Deposit on a Place!

Today was an exciting day! But first, let me talk a bit about yesterday. Our goals for yesterday were to go into the office and pick up some paperwork that I needed to prove that I was indeed an employee, and some information on where to go for some important government paperwork. After chatting with the HR lady for awhile and dropping in to say hi to Darse and Aaron, we took our new papers and went to look at a couple of places in the neighbourhood called Cabinteely. They were actually really nice -- I really liked the layouts of both the places. The problem for us was that while they were really quite close to work for me, they weren't all that well connected to the rest of the city. It would probably mean a 45 minute bus ride into downtown, which means if Diane found a job in downtown or somewhere where she had to transfer through downtown, that wouldn't be too pleasant for her. Plus there was limited shopping options for us carless folk.

It kind of tore at us a little though knowing how nice the places were. They were totally valid options and maybe in a year we will have to reevaluate if there are still apartments there available. Maybe by then we'll get a car (not sure how likely that is).

We had another apartment to see in the afternoon, but couldn't find it due to the map on the website being wrong. It was a little unfortunate, but we didn't mind the chance to return to the apartment early and relax for a little while. Having now seen two very valid options for apartments (the first one we saw the previous day at Hazelbrook and the one we saw in Cabinteely) we figured we had a bunch of good information. The other good piece of information we got was we met someone who was living in the hazelbrook building we saw who works for FT too, and got a pretty good review of the building from him. So we debated for awhile about the options and eventually decided that the apartment at Hazelbrook suited our options better by a fair margin.

So today was a big day for us. We got up early and headed to the An Garda Síochána -- the Irish Police, to get out GNIB (Garda National Immigration Bureau) cards. This lets us stay in the country for a year at a time, since our passports were only stamped for 3 months when we entered the country at the airport. With this, we needed to pay a €100 fee which I had trouble paying with my credit card. Apparently having a smartcard chip in it causes it to not be swipeable, and since I don't have a PIN for it, I couldn't use it. Argh. Fortunately, Diane brought her non-chip-enabled credit card so we used that to pay for my fee. We left the office with our shiny new GNIB cards. Woohoo!

The next thing on our list was to go get PPS numbers, which are the Irish equivalent of the Canadian SIN numbers. This involved going to a different building to stand in line for and fill out some more paperwork -- which we did. This time no fee was involved. After Diane and I both applied for our numbers, we continued on to the rental agency and met with the agent we met on the first day. We payed our €500 deposit to apply and he faxed off my employer letter to the landlord and that was that! We had applied for a place to stay.

So now we're hanging out in the apartment. We just got a call from the agent and the landlord has okayed us so we'll be signing the lease on Tuesday, probably in the afternoon. (Monday is a holiday here apparently). So with a little luck, we'll be ready to move into our new place sometime in the middle of next week and will have a bank account setup for sometime near the end of next week! I'm pretty sure this is record time for someone moving as far as we had, and not having setup anything prior to arriving. We couldn't have done this without the help of Darse and Alexandra who have been an amazing amount of help. We'll definitely try to be as helpful to the people that follow us ;-)

Morgan

Year Under Review (Diane)

You’ll notice that Morgan’s end-of-’07 post falls neatly on January 1, while my post gets twice the 1’s. Nevertheless, my sweetheart has decreed that there shall be a year-in-review post from our separate perspectives. As a loving companion, I have so far indulged him by ooh-ing and ah-ing over his very fine example, including, but not limited to, utterances of,

“Oh, yeah! Kimberley! That was awesome!”

“Hey, you got a master’s?” (Heh, heh.)

“Aww, the family reunions – they seem so far away.”

“Oh right, I guess we got engaged last year.” (I took some flack over that one, but I’m pleased to be able to report I took it graciously ;-) Seriously though, it was a pretty great birthday, right up there with bowling parties and wiener roasts of old. Good food, good wine, good company…pretty ring :)

Hmm, 2007… I remember spending a little time in hospitals this holiday season and last. I had some dear friends and loved ones in a fair amount of pain. It was pretty sucky for some of my homeys. You people know who you are, and I’m sure you remember how truly “special” those times were. I’m happy you’re on the mend!

