Home at Last

Byoliveridley

Wow, I woke up at 4 AM Eastern, caught a 6:50 flight out of RDU to Seattle, then drove 3 hours to the ferry, through the most peaceful immigration and customs ever where I forgot to mention my cat and somehow, it was okay! Being a Canadian is just so much nicer than living in the US of A. I got various questions barked at me by US immigration on the way to the states. The person at Canadian was calm, polite and took 30 seconds to clear me, though I guess she missed the pet.

A 1:40 ferry ride + 1/2 hour drive home later, it’s past 10 Eastern Time and I’ve been traveling for 16 hours. Did I mention I did all this with a cat? But, my beastie was the least of my troubles, he was very sweet! The Sherpa Delta carrier we got (on sale!) worked like a charm, very few people knew I had a pet with me at all times, and I was able to actually even smuggle him into the passenger deck of the Tsawwassen-Schwartz Bay ferry! Highly recommended. It fits very nicely under the seat, I was very apprehensive about carrying this supposedly “high maintenance” cat on plane, airport shuttle, car and boat, but he was such a trooper, very proud.

He’s still a little weirded out by the new place, no idea where he is and most definitely does not feel like he’s home. It’s gotten suspiciously quiet all of a sudden, wonder what he’s doing, napping, hopefully.

All right, no more traveling. I was supposed to blog some when I was in North Carolina, somehow, never happened. I don’t blog well when I’m relaxed, apparently. But, I want to snk my teeth into all this carbon tax brouhaha, and I finally found some time to read the definitive guide to Canadian environmental policy, Unnatural Law, so at least I am now not completely ignorant about Canada.

Update:

Found the cat, clearly he has a bath tub thing, he’s done this in Chapel Hill too.

Update!!!!

Open my mail to see an envelope from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, pick it up and instantly feel that tell tale card, yes, my PR card is finally here, and I guess the photograph I sent them in February from NC finally got to them, hooray, I am now mostly Canadian! If they’d sent it a little earlier, could have avoided this whole Seattle driving brouhaha, but who cares! Man, what a day!!

Pardon all the exclamation points, this card’s given me all kinds of grief, and it’s frigging crazy for it to show up just like that…

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    Byoliveridley

    Got 45.765 Liters or 12.089 gallons to go 400 miles on my first full tank in Victoria, which works out to 33 mpg, which is about 10% better than anything my car (admittedly not a terribly fuel efficient small car) has ever done. Why? Top speed on my commute’s 90kmph (or 55 mph), and that’s only for 7 km. The first 10-15 minutes is stop and go at 50 kmph which doesn’t do much for gas, but the rest is either 80 or 90 kmph, which is about the most optimum speed for maximizing fuel efficiency.

    Take home message if it hasn’t been proven a million times already, lowering speed most definitely improves fuel efficiency!

    I guess that makes up for the slowish commute. C’mon city of Victoria, get a fast bus across at 7:30 AM, not 7 so I don’t have to wake up at an ungodly hour to take it!

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    BC Bicycle Helmet Law – NC Connections

    Byoliveridley

    (b.1) that a person operating or riding as a passenger on a cycle on a path or way designated under paragraph (b.3) must properly wear a bicycle safety helmet

    British Columbia Helmet Law

    I got my bike on Thursday and finally, the vile flu that laid me low for a week has decided to sink slowly back into a tuberculotic cough. Blogging should get back to normal speed and topics as I unpack, start biking, and can live life again without being racked by chills and bad dreams.

    Figured I should get back on my bike ASAP, but I decided to first check if BC had any bicycle helmet laws, because we’re like that, we have a lot of what would be considered “paternalistic” laws south of the border. And, it does, and guess what, the project evaluating the law was performed by UNC’s Highway Safety Research Center, small world, ai!

    Apropos nothing, here’s the US list of states and their various bicycle/motorbike laws. Note that only 20 states (and DC) require the use of helmets for motorcyclists, quite insane. Fall on your bare head at 50 miles an hour and you are dead, vegetable, or both. In contrast, All of Canada is under universal motorbike helmet laws. Of course, no U.S state has bicycle helmet laws that cover adults. In contrast, four Canadian provinces have mandatory bicycle helmet laws.

