I will admit that I enjoy my team at work thinking that I have some kind of superpower for finding cool places. I introduced them all to 9 Bars and Monk’s Table, and have taken them to places like Dineen Coffee and Wvrst and Bar Hop, so they think I have some kind of talent. Truth: it’s just an internet connection and mild obsession. But when I brought them all to Boxcar Social yesterday after work, they really thought I had magical powers. Great coffee by day, good beer/wine/whisky selection by night, and relaxed backyard-feeling space all day.
My team drank cider and Muskoka. I, and others, drank Bellwoods: the Wizard Wolf, the Monogamy (Summit), the Omerta. The Omerta actually showed up while I was drinking the other two — nothing like just-in-time delivery.
More just-in-time: Nellie and I coordinated a pick-up order of some pizzas at Mercatto, which showed up just as I walked in the door, and which we enjoyed during a quiet night at home. We ate, and drank wine on the balcony, and started the kind of quiet weekend we’ve craved for a while now.
.:.
Cover photo by Thiophene_Guy, used under Creative Commons license
I was in Miami for a few days earlier this week, for work. Rough job, I know. To be honest, I’d been unofficially trying to go my whole life without ever setting foot in Florida, what with it being…you know, fucked. Still, I was invited to a conference, so I went.
I wasn’t really staying in Miami, at least not the Miami most of us think about. The conference was out in Doral at the Trump Hotel. There were no signs of it being a douchey Trump property, except that when you turned on the TV it would auto-play a random Trump speech. So I got to know the location of the mute button on the remote real quick.
Still, the weather was nice and they had a bar by the pool, so I spent a fair amount of off-conference time hanging out there and drinking Cigar City Jai Alai IPAs with friends. Related: our server didn’t know what Jai Alai is, or how to pronounce it, so I had to teach her. Related to related: I am old.
One other highlight: a vendor took a bunch of us out to dinner in South Beach, at Bazaar in the SLS hotel. We had a private room (which people kept sneaking up to, thinking there were celebrities inside…once they saw it was just a bunch of nerds they looked disappointed and slunk away) for dinner, which was pretty damn great. A quick scan of the menu produced some of the tapas dishes we shared, but not all: chinese buns w/ pork belly; cones full of salmon roe and dill cream cheese; hamachi w/ pickled onions, sour orange; dragon fruit ceviche w/ tuna, pecans, lime, hibiscus; brussels sprouts w/ “lemon air”; bone marrow w/ Caribbean white truffles, florida citrus, capers; Cuban coffee-rubbed churrasco; endives w/ goat cheese, oranges, marcona almonds, orange dressing; sautéed shrimp w/ garlic, parsley, lemon, guindilla pepper; croquetas de pollo; tacos made of jamón ibérico and caviar; and for dessert, some amazing churros with peanut butter.
The night was marred only by the fact that our transportation from the hotel to the restaurant was a Ford Hummer Killer, an enormous stretch SUV limo, which poisoned my very soul. I also got into it a bit with a Republican (or, more likely, Tea Partier) on the drive home re: the relative merits of socialized healthcare. Or, in my more aggressive moments, the “fucking travesty” of the US healthcare system. So, there was that. Oh, and Jamie Foxx ate dinner at the restaurant just as we were leaving, so people were all agog and agape.
All in all, though, it was a good trip. Though I am in no way attractive enough to hang out in South Beach, I’d be willing to visit Miami again. Not the rest of Florida though; that state is messed up.
My life right now is being measured in bite-sized chunks, less than two weeks at a time.
Last Monday, the 7th, I let my colleagues know that I’d be leaving my job in nine days. I’d been there for twelve years (fourteen total if you include my first stint) so it surprised a lot of people. There were lots of last coffees, lots handshakes, and lots of questions. I nixed any formal farewell, but did spend a few final hours with my team at Hair Of The Dog, and had drinks with friends at Caren’s. My friends and colleagues, knowing me very well and spoiling me entirely, bought me six tremendous bottles of plonk about which I’m fairly excited:
Maison Roche De Bellene 2009 Clos de Vougeot Pinot Noir
M. Chapoutier 2007 Monier de la Sizeranne Syrah
Domaine Bernard Defaix 2010 Cote de Lechet Chablis
Louis Jadot 2010 Boucherottes Pinot Noir
Piper Heidsieck champagne
Glen Breton 10 year old whisky
Oh, and a Miley Cyrus CD, just to make me wince. So it was a 9-day sprint to wrap up all my work and admin tasks before Wednesday. At 5pm I handed in my pass and Blackberry (yay!) and left the building. I took Thursday and Friday off to give myself a four-day stretch in which to relax a bit, but mostly knock some travel- and condo-related tasks off my list.
On Monday I’ll start my new job. It’s in roughly the same domain, still in Toronto. I wasn’t looking for a new job — I had no particular desire to leave my old one — but this seems like a pretty great opportunity, and I’m excited for Monday. I’m not fussed about such a short break between jobs; like my grandfather always said: “A change is as good as a rest.”
So I’ll have two weeks at the new job, and then we’re off to Africa. We got the last of our shots earlier this week, and apart from some fresh bug spray we have pretty much everything we need. A few days in Cape Town, a few in Stellenbosch, a few in Botswana, and a few in the air, and we’re back.
In my Thanksgiving post earlier this week I didn’t relate any of the many things for which I’m thankful, but it’s safe to say that great friends and two new adventures would make the list.
