theducks.dreamwidth

Some of you may not have seen this on Facebook/twitter, but after much discussion and thinking about moving, etc, we bought a car - a 2005 Toyota Prius - in white.

We've done 400kms since thursday on it. The novelty of having a car is still new. It's got 4.9L/100KM (48mpg) so far, so my daily commute of 33.2km will use ~1.6L of fuel, which at current rates is $1.82 per day.. so 21 days work per month makes it $38.26 .. plus $70 for a parking pass... and.. wait for it.. $370/*month* for insurance and registration (to be reduced to ~$230 when I get some paperwork from SGIO).

Before I go on about the car.. let me rant about the insurance/rego some more. BC has this company called ICBC. It's government owned, but run as a corporation with an independent board of directors, so no ministerial oversight. Nice work if you can get it huh? They do all driver licensing, car registration and compulsory third-party insurance, and make ~$400 million profit per year. Yeah, thanks. Cost of doing business right?

Anyway, back to the car. It used to belong to Telus, which means I have a safe in the back of it (I guess they used it for laptops?) and a Telus branded first aid kit. It also had a lot of stone chips on the paintwork, a broken cargo net, and 143k KMs (89k miles) on the clock. All of this combined to make it the cheapest Prius I've seen for sale in Vancouver in the last 3 months - $9900.

So far we've added the obligatory Apple logo sticker, repaired the cargo net (with some nifty black plastic S-hooks), touched up the paint chips with some Toyota matching paint, and bought a new tail light assembly for it off eBay.

Why a new taillight assembly you may ask? Well, I misjudged the location of a pillar while reversing into our parking stall here at the apartment block. Ewps. Mister Sheen Magic Eraser got the blue paint off the bumper, though some scratches remain, and there's a small amount of panel damage that I'll probably need to get professionally fixed, but once we get the new taillight installed, it'll look good enough ;)

Anyway, back to how we've racked up 400KMs so far. I picked Elizabeth up from a write-in, saving her well over an hour of public transport, we went to North Vancouver and had delicious curry veggie pizza, we went to Finn Slough, went to Steveston, did some exploring of Richmond (found a street with almost every major religion/belief system of the area representing - Sikhism, Buddism, Christianity, Islam, Vedic..), and did our shopping.

I used to be quite a Singapore Airlines fanboy. But they’re not keeping up the cool. Firstly, a few months ago, they cut ALL of their flights to Vancouver, and now only fly codeshare via San Francisco. This is not what I want. Therefore, we’re flying with Air Canada.

Now I get an email saying this:

As a valued KrisFlyer member, I am writing to inform you that as a result of a commercial impasse with Flight Centre, Singapore Airlines airfares might not be available for purchase through Flight Centre retail outlets.

Singapore Airlines is still committed to giving our customers great value fares. Singapore Airlines has agreements in place with other major travel agents, and our flights can be booked as per normal through all other travel agency groups, or online at singaporeair.com.au

Whatever the reasons, it doesn’t mean I’ll change travel agents, it means I’m more likely to change airlines. The fact is that aside from Travel Centre (and their offshoots) and STA Travel, there aren’t any other major travel agency groups that cater to my market segment in Australia. And as for the fares on singaporeair.com.au, they are laughably expensive compared to prices on the same flight through travel agents.

So well done Dale, Singapore Airlines Passenger Marketing guy, I hope this standoff is going to be worth it.

 

Well, marathon effort, but everything got moved out on time, carpets, windows, bathrooms cleaned. New tenant happy. Also sat on 11 interviews at UWA and did a budget submission for a university unit. Talk about a week of burning the candle at both ends and then starting in the middle..

Now things are quieter. Staying at mum’s place in North Perth, and going to have a much more relaxing weekend than last week. Still have to sort out issues of storage for some items, and disposal of others, but at least we still have a month to do that.

 

.. to the north side ..

Our packing continues unabated. Unfortunately the nice NZ couple didn’t end up renting this place, and they haven’t contacted me about furniture, so we’re now going through and arranging with everyone that they still want what they have claimed.

Let me or Elizabeth know if anything grabs your fancy.. we need it all out of here, pretty much this weekend. If you’re interested, but not at the price posted, feel free to make cheeky offers

 

Maybe not seeking gold and fortune, and I hope our journey ends up better than brave Franklin's, but anyway.

Status update so far:

• Resigned from my job as of 12 June 2009


• Elizabeth has a leave of absence for 12 months starting 19 June 2009


• Booked plane tickets to Canada, leaving Perth in the evening of 24 June 2009


• Requested to break tenancy as of 12 May 2009 (Will be staying at mum's place)


• Heard positive sounding noises regarding possible employment at a Canadian University (!)


• Cancel cable (done 2009-04-23 for 2009-05-24)


• Cancel internet(done 2009-04-22 for 2009-05-22)

Todo:

• Pack house up and move to Mum's place


• Organise sale of furniture to jetblackvalias and anyone else who is interested - see http://canada.theducks.org/forsales.html


• Cancel telephone


• Cancel power


• Cancel gas


• Change address at Australia Post (to where? mum's PO Box or Elizabeth's parents? Hmm)


• Move subscription address for Australian Personal Computer


• Book accommodation in Vancouver for initial 2 week period


• Weed possessions significantly while at mum's place


• Cancel contents insurance


• Suspend health insurance


• Work out what we're going to do with our car


• .. more to follow I suspect

Today on IRC, hipikat asked the above question.

The short answer, for people like he and I, it is pretty easy, but it'll cost you about $2500 per person, and require you to clear-fell a small section of amazonian rainforest over the 4 and a half years it takes for various paperwork (80+ pages).

( Anyway, the long answer is )