Every shop = Op Shop

Posted on July 30, 2011 by waggadventure

When we were selling our house in Edmonton, we went through the retail mating ritual of offer -> counter offer -> counter counter offer -> bottom line response -> desperate ‘one more try’ counter offer -> ‘fuck off’ response. We blogged then about how much we hated bargaining, and how we wondered if Waggans bargained.

Well, we are here to tell you that yes, bargaining is alive and well in Wagga’s retail sector but it is a little bit different than you might expect. In most sales transactions, in Canada at least, there is a retail price. The buyer might offer something less (say, when buying a car), the vendor might counter with something a bit higher, buyer comes closer to that price…eventually, the two parties reach an agreeable price. Or, of course, there is the more sane “this is what the price tag says, PAY IT” model. If you go to Sears, that’s how it works. Here in Wagga, a different story. The posted price is NOT the real price; you will pay less, dammit! No questions, now. You’ll pay what we tell you and it will be less than what we first said you would pay. And oh yes, it’s all in – no taxes on top and you may or may not need to pay delivery. They really take this whole “no worries” thing to the extreme!

Case in point: we needed to buy a few household items for our new rental (a fridge, a washer and dryer, a vacuum,  a television, a bed, some bar stools, and an iPod doc for Lisa’s office). Dan was given the task of scouting out stores, comparing brands and prices, assessing delivery charges, etc., and choosing what he thought would be best choices. Not willing to then make the final decision on his own (note from Lisa: smart man!), we would go in together to look at the item and make the final purchase. In most cases, we bought what Dan found.

The Wagga version of bargaining is this: go into store, discuss item with sales person, look at posted price (that is usually already a ‘sale’ price…the Canadian fair advertising bureau would have a field day here!), and say you are interested. Sales person will then say something like “Righty-O mate, I’ll see what I can do.”  He/she then walks away, comes back a minute or so later, and offers an even lower price. You don’t even have to bargain! They do all the work for you. Often, you get to the checkout and the price is lowered again. Or, if you decide to add another item to the shopping cart, there are more deals to be had.

Our new, and only, dining/living room furniture. It is light enough to carry outdoors on nice days and back inside when it gets chilly.

Take shopping for a BBQ as one example. Dan did his homework and brought Lisa into the shop for the final decision process. Since it’s winter here in Australia (far too cold for BBQing, since it’s only 15+ degrees!), there aren’t many in stock; however, there are quite a few “stocktake” (think Boxing Day in July) sales and last year’s models on offer. This is great for us! So, we choose one of the “last in the store” discounted models, only to have the salesperson then give us a deal on accessories and a free tank of propane. The next day (when the patio temp was 20+ degrees) we returned to buy a small patio set, which serves dual purpose as a makeshift kitchen table right now. The same salesperson immediately went to find the owner, who “threw in” a small side table, on top of the deep discount for buying last year’s patio set. We’re happy to help, but not sure how this is good for business. Loyalty? Yes! Mass profits? No!

The delivery people got the new washer and dryer to the laundry room but left it there, still crated. Dan managed (with a little help from Lisa) to install it. The stacking required screwing a frame on top of the washer...not many things are more scary than putting holes in your brand new $1500 Miele washer!

But back to the washer/dryer shopping excursion… That was a fun trip! We had received lots of advice from M&H about what stores (and websites) to roam for the best prices on “white goods” (what the Aussies call appliances). So, Dan was well armed with all of the latest stats, prices, etc. He is now, officially, an expert on all things related to home appliances (note from Dan: H&J, if you’re reading this from Alabama, buy a condenser dryer; they don’t need to be vented to the outside, they are easier on your clothes and great for hot/humid climates). We desperately needed a fridge to be delivered on move-in day, so that was priority one; a washer/dryer would be good, too, if they could arrange for everything to be delivered. Other items (vacuum, TV, IPod doc) could wait for a bit. On his first excursion, Dan experienced one of the most interesting things about this process; the salesperson answered questions very knowledgeably (coming from Alberta, this is a big deal!) and provided a written (and signed!) quote. This made comparison shopping really easy. When we both visited the store later, to make our purchases (quote in hand), the salesperson was busy with another client. But, no worries – another salesperson, not responsible for that section of the store, stayed with us and also answered questions about the products. What? Do they train these people or something?.

Our really great British-made stereo equipment is dual voltage, and so is on the ship. Until that system gets here, we have this iPod dock. The advertised price was $299; sales guy said we could have it for $225. We paid $199 when it was rang in. It is surprisingly good! The ipod nano hanging off the wall above it is a long story...

On our way to the checkout (yes, they walk you there; another person takes your money, while your friendly salesperson waits with you and chats about skiing in Canada), we decided to peruse the vacuums. Friendly salesguy talked us OUT of buying the more expensive model we were considering, in favour of a more powerful, less expensive item; when you have 3 cats, vacuums are important – but friendly salesguy asked us about our needs and found the right one for us. Then, he started dropping prices. He knew that he could go at least $75 down; then he left to get a better price. While typing away on the computer he realized that the price was even lower, so we got that price, instead. Now, you may be thinking… ‘wait, all they’ve done is jack up the prices to PRETEND to give you a discount!’ Silly Canadians (and other cynical readers)… that’s just not so! We really did our homework (note from Lisa: yes, I checked all of Dan’s work before heading to the stores; duh!), only to find that they wanted to give us even lower prices. This is all very good… but very strange, nonetheless. Now we wonder, how low would the prices go if we actually participated in the bargaining?

Posted in Australia, Canada, cultural differences, money, small town culture, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Permanent Residency

Posted on July 26, 2011 by waggadventure

Have you ever tried to prove that you lived somewhere when you didn’t actually live somewhere?  Or prove who you are when the requirements of proving who you are fall outside of what you are able to provide? We’ve had to do both of these recently, and flubbing and faking our way through it has been challenging and hilarious. But, getting back to the global homelessness post from weeks ago, it has also made us think about how hard it is to live without proof of residence or current identification, and how hard it must be for people to access services and facilities for people who are actually homeless.

We’ve already reported on the challenges of trying to get mobile phones without having a credit rating or the 100 points of identification that the provider wanted (we technically met the Australian government’s requirements, but the telephone company’s system didn’t allow for anything outside of the norm: Australian ID). And we’ve also briefly mentioned how we thought it might be challenging to get a house too, for the same reasons.