.:.
Photo by slgckgc, used under Creative Commons license
Earlier this week I was in San Francisco to speak at a conference. I don’t write about work on this blog, but I certainly write about what I eat and drink, especially while traveling, so here are the highlights:
After the first day’s meetings the conference organizer hosted a few of us at the Press Club, a bar / event space which was happily quite close to my hotel. Their wine list is enormous (and the full draft list is very interesting) but there was a limited set of each on offer. Still, the 2010 Donatiello Chardonnay (Russian River Valley) was good, the 2009 Bethel Heights Pinot Noir (Willamette Valley) was very good, and the 2011 Textbook Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley) was okay. Cool space too.
A few times I found myself needing decent coffee, so I visited the Blue Bottle at Mint Plaza. I wasn’t blown away with the coffee itself — just not a fan of that particular bean’s flavour profile, I think. It’s clear they take their coffee pretty seriously though; it looked like a chemistry lab in there. But it was a nice little cafe at which to sit and sip a cappuccino. Oh, and the olive oil shortbread was delicious.
Finally, after the main day’s conference, the organizers again generously took a few of the speakers out for dinner at Trace. I had an excellent pumpkin soup with bacon relish (!) and some slow-roasted berkshire pork loin. I had no hand in the wine selection, but the Fumé Blanc and Pinot Noir our hosts selected worked perfectly. I had no room for dessert, regrettably.
With less than 48 hours between my flights, the vast majority of which was spent in conference rooms, it wasn’t a very adventurous San Fran visit. Tasty, though.
.:.
Photo by Doug Wheller, used under Creative Commons license
I love sports. The classic match-ups. The iconic venues. The unforgettable moments.
I was lucky enough to be back in Boston last weekend for work. In between conference sessions I had a pretty good steak at Davio’s, made a return visit to Stoddard’s to meet a friend, saw the memorial on Boylston Street, and drank a few good pints of craft beer (Allagash White, Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout, Ommegang Abbey Ale) at the conference’s hotel pub. But mostly I was lucky because I got to experience one of those iconic venues. I got to watch a Red Sox game at Fenway Park, from atop the Green Monster no less.
I ate a ballpark dog and drank a Sam Adams. I leaned out and touched Carlton Fisk’s foul pole. I listened to the crowd sing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” and, much more emphatically, “Sweet Caroline”. I watched David Ortiz crank a 439-footer to straightaway center not a week after his hilariously inspirational speech following the bombings. I watched the Sox beat Houston 7-2 on a blustery April evening and couldn’t think of anything more Bostonian to do.
The next day I flew back to Toronto, just ahead of my parents who flew in from Moncton for a (not quite) two-day stay. We had dinner at Starfish, explored the Distillery District, and sampled some of the breakfast sausage we made last weekend, but the real reason they were here was to see one of those classic match-ups: the Montreal Canadiens vs. the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night. Nellie had somehow lucked into gold seats for the final game of the season, and gave up her seat so that my dad could watch his first NHL game in 49 (!) years and our first together.
Luckily for me, my Canadiens won. I felt bad that my dad had come all the way from Nova Scotia to watch his beloved Leafs lose, but I’m sure he felt the same way I would have had my team lost: just getting to watch such a big game together is now one of those unforgettable moments that sports can sometimes produce.
Yesterday my team (my work team, that is) and I spent a few hours at Toronto’s Ronald McDonald House. We brought food and toys and stockings for the families and kids staying there, and packed them up for the residents. We also got a quick tour, learned about the origins of the Ronald McDonald House charity and heard about the amazing new building being built here in Toronto. It was fun to get out of the office as a team, but it also felt good to help out even a little.
So far this weekend I’ve barely left the office. Meanwhile Nellie’s allergies are so bad she’s been laid low by all the Benadryl she’s been taking. We did manage to watch Brothers (imdb | rotten tomatoes) late last night, which was okay. Now all I want to do is lie on the couch, turn off my brain, watch The Pacific and Treme and try to fight off this cold I can feel coming on.
In other news it turns out I like the caffe mocha. Who knew?
[Ed: please pardon’s Dan’s absence as he’s currently occupied with other things. You remember that scene in Return of the Jedi where Jabba drops Luke (and that poor Gamorrean guard) down the shaft into the Rancor pit? And Luke has to run around and hide under ledges and bash the Rancor’s scaly fingernail with a rock and throw a skull at a button way across the room (instead of using his Jedi telekinesis or whatev) to finally drop an iron gate on its neck? Yeah, well, it’s like that, except he’s in an office building. And it’s worse. But he’ll be back soon.]
You might have noticed that I’m hardly blogging these days. I’m also not reading most of my news feeds, and I don’t even turn on my Twitter client anymore most of the time.
Whyzat?
In short: work. I’m spending more hours than usual in the office these days (late evenings, and Sunday is now a regular work day) and when I’m there I’m either away from my desk or busy as ass. Even when I’m not in the office work dominates my thoughts.
You know what else? I love it. I love my work right now. It’s not without the occasional frustration, of course, but overall it just feels good.
So, things like blogging and my news junkieism are falling away. And, to be honest, I don’t really miss them that much. Also, with Nellie working equally long hours we’ve found ways to make the most of our few moments together, like dinners at North 44 or, uh, pouring IV fluids into our cat. So yeah, everything’s coming up Milhouse.
Don’t get me wrong, though, I am gonna enjoy the hell out of those three days off over Christmas.
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 