Monthly Archives: September 2007

Bald Eagle!

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Saturday Drive

We took the new car for a drive today. It was cool and rainy but I felt the desire to explore.

We went to Pictou. It is just past New Glasgow – not even an hour a way from here. It is another old Nova Scotia town dating back to the 1700′s. We drove all the way to where the ferry departs for PEI.

We browsed a couple of shops but didn’t buy anything today. Their waterfront looks like it is probably a huge tourist draw in the summer. There are a couple museums and a big, tall reconditioned/rebuilt wooden ship. There were at least 4 fish and chip pub type restaurants too.

Love the car

The car has a display where it keeps track of the mileage. I haven’t reset it so it probably goes back to kilometre #1. It’s now down to 8.2 litres/100kms. We filled it up for the first time – it only cost $45! What a treat! (I still love our new car!)

Road kill

Up the road from here this morning there was a dead raccoon on the road. (There are lots of raccoons and porcupines dead on the roads here). Snacking on the dead carcass in the middle of the road was a BALD EAGLE! I even had my camera, but I didn’t manage to get a photo. What a big bird!

Jeff’s Workshop

So it’s Saturday night now. I’m trying to catch up on some of my website work. Jeff is working in the basement in his new workshop. We don’t have a garage (maybe some year) so he’s taken over 1/4 of the basement. He now has a big peg board installed on the wall with all sort of his tools hanging up. It looks really slick. Now he’s working on building some cabinets and shelves. Last week he built a corner desk/counter for fly tying and other manly things. His next project will be a couple big wooden book shelves for my office. He will putter down there for HOURS at a time.

Business Flair

Our real estate agent really seems to be the biggest agent around. She easily has twice as many listings as anyone else here. She’s not much older than I am, but somehow, somewhere along the line she picked up an incredible flair for running a business. I just have no ability to deal with clients like she does, and I never will. She was always willing to go that extra mile to sell a house. She drove us all over when we were looking. She hooked us up with the insurance company, and a lawyer, and the house inspector and was here during the house inspection. She took us back to the house another time for a pre-close inspection. She took us out to the house another time to collect a water sample. She always was quick to answer every email and every phone call. And while she was helping us she was doing the same for other clients during the same days!

Last night Jeff and I went out for dinner to a restaurant that we’ve been curious to try. We saw our agent at the corner table with her daughter so we gave her a wave when we went in. Of course she was talking on her blackberry as she ate. When we were almost done our dinner our waitress came over to tell us our dinner was paid for! Even an extra beer for each of us! She had already snuck out so we couldn’t even thank her. What a treat!

All I Want to do is Drive!

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I love our new car! I love our new car!

I picked it up yesterday and I love everything about it.

Cool features:

  • it sits 10cm higher than other compact cars so your legs don’t go straight out in front of you to drive (I hate that about cars)
  • half of the glove box is a “chill zone” that holds 4 bottles of water or pop or whatever and keeps them chilled
  • the dome light in the hatch back part is a removable, rechargeable flashlight
  • there is a flip down set of speakers in the back tailgate so you can crank the stereo and listen to it outside
  • this one has lots of extras: cruise control, fog lights, leather wrapped steering wheel, upgraded stereo with subwoofer
  • Sirius satellite radio is built in and they gave me a free 1 year subscription
  • there are handy quick controls for the stereo and volume on the rear side of the steering wheel – so imagine your hands are at 9 and 3 – grip the wheel – where your finger tips are – that is where the little bottons are
  • the two cup holders are illuminated in this cool glowing colour at night
  • it has a driver’s control centre where you can set if you want the horn to go when you click the lock button on the key as you walk away, and if you want the headlights to flash, etc. It also shows the current tire pressure in each tire, the outside temperature, the number of km’s until the tank is empty, the average mileage you are getting since you last clicked the reset button
  • as you drive, there is a display on the dash under the gas tank gauge that tells you the temperature outside, the direction you’re driving, and the station that you are listening to (FM,AM, or Satellite)
  • it is a compact car, but feels huge inside
  • after it’s broken in, it is supposed to get 39 miles/gallon on the highway

Okay enough glowing reports, here are some pictures. There are more on Facebook if you are one of my friends.

Our New Car

Our New Car

Our New Car

Our New Car

Our New Car

The Job, and the Wheels

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Okay, so the low down on the job.

I start October 1st. It is in the library here at the University. The official title is Junior Web Applications Developer.

The sticky.. or is that stinky… point is that the wage is a full $19,000 less a year than what I was making when I left my last job.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. It will be good for me to make some friends, know some people, get a social group and working on campus has got to be a step in the right direction for that. It is work I can do and am interested in – I like working with databases and websites and working with library tools.