I seem to remember changing contracts at work and slowly taking a hand in a few newer projects that are pretty exciting. I have my own way of putting everything, and it’s been a lot of fun puttering about the lab with Mohan, who doesn’t seem to mind my experimentation. It’s great to work with these good folks on the brink of retirement, but I am anxious over the loss of wisdom and expertise and legacy and heritage that must come with the newer, younger culture that we’ll make then. I hope that I can somehow be around to hear the stories and tell them again. This has been a real year of growing to appreciate how important stories are to culture and to individuals – particularly in the department and at home with my family.

Also, getting away to post-man-machine match Vancouver was wonderful – I’m really happy I took those days off. Everybody should get a holiday like that now and again. I believe I should visit again soon. Like, before the games come to town. Not poker, the other games…

Speaking of Vancouver, Shelly and I took that trip to Bamfield, the same trip my mother took more than ten years before me. Everyone should get to ride the ferry ‘Lady Rose’, and the little rainbow harbour ferry too. There was Shelly and Jeff’s trip to South Africa and Eric’s trip to Zambia and all the cool pictures of Victoria Falls. Not to mention the tales of Carolyn’s adventures in London with Eric, plus France, Italy, Greece, and Megan’s trip to Ireland. Dan went to India, and I find it funny that Canada has seen a mere 140 years since confederation, and it’s only been 50 years since India’s independence. India’s so old though!

Hmm, what else? Dan loaned me his guitar while he went home for Christmas – it was very kind of him – my fingers are soft as a baby’s bottom and I forget everything I ever learned, which wasn’t much to begin with. My keyboard sits untouched and my sundress is half cut out on my table. How I thought I was going to make bridesmaids dresses and a few for myself I’ll never know. I have, however, managed to catch every episode of Heroes, some of The Office, Amazing Race, and the odd Oilers game. There really needs to be more cool, creative, person-building stuff in my life. I think I'd like to make it home to my folks' place a little more too.

My “Christmas Loot” post is still waiting in the wings. I totally want to show off my holiday haul, but I need to take pictures of some of the nifty gifties for completeness, so give me another few for that.

There were a few very enjoyable concerts, and lots of very well-enjoyed dinners and get-togethers with Morgan’s charming friends, who have become mine as well. If there had to be one thing I enjoyed spending time doing in '07 it would have to be that.

Diane

Year in Review (Morgan)

This year has been quite busy and exciting for Diane and I. Here's a brief-ish look from my perspective at the year that was 2007. Obvious highlights for the year are the engagement in May, finishing my MSc degree in January, and the Man-machine poker match in July. January was a pretty relaxing month for me, despite my master's defense being scheduled then. The biggest reason for this was because my thesis needed to be turned in three weeks prior to my defense. So for the bulk of the month of January I didn't have a lot that I needed to do so I spent a lot of my time playing poker. My friend Mike had convinced me to switch my game over to shorthanded no limit hold'em, and I quickly found more success there than I had had in my couple of years of limit play. After successfully defending my thesis, I was hired on by my former supervisor to continue work on the poker project at the UofA. Finally, Diane and I went on the annual department ski trip to Jasper on the last weekend in January. It was quite fun, as usual. This time, unlike past years, Diane and I spent both days on the mountain skiing instead of joining the usual group that hiked down Maligne Canyon on Sunday.

The biggest event in February was the free beer that I put on with my friend Jeff who also recently defended. In our department, it's a tradition for freshly defended students to hold a department-wide free beer night. Jeff and I held a rather successful free beer (the bill is pictured). I also happened to have a birthday in there as well somewhere.

In March, Diane and I joined a couple of our friends and for another ski trip, this time to Kimberley. This was the first year in a long time that I had managed to get out to two trips out to the mountains so I was pretty happy about that. The weekend was quite a success, and we look forward to our next trip out to the mountains now that it is wintertime again.

