Neurotech - the weblog of Luke Reeves

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, and this one’s gonna be short! We’ve been both busy as all hell recently - Chie has been taking on more and more responsibilities at her job and I got made the “team leader” at mine. It’s good on the whole for both of us, but it definitely adds more work and stress.

The best thing happening recently is Chie becoming a permanent resident of Canada today. We applied last August for the residency for her and the big interview/appointment was in the afternoon. We were both nervous; turns out the only questions were if she had a criminal record (no) and was I her husband and sponsor (yes). And that was it! So now she’s a permanent resident and can almost travel out of the country.

I say almost because technically she needs her P.R. card to leave the country. Related to that is the fact that we’ve booked our next trip to Japan in the start of November - and we learned today that the card can take up to 8 weeks to come in the mail. So needless to say we’re sort of both shitting our pants on that front and praying (just kidding) that it’ll come in on time.

The bad news is that we - well, my parents - had to put down our dog, Jake, on the weekend. He was eleven years old and pretty sick so it was understandable but still very depressing.

And that’s all for now!

So I went to the hospital this morning for a gastroscopy (that’s when they stick a camera down your throat). It was totally easy - I showed up, read a book for a bit until it was my turn and then laid down on a bed. They put a needle in my hand and I was asleep before I could even turn on my side, and then I woke up in the recovery room and I was good to go. The doctor was right there when I woke up, apparently everything is normal in me (at least in that area). The worst part of that ordeal was that I couldn’t eat at all yesterday and today until the appointment was over. Needless to say once it was done I had the best goddamned breakfast of my entire life.

…of the horrible water damage to the floors in my apartment! I’ve been calling the maintenance and management offices every week since it happened too, and the answer is always, “They’ll be fixed next week!” Go Greenwin go!

Well, until Sunday night. Chie and I have had a lot on our plates in the last while - we went to Ralph’s wedding (which was great), finished her immigration papers off, had my brother and his girlfriend visit for a while, took them to Canada’s Wonderland, went to see The 40 Year Old Virgin (which ruled), and so forth. I also managed to get more work done on Insipid. Also, we’ve both squeezed in good amounts for video games ;-) So it’s been good. The other Luke helpfully reminded me that it’s been a month since I last posted. Oops.

Like I said, we’ve just been busy. Also, I’m getting restless with Movable Type. There’s a ton of things that I don’t like about it. Wordpress alleviates some of the problems, but it only supports MySQL and I’d like to move away from that soon. I’ve got a homebrew tool whipped up, but it’s only about 75% complete and I’m trying to build up the motivation to finish the final stretch.

Chie’s been blogging away though, and posting lots of pictures. Basically she’s replacing my presence on this site (except in a different language :-) Once I get my virtual head in order I’ll return to blogging lots more. I may even start now! May. Anyways, here’s a gum tree from Wonderland:

Good Lord, apparently there was an attack in London with 3 subway stations and 1 bus being bombed.

Holy shit I’m sunburnt. I’ve got some pictures to post from the parade, but I’ll get to it once I’m finished slathering aloe on my face.

The wedding went perfectly, and my family is all back in Canada (with the exception of Chie, who arrives on Monday). I’ll post a ton of pictures once I get time.

U: Actually for now I defer to the pictures of the wedding that Robin posted.

I just went for a four hour beer and talk session with Charles Stross. OK, so I had pop instead of beer - but still! It was a lot of fun, and he’s a hell of a nice guy (we hit it off rather well).

I’m wiped now though, and in the final couple of busy days before going to Japan (though of course Chie is exponentially more busy than I am, what with her being there and all). My parents and brother get in on Thursday, and then we’re all off on Friday morning for thirteen consecutive hours in a confined space together. I predict that my brother disowns me, and that my parents get divorced - all before we hit the ground!

Well, I’m posting this from the new apartment. Thanks to the hard work of James, Adam and I the move took less than an hour. Adam and I then caught The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which we both thought was pretty good.

I’m still waiting for the big furniture, cable, Internet, etc… thank god for open access points and tor :-)

Everything is finally lining up now, as I’m pulling into the final stretch of actually getting Chie to Canada. We’ve got the apartment booked (in the same building as before) for May 1st, so I’m moving in on Sunday. She’s finished her job today (congrats!), and on the 20th my family will all travel there for the wedding. I’ll come back with them on the 30th, and Chie will be here at the start of June - at which time the folks’ll be bringing my stuff down from Iron Bridge.

So I’m just saying everything is working out :-)