Unemployment Update

As of today, I have been unemployed for one month. I am not sure how I feel about this as I still am enjoying my time at home. Unfortunately I do feel as though a bit of despair is creeping in as I still don't have any more prospects than I did two weeks ago. Wightman still hasn't decided what to do about a possible position for me, and Bruce Power still hasn't gotten organized enough to have interviews yet.
There was a career fair in Walkerton last week where I did talk to a local furniture company that may be looking for someone sometime in the future but didn't know more than that. That's really the only new job thing.
There has been absolutely nothing in the local papers or the government job sites either.

I still feel pretty good about things overall I guess. I don't miss working at the hospital at all. I haven't worried about it or really thought about what's going on there for more than a few seconds here and there, which surprises me and makes me realized how dissatisfied I was there.

Sping Activity

For Anne's birthday on April 9th we went for a hike on the Bruce Trail, we went on a portion that goes through the Beaver Vally. These are the pics, enjoy.

On a side note, Picasa 2 from Google is great, I don't know why anyone would pay for an album program with that one availble. You can make any changes to pictures that you need, and it even created the above album nicely, and you can post pics on your blog through it. Gotta love Google!

Unemployment - Week 2

If I learn one thing from this experience, its that things are really out of my control and in God's hands.
The Senior Computer Hardware Technician position I am waiting for an interview for at Bruce Power is still in limbo over there. They don't think they will even start scheduling interviews for a couple of weeks. I still think this is the position that I am meant for and I am curious to see how it works out. Pray about this one.
However, one interesting development this week is that when I sent my resume to a few local companies I received an excited reply from a manager at Wightman Telecom. This was someone I had dealt with in the past and he had always been kind of impressed with me, so when he realized I was looking for a job he was quite keen to find me something there. The job he has in mind really wasn't within my experience, abilities or interest, so he passed me on to another manager with high recommendations. This is where it is interesting, Wightman as some very cool stuff coming up in the future that I think would be awesome to be involved in. However, they seem much more interested in getting me in to a supervisory role and I want more hands on. Ideally, I want a good mix of both (because you get paid more this way). I will probably meet with them this week and see if they can fit me into what they have planned. We will see what the Lord works out for me.
Unfortunately, there has been nothing available in the way of jobs listed either online or in local papers.
In the mean time, I really enjoying being at home, doing things with Maya and being with Anne more. Its going to be hard to go back to work when it does happen.

Unemployment - Day Seven

It's really day three of a concentrated job search, and of that I have only had today as a full day to do it because of computer work I am doing for a friends business. He can only afford me on a very limited basis though.
So far the job search has not been successful at all. When looking in the paper and sites in the past I have noticed that IT jobs seem to come and go in clumps. One week there will be like three or four computer jobs listed and than none for a couple of months and it sure seems like its a dry spell right now. There has been nothing listing on the local sites, local papers, monster.ca or anything else. But it hasn't even been a week yet.
The one thing that I do keep hearing is that Bruce Nuclear is highering and as far as I know I am still expecting an interview for a computer technician job I applied for there in December. So far that is the only lead to anything.
The one thing that is hard is the fight down the rising panic. Questions like, "What if I can't find anything, what if I have to take some crappy low paying job just to make ends meet?".
Overall I think the Lord has really put me at peace with the whole thing, and I know He has something good in store for me as long as I follow the path.

Luke WINS!

A couple of weeks ago I entered a contest at one of my rally news websites, Rally Planet.
Well I won a 1 year subscription to WRC+ which is worth about $92 Canadian.
Very cool, this is currently the best way to keep track the WRC rallys during the weekend before its on TV, or in my case on the internet to download.
It has live stats, interesting articles, and tons of video and pictures. All of it exclusive.
I haven't gotten the log in info yet, but I was asured I would get it soon. As long as its before Rally New Zeland next weekend.

Also, I found out that the time share my parents have in Mexico is a meer 2 hours from Rally Mexico which happens in march. I am definaly going to have to squeeze a vacation in over then and make the trip.

Looking forward to that Pennsylvania Rally in june. I hope this unemployment thing doesn't mess it up :(

Unemployment - Day Two

Today was pretty busy. Slept in to about 9am and then got ready to go to work for 10 to ask what my options were regarding pension contributions as well as get my personal belongings.
Also there was Lea, the person from the Grey Bruce Health Services who will be looking after the local stuff there. He is a pretty nice guy but not the best technically. He let me clean up my personal stuff off of the computer there and server before anyone else could get at it. Also got password and other server stuff cleared up.
Then I went around and said goodbye to all the departments, most of which I spent a lot of time in over the 3 and a half years I was there. Most people were pretty shocked and more then a few tears were shed. I found the whole thing quite amusing from my perspective (I don't know why, I believe the Lord has given me a lot of peace regarding this whole thing) and laughed a lot and didn't feel sad at all. I was surprised at the amount of anger from others though, a lot of people couldn't believe that the hospital had decided to get rid of me, and a few also suspected they were on the chopping block soon to. We will see.
It's pretty a much a given that a few hospitals will be closed up here in the next few years. There just isn't enough patients in the system here to make it viable for the number of hospitals in the area. A lot of nurses are leave in the next few years so maybe they will work with that. I may be really fortunate to be let go when I have been.
I worked the afternoon for my friend Nathan who runs a consulting business, but he can't really afford me. This prevented me from doing any job hunt stuff. There were no computer jobs in the paper.
On Monday, things really going as far as the job hunt. I will get a few things done over the internet in the mean time while Anne is working nights this weekend.

