Donna Cansfield, provincial energy minister, officially opened Kingsbridge Wind Farm today. We had cake.
Blog
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enraptored
They may have lost, but the Raptors put on a good show tonight. They held the Hornets into double extra time.
I think basketball is rapidly becoming my favourite spectator sport. Don’t think I’ll ever be a sportsfan, but there are worse ways to spend an evening.
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Splodges Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
Guess I’ll have to work on my sensor cleaning game, ‘cos this is what I see (a blue sky, with contrast racked way up, and at 2x scale) on the bottom right of my D70 sensor:
The other troublesome marks are gone, so I guess it kinda works. I used the American Recorder Digital Sensor Swab Kit from Henry’s, and the mirror lock up instructions from brams.dk.
Y’know, that pattern of splodges looks awfully like the indentations on the end of the swab …
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no nimh joy in my speedlight
I wonder why my Nikon SB-600 won’t work with (expensive) Panasonic 2300mAh HHR-3SPA NiMH cells? It loves Duracells to death, but won’t even fire once with the rechargeables.
(Oh, and wish me luck; I’m about to clean my the sensor on my D70 for the first time.)
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The British Mountain Bike
Ah, the Cleland Aventura — the very distinctive off-road bike. I wanted one of these something fierce when I was a young ‘un.
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dino out
Aargh, I hate finishing an Eric Garcia Rex book. I don’t get lost in too many books, but Eric’s ones do that for me. I’d finished Hot & Sweaty Rex, then re-read Anonymous Rex ‘cos I couldn’t get enough of that dino-noir (dinoir?)
Garcia’s books are clearly works of fiction. I mean, to say that 5% of the population are dinosaurs in heavy disguise — the real number’s much higher …
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the mayor is back in town (or will be)
Mayor McCA is touring in Canada soon!
May 4-Ebar Guelph ON May 5- The Jane Bond. 004 Princess St, Waterloo ON May 6- Music Gallery- The Over The Top Festival Toronto ON (advanced tics recommended for this one). May 7- Casbah. Donut Rock City (Hamilton) ON, May 8-10- TBA May 11- The Paramount. Moncton NB May 12- World Cafe 2412 Agricola St , Halifax NS May 13- Gus' Pub 2605 Agricola St, Halifax NS May 13-17- TBA
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Big Salt Ship
The freighter Algorail loading salt in Goderich Harbour. One of the crew shouted for me to e-mail the photos; this is the best I can do for now!
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timwin
Don’t want no car, don’t need no barbecue… But I can always use another coffee from Tim Hortons.
(for those outside Canada, every spring, the Tim Hortons donut chain has a prize promotion. It always provokes a national response little short of hysteria. You can win big things, but winning a coffee is just dandy by me.)
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I’m going in a field …
… To survey.
It’s lovely weather for it. Just a few weeks ago, it was bitter up here.
Strange coincidence: one of the surveyors, Joy, knows our friends the Bowyers.
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first groundhog of 2006
On the rockery at the ex-Beaver Lumber place on Warden just north of Dennison. I used to see ’em here when I worked at Gandalf.
It was big, fat, and looked a bit grumpy.
Just after seeing this one, I saw another at a familiar haunt at Warden and Dennison. It’s springtime!
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i really do remember when all this were fields, lad …
Off to markham, to are some of my old haunts. The sweetcorn and pumpkin truck farm is now buried under a mall. Gandalf Graphics is now a self-storage, after Larry Downey and the few remaining staff went to Total Graphics in Vaughan. Most of the fields where I watched groundhogs gambol are now building sites.
Is nostalgia supposed to cut in after less than four years? At least one thing remains the same; Markham Delight in the 1st Markham mall still does the best fried beef rice noodle you can get for $5. And that soymilk they have!
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1656 days from PR application to Canadian Citizenship
I found my old misc.immigration.canada post where I gave the timeline of our application. I’ve now got a few dates to add to that line:
01 Jun 2001: Sent forms with all fees
13 Jun 2001: Receipt acknowledged
26 Jun 2001: Medical forms and interview waiver received
07 Aug 2001: Took medicals
01 Sep 2001: Visas received
02 Apr 2002: Arrived in Canada
18 Mar 2006: Took citizenshipIt’s been hard work, but worth it. Canada’s a decent place to live.
Some observations on how immigration worked for us:
- We did the application ourselves; all you need is on cic.gc.ca.
- Research ways of getting your money into Canada without incurring swingeing foreign exchange charges. This was perhaps our single biggest cost, and I’m sure we could have avoided some of it.
- Canadian banks are rather stuffy and inefficient. Expect to pay bank charges, and also expect the “free banking” banks to turn you down until you have a credit history.
- It takes several years to become credit worthy in Canada. It took about a year before we had a credit card at all.
- Get to know and love your public transit system. Most Canadian cities have decent transit, and living near a busy transit hub gets you around quickly.
- Join the library. Books, internet access, and information of what’s happening — and free, too.
- Owning a car is quite expensive. It’s not the purchase price or the fuel cost; insurance for new immigrants with no insurance record is unbelievable. If your employer can put you on their policy to drive one of their vehicles, you’ll find that it’ll cut your insurance premiums drastically.
- I ended up changing jobs more than I thought I might.
- Volunteering helped me get into the industry I really wanted to be in.
- Professional qualifications don’t import well. Ontario is getting a bit better at accepting foreign qualifications (my UK CEng counted for nothing) but there’s still a long way to go.
Not long after we arrived, I remember being slightly irritated when a fellow UK immigrant said, “The first three years are difficult, then it gets easy.” Looking back, I now agree with him.
