Stabbing Westward

Well we survived our first road trip with two babies! It was a long haul — about 9 hours. But the kids were pretty good, the roads were pretty clear, and the weather was beautiful (if a little hot.)

We’re settling in at Nic’s parent’s place. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but Nic grew up in a little country paradise. Paradise and little being the operative words. There’s an acre of green grass for Ben to explore, a beautiful pool to swim in over the summer, and nothing but the chirp of crickets to hear at night.
In short, its absolutely gorgeous out here. The down side is the size. We’re setting up in the room Nic grew up in, and when she was little, it was perfect. Now that she’s over 4-feet tall, however, its a little cramped…

…and we have a lot of stuff to pack in there for the month! Can you believe all of this fit in our two cars — 90% of it in the SUV!

At any rate, Ben just puked, Aunt Pammy is here to visit, and I’m not far from passing out. A couple more pics in the Flickr feed. Nic has been given a tutorial on how to update Flickr, so hopefully that will stay fresh during the month.

Phase 1: Steal the Underpants

Tonight is Nicole’s last night in New York.
To pull off this move, we’re doing it in 3 phases.
Phase 1 kicks off tomorrow. We’ll move Nicole, Ben, Abi, my computer, clothes and bedding, toys and entertainment enough for all of them for a month. They’ll be moving into Nicole’s parents place for that month, where Nicole will start the leg work to set us up in Canada. I’ll do my best to give her a head start while I’m there with her this weekend.
Our combined task list includes: setting up the computer and the bed’s for both our children, obtaining a cell phone with a Canadian phone number, meeting the real estate agent, meeting the mortgage broker, and making sure there’s working capital in the Canadian bank account.
As soon as I leave her jobs are to: submit the paperwork for our kid’s Canadian citizenship (kicking off the 3 month wait before they’re eligible for Ontario healthcare), finding a storage facility to move our furniture into, arranging the details for the apartment we’re moving into for the summer, then starting the house hunt for a more permanent place to live.
Phase 2 starts May 19 when the movers come. My job is to get us ready for that. Our remaining possessions need to be boxed, indexed and inventoried, our heavy furniture needs to be sold and moved out, the rooms we painted need to be painted over in “apartment white,” and the carpets need to be steam cleaned (two babies and a cat practically guarantees there’s a poop stain hidden somewhere!) I’ll over-see the loading up of our possessions, and the closing up of our US bills and accounts, then get in the car and drive back to Ontario, carrying enough of our stuff to get us through another 2 months of squatting in a temporary residence. We’ll move into that place as soon as we can, so I can resume work.
Phase 3… well we don’t have a date for Phase 3 yet — or even a destination. This phase comes when we’ve found and purchased a house, had the services turned on, and can get our stuff out of storage and do our final move into our new Canadian home. Our drop-dead date is mid-August, when the students from whom we’re renting our temporary apartment will likely want to be moving in. That leaves us a little over 3 months to finish this move.
In short, this is going to be a challenging summer — especially with two babies in tow. May will probably be the hardest, because we won’t have each other for encouragement (and/or bickering). Fortunately, God has quite literally gone ahead of us…
Our dear friends, Mark and Elisabeth, are moving their own family into the same town on May 2nd. God’s set them up with a new ministry, and a beautiful new home (with a pool!) They recently adopted a two year-old boy, and we’re looking forward to spending some time with them again, helping out their ministry, and watching our kids grow up together.
Also in town is my mom, followed not long after by my dad. They’ve both been in Asia for over a year now, having a blast over there, and we wouldn’t wish for them to move back to boring, bland North America. But we are glad that they’re going to be around over the summer to help out, and to see their grandkids (and babysit them for us.)
And of course, Nic’s family is there, and I’ll finally be out of hot water for moving Nicole to another country. When Nic’s parents were here visiting after Abi was born, it was amazing to be able to leave the kids with them and go out to a movie. We have wonderful friends here who have been very supportive and helpful — Ben has a great babysitter that he’s in love with (and we like her a fair bit too :o), Jason and Brooke have gone above and beyond to help us adjust to Abi’s arrival, the Matula clan has literally showered us with love as we’ve prepared to leave, and of course there were all the friends bringing meals for nearly 2 weeks straight — but nothing beats having grandparents and aunts and uncles around.
We even have a new home church to crash land at — where we already know people!
It’s going to be a grueling couple months that will test our stamina and our relationship and probably our faith. But its going to be worth it when its all over. In fact, we’re kind of looking forward to it.
As I mentioned, I will not have a computer once Nic is gone. I’ll have my iPhone for Facebook/e-mail/Digg and the XBox for MSN, and there’s the ridiculously slow and filtered Internet at work. But my connectivity, and thus posting, will obviously be limited. We’ll do our best to keep you updated, and we’ll look forward to seeing our Canadian friends in person really soon!

