Some Love for Canadian Tire

In my last post I told a story about my recent frustration with Canadian Tire. I'm not the only one who has had awful experiences in the auto service department, everyone I've spoken with who has lived here more than just two weeks hasn't been impressed, either. What I did not explain is that Canadian Tire is the most amazing place on the planet, they just aren't the best place for auto service. Imagine for a moment Lowes, Auto Zone and Big 5 all under the same roof, then throw in a comprehensive kitchen appliance section and poor auto service. This is the ultimate man store, people. It was actually the first stop I ever made in Canada I drove up with Courtney to meet the parents before we got engaged in March 2008. I got a flat tire 15 km from the border, and drove on a donut to Lethbridge, where I bought new tires for the whole car. They had us back on the road in no time, giving me faith in their great potential. I went there a few times just to check it out and fell in love with its manliness. It is quite the complete man store, the only thing I could ask for is a wider variety of sporting goods (two aisles for hockey equipment, one aisle for everything else). Plus, notice the maple leaf in the logo is actually green. It's the only maple leaf I've seen up here that isn't red, which I like because green is the actual color of a maple leaf most of the year (I'd say 'or blue' but there are no Toronto fans out west. Hockey fanhood is strictly regionall as far as I can tell). So in spite of their faltering auto service department, my love affair with Canadian Tire endures. And will endure forever unless I stop changing my own oil, camping, fixing stuff around the house, taking care of the yard, barbecuing, playing sports and replacing broken blenders. So it looks pretty safe.

Weekly Recap

FBI Clearance
My FBI clearance came back clean and quickly! It's the last part of my permanent residency application, so it's nice to know it's all in Ottawa's hands now...or is it?

Money notes

Loonie: A coin worth $1. There are no dollar bills in Canada.
Toonie: A coin worth $2. I love the coin cash.

Drivers License
I went in to get my drivers license on Monday. I showed up, waited in line, then was told I had to have my marriage certificate. Later in the day I went to the storage unit to find the box wherein could be found the document. I went from there to get the car inspected, which I will talk about later. I returned to the registry with the certificate and everything was great. Then to pay the $21.30, I whipped out my debit card, which wouldn't take. Apparently it was being read as a credit card. I had $15.00 Canadian and $5 US, so I was short a Loonie plus 30 cents. The clerk told me to go to the store next door where there was an ATM. I did and it wouldn't process my transaction. So I went to register and tried to buy a Wunderbar and get $20 cash back. Wouldn't work, the cashier told me, because I was trying to get cash back with a credit card. At this point I was really, really frustrated, especially since I had another $20 Canadian in my wallet earlier in the day but I deposited it in our new bank account. So what did I do? I drove the 10 minutes home and found a few Toonies and change then drove back and paid. Through all of this, the part I disliked the most was that I had to surrender my Utah license. I just got it earlier this year, so it's disappointing to pay for another one. But without a Canadian license I can't be on the bank account or get insured, so it's kind of important.

Register Car

Exporting our car has been quite the ordeal. Everything was fine at the border, they told us we just had to take it to a Canadian Tire and get it checked out. We did that as soon as we got here and he gave us paperwork to take to the registry. When we got there they gave us more paperwork to take to a Canadian Tire for a full inspection. I took it there last Friday and they said it had a burnt out foglamp and a wheel hub that needed replaced. I didn't feel like sitting around for it, so I went home and returned on Monday. They told me it should take an hour and a half. This time I brought a book and found a comfy chair in the lawn and garden section. After an hour and a half I walked over to see what they had done. They told me they didn't have the part they needed. Yes, they let me sit around in their store without calling me to say that they had no intention of working on my car until the next day. Ridiculous. We did take it back (because we had no choice) and finally got it registered.

LMO update
The paperwork has been submitted, it's just a matter of the bureaucrats processing it and Canada Post delivering it (If USPS is snail mail, Canada Post is grass growing).

Song of the week played at an abnormally high frequency
The Weight-The Band
Every. Single. Day.

Sledgehammer and other oddities

                                 

One change that has been bigger than I expected is the difference in musical tastes. It's not like all they play is Beiber, Randy Bachman and Barenaked Ladies or Carly Rae Jeppsen, Rush and Michael Buble (although I do hear more Guess Who and BTO).They just have different tastes. This is what I mean.

