Bless you, Canada Post

I got home on Wednesday to find a note in the mailbox, telling me that they'd tried to deliver a parcel but I was out. Which, unsurprisingly, would be because I was in work. I'm currently expecting Beloved's Christmas present, so I was vaguely expecting this. Today, I went to pick it up. There was a queue - I think the woman at the front was sending Christmas cards to everyone in Canada, and the Post Office had just run out of stamps for local delivery - that should let you know how competent they are. But it meant I had a little time to read the card, and got curious - the date on there said they'd be holding it until the 9th November, and also that this was my final notice. Then I remembered all the fun I'd had at the start of Nocember with a parcel at that same Post Office. That's right. This was a note telling me to pick up the package that I'd (eventually) picked up over a month ago. Which, it seems, is still in their system - she scanned the card, and said it was there. I wonder how many more reminders I'm going to get before they realise that perhaps they've already delivered.... On an equally confusing note - today's mail included a cheque from the Canadian Government for $20. There's nothing to say why they sent it, though. It's not going to stop me from cashing it, mind you.

The new job

It's a little hard to say after just a week, but the new job looks like it's going well. I got in, and everything had been done - I had a contract to read and sign, a desk, and everything. I was given a quick run through of the task management software, and given time to settle in and find out how things work. I got my first job on Tuesday; and it was such a change. We're working with an organisation who have to produce a print directory - they have the data in their database, but the person who generated it last year is no longer working with them - he took his files and went home. I got assigned a good dozen tasks; the project had been broken down into different stages, with tasks for each, broken down into what I need to deliver for each of them. It's definitely not the way I've been used to working, but it's a pleasant change - I get a list of what I need to work on, how long it should take, and what I need to deliver at the end. It includes everything I need to do the work, and details of where to put things when they're done. Definitely much more organised than anywhere I've worked before, though I suppose that that's a function of them charging companies by the hour - they get a lot of detail and accountability about how long people spent working on their sites. The commute is reasonable, too. I'm getting up about a half hour earlier, but it's not too bad, and I get to spend an hour or so reading, which is definitely good. And I've just realised that I have a week to start and finish the next reading group book - ooops!

More snow

There was a little snow left at the start of the week. It lasted until Tuesday, when we had what was apparently the warmest December day on record. It was around 15 degrees, which is pretty good for the start of December. It had been settling down to be a proper winter, too. The temperature was slowly sliding downwards, and we'd had a handful of days where it was down to -10. But today the snow hit again. It had been alternating between rain and snow all morning; I was doing a little extra work, and at about 3pm I looked out of the window to discover that we were in the middle of a blizzard. It was a very impressive sight, too. It didn't last too long, but there's around a centimeter of snow on the ground now, though it's still just around freezing. This is probably the wrong time to discover that my boots have a rather large hole in the bottom, too. So the plan for tomorrow involves buying a new pair before my feet freeze off.....

Snow!

Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Did I mention that it'd snowed overnight? I think it's a little earlier than last year; we did have a proper snowstorm on Saturday morning, when I ended up doing a very creditable impression of a snowman, but that had mainly all melted by lunchtime. So last night's snowfall was very unexpected, and very welcome. I don't think I'll still be thinking that in a couple of weeks, thoguh.

Oh, and....

As I might have mentioned on Facebook, I am now engaged to Beloved. It's all terribly exciting. We've booked a venue (Comlongon Castle) for the 12th June, and we're planning a very small wedding. But there's going to be a reception to which you're invited. Well, I say a reception; we're actually going to be having three, I think. One before the wedding for her family and friends - I've been hinting about a hog roast; one in Manchester shortly after the wedding; and then finally one in Ottawa for my friends here. Feel free to come along to the one closest to you. Hey, come to more than one if you can manage it. And I use the phrase 'close' advisedly. Bear in mind that from here, you can drive for twenty four hours and still be in the same province, so close is probably slightly different to the way you'd take it. I'll add more details here as we progress. I think we've got a fair grasp of what's required - I think the next important steps are to apply for the actual marriage license, which we can do through the post; and to get a fiancee visa for Beloved. I'm a little bemused that because she's marrying a UK citizen, she needs a fiancee visa to come into the country for the wedding, even though we don't intend to leave in the country afterwards. But we've got a good eight months to go to get all the paperwork in order.

Working weekends

It's Sunday evening; today and yesterday, I spent five hours in the office, working on the new administrative interface that I was taken on to do in March. Well, mainly that; I also did a brief, informal telephone interview with someone who managed to convince me in fifteen minutes of conversation that not only was he eminently unsuitable for the job for which he'd applied, but also that he shouldn't be allowed to develop software on the web at all The main reason for this is that I want to get it finished before the end of the month. Why then, I hear you ask.... Well, that would be because I start a new job on the 3rd. From what I've seen, it looks like an excellent place to work. It's doing web development work for small companies who don't want to do it in-house, so it's varied and interesting work. It's also a quite significant pay increase - I think it works out to be about 60%. The only real downside is that it's on the other side of town, so I'm going to have to start getting up quite early - the bus there only runs every half hour, so I really don't want to miss it. But hey; that's a small problem. I'm very much looking forward to the new job.

I think Tesco has ruined me....

Last Thursday, I was shopping at the local supermarket, picking up some tortillas for my dinner on Friday night. When I came to open them, I noticed that they were actually moldy. Specifically, I noticed that the second one was moldy - I'd already eaten the first one. You can probably imagine how happy I was at this - I threw out the second one, and saw that the next one had a large patch of mold on it. I did check the best before date, and it's still a week or so in the future. So I took them back the next day. And this is where I think Tesco has ruined me. Not only did I not get an apology - you know, for selling me moldy food - but I wasn't even offered a refund. The manager did, kindly, offer to replace them with another pack of the same. Because the first one that I'd bought had worked out so well for me.

Quick work update

Much to everyone's surprise, the chap who was allegedly ill turned up today. Well, he arrived at about 10am, and left before 4pm, and most of the time he was there, he didn't look at all well, but he was in. So I'm not sure what's happening there. (He did spend quite a lot of time explaining that he was worried that the painkillers he's on are too strong, and that he's not used to that because he's never taken drugs. It wasn't exactly a subject I'd brought up, so I don't know why he thought I'd be interested.) I think that one of the admin chaps went off on leave today too - his wife is expecting, so I can't blame him. He's off on paternity leave in January. The one downside to that is he's the one who organises my paychecks, so the already irregular schedule on which I'm paid is likely to get even more irregular. I assume he's the one who'd also be responsible for my actual contract, assuming I'm ever going to get one. The boss is currently with a client until next week (thought I'll note that that hasn't stopped him from calling the landline, thought it was before I got in) so he's not got much time left to get me a proper contract; if I've not had it by the end of next week, I can't see I'll be staying there.

