5 posts tagged “frisky”
Frisky worshiping the sun.
I really love my cat...
This is our Frisky-doo!
She is sitting on her scratching box which we put catnip on. She was in a rare (stationary) mood the other day so I took advantage of it and grabbed this shot with my phone.
Scuderia Toro Rosso has decided to release American driver Scott Speed from his contract. This move comes as a surprise to me because of the two drivers on the team, Speed has excelled at nearly every turn.
Driver "chatter" heard by racing fans also indicate Scott's highly detailed and articulate feedback to his pit crew as he described what the team needed to do in order to make the car faster.
Many drivers report their car either "is loose" or "has push" or simply "is undriveable", but Scott seemed to detail exact changes that were needed instead of complaining about it.
Maybe that was why they fired him..? I don't know.. Whatever the reason, it wasn't because of his skills but was rather more "political" than that, highlighting again that F1 is now less-sport and more-business than ever before.
I wanted to take some photos of Frisky without the flash, because it's very bright for her and she doesn't like it.
This is a long post, but worth the read... I hope!
Just over seven months ago, I left Canada with my fiancée, our cat and our car. We loaded everything we own into a giant UHaul, strapped the car to a trailer and climbed aboard for a journey into the unknown, just like in Star Trek. Also, just like in Star Trek, we had a mission: "To seek out new lives and better places of employment".
At the time we left, our immigration case had ground to halt thanks to our loud and unpleasant neighbors who stole our mail, which included forms from USCIS that absolutely had to be returned. Even though I didn't know what my immigration status was going to be when I got there, we had decided to move from British Columbia to North Carolina, and once I make a decision, I stick to it. The day that we left, we were absolutely exhausted from cleaning and loading the truck and it was raining so hard I was beginning to think that we should pack our swimsuits along in the truck with us. And, it was honestly not easy to leave behind family and the place we'd lived and gone to university for the past four years. But, our plan was in place and it was time to get the wheels rolling.
Our 2900 mile drive, as estimated by Google Maps, should have taken just a little under two days. Well, we weren't even close! It took us seven days to make the journey, not counting our three-day stop in Minneapolis to pick out an engagement ring. By the time we arrived, we were tired of riding in the truck, tired of greasy restaurants and cheap motels, and our cat was tired of not being able to run around and climb things all day.
The day we arrived was ironically the same dark, wet weather as the day we left more than ten days ago. Since then, a lot has happened: my financée became my wife, we installed a wood floor in the place where we would be living for the next two years and our cat has found all the best places to climb and hide in our new home. It has been really great being here with my new family and they've welcomed me as one of their own. And recently, I began the task of finding work now that my legal-to-work date is closing in.
I actually like interviewing for jobs, and it was particularly nice to look for work here, as there are so many more career opportunities for people with my skills here than where we left. I also really like the people - southern hospitality isn't a myth! However, when they're behind the wheel of a car, its battle-conditions, just like everywhere else.
Today marks the four-week countdown until I can finally rejoin the working-class! Thanks to a great law firm who has helped us out a lot, my new wife and I are finally at a point where we are saving for a house. She has already started work because she is American, but the really interesting thing is that we both wound up interviewing for positions with the same company.
Although we were being interviewed for different positions and by different people, we told the company that we were married so that there wouldn't be any surprises if we were offered positions and showed up to work, already in an 'office romance' together. Luckily, they did not care that we were married and in fact seemed to like the fact they're getting a team. We were both offered the positions that we applied for and we now both work for a very progressive software development company. In four short weeks, we'll be commuting to work together, just like we did when we were taking classes in Canada!
Since I've been here, many people have asked me, "Why did you leave Canada? It's so beautiful there!". They're right - it is beautiful. But it's far from perfect. Not to say that anywhere could be perfect in every way, but for those who asked, this is my "top-ten" list as to why I left British Columbia for North Carolina:
- Home prices: CBCNEWS: "Vancouver houses prices still highest in Canada". That quote, from June 2006, states that prices went up a whopping 23.7% in just one year. The average price: $518,176! Completely insane, if you ask me. The average house price in the city where we now work: only $121,575.. just a little cheaper!
