Ashley Banks

You know that song by Ashley Banks called 'Make Up Your Mind'?

Coz, you know I'm living in this place where the weather can't make up it's mind, so you know 'Make Up Your Mind'?

After a delightfully sunny weekend, where both Bob and even Matt got a sun tan, and I stood on the coast in just a shirt, a massive snow storm hit on Monday morning, and lasted all day.
So severe was it, that Chris and Joe's plane got cancelled, nothing in or out of Charlottetown. They had to stay another night here, which was no problem, but of course they missed work and it cost extra money for them.
The forecast was for 15cm of snow, or so I heard.

So this morning I took these pictures. This one shows just how much fell. Of course because of the wind blowing it all about, in some places it's much, much deeper. It's back to how it was when I first landed!

I'm a bit worried in case this happens again next Monday and Kath can't fly in, that will drive me to drink!.... again!....
But that said, the weather today, during the day was fairly mild and the roads are all melted and clear now at 10:30pm.

It really cannot make up it's mind, you know like that song by Ashley Banks called 'Make Up Your Mind'?, coz this place can't... make up it's mind, that is, like that song by Ashley Banks... you know the one, it's called 'Make Up Your Mind'.

PEI

As Chris and Joe have hired a car and never been to PEI, they wanted to see a bit of it. Eager to see what the island is like I of course tagged along.
Today was a beautiful day, 8 degrees C, really sunny, and I got to take some pretty awesome pictures... better than last time when it was blizzarding on me :)
Enjoy

I liked the design of this house, and the land leading up to it. It's a bit too remote for my liking, many of the houses in this part of the island seems to be, but the actual builds looked pretty awesome. This was near Cherry Valley I think.

We did a long drive through Kings County, through Stratford and down the coast road all the way to Georgetown, it took us a good 4 hours.

I may not have mentioned this before, but the soil on PEI is red, this small river was flowing pushing out red clay as it went.

'Hayden Produce'... nuff said!

Here's Chris and Joe having a quick fag whilst I was taking pictures

This lighthouse was down at Wood Island, right next to the ferry crossing to Nova Scotia. We could see Nova Scotia on the horizon, for it was such a clear day. The sea is still frozen \o/

I've been to many places in the world, I've managed to travel a lot, and stay with the culture, rather than being a simple tourist. Sri Lanka after the Tsunami, Romania after the revolution...

But this is the most messed up thing I've ever seen!...

It's like the house caved in on itself, perhaps there was a hole under ground and it sunk? A well perhaps beneath? the whole thing has just... fallen into the centre of itself... it's... it's... messed up!

Below is near a place called Guernsey Cove. We managed to get down to the 'beach'. The sea here (being more open as it's to the east of the island) has begun to melt and ice bergs are floating about. It was incredibly calm... considering it was the sea - more like a pond.

Above where I was just standing is this house. This guy's decking is on the cliff top, overlooking the sea and Nova Scotia on the horizon. An awesome spot and a nice looking house, but it's a bit barren here, not much. Very rural and distant feeling - I would love to host a BBQ/party here and stay for the summer, but I don't think I could live here - it's just far too remote.

Nearest neighbour was like a whole field away (a big field!) and there's no gas station or even a convenience store anywhere nearby. But a great summer party location nonetheless :)

We headed to Murray River, hoping do some seal watching, but apparently they only come here in June/July time - I'll have to come back with Kath and Hayden to see them.

There's a hawk in this picture... can you spot it?

I'm sure I've seen this place before... it's very familiar...

:)

On the bridge at Murray River I looked through the port holes below. Lo and behold it seems that the British tradition of throwing shopping trolleys into rivers made it to PEI after all!

LOL, the strange thing is there's not a supermarket anywhere in this small village!!!

We wanted lunch and were getting quite hungry. Montague had lots of places, but all big chain stuff, Wendy's, Mac Donald's, KFC, Pizza Delight etc. and we wanted a nice fish restaurant. Nothing was open, so we decided to continue to Georgetown, where we found there was not only nothing open.. but there was also... nothing.

Seriously!

Well there was a peer which we drove onto and I took this picture of a boat, the first I've seen here, managing to drive on the unfrozen bits of water. Looked like he was trawling for something.

Georgetown, very warm.

We cut back across the island to Charlottetown on highway 3, and it only took us about 30-40 minutes to get back, but it was really nice to take the scenic route today. Tiring.. but nice :)

Yo Cuz!

