Adam Soltys

I'm blown away right now thinking about all the stuff I've done since my last update a couple months ago. Highlights include my road trip to San Francisco and Sasquatch music festival with Andrew, visiting with Alan and Unni in Stockholm and Prague, motorcycling through northern Spain with Chelsea, countless beach and BBQ days with Aydin and my Vancouver pals, camping trips on the island and to Weaver lake, and finally riding across B.C. to arrive at my new home in Edmonton.

Our apartment here is sweet. Chels has really hooked it up with some nice furniture. There's a pretty good gym in the building that I expect I'll be taking full advantage of. There's also a shopping plaza right next to us with a Save-On Foods and a bunch of restaurants. And apparently there's a pool just around the corner which I've yet to check out. I'm about a 10 minute walk from work and if I get really lazy in the winter I can even take the subway.

The office here is really nice too. Everyone seems friendly. There's a food court at the bottom of the building which makes lunch a no-brainer and I've got a big cubicle and a new PC.

I bought a Samsung Galaxy Android phone today through Bell so I've finally jumped on the smartphone bandwagon. Apparently this model just came out today. It's an iPhone imitator. I like it so far. I also signed up for a 3 year contract on a promo plan that gives me unlimited long distance and texts to 10 people of my choosing -- perfect!

I'm liking Edmonton so far. I'm excited to get onto a self-development spree again. I want to learn sign language, contribute to some more open source software projects, continue with my French and Spanish learning, do some motorcycle maintenance, rock climbing, and volunteering for an adult literacy program, and hopefully I'll do a lot more reading too.

Chelsea and I went over to Victoria last weekend for her graduation ceremony. I skipped the actual graduation and just visited with our pals all weekend. Had a great time. Nothing beats the feeling of hopping on the motorcycle and riding to the ferries on a sunny Thursday afternoon with a long weekend lying ahead.

Now I'm back in the office trying to dust off my JavaScript skills, listening to My Morning Jacket, and reading some past journal entries that I wrote to myself after the olympics, new year's, and an epic November. Once in a while I'll write myself these private emails with a detailed account of what I've been doing and what I've been thinking about. Going back and reading them is always a treat and writing them helps me sort my thoughts out and get a feeling of assurance and organization when I'm anxious or scattered. I highly recommend it. Being a fast typist definitely helps.

I've been listening to music through youtube videos lately. They recently introduced a 'Disco' button that will give you more info about the artist you're listening to and generate a list of songs by them and other similar artists that you can then start cycling through. It's great for discovering new music and hearing stuff from your favourite bands that you haven't heard before. I found this guy, for instance, while listening to Nick Drake: