Bonjour

I'm writing this post from the dining room at my parents' place. I am in Montreal for the next few days, for a short visit that started with my friend Anaïs' wedding on Saturday. Anaïs and I have known each other since we were about 3 or 4, and have spent our childhood playing together, along with Annie, Marc-Antoine and Anaïs' sister Rosalie. We never attended the same schools, but would still manage to spend weekends and holidays together. Lately, I've only seen my second family on New Years Eve, a long-standing tradition where the two families have dinner together and watch Quebec's countdown show to the New Year, the Bye Bye. Needless to day that when I received the invitation to the wedding, I knew I was going to make my way to Montreal in late September.

The wedding was a small intimate affair with lots of people I hadn't seen in a long time. The ceremony was short and dotted with live music and short readings. We then made our way to the ITHG (Institut de tourisme et d'hôtellerie du Québec) for drinks and appies, then dinner, dancing and live entertainment. We had a really good time, I'll post some of the pictures shortly.

I'm out East until Wednesday. Tomorrow, I'm spending the day with Lara and will meet Fred for lunch. Tuesday, Annie managed to get me a free ticket to a conference on sustainable development at HEC. It includes lunch with the Quebec Premier, Jean Charest. The conference format is really interesting, they host a discussion between the "wise" and the next generation, all people involved in sustainable development in Quebec. Not only will it be a great opportunity to learn more about the topic, but it will allow me to increase my knowledge of the French terminology for the domain. Most of what I read right now is in English.

Not sure what I'll be up to on Wednesday. I have to do some work for Thursday, when I am hosting two training sessions. I have my slides ready, but I need to walk through the demo part a few times to make sure everything works. I'll probably also write a bit of content for my applied project and send it for my supervisor to review. I have to get the ball rolling on the content, I've been reading a lot and have started conducting interviews, but have been falling behind on capturing some of my ideas. I have to send the entire paper for review by early November, so it is ready to be submitted by December 10. That leaves me with a month to write. Yikes.

Does anyone know where I can find thank-you cards made from 100% recycled paper? These are hard to find, I guess people write thank-you e-mails more often than cards. I tried a local green co-op, where they had a few postcards that came with envelopes, but they didn't really have many interesting designs. Tomorrow, I'm going to try the main bookstore chain here in Montreal, Renaud Bray, they carry a lot of cards and stationary, so you never know... I know that electronic wishes would be very environmentally friendly, as they do not consume any resources other than power. However, some situations deserve a little extra TLC. I also clearly remember the last two thank-you cards I have received (and I kept them). Sometimes, it's worth it to aim for that lasting impression.

Wake up and smell the coffee...

If only I could :-( I am a mess of runny nose, sneezing, scratchy throat and watery eyes. Day 2 of a nasty cold, not pretty. It's the season I guess and although my daily ride to work on the bus is short, it's been filled with sick passengers. That's what happens when the weather suddenly turns really cold. A few mornings last week I woke up to 12 degrees. Brr...

But, in the grand scheme of things, it could be worst. I could have started this cold on Friday, as I'm flying to Montreal for Anaïs' wedding. Flying with a stuffed nose is not pleasant. I'm hoping that by the end of the week, I'm my old self again.

OK, I'm going back to bed now.

At it again...

It's a year from now, but one thing I learned from fundraising is that the early bird gets the most donations. Ready for the 2008 edition of The Weekend to End Breast Cancer?

Neglect

I wish I could manage my time better these days and keep up with everything well, but it's not working out. I tried reading into the Getting Things Done method, but I never finished the book. So I'm getting some things done, but neglecting a few. I'm neglecting the blog, I'm neglecting my personal e-mails... Fortunately, I still manage to do some exercise and see friends. Bear with me while I'm getting through the last eight months of my insane life of study and work.

It's not that I never have free time, but I'm usually so tired that when I do have some free time, I usually take it easy. I spend so much time on the computer that when I have some free time, I'm more than happy to leave the thing powered off. I read, watch movies, go for walks.

I compiled a bit of data for work yesterday and realized that my two projects are going to use up 1.5 million dollars' worth of the company's R&D budget. It's interesting to get such big projects from the get-go. The timelines are also pretty long. I was joking around the other day and told a colleague that I had been in my position for over a year now and hadn't released anything. It's gonna be several more months before we do release. Things are moving along, which is nice, but it's getting busier.

