Crapsticks and Burglary

The worst has happened, I've been offered worthwhile and probably acceptable employment. Any ideas on how to escape this most horrid of predicaments should be sent to me on the back of a one-way plane ticket.

On a more stable note the job looks challenging and uses some different as well as other more familiar chunks of technology, and my prospective manager wants me to be certified within the year. Insert joke as required.

I will almost certainly accept this role, barring anything unnatural in the offer docs. Farewell freedom, I knew you only too well.

One year gone by

It's exactly one year, give or take an hour or two, since we landed at Edmonton International Airport to begin our Canadian Adventure. And I have to say that we are still having a great time. There are the odd moments of homesickness, and missing friends and family, but generally the time has flown by as we enjoy life out here. It has been all we hoped it would be and more. Here's to the next year.

Mr Beckham does his 75 minutes exactly

Last week we went with Ian and Steve to a football match at the Commonwealth Stadium. LA Galaxy were playing the Vancouver Whitecaps at an exhibition match. The big hype was that David Beckham was playing for LA Galaxy and because of that (or despite of it) 39,000 people turned up.

The crowd banter/abuse of an english match was missing. In the first half there was polite clapping, interspersed with two drunk Canadian lads loudly singing the praises of Man United (I think they'd turned up at the wrong match) but by the second half the crowd had mastered the art of the mexican wave and so things improved a bit.

The football itself wasn't all that, and I have to say that LA Galaxy were pretty poor despite having Mr Beckham, and Ruud Gullit (without the dreadlocks) as coach, and they lost 1-2. David Beckham was contracted to play at least 75 minutes, and was substituted at 75:01. He could have shown willing and stayed on for a few more seconds.

I realise the above all sounds very negative, but it was actually a fun evening out. In this desert of ice hockey, baseball and Canadian 'football', it provided some sustenance to the followers of the real thing. I quite enjoyed it too, and even spotted when one of the players was off side. Richard was quite proud of me.


As you can see clearly, David Beckham is no. 23, the left most one in blue.






Richard, Steve and Ian and a few thousand other people

Wii Fool

Today I was up bright and early to be at the local supermarket to purchase one of the two Wii Fit thingies they got in. I did not know they were only getting two and I get the feeling that they have a bunch of them out back saved for staff, but either way I have one!

So after unpacking and attaching said wii balance thing to the console I proceeded to have a 30 min workout trying out all the exercises, some were harder that others and one I just could not complete. And I have to say it seems pretty cool, it can handle my weight and I think that Jacqui and I will get a chunk of use out of it.

By the way BEWARE, it gives you a fitness age compared to your actual age, this can be traumatic, you have been warned :)

Too much walking

I had a brilliant idea today, Jacqui dropped me at the gym, I did gym stuff then I decided to walk home instead of catching the bus. This is a great idea for exercise, not soo good for my feet, now I have blisters and a need for a damn good shower.

Hot fool signing off.

Lovely May Bank Holiday

It's lovely here at the moment and Jacqui's been out clearing up the garden in time for the summer. In the space of a week everything's gone green, shockingly amazingly green in no time at all. Both of us were surprised by the speed at which the green appeared is the point you should take away from this paragraph.

So Jacqui raked and I helped bag up the leaves from last autumn, 9 bags in total, not a bad haul. And now the push has begun to varnish up our garden furniture (second coat) so we have summit to sit upon.

And my new addiction to homemade smoothies is fitting nicely into the upturn in the weather, the blender's getting a regular workout.

Anyway I better get off the computer and do something else, a domestic god's work is never done after all.

And now we wait

So I've had my interviews for all three jobs and now I'm waiting for the results. I should find out by the end of next week if I'm going to get any of them. If not then I need to make some more decisions regarding my future.

Snapshot of a Fools Life

Hi guys, just a quick update on my life at the moment.

At the moment I are been mostly looking for gainful employment. Now getting any job is not difficult, getting one that I think I'll like and who likes me is. So the last couple of weeks I've had interviews for 3 companies, and 1 second interview. As I write this I am still in the frame for all three and should hear about two of them this week.

If I manage to avoid all three then I want to start out on my own, either contracting or doing some basic PC fixing around St. Albert, and if that's slow to begin with I am considering doing some volunteer work.

On a more social note we're off to watch the LA Galaxy (Beckham's Team) at the Commonwealth stadium tonight, so that should be fun.

P.S. We seem to be infested by baby squirrels, remind me to pick up some rat poison from the shop, can't have Jacqui slacking off oohing and ahhing :)

Little Baby Squirrels

I went outside this afternoon to do some clearing of the back garden and got absolutely nothing done because we have three unbelievably cute baby squirrels camped out there. Here are some pics:













Ah, so sweet!

River Valley Clean Up

On Sunday, my company took part in the River Valley Clean Up - an annual initiative by the City of Edmonton to... er... clean up the river valley.

Did you know that the North Saskatchewan River Valley through Edmonton is the largest continuous stretch of urban parkland in north America, totalling over 7400 hectares (18,285 acres)?

60 of us from ISL joined the 5,000 other volunteers on Sunday morning to pick up litter (or garbage as they say over here). Our company was given Rundle Park in north east Edmonton (Lovely big park but with excellent views of the oil refineries across the river) and we all spent a couple of hours picking up all the cigarette butts and Tim Horton paper cups that were lying around. However, I have to say that these Canadians seem to be a fairly clean lot - Amanda, Marlis and I covered a huge area and only collected one bagful.