Well, getting the house didn’t turn out to be that hard. It seems that they don’t require you to prove that you live somewhere so that you can find a place to live. Some of the things on the forms were a bit of a challenge though.  They wanted to know who our past landlords were, for example. We had owned our own house. They wanted references. All we could provide were Canadian. They wanted a budget. We have no idea how much things like electricity will cost. But, despite all that, we really liked one of the first houses we saw, put in an application, and got approval a few days later. Much of this, of course, was due to the work that Lisa did before we left Canada, obtaining written reference letters from the insurance company, the bank, the electricity company, etc., all of which were dutifully copied by the leasing agency. We are now living in our house (as we wrote about in the last post) but it is not, however, our ‘permanent residence’.

In between getting approved for the house and actually moving in, we bought a car. We were in a bit of a rush for both of these, because CSU was footing the bill for just 10 days.  Hotel and car rental beyond that were on our dime.  One possibility to get a car was through a leasing agency that CSU works with, but because we are on temporary resident visas that expire in under 3 years, we could only get a 2 year lease agreement. This made the cost of the car way too much. So we decided we had to buy.  We scouted out a car, then Dan spent a day of hilariously silly bureaucracy getting things finalized. First, he goes to the dealer and negotiates the price. Then they discuss when we can pick it up, and how long it will take to do the rego. This is on Friday morning, and we want to get the car on Monday, the same day we get possession of our house. This is where it gets goofy.

Because we are not permanent residents of Australia, we can’t get New South Wales driver’s licenses for 6 months. So to rego a car in Dan’s name, he had to go to the NSW Road and Traffic Authority and get a customer number. This, however, requires a permanent address (not residency, just proof that you live here).  Here’s how the conversation went:

Dan: Hi, I’m new to the country and buying a car and need a customer number so it can be registered…oops, I mean rego’ed…in my name.
RTA Customer Service Lady: No worries, I just need to see some identification.
Dan: Here’s my passport, my Alberta license, my credit cards…
RTA: Do you have anything that says you live here?
Dan: No, I live in a hotel. I get a house on Monday.  Can I bring in a letter from the rental agency saying that?
RTA: They probably won’t do that. Do you have a receipt from the hotel?
Dan: No, it is paid for by my wife’s employer.
RTA: I knew you would say that…will they give you a letter saying you live there?
Dan: You mean that would be all I need? No problem

Next conversation of the day, back at The Lawson.

Dan: Hi. I’ve got a really weird request for you.
PerkyGirl: Oh I doubt it. I’ve heard everything.
Dan: I am buying a car, and to register it I need a letter saying I live here.
PerkyGirl:  That is a bit odd. I have to call the owner.

Dan goes for lunch, stops back in the office, and PerkyGirl hands him an envelope and says “too easy”.

Back at the RTA office, Dan hands clerk a sheet of Lawson letterhead that says Dan “is a permanent resident of The Lawson Motor Inn at 117-121 Tarcutta Street, Wagga Wagga, NSW.”  Clerk keys in the details, Dan gets customer number, goes back to dealer and buys car. Too easy!

By the time we actually picked up the car (after only needing to rent for one extra day), we had keys to the house (we stayed at the hotel 3 extra nights, to give us time to get in some furniture and vacuum up some spiders) but more important, we had a rental agreement stating that we were renting, therefore residing in, a house in Wagga.  At some point, Dan just has to go back to the RTA office and change his address.

In the little more than a week that we’ve been in the house, we’ve established more identity; we have ATM cards, credit cards, and also utility bills with our name on them. We exist. We have a residence.

We don’t have permanent residency…in either the official or unofficial way. Unofficial is that we have a 6 month lease on our house.  It  is owned by Australian Defence, and they don’t do longer leases in case they need the house for air force personnel. That works for us, because we don’t know if we want to be there longer than that, and if we do it will probably be on a monthly basis anyway. Over the next few months, we have to figure out when, where and how we are going to buy a permanent house.

As for official permanent residency…that is a couple of years away still.

Sorry for the lack of photos…we didn’t have anything new to put in after last post about the house.  And we are writing from Bathurst, a city about 300 km from Wagga so can’t take any pictures of anything relevant.

Search terms of the week: 1967 el camino hyde; grizzly attack; binging and purging is fun.

Posted in driving, identification, passports, Visa, wagga | 9 Comments

Photo Blog – Teaser…

Posted on July 22, 2011 by waggadventure

Writing this blog has been an important part of the move. It has helped us to reflect on the process, and it has also let us tell people what we are doing en masse; telling people individually would be too hard, so even though it is a bit of work, it just gets done once.

Sometimes, though, there are more important things to do.  This week, we’ve had to prioritize and rather than think up witty titles and captions, we had to get on with our lives. But, because we don’t want to disappoint our friends, here’s a bit of a photo-blog of the last week.  From this you will see why we haven’t had time to write much.

This is where we live. It is a nice house in a suburb called Kooringal. The Canadian way to pronounce it would probably be KOORingal, with the emphasis on the coor, , or maybe on the second one as in KoorINgal, but Aussies seem to speed things up and almost eliminate the middle syllable. So, we’ve learned to call it KOORinGAL, almost like saying KRINGLE (like Kris Kringle; every time Lisa hears this word she thinks of snowy Christmases back home).

The house is owned by Australian Defence, and would normally be occupied by members of the military if the Wagga base was operating at full capacity. Sorry, J&H, we know how horrible the Canadian military housing is…but this one only has a few cheap finishes; overall it’s pretty good.

This is where we sleep. New futon; bedside tables are cardboard boxes that the bar stools (later photo) came in.

This is our entertainment. We actually get quite a few channels free over the air (yes, they still do that here). We may include a dvd player soon though.

This is where we eat. We have 4 stools actually, but Dan hasn’t gotten around to assembling the other two (which is fine, since we won’t be having people over any time soon). The fridge is ours. An odd thing we found is that Australian rental houses don’t come with them. Apparently, Aussies take their fridges with them wherever they go (okay, maybe not to the beach… but everywhere else).

This is where we cook.  Yes, the house came with a stove (and a dishwasher, thankfully!), but that would require us having pots and pans. Dan can do pretty much anything on one of these anyway.

This is part of the rest of the house. It is a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom house, with a huge dining room, and 2 separate living rooms.  We are living in the kitchen and the master bedroom. Living space is about 1800 square feet; that doesn’t include the bathrooms, the hallways, the closets (some are huge!), and the laundry room (we had to buy a washer/dryer too). Even when our furniture gets here it will be a bit bare.

This is what we drive. It is a 2009 Kia Cerato. It was a dealer demonstrator, so though 2 years old it only has 3200 km on it and we got it at a good price. Sorry M., we know you recommended against a Korean car but these have not bad reviews and because we have no credit rating here, it is what we could get for cash.  It rides fine, has a good radio, and will do until we can afford a BMW.