My cousins Joe and Chris have flown over from Toronto for a beer session.
They arrived last night, we were going to go out, but decided instead to buy 3 chickens and have a massive feast.
With 3 cases of beer.

Good times....

Noisy Git

Check this guy out. I came home today to grab my laptop and this guy was screeching loudly in the tree outside the house

Some Good News

55 days in Canada, that's nearly 8 weeks.

A couple of weeks ago Kath phoned me and told me some big news, today all was confirmed, and I can now officially announce that we will soon have a full on Canadian, an islander, in our family, due 21st October 2009,

All healthy and good by all accords, can't wait to see Kath again in person. We had no idea when I left, she's only 10 weeks in (as long as it's more than 8 weeks is fine by me eh? ;) )
So hopefully we can really make this all work out here and have a good family life.

LOL

I was saying...????


The very night I did my last post it snowed a heavy fall, everything covered again :)

The Thaw...

The snow has started to thaw out now.
The weather has been quite warm, although it sometimes says -5C out, I'm able to walk to work with no gloves or hat and my jacket open!
On Thursday I took my camera in and took some pictures of what it's like now.
Although the snow is slowly meting and it hasn't snowed in well over a week, what was there is no pretty much solid ice.
My early picture in early February showed me putting my foot into over a foot of snow.
If you take a look to the left of the photo below you'll see a big white mound of snow in front of the house. Well in February, I could kick that and it'd fly up in a cloud of powdery snow. Today if I kick that, it's like kicking a brick wall!
But as you can see the weather has gotten very nice, clear blue skies, very crisp and fresh air - it's an awesome feeling walking to work, very refreshing.


Below is the interchange on Euston and University. That massive mound of ice has accumulated there since the first fall, that restaurant in the back piles it all up there from the car park.
You should see the big shops, like the supermarkets. The hills are SO large, that I thought they were actually hills - I mean like 20 feet high or more. It turns out, they're just pure snow and ice. Underneath is actually more car parking spaces, the diggers pile it up there to clear the main car park.


Now the snow has melted from our roof top in the Atlantic Technology Centre, I'm able to go out on the deck above.
This would be great in summer, to chill out here at lunch and have BBQ, but it seems that we may be moving buildings in May, so I may never get to enjoy this area proper :(

This is a shot of the big church. it's very peaceful up here, much like all rooftops :)

Just a nice photo :)

Work

I had left my camera in work, and hadn't realised that somebody took some sneaky shots of me at work. It's nice to show these off.
Below is the code I'm working on :)

This is Stephen, the Oracle, for he knows far more than me about all this iPhone, Playground and LUA scripting stuff. Here he is helping me out on an issue and explaining a way forward.
You can see my miniature wooden London on the desk behind me :)

I'm currently developing an iPhone game with Stephen, Jon and Nigel as co-programmers, Matt is designer, James is the producer and Todd the artist. Todd is actually in the Newfoundland studio and I've never met him, just communicate on MSN.

Because it's iPhone stuff I have to use a Mac to develop on, here's my Mac. It's been playing up since I got it, and I'm going to give it to Shane for a rebuild when this project is finished as it'll take a day to sort out.

They took away my PC the other day so now I only have this Mac. It's really slow :(

We use SVN here, which means that we all work on the same source code. We're each able to update the source with our own versions and then others can modify it. In the case of Todd, he can do some art in Newfoundland and simply upload it to the SVN server. Then we immediately have it to test in game.

Thoughts

I've been here for 45 days.

I just read back through my blog. It started off with wonder, showing you all the sights, telling you all about the smells, the feel. It was a log of my experience, and it still is.
I realised that my experience took a turn a couple of weeks back.

It changed from wonder, excitement and exploration, to party time. Living a young single man's life. Drinking, flirting, socialising as much as possible. At first this was all important... to establish myself in this new community, this new culture. To be recognised. It was easy, the place was welcoming.
I don't really need to continue to do this.
At first the people were varied, then they became familiar, and now they're friends.
Young men, for the most part.
I've been there and done that. I've put in my time. I've probably partied enough to fill the void for many of you. Ibiza, Amsterdam, Prague, Romania, 5 weeks in the Maldives and Sri Lanka, New York.
This summer just past I think we hosted 3 full on partys!?, Hayden's Pirate party, Kath's Karaoke and Halloween.

