Monthly Archives: January 2007

Monty Started Obedience School Tonight!

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Monty started obedience classes tonight – an hour long class followed by a half hour intro to agility class. I’m so exhausted!!

A year ago, when Monty was just a small pup, we took him for a private session with this trainer. Although she has years of training and is an effective trainer, I thought her technique was a bit too harsh for my bitty puppy so I backed off pushing him through obedience lessons last summer. Instead we just worked at with the local retriever club.

Now that he’s a year old and knows what ‘sit’ and ‘stay’ are, I decided to sign him up when the trainer called this week about a new class.

Some dogs in the class have already gone through a beginner class so we have to catch up! Actually I think Monty did really well. 90 minutes was entirely too long for both of us though. After the first 30 minutes he really did not want to sit anymore so I kept putting him in down stays so I could listen to the instructor.

Monty is so much different than Winger was. I did obedience with Winger when he was older and we got his CD (Companion Dog) title when he was 8. Monty is so much more responsive. He wants to impress and jumps around until he gets into the right place and has excellent eye contact. Winger was like an old man in slippers just shuffling around with a grin and was never a quick mover (although I didn’t adopt him until he was 4 – he very well could have been like Monty in his first home and in his first obedience lessons).

Poor Jeff was freezing as he stood on the sidelines as a spectator. I was warned to wear long johns and a toque. The location was a little primitive, but worked fine – it was a new large shack that was built on the instructor’s property so she could host her own classes. It was heated with a wood stove in the corner. The lights were powered by a generator outside. The walls were made of long wooden planks like a cabin, and the floor was sand (I sure hope Monty shook all that sand out of his tail just now in the backyard because the agent is showing the house again tomorrow :D ).

Monty did well with his intro to agility. He gladly went up and over the A-frame a few times. He went through the tunnel and shoot fine with me ducking down and calling him through from the far end. Then we worked on getting him to walk all 4 feet on a slightly raised board (he needs some work).

Overall, excellent class. I’m beat. Monty doesn’t seem as tired as I expected him to be.

We have lots of homework before next week!

Extension!!!

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My job ends next Tuesday. I’ve already been taken out of the pay system and have made arrangements to transfer my pension into locked investments through my bank.

Now it looks like I will be extended for 4 weeks to work with another department (my 4th within the building). I programmed a prototype research sites archiving database in 2002-2003 and now they want to use it and I’m the only one who knows anything about it so they want to hire me back to edit and improve its features.

Administration was none too happy about having to redo all sorts of paperwork for me. I guess a couple of department heads leaned on the management and they some how accessed a secret pot of money and decided to hire me at this last minute.

I have drastically mixed feelings. I’ve been winding everything down here and was down to 4.5 more working days. I was ready to shift gears. However, being employed for 4 more weeks will be really good financially-wise for Jeff and I since we’ll probably be here that long anyway and I had no other work options that would hire me for such a short period of time.

The house is being shown tomorrow (postponed from the weekend). Turns out the guy last week was interested but he just started his search so he wasn’t ready to settle for mine yet. Tomorrow’s viewer is single with a dog so that is another strong possibility. Now I hope that if it sells soon it doesn’t close until at least mid-March if not April 1st.

K, break over, back to work.

Realtor Resurfaces

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My agent must be getting worried about losing her commission when our contract expires in a month because she is showing my house TWICE this week and other than hosting an open house, she has never showed it since it went on the market in September.

Yesterday we went home at lunch to take the dogs out while she showed it to a young man. I was feeling pretty good about it – I mean my house is perfect for a single guy – but right away when they looked at the garage first and spent about 10 seconds in there, I knew it wasn’t a good sign. I have an excellent garage and even though it is full of boxed stuff ready to move, there is still things to look at (power, breaker, plugs, garage door opener, etc).

They spent a decent amount of time in the house and when they were walking out he was already asking about following her to the next house they were looking at. He walked by and thanked us and said we had a lovely home. Someone raised him right!

So regardless of his choice, she is showing it again on Saturday. Which is nice if either are actually interested because it’ll pressure them into an offer if they know there is action on the place.

I’ve long lost track of how many people have seen the place. I think it will be perfect for another single person like I was when I bought it. I’ll be eager to see who pulls up on Saturday for the showing.

In the meantime, Jeff has proceeded to the interview stage of the supervisor competition on the east coast, having already written three examinations for the positions. He’ll be flying out at the beginning of March for the interview. The outcome of that will decide if we’ll be relocating to Parry Sound or Nova Scotia. Government job competitions are finicky things. They very well may have people already in mind but are running through the process to satisfy government staffing requirements, so you never can get a good sense if you really have a shot or not. Regardless, I’m on board for relocating to either locale. Early-to-mid March looks like the best guess to when we’ll find out!

