Once I receive my paperwork, I’ll drive back to Toronto (to return the rental car) and then fly home. As I cross the border, I’ll use my paperwork to register as a Permanent Resident; I’ll then receive my greencard and Social Security Number by mail within a few weeks.

As with any bureaucratic process, I spent most of the time waiting; I passed the time chatting with two couples going through the same application and sharing similar personal circumstances – sadly, I forgot to exchange contact info with them before we all went our separate ways. I even exchanged a few jokes with my interviewer – the interview started well when I congratulated him for correctly pronouncing my name over the intercom and it turned out he’s Polish/Ukranian and has a son named Luka.

Anyway, at the end of the day I’m just relieved that everything is approved and anxious to receive my documents and return home to my family!

PEGGY’S COVE

Our flight landed around 7am on Friday, and by 8am we were in the rental and well on our way to our first destination: the famous Peggy’s Cove. There are two routes to the cove, so we came in from the north and made our way back to Halifax from the south. The scenery of each route was quite different, yet equally incredible – both peppered with tiny fishing or industrial villages.

In the cove itself, there is a small information centre, a museum, a few small trinket/treat shops, and of course the lighthouse. Pretty much any time throughout the trip that we found ourselves on a shoreline, we could be heard taking in deep breaths, sighing happily, and seen smiling, but no other part of the trip brought us quite as much peace as sitting and staring out at the ocean from the large rock formation that the lighthouse is built on.

HALIFAX

After about an hour, we tore ourselves away from the view, stopping at the lighthouse giftshop long enough to send some postcards, and made our way to Halifax. We had lunch at the Red Stag Tavern, attached to the Alexander Keith’s brewery, while enjoying the view of the harbour from their rooftop patio (the food here was amazing – it essentially ruined all other fish-n-chips for me). After lunch, we wandered around the harbour area, checking out the local shops and attractions. We spent the night at the Best Western on Chocolate Lake, where we were greeted by a very friendly chocolate lab, and slept like… well, like people who had barely slept on their inbound red-eye flight and spent all day exploring, I guess.

LOUISB(O)URG

We got up early on Saturday morning and drove roughly 5 hours to Louisb(o)urg (we’re not really sure how to spell it, and neither does anyone who lives there, apparently – we saw two signs within a few hundred feet of each other with different spellings). Along the way we passed about a dozen McDonald’s signs advertising McLobster, but we didn’t feel brave enough to stop and try it. The drive was mostly inland, but boy was it worth it. Lesley had found us a great bed & breakfast with their own private beach: Point of View. We were too late to tour the Louisb(o)urg Fort, so we spent most of the evening relaxing on our balcony, knitting, enjoying the view, and drinking twice as much wine and champagne as was really necessary. There is nothing quite as soothing as falling asleep to the sound of ocean waves just a few hundred feet away.

THE LOBSTER EXPERIENCE

While we were in Louisb(o)urg, we had dinner at a small shack on a pier, called The Lobster Kettle, and of course ordered the lobster dinner special! We’ve both had lobster before, but usually in some kind of processed state or, at best, a relatively fresh tail to accompany our steaks. We were not 100% prepared for the experience when the food arrived. It wasn’t until I was tearing open the lobster’s mid-section that it occurred to me that this lobster had been alive just a few minutes ago, and that the dark green guacamole-looking substance¹ now facing me was likely the remains of its last meal.

¹ photos available on request

LOBSTER BENNY?

We both love eggs benny, and we really enjoyed our lobster the night before, so we decided to see if we could find lobster benny for breakfast the next morning. A little googling led us to the Delta in Sydney, whose menu claimed to accept any and all substitutions and modifications to the menu. I asked how much extra it would cost, “to get some lobster on our eggs benedict?”

“$7,” comes the reponse. That seems a bit expensive for some lobster meat to replace the ham in my eggs benny, but I figure what the hell – we’re on vacation! Sadly, we did not have the camera with us – when the eggs benny arrived we understood the price: they had cooked a whole fresh lobster, half for each of us, and simply dropped it on our plates. It was a little more work than we’d expected, digging out our own lobster meat to add to our eggs benny, but it was worth it for the laughs alone – and the lobster benny was pretty good.

THE CABOT TRAIL

After breakfast we hit out on the Cabot Trail, which is easily the greenest and prettiest scenic drive I’ve ever been on. Unfortunately, it rained almost the entire time, so we mostly kept to the car and the occasional roadside giftshop or attraction; hiking and whale-watching are on our to-do list next time around. But, after three long years of fruitless scanning during roadtrips, Lesley’s dream came true and we spotted a moose!

We stopped for dinner in the largest Acadian village of Cape Breton: Chéticamp. After two consecutive meals involving fresh lobster, we opted for something a little tamer, and dined at Le Gabriel. By the time we had finished, the restaurant had filled with locals for the dinner rush, all speaking French – I think Lesley found this moment almost as peaceful as Peggy’s Cove.

