What a rough week it has been for Team StepForth!

StepForth Placement has undergone a number of changes over the past seven days the largest and most obvious of which is we have moved from the friendly neighbourhood of Fernwood to the oldest section of downtown Victoria , Bastion Square .

Our new building is actually quite old, built almost 130 years ago behind the western wall of the former Fort Victoria . Its history has more stories than a skyscraper though, like most buildings in Victoria , it is less than five floors high. Built originally as a warehouse, our office building has housed a hotel, a miner's pub, one of Victoria 's notorious turn-of-the-century (1890's) brothels, and was once considered one of the finer opium dens on the west coast. Mere feet from the front entry, a blank spot in the square marks the point where the hangman's gallows once stood, right behind British Columbia's first provincial courthouse. According to several local legends, the building is among the most haunted in the region.

Today, 26 Bastion Square is considered a prestige building, a perception borne out by its tenants. Where we were once surrounded by artists' lofts, musician jam spaces and a plethora of pizza parlors, we now rub shoulders with two architectural firms, innumerable law offices, and several other professional looking professionals. A couple of nightclubs, the new Irish pub and some of the best restaurants the Pacific Northwest has to offer are our new temptations, each a far step above the beer and pizza nightlife surrounding our former location.

Aside from moving, we have been beset by weather issues and by illness. For those who don't live on an island, things are a bit different out here on the perimeters. Victoria has been hit by five straight days of extremely foul weather. Gale forced winds have knocked 200 year old trees over, taking telephone and power lines down with them. Virtually every section of the south Island has seen at least one blackout, in some cases, several. Forty percent of our staff prefers to telecommute, a productive luxury that was denied today by a sudden and unpredictable lack of electricity.

Along with the rough weather, StepForth has been visited by illness. Our sales manager, Bill Stroll is down until Monday of next week at the earliest. The SEO staff is doing well, for the most part, however a vicious flu-bug is hanging around the area and all of us are feeling a bit out-of-sorts. The new paint smell in the office doesn't help settle our stomachs either.

Anyhow, tired, wind weary and rain slogged as we are, the StepForth management and staff are getting ourselves back up to speed. While we have been able to meet (and exceed) our production commitments, the good humour and happy banter among our staff has been truly tested this week.

42,000 Kilometers by Human Power

Worried by global warming and North America's apparent addiction to the automobile, Vancouver BC resident Colin Angus decided to prove a point by traveling around the world using nothing but human power.

Angus split the round-the-world trip into three segments. He will be completing all three, accompanied in stages by a few friends and his fiancée, Julie Wafaei.

The first segment started in June 2004 and saw Angus and Wafaei ride from their home in Vancouver to Whitehorse in the Yukon . From there, they boarded a large canoe and paddled 1500km on the Yukon River to Fairbanks Alaska . In Fairbanks , they switched from canoe to an ocean-going rowboat to complete the 1600km stretch to the North Pacific Ocean . Remaining in their rowboat, the team crossed 800 angry kilometers of the Bearing Sea , landing in Siberia .

From Siberia, Angus and his team made it to Moscow and then traveled across Europe to the Atlantic Ocean . They are currently crossing the Atlantic on their way to their North American landfall in Florida . They expect to arrive in mid-February.

From Florida , they plan to ride their bikes across North America back to Vancouver . When they reach the totem pole in the Vancouver neighbourhood of Kitslano, Angus will have traveled over 42,000 kilometers powered entirely by his own muscles.

The trip is being documented on Angus' website, Expedition Canada.