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2 days before my wedding, I was at a pub in Canmore, Alberta with nearly all of the guests for the wedding and was talking with my friend JP, we go back many years, all the way to the 90's! We were talking about how amazing and awe-inspiring it was to see the Rockies for the first time back in 2006 in our 20's and now we look at them differently now.

We were talking about how when we were in our 20's we were in that state of discovery and trying to find our place in the world and our identity and then once that is figured out its really about planning how we want to spend the rest of our lives and die.

It sounds rather bleak, but its also true, we are around for a limited amount of time might as well appreciate that fact and do the best we can with the finite time we have left before its gone. I disagree with the mountain metaphor, mountains are still awe-inspiring and cool, but he has a point.

I didn't have much time to reflect about interesting things like that in the past 5 months, since planning a wedding is complicated and busy, even if its only for 47 people. I can see why people have a wedding planner now.

I thought about this as I was driving off to have wedding photos with Tricia in the mountains and see her for the first time in a wedding dress. I was thinking about how lonely life was for a period of time when I lived in Vancovuer and was completing my Masters back in the mid 00's. Waiting for the bus alone in the rain, listening to something sad like Elliott Smith was a common image of that time before I met Tricia. I didn't think of that somewhat sad era for a really long period of time. How I was looking for someone, but haven't met her yet.

It made me happy that memory was in the distant past and I have been with Tricia for 7 years and that we were getting married and all my close family and friends were there for that special moment. It was a lovely ceremony and a really fun weekend. Weddings are important milestones to think about the significance of love and relationships and what it means. I've always supported equal-marriage, but now I see an even greater importance to why people have fought for so long on this issue.

If JP is right, I think I've figured out myself. I'm a dedicated civil servant, I care about the future of this planet and try to do my part to make it a better place, I like politics, hiking in mountains, and plan to spend the rest of my life with Tricia until I'm dead since I found my true love.

I've planned out ideally how I would like to live the rest of my life, and I really look forward to living it day by day. Starting with our honeymoon in India. Should be epic. If I could travel back in time, I would tell 2005 Brian that everything is going to work out fine.

So a lot has happened since my last post, which happens when I don't write for like 6 months. Tricia found a job and now lives in Edmonton, so problem solved! Its in her emergency management field and just a 10 minute walk away from our apartment. She just moved here about 2 weeks ago actually. She has only worked there for 4 days so far, so its a little too soon to say if she loves it, but it has potential.

The Wildrose Alliance lost the election, which means things are a little more stable in the Government of Alberta as change will be less chaotic. For a while it looked like we might have to move to BC or back to Ontario if they won, since it would be intolerable and I may have been out of a job of course. But, they imploded and the more reasonable Alison Redford Led PC's were re-elected. Although, I still dig the NDP of course, I actually don't mind working in the Civil Service for Redford. She is more of a Red Tory and not a Conservative like Harper, Rob Ford, or Tim Hudak. She cares about policy, and thinks that government can actually play a meaningful role in people's lives, so I respect her and it is encouraging for me as a policy guy and shows that the work I do may actually make a difference. It could be a really interesting 4 years, so hopefully the Wildrose will be kept at bay.

The job is going well too, it was well worth the move to Alberta to live out my dream as a policy geek. My job involves reading about what other jurisdictions are doing and writing briefing notes about it, go to lots of meetings and listen and talk once in a while, work on outcomes-based performance measures, analyze gaps in our policy, etc. I absolutely love it, except when I have to construct a table with 50 projects or so, that kind of sucks, but is useful in the end. Learning lots as well. Great team to work with.

So things are pretty stable now, the Alberta experiment may be a success, its unfortunate in some ways, which means I won't likely be moving back to Toronto or BC, but Edmonton is a decent place and having a meaningful and rewarding profession is what we all stride for in life isn't it?

I would give it another year or so to be really certain if we aren't moving. Once we pass the point of no return we would likely move into a bigger place so there is always a guestroom for people to visit. Now that Tricia is here we will start making plans to finally get married as well, sometime within the next year I think. So all is well, especially now that winter is over, that lasted a while!

I got engaged and I got a permenant Senior Research Analyst position with the Government of Alberta that starts on September 21st. I'm moving out of Toronto on September 20th for Edmonton. Also my political hero Jack Layton passed away and I went on a nice trip to Vancouver and California.

A lot of stuff happened since my last post, maybe I'll write about it sometime. When I have the time. Since things are crazy busy, of course.

 I think this is the longest stretch where I haven't wrote anything, so its time to write something! Soooo, what's new?

