OK, so the Q3 quarterly update has been delayed by months. I’d like to say I’ve been too busy, but that would be a bit of a lie. So let’s conclude that it hasn’t been at the top of my priority list, and we’ll move on with the July – September update.
To recap the events at the end of Q2 2010, I had obtained a New Zealand work permit and was packing up the apartment to move back to Iroquois.
July – Tourism Canada
Canada Day
July started out with Canada Day at “The Point.” For those of you who have never been to Iroquois, Ontario, The Point is one of the five dam & lock systems that controls water levels in the St. Lawrence Seaway and makes sure that lovely towns like Clarington and Quinte West aren’t flooded out of existence. Bonus points for those of you who actually know where those cities are.
There’s a circular road with a big park in the middle, which overlooks the locks that guide shipping boats through the St Lawrence river. I like heading up there because the history of the Seaway is actually pretty cool – especially since they moved about a dozen towns to do it, which included building new basements for the town, putting the houses on flatbed trucks and moving them a few kilometres up the road.
On Canada Day, they launch fireworks off one of the little islands and you run into pretty well the entire town over the course of the day. In a town of 1200 residents, I think they sold out of 600 barbecue dinners – pretty big deal.
I stayed up there most of the day and ran into the usual mix of old friends, high school teachers and community member. Two things struck me about the day in particular:
1) Because I hadn’t really been home in 3 years, I kept running into people who I recognized but couldn’t put a name to. This seemed to be compounded by the fact that, in a town of 1200, a lot of are related to one another and it’s entirely likely that I had met the brother / sister / aunt and didn’t know who I was actually talking to. Occasionally awkward, but a bit of a fun memory test.
2) I saw a series of young couples pushing strollers around and with a toddler in tow. It was a bit of a reality check since I generally didn’t recognize the parents, which meant they likely weren’t in high school when I was 8 years ago. So doing the maths we’re looking at 21-year olds with two kids under 4. Which is a bit of a contrast to the four 30-ish accountants that I know who are working on baby number one.
The Wedding
I went to a wedding on the 2nd weekend in July with K2B. A review was posted earlier, and it was pretty much the greatest wedding of all time, including every movie I’ve ever seen.
Calgary Stampede
I’m not going to lie, I formed the intention of going to the Calgary Stampede in about February of this year, then timed my quitting date and expatriation to New Zealand accordingly. I went to Calgary in 2007 just before I started work in London, so it seemed like a nice bookend to my time in London to go to Stampede.
We spent one day at the rodeo and on the fairgrounds, and the rest of the time was split between a trip to Banff, a visit to family friends near Medicine Hat, a trip to the Calgary Zoo and a day of golf. Golf was particularly impressive, since I hit six greens and generally played like a pro despite not playing a full round since 2008. We’ll ignore the fact that about 50 of my 104 shots were putts.
The Stampede itself was a total riot. The city really knows what it’s doing, as they have little tourist information chuckwagons set up all over the downtown with volunteers providing maps and information. I’ve rarely seen as many people in such a small space as at the fairgrounds – Homecoming 2006 does come to mind.
The Shows
Stampede is really made up of three separate events – the rodeo in the afternoon, the chuckwagon races at about 7pm and the grandstand show at 10pm. All take place on the Stampede Corral grounds. A brief description of each is below:
• Rodeo – seven events take place, including bull riding, calf-roping, barrel racing, saddle bronc, bareback bronc, steer wrestling and, my personal favourite, the children’s "wild" pony-wrangling
• Chuckwagons – with the chuckwagon races, you generally see the four wagons being pulled by four horses racing each other. What you don’t see is the 12 other horse-and-riders (“outriders”) that are on the field at the same time.
To “simulate” life in the wild west, these riders have to throw a keg and two cooking poles into the back of the chuckwagons before mounting their own horses and racing around the track after the wagons. The outriders generally don’t have an effect on the results, but the wagons can be penalized seconds if stuff happens to the outriders. Because the outriders are contracted race by race, they’re often riding unfamiliar horses that can just refuse to move for them. So the first half of the wagon races is generally spent making sure that all of the outriders got out of the infield, then watching them try to catch up.
Ottawa Tours
There were two quick visits to Ottawa in July. The first was to see the Pop Art exhibit with Pammers at the National Gallery. My favourite display was “Unicorn in Formaldehyde”, which was just a dead white colt to which they’d added a gold horn and painted the hooves, then suspended the hot mess in Formaldehyde. I think they use the same process for Britney before her live shows. We closed the tour with dinner in the market district, and my standard visit to Parliament Hill (for some reason I always go now when I’m in town).
