Oliver and I are off to Japan in the morning. We take the 6:00 a.m. flight from Charlottetown to Toronto, then fly from Toronto to Washington Dulles, and finally head for Tokyo on United 803, arriving 4:35 p.m. local time on Thursday. Japan, conveniently, is currently 12 hours ahead of Charlottetown (a nice counterpart to the “1 yen is about a penny Canadian”), so we’ll be landing 2:30 a.m. on Thursday morning Charlottetown time.

But they tell me it’s best to not think of these things, and to get yourself into the headspace of the destination. So I’m thinking hard about it being 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday as I type (despite what the clocks tell me, and it being dark outside, and me being ready to go to bed). Talk to you from the other side of the world.

It might appear to careful readers that I have given up the ghost on this hacker-in-residence blog. But I haven’t. I’ve been away on other business for the first part of March and now I’m off to Japan with my son for a vacation for the rest of the month. Regular hacking will resume in April.

In the meantime, perhaps you’d like to register for a pre-conference workshop I’m presenting on May 14th for the Atlantic Provinces Library Association annual conference called “DIY Mapping for Libraries.”

Catherine spoke to CBC’s Karen Mair about her show in the Confederation Centre Art Gallery; listen:

(Embedded audio widget courtesy of A Better Embedder, which is really quite wonderful).

Last night the City of Charlottetown held a public meeting about the proposed National Folk Festival in Victoria Park. The meeting was required under the Victoria Park and Promenade Bylaw:

Where the Parks and Recreation Manager, in consultation with the Parks & Recreation and Culture Committee, determines that a proposed special event is a major event, then the application for use shall be referred to Council who will by resolution approve (with or without conditions) or reject the application. Council will, before reaching a decision, hold a public meeting to receive public input as to whether or not, and if so, on what conditions the proposed major event ought to proceed.

The bylaw currently in place, last amended in 2009, is the successor of the original bylaw, passed in June of 1873, a bylaw that stated, in part:

The said lands shall be used, appropriated and set apart by the said City, at the expense of the said City, for the sole purpose of a Park, Promenade and Pleasure Ground, for the use of the citizens, the inhabitants of this Island, and all Her Majesty’s subjects.

The said City shall not, on any account whatsoever, use, or permit to be used, the said lands, for the purposes of Circuses, Shows, or Exhibitions of any kind, whatsoever, and should the same be so permitted to be used by the said City, the lands hereinbefore mentioned shall revert to and be vested in Her Majesty, her heirs and successors.

At last night’s meeting I stood up to oppose the granting of permission to use Victoria Park for a folk festival because I believe that public spaces should be free and open to the public; I believe this same spirit was reflected in the original bylaw: “for the use of the citizens, the inhabitants of this Island, and all Her Majesty’s subjects.”

There has been a disturbing trend in recent year in Charlottetown to wall off public spaces – Confederation Landing Park, Victoria Row, sections of Queen Street, and Victoria Park – for the exclusive use of ticket-buyers. The justification for these walls is most often some combination “it’s only for a weekend” or “it will bring huge tourism dollars to the city”; these rationalizations ignore the fundamental rights of all the citizens of the city, rich and poor, to benefit from public spaces.

When we put up walls in Victoria Park and say to our citizens “you can only go in this space – this space you and your ancestors have paid for and stewarded – unless you can come up with $100 for a weekend pass” we are disenfranchising many of our fellow citizens for whom such expense is simply not managable.

I’m a big supporter of the folk festivals and of folk music in general; I think the team behind the proposed National Folk Festival is top flight, and their proposal is well-considered. But I cannot conscience supporting an event that excludes some of my friends and neighbours on economic grounds. I think our ancestors understood this, and I think it’s time we did the responsible thing and update the bylaw to clearly state that public spaces are for the public, for all the public.

At the PEI Home and School Federation’s 60th Anniversary Concert this Saturday night, March 2, 2013, there will a silent auction of artworks from invited guests. These original works have all been created from a single sheet of bristol board and crayons, and are on the general topic of “memories of public school.” Here’s the contribution from Catherine:

If you’re a longtime reader you may recall part of this image from a photo I took on Oliver’s first day of school:

Catherine took Oliver, and added me. My own galpumphy presence notwithstanding, it’s a beautiful piece, crafted from Japanese paper ripped and glued to the bristol board (Catherine’s never been one for following the rules).

