NOTE: Predating this blog is my email list of friends, mostly from Vancouver, but also many from places that aren’t Vancouver. I still like to keep them updated, even though they may not be regular readers of this blog. So I send them an email a couple times a year.
Dear friends and relatives,
It’s late November, and I’m yearning for feasting. I missed Canadian Thanksgiving – again. But I hope to compensate by celebrating American Thanksgiving (Yanksgiving), but acting like a bit of a dick. To show my loyalty to Canadian Thanksgiving.
I will also be a bit of a dick because after being so smug for eight years, they now have President “it’s possible that I’m a little too awesome” Obama, and we have that mug Stephen Harper.
Actually here in Belgium, where I live, I’m not even sure we have a Prime Minister anymore. It’s complicated..
Anyway, life here, despite political uncertainty, goes on. We’re finally working on Chiara’s health in a constructive way – she’s been sick for a long time, but now we’ve found a doctor who we think can cure her, and by taking a holistic approach in the future we’re talking a faster, smarter, hotter Chiara overall – Chiara 2.0, if you will. It involves alot of medicines and a very restricted diet.
On the job front we’re doing well, I write to you as the “Manager – Communcation” of the European Committee for Standardization. Pretty sweet, right? – you can click here for the real story.
The upside is that I have a contrat indeterminée, which means in theory I can work here until the day I die.
However, my wife and I are scheming on a grand new scheme, which would involve taking a hiatus from the workaday world to take up life as Masters students in London (England). This idea (which, at this point, is still only an idea) excites us very much, although the prospect of eating noodles every night in a tiny flat and riding the crowded tube every morning will be a big adjustment from our current situation. We don’t know where we’ll be come September next.
However, come December this, we will be in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, first in Seattle, then Victoria for family-island-Chrsitmas-time, and then to Vancouver on 28(ish) December until the 6 of January. We hope to see friends (and their new babies where applicable) and are generally open to suggestions of fun things to do, friends to visit, and the like.
We are also looking at renting a room possibly at a bed and breakfast for that time in Vancouver. If you know somebody who will be away during that period and would like to sublet their apartment for a week, let me know – or if you know a great bed and breakfast (preferably eastside), let us know.
If you don’t live in or near Vancouver, you are excused from this request.
Final thing I’m excited about (not counting Vancouver Canucks recent fine form and AS Roma’s victory in the derby) is that I’m filming a short movie next weekend.
On set! Acting! No budget!
I am wearing the following hats: Co-Producer, Writer, Actor. It is a steep learning curve, but it’s a fun project and I’m hoping to be able to show a finished product I’m proud of sometime in early 2009. But I’ve got alot of things to learn and do before then. Follow the progress at www.flunkythefilm.blogspot.com
Please drop a line if you’ve got time and are so inclined, so I know how and what you’re doing.
Love and cake,
Ryan