The next weekend I took Kyle to the National War Museum, which I’d been intending to visit since the new building opened in 1999. Sure, I was a decade late, but I certainly wasn’t disappointed. The museum is actually awesome. The architecture is one of the best parts, since there are huge windows throughout to give rather impressive views of the city, including parliament hill. The basic layout is Canada’s military history from the colony wars in the 1600’s through the war of 1812 and up to Turkey vs. Cyprus, which is has been an ongoing conflict since the 70’s that I totally wasn’t aware of. News fail. There’s also a giant tank room in the basement. My favourite bit was at the end with the exhibit on “Terror”, where they ask the question “What scares you?” and gave you the little refrigerator poetry bits to piece together your response. There were some sappy, drawn-out phrases, but I only needed three words to sum up my own response:
“GOVERNMENT” “WOMEN” “IN”
August – New Zealand
I left Canada on 30 July 2010, and was graciously driven to Toronto International airport by Andrea & Graeme. I think there’s a detailed report of the flights earlier on the blog, including my misplaced baggage and other fun tales. The most striking thing about the move was leaving Canada in the middle of summer and arriving in New Zealand in the middle of winter. The temperature went from about 38 degrees in Toronto to freezing in Dunedin – and kiwi houses generally don’t have insulation or central heating. Yep, I wore two pairs of socks for my first three weeks here, which is also why no one should visit in August. The plus side was that I arrived after the winter solstice, so the days were getting continuously longer. In South Island, we’re also pretty far West within our time zone (abbreviated NZST versus EST or PST), so even though we’re on about the same parallel as Ottawa / Iroquois, the sun rises and sets later than back home. Which is a Dustin win, because I still don’t like mornings.
Work and Housing
The first few weeks here were spent finding a flat (with all the fun auxiliary stuff like energy company, ISP, phone service, etc) and trying to find a job. By a stroke of luck and lots of hard work by my incredible head-hunter, the job situation only took a few days to sort itself out. Nine days in I had a start date of 30 August 2010, which I’d delayed for a few weeks to enjoy some more time off. My official title is “Senior Auditor”, which was the result of one of those “what do you want your job title to be?” conversations that people occasionally have.
I spend the rest of the month not working particularly hard and getting addicted to Home and Away, an Australian rival soap to Neighbours that’s on for half an hour a day. After a few weeks, I realized that they replay all 5 of the week’s episodes back-to-back on Sunday mornings, without commercials – so I managed to save myself 50 minutes of commercials per week by doing the Sunday at 10am routine.
NZ Sport
As far as I can tell, the big sports in New Zealand are Rugby Union, Rugby League, Netball, Cricket and Football (aka Soccer) in that order. Here’s the one-line breakdown of each:
Rugby Union: 30 really buff guys on a field with the goal of scoring touchdowns (tries) by alternately playing Red Rover and throwing lateral passes to teammates, so they can play Red Rover. If you get into trouble, you can kick the ball downfield.
Rugby League: same as above, but you only get 7 games of Red Rover before you have to turn the ball over on downs.
Netball (women only): like basketball, but contact = foul. When you’re shooting, the defender has to give you a free shot of the net and stand at least 3 feet away from you. It looks, and is, absolutely ridiculous.
Cricket: It’s like baseball, except it favours the batter instead of the pitcher. Batting .300 in baseball is awesome, but .300 in cricket means you’re terrible. A pitcher with an ERA of 20 is really, really good. Other than that, the game is two innings long with 9 outs per inning.
Football: This is the same everywhere, except the kiwis are not prone to falling down for no reason at all. New Zealand’s biggest national achievement in history was being the only undefeated team at the 2010 World Cup. They didn’t win, but they didn’t lose either, and that’s a mark of extreme pride for this small, but hilarious nation.
September
I didn’t do a whole lot in September other than get used to the new job. I started the job on 30 August 2010, excited and a bit scared, but ready to be back at work after two months off. Time off is good, but there’s only so much television on in the middle of the day.
My role is the same as it was at Big D, but the clients are much smaller and I generally don’t supervise junior staff. It’s also a big plus that, when I want something printed on firm letterhead, I walk down the hall and ask a PA instead of spending an hour emailing the request back and forth from Toronto, then getting a phone call because I didn’t tick the right box. No, I’m not bitter. Another bonus - our engagement letters and rep letters haven’t changed since 2005 because the NZ standards-setting body doesn’t justify its own existence by word-smithing the assurance standards details every year. Another Dustin win.
