It’s 6:30 AM. I’m in my room on the 7th floor of the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. Suzy and the kids are asleep. The city’s slowly waking. An office tower a stone’s throw out my window is largely empty, even though the lights are on. It’s that hour of the morning where it’s dark enough to see into the building, not light enough to turn the windows all shiny business-like. Everybody’s got one of those newfangled flat-screen monitors.
We’re here for the Energy Star national conference. Project Porchlight will receive a Market Transformation Award in a glittering ballroom tonight. Tomorrow I’m scheduled to address the conference on our success. I don’t feel super successful. In case you missed it, after signing a deal last week to expand Porchlight across Ottawa, our prime sponsor changed its mind. Even though they’d signed. And I’d quit my job. Oops. This trip to Toronto was supposed to be part of our big announcement chock full of words like change, hope, opportunity, power. Now “litigious” comes often to mind. It does have a certain music, although when I think of what has happened over the past week I hear that sound that usually ends an ironic sequence on Sesame Street, or the sad tuba toot that always played when someone overbid on the Price is Right.
The kids went to sleep quickly last night, after the train trip, take-out and swim. Suzy and I watched Lost (isn’t it ironic) and hit the hay early. The bulb in the bedside lamp burned out. It was a 60w incandescent. There are 10 more in this room. Change is still Within Reach.
