May 21, 2006
Rocks are sharper than snow
So, yes, uhm hi. Kind of a forced update since I have very little news but as every well respected writer knows you have to keep the fans happy.
I bought a bike, $1150 for a Kona Stuff it is very pretty and bouncy and brakey. Hyrdraulic brakes operate very well and if you are not very careful you go flying over the handlebars. (note: I was not very careful). It has other nice things like wheels and a frame and gears.
I've not been on the mountain with it yet as that requires all sorts of expensive armour and a full face helmet, I figure I need to work on my skills a bit more too, I spent today up at Lost Lake, there's a bunch of varying trails up there and I threw myself down some of the more difficult today, my backside feels like I've been on the set of Brokeback and my legs and arms ache like day 1 of the ski season.
I received a wonderful letter from the lawyer who informed me that the London office had processed my application (2 months earlier than expected) and I would now not expect to hear from them for FORTY TWO MONTHS. A lot can happen in 42 months. I could die, or Canada could sink, or the Earth could slip off its orbit and be sucked into the Sun, or, and yes this is pretty unlikely, I might change my mind about Canada all together. Anyway, I'm fairly sure they screwed it up and my visa is supposed to be expidited to ~6 months due to the job offer. We'll see what the lawyer says.
Work continues as normal. As does my sadness of the Champions League final result.
Finally, I'm heading over to Toronto June 16th for a couple of weeks to stay with Robyn. It'll be nice to finally see a bit more of Canada even if we only have the weekends (we're both still working while I'm there) and maybe I'll have some more interesting tourist pictures to update with. I should also grab some of the biking really...
The trip also conveniently means I have minimised the time difference for the World Cup games but that was just a fortunate result of my burning desire to see Robyn really ;-)
Posted by Mark at 4:15 PM | TrackBack
May 6, 2006
Canada has bugs...
...Nobody told me about that. Now Summer is effectively in full force (okay okay it's snowing outside but it was 23c yesterday and I wore shorts and flip flops) the bugs have come out to play. Here's my current bug observations (read this in a Samuel L Jackson voice): Moths. HOLY SHIT MOTHS. They have something called the Giant Moth which is not an understatement, they actually scream as they fly past your face! Ants are about as big as dinosaurs. Mosquitos bite a lot and I appear to be allergic to them, my legs are currently bright blotchy red and itch like a bath full of ticks.
I've started my new 9-5 phone answering job which is cool to a degree except I can't just get up and wander into the village when I feel like it and have to speak to the most moronic people to grace the planet. Seriously half of them can barely talk I really don't know how they go about setting up what is a rather technical system but the phone rings maybe 15-20 times a day and I'm being paid a healthy wage for a job which allows me to continue my web development between calls
Aside from that I appear to have landed myself quite a sweet deal with the local web companies who are all fighting over me which puts me in a very pleasant position of picking up a bunch of money for doing nice and simple stuff.
Last night was Keiths birthday party and we headed over to his new house in Lost Lake for a BBQ - lovely apartment and beautiful location. It was a great night out and I met a bunch of new people which is kind of important as the last of the leaving parties was this week as I bid a fond farewell to Cath and Helen.
A few people asked about a visa update - my application is now in London and it apparently takes them 3 months to actually open the envelope and give me an application ID. At that sort of rate I might be a Canadian just in time for my ashes to be scattered over Blackcomb.
I went boarding twice in April and have yet to go up this month. I feel very bad and can only apologise to those stuck back in England but I am actually a little bored of it to be perfectly honest. Bring on the summer activities!
Anyway, I have some serious scratching to do if you'll excuse me.