Today's work gossip

My office is just over the corridor from the sales people; there's technically two at the moment, but one has been on sick leave for a week - he was, apparently, in hospital last week. The position of the office means that I can overhear quite well when the doors are open, but it's easy enough to tune out. But for some reason, I found myself listening in on a conversation that the saleswoman was having. It was one of those where you overhear the odd word, I think, and your subconscious prods you to let you know that actually, you might want to pay some attention here. As it transpires, it wasn't a client she was speaking to. She'd ended up with the call because the chap who initially took the call thought it was a customer calling up to complain about the service. It turns out that no, it was someone phoning up to complain about the currently-absent salesman. It was someone who knows him socially, who was calling us because he didn't have another contact number for him. He made a number of allegations that I'm not going to repeat here, because they're slanderous (well, I guess since I'm typing them, they'd be libellous, but you know what I mean.) Suffice it to say that she called her manager to let him know about this; and he promptly called back to inform her that she shouldn't say anything to anyone. Of course, by then it was rather too late; and of course no one's asked me not to say anything. But I was very interested in a couple of the other comments the saleswoman had to say. For one thing, when she's phoning to try and sell our services to prospective clients, she's not allowed to mention other clients by name. We don't give out details of satisfied customers (the official reason is that they don't want them to be poached by other service providers; but there's a part of me wondering if perhaps it's because we don't have any.) Considering that there are a dozen people in the organisation, communications are frankly appalling, and it looks like this is an actual policy, rather than sheer incompetence as I'd assumed. I also got the chance to chat with our former system administrator this evening, too. He's very much enjoying his new job, and he mentioned that he'd been asked, specifically, not to mention that he was going to anyone. He did anyway, mind you, on the grounds of, well, what could they do to him? I should also say that when I got back from my most recent trip to Tennessee, I was taken out to a site visit by the boss, who asked me how I thought everything was going; and mentioned that he was going to be taking me on as an actual employee (yay!) with more money (double yay!); and that the paperwork would be sorted by the end of the week. That was now two weeks ago, so it's currently over a week late (and if you're wondering, no, I've not heard a peep about it since.) I'm going to give him a couple more weeks to see if he comes through; and if he doesn't, I shall be leaving - it's just not worth the amount of stress that I'm getting. The amusing part is that since he never bothered to give me a contract, I don't believe that I'm actually obliged to give him any notice at all....

Post Office Tag

I ordered a couple of things off the internet last week; one was from inside Ontario, and I was pleasantly surprised to come home on Thursday to find a note on the door saying they'd tried to deliver. So I popped down to the Post Office on Saturday to pick it up. "Oh," she said. "It's not here" I pointed out that the note said it would be going to the branch on Thursday night. "Sometimes they don't come through then. Why don't you try in a couple of days?" I made it back again on Tuesday. "Oh," she said. "It's not here" I asked if she could tell me where it was, in that case. Her suggestion was to call the post office, who should be able to figure it out. So I did. "It's at the branch. It was signed for on Thursday evening. We'll investigate and see if we can figure it out" I tried again today, after getting another reminder through email. The first time, I was pleasantly surprised to be told that it was in the backroom, but she wouldn't let me have it without proof of address. The second time, she'd just gone on her smoking break, and wouldn't be back for twenty minutes. The third time, I actually got my parcel. But it did take her a good ten minutes to actually find it, including two or three trips back to the front desk to use the computer with an increasingly fretful look on her face. So it took five trips to the Post Office, and almost a week to get my parcel. And I still don't know where it's been for the last few days - I know someone's lying to me, but I don't know who.

I love my job

Monday, at 4:45; the boss wanders past. "Are you ready for the university course?" he asks. My response is, naturally, "What university course?" It seems that we're getting a new ticketing system to track customer issues and our progress on them. As part of this, the company that provides it have a large amount of information online to help train people. They're calling this their university, and there was a live training session on Monday night for the technical staff. Except that no one had bothered to mention it to me. After a little prodding, I found out that the company had bought ten licenses for the software, and allocated them to other people. And since I wasn't on the list, no one mentioned anything to me. I eventually got allocated a spare license - the system administrator left on Friday, so his became available. The boss seemed a little put out that I wasn't going to drop everything and take a 90 minute class on fifteen minutes notice when I had plans for the evening. But there was a second class today, and I said I'd make that. Monday and Wednesday are my gaming nights; I don't like missing either, but I will if it's required. I cancelled plans for Wednesday, which also involved not baking cookies, too. And, naturally, the course today was cancelled - it was almost an hour before it was due to start, which is rather more notice than I was expecting. Of course, my plans for the night were already cancelled, so that just made me quite grumpy. But it was nice to get a reminder that even though I've been there for six months, I'm not thought of as part of the team.

Phone fun

For the last week or so, I've been getting phone calls from, well, I don't actually know who.

It's clearly someone from abroad (and from here, that means "outside Canada"); there's that two-second long pause after you speak where you hear an echo of your voice, and before you can hear a reply. And the person at the other end doesn't speak English. He is, apparently, quite desperate to speak to someone, though I've yet to figure out just who, thanks to his inability to speak English, as well as the poor quality of the line.

I've told him that it's a wrong number (several times) and asked him not to call back (several times.) He quite clearly can't understand, what with him phoning every couple of hours. And I've no idea what language he speaks. I'm pretty sure that there was a phone call in the middle of last night, too - I remember waking up enough to hear the phone ringing, but not actually enough to get up and answer it.

I'm at a loss for what to do. I've just gotten off the phone with Rogers, who suggested I get call blocking - that will let me block the last number called. Except that having just tried it, I get a polite message saying that the last number called wasn't recognised. I assume that means he's using VOIP to call, which of course puts paid to Plan B (which involves picking up the call, and putting the receiver on the table while I get on with something else, hoping that his phone bill will bankrupt him.)

Any suggestions? At least, other than waiting for him to realise on his own that whoever he wants to speak to, they're not here.

A year already

So today marks the first anniversary of my arrival in Canada.

Wow. It doesn't feel anywhere near that long.

If you're keeping track, by the way, in order to maintain my Permanent Resident status, I need to renew the visa every five years. (I know - it's not the definition of permanent I use, either.) I need to be present in the country for 730 days in each five year period. My current visa started on the 3rd August 2011, and I'm currently up to about 355 days, thanks to my brief stay then and a couple of trips outside of Canada. To apply for citizenship, it's 1095 days over a four year period.

After this long, there's still a couple of things that catch me by surprise:

- when a car is on a red light, they can (generally) turn right still. This helps a lot with traffic flow, but as a pedestrian, when I have a Walk sign, I really don't want to see cars driving in front of me. They're supposed to give me priority, but you don't really want to trust that they're going to.

