Unexpected visitors in the storm
We’ve just gone through quite a big storm. Since yesterday morning it has been raining, raining, raining. Then the wind whipped up, hitting something like 55 km per hour.
The power flickered last night but didn’t go out. Nice.
This morning it’s gloomy, gloomy, gloomy. The forecast contains a continuing rain warning. Alas, January on the coast. The good news is that it’s a “pineapple express” with warm temperatures. Nice.
It’s a bit of a pain taking poor Kepler out into the elements to do his business, and yet it’s still cozy in the cabin and consulting work can continue.
This morning we saw an exciting sight down at the waterfront: pure white swan-looking birds. We’re guessing snow geese?
Snow geese visiting during the storm Photo: John McLachlan
They seem to be gone already and are perhaps just finding tasty morsels here and there. Perhaps they were taking refuge from the storm. Or, is this a regular stop on their annual voyage?
Will have to investigate this crucial issue. But for now, back to work.
Strong Wind Warning in Effect
We often dump on the weather prediction people for getting it wrong. In a spirit of openness, I have been tracking what the marine weather forecasters on the coast of British Columbia have been saying for the region of water that we are located in.
Here’s my experience. In most cases, when there is a fairly brisk breeze and waves of a couple of feet outside my window, there is no wind warning in effect but when there is barely a breeze and the water is rippled or completely calm, I will often see a “Strong Wind Warning in Effect.”
The following screen shot and the accompanying photo were taken within seconds of each other. One shows the Strong Wind Warning in Effect” and the other shows the actual conditions. You decide!
PS – in case you want to point out that their warning may have meant that a wind was coming, it didn’t.
After first week on Hornby Island
A few thoughts about the first week on Hornby Island and the bicycle accident that Darren had. It was a hard way to find out how the emergency services work.
Retirement: What a Stupid Word
Well, it’s been quite awhile since I’ve done a post here. That will change, I think. Back in November I worked my last day for TELUS, my employer for over thirty years. Wow.
Because I started right out of university at age 21, I was able to take advantage of a situation where they needed to downsize and offered “packages” for “early” retirement. So, while I am now retired, it has gone from a being a theoretical concept to reality. And now that it’s here, I see that it’s a stupid word.
I am setting up a consulting practice – so much for retirement – focusing on some fundamental business administration areas including: strategic planning, balanced scorecards for performance management and pay-for-performance compensation. It’s called Outburst Performance.
I have an initial client and am also preparing a two-hour workshop to be delivered at a performing arts conference, Pacific Contact, in March.
There are a couple of major changes being triggered by this retirement business:
- we’re moving to Hornby Island full time in March rather than another eighteen months (living in the family cabin during construction of our house)!
- setting up my business while living out beyond is now something I need to bring to the front-burner to figure out how to make it work.
I have been spending quite a bit of time saturating myself with social media – Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, Flickr – and getting a feel for it. Part of it is pure fun – reconnecting with cousins I haven’t talked to in decades – and part of it is business. I even attended a little book club on Friday set up by John to discuss a book on the topic. Online triggers offline activities…
So, last year was an unexpectedly a year of major change triggered by my employment situation. This year will be the same, or possibly even more so, with our physical move out of the city after thirty years (fifty for John). With my retirement gift from work, we’ve bought bicycles for the island. I haven’t ridden one in over 40 years (25-second video of big event).
To use some business-y “suit talk”: we have the core competencies to embrace ambiguity. It will come with challenges but should be fun. If not now, when?
Letting the Living Out Beyond begin
To borrow TELUS’s tag line: the future is friendly. Let the “living out beyond” begin.
Cedar Trees
By John McLachlan
One of the nice things about living in a more remote place is the proximity to natural surroundings. One of my favourite walks is along a high bluff on Hornby Island above Lambert Channel.
The trail is an old logging road that was used when the mountain was logged in the 1950s. Most of the trees were taken down but some younger ones remained. In this video I am in an area where some cedar trees stand.
The primary trees on the island are Cedar, Douglas Fir and Grand Fir. The Western Redcedar (Thuja plicate) is the Provincial tree of British Columbia.
A Walk Through the Property
In this video update I take a short walk from the top of the property to the bottom discussing what we are going to cover on the blog as well as some of the issues about building on unserviced, rural land.
P.S. It is a real deer in the background.
So, I’m in on this, too…
Okay, so I’m in on this, too, along with John.
I recently turned fifty. Does that mean something? Probably. Probably a good thing. I think I’m a creature of habit and follow-through, which has its pros and cons. So, being at the top of the proverbial hill I can begin to see the distant horizon. What am I waiting for? What am I working for? What am I living for?
Let’s start something new. Is it cliche to want to have more control of my day and to do the things I never get to? My grandfather liked playing the piano; so do I. My father liked to garden; so do I. My mother likes to peruse recipes and try something new; yup, so do I. It all boils down to the way you spend your daily hours.
My training and degree was in music as a composer and a pianist. I never used it, so I guess that was a big mistake. Or was it. Now, I’m hankering for a piano and I’ll have it. I started work as a computer programmer at BC Tel and I’ve had half a dozen different roles there over the years. All in all it’s been a terrific place to work. There are so many things I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do otherwise. It still is in many ways but perhaps it’s less of a career and more of a job. As interesting as it can be it’s just not as fulfilling.
Even though we’re moving here in a couple of years I may well still be working for some years. This is the work/life balance bit. The term, enabled by technology, isn’t theoretical, it’s making all this happen. Now, just let it be faster…
Okay, I’ll have to keep these notes short. The more we talk about the ins and outs of the whole move, the more we realize there is to consider and why we think there could be a lot of dialogue with you. Advice on fixtures. How to keep the damn, but cute, deer out of a garden without turning into a gulag concentration camp. How to make friends. How to entice friends and family to take six hours to get here.
Good night.
Starting the Adventure
It’s May 31, 2010 and we have started Living Out Beyond to cover a major lifestyle change in our lives that we think others may find interesting and insightful.
We are going to move from the city (Vancouver, Canada) to Hornby Island, a small island in the Straight of Georgia on the British Columbia coast where we are having a house designed by a respected architect, built by a builder on the island, on a small piece of property given to us as a gift from parents.
Over the next two years, we will chronicle the various aspects of the project from:
- why we decided to make this move,
- what the design phase is like including the myriad decisions to be made on so many fronts,
- how the construction comes along (expect progress photos),
- all sorts of side stories and background about the entire process, and,
- what living in a semi-rural area is like and on an island in particular.
Starting out a little tentatively, but like the building of a house, we hope to find a strong footing and develop a mix of stories about the entire process as well as details about the smallest issues we have to deal with, like what kind of flooring and light switches to use and how working away from the core network really happens.
We think those who will be most interested will be people who live in a large urban setting but have, somewhere, itching in the back of their minds, a notion that perhaps they could live differently and still continue to work and play, albeit in very different surroundings.
Join us as we explore living out beyond!