On the other hand, take that wage and subtract the cost of having to buy a car, or just the gas to get to work, and I was probably bringing in more with unemployment.

But it’s full time, permanent. It is at the university and I’ve heard it is really hard to get in there. The salary is reviewed annually. It starts with 3 weeks of holiday a year – but you have to take one of those over Christmas when the University is closed.

So I’m going shopping this week – clothes, car, lunch box. I agonized for days over what vehicle to buy. I don’t stress out about much (well snakes, spiders, and stairs) but buying a car has taken up 90% of my brain waves since I had that job interview.

We test drove a few vehicles yesterday. We were looking at that used Saturn wagon, and we looked at a brand new shiny Team Canada edition Equinox. We did the figures at the Chev dealer for both of those. The interest rates on used cars is brutal. And every used vehicle I’ve had has required $1200 in repairs every 6 months. The dealers are trying to get rid of their 2007′s. They are even giving 0% financing. We left Chev with some numbers. We could really only afford a lease on an Equinox – the payments to own were steep. We then went to the Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep dealership. My eye has always been caught by the Dodge Caliber. When I took a look at one in the Walmart parking lot the other day I figured it was just way way too small for us. We aren’t a petite couple. The dealer urged us to get in one and wow – there was as much room in the driving area as the Equinox. We test drove it, and took out a Jeep Compass too. I hated the Compass. Even though it was the same platform as the Caliber it had the most horrible head rest that was banging into my head on every bump.

We went into that dealership too and worked up a bunch of numbers for leasing and financing between the 07 and the 08. The longer we sat there, the more he kept taking off the 2007′s sticker price. I think that is what we are going to do – finance a Dodge Caliber. There is one on the lot that suits me fine – has all the options I would dream of. I don’t want to brag too much about it’s coolness until it is mine, but hopefully I can post a photo of me in it tomorrow!

The Caliber is the price of a used SUV. It doesn’t have the luxurious back seat that the Equinox has (it has a ton of knee room for adult passengers) but what do we want this vehicle for – it’s for me to go back and forth to work, and for our trips together when we don’t need the gas guzzling Ford. We need something that is good on gas, and doesn’t require a ton of repairs, and hopefully that is what we found. I’ve read online reviews and message boards about the Caliber all weekend and I’m still convinced it is the best choice for us.

Check back tomorrow and see how it went!

Best “New-to-me” Old Invention

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I bought myself a new kitchen tool this week! It’s an old fashioned apple peeler/slicer/corer!

It suction cups to the counter, and then you pluck out the stem and stick the apple on the contraption. Then just wind the handle a few times and you have a newly bald apple, one long thin snake like piece of skin, and the core! I whizzed through a big bag of apples in no time and made some apple sauce.

Now I’m thinking this would make short work of peeling potatoes. Might be worth a try. I don’t like potatoes. Unless they are fried. Hmmm, might be worth a try….

Traumatic Start to my Day

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I was going to blog this morning that I got the job, but that’s nothing now.

The most traumatic thing just happened.

I’m still feeling sick to my stomach, shaky, and I had to call Jeff at work in tears.

I was going to go fill up the bird feeders outside.

I went downstairs and picked up the pails of birdseed.

I was going to use the walkout door from the basement. I opened the door to the back stairs and a small little snake fell into the basement.

At first it didn’t move and I thought it was Jeff playing a joke and he was going to be in really really really big trouble.

Then it moved.

I tried to cover it with a pail but I only caught the back half of it

I wanted it to go back through the door, but the door is an inch or two higher than the basement floor.

I couldn’t get it entirely under the pail. I didn’t want to chop it in half. I thought about getting the vacuum. OMG just writing this is making me tear up again.

It eventually slithered under the door frame, but that isn’t outside.

I’m freaked out. Jeff is coming home at lunch. That is still over two hours away. I don’t want a snake in the basement. I knew I hated that creepy wet back set of stairs out of the basement.

Everytime I feel a tickle I think there is a snake on me.

Job Interview

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I had a job interview on Monday for a programmer position in the University library. I wasn’t sure what to expect – sometimes interviews for positions like this can be really technical, like a test, and they’ll get you to program chunks of code. Luckily this interview was nothing like that. It was just four people taking turns asking questions – none of which I couldn’t handle. I got a really good vibe, and I left there thinking there is no way they’d hire anyone else, I really nailed it.

