After pulling an all-nighter last night to try and get ahead on these aforementioned projects, I had to set the alarms this morning to run errands today. It was a four-alarm morning! The downtown Ministry of Transportation office was only open until 1:00 and the veterinarian was only open until 1:30, and both are closed tomorrow. I got lucky with parking in this abysmal weather and managed to get to both a few minutes before they shut their doors, then headed over to The Brides’ Project to get more product shooting in before they closed up for the day.

The weather has definitely taken a turn for the worse here, with driving rain and pane-rattling wind. Someone left his car lights on by The Brides’ Project and I offered to pull out the jumper cables, yikes. I must’ve been feeling especially charitable, because the cables are buried deep underneath the spare tire at the back of the car, which is stored below all the photography-related stuff there: tripod, monopod, TWO ladders, plus a crate of equipment, eg. big flashlights, car parts, maps, and various sundry items. (When my battery got drained on the grounds of The Ex two weeks ago I thought of getting out the jumper cables, but I was in a deserted area after midnight and didn’t think it was safe to try to flag down anyone. I’d rather call CAA!)

I got some silly shots at The Brides’ Project with the staff, but I know I’ll be tempted to edit those and end up getting distracted with something time-consuming like creating triptychs so I’m just going to stick to one simple image for tonight! Back to work.. and stop myself from looking longingly at the chocolate…

It’s after six o’clock in the morning and I only now — !! — have had a moment to upload a single photo out of the hundreds I shot yesterday in Hamilton, from both the sky and ground. It was blazing hot yesterday (30+ degrees C) and I baked myself pink because I was outside for most of it. But the (short-notice) flight in the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum’s Beech 18 Expeditor was NOTHING SHORT OF THRILLING! I even shot some video, but that’s going to have to wait to be edited.

I’m hosting a brunch at my place in a few hours, so I’d better get some kip so I can prepare the food and hold a conversation for more than five seconds (and make sense!).

There are going to be a number of Germans hungover at work today.

Germany beat Portugal 3-2 in the quarter-final game in Basel, and I didn’t need to know the score to figure out who won — there was enough horn-blowing and singing on the streets of Hamburg this evening to proclaim the victory far and wide.

I’m not following Euro 2008 in the slightest, but Berit’s in a football pool at work and she’s been checking her stats all through Norway wherever I got a signal on the iPod Touch. A person would have to be living under a rock and completely deaf to avoid the European football mania, although to a somewhat lesser degree it’s like this in Toronto, too.

This morning we had a super-early start to the day to return the rental car and catch our bus from Oslo to Torp Airport in the south, flew to Bremen, took the airport bus to Hamburg (luckily nabbing the last three seats), picked up Berit’s car at her office underground, and practically the first thing I did when we got home was have a catch-up snooze. I slept all the way through the big football game, and since everyone went to bed I’ve been doing my laundry and writing email.

Iris & Torsten’s wedding takes place over the whole weekend on a converted farm outside of the city, so I’m taking advantage of some downtime and a signal before the Big Event starting Friday evening. Have I mentioned I’ll be staying in a “Hay Hotel”? Yeah, the pictures should be interesting.

I’m even going to do something girly and paint my toenails!

Netfile was particularly busy today, and I completely forgot to change my address with Canada Revenue Agency beforehand. The deadline of April 30 was never much of a consideration before since I’ve always had refunds. But this year I have a balance, and I wasn’t too optimistic about getting through to them on the phone on the day of the deadline to file, and THEN file electronically on the busiest day of the year.

I only had to redial twice to get through to CRA, and I sorted out all the filing and payment issues quite quickly. The agent warned me that the Netfile site was super busy, but that CRA extended the Netfiling deadline to May 6:

http://www.netfile.gc.ca/bulletinboard-e.html?

April 29, 2008
The filing deadline is April 30, 2008

If you have difficulty sending or correcting your NETFILE return, you have until midnight (local time) on Tuesday, May 6, 2008 to transmit it. Your tax return will be considered as filed on time.

Self-employed individuals and their spouses or common-law partners have until midnight Monday, June 16, 2008 (filing due date) to file their tax return.

Please remember, if any balance is owed for 2007 taxes, it must be paid on or before April 30, 2008.

It took about 15 minutes for me to download the submission page at Netfile, but the subsequent pages loaded quickly.