Mo' Money, Mo' Problems

Well despite protests of innocence from our mover, it turns out that their quote (not to mention their revised quote) wasn’t all that competitive. Nicole found us an equally reputable company that will do it for $3000. Back to where we were before — but that’s much more comfortable territory.
As I feared, and just like last time, my employer’s HR department suspended my payroll, due to my family leave, and they forgot to put me back on — despite my e-mails reminding them. Not getting paid is awesome.
Fortunately, when I do get paid, its going to be a new, larger amount. Annual review time has come and gone, and my “salary action” was “favorable!” It was a challenging year at work, but its nice to know my efforts were appreciated — financially, that is!
I’d buy you all a round of drinks to celebrate, but we’re moving to another country, buying a house, feeding two babies, and I’m not getting paid right now… so hit me up in a year or so when we’re not totally broke.

Who Really Killed the Dreamcast?

Its a widely held belief (or at least it is now) that the PS2 was the primary executioner of the Dreamcast. This was not what was observed as it was happening, but they say history is written by the victors, and somehow people have come to believe that Sony was the vanquisher of the DC. Allow me to posit another theory on Sega’s demise — not a new one, but one that has, perhaps, been forgotten…
Continue reading “Who Really Killed the Dreamcast?”

Baby Sign (in which our kids show off their funny faces)

The other day, Benjamin toddled into the living room, tugged on mommy’s pants and demanded a bath. Not only was it the right time of night (we usually give him his bath just before bed) but it was the right night — bath night is every other, and he knows it.
No, he can’t talk yet, but Benjamin knows a little bit of another way of communicating: sign language.
We’d always wanted to sign with our kids, even though neither of us know any ASL at all, but when Ben got his string of ear infections, leading to the surgery, we figured we’d better work on it in earnest, in case his ear problems delayed his language acquisition. The results are adorable.
For a long time he’s known the sign for cookie. He gets one after his afternoon nap, so he wakes up signing it. But the comprehension wasn’t really there — he’d sign cookie for anything he wanted in his mouth. To be fair, there are 3 signs we’ve tried to teach him around the topic of eating: food, more and cookie so that must be confusing — and its obvious which would become his favorite.
The sign for more comes out every once in awhile, and its pretty cute when it does. The sign for bath, though, suggests a new level of comprehension. Its not a word we use that frequently, and its difficult one to do — you make a scrubbing motion near your chest with both hands in fists. Ben doesn’t quite get it right, and the first time he did it, just after Nicole went for her shower and he tried to follow her in, I wasn’t sure what he was doing. He looks more like a monkey: he flicks his fingers near his armpits. Close enough, right?
He’s also mastered the sign for, and use of, all done, and when he’s finished with his bottle or his food — or just finished with us — he signs all done to let us know.
Yup, our monster is a little genius. We’re kinda glad he hasn’t learned to talk yet… this way he can’t talk back! The other day, Nic left him playing in the living room alone for a few minutes. When she came back, she found him in Abi’s swing. Never mind that the swing is a foot and a half off the ground, Ben worked out a way to get there…

Abi is learning some tricks too. Her trick this morning, at the 4:30am feeding, was to poop explosively out her diaper and onto her pajamas (and Nicole’s!) This obviously led to a late-night changing and cleaning, which led to some crying, which led to Benjamin waking up and screaming, which meant both parents were needed…
I got Benjamin duty, due to my lack of boobs and need to work in the morning. Fortunately, he went back down pretty quick and I was able to get another hour of sleep. Nicole wasn’t so lucky, so I took both babies this morning so Nic could catch a half-hour (try making yourself a coffee, feeding a one-year-old and getting ready for work, all while holding a 2-week-old — without making any noise!)

Oh ya, between the babies and the boxes piling up, things are fun at our place these days…

How to argue

Having recently been embroiled in an online debate or two, I thought I’d re-post this brilliant diagram explaining the different levels of argument — from most effective to least effective. Anyone who regularly comments on sites that share opinions should probably know this information. Anyone who debates in real life should probably know it too…

Click the image for a larger version. Image originally found here, which was in turn inspired by the article found here.

Natural Anthem

The Case for Connectivity
Here’s a brilliant article, written by a technology pundit in 1995, explaining how the Internet will never amount to anything we hoped for, going into detail to explain all the things that will never work… the things that in 2008 we use every day. Can you imagine how foolish it would be to declare limits, out of doubt and fear, on just how far this interconnected world can go?
The Case for Responsibility
A certain company, that I’m often proud to know quite well, has announced a new water heater, that if rolled out across the States, could eliminate the need for 30 Coal Power Plants. How could anyone argue with cleaner air, and a brighter sky?
And here’s a neat article that explains exactly what’s wrong with raising children in North America today.
The Case for Faith
Why is it that genuinely brilliant people, when they reach the height of their research, have to concede that someone had to have made us… had to have made the universe? Could it be that man is not really the result of a series of accidents?
Could it be that when we finally accept that we are not the beginning and the end, but rather the hand-made creation of a God who loves us, we finally find real joy?

