Security on flights to the US has increased a lot since the last time I flew out of Pearson. According to The Star the first full-body scanner arrived in January, and today the CATSA screeners were directing all the passengers first through the metal detectors and then through the full-body scanners. I opted for a physical pat-down instead ( Read more... )

D got back last night, and today we spent a lovely morning on the balcony with coffee, bagels and fruit while watching planes go by. I love eating outdoors when the weather is good ( Read more... )

I stumbled across a discussion in an online forum on the TTC's reluctance to adopt the Presto smart card payment system, described in this article. Presto already exists on the Go trains and in some cities in the GTA -- Oakville, for example. It works as a declining balance system, and has some neat fare discount implementations (again, in ( Read more... )

My downtown lab is in a state of flux. My second advisor took a position at another university but is remaining my advisor, so I still have a desk down here. There were two other students here with me: B graduated and moved to China, and M switched advisors but is now away for a year on a research fellowship. The lab space we have downtown is ( Read more... )

Tomorrow morning I'm hopping on the train for a lovely long weekend with C at her farmhouse in Racine. I last visited in June 2009, when C and I planted tomatoes in her massive garden, biked out to meet some Angora goats, and of course ate very well. There is no internet or phone. I am bringing my laptop for the train, Alastair Reynolds' Chasm ( Read more... )

A few days ago a friend flew out of Logan and said it looked like all the passengers were being asked to go through backscatter x-ray machines at the TSA checkpoint ( Read more... )

Launch is at 11:52pm Eastern time, and will be broadcast on NDTV here: NDTV English stream. Go AISSat-1, go!!

This weekend has been great -- we checked out an agricultural fair in North Stonington, and had our fill of delicious Buttonwood Farm ice cream. Today was a big power-shopping day, and I've gotten in good workouts with my dad at the gym ( Read more... )

It's nice to be back in North America - this weekend I'm spending with family in Connecticut, and next weekend I'm visiting C in Quebec ( Read more... )

Last January, I backed up my entries and removed them from the LJ servers. A lot of things happened in 2009 - I resolved some background issues that had been bothering me for a long time, I made some significant changes to my diet and exercise routine, and my eight-year relationship ended ( Read more... )

The journal entries that were once here have transformed themselves into pure energy and ascended to a higher plane of existence.