Here lies the motto

I was at a local bookstore after work today, picking up a guidebook to research my vacation, and it turned out David Sedaris was having a book signing and reading.

I’d seen some of his clips on YouTube before, and listened to some of his stories in podcasts, so I stuck around. I knew he would be hilarious and I wasn’t disappointed. I didn’t stay for the book signing, but I do plan to pick up some of his books. He’s been on my to-read list for a while now.

Here’s an appearance he made on Letterman:

I became an Internet hermit these last few weeks. There were no social applications for me, although I did keep an eye on my Google Reader. I’m not strong enough to give that up, but I only really lurked.

This was due partly to my feeling I was getting a little too tied in to these online networks, partly because I was lazy, and partly because my home computer recently died. After dragging my desktop over to a friend’s for investigation, the problem turned out to be the power supply. It’s annoying, but it could’ve been much worse, so I’ll try not to complain too much about that.

Thankfully, I conveniently bought a wee netbook just before the desktop died – an HP Mini 1030NR. I’ll post photos of how little and shiny it is later. It’ll be perfect for travel, and I got a smokin’ deal on it (refurbished for CAD$299), so I’m quite happy with it.

Beyond travel, my ulterior motive was to use this new, easily-mobile machine to motivate myself to write more. We’ll see how that actually pans out, though.

I caught the travel bug something terrible a couple years ago after studying abroad for a semester, but my wanderlust fund has been dry as a bone since. I could have pulled off a cheap trip, but I lost sight of priorities and whittled my spare money away on things I didn’t need.

I have some friends living in Italy right now, and I decided this would be great opportunity to visit the country, so I booked my flight this morning. I’ll be there at the end of June and coming back in the middle of July, only a wee trip, but I’m really looking forward to it.

I’ll be flying into Rome, spending a few days there, and then heading up to Perugia to visit my friends. From there I’ll make some day trips to nearby cities, and then possibly up to Florence and onward to Venice.

I’ve never been to Italy, and my first instinct is to push myself to see as much as I possibly can, but I’m going to try and resist that. I want to enjoy myself and take a natural pace. No formal itineraries – just a list of events and places that I’d like to see if I have time. I’ll be traveling solo, so I plan to use that flexibility to the fullest.

Any itinerary suggestions are more than welcome!

I participated in the Earth Walk yesterday, which is a little parade to celebrate Earth Day. It seemed like a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon, despite having to smell all of those hippies.

The group met at the legislature building in the morning and listened to a small band play before the walk. The band was about as hippie as is humanly possible, to the point of being a cliche. Most of their songs were about flowers. I particularly liked the one about Helianthus Giganteus.

After we got our flower power on for a little while, the organizers gathered the group and we began the walk through downtown. These events really bring in the crazies, as well as everyone with an agenda to push, so we spent the entire walk trying to distance ourselves from anyone with a flag or banner, because 95% of them were completely unrelated to environmentalism. We didn’t want to be associated with the Communist Party of Canada, the numerous churches, the crazy environmental holocaust guy, or even the New Democrats, but it’s easy to find yourself in a flag group while walking in a crowd like that.

I was surprised to see that only about half of the stands in Centennial Square, the finish area for the walk, had anything to do with issues surrounding the environment. I can see there being random unrelated banners during the walk, since they’re essentially just showing that they support environmental concerns (and publicity), but you’d think they’d want to keep the booths relevant.

Despite these gripes, it was a fun little event. I’d like to say I’m a strong activist, but to be honest I was on my way downtown anyway and the walk covered my exact route.