- paying tax at the till. Of course, it doesn't help that it's not a flat rate - that just makes it harder to work out in my head. The current rate is 13%, so when you buy most things, the price you pay is going to be 13% more than the price on the tag. From experience, it looks like the tax rate on food you prepare yourself is zero - I know, it's like they're encouraging healthy eating using the tax code - and books is 5% (I'm imagining your surprise that I know that.) But even after a year, I'm still not used to seeing something on the shelf for $4.99 and not being able to pay for it was a $5 bill.

Eclipse...

... is possibly the finest boardgame I've ever played.

Demon internet

I've had an account with Demon since 1994 or so; these days, I'm mainly holding on to it from habit - I don't think there's many people who can say that they've had the same email address for eighteen years.

They've been having some Issues recently, alas - in January, they announced that they're updating the way they deal with email by moving over to new servers. I noticed over the last couple of months that the spam level has slowly been rising (well, I say slowly; their record was 52,000 spam in 12 hours) so I asked them about it.

My account was on the old servers. They'd stopped updated the spam filters on the old servers. I'm assuming that this was for sound technical reasons, rather than because they're too cheap to pay for two licenses, but I have my doubts.

Anyway, on Monday, I stopped getting emails at all, even the test ones I sent through. I was told this time that I'd been migrated to the new email system. Which was nice of them. Except that all the settings are different, and since I'd not known about this, I'd not changed the settings. So I'm still getting email, but it's going to a server I can't access, because no one at Demon has given me the new password.

The chap was very helpful, though. He sent me a copy of the information I need to log on to the new server. He sent it through to my Demon email address.

Can anyone spot the slight flaw in his plan?

Back to school

Not for me, you understand; I'm finished with school, unless I crack and go back for either an MBA or a PhD. They're both equally unlikely, though.

No, today marked the day that the students of Ottawa returned to school. And boy, could you tell - the bus journey took an extra quarter of an hour, and I was standing up for a good chunk of that. The traffic was terrible - hopefully it'll calm down a little over the next couple of weeks as people settle back into their routines again.

In what I'm sure is a coincidence and no kind of metaphor at all, the weather was also terrible all day - we had rain pretty much the whole of the day. Luckily, I always pack an umbrella, just in case. I think it was. I think it was the tail end of Hurricane Isaac.

It still feels odd that it might be slinging it down with rain, and the wind strong enough to blow your umbrella away, but it's still t-shirt weather...

More administrative stuff

I went into work late this morning, as there were a couple of other things I needed to get done.

My paperwork is on its way with my change of address details for Santander and for HMRC - less than a year after I emigrated, so that's not bad at all. I suspect that I'll shortly be getting a letter from HMRC explaining that I owe them some tax from when I was made redundant from the University, but that's all allowed for.

The second thing I needed to do was to follow up on my taxes; I've had a letter explaining that they couldn't process part of it because they didn't have any information on my world income before I arrived in Canada. It's not that I didn't submit it, but that the department who deal with tax returns hadn't passed the information on. So that went off in a fax.

Well, eventually - I think it took the best part of an hour to get a brief (four line) fax typed up and sent off. The woman in the tax office was very nice, but incredibly ineffective, though at least part of that was due to her being there on her own, and having to answer a ringing phone while trying to deal with me. I also avoided pointing out all the typos in the note she wrote, too - I counted five before I stopped. And she couldn't actually fax it while I was there, as the fax machine at Revenue Canada was full. So I'm assuming it's gone.

For what it's worth, I had to pop in during the day - they're currently open three days a week, none of which are at weekend. I could probably also have phoned them and given them the right information, but I paid for them to prepare my taxes, and I want my money's worth.

Finally, and most impressively, I called Scottish Widows to tell them about my change of address. I was somewhat disturbed to find that they already had it - I assume it's because they're part of the same group as the Halifax, and were passed the information after I updated my credit card details. But it was a little strange for him to already have all my information. And clearly Santander have a few things to learn still.

Next up, I'll be interested to see what happens with my credit card. Since it's now registered in Canada, will I no longer be able to buy kindle books on amazon.co.uk?

Golly

I'd not realised it'd been a month since my last update. I hope you're not all too stressed out from the lack of news.

I've spent the morning on the phone to various UK companies, finally giving them the details of my move. Thanks to a somewhat disorganised approach to my personal finances, there's quite a few companies to inform - for example, I currently have three current accounts with two different banks; I should really have organised myself a little better there, I think.

It was interesting to see the different approaches from the banks. I called my Halifax credit card first (mainly because they were at the top of the pile); and it went through with no problems at all. They even said that they'd send the information on to the bank, so I wouldn't have to call up again and tell them all the details again. That was surprsingly joined up of them.

Santander, on the other hand, couldn't take the details of an international move over the phone (she asked, several times, if I was sure I had the postcode right, and wasn't listening when I told her that it was - their system is designed for UK postcodes, and has a handy address lookup that fails completely when you give it a non-UK postcode.) She suggested I fax them details of my address - seriously, who uses faxes these days? - and in the end, relented and said I could write to them.

I guess there's a reason why Santader always used to come out bottom on customer satisfaction surveys.

Off on holiday

As I might have mentioned, I'm off on holiday again this week. In fact, I'm currently set in a Best Western in Tennessee, where the weather is warm enough that I'm already pining for Ottawa's mild 36 degrees.

It's been an odd journey. I came via Washington Ronald Reagan - it's the first time I've been there, and while I can't way it'll be the last, that's only because the return flights are also booked there. On the one hand, the views were pretty darned impressive - I'd no idea just how close to the famous bits of Washington the airport is, and I had a stunning view along the National Mall to the White House as we came in to land. On the other, the flight path seems a little - ah - convoluted. We were, it felt, manoeuvering to land when we were still about ten yards up, making it the second most terrifying landing I've been involved in. The first being a night landing at La Guardia, before which I was unaware that La Guardia is on the river. My reaction to the increasing proximity of the water is perhaps best left to your imagination.

I was also surprised that the plane from Ottawa was relegated to what was described as a plane parking lot - we had to stay on board until they'd wheeled up a set of stairs to take us to a minibus, which then took us to the gate. There were about a half dozen other planes also going through this process. I did wonder if Washington had taken against the Canadians for some reason, and then I realised that they probably didn't have the best memories of Canadians (See? I have been doing my research! Bonus points if you get that reference, though there'll be a penalty if you have to use Wikipedia)

So there may be more this week, as I actually have the laptop with me; though I may also be too lazy to add more. You'll have to wait and see.