Limited tickets are still available for the event; call the Confederation Centre Box Office to reserve yours soon!

App.net has opened a “free tier” of membership, with invitations available from paid members. Because this makes it less an enclave, I’m diving back in (I was an early supporter, but lost interest when the plains were too barren). Find me at alpha.app.net/ruk.

Starting this Friday, March 1, at Noon (Atlantic Standard Time), you can watch the livestream of the “Bluefield High School Mega Concert” online. The concert runs for hours and hours, so you can watch all day, or dip in and out. It’s all being done in support of the school band’s trip to Newfoundland.

By virtue of maintaining the unofficial digital version of the Prince Edward Island school calendar, it’s been on my radar for more than 6 months that this spring’s March school break, being followed as it is the next weekend by a 4-day Easter long weekend, presents a unique “go away somewhere far away with Oliver and don’t miss too much school” opportunity. And so, for most of the fall and winter the notion of where has been tickling the back of my mind.

As March drew nearer and the sense of urgency grew – I didn’t want to try to spin “hey, a trip to Bathurst!” to Oliver because of my procrastination – I started to narrow down the possibilities.

Norway was high on my list: what’s not to love about a country that’s mad for coffee, has this amazing building, this amazing voice and otherwise remains a complete mystery to me (I don’t believe I’ve ever met a single person from Norway). The idea of Norway got me started experimenting with the Aeroplan, where I’ve been collecting and not redeeming “miles” for long enough to have accumulated 110,000 of them, which is, in theory, enough to get somewhere serious, even for two people.

What I kept coming up against, however, is routings across the Atlantic that saw Air Canada tacking on a $500 “fuel surcharge” on top regular airport taxes and fees that aren’t included in the “free” Aeroplan trips. I noticed, however, that one return routing from Oslo to Charlottetown via Newark was on United Airlines, and that booking only had half the fuel surcharge of others, suggesting that United doesn’t have the same (or perhaps any) fuel surcharge regime that Air Canada does.

Then I recalled a casual comment the other week by Isaac Grant in the coffee shop: “Dan always calls,” he said, referring to consummate traveler Dan James, and he doesn’t stop until he finds an agent that will work with him. And then I realized something else: you don’t actually have to have enough “miles” in your Aeroplan “bank” to pay for the entire cost of a trip: you can purchase “top-up miles” with cash.

Together this got me thinking more ambitiously: what about trying to max out the Aeroplan system and the super-March-holiday opportunity and go to Japan, which is a county I’ve wanted to visit for a long, long time but which has always seemed too far away, in time and money, to be a reasonable school break destination.

I started to poke around the possible routes to Japan from Charlottetown (when you’re flying on points it doesn’t make any sense to do a “drive to Halifax” or “drive to Moncton” unless scheduling requires it). Japan is in the Asia 1 Aeroplan region, and requires 75,000 “miles” return per person from Charlottetown.

I was 39,937 “miles” short of the 150,000 I needed, and the Aeroplan booking engine quoted me $1198.11 (or 3 cents/mile) to top up and $251 in taxes and fees without fuel surcharges. Routing by Air Canada showed fuel surcharges of $584 per person, for a total of $1168 on top of that.

So, I decided to try and pull a Dan.

Last night before supper I called Aeroplan on the phone. I laid out my plan honestly: “I want to take my son to Japan, but I won’t fly on Air Canada because I don’t want to pay $1168 in fuel surcharges; can you route me from Charlottetown to Tokyo without Air Canada?”

Fortunately I got a good, helpful agent who understood my plight and resolved to help me. I told him I wanted to leave on March 15th and come back on March 31st, but that I was flexible.

He worked away for about 10 minutes and then presented me with a plan: Charlottetown to Toronto on Air Canada followed by Toronto-Washington Dulles-Tokyo on United to get there on March 13th, and then Tokyo-Chicago-Halifax on United followed by Halifax-Charlottetown on Air Canada to get back on March 27th. Fuel surcharge: $0. The only downside was the need to stay overnight in Halifax on the way back, but I was willing to eat that.

