beginning

Dec.12, 2014
I tried.  I really did.  But somehow it was still after 6pm before I got out of the office on my last Friday before The Vacation started.

In the many, many months leading up to The Vacation, I ranted extensively about the state of corporate life and western civilization and their inherent unbalance (in opposition to "work-life balance" efforts and programs proclaimed by company communications, media, magazines, books, etc. to address it) - to Colin, to my family, to friends, to workmates, to my computer.  The baggage under my eyes remained an ugly shade of pinky-purple, and the pressure around my eyes reminded me always how tired I was.  "This is not right!" I fist-pounded (fist-pounders turn me off - they tend to be full of loud complaints, and try to hide their lack of anything constructive to add behind their loudness).

"Be the change you want to see..." says Gandhi.  Ok - everyone go take some time off and do good stuff!

So what did I do after leaving the office that Friday?  I had visions of champagne celebrations with local friends and family, riding the high of new-found freedom and weightlessness into the wee hours.  I had energy for dinner out with Colin.  We wandered over to Big Fish, had a glass of champagne and a bottle of wine (and some food and dessert too).

Then I crammed all the packing and planning and outstanding bookings and last bits of Christmas shopping into the next few days before leaving for Europe.  I did not exhale until I sat down in seat 28A on the Wednesday night flight to London Heathrow, Colin beside me, Caroline & Stefano (and Buster) be sheer coincidence in the seats behind us.  We entertained our plane section with a game of crib on the back of Colin's seat.

Colin, my family and probably my friends are anticipating profusely being able to converse with me about anything other than the state of work, and especially anticipating my no longer being mean and horrible.

to blog:

On this planet, we like to tell stories, hear stories, read stories.  Maybe because we want to learn, maybe because we want to be entertained, maybe because we want to hope, or sometimes, maybe just because we like to.  Even the animals tell stories, by their actions - mamma bear to cub on the banks of the Athabasca River: "...and this is where my mom would take us to bathe, because we meet lots of other juicy friends around here".

The contemporary definition for 'blog' from dictionary.com describes it as:
Noun
an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page; also called Weblog, Web log [1]

The seemingly most popular definition found on 'urbandictionary.com' summarizes a 'blog' as:
n. 
Short for weblog. 
A meandering, blatantly uninteresting online diary that gives the author the illusion that people are interested in their stupid, pathetic life. Consists of such riveting entries as "homework sucks" and "I slept until noon today." [2]

Here within, you will find riveting entries of my meandering travels, some thoughts and some photos, mainly because I like to write the stories, and also because due to some comments from yourselves (or because you are family/lifelong friends), I have the illusion that you are interested.

[1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/blog
[2] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=blog