We’re loading up the family truckster and heading to Prince Edward County for Canadian Thanksgiving. It will be McLean’s first car trip over 7 hours… and first trip to the motherland!

An ominous— almost “Lost” like— warning decal has been applied to the sliding door of our beach front bungalow.

We’re off this afternoon to San Juan for a little Valentine’s Day R&R. We’ll be back on Sunday.

I’m on flight to New Orleans!?! As a total surprise wedding anniversary gift, my wife packed a bag for us and tricked me onto a cab headed to the airport. I needed this break! Here comes Bourbon Street! Po-Boys and Hurricanes!

Off to the County for Canadian Thanksgiving. We should be back on Tuesday.

Lantau Island, China 2007

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Lantau, Hong Kong 2007

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Hong Kong, China 2007

I'd forgotten from my Australia school days how grueling the flights across the Pacific can be. 5 hours to Europe is a lot easier than 18 hours to Hong Kong. Well worth the trip however, today we venture out for bespoke goodness and steam buns (aka soup dumplings).

We’re off to Hong Kong for the week. We’ll be coming back through Winnipeg to attend Uncle Jack’s service in Morden. It’s going to be quite the clan gathering, and the first time I’ve been back to the prairies since I was a kid.

Sorry Neil, you’re on your own for the WWDC keynote this year!

David & Missy. Lake Travis, TX 2007

We're off to Austin, Texas for the much anticipated Popp-Lloyd nuptials.

We caught a late night sleeper train from Paris through the Alps to Rome last night. The perfect way to celebrate Valentine’s Day. On a less romantic note, a pin has fallen out of my Treo’s sync/charge cable and I can no longer juice up my cellphone. If I don’t stumble upon an Orange or Vodaphone store I’ll be offline and unreachable. I’ve been working on a McGyver fix with little luck. I’ll probably get shocked.

As if we haven’t had enough travel adventures this week, we’re off to Paris for a few days. I’m sure we’ll be happier getting stuck in Paris instead of Oswego County.

Here's what Interstate 81 South looked like at Parish, NY yesterday morning. This was "great" conditions-- you could see more than 15 feet in front of the car. It was unclear when we were on the expressway or on the brink of ending up in the ditch. (note the taillight in the distance. That car had driven off the road and was abandoned by it's driver)

More shots below the fold.

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We're caught outside Watertown in a lake-effect blizzard. I'm getting more snow than I bargained for. We've been forced off Route 81 and into a dirt-bag trucker motel. It's got free wi-fi -- AND the Puppy Bowl on TV. Hopefully the weather will let up before the morning and we can make an early escape.

Off to the Great White North to see what a couple of feet snow still looks like. Global warming sucks. I miss snow.

We’re still in FLA. Note to self: never fly Southwest again. Getting down here sucked. I dread even thinking about the trip back.

It’s been a long December … I’m completely spent from the holiday season. We’re off to Florida to visit Joanne’s mother for Christmas.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I hope to see much more of everyone in 2007.

We’re off to Martha’s Vineyard for the next week. Hopefully it’s cooler there than it has been here.

Dave’s Canada Day/July 4th fireworks spectacular:

Prince Edward County, Ontario Canada 2006

We survived the flooding with just the river lapping at the building’s back door. We’re off to Prince Edward County for the Canada Day/4th of July long weekend with a posse from NYC. Small town rural Ontario is going to be culture shock for the New Yorkers. We’ll be back next Wednesday.

Tonight I’m off to Las Vegas until Wednesday. I’m staying at the Venetian— which will be interesting after being in the real Venice two months ago. It’s my first trip to Vegas— and you know how it goes: what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas…

I’m off to Milan for the Design Fair. I’ll be back early next week. Arrivederci.

We’re off to Italy. 3 days in Florence, 3 days in Venice. Ciao.

Off to San Francisco for the next few days. I’ll back next week.

The Bite at Norman Island, BVI 2005

Yes, it may look like Murph is getting impaled by the pulpit— but he’s actually 6 feet forward of the bow swinging on the spinnaker halyard.

We’re off to the islands for 7 days of R&R. I’m taking a cantenna to see if I can’t “weeze the juice.” If I can get online, I’ll post some island shots.

Today is my 11 month wedding anniversary. We have one more month left as “newly-weds”. After next month, it’s all downhill with the nagging and the yelling.

Just kidding. I’m really surprised how fast the year has flown by. This time a year ago we were stressing over wedding logistics that we thought would end the world— of course they turned out to be nothing. Today, I couldn’t be happier. My only repeating stress is house hunting.

Tonight, we’re headed to Barclay Prime for martinis (and if I can swing it, the $100 foie gras/Kobe beef cheesesteak).

Tomorrow, I’m finally taking a break from the old ball and chain. Again, I joke, I joke. But seriously… I’m road-tripping to New Hampshire with some old fraternity brothers for a back-woods-beer-soaked-skeet-shooting-man-venture.

Hee-haw.

I won’t call myself green or an environmentalist (though we should all be) and I’m definitely not a tree-hugger, but we’ve got to get off the fossil-fuel-train. I have no doubt that a gallon of gas will hit $5. Nobody thought it would hit $3 so quickly and it did. It won’t be long before we’re paying $100 to fill a tank.