So if you can’t get through, don’t despair! The Netfiling deadline has been extended to Tuesday.

I was walking home in heavy snowfall after work today, and — for the first time in my life, I’m certain — witnessed thunder, lightning, AND snow all at the same time!!

We’ll see if I can get any pictures… after I shovel the driveway and sidewalk.

* Fast forward a couple of hours *

Yes, the Energizer Bunny kept going and going… and then got totally sick of shovelling snow!

I’m pooped. I got ambitious and shovelled not one but three driveways and the sidewalks in front of them. Nearly two hours of shovelling! That’s more than I’ve ever done in my life!

I have only my parents to thank for moving to coastal BC when I was 13, from Winnipeg. It might rain a lot in the Lower Mainland but you don’t have to shovel rain!

This morning I woke up to a skylight completely covered in snow.

This is how my neighbourhood looked this afternoon when I came home early from work. Not bad, really, considering how much snow dumped on the suburbs. There were people who didn’t make it to work at all.

My intention was to come home, have a quick nap, shovel the sidewalk and run an errand but all I did was have a long snooze with the cats. Not a very productive evening, but tonight is Project Injection, I’m doing an airport pickup at the ungodly hour of 6:30 tomorrow Sunday morning (it’s a good thing I reconfirmed the date!), and the weekend is looking rather busy. I’ll take all the sleep I can get!

yep, that’s my car under there

I happened to come by a box of Smarties yesterday. An HR firm sent a box to my manager, and it went through a screening process that involved explosives detection and probably high-tech x-ray because I work in a security-sensitive area of the government. It eventually landed on my desk — stamped, screened envelope and all. As you can tell by the marzipan post further down, I will not turn away a box of chocolate.

For the Smarty-pants out there, note the message on the box telling you what is NOT contained inside… nutrition, THAT’S WHAT. I feel a whole lot Smarter now that I read this important message.

And yes, I did eat a red one last.

Behind Palais de Tokyo and Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris. You might remember when the movie Amelie came out in late 2001 that the film crew had to clean up the parts of the city they were shooting. Paris (like many large cities) has a lot of graffiti.

I’m feeling in need of an internal scrub-down: I slept 10 hours last night to try and get some relief from the dry, hacking cough I picked up after all the heavy-duty cleaning and work I did around the apartment last weekend. I’ve been ingesting a dose of American ginseng derivative every day (a recommendation from someone at work — ColdFX? never tried it before) and sucking on Ricola to try and keep the coughing down and not drive my colleagues up the wall. I bought a small bottle of Benylin DM and take a couple of swigs of that as per prescribed schedule. Thankfully it hasn’t progressed beyond the coughing stage into a full-blown cold — yet — but I’m keeping to the regimen until the coast is clear.

The weather in Toronto has been really humid lately, which makes me fall asleep as soon as I get home and then I wake up in the middle of the night in my big comfy chair, wondering what time it is. At this rate I’m going to need a lot of daytime coffee to get me through this summer.

I finally completed my 2006 income tax return online and Netfiled it. I’ve been procrastinating on that for ages, but I told myself I shouldn’t book accommodations in Reykjavik and Paris until the refund is in my bank account. That’s my next step: book Reykjavik. Since Icelandics celebrate their day of independence on June 17 (the day before my birthday), I’d expect prices to rise and and availability to drop around that time, so I’d better not procrastinate on finding a place to stay!

This afternoon while I was walking down the central corridor of my office floor, I swear it smelled like rain. After a decade in Vancouver I know exactly what a rainy day smells like, and by the time 4:30 rolled around, the skies were the colour of charcoal (how disorienting! — my face is still sporting a bit of a glowing sunburn from yesterday) and the heavens opened up. Whoa Nelly! Deluge! We went from the sunniest and driest of days to the wettest and darkest. It was more like tropical rain, though — warm and quick torrents, then stopping suddenly.

I would’ve taken a picture, except the Pentax was still wet on the inside and ruining rolls of film. I’d taken it with me to work to find a camera shop at lunchtime that would take it apart and clean it, but it looks like my best option is to taken it to a repair place at King and Dufferin. They’re only open during business hours and a few hours on Saturday, but at least they do the work on-site — it sure beats sending it away for 3-4 weeks.