After almost two weeks of travel I'm finally home and recovering from a nasty cold. I got to visit Toronto for the first time, as part of a user group meeting for our enterprise digital asset management application North Plains' Telescope; most of my time in Toronto was spent in sessions or networking with other customers, so I didn't get out much - one night I did take a long hike downtown, around the university and generally just stumbling around looking for enough light to shoot some panoramas.

After Toronto I headed to Chicago for 3 days of work out of headquarters. I was able to come home that Friday night, but had to go back to Chicago again on Sunday for the next week. 5 more days of work, and not much else, in Chicago and my cold was in full bloom. Exhaustion, cold, and too many changes in my daily rituals took its toll, but after 36 hours home in Los Angeles I'm already feeling a lot better. Hopefully I won't have to spend more than a few more days in Chicago before the end of the year.

10/24/2006, Four Seasons, Toronto
Drinks with Corey and Lynn
I was in Toronto on business and just happened to be staying around the corner from the Royal Ontario Museum, where a relative of Julia's is a curator. Corey came and met me at the hotel where we had a great conversation. I had a Coke and Corey had two cocktails - vodka, banana liqueur, and who knows what else, and we talked about religion, languages, cats, dogs, and far too much else to recall. Then Julia's aunt Lynn, from another side of her family, joined us with a glass of wine and more great exchanges. Eventually Lynn and I made our way to a great little Italian restaurant across the street and Corey went on his way home. I had a roasted veggie pizza and an awesome lentil soup (not seen here!).
click here for a fullscreen Quicktime VR version of this panorama