Category: Work

Latitude

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

We needed that.

About a year ago Nellie’s boss gave her a gift card for all her hard work on a particular project. The gift card was from North 44, long considered one of the best restaurants in Toronto, so we were pretty excited about going. However, delays, other priorities and more work kept interfering with our plans to go. It wasn’t until last night that we finally used our card, and it couldn’t have come at a better time: we needed a night to enjoy ourselves and stop thinking about work for a few hours.

I don’t know how I’ve lived here for twelve years and not eaten at North 44, considering I’d made multiple visits to Mark McEwan’s other restaurants Bymark and One. Toronto Life magazine still considers it one of the ten best in the city (#7 to be exact), and it was perfect. I’ve had more impressive meals, certainly, but last night it was precisely what we needed: excellent, uncomplicated food in a relaxed but elegant room. Here’s what graced our forks as we moaned and swooned:

Nellie

  • Chandon Brut from California
  • Red and green pear salad with endive, blue goat cheese, pine nuts and sherry vinaigrette / Sancerre, Domaine du Carrou 2008, Dominique Roger from France
  • 10 oz. U.S.D.A. prime strip / Cabernet Sauvignon, Mantra 2004 from Sonoma
  • Four cheeses / Port sampler:  1 oz each of Taylors 10 year, 20 year & late bottled vintage

Dan

  • Butternut squash ravioli with oxtail ragout and sage / Glass of Cave Spring Riesling 2007 from Niagara
  • 12 oz. U.S.D.A. Rib Eye / Cabernet Sauvignon, Mantra 2004 from Sonoma
  • Chocolate hazelnut terrine caramel fleur de sel moux, soft brownie, crisp orange tuile / Lilly Pilly “Noble Blend” 2006 dessert wine from Australia

It was all of it as good as it sounds. The card’s donors had picked North 44 specifically because, at the time of its’ giving, the only meat Nellie or I would eat was fish. The fish selection was certainly impressive, but we both craved a steak, and it was among the best I’ve ever had. The Cab Sauv we shared with it was equally spectacular. We rolled out of there very full, and very happy.

We decided to keep pressing our luck with the wine, and headed for reds bistro. A side note: it was the most pleasant cab ride we’d ever had in Toronto. The cab was immaculate. Soft classical music played. The driver was polite, quiet and wore a shirt and vest. It kind of freaked me out. I kind of wanted to put him on full-time retainer.

Anyway, we got to reds and let them know we wanted to try some interesting wine. For my part, I wanted to stick to Ontario wines. The staff was more than happy to oblige, and here’s what they gave us. Note that Nellie’s second wine was the same as my first. She had a sip of mine and loved it so much that she ordered a full glass.

Danelle

  • David Trager 2002 Verdelho
  • Peninsula Ridge 2007 Fume Blanc
  • Fontodi 2006 Chianti Classico

Dan

  • Peninsula Ridge 2007 Fume Blanc
  • Norman Hardie Pinot Noir
  • Peninsula Ridge 2007 Meritage

We wrapped up the evening will some ill-advised single-malt whisky (Oban for me, Cragganmore for her) and even donated some money to the bartender’s Movember moustache fund-raising efforts. A fun night, and a tasty one as well.

After such a luxurious evening we just couldn’t go through with our plan to spend the whole day back in the office, so we slept in and lay about. Tomorrow we’ll work the full day, but we needed these 36 hours badly.

It was (about to be) the best of times, it was (about to be) the worst of times, and then it was about to be the full-on bitchinest of times

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Pretty exciting few weeks coming up for Nellie and I. Tomorrow night we see our first film festival movie of 2009, which we wrap up just 72 hours later. Then I have five days in which to complete the twelve labours of Hercules at the office, and then…France.

Woo!

Then, once I get back — and I realize this is much more exciting for me than for Nellie — the hockey season starts. Technically I’ll have missed the Canadiens’ season opener against the Leafs, but a classic Saturday night game should make me feel right back at home in Canada.

Finally, in what could be either extreme serendipity or a classic over-reach, the day we get back is Nuit Blanche. Since we’ll still be on France time we’ll likely fall asleep early and wake up around 3 or 4 in the morning…the perfect time to head out to see some art. It’s a nice bonus that the TTC will be running all night too. We’ll see how that holds up.

In which Dan (officially) starts to lose it

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Habs won woo. Duke and Memphis lost, so my bracket’s dead, long live Nellie’s bracket.

Slaughterhouse-Five is done. Next up: Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, since it’s been on my shelf for, oh, nine years.

Life my be a carnival, but work is a circus. (Workus!) Exercise and proper nutrition have taken a back seat (for example: I would punch a nun right now for a Wendy’s spicy chicken sandwich), as has coherent thought and interestingness.

BSG is over, but Kings has started. Not a fair trade, but it has King Swearengen, so that’s something.

This day’s gone on too long. This’d better be the best 5 hours of sleep ever.

Is there such a thing as a combination calculator/alarm clock (aside from my Blackberry)?

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

My apologies for the poor blogging lately. I have once again re-entered the annual period at work which, well, turns my brain to butternut squash puree. I quite literally go to sleep picturing spreadsheets and wake up calculating revenue projections in my head these days. I have another week or so of this delightful experience, including this weekend I think, and then should return to some sense of normalcy.

