Canada Post owes me money

I’ve made my best effort to first spread the news to my family about my immigration status here in Canada. The good news is that my permanent residence application has gone through, and that has allowed me to apply for my open work permit. Alas, I will finally be able to have an income from within Canada, not that I was able to do much for myself from my homeland back in the states.

The thing is, applying for my open work permit was not as easy as we hoped. A small fee (small in terms of being less than a few hundred dollars compared to much of everything else that comes with this process) and an “Xpresspost” with Canada Post was all it takes to get that little piece of paper saying I can now be employed. Piece of cake, right?

Open Work Permit! Wrong. Checking that tracking number a few days after it was sent, the package, according to the Canada Post website, was still sitting at the post office in which we sent it from. The guarantee says that it was to be delivered two days after it was handed it to the nice lady who slapped the stickers on it for the mail truck to come take it away. Being three days later, it was time to call the mammoth.

To be honest, Canada Post was really pleasant on the phone. Very helpful, but had no clue as to where my parcel was. Yes, the parcel with fairly pertinent details of both of our lives. Crap! So what do we do? Open a trace. I’m not sure what that really accomplishes, but they gave me a reference number and said to call back to check on what they find in 7-15 business days.

Business days??? By that time, someone could take that parcel and become me in some foreign land somewhere. I’d say that they could live like a king, but the bank account wasn’t detailed, nor does it have a lot of kingly qualities to it right now. To say that we were a little concerned about this is a tad of an understatement, not to mention that the end of this month sees my ticket to stay in the country expire unless that permit comes through.

I called them about a week (in business days) later to find things still in a SNAFU. They found it “highly unusual” and would get back to me as soon as they found something out. If I didn’t hear anything within three days, then contact should be made to resolve the matter. Yeah, that makes me feel oh so confident.

Immigration PaybackThen a crazy thing happened. Checking the mailbox last week, there was my work permit, just sitting inside. I come into the apartment and hand it to Rebecca nonchalantly. Checking the tracking number earlier that afternoon on the website, Canada Post said it was still sitting in that same post office in Vancouver. Rebecca jumping up and down said otherwise.

Fast forward to today, and there is another letter in the mailbox that finalizes this chapter of the process. Canada Post sent me a check for the parcel they have seemingly lost. I’m sure it’s in their agreement of some sort, but they paid us back for the cost of sending the package. $15 isn’t going to get you much, maybe a box of wine, but it’s a funny conclusion to the whole thing.

Next time, we’ll entrust our life to someone else other than Canada Post, but they sure are swell to pay us back for the cost of sending something they have no idea how, where, or when the holy hell it got there. With a big thumb up, I say thanks Canada Post.

Edit: Ok, this story popped up this morning in regards to Canada Post and was just too precious to not pass on.

The Crazy Canucks #26 – Playoffs are on the horizon

Posted this morning.

Dave is a healthy scratch on this episode, but the rest of the crew gathers to tackle the recent games, look ahead to who is coming up, and hash out some topics that the big media folks are drudging up. J.J. makes a call in from the game he went to against St. Louis(W), and we look at the other two games against Detroit(W) and Edmonton(W) in true TCC fashion.

Record as of this episode: 44-23-6
Northwest Division: 1st
Western Conference: 3rd

We also bring you some breaking news at the top of this episode regarding the Canucks and the world of podcasting, Alanah details her live blogging on the day of the Red Wings game, and J.J. presents some interesting insight to the slight against Naslund’s play even though the team record has been overly positive.

54:50 minutes
The Crazy Canucks

Blogging bragging rights

Isn’t this always the case? I remember those early days of the Interweb when it was a rush to be the first, and I’m not talking about making geeky websites and whatnot. No, it’s way more stupid than that, and you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Those various sites with message boards where someone has to be the first person to post a reply for the soul purpose of being the first one to do it. It said very little and pertained just as much to the initial topic of the post. It would just say, “First!” That’s it. One word, and it’s a mind numbing mentality that still goes on today.

This is what I think about when I read this:

Someone, somewhere created the very first Web log. It’s just not quite clear who.

It may not be one of the Internet’s grandest accomplishments, but with the number of active bloggers hovering somewhere around 100 million, according to one estimate, there are some serious bragging rights to be claimed by the first person who provably laid fingers to keyboard in the traditional bloggy way.

Was the first blogger the irascible Dave Winer? The iconoclastic Jorn Barger? Or was the first blogger really Justin Hall, a Web diarist and online gaming expert whom The New York Times Magazine once called the “founding father of personal blogging”? [cnet]

Bragging rights, to me, means who really cares? Even if you were the first, then good for you. That doesn’t change a whole lot for me.

