from the "I Was Sure There Was A City Here Somewhere" dept.

The weekend was a blessing: no work, my own place, and the Grey Cup.

It was rare to be able to just chill out on the weekend, though in reality it was quite busy.

Randy and I went for breakfast and discussed our love of secret cities and conspiracy theories.

Secret Cities

This is some very cool stuff. Good reading. And there is lots more out there!

I finally got to see Control Room, the doc about Al Jazeera. This followed dinner at 5 Point (Main Street) with Marsha. We then went to her place to see the film.

Sunday... I hung around the old neighbourhood (South Granville) and played with the camera. I intend to re-launch my "alphabet" project -- shooting all the letters of an alphabet in a neighbourhood and then creating a poster from it. ie: The South Granville Alphabet.

I hooked up with Ed and Millie -- who are visiting from London, ON. They're in the throes of buying a house, even though they plan on staying in London for a few more years. They have no doubt they want to return. And they'll rent out their purchase in the interim.

Then we were off to Cheryl and Tom and Bryan's to watch the Grey Cup. The big game was in Ottawa with the B.C. Lions the odds-on-favourite to stomp the Toronto Argonauts into dust.

The first few minutes of the game were great with B.C. getting on the board almost immediately.

And then it went downhill from there. B.C. just couldn't get it together. And a few hours later, we were crying in our beer, nachos and chili.

The idea of me moving into the C-T-B house came up again. And, I think that I will be moving yet again. For several reasons, but the big one is $. Living there for the short term means I can save even more money and that means more debt reduction or, conversely, more travel.

I think it will happen in December. I am house sitting for the final two weeks of December, so that is when I would begin to ferry stuff from the other place.

The location is more remote than the current place -- but it is on the major bus line and with my weird hours, commuting will be minimal. And its a $15-20 cab ride home on those rare nights out.

The bonus is that rent includes food. So, 2 days work at CBC will basically cover the lions share of my monthlies -- leaving the possibility of serious debt reduction. It also makes taking all of Feb (and then some) off as well as May totally doable.

It means getting sticking €300 in the bank (I finally found a Euro account at HSBC) every 2 weeks. At that rate, I should have plenty banked for May.

I still have my radio article to write (due in a week)... and CBC booked me for an additional day in December and there may be more to come. My little window of time off is rapidly disappearing.

I hope to be able to take a few days over the week of Dec 14th to chill out before the nutty Christmas period. If I'm not working, I'll be out at various bashes. I'll be one tired Vancouverite by Jan 3. So a few days in paradise would be most welcome before the craziness.

I'm still housesitting at Lisa's which has been a blessing. I only wish I wasn't working so much so I could enjoy it more. But better this than the opposite.

Here's a cool site for sending retro-telegrams. Have fun!


Cheers!