Hospital Cut-backs...

Me.. :(

So this afternoon I got laid off. It's been kind of a surreal experience so far.
Anyway, I am going to be looking for a job, anything computer technical anything will do. So if anyone knows of anything, please let me know.
I am waiting for a call back from Bruce Nuclear about a Senior Computer Tech job that I was apparently on the short list for, so hopefully that works out. If it doesn't I will be scrounging around the area to see what I can find.
I will keep you guys up to date.

P.S. Don't tell my Mom, I don't want to deal with that.

The Hockey Season is over :(

Today was the final tournament for church hockey and we lost. We figured we would lose the first one and did. We were pretty confident about the second one, but couldn't see to click as a team today and could do it. It was a tie at the end and so there was a best of 5 shootout which was cool. The best of 5 was tied and so it was sudden death shootout and we lost.
I think I have one last game next weekend, but since its Easter, who knows.

Now the snow can go away and it's on to Mountain Biking and Soccer!!

New Developments

This week has been an interesting week as far as Maya goes. Here is what she has learned this week.

• Go down the stairs. SHe just decided that she can . She backs up to the steps, crawling feet first , and goes down fairly quickly. We have tried to teach her this in the past, but it wasn't very successful. Its quite nice and reasuring to not be worried about her tumbling down the stairs trying to walk down them.
• Climb up into her high chair. Now we can say, "Maya, it's time to eat!", and she will run over to her chair and pull herself up into it. Its pretty neat to see. She doesn't have a 100% success rate yet so we do have to watch her, but she does a good job of knowing when she isn't going to make it and lets herself down.
• Climb into the bed. This is probably just an extention of the high chair climbing but its nice not having to pull her into it all the time.

Long weekend...

No we didn't get an extra day but it felt like it to me.
Anne was working nights all weekend and Maya was sick. This meant that Maya did not sleep well at night and we had to make ourselves scarce during the day so Anne could sleep. Maya coughed a lot at night and kept waking herself up, and then wouldn't let me put her down so I could sleep. So I was very tired at work yesterday. At least this allowed me to watch the first 2 days of the Mexico WRC and the first 3 episodes of Last Exile, but I think I would have rather been sleeping.
Saturday was a good day though, I bought this bike, a Brodie Brat. I can't wait for the snow to clear up so I can ride it! Of course I am not allowed to spend any more money for a couple of months now :)
Also, my church team won our second playoff game which mean we are garanteed a least 2 games in the tournament this coming Saturday. We play the #1 team first and we haven't won against them this year so it will be challenging for sure.

A sad trip...

On Monday Anne's grandmother, Christina McCutcheon died, it wasn't unexpected and she had lived a long life so it wasn't a terribly sad occasion. The funeral was in Huntsville on Wednesday which was a long drive but it was nice to spend time together and get away from work.
An Anglican reverend gave a nice eulogy, and the family gathered afterward for snacks and fellowship. It was nice to see people, most of whom I have only met once or twice before.
On the way back we had a very nice visit with my Grandad and Nana in Stayner and drove through very bad weather from there to Hanover.
Maya was sick at the funeral, but still well behaved and somewhat cheery. She slept pretty much the whole time she was in the car.
That was about as exciting as this week got.

Full Metal Alchemist

Last night I finished watching the last couple of episodes of Full Metal Alchemist. It was one of the most enjoyable anime series I have watched. The important characters were fully fleshed out and there was a great blend of action, comedy and drama. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get into Anime.
Next up is the Naruto series, I have the first season downloading now and I have heard a lot of good things about it. Plus it has ninjas! You can't go wrong with that, becuase they are the Real Ultimate Power.

Hockey Day in Hanover

Had one of my end of year tournaments today. This weekend it was an invitational church tournament in Flesherton. There were 3 or churches from the immediate area, one from Owen Sound and one from Barrie and I don't know about the other. We did not do very well :( .
We lost the first game, tied the second one, and lost the last one. It was still a lot of fun and there were no major mishaps or incidents which is suprising as there usually is.

