(11 more photos)

It's been such a long time since I've written anything to you, my faithful readers. Life became so hectic and hurried that I barely had time to use a computer. In fact, it's been about three months since I last wrote anything substantive on the Internet.

I think that a lot of this has been fall-out from working on computers too much. Really, I had a brief spat where I stopped using a computer completely. You should have seen the size of my inbox when I returned. As such, the writing bug has come less frequently and less passionately than before. I suspect a bit of my photography has suffered as well, but it's really starting to come back.

Since you all like looking at pictures, I think I'll pull out a bunch to show you.

madamewoo and I went to see our friend Freida perform her experimental electronic musical composition.

I know nothing about electronic music but I do know something about pictures. Alexander, whom I don't know, put a distintegrating stuffed animal on his head, walked up to the front, and nodded so that stuffing fell all about him..

I did a small bit with this year's Computers Freedom and Privacy, held in Montréal. Mostly I did a little research on party planning and did a bit of the advertising. Since this was a privacy conference, there are no public pictures from our little soirée.

However, I am allowed to post photos of the fascinating open panel discussion.

This was actually a summer full of conferences, which is something I'm quite pleased about. Evan Prodromou helped organize RoCoCo Camp, which centres around wikis and other collaborate on-line spaces.

He also introduced me to OpenSpace, which was so successful I think the next BarCamp should employ it.

Next, I flew to Edmonton to shoot a friend's wedding. My mom and I wandered the streets for the first few days, taking in the sights.

Downtown Edmonton is rather deserted for the May long weekend, we only saw the homeless walking around the deserted Chinatown district.

West Edmonton Mall fared a lot better. The shoppers were out in full force and couples were dragging each other into the various shops.

We snuck into the fairground and took some pictures of the rides. This rollercoaster seemed quite popular, though since I'm deathly afraid of heights, I knew better than to climb aboard.

After all that glitz and excitement, Mom decided that we should take in some of the cultural sights. The Alberta Legislature Building is actually quite gorgeous, with a surprising tropical garden at the top of its domed roof.

For the stag party, I tagged along with the bride and groom as they went on a whirlwind tour in a white limousine. We managed to end up at a bar where the guests got rather hammered. After a few rounds of pool, people were getting tired so I called the driver and dropped people off at their hotels.

I returned home to a forlorn kitty cat.

He ignored me for a few hours but then decided that he was far happier posing in front of the camera.

Sadly, we noticed that the bathroom sink had clogged up while I was away. My efforts to clear the clog were futile, so the landlord called the plumber. Who used a drain snake, then disassembled the sink, then tore out the wall, before asking “is this floor made of wood?”

Madamewoo looked at me with horror as the workman got out his hacksaw. Well, that's how we started the bathroom renovation project and were forced to find alternate bathrooms for about two weeks.