My first client was a Maori not-for-profit located out on the Otago peninsula. The client’s offices were at the end of a terrifying 34km drive. The speed limit is officially 70 for most of it, but I don’t see how anyone can comfortably go more than 60 – particularly since the consequences of missing a turn slightly are ploughing into either a cyclist, a bus, or Dunedin harbour. Needless to say, I played the “I can’t drive on the left” card and had the client take me there.
I rented a few different vehicles to get out and visit my other clients in the Dunedin area, including one seven-seater minivan – it was the only way to guarantee getting an automatic, so I just went for it. It also had a built-in Japanese GPS system, which was pretty neat.
In mid-September, I officially got my CA and had made the first application for residency as well.
Stars of the Quarter
#1 – Hilary D. After returning from maternity leave, she lasted a whopping 5 days at Big D before resigning to join a client. I can’t say I wasn’t expecting it, but the timing was absolutely perfect. Congrats, and best of luck!
#2 – Kirby. BK has been a little under-represented in The DD Experience of late, but his own overseas exploits and misadventures keep me wildly entertained. Pop on over to http://kirbycaymans.blogspot.com/ for a glimpse into how a move to the Cayman Islands works in real life.
#3 – K2B. Best Wedding Date ever, and I feel sort of bad for abandoning you.
To “simulate” life in the wild west, these riders have to throw a keg and two cooking poles into the back of the chuckwagons before mounting their own horses and racing around the track after the wagons. The outriders generally don’t have an effect on the results, but the wagons can be penalized seconds if stuff happens to the outriders. Because the outriders are contracted race by race, they’re often riding unfamiliar horses that can just refuse to move for them. So the first half of the wagon races is generally spent making sure that all of the outriders got out of the infield, then watching them try to catch up.
•
Grandstand show – like the halftime show at the Super Bowl, except with less nudity. It includes a weird mix of Cirque du Soleil type acts and Canada’s best show choirs. The headliner was Eva Avila, who I think was the last Canadian Idol, and she was pretty good. The Western Canada children’s dancers (I forget the actual name) of 6-12 year olds did a 10-minute dance medley of Michael Jackson songs, and it was also really good.
Grandstand show – like the halftime show at the Super Bowl, except with less nudity. It includes a weird mix of Cirque du Soleil type acts and Canada’s best show choirs. The headliner was Eva Avila, who I think was the last Canadian Idol, and she was pretty good. The Western Canada children’s dancers (I forget the actual name) of 6-12 year olds did a 10-minute dance medley of Michael Jackson songs, and it was also really good.
Ottawa Tours
There were two quick visits to Ottawa in July. The first was to see the Pop Art exhibit with Pammers at the National Gallery. My favourite display was “Unicorn in Formaldehyde”, which was just a dead white colt to which they’d added a gold horn and painted the hooves, then suspended the hot mess in Formaldehyde. I think they use the same process for Britney before her live shows. We closed the tour with dinner in the market district, and my standard visit to Parliament Hill (for some reason I always go now when I’m in town).
The next weekend I took Kyle to the National War Museum, which I’d been intending to visit since the new building opened in 1999. Sure, I was a decade late, but I certainly wasn’t disappointed. The museum is actually awesome. The architecture is one of the best parts, since there are huge windows throughout to give rather impressive views of the city, including parliament hill. The basic layout is Canada’s military history from the colony wars in the 1600’s through the war of 1812 and up to Turkey vs. Cyprus, which is has been an ongoing conflict since the 70’s that I totally wasn’t aware of. News fail. There’s also a giant tank room in the basement. My favourite bit was at the end with the exhibit on “Terror”, where they ask the question “What scares you?” and gave you the little refrigerator poetry bits to piece together your response. There were some sappy, drawn-out phrases, but I only needed three words to sum up my own response:
“GOVERNMENT” “WOMEN” “IN”
August – New Zealand
I left Canada on 30 July 2010, and was graciously driven to Toronto International airport by Andrea & Graeme. I think there’s a detailed report of the flights earlier on the blog, including my misplaced baggage and other fun tales. The most striking thing about the move was leaving Canada in the middle of summer and arriving in New Zealand in the middle of winter. The temperature went from about 38 degrees in Toronto to freezing in Dunedin – and kiwi houses generally don’t have insulation or central heating. Yep, I wore two pairs of socks for my first three weeks here, which is also why no one should visit in August. The plus side was that I arrived after the winter solstice, so the days were getting continuously longer. In South Island, we’re also pretty far West within our time zone (abbreviated NZST versus EST or PST), so even though we’re on about the same parallel as Ottawa / Iroquois, the sun rises and sets later than back home. Which is a Dustin win, because I still don’t like mornings.