Work again

This might be a little rant-y; feel free to skip to the end.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been acting as front-line tech support at work. The chap who normally does it is on leave; there was some who came in to cover for him, but she never actually turned up. The first day she was supposed to be there, she called and said that her car had been impounded - she's been living in Quebec for long enough that she should have updated her driver's licence, so when she was pulled over by the police that morning.... That doesn't explain why she didn't appear the next day, or indeed any day since.

So with about an hour's training, I've been answering the phone and taking messages for people. I can understand just enough to send people off to the right person about 80% of the time; and while I'm still terrified of the phone - there are far more buttons that I'm comfortable with - I can at leats use it without cutting too many people off. I can't say I don't resent it - I'm a software engineer, after all, and this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing. But I'm doing OK at it.

I do dislike that I'm expected to be doing my proper job at the same time, though - it's quite hard to concentrate on code when the phone is ringing. And when I get asked to fix a PC as well.... I think it's been ten years since I last popped open a PC case, so I had no idea how to go about fixing a hardware issue - I ended up asking so many questions of a colleague that it would have been faster for him to do it himself.

And then I found out that I'm supposed to be answering support emails too - there have been complaints that we're not going responses. I don't mind doing that sort of thing, but I've been doing support for a fortnight now, and this is the first time that anyone's mentioned them to me.

So I think the general gist of my rant is... If you want me to do four jobs, that's fine. But you might want to be sure that I'm aware I'm actually supposed to be doing all of them, and you might want to consider whether I actually know how to do them in the first place.

And it's amazing how my motivation seems to slip the later I get paid; my latest paycheque is now two weeks late.

Flightnetwork.com

I'm currently trying to find out whether the tickets I've booked for a trip in a couple of weeks have been processed, and have been on hold with Flightnetwork.com for the last twenty minutes.

They have what is possibly the most annoying hold music ever; if nothing else, it's on a loop that lasts about forty seconds, and there's not much that would still sound good on the fortieth repetition in so short a span of time.

Happy Canada Day!

July 1st is Canada Day, Canada's official birthday. I feel terrible - I forgot to get it anything (and yes, I've been using that same joke all week.) It's 145 years old today!

I've been out at the official celebrations, at the Parliament building. There was entertainment all day, but I just popped along for the free concert and firework display, which was pretty darned impressive. The concert less so, though that's mainly because I had no idea who the artists playing were. Why yes, I am an old man.

It was impressive to see so many people, all out enjoying themselves, and not determined to drink themselves into a stupor, even though it was a lovely warm day. And people were so proud of being Canadians - there were impromptu choruses of the national anthem on the way out, and so many flags everywhere. I can't remember the last time I saw people who were actually proud to be British in such numbers, and you're only going to wear the flag like that if you're an athlete or in the National Front.

So it was a lovely day, and the fireworks were spectacular. I'd recommend booking in for July 1st next day quickly ;)

Wheelchair access

I've been surprised by the number of people I've seen in various forms of wheelchairs since I arrived; I don't recall seeing anywhere near the same amount in Stockport, though that possibly has to do with the amount of hills. All the buses are designed for easy wheelchair access - there's a couple of rows of seats at the front that fold away to allow wheelchairs or pushchairs room, and as well as suspension designed to lower the bus, they all also have a ramp that folds out - I think buses in the UK have that, but I've never seen them being used.

But even so, I saw something unique; I've seen all sorts of mobility scooters, electric ones and ones that need pushing. But I've never before seen a mobility Segway.

Blech

I've had a fairly cruddy day. Feel free to skip the following rant....

For one thing, it's hot out; darned hot. It was 36 degrees when I left work, so if you're wondering where the British summer went, it's over here, ganging up with the Canadian one. Bear in mind that that's just from the sun - the humidity is also through the roof, and that's adding around another 6 degrees. Did I mention that the apartment has now air conditioning? You might want to bear that in mind if you're thinking of visiting during the summer.

When I got into work, I found an email sent by the boss last night. There was an important client coming in for a meeting, and he wanted me and a couple of other people to sit in on it, and asked that we dress appropriately. Given that the normal dress code involves a tee and jeans, well....

I was somewhat annoyed by this - he sent an email at 8:30 last night, and the first I knew about it was the following morning. So I had to come home and change - it took a couple of hours, all told, as I'm reliant on the bus. And I'm pretty sure he knew earlier than 8:30 last night that this meeting was happening today.

But that's not even the worst part; when the meeting came, he didn't even ask me to sit in. That was really quite frustrating, and it's not even the first time - the same client came in for a look round last week, and he asked everyone dress smartly for the day. Well - he asked everyone _else_ - I found out because I heard a couple of colleagues talking about it. There was a meeting a couple of weeks back that everyone else was asked to, too - I admit that I still might not be able to make any actual contribution to what they were discussing, but it would be nice to be asked along. I'm not going to learn anything if I'm not there, and it would also help me feel part of the team.

I'm stuck in an office by myself, and it does tend to isolate me quite a lot from the other staff; and having the boss ignore me really doesn't help my morale. There are a few other things, too - it takes a week for me to get paid, though the record is a little under a fortnight. Apparently in that case, I'd sent it to the wrong person in the admin team. But instead of talking to his colleague sat at the next desk, or emailing me to let me know that, he just ignored it.

The boss also has the habit of making me responsible for things, but not actually telling me about it. More than once, I've had someone calling me because they're having problems with something, and I have literally no idea who the person is, or what they're talking about. So I'm called by someone I've never heard of before, asking why a website I know nothing about isn't working. That's in no way stressful.

I was initially taken on in mid-March to do some work in removing an administration system from a content management system. I estimated that there's about a month's worth of work to do. It's now three months later, and I've still not finished it. That's due in no small part to the boss' habit of asking me to do something now please, because it's more urgent - today was the first time in a couple of weeks that I actually had the time to sit down and look at it; and I'd no sooner loaded up the file I wanted to look at before he was asking me to make a couple of amendments to the front page of the website, which took me the rest of the day. (I do wonder why he didn't ask whoever designed it to do the updates. That said, the code is poor enough that whoever designed it shouldn't be allowed near computers.)

So I'm quite hacked off at the moment. I'm wondering if I should start looking for work elsewhere....

Another season of pub quiz over

Well, we've completed the third season of the local pub quiz - it's been my Sunday evening activity since September, more or less. The questions are put together by the presenter, and he's taking the summer off to recharge his batteries, so he can come up with even more questions come next autumn; or fall as they call it over here.

We've done quite well, really. There are a couple of teams who do very well indeed, so we're normally coming in around third or fourth place, and we generally have fun. Today, for example, I was mortified to discover that I couldn't remember the three green squares on a British Monopoly board (well, technically I couldn't remember two of them.) But it was amusing, and I shall definitely miss it until it starts up again in September.

