Finally, some dates...

I start my new job in Freiburg June 1. The project wasn't supposed to start until 2009, so they had to extend funding back a bit for June to work. So, the defence is scheduled for May 1, and then I have to figure out if I am going to a conference in Toronto from May 2nd to May 9th. The most important pressing thing right now is getting the visas figured out, which can take a while to process. I guess we have a couple more weeks in Canada than we originally thought. Oops. More freeloading...

We also got an apartment lined up for April 1, although we aren't going to be there. It is in a student village complex (1300 students) on the 7th floor of a 1960s building. About 100 m away are two bars, one which gets really busy I guess, so there is lots of traffic on Wednesdays and the weekend. And of course, the usual stuff accompanies the student bar scene: stomach contents in hallways and outside, increased crime/violence, more drug trades, etc. Okay, so it probably isn't that bad considering Freiburg is a pretty safe place to live overall, but get 1300 students together (90% undergraduates), 50 cent shot night and zero responsibility = mess. If it was just me and Jodi, than ok, we wouldn't have that bad of a time with it. But I guess I just didn't picture having to raise kids in a seedy environment. Maybe I am overreacting. At any rate, we have to let the reservation go for April, and reschedule for June, and maybe there won't even be a place available then. German housing ads are still pretty tricky for me to figure out, and we don't know which areas in Freiburg are good or bad either.

We are in Red Deer for the rest of the week, and then on Monday I am back in Edmonton and next week we are going to High Prairie to visit (read: freeload from) Dallas and Kory.

Jeff

Phone

One of the nicest things about not having our own place is not having our own phone line. Over the past couple of years, I entered quite a few contests because of my success in the Pepsi Xbox contest. So, I had to divulge our phone number on a few occasions, and of course, that information got sold to all kinds of telemarketers. On an average day, I think we got around 2 calls from telemarketers. We also didn't have call display, so we answered every call. We'd be changing a diaper upstairs or something and the phone rings and one of us would run downstairs to the phone thinking it might be important or relevant and it turns out being a telemarketer. Thanks, I just got poop lodged into the buttons of my phone for nothing. The worst ones are when there is just some calling service on the other end, like the reverse of an answering machine. Used to drive me nuts. One of the frequent telemarketers we got was some guy selling meat. Honestly, like I am going to by a side of beef from a telemarketer. Or the "you have won a paid vacation cruise, the cost to you is only $400". They've gotten so ridiculous now they even leave messages on our answering machine. We'd come home from Christmas holidays and have 5 or 6 messages from Meat Guy. They call at the worst times too; I would say about 50% of the calls would come around the time we eat supper. We would almost know for sure it was a telemarketer if we were sitting down to a nice bowl of shrimp primavera penne and lettuce wraps and the phone rang. I suppose it is a good marketing ploy, because they know people are eating so that's when they call - after people get home from work, and before they rush off to soccer practice or Tai Chi. I think it's just downright inconsiderate. Recently, I changed my tactics so I wouldn't get so frustrated. When they call, I pick it up, and then say, "Can you hold on a minute?", and then I put the phone down and let it sit there until I can hear that annoying, loud tone telling me I left the phone off the hook. I figure, it they want to waste my time, I am going to waste some of theirs. Good attitude, I know. I wish Canada had a federal program like the States where they can put your number on a 'Do not call' list for telemarketers. Apparently, they actually enforce it too and hand out some hefty fines to violators. Anyway, all I am saying is, it's nice not to have to pick up the phone and get a useless caller on the other end.

This is my last day in Edmonton this week, and then back to Airdrie for a while. For those that haven't seen these yet or want a refresher, here's Erika's 'new' glasses and Erika and Reese at halloween.

Jeff

Moving Out Done.

Friday was the last day I will have to move our stuff for a long time I hope. It actually went pretty good, the new storage unit was close to the old one, so we didn't break our backs moving the stuff. Stopped at Vern's pizza for lunch. They have the most meat on a pizza ever. This past weekend we had the guys' weekend in Airdrie with me, Brad, Tim, Kory, and Bruce. The girls were in Red Deer, and I imagine they had lots of long, insightful talks about life. Hee hee. It was a good time; we played Rock Band, ate out, and watched Rambo. It wasn't the worst movie, although I don't think I would watch it again. We actually started out in "Meet the Spartans", which turned out to be the absolute worst movie I have ever seen. I guess we should have figured that before we went in. Well, 20 minutes into it we left and Rambo was just starting so that is where we ended up.

