3,000 Words

After picking up the boy from pre-school this afternoon, we were off to a BBQ hosted by one of my wife's colleagues. If you've not been part of the post-graduate environment, you may not be familiar with the concept of a "lab party".

This is special event where a senior researcher will invite their grad students and various other co-workers over for a pot-luck. It's meant as a thank-you for all the hard work the students do throughout the year. The best ones are BBQs.

They're a lot of fun. I've been to lots of them and it's interesting for me to notice the shift for us in moving from the "student table" to the role of "grown-ups". We're the ones eating corn-on-the-cob and hamburgers on the run, chasing after kids who are trying to eat glow sticks.

After the week I've had, it was nice to relax, sip on a Pabst and enjoy the company of some fine people.

If you'll indulge me in a cliché, I'm going to let the following three pictures do the bulk of the rest of the talking for me.

Luckiest kids ever

Somebody (probably a Dad) is building this amazing tree house just a few blocks from me. I noticed it as I was on my way out on my "afternoon shift". I have no doubt it will be epic and I will follow its progress with great interest.

So awesome

This is far and away the best "No Soliciting" sign I have ever seen (and I've seen several hundred this week...). I was tempted to write "Good for one free beer" on the card I left in the mail box but, alas, I'd left my pen at home. If this is your house and you're reading this, I owe you a beer. All I will require as proof is an address - you name the brand and I will deliver it personally. Thank you so much for the much-needed laugh!

Campaign, they said, it'll be fun!

Finally, the orange highlights on this map show all the streets I canvassed on foot this week. I can't be sure but I must have distributed a couple of thousand postcards by now. Dundas is a strange town and there's no better way to discover that than by foot. Downtown is a grid... sort of but once you start spiralling outward, things get funky as we become constrained (as we are) by our unique topography. In a word, it's an adventure.

I (mainly my feet) are looking forward to taking it a bit easier over the weekend!