However the big one was tonight as it was the first game of our church league playoffs. We have lost the last 2 or so games and so needed to get back on track. The game was extremely close and if we hadn't been so tried from playing 3 games earlier in the day I think we would have destroyed them. The game was very tight and tied 1-1 with 1 minute remaining. We got the puck in their end, I fed it to a winger (I was centre as usual), he fed it back to the point who got just in the bottom corner of the net with a slapshot. We hung on for the win!
So we have one more playoff game next Saturday, then the tournament the weekend after. I think we can take it this year for sure.
The only incident was when a guy who had really been harrasing me all night, (pushing, holding my stick, hooking, etc.) really shoved me after the whistle in front of their goalie. He got in my face about my stick in the goalies crotch and I relpied that I was just trying to get the puck through because thats what you're supposed to do before the whistle goes. ANyway, I was hoping the guy was going to shove me or take a swing so they would get a penalty. But then one of our guys come roaring in and totally rocks the guy into the boards. Fortuntely they didn't score on the power play and the guy stayed off me for the rest of the night :) Lot's if fun.

Toronto

Tomorrow we are going to Toronto. The primary mission consists of 2 parts. One is to go the the International Bike Show and the second is to visit the Whole Foods Market. I think you can guess who is excited about what. We plan on getting bikes for ourselves if we can find good prices. It should be fun.

Let it snow, let it snow...

So we are going skiing tonight and I don't know why but I just can't seem to get into it this year. I know I will have lots for fun once we are out on the slopes, but I just am not excited by it like I have been in the past. I don't' think its the fact that we have to bring Maya along, because she is a lot of fun when we are there.
Anyway, I hope there is lots of snow and lots of good jumps. So far this year I have been getting huge air off some jumps and I am getting better at the half pipe. I am a little wary however of my right knee because I still don't think its 100% from when I hurt it last August. On top of that the season is going so fast, I don't know how many more times we are going to get out.

Anne's Thoughts- It just makes a long night. Fun but long.

And the Oscar goes too...

For the past couple of weeks Anne and I have been practicing for a skit we did this past Sunday at Church. It was about irresponsible spending and the premise was Anne and I arguing about how she was spend too much money and didn't really care. It only took about 3-4 minutes to do on the stage and was quite fun. We did it in front of each of the three services right before the sermon and then Pastor Claran tied it into the message which was about tithing and Godly spending.
What made it interesting was that Anne worked Saturday night and didn't really get any sleep that afternoon. She got 2 hours while on her shift but was pretty tired but the time we showed up at the church to do the skit in front of the 8:30am service. So by the end of the morning she had be up for most of the past 36 hours.
Regardless, the first run through was the worst as we missed a middle chunk of the play but the congegration didn't' notice. The second run through we felt was a best one was we didn't miss any line and acted (we felt) quite well. The third time went excellent as well. People laughed a lot more then we expected (we didn't think it was that funny)
We are hoping that from this we can do a few more of these type of things a year as they are quite fun and can be our contribution to the Church.

Out with the old and in with the New

To me a blog is a great way to keep in touch with peoples lives. I can quickly find out what is going on in the bloggers life with a quick glance which to me sort of creates a type of community amongst a group of people that might otherwise not have any reason to keep in touch. Sure, sometimes posts are mundane or boring and other times they can be riveting or interesting but in the end it's a journal and a window into someone's life that you often care for.
So when someone thinks their blog is a burden or crutch and deletes the whole thing with very little warning it really pisses me off and makes me sad at the same time. I'll leave it that.

That said, we had an empty spot in our links and have added our niece Courtney's new blog! Its like totally new! So u peps should like go visit it rite now, K. I g2g now cause we r going to watch the totally nu ep of Carnivale . OMGWTFBBQ

Rally Vids

Here's some rally crashes I have on our web space that I had posted on the shack last week. I should let you guys enjoy them too.

Solberg crashes but recovers at Monte Carlo 2004
Anonymus Subaru WRX crashes coming off a hill at high speed (awesome)
Skoda driver Swartz crashes (almost off of cliff) at Monte Carlo 2005

Just a reminder that Ian and I do plan to go to Pennsylvania again this June for the STPR this year. Its on the first weekend of June, so anyone who might be interested in going with us please start thinking about it now.

I'd like to thank the following people for this free time...

Many, many, many thanks to Brenda and to Cheryl for looking after Maya yesterday so I could join the Superbowl festivities! I really apprcieate. I will get you tokens of that apprcieation later this week :)

Another lonely weekend *single tear*

So Anne abandoned Maya and I this weekend because she was working nights again. We managed to cope pretty good and found a good source of food by prying open floor boards with Maya's toys. I would lift them up just enough for Maya to fit her hand in and get a handful of termites for us to mash into a paste and eat with a straw, that was it was more palatable. She only lost 2 fingers but I glued them back on so I don't think anyone will notice.

Maya did sleep really good this weekend though. Friday night was bad but last night was the best ever. She only woke up 3 times (that I noticed anyway) and one of those times she put herself back to sleep. Its quite apparent that she understands that Anne isn't there so just deals with it by using the sippy cup and going back to sleep. I hope she is still used to it when Anne works Wednesday and Friday nights this week.

Because of this development I am not going to drink coffee anymore; it's back to tea for me. I started drinking it regularly after Maya was born to help with the lack of sleep, but I really feel it when I don't have it for a day or so now. Even as I type this I have a headache and feel fuzzy headed which I am sure is caffeine related.