I also need to find a way to stay focused on my applied project. It's not that I don't want to work on it, but I start reading and what I'm reading opens the door to so many other interesting concepts that I find myself going off path often. I have a structure for the report and I think I'm going to break down an outline this weekend, with dates against sections. My supervisor asked that I send him sections over time, and not submit everything at the very end. I think that's a great strategy.

Way to penalize the green initiatives

I didn't find any online links to this story, but on French CBC radio tonight, I heard about something that was too silly not to blog about.

Vancouver has a car co-op that allows 3,000 members to share the use of approximately 170 vehicles. The cars are parked in designated areas in the city, members can call the co-op or reserve a vehicle online for a given date and time. The co-op is a great initiative to get vehicles off the roads and to provide affordable access to wheels for those who might not be able to afford owning a vehicle (or don't want to bother). For short trips in the city, the co-op is a lot cheaper than renting from car rental companies. I'm not a member of the co-op, but Lara was, Typhanie was and Gerri still is.

Well, apparently, the BC government thinks the co-op should have charged its members a vehicle rental tax and since it hasn't for the past three years, is now asking the not-for-profit company for $300,000.

For a government that launched a big "green cities" program back in 2006 to "get British-Columbians out of their vehicles", this is not very smart. Car sharing is as good an initiative as buying hybrids (which doesn't reduce traffic or the energy and materials consumed to make the car) or promoting public transit. In the news report, a representative from the co-op emphasized how they were a non-profit and could not afford to pay this large sum (all the money they make is reinvested in the cars they own, either to buy new ones or maintain the existing fleet).

Someone wasn't thinking...

Green my world: laser printer cartridges

My recent foray into downloading/printing a bunch of reports to read for my applied project also exhausted whatever powder was left in my laser cartridge and today, I needed to get myself a new one. Which led me to wonder how I was going to get rid of the old one...

If you want to recycle electronics and personal computers, there are many options available. Printer cartridges? Not so much. Unless you live in the UK where they have ActionAid Recycling, a charity that picks up your old cartridges, cell phones and PDAs, recycles them and gives the money it makes from the recycling to various partner charities.

I think I found the reason why cartridge recycling is not so big in Canada and the US: you can actually send your old cartridge back to the manufacturer and they will take care of it, free of charge. At least, that's what I found at Hewlett-Packard, but I'm sure other vendors have similar programs. The shipping label is included in the box when you buy a new cartridge and you send the old one, postage paid, in the box of the new one you just purchased. How easy is that? I'll tell you if it actually works (i.e., if the lady at Canada Post doesn't send me back with my curious parcel). BTW, this program also works with their ink cartridges.

A tip for the savvy shoppers. If you are buying something from Future Shop, it's worth it to research the item online before going to the store. If checked both Future Shop and Staples' web sites to compare prices and noticed that Future Shop had a manufacturer instant rebate of $17 on the HP cartridge I needed. I didn't want to buy online, I have a store only a short walk away. I made my way to the store, found the cartridge, but no mention of a rebate. So I asked the lady at the cash register, she asked her supervisor, he checked the web site and came back nodding. Yes, take $17 off her purchase. Woohoo! Note that if I hadn't checked online, I would have no idea the store was offering this "manufacturer instant rebate"... Sneaky.

Seven reasons why I know I'm ready for the fall

Oh, don't give me that look, you know it's coming. People are hanging on so dearly to the last few days of summer while I'm marching decisively ahead towards the shorter and cooler days. Here are seven reasons that tell me I'm totally ready to embrace the fall.

1. The plants outside want to be put out of their misery anyways. I didn't take care of what was growing on my balcony all summer and it shows.
2. I don't have any summer clothes and never went shopping for some when the summer started.
3. I'm excited at the idea of spending an afternoon preparing stews and soups.
4. Back to the climbing gym, finally. Cliffhanger is also opening a bigger, new location later this year. Woot!
5. Everyone's back from vacation and wants to organize dinners and parties to catch up.
6. I downloaded several articles and reports to read this week for my final MBA project. No courses this semester, but an ambitious strategic analysis to complete by early December.
7. I'm as dark as I will ever get anyways. I know, I have no tan whatsoever. What's your point?

I will miss a few summer activities though, especially volleyball on Wednesdays and BBQs at my place. Oh wait, I forgot, I can BBQ year-round in Vancouver.

:-)