The Sun Is Rising

As most of you are now aware, last night we moved our clocks ahead an hour due to daylight savings time. At 7pm tonight, as I pumped endless money into my Apple TV, I looked out the window and saw the sun still setting, a nice change from the dark evening skies of winter.

This year I’m going to do something different with regards to the summer — I’m going to keep all my weekends open for me. For the last three years, I have basically not really had any time in the summers to do the things I wanted. The summer of 2005 I spent in a small office in Burnaby with a bunch of other guys, literally working 6 or 7 days a week. The last two summers I spent attending weddings, helping friends move, going to events, and doing little side projects. But this summer, I’m going to say no a bit more and spend more time doing the things I want to do. One long weekend I plan to get in my car, put my finger on a map, and just drive.

I was watching the show “Lost” tonight, and despite the grim circumstances of their situation, couldn’t help but think how cool it would be to be trapped on a tropical island for a while. To truth is, it’s pretty hard to see much of the world with only a few weeks of vacation each year, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about lately (as you can tell by my last blog entry).

To be honest, I’m envious of the few people I know who can work remotely 100% of the time. It must be somewhat liberating to know that you can do your job with nothing more than a laptop, an internet connection, and maybe Skype or a cell. It really wouldn’t matter where you were, as long as you woke up and could go online. Imagine rolling out of bed in the Carribean at 10am, sipping some freshly ground local coffee from a sea-side hammock, and firing up the computer to do a few hours of work before your short afternoon siesta.

There’s a feeling lately that I’ve been dreaming about. It’s that feeling you get when you leave a really bad relationship, or walk away from a job you really don’t like. The feeling you get when you’re speeding down the highway at 110 km/h with the windows open and the top down. You feel a huge weight lift and realize that for the first moment in a long time, feel like you are alive again. And in that sudden, brief moment of clarity, you come to realize that for the period before, you truly weren’t really living.

Some time real soon, probably before my birthday in a few weeks, I’m going to write a blog post on what some of the best lessons I’ve learned in my lifetime are. Most of them are pretty simple, and in retrospect should have been painfully obvious, but there are a few fundamentals that I think drive a lot of the decisions I make in my life now.

But for now, I’m going to start planning things I want to do this summer, and then putting the time aside to do them.

Also, does anyone own any of Lost on DVD, or have torrents on their computer? I blew $20 watching the majority of season one on my TV this weekend, but would prefer it if someone could lend me the next few to save some $$$. Thanks!