A Movie Moment

These things only happen in movies, right? Again, I've been surprised by North American people, sometimes these things happen in real life.

When you have kids, things get lost. My daughter's school is teaching the kids to read through a plush toy called Rocket which got lost while it was in our care.  So, we did what we could to replace it.  First, there was shopping online, Rocket is popular, but everyone is out of stock. Then there was trying to look on eBay and other second-hand options.  There are very very few plush toy Rockets available.  Those that are available seem to know its a rare item and want to charge up to $80 for a well looked after Rocket.

My wife decided to try the publisher, what better way to find out who might have then to ask the source.  it turned out she was actually emailing the Author, Tad Hills.  His response surprised us, we actually got an email back, directly from him.  He was immediately helpful and suggested that the manufacturer had a single Rocket left for us and that they would give it to us as a gift! Then they shipped it to us at their cost all the way from California, that is 3500kms away from us.  (The thing that made me chuckle was that it took almost two weeks to get here, the joys of the classic postal system.  If you buy something online from a US retailer the courier will get it to you within a week.  It was great because we appreciated the sense of how far it had to travel.)

No-one could believe how generous the writer, Tad Hills, was, I've never known a writer to actually respond let alone help with one of the plush toys.  If for some reason Tad Hills reads this, thank you. It was unexpected, that is always the nicest. You don't expect to be given something by a total stranger, I can't remember it happening before.

Learning about myself

I have a lifetime of learning about myself. Growing up in the church it was always about self analysis and figuring out where you were tricking yourself into thinking you were right with God. There was always some way you could improve.

Having moved to Canada I find there is a lot of motivational stuff to get caught up in here. Seeing it from a distance I used to find it very annoying because it felt like cheese (nonsense people tell themselves to make themselves feel better), but I find now I'm getting caught up in it. I can't figure out if it's because of the life stage I'm in that cheese gets my emotions going. Anything to do with my little daughter tugs at my tear ducts, an opportunity to earn money makes me want to jump right in and do a little cheese makes me feel so much better. Perhaps it's not my luge stage, but the fact I'm now surrounded by motivational adverts, people, podcasts, the the Americas really are the nations of "I can" and that culture of self motivation is all encompassing. I'm investing in the stock exchange believing I can make millions, cycling to work believing I'm an athlete.

I'm trying very hard to prevent myself from making bad decisions as a result of these delusions.  It is fun to push yourself and discover you can achieve more, I'm finding its equally important to pace yourself and change slowly so you don't scare your family that you've gone crazy.

Hopefully I've managed to do that and I'm not going off the rails yet.

Geese eating cars

Just one of the things I've enjoyed about staying in Canada is that there are Geese all around all summer.  We arrived in spring last year and lived near a small lake at Unionville. Each geese parents had several goslings following them. The father on the lookout for any humans straying too close and the mother herding the little ones.

Some people do find it a little difficult because Geese can be a bit aggressive, but I've found you just give them a wide berth and it's lovely to see them everywhere in public.

So at the office I heard the story that there are two geese that have been coming every year to nest on the grounds of our office.  Apparently they've had little goslings every year right in the parking lot of our office block.  This year we got an email that said they were going to try deter the Geese from coming back.  They put out some decoy geese to discourage them from hanging around. There were jokes about the decoy geese flying about the office and hilarity about the suddenness of the email.

The geese left for the day, but then returned. We got another email. They had laid an egg near the cars and we needed to move them. It was quite amazing watching how fearless the geese can be!  Cars were trying to drive down the parking lot to find a spot to park in the morning and the male goose wouldn't let them pass.  The car literally had to back up and drive around him to carry on.  They eventually cordoned off the area so that everyone had to drive around the back.  This was much better for all involved, the geese were obviously getting quite stressed about the cars driving by and the cars clearly didn't want to drive over the geese.

I had taken my bicycle that day and the egg was very near the bicycle rack! I was a bit worried about being able to cycle home, but thought it was worth a shot to try get my bike out early before they were really on the rampage. That gave me the opportunity to film someone else's car being moved. The guy had to climb in on the passenger's side because if he tried the driver's side the geese would have "chased him off" like they "chased off"this car.

At the end of the video I had to laugh, the male goose is clearly very proud of how he managed to chase off that monster creature!
The end of the story unfortunately results in that the geese were relocated despite having a egg.  However it was done by professionals so I trust that everything worked out well for the geese.  However I noticed when I first arrived that there seemed to be geese everywhere, you see an open patch of grass and there are geese on it.  Even when there is no grass sometimes there are geese, quite a few times I've seen one hanging out in the Wallmart parking lot.

