Can has jobs?

We went to Ontario about 9 days ago for a week. It was great to see everyone again. The day we flew was pretty busy, as we both started it with interviews. Elizabeth got offered her job, accepted it, and will be starting on August 20th or so.

Mine went well too, and I’ve been back for another meeting with them. I also had a phone interview for a job in BC while I was in Toronto, and have another interview scheduled with them for the week after next, and on tuesday this week I have yet another interview. So it’s good that things are progressing in the hunt for a job.

And if you’re any of the employers I’ve been interviewing with, I still want the job :)

Thieving gits

Before we left for Canada our plans were thrown into more than a bit of disarray by theiving gits who broke into my mum’s house and stole a bunch of our stuff, including laptops and most of my coin and banknote collection, which I had been collecting since I was 7.

I had good enough backups, and the laptops were replaced really quickly, thanks to insurance, but the coins and notes couldn’t be covered, so that’s a dead loss. On the one hand, it does save me worrying about storing and moving them. On the other hand, to the person or people responsible, may you die horribly, via drowning or fire or something like that.

For the benefits of the internet and google, this is a rundown of what was stolen. If you happen to come across these, please let me know, and I will pass details onto the Police. Or just call the Western Australian Police yourself. To save those of you at home some effort in calculating, all up it was about $15,000 worth of stuff.

– MacBook (Aluminium) – WQ8410161AQ
– MacBook Pro – W88102ZPYJZ
– iBook G4 – UV42000NQJP
– iPod Touch – 9C738XT6W4T

As far as coins and banknotes go, these are the ones I had records of serial numbers for, but I did have a lot more than that. One or two of them may have been sold prior to the theft, but not the Coombs/Randall $20:

Australian Decimal Notes
– Black lighthouse album with no outer sleeve
– Vort-Roland inserts – front page signed by MPVR with 1994 date
– various in $1-$50 denomination – mostly $20
Including but not limited to:

– $1 BEC 000570
– $1 Knight/Wheel Centre – CAN 605124
– $2 Coombs/Wilson – FCP 032075
– $2 Knight/Wheeler – HSH 225868
– $2 Johnston/Fraser – LHZ 54652(?)
– $5 Coombs/Randall – NAD 571219 (aEF)
– $20 Johnston/Frasher Gothic aUNC
– 2 x Last $2 green presentation folders

$10
SAY 127350 – Coombs/Wilson
SDX 975038 – Coombs/Randall
UZV 644542 – Johnston/Fraser
MFR 269360 – Fraser/Cole
MRR 671604 – Fraser/Cole

$20
XAB 161163 – Coombs/Wilson
XBQ 274438 – Coombs/Randall
VXK 965879 – Johnston/Fraser
EXZ 544259 – Phillips/Fraser
RKE 800303 – Fraser/Cole
AAA 909199 – Fraser/Cole
AAA 001076 – Fraser/Evans

Australian Decimal Coins/sets
– Proof 1984 $1
– $1 coin + $1 note in brown vinyl wallet
– Proof 1979 set in Styrofoam
– Proof 2006-2009 sets
– Uncirculated 1987-2008 sets
– Red $1 variety folder
– Blue 50c variety display case with badly scratched back

Australian Non-Circulating Legal Tender
– TV Anniversary Set
– Pipeline anniversary
– Kookaburra with Albany Privy mark and low coin number (68?)
– 1991 Masterpieces in Silver set (25th anniv dec currency) with no
cardboard box
– 1988 Holey Dollar and Dump
– $100 gold coin (Maroon box)

Other
– Australian 5 shilling uniface vignette note in envelope
– Australian half-sovereign – vf (unknown date)
– 1967 New Zealand Mint Set
– RBA Teller training notes
– $2 and $20 Birds of Canada series notes (uncirculated)
– 10 x $20 Canadian notes – circulated
– 10 x 1000 Yen Japanese – circulated

Canada Status post

So since I last posted some weeks ago, we’re on our way to getting drivers licences sorted out, and we have somewhere to live through end of July, and into August if we want, which we’ll probably take up.

Still searching for work, building Social Networks, etc. Went to Tsawwassen on the weekend for a pool party, which was good fun. Going out tonight to meet some people, tomorrow to meet some others.

Still alive, basically :)

State of the maple leaf

I think my tastebuds are maturing or something. Many things I once loved now no longer appeal to me. Like Quiznos Black Angus subs, Creamsicle Extremes, in fact I find I can’t abide by HFCS flavoured Coke.