8 Things We Will Miss About Living in the States

I read somewhere that people like reading lists. I think it holds true for me, so today over lunch I was brainstorming a list of things I/we will really miss about living in New York. So here it is, in no particular order…
(Note that this is things, not people. The list of people we will miss is too long to write here!)
#8 – The Postal Service
OK, I’ve had my complaints with the USPS — what with them reading my mail and all. But all that aside, the “mail” in the States is an incredibly efficient service. Its not really that bad in Canada — especially compared to other countries I’ve been to. But the USPS is definitely the benchmark. Mail arrives quickly, is even delivered on Saturdays, and the Post Office always runs like a well-oiled machine. The only time delivery slows down is if you’re trying to mail something out of the country!
I can’t remember how far back it was, but I know I was quite young when Canada de-centralized its postal service, splitting out “post offices” into “postal outlets” found in the back of grocery and drug stores. In some ways this has been convenient — when I first tried to mail a letter in the States it was a little disconcerting that I couldn’t figure out where to buy a stamp — but I’ve got to say, I am going to miss the speed and efficiency of the USPS. Alas, we’ve never had Kevin Costner deliver our mail
#7 – The Apple Store
Apple Stores just ooze cool. Even if you’re not a computer geek, the store itself is just so chic and trendy that you want to be seen as an Apple customer. Not so in Canada. There is no official Apple retail presence there, so we’re stuck with these little crappy little shops that ooze nothing but an “air of superiority.”
Despite the fact that the employees at these stores probably make close to minimum wage and are no more informed than the average home user with an Internet connection, they still manage to convince themselves that they are better than you. Plus their prices are always 10-20% higher than Apple themselves charge. You walk in the store to buy a computer, and walk out feeling belittled and robbed… But if you’re a Mac user, you take it because you have no other options.
#6 – Uncapped Internet
Downloaders in the States don’t know how good they have it (which still isn’t as good as downloaders in Asia.) In Canada we have something called “bandwidth caps” that only the most evil of US Internet Service Providers would consider. A bandwidth cap means that once you’ve downloaded your monthly quota of content from the Internet, your connection slows to sub-dial-up speeds until you’re next billing period.
On top of that, Bell Canada, the sole owner of telephone lines in Ontario (probably the rest of the provinces), has just announced that they’ll be enforcing packet shaping on all their data lines — even the ones leased to other ISPs. This means that if Bell Canada decides that what you’re downloading isn’t important enough, they’ll throttle your speed down. And that’s even when you’re within your monthly quota.
#5 – Cheap (Reasonable) Cellular Data
If the above sounds anti-competitive to you, wait’ll I tell you about the cell phone companies. There’s basically only 3. One is the afore-mentioned Bell, and just like the AT&T of old (who’s now back again in the States) its an evil monopoly tolerated by the government. The other two are Telus and Rogers.
Rogers is the ONLY GSM cellular provider in Ontario. There used to be another one, but they bought them out. Now they have complete control over GSM and related technology. Of course, you could settle for CDMA if you want, but that’s not CDMA 3G. I doubt they’ve even got 2G.
If you’ve wondered why there are no iPhones in Canada yet, Rogers is the reason. Apple requires all iPhone providers, world-wide, to include an unlimited data package (at a reasonable price.) This is a huge pro-consumer move that drastically advances wireless technology adoption. Rogers, however refuses to acquiesce. They make hundreds to thousands of dollars a month on the poor suckers who need wireless data access. My $60 iPhone bill in New York, under Roger’s service conditions, would easily cost $800 or more.
But no one competes with them in this arena, so they have no reason to be competitive. The rest of the world is light years ahead of us, but Rogers holds the country back out of sheer greed and because no one, not even the government, will stop them.
#4 – Taxes
Speaking of the government, we are NOT looking forward to Ontario taxes. It turns out that New York is one of the highest-taxed States. If that’s the case, we’d be rich if we lived in one of those low-tax States! Ontario’s taxes, both income and sales, are ridiculously high. Since we’ve left there has been only a minor reduction in the GST — a “temporary” tax introduced in 1991 that brings Ontario’s sales tax total up to 14% 13% (15% when we left.) This becomes even more ridiculous when you consider…
#3 – Prices
Things are finally starting to adjust in Ontario, but its still safe to say that, in general, a product or service in Canada will cost 10-15% more than the same product or service in the US — despite the fact that the two currencies have been on par for well over 6 months now. And this isn’t just confined to technology (although that’s obviously my primary interest.) Pick up a book and flip it over. You’ll see what’s wrong with the picture…
Right there on the back are the prices: $7.95 US or $9.95 CAN (or worse). You pay a premium just because you’re reading in Canada.
#2 – The Olive Garden
The Olive Garden used to have restaurants in Canada — years ago. I remember it being a special treat to visit there, and then one year, they just closed up shop. There were rumors that there were health concerns about the particular restaurant we went to, but since all of the Olive Gardens in Canada disappeared at roughly the same time, I don’t think the rumors hold much water. (Around the same time we lost another favorite restaurant: Chi Chi’s. I don’t know if they still exist anywhere, but we loved that place.)
I could eat only Olive Garden’s Zuppa Tuscana soup and bread sticks and be completely satisfied. Lately I’ve gotten a little bit more adventuresome with my ordering and it hasn’t worked out well for me, but I’m a notoriously picky eater, so I don’t fault the restaurant. Most of their food is pretty darn good.
#1 – The Coffee
Ya, just kidding. I have not yet had a good cup of coffee in the States, so I can’t wait to get back to my old friend Tim Horton