This is Dan’s new toy. A Cannondale Quick 2. Lisa has one too…just has to pick it up from the shop. We plan on taking advantage of the Australian weather and riding a lot (until it gets too hot to go outside, of course).

And we’ve been busy buying basic household needs, small appliances, insurance, phone and internet, etc. And killing spiders. Dan has been forced to do most of the round-the-house stuff (not his comfort zone!) while Lisa works. Many of those adventures (how do you buy a car when you don’t live here?) will be the subject of future posts.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Cold, cold, cold

Posted on July 15, 2011 by waggadventure

Freezing, it was freezing in that hotel… Well, actually it wasn’t that bad at The Lawson, but bonus points for anyone who gets where the title came from. We’ll figure out what the points can be redeemed for eventually. It all has to do with that prize for the first international visitor (sorry M&H, you don’t qualify, but K&L in NZ, you do).

This heater was the sole source of heat in the hotel room. It put out a lot of heat, but central heating would have been more comfortable.

Waggans do think it is really cold here. We arrived mid-afternoon on the first Thursday of July, and it was about 10 Celsius.  In the week and a bit we have been here, it has maybe gotten down to -2 once (there was a thin layer of frost on car windscreen), and up to 12 or so. Sure, this might be cold by Riverina standards, but for Canadians coming from central Alberta…if this is all you have to throw at us, ha! Bring it on. We can take it.

It is the dead of winter in Australia. Comparatively, this would be January in the northern hemisphere, and Edmonton would be hellishly cold (could be anywhere between -10 and -40), and buried in a snow that the city council is too stupid to plow. Southern Ontario, where we spent the earlier part of our lives, would be damp, snowy, slushy, and generally unpleasant at anywhere from just above freezing to -10 or lower.

During a Canadian winter, a bird like this white-faced heron would have been frozen into this pond. This guy was completely mobile.

In Wagga, there is green grass in places, flowering shrubs are in bloom, and many of the deciduous trees still have their leaves. In Canada, if things weren’t buried under snow, they would be brown and bare. And there wouldn’t be numerous varieties of colourful birds around. Galahs and cockatiels, what Northern Hemisphere people think of as tropical birds, roam the city streets, and the ponds on the outskirts of town abound with ducks and herons. Comparatively, ducks and herons in an Edmonton winter would be frozen into the ice if they were bird-brained enough not to fly south.

The Waggan understanding of cold – or maybe our understanding of the climate in Wagga – is very much a part of how the people here live. It is a very different world, in terms of how people interact with the outdoors, and how they make a distinction between indoor and outdoor. Or, more often, don’t really make a distinction.

Many buildings in Wagga don’t have central heat. Our room in The Lawson is around 450 square feet including bathroom and kitchenette; it is heated by a single wall-mounted heater. Bathroom heat comes from spotlights. The halls aren’t heated at all – which shouldn’t be too much of a problem except that other tenants don’t seem to be able to read the big sign that says “PLEASE KEEP DOOR CLOSED”.  Many restaurants, such as Wagga Thai, which is just around the corner from The Lawson and very good, has no heat. The servers wear coats at work. Il Corso, a pretty good Italian place on the main street, is a bit more high class, so their servers have to dress better and therefore be colder. We saw diners at Brasserie3, another high-end place, wearing their coats. Many of the real estate offices that we visited while looking for a house had no heat. So yes, at times, we are cold. But think of Canadian fall or spring and you’ll get the idea.

We're not sure what these bushes outside The Lawson are. They seem to be some sort of peony/rose hybrid. Whatever they are, the fact that they are blooming at the coldest time of the year thrills us.

Our main criteria when looking for a house were ducted air conditioning and ducted heat…basically what Canadians would call central heat and central air. Or, more specifically, what we would call central air, as ‘central heat’ is so ubiquitous in Canada that we don’t even mention it anymore. This wasn’t really easy to find. One place we looked at had ‘gas bayonet points’ where you could hook up a natural gas heater in a couple of rooms. Other houses had wall mounted furnaces in the main living area, and that was it. Blanket sales must really skyrocket in this weather! Eventually we did find one that we think will keep us happy as the seasons change.

But beyond the daily human comfort aspect of the climate, there have been a few interactions that we have had that made sense when you relate them to the weather. First was the difficulty – well, it didn’t turn out to be that difficult, but unusual – of finding a rental that allowed indoor cats. Cats, it seems, are outdoor critters in Australia. Even people who let them in just do so on a part-time basis; fully indoor cats are an oddity. We don’t think that cats should be outdoors, as there are too many predators (animals, crazy people, cars) that can harm them, but in Wagga it is normal. And we realized after talking with a few people that maybe part of our bias toward indoor animals is the temperature: cats in Edmonton need heating vents to sit on.  But in this climate, even though your kitty may end up as roadkill, at least she won’t freeze to death.

After a cool, damp night, the morning sun burned off the dew on CSU campus and created a really great, eerie fog.

But the real wake-up about how Canadians and Australians interact differently with the environment came when Dan was looking for appliances (that’s a whole post of its own, coming soon!). He was discussing clothes dryers with a sales lady, and wondering about how you vent them to the outdoors. She gave him a silly grin and said “We don’t vent them, we just open the laundry door.”  Laundry rooms in Australian houses all have doors to the outside, which serve two purposes. The one we first noticed was that it makes it easy to carry your wet clothes to the clothes line, because all Wagga houses have one. But on those cool days, when your clothes might not air dry quickly, just throw them in the dryer and open the outside door to let out the steam. This couldn’t happen in Edmonton (or even Ontario) because the steam that the dryer generated would freeze into icicles all over the room.

Another oddity we saw was that on the morning last week when there was actually frost on the car, all the other folk at The Lawson just started their vehicles, turned on the defroster, and stood outside while the windscreen cleared. Pretty much the same as Edmonton, except there they start it remotely from a warm house. We, however, got moving quickly because Lisa was smart enough to pack a tiny ice scraper! These are not normal in Wagga, and Dan thought he could make a bit of money by cleaning peoples’ windows. Or, starting a scraper import business.

So, though we do have a bit of sympathy for Waggans who complain about the cold, we also don’t really feel that bad for you. There are, as Canadians know, simple and efficient ways to heat a house. And you can just dress for the weather. We are wearing leather jackets that we would wear in Edmonton in the spring and autumn (and maybe cool summer evenings), thin gloves, and Lisa has a light scarf. Many Waggans, on the other hand, are wearing sweaters, mini skirts, shorts, and flip flops and complaining that they are cold. NO SHIT…it’s winter, put on some damn clothes!

The fog on campus made it hard to spot the kangaroos, but they were there having breakfast. Sorry the first 'roo photo is so bad, but we just couldn't wait to post a better one.

