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Not a great deal happening
since the Tartan Day dinner other than working on a makeover for the site.
I have visited Toronto to
attend the Knights Templar meeting and also the Scottish Studies board
meeting. While at the RCMI I was told that from June 1st smoking will no
longer be allowed at the club. They were showing some concern about people
not wanting to renew their membership as a result.
I might add that on the non
smoking issue people at the club were very annoyed as they said it was the
one place that they were able to smoke while having a drink and indeed
most people in the bar were smoking. I can't help feeling that
people are going over the top on this non smoking issue. As buying
cigarettes and cigars is legal surely there should be some places that
smokers can go to have a drink and have a smoke at the same time.
From my perspective I don't
see me renewing my membership as that was the primary reason for joining
the Institute.
I did have a check up at my
Doctor on the 25th April and they were very happy with my blood pressure and
cholesterol levels but felt my blood sugar was a bit on the high side so
they upped one of my diabetic drugs from 1mg to 2mg a day. My next
appointment isn't until September which is the longest period between
check ups that I've had since coming to Canada. I thus take that as
a hopeful sign :-)
I got woken up at around
3.30am on Wednesday 26th with a siren belting out which eventually woke me up. There
were at least two fire trucks and several police cars on Raleigh Street.
Couldn't make out what was happening although it looked to be a fire but
couldn't see anything.
I did
take a wee video of it to give an impression of the noise and lights
(5.4Mb)
I found out this morning
from a local woman that this was a police chase where the truck driver was
injured and is now in hospital. The police officer was also injured with
cuts and bruises.
On the business front I
have been working on a makeover of the site to attract some new
advertisers and the idea is to remove the google adverts to my left border
and replace them with up to 2 rows of 9 micro buttons. This way I
can offer advertisers a decent high profile but at a much more reasonable
cost. This will also allow me to add another row to my menu.
I hope by doing this that these micro buttons
will attract an interesting range of advertisers that will also become a
good resource for our visitors.
I have also submitted my
accounts to my USA accountants and it looks like they use trainees to do
them and then pass them to a partner to overview them. I thus got in
an email noting that I'd quadrupled my income and while nice to note would
I please give an "executive" view to this being correct :-)
The trainee had in fact taken the balance
column and totaled that as income. So where I may have got an income entry
for $450.00 and the balance showed $2,300.00 he or she was taking the
$2,300.00 as the income... and so no wonder I quadrupled my income <grin>
I have also got a Canadian accountant to start
sorting out my Canadian taxes and looks like I won't have any tax to pay
for my first part year but will have some tax to pay for the first full
year here in Canada. Also filed the zero return on the Canadian company
that I formed but which won't trade until I know I have permanent landed
status. I did use my
own in-house software to help with the voting for positions in the Knight
Templars and it seemed to end up ok although a wee hitch in the closing
date... it ended one day early <gulp>.
I completed the makeover of
the site and launched it on 14th May with the first 9 buttons sold. I have
various people interested in the other 9 buttons but as usual it takes
time to get decisions. I am trying to find companies that have a mix of
offerings that I hope our visitors will find to be a useful resource. This
means I am really waiting for them to decide before going out to find
others so this is a bit more time consuming than I had at first thought.
My clothes drier went on the blink but the
chap who fixed my micro wave came to have a look at it (17th May) and
found some fluff in the motor and when removed it worked again :-)
Only cost $50.00 for the repair so not bad really. I suspect this
would have cost more like $120.00 if I was in the U.K.
I want to get out and about again to do more
story boards but would like to get these buttons sold before taking off
for parts new. I am
looking to head to Kentucky second half of June to help install a new web
server and get other things done. So I may well be there for a
couple of weeks. I may do a couple of side trips while I am away.
I still haven't heard about my permanent
landed status and it will be a year at the end of this month that I
applied. The visit to the Canadian consulate in Detroit has
indicated that as I was on a fast track it could take between 6 - 9 months
so as this is now well over that not sure what the hold up is. Mind
you they do say this process normally takes around 18 months so guess I'll
just need to be patient. |