Driving in snow

This was quite an interesting first-time experience.  It basically snowed heavily just before heading home for work.  The snow ploughs were out and about, but they hadn't been able to start their job yet because the traffic was so heavy.

We all had to crawl along at 20 kilometres an hour, so it took quite a bit longer to head home than usual.



In the light of my previous post I am still thoroughly enjoying all this.  It was fascinating to realise that my car didn't just spin out of control like you sometimes see on Youtube (like this one).  I saw the exit of my office as a rather steep slope where you have to stop and I was worried the car would just slide backwards! I approached it tentatively but had no problem stopping near the top and getting going again.
I did have one moment when I got going again after a red traffic light and on a slight upward slope.  My front wheels started spinning and I didn't realise it, I found the car was angling slowly to the left and I couldn't figure out why, I just turned the wheel left until I could figure it out, but it started angling more to the left.  Then I heard the vehicle's engine was running a little quicker than the speed I was travelling so I lifted off the accelerator and it was all good again.  I realised you have to be careful accelerating in snow, of course, that applies to the braking as well.  No sudden deceleration either.

In my first year here it has snowed many more times, but I haven't driven in snow again, but then winter isn't over.  Every time it has snowed the ploughs have come quickly and cleared everything before I got onto the road again.  So far it's mostly snowed at night and then everything is cleared by morning.

Career webinar

This is just a quick one for anyone interested in some information about growing your career prospects in Canada.

Sometimes it can be a bit difficult communicating with someone who has different cultural references than you.  I remember when I first arrived here I even had trouble getting some change. I asked for change for a fifty dollar note and the guy asked me what I wanted. I said I wanted change, what he meant was what format of the change I wanted, did I want coins or notes.

Anyway, so here is the link to the webinar.

http://knowledge.wes.org/GTB-Canada-registration-communication-skills-career-success-Canada.html

Buying a car too early

There really is such a thing as buying your car too early in Canada.  You can't get off the plane and climb into a brand new car and drive away (well, you can, but you'll be driving illegally). As usual, the dealer selling you the car won't bother to give you all the details.  They just want to do the sale.

So, what makes it too early and illegal?  The fact that you can't legally drive without car insurance and you can't get car insurance here without a Canadian Drivers license!

Probably the best source of information on getting ready to drive in Canada is on the CIC website here. The article is called Driving in Canada.

The Financial Services Commission states it a little more explicitly.

My story goes like this for those who are interested:
I moved into an area where the distances between shops and home was just a little bit too far to carry a two-year-old daughter and some groceries.  The bus links were also somewhat far away.  So we decided that we should get a car.  As a tip for those wanting to rent initially, use Enterprise, I found them to be much more reasonable than all the other car rental places here.  Renting a car for an extended period of time though is really expensive.  So we bought the day before I went to get my G1 license.  Then I heard that it was illegal to drive without insurance (You can still drive any other car on your international license, just not your own un-insured one).
There I was calling every insurer I could find, even dealing with a few unscrupulous ones that wanted me to sign, but couldn't insure me until I had my G2.  So I booked my G2 test ASAP, travelled a bit to get to a place that had a test open the next week and got my G2.  Now I could be insured, but since I only had a G2 license, not a Full G license, you can imagine the insurance was a bit hefty.  Getting my full G was the next top priority*.  Unfortunately it was not possible to find any testing center that had an opening within any kind of driving distance, so I got an insurance that was not a contract and waited about another 3 weeks.  Getting the full G still did not bring down the insurance that much.  Thank goodness I had a great insurance agent and with some major help and many documents I managed to get my insurance down to about $1500 a year, and I could legally drive!  In all my time driving on the roads in Canada I have yet to be stopped by the cops, but it is much more comforting driving legally.

So, I hear you asking, what are the work arounds?
There are only two I can think of.  The first is hardly worth mentioning because I don't know of an insurer back home that would insure a car bought in another country, but you could try.  So this owrk around only works if you ship your car over to Canada.  Then you can carry on under your old insurer while you get your Canadian Licence.
Then of course you can also get someone who has a Canadian Licence to buy your car for you and then they can insure the car in their name.  I imagine you may want someone you really trust.

If neither of those options work for you.  Well then, don't lose hope!  Just get your Canadian License really quickly!  I managed to get my full G in just one month.

*To be able to do the Full G Driving Test you need to provide the Drive Test center with a letter from your Road Authority showing you have two or more years experience.