Posted in Australia, birds, Canada, cats, cold, cultural differences, Edmonton, Owen Sound, wagga, weather, wildlife, winter | 10 Comments

How to speak Australian, part 2

Posted on July 13, 2011 by waggadventure

How you going? The first time we heard that, we stood there with blank looks on our faces. Was the correct answer “Walking” because that was how we were going… But no, the correct answer is “Fine, how you going?” because “How you going?” is the standard Wagga greeting (and maybe other parts of Australia), sort of a hybrid of “How’s it going?” and “How are you doing?”. This is just another one of those words and phrases we have to get used to; here are some more.

No worries. This isn’t just an Australian term, but we think it originated here. It is basically a “You’re welcome” sentiment, similar to the common Canadian phrase “No problem”, but probably also has some grounding in Aussies being the happiest people in the world (don’t worry, be happy). Whenever the uber-perky clerk at The Lawson does something for us, and we thank her, she usually responds with “Too easy”. We think this is either an evolution of “No worries”, or she is telling us she wants us to challenge her with a harder task.

This is a pint of Thirsty Crow's award winning vanilla milk stout. It is REALLY good.

Schooner: Not all of Australia is beach and surf. Wagga is inland, so there are no large boats here. But we do have schooners. A schooner is a traditional measurement of beer in NSW: a 15 oz glass. A smaller glass is a middy (10 oz), while a pint is 20 oz. Thirsty Crow sells its beers in middys, schooners and pints. A schooner is probably a good size for the heavier porter or vanilla milk stout, but on a hot day nothing can beat a pint of their hefeweizen, a spectacular wheat beer infused with Chai tea that has an interesting banana-like flavour. Our membership at Thirsty Crow gets us a discount on pints on Monday nights, but not schooners.

Firie/bikie/postie, etc: Aussies (hmmm, some pattern here?) have a tendency to alter people’s professions/lifestyles by shortening them and then adding “ie”.  So a firie is a firefighter. A bikie is a member of a motorcycle gang. A postal worker is a postie… You get the drift. These were recently in articles in the Wagga Daily Advertiser. We aren’t sure what other words might be treated this way, but anything can happen.

Canadians would say this is a photo of pumpkins, squashes and gourds. In Australia, they are all pumpkins.

Pumpkin: Canadians think of pumpkins at those things that we carve on Hallowe’en and make into pies in the autumn. In Australia, pumpkin is a staple food, eaten all year around. However, we have yet to see any of the big orange ones that we call pumpkins. Here, what Canadians call squash are pumpkins, so there is, for example, butternut pumpkin.

Rego: Pronounced rej-0, not reeg-o. Another one of those condense and add a vowel things (see firie above). They probably do it with other words but this is one that we are encountering. Rego is car registration, known as licensing in Canada. Here, a car is registered (regoed?) for life and the rego passes from owner to owner with the same plates, unlike the Canadian system where you register/license your car, get your number plates and when you sell it you keep your plates and new owner does it themselves. The other big difference is the cost: in Alberta,  it was about $85 annually, but in NSW it varies depending on the car and we will probably pay about $500 for a compact car.

Tucker: food. Not sure how much this one is used, but it is used a bit. The morning djs on the local radio station were discussing a ‘Murrumbidgee Master Chef’ competition (to coincide with the hugely popular Master Chef television show), and saying how great it was because they would be judges and get to eat the food. “That’s some good tucker” was how one of them put it. People in the outback carry food in a tucker bag, or maybe a billy (extra points to those of you who can define this one in the comments section!).

Opportunity shop: Just before we left Canada, there were job fairs in Alberta recruiting energy workers to Australia. The economy here is doing quite well, and many might consider it the land of opportunity. When we saw our first “Opportunity Shop” sign, Dan (idiot) thought it was a place where he could just go and get a great job. But no, it is the equivalent of Goodwill or the Salvation Army shops in Canada. Supposedly, the biggest one is called Vinnies. In keeping with the …ie thing, people started calling the St. Vincent de Paul shops Vinnies, and it took so well that they actually formally adopted the name. There isn’t a Vinnies in Wagga that we have seen, but there are ones for the local hospital, churches, etc. We are actually going to shop there a bit; it is a perfect way for us to buy a few dishes, flatware, maybe some pots, to get us through to when our container arrives. We figure we can spend about $20 on kitchen and dining necessities, then just give the stuff back in a month or so when we don’t need it.

So, we are getting used to the language. It isn’t really that hard, just takes a bit of quick thinking to figure out how the Aussies have converted the Queen’s English into their own version. Some terms are British, not used in North America, but we are used to those from travel and also having friends from there. So calling red, yellow and green peppers ‘capsicum’ is easy to understand. And knowing what chuffed means…

But, there is one term that we have heard a couple of times that is almost completely incomprehensible to us. Maybe some day, we will understand it, but for now we just let our eyes glaze over whenever we hear the phrase “yes, you can grow citrus in your back yard.” That’s not a sentence we’ve ever heard before, but we think we will like getting to know what it means!

Search terms of the week: crazy bugs in Alberta, Mr Rogers kicks, container number images.  Ok, so the last one isn’t that interesting, but who is looking for something like that?

Posted in Australia, beer, Canada, cultural differences, food, language, small town culture, wagga | 10 Comments

Pay as you go

Posted on July 9, 2011 by waggadventure

And we’re here!  After about 19 hours in the air, and about 6 more waiting in airports, we arrived in Wagga on the afternoon of July 7 and checked in to The Lawson Motor Inn, where we are staying for 10 days courtesy of Lisa’s employer. When we checked in to The Lawson, the extremely perky desk clerk asked us “what’s your home address?” We just look at one another, laugh, and say “This is it!”

Because we were upgraded to business class on the flight, in these individual pods with 'lay-flat' seats, we arrived in Wagga rested and ready to start checking items off the to-do list.

After quick showers, we headed out to start knocking a few items off the to-do list.

The first item on the agenda was to go to Commonwealth Bank. We opened an account a few weeks ago (while still in Canada – gotta love the Aussies and their love of online everything!), and deposited some money by wire transfer. But, before we could actually access the account, we had to show up in person and present our passports, visas, etc. We then ordered ATM cards, and applied for a credit card. These cards will be mailed to Lisa’s office, as we don’t have a permanent address yet.

Next stop was a mobile phone shop to get phones. We figured it would be pretty difficult to do anything without being able to call or be called, so this was a top priority. We also wanted a task that wasn’t too challenging, since we were still a bit tired and sluggish from the long journey. Ha! This proved to be a challenge in itself, given that all the things mentioned in the previous paragraph – i.e., ATM cards, credit cards, address – are required to do almost any financial transaction in Australia (except open a bank account).

