Hello,

Just a general update. Everything is peachy here. We just got a €100 rent reduction because of the recession (and because I just asked). This recession keeps coming up Ben!

Work is going well. I am still proud of myself for getting top marks on my yearly evaluation. I am aiming to get top marks again next year. Microsoft really compensates their top performers well. If I stay on for a few more years and keep performing at a high level, I could get some serious cash and stocks! It doesn't really seem that hard to do a great job either. I think my value proposition at work is mainly in my ideas. I have lots of good ideas and I try my best to see that they get implemented. As long as I keep churning out great ideas, I think I continue to be a top performer!

Julie and I are planning our next trips. I have a free trip to Belfast which I need to use before 2010, so we will likely be going there soon. After that, the one high on our list is Berlin. I've heard nothing but amazing things about Berlin and many of Julie's academic interests are in Germany.

Lately I have been learning more and more about global warming and mans impact on the global climate. It's some very scary stuff. Most of the reports from the IPCC are optimistic at best. If you start reading what the more likely case scenarios are, they are very scary. We may not even recognize planet earth by 2100. I would really suggest watching this presentation. The lecturer just gives it to you strait and doesn't sugar coat anything. He also talks about some solutions and options that we have.

Personally I have done some huge things lately to cut my carbon footprint. I have become vegetarian, given up my car in favor of electric light rail, and moved closer to work. But even then, I calculated my carbon footprint today and it's still too high (around 6 tons). So I have started to donate $40 USD per month to a charity called "Trees for the future". For every dollar you give to them, they will plant 10 trees (10 cents a tree). They focus on planting trees in very low income areas so I am assuming that's how they can get the price down to 10 cents a tree (which seems almost too good to be true). But, the charity rates highly on Charity navigator and I've seen several good things said about them around the web. So, essentially, for my $40 USD per month, I am getting 400 trees per month or 4800 per year planted for me. That should offset my carbon footprint by a large margin. I feel good about this. Take a look at this video which I think describes the charity quite well.



I still don't have my new goals ready yet. I am trying to be even more ambitious this year but I need to take enough time to figure out what I really want from this thing we call life.

I should be back in the Toronto/Ottawa area this xmas time. I would love to see anyone who wants to see me :)

cya soon
--Ben