Since I’m a longtime city dweller, I haven’t owned a car for over 10 years. We take taxis, trains and borrow cars from family when we need one. For a year we have been thinking about getting a Mini Cooper, but the thought of paying $150 for gas a month is far from appealing. With a beach house in Delaware (2 hour drive) and a new house being built in Canada (8 hour drive), I’m going to be gobbling up the petrol.

Dunc’s diesel Jetta gets a whooping 45 miles to the gallon- which is fantastic. He’s now looking into fueling it with fryer-oil and bio-diesel. Added benefit: both can also run in his oil based home furnace.

I’ve begun researching hybrids as our first car. The Toyota Prius gets 60 mpg city and 51 mpg highway. An unmodified Prius can push 100mpg with the pulse and glide trick. Mods and hacks to allow plugging the Prius into the grid to charge at night and adding additional banks of batteries to the trunk have the ability to push the Prius closer to 200 miles/gallon.

$3000 in local and federal tax credits is also sweetening the deal. I just wish there as a sexier hybrid out there— and a hybrid diesel-electric running on bio-diesel would rock the party.

If anyone else is interested in weaning themselves away from the pumps, here’s some blogs I’ve been following:

• Hybridblog
• Greenhybrid
• Hybrid Scoop
• Treehugger

Wellington, Ont. Canada 2003

We’re off for the next 5 days to Prince Edward County. We’re finishing installing the sound system and network into the new cottage. Thanks to Brad Choate and SixApart, I’m able to easily post again to this blog. Their support was absolutely outstanding. I’ll try to post some Mo-Phos from North of the border.

We’re off to sunny and hot Florida for the next 5 days to see Joanne’s mother’s new house. We’ll be back Tuesday with with our fill of scorching sun, golf carts and palm trees.

I’ll be on the Cape for the next few days. If I have service I’ll mo-pho.

As a Valentines Day treat for JJG— I’m taking her to the motherland for some romantic R&R in Quebéc City. We’ll be catching the last days of Carnival. Last time I was in Quebec City was a 4 grade school trip from Montréal to the Plains of Abraham. I’m sure the trip will be a lot more fun this time with cheese and Caribou (a “feisty alcoholic beverage”).

There’s no better way to cool down than drinks at the Ice Palace and tobogganing down the front of the Chateau Frontenac. We’ll be back on the 15th. Au revoir!

Minor derailment? It cancelled my train and delayed all northbound trains for hours. That’s not minor— and despite what it says, hour delays and cancelled trains does not constitute “service has returned to normal.”

I have a 4:30 new business meeting in New York and I’m screwed. AMTRAK sucks. It really does. My wife’s clients are all in NYC and she rides it a couple of times a week. It’s always late and it cost more than flying. The service sucks… and it’s still the lowest security target for terrorist.

I’m mad.

Photo sequence of tsunami flooding in Phuket resort. Amazing. JJG and I have been working on planning our honeymoon. One the finalist in our location choices was the Maldives. I’m glad we weren’t there.

Amateur Tsunami home videos:

• Waxy.org
• Archive.org

How to help:

• UNICEF
• Red Cross (International Response Fund)
• Doctors without Borders

This beach in St. Maarten looks like a nice quiet place to relax. (More)

Sunday we leave for the pre-nuptial weeklong rum-fueled party in St. John. If the spotty GSM network in the islands works as planned, I’ll be posting regular Mo-Phos from my phone here on studio2f and the odd wedding week update on the Nuptia-Log. I’ll be back November 23rd… a little darker, a little larger and with my new bride.

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I think it would be pretty frigg'n annoying if the jerk next to me on the plane started up a video chat. As you can see-- there's no headset there (just headphones) so this guy would be talking fairly loudly into the powerbook built-in mic to get over the ambient jet engine din. This is the type of thing that causes air rage.(via Gizmodo)

Wednesday afternoon I'm off to Milan. I'll be back on Monday. I'll try and post a Mo-Pho or two from the Design Expo.

I rode back and forth between Philly and New York this weekend. Despite articles like this- 3 days after the Madrid bombing- security has not noticeably tightened on the North East Corridor.

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We've just returned from St. Johns. I think I've overdosed on rum based items. I've got tons of photos. It's going to take time to sort through them all.

Recently I was at a party talking with some old friends when of one of those friends alluded to my upcoming destination wedding - of which many are very excited for. It was suggested my fiancée and I weren't being thoughtful to others by planning a destination wedding without taking into consideration the time and cost factors attached.

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QTVR of Bourbon Street. (the lack of vomit and wall-to-wall drunks in the QTVR make it clear it was not shot during Mardi Gras). Here's what I found on Bourbon Street. Attending Mardi Gras shortened my life expectancy by a good 10 years.

We've just landed. Barcelona was a blast. Mucho fun.

Apparently they fall over when the battery dies. Duh. It's not magic. It's a battery operated device. How did Segway owners not realize this? (M. Parent: "Wait a minute- there's a COM-PUTER in there!?!?")

Consumer Alert: Airplanes and helicopters to be recalled next- they could fall out of the sky when out of gas.

It's probably not a good idea anymore for me to carry on: my laptop, ipod, digital camera, lomo, gps, cellphone (w/camera), and sometimes a medium format camera and light meter. Other items to leave behind...