The Australian government has a 100 points of identification policy to do many things. Different pieces of ID are worth different points: passports are worth the most, drivers licenses are good, credit cards are good, then things like telephone bills and other ‘official’ documents with a name and address are also useful. To do most things, you need to add up to 100 points with a variety of pieces from each category. So a passport, a license, a credit card….present those three things and it should be good, according to the government website. All great in theory, but in practice it isn’t that easy.

For example, the government says a passport is worth 70 points, but most places we have been (such as the mobile store) say this is worth only 30. And the government says non-Australian documents are fine for new arrivals, but the standardized systems of big companies can’t figure out how to handle them, so our Canadian credit cards are worth 0 in reality. And our Alberta drivers licenses aren’t really worth much, especially since they have an address that is obviously not current (or local).

The passport is valid, but the Aussies find the rest of Dan's identity useless. At least he can still get money with the cards, and test drive a car wiith the license.

So despite being able to get a bank account (shouldn’t financial crime such as fraud and money laundering be what this system is trying to prevent?), getting telephones turned out to be a serious challenge.  Our credit cards did nothing for us, and Dan’s birth certificate was pretty ratty, so the guy in the store wouldn’t take it. Lisa had her birth certificate, and our marriage certificate, and her passport. Those will add up to 100 on the government scale even though the company’s requirements seemed a bit different, and eventually they decided we could have phones (of course, it may have helped that the manager’s mother had the same problem when she moved here from North America; we’re all for playing the sympathy card at this point!). We decide on new iPhones, figure out the packages we want, and the guy starts processing it.

FULL STOP.

Despite having more liquid assets than ever before in our lives (split between a Canadian bank and an Australian bank) and a stellar credit rating in Canada, we have no credit history here. So, we couldn’t sign up for mobile plans!  In the end, we bought the phones outright and went on pay as you go (our Canadian credit cards still love us, so we’ll continue to gather Aeroplan points for trips home; looks like there is a bright side!). In a few months, when we have an Australian banking history, we will be able to go on a monthly plan if we want.

Lisa was reluctant to switch to this iPhone4. However, she decided it was easier than listening to Dan continually telling her how much better his iPhone was than her Blackberry.

We have to say, however, that the guy helping us in the mobile store was extremely helpful. He did everything he could to facilitate this transaction, trying every possible workaround to get us connected.  We couldn’t help but compare this to our experiences with mobile phone shops in Edmonton, where the staff pretty much hang around, texting friends, and have absolutely no idea what customer service is. They probably would have shrugged and mumbled “nothing we can do, eh…”

The next day, we started to tackle the next, and biggest, item on the to-do list: finding a place to live.

Because we have no credit history, we have to rent for a few months until we can get a mortgage. Rental properties are managed through real estate companies here, and we have been scouting these out on the web for the past little while. We went to several agents, saw a few places, made appointments for a few more, and ended up putting in an application for one of the houses we liked. This, again, required coming up with ID (again, their criteria didn’t quite match the numbers on the government’s official list but what we presented seemed to be sufficient), and presenting reference letters from our bank in Canada, Canadian utility companies saying we always pay our bills, copies of our credit reports saying we are good financial citizens, etc. Luckily, Lisa planned ahead for all of this, securing letters from anyone and everyone we’ve dealt with in the past decade. Still, filling in the rental application was a bit of a challenge in places, such as calculating our financial status. They want to know how much we make and how much we spend.  Well, Lisa makes a lot of money, Dan makes none. And we have no idea what we will be spending because we don’t know what things cost.  In theory, this system is a good one, as it  means that people don’t end up in houses they can’t afford. But again, in practice, it doesn’t account for anyone outside of the norm, which we very much are right now.  So, paperwork filed, and we wait…

Fortunately we sold our house and have some cash on hand, because we like bananas. Don't worry about us though, other fruit (kiwi, apples, oranges, wine, guava) is quite abundant and inexpensive.

Saturday, we went to look at cars. We did a test drive, and talked to a salesman a bit, but the whole issue of credit and identification never really arose. He did see Dan’s license, and didn’t seem concerned that someone with a Canadian license was going to buy a car.  In fact, he’d been to Banff (!); he hadn’t made it to Edmonton on that trip, but he knew all about the “really big mall”.

We’re sure that this will all get a lot easier in the near future, as long as we get the house.  As soon as we get an address, we can get new licenses. We will have ATM cards and credit cards. We will be real people, who can get credit, and do things like normal people. Until then, we live in a hotel, drive a rented car, and pay as we go.

Posted in Australia, Canada, cultural differences, money, passports, travel, Visa | 4 Comments

Herding cats, part 3

Posted on July 5, 2011 by waggadventure

We know by reading the waggadventure stats that posts about our three kitties are popular. So, here is another one… documenting some of our most serious “Oh fuck” moments of the days leading up to “airport day”.

This is just some of the paperwork required to take the cats to Wagga. Importing children would have been a lot easier (though much less pleasant overall).

In the few days prior to the UK trip (you know…when the house was packed, loaded and sold within just a few hours of our flight), Lisa was doing a great deal of last-minute prep work to get the cats ready for their trip to quarantine. One of the small details that niggled at the back of her mind was what AQIS calls “Certificate A”. Details about this certificate were sketchy; it seemed ultra-important, yet the (11-page!) information sheet didn’t include this as an appendix or provide many other details. This is a great time to have uber-librarian skills, of course! After a bit of digging she finally found a note on the AQIS website noting that Certificate A was located in the official import document — i.e., the formal approval to import your “quarantine material” into Australia. Of course, each cat has a separate import permit, totaling some 30+ pages of documentation. Did we read it thoroughly at the time we received it? Hell no… we were just getting ready for our trip to Ontario, so Lisa simply marked that as “done” on her lengthy to-do list and moved on.

Well… one should never underestimate the power of bureaucracy! As it turns out, Certificate A involves the following steps for each cat: final check by vet; deworming pill; spray-down for ticks; lots of signatures, dates and details re: vaccinations, etc. All of these must be done within 4 DAYS (!) of export. Now, this is where things get tricky! You may recall, from our last post, that we recently celebrated Canada Day – i.e., July 1st – i.e., exactly 4 days from the export day of July 5th. Being a holiday, vet offices are closed; they are also closed on July 2nd and July 3rd was a holiday. Crap! We had to book the kitties for this lovely battery of checks, rechecks and treatments for the morning of July 4th – the same day they were scheduled to fly to Vancouver!