April saw my photography hobby become much more serious as I purchased a couple of new lenses for my camera which had been getting increased use up to that point. I purchased a new low-light wide-aperture lens and a better walk-around zoom lens. You can view some of my work on my flickr page. I've been more and more active on flickr, uploading 178 photos over the year. Another key event in April was the first Bayne family reunion in over a decade. We went to Camp Nakamun which is a pretty nice facility, and got to spend some time meeting some family that I haven't seen in many many years. So that was cool.

Diane and I were engaged on May 31, so that was the big event that month. We had a pretty good meal at the Creperie for her birthday, and I would pop the question later that night. By that time, we had been dating for over 3 years, and we both kind of felt that it was the right time.

June was a frantic month for me as my officemate Darse and I worked hard in preparation for the upcoming AAAI poker competition. The bot we eventually entered won the bankroll competition (with the other UofA entry taking 2nd place), so that was pretty cool. Following the deadline for entering we began working towards building a bot for the man-machine competition which had been confirmed for July. So the entire poker group began working like crazy to get a bot ready.

As the deadline approached, we worked long and hard to get a bot tested and ready for the match. Along with those responsibilities, we also needed to organize the match details, work on public relations stuff like webpages, press releases and interviews and all sorts of little things. The match went pretty well with relatively few hitches. My duties during the match included taking photos and working on a live blog on the website so that people who couldn't attend could still follow what was going on. After the four sessions were over, we barely lost with a record of 1-2-1. It was a lot of fun, and pretty cool to be able to meet and hang out with the poker pros Ali Eslami and Phil Laak.

After the last match, Diane joined me out in Vancouver to take a few days of holiday. I had only been in Vancouver once before, and we only went to the beach and then moved on in our travels. So there was a lot of touristy stuff I hadn't had the chance to see. We spent a few days there and saw the Aquarium, the Capilano Bridge, Stanley Park, the Sun Yat Sen Chinese garden, and quite a few other things. We stayed in a lovely bed and breakfast, and it was a quite relaxing trip!

August was a slow month. With all the wild preparation and the work that went on during the big match, I felt quite a bit of post-match let down and managed to not get a lot done in August. It was in this month that I found out my officemate would be going to Ireland to work at Full Tilt. Darse's departure is a big blow to the UofA poker group.

In September, I was able to start picking up my productivity at work again. Two particular events of note were Diane's family reunion in Manitou, Saskatchewan, and Darse's Wedding. The family reunion was pretty cool - Manitou is a small town in Saskatchewan where their claim to fame is their lake that has some sort of mix of minerals (mostly salt) that make you float in the water more easily than normal water. So we spent a fair amount of our time swimming around in the pool that was fed from the lake. I got some glorious photos while I was there (pictured) since we caught sunset at the exact right time over the lake. Darse's wedding was an honour because I was one of the only people that got invited (thanks to my camera hobby). They held it in a lovely spot next to the river valley, and my job was to take some photos. Several turned out quite well I think and they were pretty happy with the results.

Diane and I had our engagement photo shoot in October, and we started getting down to business with planning the wedding. By this time we had the hall picked out, the church booked, and the photographer chosen so we were feeling pretty good about where we were at. Hopefully the planning continues to get done at a good pace.

November and December lacked any big stories or trips. We've been busy with social and family gatherings, and have been out of the house to see people or attend parties. It has kept us real busy and in some respects I think I'm starting to get a little drained.

Christmas was good this year. It was pretty low key, which is something that makes me pretty happy. The gift giving thing has come down to a minimum which also makes me happy -- I'm a fan of the main gift of Christmas being the time that everyone spends together playing games, and enjoying each other's company.

I think I've managed to remember most of everything. If I'm missing something important, Diane is sure to remind me and she'll mention it in her year in review (forthcoming).

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season and a very happy new year. Good luck to everyone in 2008! Morgan