Boston Holiday 2010

So this is the final picture of our Boston trip and if you haven't already seen on facebook we had a wicked time in Boston and loved seeing old friends (not meant in an age sense Nik!!)

This is Raj enjoying noodles in a box and didn't want them unless they were boxed as in 'all American movies, our final evening and the first Chinese Ive had since leaving the UK 14 months ago!!!

Hayden and his new Canadian Friends...Beaver and Moose!

The stunning views of New Brunswick...we must have driven for hours before seeing another car on the road.  Here Hayden and Raj stopped to stretch legs while I changed and fed Taryn.

Lets start at the beginning...a 13 hour trip across the Canadian/US border, 4/5 tolls (including the pricey one to leave PEI) and 2 very tired children later we arrived in Boston.

Nikki's apartment block.  They were lovely even an appearance of the Danvers Police to welcome us!! LOL

Nikki and our 'Pal' Matt in Salem on our first outing.

Paddling in a fountain in Salem, it was so hot I would have joined them if I didn't need to drive home!

Nico and Hayden became excellent friends and had a great time together...

...and Taryn loved Auntie Nikki, it was a red hair thing.

Yes they found another fountain to get run around in, this one much bigger and more fun including Raj and I!

Very cool picture of the boys in Boston.

In the aquarium Hayden got to hold a starfish.

The Rajamanie's in 'Cheers', definitely didn't know our names!!

Baby on the Bar :)

Raj's third baby on the bar!

Boston from the sea on our Whale Watch trip.

Taryn having a fabulous day :)

27 miles out and still see the skyline.  Very patriotic shot!

A whale, Fin Shark to be precise.

Taryn and her first pair of Clark's shoes, 2 1/2 G.

First day on the beach, loving the sand and eating quite a lot of it!

Raj loving time with the boys making sand sculptures.

Nico and Hayden chilling and burying each other in the lovely white sand.

The sand turtle.

Taryn's first paddle, it was so cold and a bit of a shock to the system.

Family shot int he waves.

and I end on a picture of my other Man...he is growing up so quickly, he is cheeky and definitely his fathers son!  He is also adorable and clever...obviously from me!!

Lost

So....it just finished...

was nice...

What do you think?

15" Black Rubber Cock!!!

Nuff said...

LOL, the biggest oxymoron of all time, my 'deluxe PVC' pool cue case :)
So tacky with it's red velvet interior that I could not help but be completely immature and give it an appropriate name... in Tipex, written at the bar just before we left.
Nicole said 'These guys are representing Charlottetown',
to which Andrew (Dooly's manager) could only reply in his best Jack Dee impression... 'Classy'. :)
However the 15" Black Rubber Cock was well received in Halfax and 50/60 years olds found it funny - proving that my teenage antics apply to men of all ages...

The tournament was in Halifax, Nova Scotia and it took around 4 hours to get there on Friday night.
Here's my room, I chose to share with Danny as we figured he didn't snore and knew that both bob and Chester did. Luckily Danny didn't even stay so I had this room all to myself :)

We were welcomed in our room with free beer, a beer cooler case from the sponsers and  engraved beer glasses... nice.

Couldn't stay long though, the buffet dinner started at 7:30pm so a quick freshen up and drink of the free beer and we were out to Dooly's to register and meet the other teams.

Chester is an idiot!, It's official, he must have spent a fortune trying to get the 'Nastiest' shots available for us to down, we went through a lot as they were'nt 'nasty' enough - some actually quite tasty.

See.... 15" Black Rubber Cock gags are funny to all ages :) Especially after many nasty shots...

Friday night we headed out to a Country and Western bar called Rockin' Rodeo. I promised Bob that I wouldn't publish any pictures from the walk home... but I didn't say I wouldn't talk about it!!...
Heh heh, suffice to say it was a good night, took us quite some time to stumble back to our hotel, where we crashed at 4am. Bob was escorted back to his room at 5am or something when he was found waundering the halls in his boxers!! ROFL.
And at 6:55am Danny comes knocking on the door shouting 'Come one let's go!'.
We had to get showered, breakfasted and to Dooly's by 7:30am or something.
Shane who was in Halifax elsewhere this weekend met us and we began our first game of the day.