We're not sure why we had to put Live Animal stickers on this carrier. It is pretty obvious from the way he yells all the time that Lester is very much alive.

Whew – totally dodged a bullet there, we think… but there was more fun to come. On the day the kitties were going to camp for their final visit while we were in the UK, Dan was assembling the big travel crates. He is, as we have pointed out before, an idiot. He can’t read instructions. The instructions say the door hinges are to go into specific holes. Dan looks at the diagram, but not closely, and tries to fit them into another set of holes that are there for the locks. Lots of swearing ensues. Suddenly, he yells – in completely panic mode – “We’ve got a really serious problem here!” Lisa comes running (cats scatter) as Dan jumps up and down and runs around yelling “The doors don’t fit! They’re the wrong size! (expletives removed to protect innocent eyes)”. Lisa, after a brief moment of panic (already pulling up the company name/phone number in the back of her head), remembers that a) Dan’s an idiot and b) Dan can’t read instructions; she inspects things more closely. Aha – just the wrong holes for the door, in fact. Everything works perfectly! Thank you, Dan, for demonstrating that Lisa’s heart is strong; it can take the impact of sudden panic and direct the brain to the state of calm, cool togetherness that this entire process demands.

So, yesterday (July 4th) was the kitties big vet/airport day for the first leg of their journey; we spent most of the morning getting our babies shipped off. We decorated the kennels with “Live Animal” stickers, taped a blanket (smells like home… well, what used to be our home) and some food to the outside of each crate. All of this we did at Calico Hills Kitty Lodge where their surrogate (camp) mom was very sad to see them go! Lester, in particular, is legendary at camp, so all of the employees came to say their last goodbyes (while Lester pawed at Lisa’s leg, hoping to get out of the crate for one last belly rub).

The owner of Calico Hills made these pawprints of our kitties for us. Thanks so much for loving our babies so much - we are going to miss you.

We were told that camp “will never be the same!” without our kitties; we are probably the most regular clients, since we travel so much. We will never be able to replace Calico Hills, but we hope to find something nearly as good as this in Wagga, since we do plan to travel a lot around Australia (and beyond!).

The equivalent of the airport full body scan for kitties. Malachi gets his pre-flight checkup.

The first leg of the journey that we weren't involved in. Lester and Ellie got to ride in the back.

We then transported the cats from Calico Hills (their home away from home) to Whitemud Creek Vet Clinic where they had their final checks and treatments. Then they were picked up by Sandy’s Waggin’ Wheels (isn’t that a great name for a pet taxi service!?) to go to the airport. Lisa looks out the window of the vet and thinks “Oh, an SUV; I think that will be big enough for the kitties 3 crates.”

These dogs in the background are lucky that Malachi was locked in. The vet even has a note on his file that he is big and muscular (feminist figure cat?).

Well, yes… but it was a tight squeeze, what with the 3 large dogs that were sharing the front and back seat of the thing, without any crates, leashes or other controls. They were climbing over the seats, tongues lolling out of their mouths, anxious to meet (eat!) our cats. “No problem… (says, Sandy)… they’re used to cats.” Of course, our kitties are not used to dogs. Even camp is a cats-only facility. Ellie and Lester were loaded into the (dog-free) back of the vehicle, while poor Malachi had to share with 2 of the dogs in the back seat.

So, off they went to Edmonton International Airport and then to Vancouver. As we write this post they are resting comfortably in the boarding facility provided by Worldwide Animal Travel (WWAT – our removal company). Today, they will have a chance to rest up for their final flight, the midnight trek (15+ hours!) to Sydney. We’re on the same flight, arriving early morning on July 7th. According to our contact at WWAT the kitties will benefit from our psychic energy as we travel the globe together. So, if you’re reading this, please send your own positive thoughts to the kitties as they embark on their big adventure.

New blog feature: In the metablog post, we mentioned the Google search terms that were finding our blog. Some of these are pretty hilarious, and we really wonder a) why did they hit our blog, b) what page did they get to, and c) what were they looking for?  So each week we will post 3 of our favourites; please leave a comment to vote on which is best.

Search terms of the week:

  • Latin sweat pants
  • marmots in hats
  • kangaroo and beaver pub crawl
Posted in Australia, Canada, cats, Moving, quarantine, travel | 2 Comments

Oh Canada…

Posted on July 1, 2011 by waggadventure

People have said that when they leave a climate that has four distinct seasons (like much of Canada), they miss it. And seldom do you hear of people leaving that type of climate for one that is all snow – most would go to a more temperate climate. Sure, technically every place has winter, but many places don’t get really cold and snowy. This includes Wagga, where winter days start with cool to cold mornings rising to low to mid teens (Celsius) during the day.  After living in Edmonton, we don’t think we will miss Canadian winter.

We saw some beautiful fall colours while driving in Ontario last autumn. Unfortunately, this horse got in the way.

There are a lot of Canadian things we will miss though, and as we celebrate our last Canada Day in Canada (this is being posted on July 1…not sure when you are reading it), at least for the foreseeable future, it is time to reflect on some of our favourite Canadian things (not including family and friends, of course…).

Maple trees. The maple leaf is the iconic Canadian symbol, and maple syrup is the iconic Canadian food (well, that and Tim Hortons’ donuts).  But many people don’t realize that maple trees aren’t found in much of Canada. We grew up with them in Ontario, and when we moved to Alberta we realized that was one of the things we missed.  The gorgeous colours of the leaves as they turn red and gold in the fall is something that we love to see on our annual trip home at Thanksgiving. Edmonton trees turn yellow. For 2 or 3 days. It isn’t the same.

This photo was taken on Tarcutta Street in Wagga. The purple tree is a jacaranda, and the one in front with yellow flowers is a banksia. These are pretty, but can you make syrup from them?

We know very little about Australian trees, but we don’t think there are maples. There are huge fig trees – there is one in the Sydney Botanical Gardens that most of the population of Pike Bay could live under.

And there are jacaranda trees, huge and purple, that are stunning. These will have to replace the maple colours for us.

Ice hockey. Lisa became a big fan during the Memorial Cup; she and her dad watched the  Owen Sound Attack games together… But that’s about it for our interest in hockey, or really any sport. Oh yes, Lisa has also been known to watch the Superbowl and CFL finals; but that’s it! Seriously! So, we won’t miss it much. We’ve been warned that we should learn about cricket when we get to Australia. Seems a bit boring though, kind of like baseball but with less action (is that possible?!). If we want to watch any sport, it might be rugby, or more likely Rules – what Canadians call Aussie Rules Football, but for Australians that would be like the Scots calling whisky Scotch. Charles Sturt University has a Rules team, called the Bushpigs. Rules looks kind of like rugby with a bit of MMA (mixed martial arts) thrown in, just for fun. Definitely worthy of its own post in the future, with lots of photos.

