Well, we bid farewell to our intrepid travelers, Chris & Nikki as they headed for home on Wednesday about 5:30 in the morning. At last report they were home, having arrived there in the wee small hours of Friday morning. They made good time in both directions and didn't have any trouble getting across the border on the way home. So, now it looks like they will be free to come and go, which will be nice, and they are already planning to come up for another visit, possibly in August.
Sandi and I drove down to Calgary on Thursday so that Sandi could attend an interview for her possible teaching job in Japan. She met with members of the Japanese embassy at the University of Calgary and although the interview took only 20 minutes she feels it went pretty well. She is not assured a position yet and will probably have to go back for a follow up interview if she gets shortlisted.
While we were in Calgary we took the opportunity to do a little shopping and I came home with a gorgeous pro video camera, the Panasonic AG DVC30 3CCD camera. I haven't really had a chance to field test it yet but just from having it set up in the living room for the last couple of days I have been playing around with it and getting a feel for it's features. It's one sweet camera and the best part is I was able to get it courtesy of Corus Entertainment as I used up the remainder of my retraining bonus for it. Now I just have to find some projects to use it for. I have a wedding to shoot in May and I'm going to try and build a library of stock footage that I will try to market online. But I'm looking forward to using it in as many projects as I can find.
At present I am just building a computer system for a friend of ours who is taking university and is finding her old Win 98 machine a bit of drag. So I'm upgrading her to a nice Pentium D dual core machine that will really soar compared to her old one.
There's still nothing promising on the job front as I continue to pursue various leads and ideas. I do have an interview set up for Monday afternoon so we shall see if that pans out for anything.
I downloaded the pictures from the camera from our trip home and am about to go through them and get a web album posted as soon as I can. It's amazing how busy I seem to be with one project or another that the thought of having to go out and work full time as well seems hard. Oh well, it gives me something to look forward to retirement for.

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Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Home At Last

We are finally back home after a rather long week in Regina. Following Mom's passing on Tuesday morning we spent the rest of the week preparing for the funeral. There was some running around to pick up supplies as well as preparing photographs, writing the eulogy and the obituary and other things. The funeral was on Saturday morning in Sedley and there was a packed house. A mass was said and Mom's ashes were taken out to the gravesite. It was a fairly cold day so the service in the cemetary was quite short. Everyone then went to the gym hall for the reception.
We are pleased to announce that Nikki and Christopher are home for a visit. Nikki's immigration paperwork was received by the government, so they decided to try and come for a visit. This was the day before the funeral and Nikki and Chris new they wouldn't be able to make it in time, no flights were available, so they jumped in their truck and started driving up. They left on Friaday afternoon around 5:00pm and arrived in Sedley about 6:00pm on Sunday. They were delayed at the border for 4 hours and at one point it looked like Chris would not be let into Canada and Nikki would not be let back into the states, but a miracle happened. Chris was granted permission to enter Canada and Nikki was blessed with an extension of her religious workers visa for three years, something that has never been done before. So that means she should be able to come and go as she pleases and in a short while her immigration should come through so that the visa is not necessary.
So they are here for a week and a bit and have been travelling around visiting old friends and Chris has been trying to get used to our really cold weather. We had a lot of snow on Monday night when we arrived and today it has been blowing pretty strongly and drifting that snow all over the place. I think it's time to warm up a bit.
I had taken quite a few pictures when we were home but I haven't had a chance to download them yet but when I do I will post a few.

Happy Valentines Day!!

Posted 4:08 PM by Jeff

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Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Farewell, Mom

It's with a great deal of sadness that I inform everyone of the passing of Dianne's mom this morning, Feb 6th at 3:30 am after a long battle with cancer. Dianne and I have been here in Regina since Saturday when we were informed that she had taken a turn for the worse. Over the weekend she continued to decline and this morning we got the call that it looked like the end was near. She died peacefully with most of her family around her. She had been able to spend some time with the whole family earlier in the day. The funeral will be held Saturday in Sedley.

Celestina Mildenberger

1925-2007

Posted 6:05 PM by Jeff

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