fighting jetlag in geneva

well i made it to geneva in one piece, but next time i’m packing some sleeping pills. for some reason i always forget just how unpleasent inter-continential flights are for me in cattle class. being a 6 foot 1 man in a seat too small for a 5 foot 7 woman makes it a very uncomfortable experience. i alway imagine before taking a red-eye flight that i’ll get a solid 4 hours of sleep in, but never manage to make more than 2. live and learn i guess.

enough complaining, i’m in geneva! it’s 20C and beautiful. no real stories yet as i’m tired as fricken hell, but i’ll give you some photos, and maybe a movie or two.

check out the set

yyz to geneva

my approach to blogging is, at best, spotty. if i’ve posted on average once a month for since i started this blog i’ll be surprised. it’s not like i’m not doing other things, i’m super busy at work (where, believe it or not, i write the occasional blog post), and i do have a regular podcast with the most awesomest person in D.C., but in general i let darrenchartier.ca slide unless i’m particularly exercised about some issue or other (or have new photos of my tattoo to share).

but, there is one area of blogging which i do believe i have a pretty good track record. travel blogging. i like to travel, generally alone, and while travelling along nothing focuses the mind on what’s happening everyday like keeping a travel blog. in the past i’ve treated travel blogging as one off projects, first with something that wasn’t really a blog but more a thorough flickr adventure documenting my trip to italy, then with my gastronomic exploration of thailand (with a big of japan thrown in for good measure), and most lately with my first adventure into the crazy world of videoblogging (OMFG lots of work), also gastronomically inclined.

well, i’m taking another vacation (to offset the many many evenings and weekends i’ve been putting in lately, and will likely be putting in again soon) and have decided to just blog it on my main blog. also, i hope to depart a little from my normal travel food blogging (although i expect there will be lots of food related posts, don’t despair foodie friends!) and cover some non-food aspects of my trip.

so, here i am again, sitting in pearson airport, typing away on my eeepc (holy tiny keyboard batman), waiting for my gate to open. i hope to post at least once a day, let me know if you have any requests (i’m looking at you pipesdreams, i figure i owe you a custom travel blog post since you’ve been so good at the international scavenger hunt game with your awesome japan blogging) while i travel and ill do my best to cover them if they’re not too crazy 😉

wherein i grudgingly submit to an internet meme

normally i am the last person to propagate an internet meme, especially one of those do this and get _x_ number of people to do this also type memes, but today i will relent. mostly because Sameer is the one asking, but also because my word for 2009 is open and really, if i can’t think of 7 things to tell you then i’m not really being very open am i?

here’s the meme, with a slight edit:

the rules

• Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post. (see above)
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post. (see below)
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged.

i’ll share my facts, but a) i don’t like to peer pressure anyone into a meme and b) honestly (and perhaps most importantly), i don’t really think i have seven friends with blogs (many acquaintences, but really my friends are generally not bloggers).

1) the first concert i ever went to was a grimskunk show, i was fourteen and my good friend Matt (no blog, no internet at home, hardcore anarchist punk social worker) bought me this shirt. i wore it for years until finally letting it go in a purge a couple years ago. also, i can’t believe that grimskunk is still kicking and still selling the same shirt.

2) i have read and re-read the entire chronicles of narnia more times than i can count. i was given the set when i was a child, and ever since i read them when i’m especially tired or sick. my favourite is The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

3) i dropped out of high-school missing one OAC credit, but graduated university magna cum laude. i think some of the most important lessons in my life were learned between those two events.

4) i managed to make it through four solid years at york university without a strike. phew.

5) i have an older brother who alternately amuses, aggravates, and challenges me. i love him for all of it (except maybe the aggravating part). assuming he passes the physical, it looks like he’s going to be joining the canadian military soon. i wonder if this will bring out a conservative streak in me?

6) i was the first ever high school co-op student at northern telecom (back when it was still northern telecom). i passed up the chance to work there the summer after my co-op term, instead deciding to work at summer camp (why? short answer: girls). while i don’t waste time on regret i sometimes wonder how my life would gone have had i decided to stick with northern telecom.

7) i am an n-generational north american, meaning i have no idea when my ancestors came to north america. on my mothers side we’re french canadian with deep roots (apparently i’m related fairly closely to the bloc MP for Gatineau) and American going back to early settlement. on my fathers side i’m less sure, but i’m pretty sure it’s all quebecois and franco-ontarian. that makes me decidely a minority in toronto, where almost all of my friends are from one to three generations away from immigration to canada. given the franco roots, it’s a crying shame i can barely speak french.

so that’s it, no tagging of people for me. although if i could i’d tag my best friend Geoff who really should have a blog but i think he’s holding out just to piss me off =P

thoughts for the year to come

for most, new years day marks an annual beginning, a time for resolutions and looking ahead. for me, new years day marks the end of a year past, and january second marks the beginning of a new year in my life. as of today, i have successfully completed 31 full levels in this MMRLRPG (massively-multiplayer-real-life-role-playing-game).

yes i’m a geek, i make no apologies for horribly bad geek jokes.

while i’m not generally superstitious, i like to think that how i spend my birthday sets the tone for the year to come.  last year, for my 30th, i spent my birthday traveling, en-route between koh tao and chiang mai in thailand as part of a commitment to myself to explore new places and ideas for that year.

today, i intend to spend my day thinking, writing, and being with people who are dear to me. Sameer, always an inspiration, challenged everyone he knows to come up with a word for 2009 to guide them. it’s a good exercise, thinking of a single word to act as a guiding light for a year, i encourage you to give it a try (and let Sameer know in the comments what you choose, it’ll make him smile).

my word for 2009 is open.

open is a good word. if you know me professionally you know that openness is something i’m advocate for in large faceless bureaucracies, and i think this year i’m going to try very hard to push an open agenda.

looking beyond the professional open is a good word to guide me personally. for 2009 i hope to be more open to my friends, family, and myself.

open is both an ethic and a goal for me this year, i hope i can do it justice.