 But I have heard  this song twice in one week, which is twice more than I have ever heard it before. 

If it wasn't strange enough hearing someone turn Stevie Ray Vaughn's "Crossfire" into 80s pop music, Courtney sang along to it like it was a natural thing. So weird.
Another artist who seems to be more popular in Canada is Rod Stewart. Specifically Maggie May and this song:

I don't mind a little more Rod Stewart, but this plus more Peter Gabriel does change the sound of things a bit.

On a different note, zooming around the Calgary (pop. 1 million) listening to Macklemore's "Can't Hold Us" is so much more fitting that going somewhere in Roosevelt (pop. 6,000) listening to it.

The Job Hunt

In the first five days I have applied for almost 40 jobs. Most of them are construction jobs ranging from general labour to tilesetting to concrete work. There really is a lot of work available, although I'm not quite experienced enough for all the jobs--they need workers so quickly that they want someone experienced so they don't have to waste time training. I finally got a someone to bite on Thursday. The job was to be a concrete finisher's helper. I called and he told me to meet him at 8:00 that night at a Tim Hortons.

This is probably a good time to explain Tim Hortons. When my wife first described it to me she called it, "A Canadian legacy." My first trip to Tim's was her father to ask for his blessing to get married (after meeting him the night before). Ti'm's is basically a donut shop, but everyone goes there for the coffee. People line up around the block every morning to get their 'double-double' (two creams and two sugars). The craziest part is that there is no shortage of Tim Hortons-they're everywhere. This map shows four Tim Hortons in South Calgary within 2.4 km of each other.

I'd say something about Tim's being the Canadian Starbucks, except Tims started first, and Tim Hortons controls 62% of the Canadian coffee market. It's so important that it's found on seven Canadian forces bases worldwide, including Kandahar, Afghanistan. Their donuts are pretty good, but I mean, they're just donuts. 

Back to the job search. So I pull in and see an Island Concrete truck. I get out, he gets out. He tells me that it will be hard work, I tell him about my immigration predicament and he's willing to help, but he's not very handy on a computer. So I tell him I'll put the paperwork together and bring it to him the next day.

Later that night, Courtney had me printing off nearly 20 pages of paperwork. Due to a new law this year the employer is also required to pay a $275 processing fee. I called him to tell what I found and he said he'd meet me Saturday afternoon. I got the paperwork ready and took it to him. I get to start as soon as the Labour Market Opinion is approved, which is soon, hopefully, because this job is only seasonal, after which I'll have to find another one. But you have to admit, finding a job as a foreign worker in just one week isn't bad at all.

The Move

The first matter of business was getting there. Luckily, U Haul covers both the US and Canada. We had some friends over to pack up the house Monday night so we could leave early on Tuesday. 

The Goose was happy to see we got the dinosaur U-Haul.

Here are my girls in the car.

We decided to let Missy Moo drive for a while.

Me with Sacajawea

The Goose got a cookie with her meal at the hotel restaurant in Butte. 

Missy Moo!

Time for bed. Mom loves her a Best Western.

And finally, our entry into the true north, strong and free. We went through at Carway instead of Coutts because we wanted a shorter wait. We had to export the car, declare all of our belongings in the U-Haul, update my address on my permanent residency application, and get a visitor's permit for me to be able to stay in the country. We flew through. And now we're here. On our second day the Goose and I caught a bit of the flu and were throwing up for a while. Mom was sick, too, but with a stronger stomach. Next post: Job search.

Going North of the Border

I created this blog to chronicle my new adventure into a foreign country. I may be leaving the United States for Canada, but despite its proximity it's still a new country and will be a new experience. My wife is from Calgary, and earlier this year we decided to move to Calgary if I could get a job. I soon found out that I would not be able to get a teaching job unless I have permanent residency, and in order to get permanent residency we would need to prove our intent to live in Canada. Since my wife has a green card in the States the only way we could prove that intent is to actually move there. So I quit my job and put the house up for sale. With no real job prospects other than Alberta's famed labour shortage we were going to move in with my wife's parents and try our hand at getting a work permit through something called a labour market opinion. An LMO can be obtained by a company for a foreign worker if hiring that worker will not cost a Canadian a job. The odds of finding work are pretty good, and I'll be posting my progress as I go.  Here we come, Canada!