Random snippets.
May 8th 2005
We got a new camera in preparation for the trip, and I have been playing around with it, so expect more pictures! Rollie just wanted to say that he loves you.
Yesterday we made the trek in to the Passport Canada office in Whitby to get a passport for the potential Greece trip. I had never been to that office before, it’s right in the main mall, tucked around a corner. We got there at about 10, an hour after it opened and the place was packed. The line seemed to be moving fairly quickly, but a blonde woman behind us was grumbling goodnaturedly about how she was told that Saturdays were a ghost town and she thought it was going to take forever. Chris and I both brought books, so we had prepared for the worst.
I made it to the first station, where they do a rough check to see that everthing is in order and issue you a number. Chris and I went to the rows of chairs and sat down to wait. About 45 seconds later I was incredibly surprised to see that my number was flashing on the screen above one of the kiosk windows. So we went up there and the officer went through my application. I had to change one of my references (I am SO glad I took my address book with me), and she had a bit of trouble finding me in the system, apparently twins really screw up their system because she could find Weener’s passports but not mine. Then she asked if my last passport was under Kate, which I recalled it was, so crisis averted.
All told, we were out in about 10 minutes. As we left, I could see the quizzical stares from all the people in the seats. We passed the blonde lady on the way out, she was sitting in one of the chairs and by the look she gave me, she was desperately trying to figure out our secret. I smiled and nodded as we passed by her.
On Thursday, I went to IKEA with some colleagues, and I bought some height extenders for our BILLY bookcases. I was very excited to see that they have started to make the medium brown colour again, after briefly discontinuing it last year. So, that meant a complete reorganisation of all the bookshelves in order to take advantage of the extra space. It took me several hours, and half way through the process I had the couch loaded as a staging area for books. Rollie decided he wanted to come help.