My job at the city is going awesome. My first project was a smashing success and the second project is off to a good start. I'm really enjoying Children's Services since the project is totally public policy focused. And its about coming up with a way to measure how well we are doing at integrating services in order to provide the best services possible to the fine people in Toronto. A ton of other fun stuff is having happening in the policy development unit as well. The only con of course is that the contract is done in October.

So I have now officially begun the job search with a time sequenced strategic approach. Focusing first of trying to stay with the city, and if that doesn't pan out, other governments, and there is always that orange wave thing.

About the orange tide, its something quite incredible from where I am standing since my optimistic prediction in March was that we would win 54 seats. I joined the NDP in 2002 when the party had 13 MPs, no MPs in Toronto and only 2 in Ontario, and was supposedly going nowhere. I was also routinely made fun of for joining such a lame party I recall. The first federal event I ever went to was a sparsely attended leadership debate when a City Councillor named Olivia Chow offered me a Jack Layton button. I didn't know much about Monsieur Layton at the time besides that he was an advocate for the homeless but he struck me as someone that would do well as leader and I voted for him subsequently. Also, Ed Broadbent's endorsement sealed the deal. He's from the 'shwa after all, we 'shwa folk stick together.

The next 4 years will be interesting. I'm disappointed that the Conservatives got a majority of course, but I'm also excited that we are the main contenders to take Harper on in 2015. How the next 4 years will play out is anyone's guess, I think Jack will likely stay on as leader and we are pretty well positioned to win. It won't be easy though. What's left in terms of seats is mostly suburban and rural voters in English Canada, so we will have to think of reaching out to them while holding on to our supporters. If all goes well Jack will be the first NDP Prime Minister and we will become like most western democracies with a Social Democrat vs. Conservative system with a 3rd party rump of Liberals. And we also have a new electoral system for 2019. One can dream...

Besides the job and the election not much else is new. Tricia is done school and looking for a job. Our apartment sucks and we want to move as soon as we get new jobs, our cats are old and have various health problems (heart murmur, hyper thyroid, diabetes), I fractured my arm but it is slowly healing, and we are visiting Vancouver and San Francisco for a vacation in August, so that should be fun.

I just finished reading Thomas Friedman's "Hot, flat, and crowded". I know he is a bit of a douche for being a cheerleader for both corporate globalization and the war in Iraq. His haters also point out how annoying is buzzwords and non-nonsensical analogies can be, though sometimes they are hilarious.

Nonetheless, I guess I was interested in reading this book since I wanted to read a book that was a little more optimistic than the doomsday peak oil scenario outlined in Kunstler's "Long Emergency". For the most part, Friedman delivers on that front.

He outlines the causes of climate change (fossil fuels, economic & population growth) fairly effectively and goes on to point out some of the solutions required (energy efficiency, renewable energy, electrified transportation, smart meters, protection of biodiversity, and family planning). Its all good stuff, and reassuring to read a book about public policy proposals that can be fairly straight forward to implement. Though, of course he left out smart growth, being a rich New York Times columnist with a giant house and all.

His section on population growth was interesting, since although the human population will soon be 7 billion, about 7 times the normal average in human history, the big problem isn't necessarily how many people there are, but how much resources people use. Africa for example has a very high birthrate, though the footprint left by one North American can often equal an entire village in Kenya for example. Though family planning should definitely be available in every country and we should all be encouraged to have small families, just 1 or 2 kids, the real problem is of course the amount of resources the west and the rising middle classes in the developing world are using.

On this front, like with many authors on climate change, I still think there is a bit of a missing linkage between food consumption and economic growth. There is no doubt that Thomas Malthus and other critics about overpopulation are somewhat wrong that the Earth can't support a growing human population. Its not that the Earth can’t support feeding everyone, its that feeding everyone comes at the sacrifice of every other living thing and ecosystem in the world. Converting the world to agriculture to feed everyone doesn’t leave much room for everything else. When forests and other habitat are cleared this of course is one of the main causes of our record rates of extinction and clear cutting of forests. I don't propose everyone becomes vegetarian, but a more sustainable diet with a lower consumption of meat, may do the trick.

Supporting renewable energy, conservation, efficiency, and a reduction in dirty fuels is essential to addressing the climate change issue. Though, preserving biodiversity and a more sustainable diet is the flipside of the climate change debate that doesn’t get enough attention.

Anyways, I always enjoy reading about climate change and how it can be addressed through public policy, so in that, I learned of a few more exciting ideas I hope becomes a priority for the provinces and the feds.
 