But my Sunday evenings won't be totally empty - I do still have reading group, though that's just once per month. Maybe I should look for a new hobby.....

So that was spring

I'm partly glad that the recent overly hot weather has come to an end. 36 degrees is, I think, a little too warm for my frail UK constitution, and did I mention that the apartment doesn't have air conditioning? But it's been replaced with quite a lot of rain, alas, and the rain we're getting is quite spectacular; I've seen it coming down hard enough that it's bouncing a foot up when it hits.

Luckily, being British, I've been prepared, and always carry my umbrella with me. I've managed to avoid getting splashed by passing traffic, too, which is especially impressive considering how few sidewalks there are in this area. There's also some pretty impressive footage of the rain overloading the local drainage systems, to the point where they've had to stop people using the subway in Toronto (or possibly Montreal) due to localised flooding.

I think we've got another week or so of mixed weather forecast, before it warms up again. Hopefully this time it'll warm up slowly enough that I get a chance to get used to it.... I'm also looking forward to being able to take the bike into work, too - I think that that should take about half the time of the bus journey, but I don't feel like risking it while there's still a good chance I'll end up getting soaked on the way home....

The Ottawa Science Fiction Society

There is, apparently, an Ottawa Science Fiction Society. They meet on the final Sunday of the month, and I even know where. It was one of the few groups I knew about in advance, before I moved here.

And I consistently managed to miss every meeting; I normally remember the weekend after, and then kick myself for forgetting, again.

But not this month! This time, I remembered last week, and was all set to go. Until I noted that they aren't actually having a meeting this month, and indeed are taking the summer off. What are the odds I'll remember in time for the September meeting?

I should probably take it as a Sign.

Ah, symmetry...

I don't believe I've mentioned it, but Monday night is generally boardgame night (well, when I'm not too worn out, or working late, anyway.

Tonight, I was chatting with someone I've spoken to a couple of times before; he happened to mention that his girlfriend was intending travelling to the UK for a couple of months later on this year, around November. I spent quite a while asking questions about where she should like, and so on.

It's quite interesting, looking at this from the other point of view. She knows pretty much what she wants to do, but hasn't got much idea about where to start arranging things. I gave her a few pointers, and said I'd get a couple of notes written before Wednesday (which, incidentally, is boardgame night number 2 in the week.) But if anyone around Manchester is interested in putting up a couple of Canadian women for a few months from November, I'll be happy to put you in touch

Her first plan, incidentally, involved staying in Manchester and commuting to London. She'd seen the map, you see, and saw that it was just a couple of hours on the train between the two cities. I think I was quite gentle when I pointed out how much the pre-9am railfare between Manchester and London was likely to cost. - somewhere around UKP1,000 a week, I think.

More weather

We're currently halfway into May. It's 32 degrees outside.

That is all.

Happy Star Wars Day!

And if you want to know how I celebrated this year....

Mmmmm; Hob-nobs

I've discovered that the shop just round the corner from work, the Scottish and Irish shop, do a good range of British goods, as you'd expect from the name. I skipped straight past the tartans to the food....

They stock jaffa cakes (well, normally. They were out of stock today), so I had to console myself with dark chocolate hob-nobs. They were a bargain at $5.69 (with no tax to pay.) The price printed on was UKP1.69, so it's pretty much double the price. But oh, so worth it.

On the other hand, while they stock a good range of pies, they didn't have any steak and kidney puddings. Harumpf!

Hmmmmmmm

So, this morning I woke up to discover that it had snowed again over night.

Not too much - just a couple of centimeters - and the rain had melted it all away by lunchtime. But I was still rather surprised to get snowed upon in mid-April....

What the... ?

For those of you who don't know - and I suspect that that's most of you, as I don't believe I've mentioned this before - my former downstairs neighbour is currently staying with me. He was asked to leave his apartment and had nowhere else to go; so, being a soft touch, I offered my spare bedroom.

He's a builder, and starts his working day at about 7am, which means he's up at around 5am or so. (Luckily, I'm generally deep enough asleep that I don't get woken up when he does.) He's generally been back here for an hour or so before I get back from work.

This afternoon, though, he had a visitor, and arranged for a re-visit when I was in. Specifically, it was someone hawking groceries door to door, and was offering $50 worth of groceries for a mere $20.

My erstwhile roommate had been delighted to take him up on this offer - he bought some bread, milk and coffee for a bargain $10, so now there are two bags of milk in the bottom of the fridge. I should point out that:
a) that's not a typo - the milk at the bottom of the fridge is indeed in bags; and
b) there's a two litre bottle of milk in the fridge that we've not finished between us in a week, so quite how long it'll take us to get through a gallon, I hate to think.

I've done some asking around, and apparently door to door grocery sales aren't exactly common over here. I assume, given the fairly random list of things he was offering, that somewhere a corner shop was burgled, and he was busy trying to fence his ill-gotten loot, so people could eat the evidence...

I think my rather bemused expression was enough to put him off....

Hockey, again

I'm sure you've all been following the hockey with as much excitement as I have. After a promising campaign, the Ottawa Senators managed to get into the playoffs for the Stanley Cup.

They managed to get their playoff spot with three games to spare. They then proceded to lose the following three games, and last night lost the first game of the first round of the playoffs. So it's not looking good for them.

But it's quite interesting to compare the hockey season with the soccer one. The regular Premiership season involves 38 games, as opposed to hockey's 82. And while a hockey game lasts for 60 minutes and there's considerably more changing of players, it's a considerably more physical game than soccer is. And on top of that, the schedule means that you're playing games a couple of hundred miles apart every few days - fancy playing while jetlagged?

And as to the playoffs.... There are eight teams in each of the two divisions in the play-offs, with the top team playing the one in eighth place, the second team against the seventh one, and so on. But it's not just one match, oh no - each round is the best of four, meaning that potentially, after playing 82 games in the regular season, there are possibly another 28 matches to play in the playoffs, assuming each round has the full seven matches.

Essentially, I think my point is that I've long thought that footballers were overpaid for what they do, and after seeing how gruelling the hockey season is, I'm even more sure of that than I was....

Sometimes, I wonder

I was on the bus home this evening, when I realised that one of the conversations a couple of seats away was more like a monologue; and the accent was rather familiar.

It was, in fact, a fellow ex-pat, lecturing a passenger on the joys of pasties. I couldn't see to be sure, but I'm pretty certain his poor victim would have had a panicky expression.... I was sniggering somewhat, as I'm naturally something of an afficionado of pasties, and we spent the last couple of minutes of the journey chatting.

It did get me wondering, though... I've met a good couple of dozen of ex-pats over here, and it's not like I get that much. Is there anyone left in the UK, or has everyone left for sunnier (Well, snowier) climes?

