Fun at the book launch for The Story of Upfront Carbon

Thanks to everyone who came and bought a book!

It’s a short post today about my crazy week with the book launch and other events that have kept me away from my regular writing, and I have so many lovely photos to share!

When my first book, Living the 1.5 Degree Lifestyle also from New Society Publishers came out, it was smack in the middle of lockdown and all we could do is have a small family dinner on a restaurant patio. When a major birthday came up during the pandemic, we had an outdoor get-together on another rainy and cold patio.

So I really saw the book launch for The Story of Upfront Carbon as two book launches and a pile of birthdays rolled into one. It didn’t quite work out that way; some of our best friends were either in Copenhagen or Niagara Falls, and even my wife Kelly couldn’t make it because our poor little dog Millie is very sick. I spent most of the evening behind a table signing books, but I had a wonderful time anyway.

Other good friends were able to make it, and some drove long distances; here is Robert Ouellette talking to Katherine Johnson Martinko, another New Society Publisher author with her very timely book Childhood Unplugged.

We had the event at The Arts and Letters Club, where I am a member, and we filled the room with a mix of friends, followers of this blog, former students, and other club members.

I did a short version of my talk about the book, edited down to about 15 minutes. It got a big round of applause and the suggestion that I should record it and put it up on Youtube; I am going to do that in the next few days.

Eric Chan of Limit One Productions did the photography; he had a bit of trouble because I didn’t want flash, noting that “the lighting was a bit challenging with the mix of blue sunlight with very orange tungsten bulbs in the venue.” But I am very happy with the results; he captured some wonderful smiles.

The food was also excellent, although slightly restricted by our climatarian diet; there was no beef, lamb or shrimp. Thanks to the Arts and Letters Club for a wonderful evening, and thank you to everyone who came and made it such a wonderful night.

A talk at SvN Architects

Last evening, I took my show on the road, having been invited to speak at SvN Architects. The vN is for John van Nostrand, who was a year ahead of me at the University of Toronto and a big influence; I followed him around like a puppy at school.

It was a bit of a disaster technically; I always bring my presentations on a USB stick as a backup, and was asked if I could use their equipment as they were sharing it with their offices in Vancouver and Mexico City. This was originally scheduled for a month ago, but was cancelled at the last minute due to a communications problem. I had spent the last week updating my presentation, but apparently I loaded up the month-old version. I was a bit flustered, but muddled through and they seem to have enjoyed it.

I learned a few lessons:

1. Label presentations more clearly and carefully.

2. Use a newer, faster USB stick. I have a pile of 10 year old sticks from trade shows (Thank you, Thyssenkrupp for your services) and have learned that new USB-C sticks transfer data ten times as fast.

3. Say to my host that I would really prefer to use my own lovely MacBook Air.

I will be in Amherstburg at the River Book Shop on June 20 talking about small towns and low carbon living with owner and author Richard Peddie, and will be back to my regular programming on Monday; now I am going to take the rest of the day off and recover!