Chester's Dad was here.. LOL.. (Not really his Dad... so he claims...)

There were a ton of great guys and gals in the teams. The Dooly's staff were awesome and the event well organised. We had 7 rounds to play EACH team and each player once. The total scores cummulative throughout the day. It was a marathon which took about 10 hours. The team from St John's, NewfoundLand were a bit serious compared to everyone else and it showed in thier game, taking an early lead.

When it became apparent that we would not score as much as them, we just had fun.

Bob (who's a twat by the way) had a Whiskey in his coffee at 8:30am, and then proceeded to buy me a Long Island Ice Tea shortly afterwards. 

It starts...

We decided to have 1 pint per round.

Round 7 was against the team from Sackville, Nova Scotia - and both me and Bob were on about 11 pints by then.

We had a great game with these guys, who were likeminded drunks, dancing and having a good laugh.

This is Archie, who being quite drunk, saw me and Steve dancing and thought our game was over (the final game for us), so he started emptying the balls from the pockets before he realised that we were still playing!!. His team kaned him for it, because Steve was winning LOL.
We had to start again, but luckily there were no complaints - after all it was the Fun League.

Oh.. and there goes Archie after Nick dropped him....

It was a great weekend and a great Saturday.
After the games were done we had a buffet dinner, a Comedian came in and did a stand up routine and prizes were given out.
Bob, who'd been kind enough to pay for all the drinks tallied up the bar total when he decided that he should stop drinking and we discovered that we'd had 18 pints each!!!
I haven't done such drinking since Prague a few years ago, which was a stag do.
Bob died shortly afterwards and crawled home, much to everyone's concern, as the previous night's escapades had proven he might get into trouble when left to waunder alone :)
But he made it!.
I continued to drink a couple more pints I think, making 20 pints total + a tequila, before heading to Rockin' Rodeos again with a lad from Saskatchewen.
The guys from Corner Brook, NewfoundLand were heavy drinkers and lasted the full day with us, but Burn was not allowed into Rodeos for being too drunk... he was about 60 and praised us for being able to not only keep up, but beat them at thier own game - clearly, these guys are hard to beat - and I think you have to be British to be able to do it :)

It was really good, and thankfully Chester did not drink on Saturday as much as he did on Friday night by any means, so drove us home on Sunday, whilst me and Bob slept :)

Mazda MPV

So our $850 car lasted a year and did well. It would still do pretty well, but didn't warrent the expense to get it through inspection (MOT) for another year.

We bit the bullet and had to buy a new car.

Still unable to get any kind of lan, car finance or help in the country we had no choice but to lean on our UK bank accounts and overdraft and buy something using VISA. It was impossible to buy a 2nd hand car from 'Joe Blo' as he'd have required cash, so we went to the Mazda dealership and got something for $6K.

this car will be our main car for the long term. We hope it will be a good runner and hope to do many long journeys in it.

It's exciting to have a car that's reliable, something that's comfortable and with air fairs in North America being so expensive it gives us the opportunity to travel and see other parts of Canada now - Toronto, Montreal.

And our first trip will be 1000km (700 miles) to Boston in the US.

We can drive straight there and it should take about 9 hours (we've had an 11 hours journey from Plymouth to Harlow a couple of times before), and traffic shouln't be a big deal, just a looooooong drive on open roads though Nova Scotia, Maine and Massathusets ?!?! (I can't be bothered to look up the spelling!

So here's the car...

It's in really good condition, low kms (only 100k about 60K miles), 2001. It was bought and serviced regularly at the same Mazda dealer we bought it from. Now we can travel, get people from air ports and have a car big enough for visitors to enjoy the Island - if any of you guys ever come to visit that is!! ;)
Kath thought it looked a bit like a Merc... :)

And here's the happy crew ready for our first drive out... taking me to work...