All things being equal, this is probably for the best. But I find it curious. I used to love that stuff, now it tastes sickly.

In other news, I now have a Canadian Bank Account, Social Insurance Number and cellphone number. All we need now are jobs and somewhere to live :D We have this hostel room until July 3, and more than enough money, but I couldn’t blame a landlord for not wanting to rent to us since we don’t have jobs. Not that we’ve tried.

We’re looking at share-housing with one of Elizabeth’s friends, but that may not occur until after 3 July, so we’d need somewhere in the meantime. I’m thinking initially a short term rental from somewhere on craigslist (even at $700/pw, it’d be cheaper than here), then get the sharehouse happening.

All the while also looking for work.

In Vancouver

So, we made it to Vancouver about 24 hours ago, and have been recovering from jetlag, making plans etc since then. The area we’re staying seems to have experienced a bit of rejuvenation since last time we were here, which is good, and we’re in the same room I had back in 2003 when I stayed here. Hah.

Much love to all, except Air Canada, for the inflight announcements at full volume which almost popped my eardrums.

Still alive

We’ve been on silent running for the last little while. Moving plans have gone well, we’ve got most of our storage issues sorted, only a few things left to sort out (what we’re doing with the car, what we’re doing with my computer, sorting out what we’re doing with our health insurance while we’re overseas)

16 days to go!

arduino rgb ethernet light :D

Some time ago (October), I saw Philips Livingcolour lamps and thought they were awesome and I should make one. I did some thinking, and decided not to re-invent the wheel, and make some changes.

Arduino with Ethernet and MaxM

So I made one, that is ethernet connected and can be controlled by a webpage :) I used an Arduino, with an NKC Ethernet board (standard Arduino Ethernet compatible, don’t use this one), and a BlinkM MaxM.

RGB Ethernet Arduino, in use

I bought a couple of BlinkM’s and MaxM’s from sparkfun. And they are fun.

And the best thing, I didn’t have to write much code at all. Thanks to this guy. It needed some poking to run in the Arduino IDE, but eventually got there. Problem now is is that I have about 26 bytes of spare space on the Arduino. I just hope I’m not using the optimised Ethernet library yet.

screw you from Singapore Airlines

I used to be quite a Singapore Airlines fanboy. But they’re not keeping up the cool. Firstly, a few months ago, they cut ALL of their flights to Vancouver, and now only fly codeshare via San Francisco. This is not what I want. Therefore, we’re flying with Air Canada.

Now I get an email saying this:

As a valued KrisFlyer member, I am writing to inform you that as a result of a commercial impasse with Flight Centre, Singapore Airlines airfares might not be available for purchase through Flight Centre retail outlets.

Singapore Airlines is still committed to giving our customers great value fares. Singapore Airlines has agreements in place with other major travel agents, and our flights can be booked as per normal through all other travel agency groups, or online at singaporeair.com.au

Whatever the reasons, it doesn’t mean I’ll change travel agents, it means I’m more likely to change airlines. The fact is that aside from Travel Centre (and their offshoots) and STA Travel, there aren’t any other major travel agency groups that cater to my market segment in Australia. And as for the fares on singaporeair.com.au, they are laughably expensive compared to prices on the same flight through travel agents.

So well done Dale, Singapore Airlines Passenger Marketing guy, I hope this standoff is going to be worth it.

Accommodation booked for Vancouver!

We have some immediate accommodation booked to see us through from June 25th – July 3rd. I’ll keep my fan club off my trail and not say where, but it will do quite nicely.

The weeding of belongings continues, but I still need to arrange storage for a few cubic metres of stuff. Hmm!

On lens envy

Pete Souza is a lucky guy. He gets to be official Whitehouse photographer, not just the current one, but he was also Reagan’s too. He also gets to play with lots of shiny toys, and uploads photos to the Whitehouse flickr stream.

Thanks to this, you can EXIF stalk his kit. But not too closely. They strip out the device serial numbers from the EXIF, so you can’t tell how many of each he has. Let’s assume it’s a few. I wish I had a couple of Canon 5D mkII (AUD$3995) cameras. Anyway, this seems to be what he’s been using:

It’s a tough life. I really want the 24mm f/1.4L II USM. Hell, I’d even settle for version I :P