It didn’t occur to me until today, but I’ve never owned a scarf. For that matter, I don’t believe I’ve ever worn one – certainly not within my scope of memory, at least.

Now that I’ve been wearing it for a few days (it got cold this last week), I can’t even fathom how I went my whole life without it. Now every day when I’m walking on my way to work, it’s like she’s there with me – giving me the biggest warmest hug I’ve ever had.

Some mornings when I get to work, I don’t want to take it off; I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m still wearing it every morning come June.

Thank you for the best birthday present ever! <4

Oh, almost forgot – some pictures:

yesterday, as i was passing this point i noticed a young lady pulled over on the left shoulder with her hazards on. i slowed and pulled onto the opposite shoulder and noted that she had a flat tire, poor thing. it’s -60F outside, she’s stopped in the middle of a wind-through, and looks pretty scared that she’ll either get clipped by a semi-truck if she stays in the car where it’s warm, or get frostbite trying to change the tire on her own (assuming she even knows how, right?).

i flip on my hazards and pull off the shoulder to a safe distance, and hop out of the car. she sees me and a smile of relief washes over her face.

i smiled, and waved back, took the photo of the river/mountain view i’ve been wanting to take, and carried on my way.

i hope someone came along and helped her!

A couple weeks ago we went to Moore’s. One of the salesman saw me coming a mile away and was all over me the second I walked in the door, measuring me and firing questions at me about what the suit was to be used for, etc. He led me to a rack and had me try on , indicated three of his own recommendation, and left us alone for a few minutes. He was pretty adamant that my first suit should be black or dark blue, but when he returned I let him know I was distinctly interested in something brown.

He led me to a mirror and draped a few different brown jackets over my shoulders until I picked a design I liked. Then he was ushering me into the change room to try on the pants. By the time I got changed he was waiting for me with three options of shoes and some lender-socks. We settled on a shoe and he made some chalk marks around my ass and ankles.

When I was done changing back into my street clothes, he was waiting at a special display table holding a matching belt, socks, and several shirt/tie combo options for various occasions, displayed neatly beside the suit & shoes.

All this time, he’s going a mile a minute. Every opinion stated confidently. Every question geared towards “which” rather than “whether”. He was good. He was so good, in fact, that even as I realized I was being hustled well beyond my planned spending, I realized I didn’t mind – I was too in awe of it happening to be upset. It didn’t hurt that he seemed to sincerely want me to look great when he was done.

Today, we picked up the suit. Our camera doesn’t do the brown justice, but here’s a sneak-peek just the same.

The appointment was scheduled to run 1 hour, but ran into 2. The first tooth had to be split into 3 pieces and dug out forcibly. After that, the others practically jumped out of their own accord.

We had some issues with the bleeding that didn’t get under control for about 8 hours, which was a little scary – but now we know better for the next set (I wasn’t applying enough pressure to the sockets with the gauze).

To be honest, my jaw itself hurts quite a bit more than any of my sockets. When he was trying to pry the first tooth out it was taking so much effort on his part he was visibly shaking afterwards – I hope he didn’t damage anything!

Anyway, if the postage stamp on this post doesn’t gross you out already, you can find high-res pictures of all the salvaged bits in the gallery.

Whatever you call them, Lesley and I were lucky enough to get floor tickets last night to see them here in Calgary.
We arrived around 7:45 and milled around the foyer until the opening act was done (no offense, opening act, I’m sure you were magnificent in your own right) visiting with Caley, buying beer, making fun of what some people were passing off as stylish clothing these days (yes, mr. white belt and shoes with blue slacks, I’m talking to you).

The acoustics in the Saddledome are dreadful. Most sound techs try to overcome this through brute-force volume, and this was no exception; this tactic works in cases where loud is already necessarily better (ie. System of a Down), but only for the floor audience – it doesn’t work very well for bands like the White Stripes, where at least half of the value is in the clarity of the guitar work.

Foregoing the less than ideal setting, the show was really good. Plenty of energy from both Jack and Meg, which was especially surprising as I’ve often wondered (while listening to their studio work) if Meg only has one arm – she never breaks 120bpm, but seeing her perform live it turns out she’s hitting every single beat as hard as her little body will let her. It’s pretty obvious that she’ll never have a drumming career outside the White Stripes, but her simple (snare, bass and a double-dose of cymbals) 8-beats serve as good punctuation to the real content of the show: Jack.

Jack seemed to be having a genuine good time, but I don’t think he realized there was an audience half the time – he’s playing every song for himself or Meg, and in some cases, both. About 40 minutes in he switched out to an acoustic steel guitar with finger slide for a few songs, including the Catch Hell Blues, which was the climax of the show in my opinion.

I snapped a random pic with my phone – the quality’s horrible, but I still like it because Jack’s silhouette looks like Tim Curry’s Lucifer from Legend.

The camera work was perfectly simple, as the last thing this film needed was visual distraction of any kind, being as strongly character driven as it was.