Work and Housing
The first few weeks here were spent finding a flat (with all the fun auxiliary stuff like energy company, ISP, phone service, etc) and trying to find a job. By a stroke of luck and lots of hard work by my incredible head-hunter, the job situation only took a few days to sort itself out. Nine days in I had a start date of 30 August 2010, which I’d delayed for a few weeks to enjoy some more time off. My official title is “Senior Auditor”, which was the result of one of those “what do you want your job title to be?” conversations that people occasionally have.
I spend the rest of the month not working particularly hard and getting addicted to Home and Away, an Australian rival soap to Neighbours that’s on for half an hour a day. After a few weeks, I realized that they replay all 5 of the week’s episodes back-to-back on Sunday mornings, without commercials – so I managed to save myself 50 minutes of commercials per week by doing the Sunday at 10am routine.
NZ Sport
As far as I can tell, the big sports in New Zealand are Rugby Union, Rugby League, Netball, Cricket and Football (aka Soccer) in that order. Here’s the one-line breakdown of each:
Rugby Union: 30 really buff guys on a field with the goal of scoring touchdowns (tries) by alternately playing Red Rover and throwing lateral passes to teammates, so they can play Red Rover. If you get into trouble, you can kick the ball downfield.
Rugby League: same as above, but you only get 7 games of Red Rover before you have to turn the ball over on downs.
Netball (women only): like basketball, but contact = foul. When you’re shooting, the defender has to give you a free shot of the net and stand at least 3 feet away from you. It looks, and is, absolutely ridiculous.
Cricket: It’s like baseball, except it favours the batter instead of the pitcher. Batting .300 in baseball is awesome, but .300 in cricket means you’re terrible. A pitcher with an ERA of 20 is really, really good. Other than that, the game is two innings long with 9 outs per inning.
Football: This is the same everywhere, except the kiwis are not prone to falling down for no reason at all. New Zealand’s biggest national achievement in history was being the only undefeated team at the 2010 World Cup. They didn’t win, but they didn’t lose either, and that’s a mark of extreme pride for this small, but hilarious nation.
September
I didn’t do a whole lot in September other than get used to the new job. I started the job on 30 August 2010, excited and a bit scared, but ready to be back at work after two months off. Time off is good, but there’s only so much television on in the middle of the day.
My role is the same as it was at Big D, but the clients are much smaller and I generally don’t supervise junior staff. It’s also a big plus that, when I want something printed on firm letterhead, I walk down the hall and ask a PA instead of spending an hour emailing the request back and forth from Toronto, then getting a phone call because I didn’t tick the right box. No, I’m not bitter. Another bonus - our engagement letters and rep letters haven’t changed since 2005 because the NZ standards-setting body doesn’t justify its own existence by word-smithing the assurance standards details every year. Another Dustin win.
My first client was a Maori not-for-profit located out on the Otago peninsula. The client’s offices were at the end of a terrifying 34km drive. The speed limit is officially 70 for most of it, but I don’t see how anyone can comfortably go more than 60 – particularly since the consequences of missing a turn slightly are ploughing into either a cyclist, a bus, or Dunedin harbour. Needless to say, I played the “I can’t drive on the left” card and had the client take me there.
I rented a few different vehicles to get out and visit my other clients in the Dunedin area, including one seven-seater minivan – it was the only way to guarantee getting an automatic, so I just went for it. It also had a built-in Japanese GPS system, which was pretty neat.
In mid-September, I officially got my CA and had made the first application for residency as well.
Stars of the Quarter
#1 – Hilary D. After returning from maternity leave, she lasted a whopping 5 days at Big D before resigning to join a client. I can’t say I wasn’t expecting it, but the timing was absolutely perfect. Congrats, and best of luck!
#2 – Kirby. BK has been a little under-represented in The DD Experience of late, but his own overseas exploits and misadventures keep me wildly entertained. Pop on over to http://kirbycaymans.blogspot.com/ for a glimpse into how a move to the Cayman Islands works in real life.
#3 – K2B. Best Wedding Date ever, and I feel sort of bad for abandoning you.