I have realised this week why I've been going out. It's not to try to be young again. It's not to fit in. It's not to find new friends.
It's because Kath is not here.
I will continue this way until she arrives, but at least I know now.
I speak to Hayden most days on MSN. But since my laptop broke I was unable to video call for well over a week. At first I used to miss him the most. I thought I was missing out on a big part of his life.
But that was selfish... it was all about me!
He's not so fussed that I'm not there, and he'll not remember it.
But Kath... she'll remember these 45 days.
And she needs me....
And I'm not there....
I've got friends here, I can go out on a whim. I love my job.
I'll happily stay and program until 10 at night before leaving the office at the moment.
I'm also able to help someone here too, help them stay sane.

But I left her in the UK, to basically lodge for 2 months and work a job she can't wait to leave. Looking after Hayden, and not feeling too well at the moment. Not able to sleep, and not even able to see me on Skype.
No hugs, no cuddles.
I get hugs... I get my hug, in a mug... of beer. It helps to ignore it, to pass the time.
So if anyone reading this can understand, go and give Kath a big hug for me please....
Visit her, keep her busy, and the next 21 days may not be so difficult for her.

Twisted Fire Starter

Although nothing to do with my time here, I just recieved this picture from John, which he took at New Year and just had to post it.
No photoshopping here, this is all real!!!

Blogging

Fitted the main PC up today so am able to blog again.

Called Nutter on Skype and he has researched a little and helped me try to sort the laptop. I'm running 'ChkDsk' on it now, which will probably take all night. Hopefully this will allow me to at least access my photos and stuff.

Well, now my kitchen is sorted and I did a big shop the other day, Matt came round and cooked a curry with the use of my spices that were shipped over.

It was REALLY lush, the boy knows how to cook, and the great thing is, it was somewhat adlib with the various spices. JR called and said he was bored, so an impromptu poker night happened.
At this stage I feel that all Canadians are welcome.
If anyone has seen 'Bowling Columbine', by that Michael Moore bloke, you'll remember that he goes to Canada to ask why gun crime and violence, whilst rife in the US, doesn't exist here and he tests a theory. He had heard that Canadians don't bother to lock their doors, and he walks into some guys house, who's sat watching TV. Far from the guy asking 'who the hell are you?', in typical Canadian fashion, he just says 'Hey man, what's shaking?'
Well, it's all true, everyone is welcome, two people I'd never met, simply walked into the house and I wasn't bothered one bit :)
Of course they weren't complete strangers, and I was informed that they were heading over for poker, but still, I didn't feel the need to answer the door and be all formal, just left it open for them.
It's a liberating feeling, something that is just so alien in concept to us in the UK.
Here's our game anyway, Matt, Ryan, Chris, Me, JR and Christa.


Oh yeah, my house is smoke free. That cigarette you see on the table is an eCigarette ( uses some weird nicotine vapouriser thing, that activates when you suck it and even lights up the tip. The smoked still gets a hit, and exhales smoke. But it's more like vapour or the smoke from a Shisa, so doesn't stink up the house or anything.

Been sorting the study/dining room today and the PC. I'm going to hit Hayden's room tomorrow, fix up his bed and get the final stuff into boxes to put into the basement, then I can update the blog with some pictures of the house.

No Blogging

My laptop harddrive seems to have failed at the weekend and I cannot get into it.
I tried blogging from my iPhone, but the text fields would not allow input.
My main PC at home is still not rigged up, so I am unable to blog.

This is a update from work. Well not much has gone on over the weekend anyway. Had some peeps around on Friday noght for Poker, but then have been sorting the house. Sunday was spent as a lazy day on the sofa watching season 3 of Battlestar Galactica... and 7 episodes of season 4 :) So not much happened that day.
Went shopping last night, got loads of meat and supplies so that I can finally make some food and bring in lunches and pasta, rather than living on sandwiches and take out...

will update with photos of the new house set up once I have my PC working or laptop fixed.

The Beginning...

... of our new home in Canada.

Thankfully the lads came round, good to their word, and pretty much worked their butts off. Ryan helped build out Argos dresser downstairs to put stuff in. We messed it up a couple of times and had to un-screw things and waste time, bu at least we had beer :)
Matt helped me build our brand new oak wardrobe upstairs and whilst we were doing that (which took well over an hour I think.. really heavy and awkward... poxy allen keys, grrrr.
Whilst we did that JR had the unenviable task of sorting out the kitchen.

