Now I know what elbow pads are for. The skating is going really well, Cam can hammer around the whole rink on his own now and not look like falling over. The girls are looking more graceful and Jazz likes to try double spins and Jo has the backwards glide starting to work. Me, I like falling down and doing it hard and often. My left elbow has a bruise the size of a tennis ball on it and I’ve fallen on it two weeks in a row, talk about lucky. Actually I’m doing pretty well if I do say so myself, I can move around pretty quickly, stop with the side on slide (really cool!) and cross over my feet (going left works nicely, going right needs more work). With the weather really starting to bite and daily temps below zero all the time it wont be long until we can hit the local ponds. We bought Cam a hockey stick and puck and the girls have got their wish and now have figure skates and cute skirts. The temp today was -14, -24 with the wind-chill and and ‘extreme cold warning’ is in effect for Toronto over the next few days. We’ve had snow since a 15cm dump last Friday and it hasn’t melted at all. More snow is expected before the end of the week and this has the locals saying that we’re in for a brutal winter to match the extremely hot summer. Everyone mentions global warming.
I put up the Xmas lights outside the house, 4 strings of 70 LED style lights that are all the rage over here this season. A nice mix of gold and blue that simply doesn’t come close to matching the major efforts that many of our neighbours have gone too. Having said that there are houses with no lights at all so we’re certainly not the plainest house in sight. Jo also got a Xmas tree, real one, and the kids have decorated it with paper chains, beads and some lights, it looks great. With us being away in Vegas on the 25th we’re all hoping that Santa will remember to visit us so the kids have some presents to come home to later that week.
Work is really busy with our first real Design/Buil phase underway. Most of our requirements are pretty well detailed and we have assembled a decent team of senior people, mostly contractors, to perform the technical design and build work. Hopefully we’ll be in okay shape against our schedule by Friday so that the Monday and Tuesday of next week can be taken a bit easier prior to breaking up for the year. The end of year means two weeks of time off for me so after we return from Vegas I hope that we’ll get in some downhill skiing and skating outdoors.
I took my drivers license written test a couple of weeks ago. Man it was nerve-racking! I got my forms (2 x 20 questions on loooong sheets) and sat down in the exam room with maybe 6-8 others at varying stages of completion. Sitting in a chair with a small attached desktop I ran through the questions without too many problems, after my intense 1 hour study of the local rules book, until I reached a section that covered regulations for Learner and Probationary drivers (known here as G1 and G2 class). It just so happened that I didn’t read that section, sheesh! I had four multiple choice questions on the subject and was sure that I’d be able to guess the answers fairly well. I handed in my forms and returned to my seat to await the verdict and watched a steady stream of other hopefuls (most of whom looked and sounded like english was a second or third language) receive the bad news...
Examiner : Fairly quietly - “I’m sorry sir but you haven’t passed today”
Driver : ‘Keh?”
E : A little louder, the front row of the ‘class’ can clearly pick this up - “You failed sir, you’ll have to come back tomorrow and try again”
D : “Pass?”
E : Audible to all in the room - “No I’m afraid not sir, too many wrong, you must study again”
D : “Good! Drive now?”
E : Heard across the street - “No pass! No good! Come back tomorrow!”
As it turned out I had also screwed up nicely and got 3 out of 4 of those G1/G2 questions wrong (didn’t know until I got home and re-read the rules booklet). I was lucky to make it through that section needing 16 out of 20 to pass, I just scraped through. Got all the signs right though... so I’m not a complete half-wit :-).
I’ve now booked in for my practical driving test on Friday and am nervously awaiting that with my work collegues doing their best to scare the crap out of me... ‘Oh and make sure you signal during your three-point-turn, if you don’t it’s an instant fail’...’Check your mirrors and speedo every 3-4 seconds’...’The examiners never smile and wont respond to any small talk, they aren’t friendly at all and are just looking for an excuse to flunk you’. Yeah, I know, nice huh? It’s been nearly 20 years since I last had to do this so I’m preparing in the only way I know how... optimism and prayer. Wish me luck.
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