“Book it!”, I said.

Total cost for the airfare was $1449.37.

Comparing an AirCanada.com booking for the same dates the best routing (Charlottetown-Toronto-Narita) was quoted at $3892.76 and an overnight-in-Halifax-en-route-routing was $3156.76, so we “saved” about $1700 over buying tickets with cash.

“Saving” is all relative in the virtual world of airline points, of course, and I may live to regret not paying an extra $2400 to get a one-stop trip to Japan. But I come from a long line of “walk 12 blocks to save 50 cents on a tub of yogurt” suckers-for-a-good-bargain, so we’ll go via Washington and Chicago and be happy.

Why Japan? What will we do?

Well, [[Oliver]] really likes sushi. And that neat FabCafe that Peter Bihr wrote about. And the Printing Museum. And the 9 hours capsule hotel. And the chance to stay on a mountain.

But if I’m being honest, the attraction is in the unknown: I know almost nothing about Japan. I’m afraid of the food, and prospect of strange toilets. I’m not sure how I’m going to be an effective parent after flying across the Pacific. And, of course, I neither speak nor read Japanese. And what’s that about there being no street addresses in Tokyo?

But that’s why we travel, isn’t it? To see through new eyes. To take ourselves out of the “who moved the toothpaste to the other side of the sink!?” regularlity of every day life. And, with Oliver, the chance to ramble into this as father-and-son, showing him the value on leaping into the unknown and affording me the chance to see the world through his eyes.

The PEI Home and School Federation is celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2013, and a big part of this celebrating involves a fantastic concert coming up on March 2, 2013 at the Confederation Centre of the Arts. Featuring current students in the Prince Edward Island public school system as well as a collection of talented alumni, it promises to be a great night; see the full line-up here.

You can get tickets for $14 ($10 plus their fees) online or over the phone from Confederation Centre of the Arts box office, or if you’d like to get them “wholesale” without those fees you can order them from me (or any local home and school) for only $11.

One of the innovations here at Robertson Library that I most appreciate is that there’s a coffee shop right in the library lobby. At Samuel’s (named for the library’s namesake Samuel Napier Robertson) one can get a bagel, a sandwich, a cup of tea of coffee, or, much to my surprise this afternoon, sushi. If you know anything about library administration, you can only imagine the heated debates that must have taken place leading up to the establishing Samuel’s – indeed the library needed to rewrite its own Food and Drink/Noise Policy (note, however, the boldfacing of  “is permitted on a limited basis,” and the specific prohibition of “smelly or messy foods”).

One thing you cannot get at Samuel’s, however – nor, indeed, anywhere on the University of PEI campus – are espresso-based beverages. In all the myriad food service outlets on campus there is nary a one that offers a cappuccino, a macchiato or an espresso. This has always struck me as absurd, given the centrality of the espresso to academic study. There is, however, faint hope on the horizon.

It turns out that Justin Ford, Head Chef at UPEI is the same Justin who used to serve me a cappuccino every morning at Casa Mia Café in downtown Charlottetown when he was chef there. Justin knows his espresso, and so I thought an appeal to him might be in order, so when I began my term here in the library I dropped him a line; I heard back shortly from one of his staff that, in fact, plans were already underway:

Currently there is no espresso machine on campus, but we have one on order with Vanhoutte, it will be put in Samuels sometime next month.

And, sure enough, when I stopped by Samuel’s this afternoon for lunch I saw a new piece of equipment installed on the counter:

It’s a Necta-brand Colibri model automatic machine. It’s hard to tell whether it’s a Colibri Instant or a Colibri Espresso, although the selections on the front suggest that it’s the later, which is a good sign, as it means that it’s a “bean to cup” model rather than an “instant cappuccino mix” model.

I’m told that the machine is being broken in now and will be ready to serve to the public shortly. I’ve had some surprisingly good machine-made espresso over the years (and some mind-numbingly bad machine-made espresso too). Stay tuned.