Into the strenuous briefness Life: handorgans and April darkness,friends i charge laughing. Into the hair-thin tints of yellow dawn into the women-coloured twilight i smilingly glide. I into the big vermilion departure swim,sayingly; (Do you think?)the i do,world is probably made of roses & hello: (of solongs and,ashes) e.e.cummings -- This afternoon, in that strange 15 minutes that are after hours but before anyone's really left the building, some of my peers asked me a business question I couldn't really answer. I have a couple of stock answers I keep around for various ocassions when I have no direct input. One of them is from my grandfather, "I'm just listening to the smart folk talk." Another one I got from Aaron Sorkin's writing in West Wing. The character, Toby, is noted as an unusually good speech writer. But frequently he will come up short with words in real life, and his inability to espress himself as eloquently as he writes actually is eloquent in its own vagueness. So he says one time: "I'm just the guy who does the thing". And that's what I said to my peers as they waited outside my Vice President's office to receive a response to the question I couldn't answer. And as one hopes when uttering something so useless, it engendered a sequence of baffled but respectful responses. On the way home, I was listening to a Dave Ramsey podcast, and one of his callers was having income/career issues, and he recommended one of the two books by Dan Miller (48 Days to the Work You Love or No More Mondays), and I thought of all the poor saps out there who are working at unsatisfying jobs. I remember my ex-wife being so unhappy at every job she ever had (which I guess is why she put herself $65,000 into debt to get a second bachelor's degree). And I think of those quotes like, "it's not about having what you want, but wanting what you have". Certainly that only works up to a point: some jobs just suck, and sometimes, the job would be great if it weren't for the environment--the boss, the coworkers. Or that great quote from Clerks: "This job would be GREAT if it weren't for the fucking customers." And I remember times when I was frustrated with my job, but there was enough growth the job could offer me that I saw it through to the next thing. I remember telling someone at Happy Hour last night that I have no idea what other companies are like: I've never worked for any company but the one I work for. I started making practically minimum wage in our retail stores and ten years later, well... let's just say I'm not making minimum wage; they paid around $90,000 to relocate me from CA to TX. And since the relocation alone, I've held three different jobs for the company. And each one is more engaging, more satisfying than the last. And yet none of them are anything I ever, EVER thought I'd be doing. I'm not a writer, I'm not an architect, I'm not a web designer, I'm not a Chemical Engineer (all the things I've pursued academically). Might I be happier doing any of those things? Maybe. I don't know (I think Juli might have been happier if I had). I think so. But I'm pretty damn happy with my career right now. I think that's something that scared Juli: that I could find myself where I am and be happy... she saw it as stunting the potential for growth. But what she never saw--what so few people see--is that in the meantime, I'm content. I'm making friends, living moments, events, and memories... I collect them like postage stamps, like butterflies, like vintage cars. I'm making connections, and more than anything, I'm content. I spend eight (or more) hours each day simultaneously playing and doing something important to someone. I can be happy so much that I can take where I am and grow it into something more. My dad always told me: "Find something you love to do so much you'd do it for free, but do it so well that someone will pay you handsomely to do it." And that's always worked pretty well for me. I'm just the Guy who does the Thing.

© Billy Wilson 2011 This Second Empire house stands on Hazelton Avenue in Yorkville, Toronto. The Toronto Project: Hi Flickr, I have been busy finishing my degree, and now I'm done!! I have finally completed my bachelor's in biology and chemistry. I just returned from a trip to Toronto. I have taken a fascination with the city in many ways and I had a list of things to do and experience there. In my three full days of staying there and shooting I experienced a lot and took 4927 photos, I walked dozons of kilometers, and visited many interesting areas. Some of the highlights include; the PATH system, Hockey Hall of Fame, Union Station, all of the major financial building complexes, CN Tower, Old City Hall, Osgoode Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario, Kensington Market, Chinatown, Sunnybrook Park, Cabbagetown, Necropolis, Euclid Hall, Gooderham Houses, Queen's Park Legislative Buildings, All of the old colleges of the University of Toronto, Royal Conservatory of Music, Annex style houses, Yorkville Houses and firehall, Casa Loma, Spadina Museum, the Royal Ontario Museum, Allen Gardens, Mackenzie House, St Michael's Church, Metropolitan United Church, Flatiron Building, St Lawrence Market, Toronto's first post office, St. Lawrence Hall, Sculpture Garden, St. James Church, Gooderham and Worts Distillary, Cherry Street Hotel, and Little Trinity Church and the surrounding neighborhood of Corktown. This is just an image of a large series that I'm doing. The primary goal of this project is to document the diverse types of architecture that one can find in Toronto. Much of it has a British influence or American such as Richardsonian Romanesque when it comes to older buildings. But since Toronto is also a modern alpha global city and a global financial city it has a diverse and impressive amount of modern skyscrapers and post modern architecture. Its diversity is also shown in its people in that atleast 50% of the people living in Toronto weren't even born in Canada, making Toronto the world's most ethnically diverse city. It is extremely colourful and every corner has a new surprise. One can pass down the same street multiple times and stil find surprises like little shops you didn't even notice. I can't wait to return, but I need work in order to get down there again. Please press "L" on your keyboard to see the image on black!!