I’m driving out to Toronto tomorrow. Instead of a long vacation, I’ve decided to do long weekends until Christmas.

I’m praying for a safe drive, as it’ll be my first winter with the Civic, and the fact that it already snowed in Toronto today. I’ve always pictured myself in my car, warm inside, protected from the cold outside. I like that idea.

As per usual, I’ll be packing all my camera and video gear.

I’ve been so busy getting ready for this trip — organizing plans with people, getting my pictures printed and framed, packing, doing extra work for my first boss — that I’m already feeling somewhat overwhelmed. It’s going to be four days packed with people, so I know I’ll be feeling overstimulated by the end.

Normally, I don’t like to have things this tight, but there are so many people I want to see. If I could, I’d fit in Andrew and Alex, maybe even explore on my own.

I’m still pretty excited though.

Schedule

Thursday

• Leave some time in the afternoon.
• Arrive at my dad’s house, where I’ll be staying the night. Dinner (roast duck) with him. Looking forward to this.

Friday

• Meet up with Rita at noon, who’s giving me a tour of her U of T office, and then heading downtown with another photographer to take pictures of alleys and graffiti.
• Dinner with Rita and perhaps people I have yet to meet.
• Staying at Rita’s that night.

Saturday

• Brunch party with Rita’s crew. This has been canceled, and now I have time to see John in the morning/afternoon. We may actually go watch a movie, something we used to do daily in the summers of university, but haven’t done in years now.
• Meet up with Oreste (not sure if it’ll be Saturday or Sunday), whom I was lucky enough to find and contact.
• Drive to Darren’s to catch up and stay the night.

Sunday

• Have dim sum with my dad. Not so sure about this because of Monday’s plans
• Hang out with Darren some more.

Monday

• Meet up with my first boss, whom I haven’t seen in about six years, for lunch. He likes to do dim sum, and I don’t like to do dim sum two days in a row, so we’ll see.
• Head home.
• Buy groceries.
• Take a really long shower.

Driving Tunes

In the car, I’ll have some new music to guide me there and back. I’ve been holding off on listening to these tunes as much as possible lately.

• Dungen’s latest psychedelic album, 4
• Accoustic singles that Shane Watt burned for me (jealous much?)
• Atreyu’s second (and arguably fastest) album, The Curse
• Coheed and Cambria’s first album, The Second Stage Turbine Blade, which I recently re-discovered
• Eagles of Death Metal second album, Death By Sexy
• Iron and Wine’s latest, The Shepherd’s Dog
• Leonard Cohen’s third folk-rock album, Songs of Love and Hate