Long Distance Calls

Last night I had a short but pleasant long-distance conversation with one of my eBay buyers (he really really really wanted the espresso makers). He was in La Paz, Bolivia. It was interesting to think of the actual distance, though our time zones were only one hour apart. (Average year-round temp in La Paz -- daytime 23-25C, nighttime 12-15C. I think I will move there.)

I don't know why he's there; maybe business or visiting family. But he won't return to Canada until spring.

Anyways, I kind of envy people who can plan and execute a distant vacation or business trip. I get stressed if I have to drive in downtown Toronto, and planning a trip home to QC seems to take weeks. I've never had my own passport (travelled on my parents' on my only off-continent trip to the UK in 1970). The last time I left Canada was in late January 2001, for a seminar in New Jersey (took the bus to Manhattan and spent a blissful couple of hours in MoMA, got to a few clearance racks at Saks Fifth Ave., and I got to watch the SuperBowl too), and did some heavy-duty outlet shopping in Secaucus, NJ. When I got to US Customs at the Toronto airport, the officer chided me firmly for not having any "official" ID. I couldn't find my baptismal registration (no birth cert from Quebec at that time), of course no passport, and she didn't much like my driver's license. But I got into the US and back home again. Eight months later it wouldn't have happened.

My mother and brother are great fans of travel -- my mom has been to visit family in Aus/NZ and Ireland four or five times now and my brother has been to Aus/NZ twice and is planning his next visit in 2010. When my dad was living the parents went on cruises and tropical and temperate vacations. Maybe that two-month UK trip when I was 14 and we got dragged around three countries, mostly by car, soured me...

But I do have the application mostly filled out; got my QC birth certificate; got my dentist to certify that it is in fact me on my passport photos (nice ones, thanks to my local photog Hoi); got my neighbours to agree that yes, they have known me for more than two years; and got most of the forms filled out.

Since my company cut almost all travel/training/entertainment/conference budgets late last year there's next to no chance I'll be asked to represent. The nearest possibility is dinner with family in the US (my family all lives within an hour or so of the Vermont border).

It's not like I'm going anywhere soon. But I do love to get postcards from people who travel!

What a good baby! (my car, that is)

Despite almost exactly 2 years of neglect (street parking, under trees, subject to bird poops; tuneups few and far between; almost no mileage/kilometerage) my 1999 Volkswagen Golf passed its biennial emissions test with flying colours. Like, no emissions, well below passing threshold. The jackass at the service centre first told me it had failed ("just kidding!"). Wednesday around noon seems to be the time to do these things. It's a real money-maker for the Ontario government, and as of September 1, 2008 Toronto will start charging $60 for license renewals. Glad I was induced way back in 1956. I think my original due date was September 7.



In 2009 (I think in June) Canadians need to have a passport to get into the US. By non-air transit you can get into the US with photo ID (but my latest driver's license photo will probably look like the woman in "American Gothic").

They made me take off my glasses after the first shot. Couldn't they fix the camera angle so that the spectacles don't cause a spectacle? In over 20 years they've never asked me to take the glasses off, and corrective lenses are a requirement. In fact, I can't find my glasses unless I'm wearing them; I don't even hear as well without them.

My last driver's license photo actually LOOKED like I do most days. Except my face isn't really that big, and my hair is longer. My brother's a Canada Border Services agent and lives on the Canada-US border, so a trip across to get gas, a Thanksgiving turkey, or to his mailbox, or to have dinner, is common. I've had the whole passport package (guarantor and witness signatures, photos, forms completed) ready for almost a year but I don't like to travel (outside my comfort zone) so why bother? Also I'm waiting for the price to go down.