I had no complaints about the length; the dual-mole intro sequence was longer than a traditional intro by some 20 minutes, but in the end it was completely necessary – and before you had time to be upset by it, the first act starts in 3rd gear and never really lets up.

That said, the ending was one of my only two complaints* – it was almost comical in a slap-sticky way that I didn’t feel did the 2nd and 3rd acts justice.

*the other being the ridiculously far fetched love triangle aspect: I can see that her character was being used as a two way mirror for the dual-moles, but with a little more attention to the dialog, it could have been done purely through her interviews with them; but I’ll admit an approach like that might have been too subtle in this movie’s context and missed by half the audience.

The performances were pretty solid all around, including Sheen and Baldwin who aren’t exactly at the top of any of my lists. There was one scene in particular between DiCaprio and Damon, where they first confront each other – silently over the telephone; they both know the other is their target mole, but they don’t know who the other is, so they both listen silently, breathing, trying desperately to glean something about their adversary through the static.

All in all, this is a movie I will no doubt own and watch many times, but it wasn’t quite enough to get a “must see” rating.

Sufficive to say, they have not increased their level of respect with us…

We’ve been annoyed by some minor brake squealing most of the summer, and knew we would eventually need to install a block-heater to keep the Neon’s powerful engine from shattering during our sub-Kelvinesque winters, so we asked Dodge to go ahead and prepare an estimate on that work while they were performing the inspection.

The call comes back later in the day with bad news: the Neon’s Daytime Running Lights module is broken; as this is a requirement in Alberta, it needs to be replaced – along with every other module in the dashboard? – bringing our work estimate up to $1500+. I’m skeptical that DRL is an actual Alberta Infrastructure requirement, so I tell Dodge to put a hold on everything while I do some research. A quick call to AI confirms Dodge’s claim, so I decide to find a cheaper replacement method – perhaps I can find the required parts used or after-market. Dodge is expectedly against the idea, but with some prodding agrees to install a part that I bring in on my own – it will take longer (ie. cost more in labour $) and they don’t actually expect it will work, which will mean us having to go their route eventually and paying for everything twice. Friendly folk, aren’t they?

The part is a ‘cluster’ of all the modules, priced at $650 OEM. A few phone calls around local part stores and wrecking yards, and I learn that an after-market DRL kit is available for $30! The consensus is that it’s a bitch to install, but it’ll pass inspection. I swing by Dodge to pick up the Neon so that I can go fetch this Excalibur’s Sword of midday luminescent engineering, and (surprise!) their Technician tells me that he won’t install this particular after-market item, because it doesn’t match the required electrical specs, and he doesn’t want to screw something up and jeopardize our warranty.*

* during this whole process it was learned that the SuperDuperExtendedWarranty that Lesley was sold as part of her trade-in deal is actually only a power-train warranty, and completely unaffected by electrical work of this nature.

I was half-expecting something like this from them, so I’d made some calls to local repair shops and found one that could install inspection-worthy DRL on the Neon for $250 or less after labour and taxes. If Dodge didn’t want to install DRL on the Neon for less than $800, they weren’t going to be doing any of the work on it and could snack on a net profit of $0.

But Dodge is a wily beast, and had already completely installed the block-heater and begun work on the brakes (they were dirty! the brakes, I mean… well Dodge, too I guess. Anyway…) I guess they decided to get in as much of the work as possible once they found out I was calling other mechanics for opinions. We were furious, but decided (probably against our better judgement) to let that go, giving them the benefit of the doubt – after all, English was not the Technician’s first language, and our Rep had mentioned that they have ongoing issues with him and misunderstandings of presumably similar nature.

Skip ahead. The Neon has been to our local mechanic, the DRL are installed and functioning, the invoice was exactly as quoted, and to top it off the staff were *gasp* friendly! We return the Neon to Dodge so that they can finish the initial inspection and give us our paperwork. Shockingly, they call later in the day to inform us that the installation from our local mechanic is not to specification – it seems our DRL are installed using the fog lamps, but they are supposed to use the turn signals? I asked our Rep to have the Technician bring her the appropriate documentation to back up this claim, and I would have her fax it to me as proof.

While she scurried off, I made a call to AI again and had someone there read me the relevant passages from the official Methods & Standards book (which apparently, he’s not allowed to send me copies of directly). The requirements are that the DRL be (i) on the front of the vehicle; (2) using white or amber lights; and (3) operate automatically whenever the motor of the vehicle is in operation – all criteria that our local mechanic has fulfilled dutifully.

The phone rings. I can see it’s Dodge. I prepare myself to unleash unholy fury on the poor soul on the other end of the line. I actually yelled “It’s on!” to the rest of the office (who have been following this little drama from start to finish, whether they wanted to or not) and pumped my fist a few times before picking up the receiver.

Anti-climatically, Dodge was calling to concede victory to my perserverence and research skills. The Neon was ready to be picked up, with full certification, at no further charge.

Clearly we will not be taking any of our future work to Dodge directly unless there is no other option. We’re also taking the boys at Franklin Auto some cookies and beer for their help.