Also, after our chat, I've realised just how much I want a nice steak and kidney pudding.

A week away

I'm sure you noticed that it's been a week or so since I last posted anything. I've been away - I had a very, very pleasant week in Tennessee, with my beloved. And since that's in the US, clearly I couldn't update this blog, else I'd make a mockery of the name. A mockery I say.

It's been a fairly hectic couple of days since I got back, too. On the one hand, my downstairs neighbour moved out of his apartment; but he'd been unable to find somewhere else to stay, so he's currently in the spare room here for a little while (he was looking at an apartment this afternoon, but since I didn't get in until after he'd gone to bed, I've no idea how that went.)

I do have a new neighbour, who I've yet to meet. He turned up at around 6pm yesterday evening to pick the keys up, and drop off the first vanload of stuff; and then returned at gone midnight with a second vanload. I would probably have preferred it if he'd made slightly less noise the second time, and it would definitely have been appreciated had the smoke detector in the apartment wasn't beeping all night - though in his defense, that might not have been his fault. That said, I'm not sure if he spent the night or not - I've not heard a peep from him, though it's possible I might just have not been able to hear it over the incessant chirping of the snoke detector. Why yes, I'm bitter.

And the office move that should have happened while I was away, did happen. Kind of. The stuff was moved, but it's mostly still waiting to be unpacked, and there's still quite a lot of work being done in the office - the contractors are still there, and my colleagues spent a while running cabling through the false ceiling. I do have a desk, and a PC of my own, though I did have to install Windows on it (and spent over an hour installing patches - around 150, I think.) And I really, really need to nag my colleague into finishing setting up the test environment so I can crack on with getting the new web front end written, as he's off on holiday next week. But it's difficult when he's already got half a dozen other things that need doing now - when I left, he was installing a script I wrote on my first day, that had finally become urgent enough to justify the time.

Hockey

Last night, I was invited to see the hockey match - one of my work colleagues had a couple of spare tickets, and wondered if I was interested.

It was the second one I've been to see - the first one was the day before the break-in, so I was a little too distracted to think about it much at the time. The arena is a good few miles to the west of Ottawa, and is pretty impressive; I think the seating capacity is around 20,000. There are a number of concession stands dotted around, including more than a few branches of Tim Hortons. Because you never want to be more than a hundred yards away from Tim's.

I enjoyed the game quite a lot - Ottawa lost, but it was pretty close; they were 1-0 down for quite a lot of the game, and the tension towards the end was getting unbearable. I vaguely understand the rules of the game - it seems to involve hitting the puck in a random direction, and then trying to punch a passing opponent, from what I understand - but I'm pretty sure there are subtleties that escape me. I wonder if I'll ever manage to pick them up?

It also took me a long, long time to realise what seemed to be missing... The tickets were up towards the ceiling (I mean, they were free tickets, so they're not going to give the good ones away), so I could see pretty much the whole rink. I realised part way through the second period that I was half expecting commentary - I've seen a few games on the TV, and I'd really gotten used to having voices there explaining what was going on. There's also a lot less audience interaction than I think soccer generates - the only chanting was "Go Sens, Go" (the local team are the Senators, hence the chant), and a couple of rousing choruses of "You suck!", interspersed with "You suck referee!" after what I'm assured was a particularly poor penalty decision.

But boy, is the game fast - it can shift from one end to the other in a couple of seconds, and I've really got to hand it to the players - they take quite a beating, for one thing (the seats were perhaps fifty yards from the side of the rink, and if a player is crunched into the wall loud enough to hear from that distance, he's going to be hurting); and they can definitely skate well. My experience with skating is such that I'm incredibly happy to not fall over; the players were happily skating backwards, all while busily trying to swing at the puck or opponents.

I'm also a tad put out that last night's seats were just a couple of blocks around from the seats I bought for my first game. Especially considering how much I'd paid for them, and that apparently the seats a few dozen yards away were being given away....

Spring has, er, sprung

It's hard to believe that just a couple of weeks ago, I was blogging about the most recent snowstorms.

The thermometer is currently showing 21 degrees outside - I set off to go downtown wearing my light jacket, and that was off again before I'd even left the porch. I was even tempted to put on my shorts, but I'm pretty sure that Ottawa's not yet ready for the sight of my knees.

Downtown was such a change from how it's been for the last few months, unsurprisingly. There were people just milling about and basking in the warm weather, and the buskers had resurfaced after their hibernation - the restaurants and bars have all started using their terraces again, too. And the coffee I treated myself to was iced, too!

The weather over the last week has been, shall we say, changeable. It's been warm - I don't think it's dipped below freezing all week - and we've had some spectacular thunderstorms. Including a couple where the thunder lasted long enough for me to get up off the sofa and go and see what was exploding outside because there's no way that thunder can last that long.

And even with the rain and the heat, there's still snow on the ground; it's mainly in places that doesn't get direct sunlight, but there are some impressively large patches, considering - I think it's testament to just how much snow has been piled up there over the winter.

I'm pretty sure it won't survive much longer, though. Apparently, today's already the warmest March day on record, and there's warmer weather forecast for the next week. So it might yet be time to figure out where I left my shorts....

Time change

The clocks went forward here overnight; which means that for the next couple of weeks, there's just four hours difference between here and the UK. At least I think that's how it works - it makes my brain hurt, trying to figure it out....

St Patrick's Day

(Is this my fourth post today? I don't know about you, but I'm impressed)

While I was downtown, I got to see the St Patrick's Day parade. Well, it seemed to spend more time stationary that it did moving, but it was fun nevertheless. I think the highlight was that it was led by not one but two Mounties - I think that that's the first time I've seen mounties since I got here; certainly it's the first time I've seen them in the red uniform.

I was also surprised to see a female Mountie - I think that that might have been the first one I ever saw. Clearly, Due South is a lot less accurate than I've been led to believe.

Slush!

It's -9 out, according to the thermometer. I'm pretty sure that's inaccurate, though, as I've just been out for a couple of hours, and I didn't feel the need to get out my hat and gloves.

Most of the overnight snow has melted, and it's warm enough that the large piles of accumulated snow are melting a little, too. And that means one thing - slush!

The city is very good at keeping the streets plowed after it's snowed. The problem is that when the plows go past, they don't get too close to the side of the road - driving a steel plow into the kerb won't do either of them much good. So the snow is pushed into a pile that normally takes up between a foot and a yard of the inside lane.

And when the sidewalks are plowed, the snow from there is also pushed onto the same pile. At least if you've got a sidewalk - I can't remember if I've mentioned this, but the street that the apartment is on doesn't have a sidewalk - it's a block too far away from the main road to have one. Which does make me wonder - when I'm walking to get the bus, am I technically jaywalking until I get to somewhere that has sidewalks?