Benefits of being able to declare bragging rights? Wikipedia will smote those who attempt to pull your name off their pages, your name will go into traditional history books, and I’ll give you a cookie.

Documentary: The Great Global Warming Swindle

I heard about this about a week or so ago. Apparently “The Great Global Warming Swindle” is creating quite a stir, and I am not surprised. Rebecca and I watched it over the weekend, and it really makes you think about things. Personally, I think there is some validity to all the arguments regarding global warming, for or against it actually happening or not.

You can watch this for yourself on Google Video. It’s almost an hour and a half long, but worth the time.

Bottom line, I don’t want to breathe in this stuff anymore. I am all for reducing CO2 emissions and making the skies less hazy with smog. The fact that my great uncle in California always sleeps better, feels better, and has less pain in his joints whenever he is visiting family, outside of the greater L.A. area in which he lives, tells me a lot. It’s bad juju.

Making my way up to Prospect Point

I figure that it’s about time that I do another Stanley Park update. As a quick recap, you can read this post, but the basic jest of the story is that a horrible storm damaged a large portion of the park back in December 2006. I’m doing my best to post updates of what I’m seeing as the park cleans up and opens more portions back up to the public. After all, it’s one of my favorite places to go running.

Last week, I tried going into areas of the park that I’ve mentioned previously, but they were still closed to the public the last time I did this, at least officially. It was very easy to go around these orange and white barricades that had caution tape tied from it, spanning to nearby trees in almost spiderweb like fashion. This time around, the trails were not blocked off, seemingly open for business.

The trails were cleaned up more than the last time I was in the area around Beaver Lake, so I decided to try my chances and head over the foot bridge to the other side of the causeway. Everything on that side looks really good, but heading down the Tatlow Trail ran me into a huge, fallen down tree that is about 50% from being fully removed. There is no easy way around it other than climbing, not hopping or straddling, over the trunk that is about half my height.
Continue reading “Making my way up to Prospect Point”

Bowing down to Flickr Uploader

It might sound crazy, but I have not been using Flickr Uploader for the Mac since I first joined into the Flickr fun. Being a long time supporter of the widget way of doing things, I liked the one I was able to find for Yahoo! Widget Engine, formally known as Konfabulator. It worked well, and was, overall, fairly effective in its use.

Flickr UploaderThe other day, I downloaded Flickr Uploader again to find how much better of an application it has become. My first time around with it was shortly after its inception, and I read a lot about it, hearing mostly that it was lacking in functionality and stability. Basically, I was picky and wanted something “better”, not to mention at my fingertips.

That’s hardly the issue anymore, and if you ain’t using it, then you’re missing out. I have to say that I loved having the little widget directly on my desktop, but that frame of mind is easy to change once you try this sucker out. It’s like one stop shopping, no needing to visit the actual website after you’ve uploaded everything. Stupidly, that’s what I had to do before, and now I hang my head down in shame.

So long I have resisted, but now I see the light.

Happy St. Patty’s Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day Hope you enjoy your St. Patrick’s Day today. 300 today, Canucks game tonight, so I can’t complain at all.

However, the true party is that fifth day in May. Mark it down and get the blender ready for some mad margaritas.

RadioZoom#129 – Six Song Donut Spectacular: March 2007

Recorded and posted yesterday.

All IODA, all SXSW. This is a direct sampling of six artists from the IODA SXSW Opening Day Bash. I caught wind of this the other day and thought it would make for a great episode for this month’s six song. You might call it lazy, but I explain more as we go along. By the end of this one, I hope you find new music and new reasons why you should check out SXSW

50:54 minutes
radiozoom.net

Worldwide promotion through podcasting

This little post from GZExpat about some of the craziness in his life kinda made my day. A bit of back story, he’s our pal in China, living and working there along with his family. He’s a great supporter of our podcasts, big Canucks fan, and a damn cool guy.

He made a jaunt into Hong Kong the other day and details the events, but it was this snippet that made me a tad happy.

We spent the entire day on the run…taxi’s, walking, subway, more walking. By the time it was finished, we had walked 4 districts of the city and put on countless km’s on the sidewalks and escalators. We finished up shortly after 5:30pm. Just in time to allow me 45 minutes in HMV. Here is what I got:

* Secret Machines: Ten Silver Drops (thanks to John for the introduction!)
* Goo Goo Dolls: Superstar Car Wash (an old one I didn’t have)
* Five For Fighting: Two Lights
* The Shins: Wincing the Night Away
* Bloc Party: A Weekend in the City (new album is WAY better than the first…)

[gzexpat]

Aside from a pretty good taste in music, that Secret Machines that he picked up was a result of RadioZoom having permission to play their music on the podcast. I played it, GZExpat heard it, and has since gone out to buy their latest album.

Proof positive of the effect that podcasting can have? Yes.