GM Day

Another title I've been working one went GM today thankfully.
the title was a pain, I was placed on it dur to someone leaving the company, and it was a purely bug fixing situation for me. The main game and content was done long ago.
It's not been particualrly fun, fighting other people bugs never is, and the testers were a bit lax, prolonging things, finding bugs that could havebeen sorted weeks ago - but finally it's over.

I was going to have  some time off as soon as we GM'd, now I'm not so sure... perhaps I will take a day or so...

Chester'z Nutz!

So....

As you know I've been playing in the fun pool league this year at Dooly's. Our team consists of Chester (Everbody's favourite cabby - and our team captain), Myself, Bob, Danny and Shane (formally Jax, before he left for Vancoover).

Monday 22nd March was the finals and we'd made it through the play offs. Bob was unable to make it that week as he was away on business so the pressure was on me. Once again, being the weakest link, I played pretty crap - but I guess I managed to do my part for the team, finally defeating Remi for the first time ever who was in the opposing team in the final. JR of course beat me, but I guess it wasn't as bad as the last time we met when he 7 balled me into oblivion.
Managed to beat Ryan at one game which upped the points a bit, so I suppose I did enough to help out.
Of course Danny and Shane pwned many of the opposition, I think Shane 7 balled 3 times!!, and thanks to them our team emerged victorious!!!

So last Monday was the fun league party, where were crowned as champions receiving a trophy and our pic which will no doubt be up on the website at some point.
The prize is a 'free' trip to Halifax...
I say that because beer and food is not included, just travel and accomodation and it won't exactly be a holiday. We'll be heading there at the end of April to complete against all the other champions from the other Dooly's clubs from across the Maritimes. I understand that it's pool from 7am on the Saturday and just one massively long tournament all day long!!.

The good thing is that I won a pool cue worth $130 at the league party and it defineately has helped me play a bit better, so pressure is on, but I have to take it light hearted and have a good time, I play better that way, and also witha  few bevy's down my neck.

Wish me luck I will update here when that weekend occurs, in about 3 weeks time :)

Oi Vey

So without going into a rant... just simply because I'm exhausted at ranting anyway and can no longer type... the reason why I haven't posted for so very long are:

Our tenent in the UK handed her notice in and we were left to fnd a tenent, as you can imagine this caused much stress. We found one and were happy again. then a guy was going to buy my Skyline, so we were really happy.
Everything looked Millhouse.
Then a week before the new tenent was to move in, the agent found out that the gits had got a council house and never informed anyone. We got a measly deposit from them of just 200 quid and were left with 1 week to find a tenent.