In between all this I did manage to make my pics for Hot Docs, finish Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and bear witness to my Montreal Canadiens recent swoon. Hopefully last night’s thumping of Atlanta was the turning of the corner.

Less Joe Mauer. More Ryan Howard.

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I’m still trying to get some work done — brilliance often strikes around midnight, right? — so no interesting blog topics tonight. This week has been bad for imagination and insight. Too much happening at work, not enough brain downtime at home, let alone time to get non-work stuff done. We haven’t had groceries in the house since Sunday morning. We’ve been on subsistence pizza for days.

Meanwhile the weather’s turned to shit, which normally would turn my mood black as pitch, but it’s not like I’m paying attention to what’s outside. Still, though…I don’t hate my days. I hate some of what happened at work today, but not most of it. I think having the right co-workers, and especially the right boss, makes up for a lot of down.

That’s it. Enough. I’ve been trying to hit for average all week. Tomorrow I’m swingin’ for the fences.

Stop 'n go

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

We arrived back in Toronto today, just in time to do some laundry, perform some emergency triage on the PVR and pack for two days away at a conference. I leave tomorrow morning and get back Wednesday evening. It’s going to be a tough two days, mainly because of how behind I am on my sleep, but it’ll be fun too.

Get some!!

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Sorry, I’ve been reading too much Generation Kill and I keep talking like a marine. Screwby.

Haven’t had time yet to blog about the first two films I’ve seen. Had a bit of a work emergency that I think I managed to unfuck (sorry…there I go again) but it left me with zero time to blog. I’ll get there, I promise.

One interesting note: today, when leaving RocknRolla HBO asked to interview us. Knowing how I look on camera, I politely declined. By which I mean I hid behind my friend mblogler.

[tags]tiff, tiff08[/tags]

I am prepeparing to kick your ass.

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

From the Globe and Mail: Going forward, rise up against crapspeak

Recently, a decree went around to local authorities in England and Wales – town and county councils, mostly – from the body that governs them, forbidding use of a long list of popular crapspeak terms. The Local Government Association sent out a list last week of 100 “non-words” for councils to avoid. According to The Associated Press, the list exhorted government officials to replace “revenue stream” with income and to avoid cryptic code words such as “coterminosity,” meaning an overlap of administrations. “Stakeholder engagement” can easily be replaced by “talking to people,” the chairman of the association said.

Almost simultaneously, a writer for the BBC’s online magazine posted a rant about the mindless cheeriness of the most popular catchphrases in business. Lucy Kellaway is on a campaign against “going forward” in particular, which, as we have noted, is used by every inarticulate person who wants to make some reference to the future. She accuses business folk, with their optimistic blue-skying and reaching out, and leveraging, all their synergies and passionate commitments to visions, of being brainlessly upbeat. “All the celebrating, the reaching out, the sharing, and the championing, in fact, grind one down,” she writes. “The reality is that business is the most brutal it has been for half a century.”

I couldn’t agree more. I hate having to listen to this every day. Actually, “going forward” might be one of the most egregious examples, along with “leverage” and “touch base offline.” Those make me want to claw my own ears off.

[Inspired by Currency Tim]

[tags]crapspeak, globe and mail[/tags]

Currently…

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

reading: The Angel Riots by Ibi Kaslik and Strategic Management: An Integrated Approach by Charles Hill and Gareth Jones. Eye Weekly and Now Magazine every Thursday. Toronto Life once a month.

listening to: Saul Williams by Saul Williams, though any minute now I’ll move on to Death Cab For Cutie‘s Narrow Stairs or Visiter by The Dodos.

watching: almost nothing. I’m paying only marginal attention to sports (go Pens! go Celts!), The Office and 30 Rock are done for the season and The Shield hasn’t started yet. All that’s on right now is Battlestar Galactica, and even that’s on 2-week hiatus.

scanning: 190 news feeds, averaging about 509 articles per day. Of course, these are only my personal-interest feeds; I have just as many work feeds. I mainly skim the headlines here, and pay attention to maybe 50, flagging 5-10 to read later.

browsing: 6-7 websites per day. I rarely have a need to visit particular websites now (see ‘scanning’, above) but a few are applications (e.g., Google Analytics) or snapshots (e.g., the weather) that don’t work in an RSS channel. There’s also Bruce MacKinnon’s editorial cartoon every day which, despite my best efforts, I cannot wrangle into a Yahoo Pipe. Again, this is personal-interest only; there’re other work sites.

running: 3-4 times per week, 3 miles at a time. On a treadmill. Half flat, half slight incline.

eating: penne with sundried tomato pesto. Well…an hour ago, anyway.

looking forward to: our rockies/BC trip in June; Euro 2008; visiting Nova Scotia twice in August, once to visit with family and once to wrap up the MBA.

wondering: why the hell I started writing this blog post in the first place.

[tags]angel riots, ibi kaslik, toronto life, saul williams, death cab for cutie, narrow stairs, dodos, visiter,  google reader, bruce mackinnon, yahoo pipes, euro 2008[/tags]