Sunday we were supposed to have our farewell party in Red Deer at Tim and Lesley's, but their sewer had a cracked pipe and was backing up, so we stayed in Airdrie, and some people came there for cake. We got one of those digital picture frames with some pictures loaded on it of family for a going away present. Pretty nice.

Tomorrow I am off to Edmonton for a couple of days, and Jodi is sticking around Airdrie unless the sewer has been fixed in Red Deer. Not too much else to say, we have decided to not do a whole bunch of planning and getting excited (impossible) until we actually know the date we are going to travel over there.

Jeff

Moving Out Done?

Well, not really done. The stuff fit in the trailer, but not in our storage unit in Medicine Hat. We have a little family thing next weekend with Jodi's side, so I am taking Erika back down to Medicine Hat to stay with Grandma and Grandpa, and then me and Dad will move the stuff out of the storage unit and into another one, double the size. Fortunately, the new one is in the same storage complex. So, I thought we would be done Thursday, but I guess not.

The move itself was pretty crazy. The piano needed to be dealt with, of course, on the day we move out. The movers came and picked it up, and then we hopped in the car to follow them to the drop off location. The place turned out to be a fourplex, and I had no idea which one we were supposed to drop the piano off at. So, being the smartie I am, I just picked one and ended up walking in on some large lady, not adequately dressed, making beef stroganoff and her pitbull barking its ugly face off. She seemed pretty surprised. Anyway, after apologizing profusely, I phoned Megan (which I should have done in the first place) to figure out the right unit of the fourplex. The snow drifts on the sidewalk up to the door ranged from 2 to 3 feet, so the movers said they couldn't do it, and took off. I figured I would shovel the walk so it was ready for the actual delivery, and it took about triple the time I thought it would. We finally got home and my Dad was waiting to load the trailer and we dove right in. The trailer was really slippery and I think it was -36°C when we finally finished at 7:30. After a little more cleaning and loading of our car and Dad's truck, we were done for the day, with no real end in sight.

Thursday we slept in longer than we wanted, but managed to get everything packed by 9:00. Now, remember the story I told about the walkthrough, and how things were set up to go bad? Well, everything that could have gone bad, did. They completely tried to get every penny they could from us, and because I signed the original walkthrough, we really couldn't do much about it. We got 'in trouble' for things like dirty walls, the outside of our door being dirty, dirty light fixtures, and my personal favorite: the heat vents being dirty. We actually took the vents out and put in new ones for the duration and then put their's back in, so they were complaining about their own poor quality cleaning on that one. What really gets my dander up is they have no maximum they can charge for damage or cleaning. For other rentals we have had over the years, they can keep your damage deposit and that's it. Of course, because we are in a student residence, they can charge above the damage deposit, and unless you pay whatever they want, you can't order any transcripts or sign out books or any other university service. There has to be some rule against that. Anyway, we got to Medicine Hat at about 6:30 pm and finished unloading what we could at around 9:00 pm.

The next morning, I went out to the car to go to the spectacular Medicine Hat mall, and I thought "the car kind of smells funny. A little sweet. Hmmm...". Well, turns out I left the bottle of Kriter - champagne me and Jodi have saved since our wedding night - in the trunk of the car, and it exploded. So I tried to get the stuff out, but the smell lingered. We had to get Ziebart to steam clean it. It smells ok now.

We are now at Jodi's mom's place for the next couple of weeks. Well, sort of. Tomorrow I am heading to work for a couple of days in Edmonton, and then Thursday I am taking Erika to Medicine Hat, and on the weekend we have that family thing at Red Deer.

Sorry about the novel, apparently there's been a little bit going on. Here's a nice picture of me in the hotel room getting ready for my interview in Freiburg 6 weeks ago.

Jeff