Canada geese.The loud honking of the geese is a common sound over Edmonton during spring and fall migration. And their shit is everywhere in parks all across the country! We’ve become very good at avoiding their green algae-like poop at Jasper Park Lodge.

We like geese, despite the fact that this one tried to kill Dan recently.

We also really like seeing the multitude of varieties of ducks in Canada; there are something like one billion different kinds of ducks in Alberta. We don’t know if Australia has geese or ducks. There are kookaburras, parrots, ibises (ibi?), and probably some other birds (are ostriches and emu really birds?…they don’t fly).

Bears. Love them, from a distance. Grizzlies are our favourites, but they are hard to find. Black bears are also pretty cool. Both of these are found in the Rocky Mountains. Ontario has brown bears. Dan used to see them around Pike Bay occasionally. The Latin word for this type of bear is Ursa. We don’t know if Australia has Ursa, but they have koalas. They are cute, but smell like ass (apparently; we’ve yet to experience this ourselves).

Beers. There’s some exceptionally good beer in Canada. Steamwhistle and Mill Street, both made in Toronto, are very good. There are some good stouts made in Ontario too, such as the 10W40 from Neustadt, just outside of Owen Sound. There are great beers made in Quebec, such as Dieu du Ciel. There’s OK beer made in Alberta, but nothing really spectacular. There’s also a lot of horrible beers in Canada, such as the iconic Molson Canadian and Labatt’s Blue.  We will possibly be able to find those last two in Australia, but the micro-brews that we like to sample will be something we will enjoy when we visit Canada.

Beer in Canada is good, Australia we're not sure about. However, the UK is the place to be for beer and ale. This was a typical line of taps in a pub; many had more, and lots even had their own exclusive cask ales. Yummy!

We don’t know a lot about Australian beer. The big ones are probably Fosters, Tooheys, Victoria Bitter and Coopers. They are comparable to Canadian and Blue. There are, supposedly, some good micro-brews though. When we visited Wagga last year, we didn’t see any local beer but since we were there the first micro-brewery opened. Thirsty Crow just won a huge competition too. We are really looking forward to trying their beer, and the restaurant menu looks pretty interesting too. Watch for a full post on this place!

Snow. We kind of addressed that right off the start. It doesn’t get much more Canadian! We won’t miss it. Well… we’re sure to miss the romantic notion of snow (softly falling outside the window while we sit by the fire); but we will not miss the horrible ruts in the roads (Edmonton could not figure out how to plow the white stuff) or the -40 temperatures. There are parts of Australia that get a bit of snow occasionally, so if we get nostalgic we can hunt it out, see the 2 cm of horrible white stuff, and get the hell back to warmth.

Posted in Australia, beer, Canada, cultural differences, food, mountains, sports, wagga, weather, wildlife | 2 Comments

It’s all relevant

Posted on June 28, 2011 by waggadventure

The purpose of this blog is to talk about moving to Australia, not just ramble on about our daily lives.  So if we are going to post about our UK trip, it needs to have some relevance.  This is actually much easier than we thought it would be.

Most important, Lisa is here for work. These are the first conferences she been at since announcing she was leaving UofA, and is seeing a lot of people who are asking questions about the new position. She is also getting the opportunity to meet with some of her new Australian colleagues at these conferences. But that is an aspect of the trip that was predictable. The more interesting stuff is the unexpected and inconsequential.

This Volkswagen Passat was our very comfortable transportation for over 100o miles throughout the English and Scottish countryside.

One thing we have learned is that Dan can actually drive a manual transmission on the left-hand side of the road. We have been trying to figure out what kind of car to get in Wagga. For the past 16 or 17 years, we have driven Toyotas with manual transmissions. We like driving a stick – it is fun, it gives you control. But the spectre of driving on the left and shifting gears with his left hand, has been a bit scary. Dan has driven on the left on two previous trips: a 10 day visit to Scotland and a few days in Wagga.

Roads in the UK are generally in good condition, just a bit narrow and twisty. The roads in Wagga are more normal.

Both times, the rental car was an automatic and, except for the occasional episode of turning into the wrong lane and one munted tire (from getting too far over the edge of a Scottish road), it went well. The roundabouts are a bit nerve-wracking, but doable. This time, however, we added the manual transmission into the mix. It has been going very well, despite the car being as wide as the road in a few places! So, he is now leaning toward a standard; Lisa, however, isn’t sure and wants to drive a bit in Wagga before making the final decision. And, being the one with an income, it is her decision.

If you ever end up in the correct Stavely in Cumbria, go sample the fare at The Hawkshead Brewery's Tap Room. Food was very good, and the Three Hop Ale and the Red Bitter were both wonderful.

An interesting part of this trip is how many people we meet with connections to Canada or Australia. As we chat with our hosts at the bed and breakfasts, publicans, barmaids, and tourist info people, it seems that everyone in England has been to either Canada or Australia, or has siblings in one or both of those countries.  Examples: George, our host at  Burswood Guest House in York lives part time in Perth; we met a publican in Salisbury who was from Brisbane and visited Wagga frequently; we met a barmaid at the Hawkshead Brewery in Staveley (note: if anyone reading this gets inspired to go to the Hawkshead for a pint  – and you really should, just to try the Five Hop Ale – make sure you go to Staveley near Kendal, not Staveley-in-Cartmel or Nether Staveley or any other Staveley…don’t believe your gps, which sends you on a pheasant-chase down scenic but narrow cart paths) had lived in Ontario and worked at Western.  And they all absolutely love both countries.  What this has affirmed for us is that we made a great decision. We like Canada, and we also really like Scotland and northern England. And it seems, from our experiences and discussions, that what we like about these places – the people, the attitudes, the culture, and the scenery – will make us like Wagga too.

Just a few of the sheep we encountered in the UK.

And then there’s the sheep. Wagga’s sheep population is probably about 1000000 times that of its human population. We don’t see a lot of sheep in Edmonton, but the green hillsides of Cumbria, the Scottish highlands, and the English midlands, are polka-dotted with woolly white critters. We went hiking near Ambleside, walking through the fells (paddocks in Australia, fields in Canada) dodging sheep shit.  They’re pretty cute, and not at all dangerous, so we think we can live among them.

Pie. Ummm, pie…. We’ve mentioned before the British influence on Australia and Canada in terms of politics, but it is also there in food, for better and for worse. The worse end: boiling vegetables until they are mush. The better: pie.  This isn’t as big in Canada; yes we eat meat pies but it is more often a sweet item for dessert. But in the UK and Australia, savoury pie is a common main course.  One of Dan’s quests for this trip was to eat as many pies as possible, and Lisa is happy to indulge in the occasional one, and so far there have been steak and ale, steak and kidney, chicken, chicken and mushroom, lamb shank, Melton Mowbray pork, broccoli and stilton, and a Cornish pasty.

