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Coding on the TTC

August 04, 2007 17:23 +0000  |  Geek Stuff Imager Transit 0

Toronto's summers are brutal, sometimes even downright hostile. In fact, the weather here is a major contributing factor to my returning to Vancouver. With this in mind, the fact that I spent two and a half hours on the subway on Wednesday just riding from Finch to Downsview to Finch writing code, probably doesn't seem so insane... when you realise that the subway is air conditioned.

I swear, the subway is a great place to write code, and I've been developing a really cool command-line interface for my imager. Fun stuff, I promise.

In Preparation of a Torontonian Exodous

July 22, 2007 16:14 +0000  |  Blogger Geek Stuff Imager Melanie Money Moving Riptown 'Round-the-World The Toronto Public Space Committee Travel 2

I've not been posting a lot lately, mostly because I'm just stupid-busy. I'd forgotten what an incredible hassle it was to move my life 4349.9 kilometres away in the first place and doing it again is generally un-fun.

For starters, the cost of moving is ridiculous. Most moving companies will only accept a minimum of 1000lbs (they charge by weight, not time), and since I live in a bachelor, that's typically an aweful lot of extra space. On top of that, I have to pay for storage (since I'll be in Europe for a couple months before getting to Vancouver) and insurance, and movers. My latest quote was $2429.54!

Clearly, I have to keep looking, but time is running short.

Once I have a mover, I need a moving day, and since I'm not likely to leave Toronto 'till September 11th (yes, you read right, it is the cheapest day to fly), I could be living at Melanie's out of a suitcase for nearly a month.

Then there's the flight itself, I've been working with a travel agent and the routing is insane. I want to visit these places:

  • Stockholm
  • Berlin
  • Amsterdam
  • Geneva
  • Prague
  • Rome/Vatican City
  • Seoul

So one would imagine that the cheapest (and most efficient) option would be:

  • Toronto » Stockholm
  • Rome » Seoul
  • Seoul » Vancouver

But sadly, because of the way the airlines work, not only do I have to use Frankfurt as my entrance & exit for Europe, and route my Seoul trip through Singapore, but in order to get home, I have to fly back through Europe!

  • Toronto » Frankfurt
  • Frankfurt » Singapore
  • Singapore » Seoul
  • Seoul » Singapore
  • Singapore » Frankfurt
  • Frankfurt » Vancouver

This trip is about $3500. I can't be the only one that thinks this is insane. Obviously, I can get a direct Seoul » Vancouver flight, but that costs roughly $600 more and a RoundTheWorld pass is nearly $5000.

I may still take the more direct route, if only because it means I'm not in transit for 26hours on my last leg, not to mention the environmental implications of adding so many more kilometres to my trip. I'll also be buying carbon credits, but somehow, that doesn't make me feel any better about it all.

I'm also leaving my life in Toronto, of which Melanie is a big part. She's going through a rough spot in her life lately, and sometimes I feel like I'm not helping enough because of all of these other complications, not to mention the fact that I'm likely to make it worse when I leave. Even though we both knew this was coming the day we met, it doesn't make things any easier.

I have responsibilities as coordinator for the Camaras in Public Spaces campaign of the TPSC. I have yet to find a suitable replacement. We have a big event coming up for August, but someone will have to be here in October to field questions from the press when the pilot project is over and the one I had in mind to replace me doesn't appear interested. Stephen has expressed interest, but he's always got so much on his plate, I wanted to bring in some fresh blood to run the show, but I'm not sure who that would be at the moment.

Then there's my job. I don't have one lined up in Vancouver just yet, though my current boss has been kind enough to look into available positions with Riptown's Vancouver office. Whether there's a spot for me there or not, I'm not too worried about finding work in what I understand to be a competitive market, but that spectre of joblessness is still pretty scary.

Lastly, I've started re-coding my site using the new techniques I've been learning at my current job. The new site (still in development) will use a true MVC system and include nifty stuff like Ajax and JQuery as well as a Modified Preorder Tree Traversal algorithm for storing the hierarchical sorting structures in my Imager. This is mostly in preparation for when I'm in Europe and want to remote-blog and upload images -- I want the site to be better equipped.

So that's all for now. Wish me luck I suppose. If my heart & brain don't implode from the pressure, those of you reading this from Vancouver should see me in a few months.