I've spent the majority of this week following up on some of the conversations I had towards the end of last week at the Barcamp pre-party and event. Some of the follow ups have been social but most have been professional, it really was a good event for networking. Rather than try and work out which contacts are the best ones to pursue I'm using an open mind and pursuing them all and not ruling anything out, I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Lou has been back at work and I've been playing 'bodyguard' again, we're getting used to the 5am wake ups now and we have even been going to sleep before 10pm the night before, something which is pretty much alien to me! We've now purchased thermal coffee cups too so we can make a big warm drink to take with us in the mornings! Even though the days are still reasonably clear and warm-ish the mornings are very foggy and cold though the crisp air helps to wake us up.

From what Lou's been saying she seems to be settling in at her job a bit more now which is nice to hear, a lot of things initially came as quite a surprise to her (and me upon hearing some of the stories) but she is adjusting well now. Lou's also trying to take some of her qualities to the job too now that she is more settled. She has a lot of good knowledge and ideas which aren't practiced over here so hopefully she can open a few eyes and make things better for everyone whilst continuing to pick up on things which are innate to most of her colleagues.

I've also been significantly re-working my resume. I thought I had sufficiently 'canadianized' it but it turns out that it wasn't quite as complete as what I thought. A fresh pair of eyes is always of benefit and I've been in touch with a really helpful person who has reviewed my existing one and advised me on what to change, improve and reword (she gets to see a lot of them in her job so she definitely knows what is good and bad etc). I've now followed her advice and have come up with a more concise resume which I hope will bring me more luck on the job search (sorry, I'm trying no to mention it as I know it's boring but it's dominating my life right now!).

Once Lou has got back from work this week we've been taking it easy and apart from a couple of local walks and grocery shopping we haven't done anything too extravagant. It's amazing how much we miss the car now and it's a chore carrying the stuff back from the shops again but we're getting by fine, it just means we have to make more frequent visits! We already have a couple of places in the back of our mind that we want to visit once we are back on the road. One of them is the Punjabi Market which is apparently not too far away from us. We were saying the other day how we missed good ol' "English" (!) food like samosas, bhajis, and pakoras and that's when we found out there is this place not too far away. You can still buy things like samosas in the supermarkets here but they're not the same and they are also expensive ($5.99 for two) so we look forward to visiting that market. We have still yet to start eating seafood out here too, it's widely available and very popular (hardly a surprise since we are right next to the Pacific Ocean) but it really doesn't appeal to us as we've both never really been used to eating it. Maybe we'll feel brave one day and try it, I'm sure it could lead to a funny blog post if nothing else.

The NHL Hockey season is now in full effect and the whole of Canada (bar a few bored housewives) seem to be delighted that the season has restarted. The Canucks only started last Thursday but have already played 4 games, it's literally every other night. I've watched all but one on the tv so far (tickets are too expensive) and I'm really getting into it, it makes a change to watch them at normal times as when I was in the UK I had to stay up into the early house of the morning to see the play-off games. The Canucks didn't start the season in the best way, losing three games in a row but they got their first win in style last night thrashing the Montreal Canadiens 7-1, it was a great game.

Below are a few random photos taken over the past few days. I didn't always include photos with my posts but now I try to as often as possible as I've been told by a few people that even the lame ones help people get a better idea of what I'm talking about, so here they are...

         

Click here to download:

Archive.zip (6027 KB)