Kath probably had the most stress trying to sort out all the agents in the UK to find somebody, but we were at a low again.
Our mortgage of 1K due on the 1st and nobody to pay it.
With no money in the UK bank accounts left we started really panicking - and of course there ensues lots of arguments and more stress.
Then the guy never turned up to buy the car, so we couldn't even count that money as help.
Then we got another tenent, and the mortgage company moved our payments back a bit so we could wait for her payment to come in on like the 8th March.
At least the mortgage was safe.
Then on the 6th we were told that this new bird could no longer move in for personal reasons and because she'd only just paid her deposit the day before, she can get it back so we get nothing.
Of course each time we got someone confirmed, we'd 'stupidly' taken it off the market with the other agents.
To make matters worse our agent Kings Letting was not allowing the other agents the keys to the house, so we were missing out on potential tenents.
Ensure further rage e-mail and phone calls, added stress.
Up and down, up and down emotionally.
Then I get ill, first time since being here. I've been put on the arse end of a project due to a guy leaving to go back to the UK - taking over a project in this state and at this stage is NOT nice, it's complete bug fixing, bugs you have no idea about. Not only is it hard to fix a bug in someone elses code it's worse when you don't even know the game or the systems. It's worse still when you have to send the builds every week and have a couple of weeks to sort it out.
Stress for me then, as I felt very stuck at points.
Low.
Thankfully I got one of the original coders of the game back on, probably the best guy for the job, due to him coming off of another project.
High again. Then he gets pulled off to fix bugs on a completely different project. Low.
Then he comes back on again - high.
Then we hear that our house here that we rent is going to go up for sale in September, and so we'll be kicked out in November.
We have gotten used to this place, it's perfect for us, perfect size, had a guest room, great location, great rental price.
Come November we'll be out on the street, we'll not be able to find a place as good or as big for the price - no chance. So we'll end up with something small like Spring Street, unable to have guests stay and unable to feel comfortable.
Big time low.
It's horrible that you cannot have security for your family and that we cannot yet settle down and know that this is where we're staying forever more.
We can't buy the place, still can't get a mortgage, and besides, buying it without perminant residency is dumb, as I could be booted from the country in 2 years when my work permit runs out.
So the money we had for a deposit has had to go to pay the bills and the mortgage in the UK, and will have to go towards perminant residancy.
Which means we'll never be able to save 5% deposit on a house, which means renting forever, or for the next few years until we can sell in the UK, which means insecurity and gipsy type activities.
We've moved 3 times in the past 18 months - it's stressful, horrible and painful.
Then we hear a glimmer of hope that we might actually be able to buy this place by September and so, whilst trying not to be too excited, start thinking of the possibilities and the security. So get happy again.
Then realise that may not even happen anyway and waste more time and emotion.
So all in all, it's been up and down emotionally, with finances and security taking a major hit and our heads spinning and wondering what the hell we can do!!!
Finally we get a new tenent, and all is good, but then we find things wrong with the house from the previous tenent, Dishwasher is broken, freezer door broken, as well as general maintenance in the house needing done to things working loose or breaking - Ian the idiot that built our extension did some poor workmanship on a window sill, and so it broke easily. No fault of the tenent - we have to pay.
So far my Dad's paid and has been sorting it, but this has been stressful, our agents and tenent have been dealing directly with him, and then we hear about it 3rd hand, some decisions already made and things happening without our specific say so. Not Dad's fault either, he's just tyring to sort things out - which is stressing him out, causing stress and tension between us. So rant e-mails to the agents ensue - more stress.
Then the former tenant disputes it - but she has not been given the full info - she's thinking we're holding her 950 quid back and going to charge her a ton and actually we just want 50 pounds to pay for the Dishwasher repair and a missing item.
Lack of communication and we pay these agents over a grand!!!
No time for blogging then. No one really to rant at, as it's not anyone's fault and nobody's done anything 'wrong' it's just all happend at once.

Finally it seems this month that things have settled back down. We have the new tenent signed and in for the next 12 months and paying the full amount which covers our mortgage allowing us to forget about it for a year at least.
We've decided to go for perminant residancy and so now have to sort out a Tax Return and finish up this project by 2nd April.
Hasn't been a very good end to February or beginning to March. So we hope that April to September will be a great summer, in our house before we have to move to a smaller 3 bed somewhere else and cram 5 beds worth of stuff into it :(
We are trying to ignore that - but I hate not having the security in place for my family, especially as the place we're in is so perfect for us - most 3 beds cost just as much in rental sometimes more.
Who knows, maybe we'll find something even better but how gutting will it be for us to move, find something due to the 'need' to and then discover that the landlady can't sell this place and rents it again!!
Likewise what if we stay past November in the hope she can't sell and then she does and we have to get out in December and can't find anything to rent???
The hard thing about rentals here is having a pet also, let alone the space and number of rooms - a lot of places refuse pets. The thought of being out the street is too much, so we'll have to leave quickly, and then if it turns out that if was not necessary it'll just be gutting to have lost this place.
In a couple of years we might be able to get the deposit and buy it - and of course if we have perminant residancy it will be safe. I can then work in MacDonolds if need be should the company downsize or move or some junk happens, at least we won't have to ship off back to England with no future in sight!

So... that's why I haven't blogged, nothing has happened except stress, phones calls and work. No activities to report.