- Medical system: Don't tell me the Canadian medical system is free, because it isn't. It's rolled into taxes, which hides the real costs, so no one can really be sure how expensive it is. However, taxes are very high in Canada, so it's not too hard to make the connection. And as for the service, let me share a little experience I had: A few years back I was 'gifted' with kidney stones. For anyone who doesn't already know, this is a pain level that has few, if any, parallels in human experience. It's bad, but not life-threatening, so to receive the treatment that would break up the stones, I had to wait my turn. It was almost two months before I got my turn, and even then I had to get to the machine on my own! If the machine had been at the hospital in the city where I lived, that wouldn't have been too bad, but I had to go 250 miles, each way, just to get there! I missed more than two months of work, earning a fraction of my salary while on disability pay and had to go 500 miles round-trip while suffering intense discomfort. I've had time to investigate the process here in North Carolina, and there are many of these machines in hospitals all over the state. And, the waiting time would be hours-to-days, not months.
- Gas prices: Taking into account metric to Imperial conversion and currency differences, the price for a gallon of gas down the street here in North Carolina is $2.38 compared to the same gallon of gas in British Columbia, which is $3.32! Almost a whole dollar more per gallon for the exact same gas. For me, that works out to $10 more per tank for gas in BC.
- Wages: Although the minimum wage in Canada is higher than in the US, the average annual wage for someone who does the kind of work that I do in BC is $41,000 compared to $62,000 in North Carolina. The opportunities for advancement are also much greater here.
- Happiness: Maybe its the house prices, or the price of fuel or that people have to wait in line for months to have a painful medical condition relieved, but when I'm shopping or at a restaurant or just walking down the street, people just seem happier.
- Education: 18 of the "Top 20" Universities world wide are in the United States (TIME.COM). One has to look down to #24 to find University of Toronto for the first Canadian listing, and to #37 to find British Columbia's "UBC".
- The Avro Arrow: In the frigid spring of 1959, the Canadian government decided that it was a good idea to destroy the greatest aircraft the world had ever seen. This incomprehensible action was the catalyst to the 'brain-drain' from Canada to the United States which saw many of the world's finest aeronautical engineers move into the American space program. Included in the list of expatriates was the brilliant Jim Chamberlin, who became a lead engineer for the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecraft programs. Incidentally, Jim Chamberlin is a personal hero of mine, not only for his work on the Arrow and the NASA space program, but I also have a personal connection to him since we share the same birthday and grew up in the same town in Canada.
- Shopping: 24hr WalMart, 24hr Target and 24hr Harris Teeter. 'Nuff said?
- Car insurance: When buying insurance in BC, you get two choices: ICBC or ICBC. In the US, the concept of state-owned insurance is a little too "commie", so insurance is handled as a free market commodity. The result is better coverage for less money. Plus, I get to buy insurance from a lizard! How cool is that?
- Hockey: I don't mind the game, but I am a big Formula 1 fan and whenever a race is on at the same time as a hockey game, the race is bumped to a later date or is not played at all. In North Carolina, hockey is semi-tolerated but racing is BIG!
I truely hope that no one is offended by this. However, I didn't say anything that wasn't true - so there! Like I said earlier, no place is perfect in every way so I wanted to put a few things that I miss about Canada:
- My son. Goes without saying, but he is #1. I see him and talk to him often, but moving away from him was the hardest thing I ever did.
- My family. Love you mom, dad, sis, bro-in-law and their kiddies!
- Friends: I don't have too many of them in Canada, but you know who you are.
- Mountains. It's really flat here and I used to really like riding into the mountains on my bike to get away from the world.
- Boxing day. In the US, its called 'black Friday' and its after the US Thanksgiving. Black Friday is cool, and has better sales than Boxing Day, but when it's the day after Christmas, its like getting a second chance to get yourself the gifts that you didn't get the day before!
- Kenna Cartwright Park: This park has excellent mountain biking trails that I rode almost daily, sometimes twice a day. Good times..
- Crispy Cheesers: Little Ceasar's Pizza in Canada has something called the Crispy Cheeser, which is not made by US-based Little Ceasar's. They're very tasty, but kinda bad for the tummy!
- Tim Hortons: The closest we have here is KrispyKreme, which isn't very close at all.
- Fewer churches: There are too many churches here! I think everyone should be able to believe whatever they want, as long as they keep it to themselves. But, its pretty hard to ignore all the church-ey messages that are everywhere, including stuck onto all the exercise machines at the local "Y" that I go to.
- Relaxed people: In general, Canadians are pretty mellow people, and that's a good thing.
There are a lot of other great things about life in Canada, but these are the ones that I will personally miss. As of today, I join a long list of Canadian expatriates as I have now officially left Canada. One is never really gone until the Canadian Revenue Agency knows about it, and I've just gotten off the phone with them to tell them that I've gone. It's an unusual feeling, but not an uncomfortable one, as I've always felt as though I 'fit in' better in the United States, anyways.
With that, I bid Canada a sweet 'farewell'.