  • Snippets of dreams remembered

    Byoliveridley

    Or what happens when you make a single-minded effort to sleep in on the long weekend. These dreams all happened between 5 AM and 9 AM Sunday morning. I don’t usually interpret dreams, and am always pleasantly surprised when I remember them.

    Banana FlowerI wake up in my old bedroom in Chennai feeling bad that I have only one day to go on my trip, and that I need to start packing to leave. My packing is all awry, my passport is nowhere to be found. When I actually wake up, I am home, and happy that my “trip to India”, whenever that might be, has not even begun.

    Bee on flowerI turn around in bed and feel sharp pain as a bee (or wasp, my dream said bee) has bitten me in the ass (yes). I turn once more, and the sting is actually near my elbow, or is it? Were there two bees? Was there actually a sting? My dream state is not sure. Either way, I wake up, no bees.

    SaddleI am fixing S’s bicycle seat, and every time I shake it (this seems to be an important part of the fixing), a new part falls out. The seat, the post and the bike get more and more complicated and full of parts falling all over the place. I feel frustrated and lost, this seat is never going to get fixed, I question my skills. I wake up, relieved it was just a dream, but the seat’s still next to me in bed, parts still falling off. I then wake up for real. I love dreams within dreams and used to get them often, to terrifying effect. Thankfully, they’re now an occurrence rare enough to require immediate documentation.

    PS: I was reminded by the NVPA recently that I am required to keep a dream journal.

  • Leaving Chapel Hill

    Byoliveridley

    I’ve lived in Chapel Hill for over 10 years, encompassing a Ph. D, a marriage, a few jobs, cats, many wonderful friends and a blog that to this day proceeds in fits and starts. But, my time here is finally at an end. I accepted a job offer to move to Victoria, BC. It’s on Vancouver Island and quite breathtakingly beautiful in an almost throwaway fashion!

    Photo Courtesy flickr – Allie Wojtaszek’s photo stream.

    I am not kidding, the island’s just incredibly beautiful.

    Anyways, I will be heading out for a long vacation in Chennai, back for 10 days or so, then leaving end of March to start work. Blogging for the next week or so should be normal (as in, no rhythm, rhyme or reason!). Once I get to Chennai, blogging will be sporadic as my parents don’t have internet and I am too lazy to set up a connection for a month!

    Once I get to Victoria, blogging will, of course, resume, though I guess I’ll still remain pseudo anonymous (not that too many people care!). I will be working for a company that works very closely with the EPA and Environment Canada and things get delicate when you work with the government and criticize them! It will be interesting to see where this blog goes, though I will refrain from the usual gee whiz look at that beautiful scenery posting!

    If you know people on Vancouver island you can hook me up with, please email /leave a comment. I don’t move that often, and I can’t rely on seeing familiar faces on Franklin Street and the Weaver Street Market any more!

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    It’s been fun living here, but all good things must pass.

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  • Tracking my mail

    Byoliveridley

    On the sidebar, you will find a new donut chart which is a simple cumulative count of the mail we get at home. The measurement started on the 19th of March, 2012, so not much data yet 🙂  Useful – Mail I will find useful (yes, including bills). Solicited – Mail I find marginally useful, but comes from organisations I support, so I guess it is okay? Junk – Well, you know it when you see it; RTS – Return to Sender, addressed to previous occupant. Canada Post charges quite a bit for mail forwarding, whereas the USPS does it free for a year, so people get better at updating addresses and not missing a couple. I have lived in my current place for 18 months now, still get mail for multiple different people.

    My Mail

    No particular reason to do this, I was just curious, and this article about the US postal service starting to solicit more direct mail (what most people regard as junk) customers just triggered me to post the results online. My perception is that the signal/noise ratio on my mail is very low, let’s see… The underlying data is in a simple google spreadsheet and the image is linked dynamically, so should always be current.

    Update: I don’t have a red dot on my mailbox, no particular reason, just supporting my economy and increasing the GDP, perhaps? More seriously, I would like a green dot campaign, where unsolicited mail is not welcome unless I place a green dot on my mail box for all unsolicited mail, and an amber dot for not-for profit, advocacy, political and generally non-commercial mail.

    Update:  Not tracking my mail any more, as you can see. It was remarkably stable at around 58-50% “junk”. Interesting…

    Featured image is of a letter box from Nepal, from flickr user manc72 used under a creative commons licence.

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