We have been sampling pie in many pubs on this trip. We couldn't bring ourselves to go into this one in Stirling, however.

In the UK, you can get good pie in most of the pubs, and we’ve been to move than a few. Australians understand the concept of meaty pastries to the point that the only food service in the Wagga airport is a Mick’s Pies franchise.

But the most important part of this trip, and the most relevant to the move, is the mental aspect. The past few months have been crazy. Really crazy! But our belongings are in transit and beyond answering the odd email, there is nothing we can really do. It might seem that taking a vacation at this point in our lives is pretty odd, but it was planned long before the move was, and there are a variety of reasons that it couldn’t be cancelled: some flights were booked on Aeroplan points and hard to reschedule; some of lodging was booked early with non-refundable deposits; Lisa had to go to the conferences. So it makes sense to just come, rather than beg and whine about refunds, etc. And it gives our stuff a head-start across the ocean.

Holbeck Ghyll, near Ambleside in England's Lake District, is a spectacular place and hard to get in to. We didn't want to lose our deposit...

The only real downside is the cats. They have to be at camp for about a whole month, then shipped off to quarantine. So except for a day where we shuttle them from Calico Hills to the vet, have them poked, prodded and de-bugged, then take them back to camp for pick-up but World Wide Pet Travel, we will be separated for 8 weeks. We’ve been told that our cats, because they go to boarding frequently, will be OK with this…not sure about us though.

Posted in agriculture, Australia, beer, Canada, cats, cultural differences, food, mountains, Moving, pie, quarantine, travel | Leave a comment

Meta Blog

Posted on June 18, 2011 by waggadventure

Did you know that WordPress lets you write a blog entry and then schedule it to publish later? That is what we did with this one. We are somewhere in the UK, having too much fun to blog.  So it is really just filler. But don’t let that turn you off – there is a lot of really great information in it, and probably a couple of good laughs. (And WK, we kept it under 900 words just for you; we know you have a hard time focusing on one thing for more than a few minutes – haha; oops, now at 911… I mean 915… crap!).

What gives us most pleasure from the blog?

For Lisa it is knowing that people hear about what we are doing. She likes to keep in touch with people. For Dan it is knowing that random people see pictures of feet with extra toes. See below…not for the toe pictures, because if you are reading this, you have probably already seen them, but an explanation of Dan’s glee.

What is the worst part of blogging?

For Dan it is having people read details of his life; he’s a bit more private than Lisa. He was, for example, a late joiner of Facebook and still has a hidden profile. For Lisa, it is knowing that some poor people inadvertently saw that photo of the Rocky Mountain House feet. Things that have been seen can never be unseen.

Do we know who is reading the blog?

You. Whoever you are. Many are family, friends, colleagues.  An average post gets 25-45 hits….hard to really know because WordPress gets a lot of wacky paid redirects, probably people actually looking for porn… But we can tell from the site stats that many readers come from Facebook. But then there are ones who inadvertently find it from Google. Some searches that have sent people to various pages are:

forestfires fortmac
what language is spoken in Wagga Wagga
was Barry Humphries born in Wagga Wagga
speak Australian
mountains Alberta
slow food advantage
lisa dan waga
lisa given wagga wagga
lisa given charles sturt

We assume that the last 3 were actually people looking for the blog, not just random hits. Dan gets great pleasure in knowing that that the ‘forestfires fortmac’ and the ‘mountains Alberta’ hits would have taken some poor web-surfer directly to a screen that showed way too many toes for one normal person.

The search term we find most odd is ‘waggaadventure’. It has come up a couple of times. We hope that it is someone who knows what they are looking for, but just Google it anyway, in the same way that people Google ‘Google’ and ‘Facebook’.

Recently though, we got hits from  “common spiders in Ontario” (1 hit) and “black house spiders Ontario” (2 hits!). We’re not sure what that is about; is there some sort of spider infestation in Ontario right now, something like the mouse takeover of the Riverina? And we’re curious to know what page those people got sent to.

Many people have asked who writes it. And many have also commented that they like certain parts obviously written by Dan, and other parts obviously written by Lisa (many love that she called him an asshole on the web!). So, who writes it?

We don’t actually remember; or, if we do… we won’t tell you. The binge and purge post only hinted at the amount of wine and whisky we had to drink, and it seems that each post coincides with a day when we decide to get rid of an extraordinary amount of booze. We do know that both herding cats posts were written by Ellie, but we’re not sure if she wrote others or not. Final vetting is done by Lisa before hitting the Publish button…it’s her name on the visa, after all. Maybe when we get to Wagga, one of us will try to learn Html to do a fancy two column version, so Dan can write one side and Lisa the other, sort of a “he said, she corrected” format.

What do the titles mean? And the category headings? Some of them don’t make sense.

Usually variations on common phrases, or pop culture references, some that make sense to a variety of people, some that only we get (Lisa edit: some only Dan gets, and I want to change but he whines too much). Herding cats, for instance, refers to a Superbowl commercial from a few years ago. Binge and purge… no, not about anorexia, but WK, KM, people who work with Dan will get it. The Alberta Advantage posts are from a provincial marketing slogan; there’s an Alberta disadvantage one in draft stage… There are some other obscure references: See ya later, buenos noches, good bye is a line from the Cheap Trick song Auf Wiedersehen.  Among my souvenirs is an old country song (Lisa edit: obviously Dan titled both of those). The categories assigned to each post are there to help people find them, and as many references to hairy panic as possible are needed (putting this in means we can use Hairy Panic as a category this time).  Ellie wants us to mention the cats in every post because she thinks she gets royalties. And the more obscure the categories, the better chance someone sees the multi-toed foot.

Who takes the photos? Some of them are good, but others are horrible.

Many of them we just steal off the web. Copyright is an outdated concept (Lisa edit: I abide by copyright rules; I take no responsibility for Dan’s illegal activities). Any photos of cats were probably taken by Lester. Dan has a Nikon D5000 with a remote, and a little Gorillapod tripod that puts the camera at cat level. Lester knows where Dan keeps these. We think the good photos were ones he composed and focused with his right eye; his left eye is a bit runny most days, so this results in some bad pics. We found a few of those to illustrate this post.

And sorry W…we’re now over words.

And sorry, we couldn’t think of any good photos for this post.

Posted in Australia, Canada, cats, hairy panic | 5 Comments