“Emerging Social Entrepreneur” I like it.

Twenty years ago, after one year of university at Carleton, I decided I’d had enough of Ottawa — a familiar feeling. On my way into the library to study I happened upon a poster that said, “Study in France.” So off I went, to Universite canadienne en France, a branch of Laurentian University that was set up on a low mountain overlooking the aquamarine Mediterranean and the gritty Riviera resort town of Nice. I took with me one suitcase, a bike that was too big (built for Rod, my 6’4″ stepdad), and no clue what I was doing. I was 19. It was a riotous year of travel and wine…

Alaska is four hours behind Eastern Time. Since getting home last Thursday, this fact has made midnight productive but mornings a mess. I tookJasper to school this morning in a fog on a clear day. Then I headed into town to my first day in my new office and didn’t know where it was. Project Porchlight is now renting space from Vrtucar on MacLaren St. just around the corner from a Bridgehead with free wireless Internet and expensive fair trade coffee. Which is Virtuous with an i. Alaska has me thinking about what kind of life I want, and more confident that I could have whatever life I choose. It’s…

It’s 12:30AM Anchorage time. I have a wake-up call in 3.5 hours for a 6AM flight to a 10AM Starbucks Tall Bold in Seattle, and dinner in Chicago and a snooze en route to Ottawa to (hopefully) a nice hug and kiss from sweet Mme Siouxie. 15 hours of travel. I’m beat. I would call this trip: Planes, Trains and Automobiles if it didn’t also include boats, glaciers, kayaks, crampons, mine shafts and whale pods. Today I spent 7 hours on a 20-passenger yacht on Prince William Sound en route from Valdez to Whittier writing a Porchlight funding proposal. I’d write a bit, then dash to the bow to watch…