Catching up

After being out of touch for 10+ days, I'm having a tough time getting fully re-oriented. Much can happen in 10 days when traveling. I'm going to summarize stuff briefly below:

1. That gorgeous kid above is my PiC as a child. Adorable, eh? I had the pleasure of meeting much of his family this past weekend in our travels to New Hampshire. It was so nice just to have Chris show me around his roots. And eye-opening. He was raised wealthy. With a pool. In a beautiful New England home. But he's this amazing down-to-earth guy with a passion to help others. He totally had the priviledge and could have used it to secure a fancy pants job in Boston (which is a very pretty city btw) where he would have made a gazillion dollars and had his own big house with a pool in a fancy pants neighbourhood. Instead, he lives in a regular apartment in San Francisco. Without a car (by choice). With a desire to keep detached from worldly possessions and to attach himself, instead to relationships and causes. I don't know. I think that is pretty great. It made me love him all that much more.
   
   
2. Mesh was awesome. My keynote went well, even though I had my usual critics. (and a great thumbs up or two) Ah, I figure I would be doing something wrong if everybody agreed with me. I also made some amazing contacts and padded the Pinko list significantly from the experience. My favourite moment was the guy who came up to me afterwards and said, "Okay, so I work for one of those evil 'viral' agencies you talked about. I have no idea what to do with this information, but I know I have to do something." Change is painful. The road ahead is not simple.
   
   
3. BarcampTdot rocked. Okay, so we were late, but it still rocked. David and Jay...thanks for putting such a great event together. The lot of us geeked out well after we left the event space.
   
   
4. Met many amazing people in Toronto. List: John and Malgosia, David and Kristen, Jay and Bianca (knew already, but must list), Robert Oullette (who wrote a great article post-amazing conversation), John Ounpuu, Steve Rubel, Joey and Wendy (knew, too, but must list), Matt Dickenson (from a really really cool project, Endless Europe), Peter Dawson, Rohan Jayasekera, Boris Mann (this guy is a hoot), Miss Sacha (the fabulous one)...and many more...
   
   
5. Somehow I ended up quoted in the Calgary Sun. LOL. Am I the new definitive Canadian corporate blogger? Isn't this how Brian Adams felt? ;)
   
   
6. We hung out at the very cool Linux Caffe. Met David, the owner. If I lived in Toronto again, this would be my second home.
   
   
7. I have soooo many photos...I'm in the midst of organizing them (thank goodness for the newest release of Flickr, eh?) and will have albums soon. UPDATE: Toronto/Mesh, Back to Chris's Roots
   

Okay...so back to work. Many ideas. Chris and I, having been slightly offline for 4 days, had all sorts of revelations (and had the opportunity to reconnect, which was excellent...we forget how busy and stressed we get - we've decided to reconnect regularly offline. Weekend getaway suggestions welcomed).

...sigh...