Anyway. The streets end up with a pile of snow to the side (as a side note, for all these years, I've just assumed that I'm lousy at parking; it turns out that no, I was just practicing for here, when getting within a couple of feet of the kerb is the best you can manage). I've noticed that occasionally, these piles of snow are cleared by the city - I've no idea where they take all this excess snow, but I like to think of it being exported to countries that don't have any so under-snowed children can make snowmen. But the stuff that remains freezes into ice, and is pretty darned solid after a couple of months. And of course, it's exactly where the drains are.

We end up with a situation where the snow is trying to melt, but there's nowhere for it to go. So it builds up, and we end up with some pretty impressive slushy puddles. Maybe I should stay inside until it's all melted....

Another weather update...

The promised heatwave arrived - we had a couple of days of pleasantly warm days. I didn't think that it had made much difference to the amount of snow still lying on the ground until I got back home, and saw grass poking up through the stuff on the lawn, as well as being able to see the garden path for the first time this year.

Friday was back down to around freezing, and today is forecast to be the same; and I got up this morning (well, technically, I was rudely awaken by a telemarketing phonecall wanting to talk to me about the electric bill I'm not responsible for paying) to discover that there'd been a little snow overnight - just a centimeter or two; and I think it's going to be warm enough over the weekend that it's not going to last.

Six months

For those of you keeping track, today is the six month anniversary of when I arrived in Canada.

Does it feel that long to you? It feels like it's just flown for me!

(Bear in mind that it's a little over seven months since I actually registered as a permanent resident; the main reason I didn't post anything for that anniversary is that I forgot)

My permanent resident card needs to be renewed every five years; I need to be resident for two years in that time. Well, 730 days - I'm allowed to leave the country now and again. So I'm already a quarter of the way there.

The plan is to apply for citizenship once I can - the requirement for that is that I need to do it three years after I became resident, and the current processing time is somewhere around a year, apparently.

So there we are; I wonder if I should make a cake to celebrate?

Reading group

I've joined a reading group over here; being cheap, I tend to order the books on Amazon (as the local library system has disappointed me in the past when I've tried to reserve books).

I got home tonight to discover that the latest book has arrived - the next meeting is a week on Sunday, so I've got nine days to get through Neverwhere.

I was a little surprised to see that the book had been posted from the UK. I'd bought it from Amazon's Canada site, and most of the sellers on there seem to be based in the US. I skipped past those and located a seller called awesomebookscanada, who claimed that the book was in stock, and shipped from Ontario. I ended up paying a little more for the book - four times more than if I'd gone for the same book from a US seller, though admittedly it was still only 4 cents.

So clearly there's enough money in the postage credit to pay to airmail a paperback across the Atlantic (I think the postage comes out at about 4 pounts - and I've just noticed that the keyboard on this US laptop doesn't have  the pound sign.) I can't decide if it's from a drop-shipper, who buy books locally and post them on when they get an order - when I was selling on Amazon, I had a couple of orders from drop-shippers. The alternative, I guess, is that it's a Canadian company who have decided that it's actually cheaper to ship from the UK - given that there were a couple of business cards in the book being used as bookmarks, both for Toronto businesses, I'm wondering if a company's just sent its whole stock to the UK....

That was unexpected....

A couple of weeks back, I was chatting to someone at the board game evening - he's Australian, so we've been comparing stories about why we ended up here and what we're doing with ourselves. I mentioned that I was looking for web development work.

He called yesterday; his company is looking for a new web developer. So I've spent the day at their offices, looking over how they do things and trying to get my head around the vast number of acronyms they use. It's an internet telephony company - they sell phone access via the internet to companies, and my duties will be in a support role. They have a billing database that does almost exactly what they want, but there are a few amendments that they'd like; and the admin system was written using a technology that no one can support now that the developer has left.

They use a lot of technologies that I've never used, but I'm confident that I can learn what I need to quickly enough - it's just a case of getting to grips with how things work. I've had a look at the code they want to migrate on their admin system, and I can mostly understand what it's doing, though without any understanding of why it's doing it, which would definitely make things easier.

So there you go. I seem to have lucked into a job! Keep your fingers crossed that I can keep it for longer than the last one...

Winter is coming!

So we're now into the first week of March. I think we've had as much snow in the last ten days as we've had in the whole of the winter to date, and the temperature is currently at -16; I was out for the evening last night, and was very well bundled up with my coat, gloves, hat and scarf, and was still worried for my extremeties. This is what winter is all about!

On the other hand.... By tomorrow afternoon, the temperature they're predicting is 11, which means that over the course of a day and a half, the temperature will have shifted by 27 degrees, which I think is pretty darned impressive. It seems that the current lows are because we're getting the tail end of the system that sent all the tornadoes across the Southern US, so now that system's dying away, we're getting warmer weather again. There's still enough snow that I suspect even a day that that's warm won't be enough to clear it fully, but there should be more than enough slush to go around....

Tax Time

This is part one of what I'm sure is going to be an on-going series.

Everyone gets to submit their own taxes over here - it's not just for the self-employed. I've got a copy of this year's tax form on the living room table, and it's 32 pages long, though admittedly a few of those are left blank for calculations. It does also include the provincial form, too - that's right, I need to submit not one, but two tax forms.

I say me; I'm going to be getting a professional to do it.

I don't think it's actually that complicated. At base, I've had the paperwork through from my job saying how much money I made and how much tax I paid, as well as something similar from the bank saying how much interest I've earned. All I really need to do is copy those numbers into the right places, and then follow the instructions to work out if I need to pay more, or if I'm owed money.

The main hitch is that I've still got money in the UK; I need to let the tax people here know how much tax income I've paid on that, and I may or may not be eligible for a refund on that. I've requested the appropriate paperwork from the UK, so once that arrives, I think I'm pretty much set for that.

(For what it's worth, I think I'm in for a fairly minor tax refund; my job had me paying income tax, but I didn't earn enough to put me over the limit where I have to pay income tax, so I think I can claim it back)

More snow

I was all set to write about how winter was almost over; I've been watching the snow on my neighbours' roof slowly melt, and the last remnants had finally disappeared. The snow had melted enough that the driveway was completely uncovered, while I could see the bottom step for the first time since November.

And then on Friday, it started to snow around midday, and it carried on snowing for around twelve hours. There's a little more forecast for the next couple of days, too. So far, I think we've had an extra couple of inches - just enough to cover up everywhere, but little enough that the warmer temperatures today have melted quite a lot of it again.

