Thursday, April 23, 2009

Reasons to be cheerful - and not

Ups;
Reason 1: The voice activated switch my Tetra volunteers made worked beautifully first time. It allows the lady we made it for to call for help and also answer her phone. LifeLine are dead chuffed and so am I.

Reason 2: Angie won an award for her work at the museum, and I managed to make two new lightweight tampions for the Bastion display cannon out of resin. Because of problems with getting the right mould release material (Detergent & other mould release agents reacted with the resin) there was a lot of finishing work to do. However, good result.

Reason 3: We've been bumped up the queue for our permanent residency processing by a staggering 18 months! My jaw hit the floor, and Angie and I did a little dance of joy.

Reason 4: Bought a new fishing rod, and now have both Fresh and Salt water permits for all of BC, which should be useful for when Brothers in Law are over this summer. The girls can do their thing (Shopping), while we load up the Bronc with beer and sandwiches and go off and do ours. Yeah.

Downs
Reason 1: My current work contract has not arrived for signing which means no money until it is returned. We've been having a number of late deliveries recently, especially since all the post was re-routed via Victoria.

Reason 2: I have to find my old school and college certificates going back over the last 30 years. This is not much fun as we have to get them a.s.a.p. Also I have to pass a test in French. This is not much fun as although I can get by quite admirably in France, Quebec left me tongue tied and embarrassed at my paucity of fluency.

Reason 3: Immigration Lawyers seem to be incapable of answering a simple question in plain English and getting documents from the BCCT to support Angie's application looks like a real Everest of a task.

Reason 4: Mother in Law is here for the next few months starting Monday; and while Lily is a decent old stick she does tend to turn on the old waterworks at the first hint of trouble. All I can say is that Doctor Who would have signed her up as his 'assistant' in a picosecond as she would fall and twist her heel forcing all the men to get massacred by the nearest Dalek.

Well, the scores on the doors look about even, and I'm inclined to think that none of the reasons not to be cheerful can't be adeptly turned about to our advantage.
On the 'down' front; Reason 1 means I get three paychecks together when my contract documents are finally signed and sealed. Reason 2 means I just have to do some French revision between now and May 30th. Reason 3 is just a matter of asking the right question, and reason 4 isn't so bad as Mother in law will be living at Sister in Laws place in town.

I can always go fishing.

Brainstorming meeting over coffee this weekend for my Tetra guys to work out some solutions to a few problems that have been thrown our way. I have to write some 500 word pieces for the local press so we can get some much needed publicity. Time to get on with it.

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Getting better

Spring has finally arrived thank goodness, and we've had the all the doors and windows open this weekend to air our current domicile out a little. This Easter I'm hoping it will be warm enough to open everything up and hoover it to perdition. The pet freshening spray and baking powder shake 'n vac can only deal with so much dog.

Work permit documentation finally arrived last week, ncessitating visits to both Service Canada to update my Social Insurance Number and Service BC for Health Insurance. Hit the front desk of Service Canada at one minute past nine, and were out before twenty past. Considering there's usually an hours wait before you get to see a clerk, that's blindingly fast. Even Angie was impressed.

I have several new volunteers to look after, and things seem to be picking up on that front. Tomorrow is scheduled to be the day we fit a voice activated switch which one of my Tetra guys built for a lady with MS. After that I shall be doing the rounds of the local publications to drum up a little support, and perhaps a few cash donations for Tetra off the resultant publicity. That should amuse my boss in Vancouver.

On the voluntary front, today's little challenge has been fixing the First Nations Intranet display for Nanaimo Museum. Not a little HTML coding was required to remove all the tricksy little external links which were causing the display to crash all the time. The sound has been disabled because the Adobe flash in the remote browser was throwing up conflicts, and since the machine has no Internet connection, there was no simple and direct way of fixing the code by downloading the right update. Hey, I'm only a volunteer for six hours a week, and shouldn't really be getting this deeply involved, except that David the curator knows I love a challenge and will be back next Tuesday with the answer to his problem. Then the display will be sound enabled once more.

A second 'little challenge' for the Museum was working out a solution for duplicating one of the tompions in the cannon at the Bastion exhibit up on Front Street. That's another for next week as it involves making a direct silicone rubber mould off the original, and using that to make cast resin replicas which we will paint. I've also decided to work out some kind of lockable device for the cannon touch holes to stop the late night drunks stuffing sweet papers into them. There's a couple of ideas idling around in my subconscious, and when I go back and take a second look, I'm sure the solution will be pretty simple. Maybe a large Torx headed expanding bolt which fits flush with the top of the touch hole. Unless whichever merrymaker has a large enough multi tool with the right driver head, it should do the trick.

The old Magic Lantern project is almost completed, although with so many other things competing for my time, I'm not sure when I'll finish. Must ring its owner to let him know.

Angie is talking about trips to Victoria and Vancouver, and as we have her Mother coming over from England at the end of the month I'm looking for excuses to go fishing, even if I never do catch anything. Fishing is partly a contemplative exercise; it's not just about getting a big one on your hook, although that would be nice. Haven't bought a freshwater permit yet, as I'm not sure whether or not my two brothers in law will be interested in getting away from the womenfolk for a while. I should really remind both of them that I am bribeable with a decent single malt. Angie can take the girls shopping in the van, and I'll take the Bronco, after a suitable defurring of the back seat. Amos our dog loves having his own seat, but he does shed hair so, even despite a serious shearing three weeks ago.

Tomorrow is buying fishing lures and weights in the morning at Canadian Tire, and dropping Angie off at Literacy Nanaimo while I attend my Tetra meeting. I'll arrange another project meeting in a couple of weeks to get to know my new volunteers a little better over coffee, and update them on what's happening next. Whatever that turns out to be.