Busy as Can Be.

It's been a very hectic last couple of weeks at Casa Canadiana. So many cool things happened that it's time to dig out my favorite typographical convention, the Bullet!

• Work: I wrapped up working remotely for IBM Canada and started with IBM New Zealand. I miss my boss already (she was a fantastic manager and friend) but we still chat thanks to the global Instant Messaging network. If only there was more than an hour of overlap between our business hours!
• Wes: Wes got a Work Visa!!! Thank goodness. He had been scheduled to leave the country at the end of this month, so him getting a visa for a year is a real relief.
• Home: Well, right off the top, our friends J and B came to visit from Christchurch. They stayed with us for the weekend and a bit, we played board games, ate well and generally overdid it on many entertaining aspects of life. Their visit was the perfect time to put together a last minute...
• House Warming Party! On less then a week's notice, I whipped up a BBQ to celebrate the creation of Casa Canadiana, we had probably 16 people or so show up through out Sunday. It's quite amazing when you realize that we didn't know most of these people 6 months ago. It's even cooler when you realize that they've become quite good friends over such a short period of time. I'm not sure if it's Kiwis, if we fell into the right groups of people or if it's just our charming disposition, but we have a more active social circle now than we did in Canada!
• Now we're in the middle of preparations to spend Easter in Hamilton at the National Wargaming Convention. Yes, we'll be spending Easter playing with our "Tactical War Dollies" as one of our kiwi friends puts it. We should have some time to explore the region and hang out. Really, it'll be a good excuse to get silly with some friends in a town we don't know.

So there we go. Not much new to report otherwise, my welding classes have finished for now, though I'll likely be signing up for another session simply to get more time with the tools. it's probably not much of a surprise that I can't actually rent a welding rig for cheaper than the classes are costing me. My project (the topic of a later blog post) is coming along nicely and I'm pleased to report that no major injuries have occurred.

On another note, given that I now work 8-5 most days (add commute time etc) communicating with North America will most likely be done on weekends. Given how busy we've been lately, we've been rather lax in contacting friends (we're sorry!) but should rectify that soon.