It's been an odd winter all told, really. We've had the incredibly cold weather that I was expecting, but it's rarely lasted for that long - the last coupld of times we've had temperatures down to -18, it was just for a couple of days. Aside from that, it's generally been a lot warmer than I was anticipating, though admittedly that's a relative term. There have been days were I'd've been quite comfortable walking around without a coat, which I definitely wasn't expecting.

I think the worst part has been the wind chill - mainly because there's no way of anticipating it before you step outside. It'll take a good 10 or 15 degrees off the temperature when it's blowing down from the north. On the other hand, a good hat and gloves will mean you only feel it on your face, and after a couple of minutes, you won't feel it at all!

The nicest part has definitely been seeing the icicles form on the eaves. The living room is soith-facing, so the roof gets sunlight all day, and quite a lot of the snow melting off it ends up in icicle form. I think the largest one so far has been a little over a meter tall... Sadly, the temperature needs to stay in quite a narrow zone for properly large icicles - too cold, and the snow doesn't melt; too warm, and the icicles' bases melt enough that they can't support their own weight.

Tim Hortons

Tim Hortons is (I think) the largest coffee chain in Canada; owned by former hockey player Tim Horton. I'm pretty sure you could have worked out his name, and it's probably a good guess that any Canadian was formerly a hockey player.

They do a very nice vanilla coffee, by the way, as well as an excellent selection of doughnuts. Or should that be donuts?

They've just introduced a new size of cup, which they're calling the extra large. Unfortunately, they already had an extra large (I believe the new cup is 4 ounces larger than the existing one.) So they've renamed the entire range of sizes, moving everything down one size, and renamed the existing Small to Extra Small.

I was in there getting a coffee earlier, and the poor staff have to check with every customer that they're aware of the new sizes, and that their order is in fact what they think they're ordering. I was feeling frustrated on their behalf - I think there's only so many times you can say "Do you mean the new Large, or the old Large?" without cracking. For me, I don't care too much about the size, and just nodded when she asked if I was sure I knew what I was ordering.

I did point out that they could have saved an awful lot of people an awful lot of confusion if they'd just given the new size an entirely new name, though.

(And for those of you who are paying attention, the chain is indeed called Tim Hortons. Since it's a nationwide chain, they also need to operate in Quebec. And since using an apostrophe to denote the possessive is English, they decided to drop it nationally. I guess that pedants are less litigious than the francophones)

Crazy weather

Statistically, the third week of January is the coldest of the Canadian winter. So for most of last week, the temperature was floating around -20 or so, before we took wind chill into account. It was, let's say, a little nippy out.

This week, it's been considerably warmer. Well, relatively - Monday we had actual rain, and since then it's been about -5 or so, so it's positively tropical. It's gotten to the point where quite a lot of the show has melted, so I can walk along the pavement without worrying about going head over heels; and I'm sure I saw one place where I could see actual grass through the ice and snow.

In related news, I got back this evening to discover a snow shovel and a bag of deicer on the front step. My downstairs neighbour slipped on the ice on Monday, and I think this is my landlord's subtle solution to the problem. The roof is south facing, so it gets sunlight for quite a lot of the day, so the snow there melts quite quickly - indeed, there were some spectacular icicles until a couple of days recently. Unfortunately, where the water is dripping off is right onto the stairs that go into the downstairs apartment. The side of the staircase that's furthest from the house is one solid sheet of ice, and half of each step is covered in ice. It's not easy going up and down them. So I think I'll have a busy couple of hours tomorrow clearing some snow.

Well, assuming it's not warm enough over night that it all melts away, anyway.

After the interview

It seemed to go quite well.

They're not especially well set up for people from outside the Canadian system, but unlike rental agents, they are quite prepared to make allowances. I explained that no, they couldn't see my high school graduation certificate, because we don't have them (though given how long it's been since I finished school, that could well have changed by now.) And I'll be interested what the credit check shows up - the background check won't be an issue, I suspect.

In case you're wondering, I think the credit check is because it's working for a credit card company, and they don't want to employ people with dodgy backgrounds. I was also informed that I wouldn't be allowed to have my mobile phone with me at the desk, in case I start smuggling out data, even photographs of the screen.

There was a typing test (I managed 57 words per minute, with three errors), and an aptitude test. "You've got twelve minutes - you won't get to the end, but answer as many as you can." I managed to finish it - I was frantically working out the last question when the bell went - and got 86%, which my examiner said was the highest score she'd seen. So I'm feeling a little smug about that, even if I don't eventually get the job.

A trip to the supermarket

I needed to pop out to the supermarket for a couple of bits. It was -20 outside when I set out, which I think it makes it the coldest day yet. Though it had warmed up to a balmy -18 by the time I got back.

On the one hand, I no longer need to worry that my frozen goods are going to defrost on the way home. On the other, it's been replaced by wondering if the fresh stuff will freeze solid instead... I was very amused when I realised that the freezer compartment is actually warmer than outside.

One advantage is that the nice cup of coffee I bought on the way home cooled down nicely to a drinkable temperature.

A job interview

I've heard back from one of the companies I'd applied to. Indeed, it was long enough back that I'd applied to them that I'd actually written off hearing back from them.

I had a phonecall and a brief screening interview. It's going to be an interesting process for the both of us, I think - they want me to bring along a copy of my high school diploma, for one thing. I suggested that I bring along my university diploma, but no, their system insists on knowing that I graduated high school. I wish now I'd pointed out that my education qualifications were apparently good enough for me to be able to get into the country, but perhaps I should leave that until I know if they're going to offer me the job or not.

This one is working in a call center - ironically, for the same company I was working for before, just a little higher up the food chain. There are a few things that make it a little unattractive - it's shift work, as they need people there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and shifts start between 7am and midnight. I don't mind that, I don't think, though I'm told that the shifts are on rotation, so quite what it's going to do to my sleep patterns, I hate to think. Additionally, it's based over on the other side of the city, and while I can get there on public transport, it does mean that I'll be getting up at 5am for a 7am start, and spending an hour and a half on the bus on either side of a shift does appeal much. I guess there's always a car, but, well - you have read the preceding post about the snow, right?

The interview is on Monday, at 2pm, so I'll have a better idea after that what I'm going to do.

It's snowing!

And has been, pretty much constantly, since I got up this morning - that's about five hours straight now.

I think this is the first time since I got here that it's actually snowed properly. The snow we've had before now has mainly arrived overnight, so this is the first chance I've had to actually see a snowstorm. And it's a corker. We've had a couple of inches already - the drive was plowed last night, and you'd never know it now - and the forecast is for a couple more inches over the afternoon.

The forecast over the next couple of days is quite odd - the weekend is expected to be bitterly cold, with highs of around -18, and then it's going to warm up again at the start of next week, with the temperature due to hit 5 above freezing by midweek. I'll have to find where I packed my shorts....