Matt got stuck in the wardrobe with his sides splitting, after I joked about this pub quiz that we'd been to on Tuesday night :)
Standard pub quiz gag... "What... and I'll repeat that question... Who, was the first person to land on the moon".
We didn't even finish until about 12:30-1:00am, and then manage to kick back with some beer, 5 cheeseburgers and a Shisa :)
JR did a sterling job on the Kitchen, I was amazed - he somehow managed to put it all away and I now have tons of cupboard space - this was one area that I just didn't know where to start, so I'm glad he sorted it out.

YESSSSS!!!!... Customs did not confiscate my sword :)

Our new sofa... as modelled by an Indian with contact lenses.... and a sword.

It was nice to have friends around and chill out here instead of at the bar getting wasted. I had Metal and Trance playing and a comfortable environment at last.

I'm watching American Idol at the moment and have been updating the last couple of posts with photos, and it's just nice to be in and sat on a sofa.

Good news is my UK TV seems to be working fine. It's dual voltage and I have the input from my Eastlink HD box going though HDMI, and even the normal broadcasts are working. I have my surround sound system set up and running off of a 300W max step-down transformer.

Also, I have the heating set at 21 degrees and it's warm now that the house is full, it's been costing a fortune for the past few week heating the empty rooms, I need them on 25.

I've been dumb actually, as I've been out so much I should have had the heating down much lower, but of course I never, ever intended on being out so much.

The house here has a decent timer that I can have come on in the morning and the evening at different temperatures, so... dumb really. At least now I don't even need it as high, and will try to stay in more as it's comfortable.

So, when I have the place a bit tidier, probably complete this as best as possible over the weekend, I'll update with pics.

Stuff

OK, I know it's Wednesday, but my house is now a complete tip. My stuff finally arrived on Monday and the guys unpacked it.
It sucked because I had to go to the airport (to Canada Customs) to sign for it at 9am. But they didn't arrive until 11am!!
Anyway, They had my container on this massive truck, it was tottally covered in ice (from the freezing rain), and they popped the seal to check that I wasn't harbouring any Chinese.
The seal is proof that it hasn't been opened since it left the port in England.

My house is on a corner of a small street, and this juggernaut could hardly fit there. The driver decided to reverse the container right up to the door and park across the road. He said "people can either go round or turn back eh?" :)
Well on Sunday Dave and Bob helped me destroy about 3 inches of ice out the front and I gritted it thoroughly to ensure these guys would not slip whilst carrying my stuff. Turned out unnecessary as the container door opened right onto the wooden steps, and straight into the house, so stuff didn't even hardly get wet.

I took this from the front door... That's how close it was

It was hectic as I had to verify each box number as they brought it in and tell them where to put it. Thankfully, White & Co in the UK had done a good job of marking each package with the source room it came from, for example Bed1, Bed2, Lounge etc. So they started being able to automatically put stuff in the correct room. This was their procedure, bring everything in, verify that nothing is missing and place it in the correct room.

Here's all the junk as the guys took off. I ended up tipping them, tipping is huge here in Canda... as are taxes, but.. when in Rome and all that $20 bucks each I though was more than generous.

Then they unpack it and place it in cupboards and stuff. They even help rebuild stuff and flat packed stuff, which White & Co said wouldn't happen.

So all my stuff is in, but I've basically moved a 3 bedroom house into a 2 bedroom, and it's really tight. As I have no shelving or cabinet space I have nowhere to put things. I'm going to need to buy some small cheap cabinet's for stuff.
Well I have many pictures and will update it when I can to this post, but I cannot easily get at the PC and do this right now as it's all a huge mess.
It was a milestone yesterday at work for the project I'm working on so we had to ensure it was ready for inspection by the publishers. Although we weren't behind it was still a very full day, and I didn't get out until 8pm.

I couldn't face going home last night, as I can't even step about or sit anywhere or use the cooker because there's just so much stuff piled high. So I ate out instead, then drank some so I could just go home and sleep without having to look at it.

A pint of tea from MacDonolds.... awesome!!!

Hopefully the lads are going to come round tonight and help me build the remaining cabinets, sort stuff and place stuff correctly in drawers. Don't get me wrong the removal men did a sterling job, they placed stuff in where they could, but as several cabinets need to be built and the kitchen is tiny, it inevitably got placed on whatever surface was available. To make matters worse, on Monday I had to run into work to fix some code that I'd done which was preventing the rest of the team from progressing to milestone. I felt responsible, so I went in and left these guys to unpack, they did their best, but if I'd been there I would have been able to perhaps get things a bit better - especially in the kitchen.

Anyway, hopefully after tonight it'll be much tidier with everything put away neatly, and anything that doesn't fit I can at least see and sort over the course of the week.