Withdrawals

This morning I’m feeling a bit “out-of-body” – as if I’m watching myself from a distance. The last 2 months (wow, has it been 2 months already), have been crazy. Let’s quickly catalog everything that has happened in my life recently:

Graduated from College
Moved (drove) from Toronto to Vancouver
Awarded a contract with Mozilla – my professional family
Olympics coming to my home
Being back in Mountain View for a QA work week

Looking back, I’ve realized, of everything that has happened, the most astonishing thing is how quickly these events have come to pass. All of this being condensed into a two month window has intensified the experience.

Withdrawals Photo 1 — Holding the 2010 Olympic Torch in Vancouver, BC

The Olympics coming to town was a life changing experience. I’ve never been a huge fan of the Olympics. There is something about the entire world coming to your city that turns your life upside down. Every day I would be glued to my TV watching the day’s events, trying to get some work done. Every night I would take the Skytrain downtown to take in the raw energy of hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets to celebrate. Huge sections of the city were completely shut down – traffic patterns changed in favour of pedestrians. It really made the city come to life.

My flight down to Mountain View this week actually coincided with the Canada v USA gold medal hockey game. I had to catch highlights as relayed from air traffic control to the pilot to the passengers in the cabin. After USA tied the game I felt a bit out numbered; a lot of people on the flight cheered (obviously American). Naturally, when the flight erupted in cheers a few minutes later I thought Canada had lost in overtime. I was ecstatic to discover it was actually Canada who had won. I guess there were more Canadians on the flight than I thought.

All of this excitement has made me fall in love with the Olympics. I’m actually feeling withdrawals only 12 hours after the end of the Olympics. I cannot imagine the Vancouver I will be flying back to in a few days. Will the city be the same as before? Will it be changed forever? Hopefully it doesn’t seem like a ghost town when I get back.

Anyway, it’s good to be back at the Mozilla office, even if only for a week. I’m looking forward to getting a lot of work done and pow-wowing with people I usually communicate via email. If you see me around the office, say “hi”!