Ethical High Road

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In my never ending quest to make a full time living on the web, I am exposed to a multitude of techniques to earn cash.

Throughout my readings and discussions with other entrepreneurs, and especially during this last year, I’ve come across many people making more than my yearly salary in just a month’s time. But every time I dug down to find out how they were doing it, I just wasn’t interested in wandering down that dark road. And now sticking to my ethical high road is paying off.

One popular way to make money in the last year or so was to spam the MySpace website using incognito methods to promote their affiliate links and products rather than blatant spam. Many people have successfully made TENS of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands doing this.

But now MySpace is fighting back. As the news leaks out, MySpace is suing 50 advertising networks, AND they are suing individual affiliates. So while I could have jumped on board and made a boat load of cash over the last year, now I could very well be facing a massive lawsuit.

Karma is a wild thing, eh?

I have no problem continuing my struggle for an online income by making websites and offering products and service that people actually want and look for.

The Fraud of Anthropogenic Global Warming

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Excellent essay by Quadszilla over on his SEOBlackHat blog.

Anthropogenic Global Warming is a Fraud

My favourite part:

The Global Warming scam was designed to
1. Scare people into giving time, money and power to charlatan scientists and sham politicians
2. Dramatically increase the size and scope of government and proliferate a worldwide socialist agenda
3. Oppress developing Nations

Sadly, the scam is working.

This fraud was dreamed up by intellectually dishonest scientific professionals coveting government grant money: Was latched on to by politicians and political groups that seek to expand their own influence as well as the size and scope of government and is perpetuated by the ignorant masses who do not have the capacity to refute what Hitler coined the “The Big Lie.”

I agree.

Not much more I should probably say while I’m still employed where I am. :|

YES!!!!! HAPPY DANCE!!

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CBC Freestyle is toast.
CBC Radio One will now have an afternoon arts program hosted by Jian Ghomeshi.

HAPPY DANCE!!!!!! :D :D ;D :>> :D :D

CBC says changes will start in March and wrap in a year’s time. Please let Freestyle be the first to go!

I guess it’s true – if you wish for something hard enough it will come true!

More on the CBC Radio shake-up:
CBC Radio to broaden Radio Two, add arts magazine (CBC)

Blew through another Monday Off

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I had today off – remember I’m using up the rest of my holidays by taking every Monday off until my contract is terminated on Feb. 6th.

I was planning to work online all day and set up the foundations for some new money making ideas.

Instead, my real estate agent resurfaced and said another agent wanted to show my house. I cut her off and said “OK, how much time do I have?” and she said “until 5:30″ and I said “5:30 TODAY??” and she said “Yeah, why” and I said, “Because I have to CLEAN up!”

Needless to say, the rest of the day was spent cleaning up the house. Amazingly I was in a wicked good mood. Usually when I have to show the house I get all bitchy and whiny and complainy. I cranked up the Bare Naked Ladies Greatest Hits CD that Julie gave me a few years back and started to clean. Jeff surprised me by coming home after 1 to help me! How wonderful is HE!

I dashed to the store at one point to buy some Pillsbury Dough Boy Cinnamon buns to make the house smell less like cleaning fluid. I also bought some pretty yellow mums for the middle of Grandma and Grandma’s oak table that I have in my kitchen.

At 4:30 I was icing the warm cinnamon buns when Jeff comes inside to tell me they are already here! An hour early!! Seems my agent told me the wrong time, or she is in the wrong time zone! Luckily I was mostly done. We quickly hoofed the dogs into the garage until we could grab their collars and leashes. I tossed the cat into his cat carrier. Then we throw the two baby gates in the garage and departed.

This lady seemed to be far more interested than the rest. They took quite a while inside, then looked in the garage, and in the yard. Then they asked about the crawl space and if it was insulated, and they already knew about the shingles needing replacing, and they asked how the garage shingles were. The agent asked about the neighbours too.

So there it is. I don’t by any means have my hopes up. I’m not even sure I’m ready to sell at this instant. If it sells right now it might mean we will have to move to Parry Sound and then if Jeff wins the competition for a supervisor in Nova Scotia, then we’d move right away out there. I guess whatever happens is meant to be. I’m really not stressed about it. I’m far more stressed about not bringing in money, and selling my house would pay off my debts so that would be a huge load off my mind.

Regardless of if the house sells to this lady or not, we are celebrating with cinnamon buns and a Moosehead! Cheers!