I’ve had that feeling before after an interview, and it’s always the one where I’m shocked because I never hear from them again. I don’t have my hopes too high on this one – I mean it is a drastic, DRASTIC pay cut from what I used to make, but it is permanent full time, it would get me out to meet new people here, but we would have to buy a second vehicle right away. Pretty much I’m just waiting to see how it goes and I won’t be crushed if I don’t get it. I should have an indication by the end of the week because I was led to believe that they will ask me my permission first before they contact my references.

It was an early morning today. Jeff has a meeting at one of the other offices he’s is managing. It’s a couple hours away and he has to first go to his own office to get his work vehicle. I tried to sleep in but it didn’t work.

It’s foggy again this morning. It has been really cooling down at night and I think this thick fog is just around the inland lakes. It hasn’t been burning off until after 9 each morning. I added the local weather here to the sidebar so you can always see what temperature it is here :D

I cut the grass yesterday again. The lot is looking REALLY nice. I do a fantastic job if I do say so myself. I started removing the rocks from around the flower beds. We got a wheelbarrow on the weekend and my handyman Jeff put it together so now I can do more yard work. Removing the rocks is going to take a few attempts. After two loads of rocks my wrists were just shot (I’m raking the rocks onto a shovel and then lifting it into the wheelbarrow). I think I’ll stick to a couple loads a day so I don’t cripple myself ;D

If we have to buy a vehicle in the next week, there is a 2003 Saturn LW200 wagon on a local lot that is leading our list of potentials. It has a manual transmission and gets good gas mileage. I don’t want a car, but with a wagon I could probably still fit a dog crate in the back. We’ll see….

Rain and Wind

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Rain + Wind = really spotty satellite internet connection. It is having a hard time keeping a lock on the big satellite in the sky. The Bell Expressview is still working – although it did display an error message when I changed the channel a few minutes ago and took a while to get the channel.

We have satellite internet, satellite radio, and satellite tv now. Does that make us cool? or rural?

It’s so rainy and gusty out there, but those hungry little gold finches are hanging on tight to the finch feeder as it blows in the wind. Their feathers are all fluffed up but they’re still eating!

Oh! and there goes the satellite tv connection. “Satellite connection is temporarily unavailable.” This doesn’t bode well for winter now does it…

What we found in the woods

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The other day Jeff wandered in the wooded part of our 3.6 acres. I didn’t follow because I was in shorts and barefeet in Crocs. After a while he convinced me it was worth changing and following him. The edge of the forest around the house is choked thick with alder. It’s hard to walk through and you sure can’t see through it. But it turns out that 10 feet it, the forest is older and there isn’t much undercover so you can see quite far. It’s gorgeous back there. There are big old spruces who’s roots are thick and spread over the surface of the forest floor. I don’t remember seeing anything quite like it in Ontario.

Unfortunately there is a spruce beetle here that has killed a lot of the mature spruce in this area. We have several dead spruce on our land. Some of them have already fallen down. There are lots of baby spruce trees growing too.

The most interesting thing – there is a foundation back there! There are a few layers of wide, but not too thick, rocks that are stacked like a foundation and covered with moss. There are some broken plates and pails inside the area surrounded by these rocks. Beside it there is a deep dug out area – maybe a basement or something? Behind it there is a circle hole that is surrounded by rocks as it goes down – it looks very much like an old dug well. After we looked at that, we went a bit farther up the slope and I spotted another old well! This one is the cement kind that is circle and has a cement lid! Fascinating! How long have those wells been around? Now this part is odd. There was a new-ish green garden hose there. It looked like it had been inserted into the black pvc pipe in the top of the cement cover and it went through the forest in the vague direction of our house and then stopped. What the heck is this for? The only thing that was in my head was we were going to stumble on a field of pot plants. We didn’t see any though. I have no idea what someone would need a hose up there for.

Last night Jeff went on another adventure to find the property stakes in the corners of our lot. He said when he found the back corner he could see a boat and a shed – I know the neighbour mentioned there was an old cabin up there. Behind our property line across the back there are No Tresspassing signs.

We have some really nice spruce near the house that have been recently delimbed at the bottom. I have no idea who would saw off those branches, but someone is obviously grooming them for future harvest – although they are ours now. I’ll have to get back there again and look closer.

Our plan is to borrow/rent a decent brush saw so we can clear out all the alders that surround the house. The only problem is what the heck will we do with all that brush after we cut it. It might be worth waiting until the leaves fall off and then we could slowly chop them up and burn them in the outdoor fireplaces we have. Or we could stack them somewhere. After we cut them all out then we’ll have a gorgeous view into the forest from the house. That’ll be much more attractive to look at.