Last night I had a somewhat nightmarish dream that featured Dalton McGunity in a starring role. I was actually the Ontario NDP Leader, unfortunately I sucked at the job though. For some reason I went with Dalton to an international donor meeting to discuss the reconstruction and aid efforts in Haiti. Not sure why the Premier of Ontario was so important to be there, and that he was without any other cabinet ministers, but its a dream after all.

The Premier was supposed to give a speech and give a 'Canadian take on things' but came down with a terrible cold and asked me to represent instead. I was completely unprepared of course. Going from unemployed to leader of a provincial party can cause that. So I gave a spontaneous speech about what's needed for Haiti and it sucked of course. So bad, that a sickly McGuinty helped me deliver the speech and even took questions afterwards. It was pretty horrible standing on the stage and feeling completely incompetent, so much so it was one of those dreams that are so bad that it did actually wake me up.

I'm not sure what symbolism I should take from the dream, perhaps I could be getting that Ontario job after all and feel I am totally unprepared for it? I do have two other job interviews this week, one tomorrow the other on Saturday, my subconscious could be telling me to get fully ready for the interviews. Anyways, it shows how much I like politics enough to dream about it.

Besides that not much else is new, still unemployed and job searching. Applying for everything anywhere. So if anyone has any leads, I still welcome any. If I can't find a job soon Trish and I will likely just pick a city and move there and try to find a job, any job, to get us going.

So Tricia and I soon finish our second round of Korea and have decided to give Canada another try, this time a little longer than 3 months as well. We return to Edmonton on February 27th to visit her family and then I return to Ontario on March 18th for a visit to all the fine people of Ontario there. For Vancouverites, expect a visit in April and June.

Although I may have had one of the easiest and most enjoyable teaching jobs in the Korean public education system,and I feel that there are still a ton of places I would love to see in Asia (Tibet and India especially), it still is a job I don't want to do for a career, and well can't, since robots will replace us soon enough.

The plan then is to return to Canada and once again try to get a job with involving my interests of government and politics. However, after two years of living in another country doing a job I never thought I would do, I am a little more flexible and open-minded to many different types of jobs these days.

I hope this note then accomplishes two goals in altering my fellow Canadians of our glorious return, and also that I am looking for a job, and I will consider any opening in any occupation you know of. So, if there is any job openings you are aware of, I would be very interested in hearing them.

We are open to living in Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, or Ottawa mainly, but would consider other places as well.

Anyways, just thought I would put that out there. Looking forward to seeing everyone and the homeland soon!

So facebook is blocked by the government in China, but not livejournal. The people of China should really discover the glory of LJ and not get any guff from the man.

When I signed in, it was in russian, so its popular with the Russians too I guess?

Vietnam was crazy but good, and China is amazing but has some fierce censorship.

I'll have more to write when I'm not paying 5 yuan an hour for the internet. Even though, thats like 60 cents, time is money and all.

In solidarity commrades. I must find a tiny Mao statue now for a souvenier. Already have a small picture of Ho Chi Minh holding a child as he is the father of all of Vietnam. Saw him embalmed as well.

So in less than a week, Trish and I head out to Vietnam and China!

It will be a 2 week trip, and we pretty much got the game plan put together.

Hanoi will be our home base of sorts, and for the first week we will do trips set up out of Hanoi. The first one will be to Halong Bay, which is a beautiful set of islands. Will do some kayaking there.

Then we will head up into the mountains in Vietnam to the Sapa area. Hang out with some mountain folks and do mountain folk like stuff.

After that we will head to China, or to Yunnan Province specifically, since China is huge. Its the size of America, but a country in Asia, so when I say we are going to visit China, we are really visiting like the Colorado equivalent of China.

Going there, since the place has the southeast reaches of the Himalayas so I can see at least one section of them in my life. Will be able to go up on to some glaciers that are 4,500 meters above sea level (thats 14,700 feet up), and we will go hiking along Tiger Leaping Gorge.

And then it will be back to Hanoi. While we are in Hanoi it would be cool to check out the Ho Minh Chi, the communist revolutionary leader, since he is embalmed and on display just like Mao and Lenin. Fitting in any other communist stuff would be cool as well.

Will be a short 2 week trip, by backpacker standards. I kind of wanted to do a big long 2 month farwell tour of Asia, but o'well, this will be a nice greatest hits final tour. It will be nice to be back in Canada as soon as possible anyways.

After the trip it will be just one month until we are back in Canada! Hurah!