Random Stuff
Here's a quick update with a few random items...
First, on Monday M. signed a one-year lease to rent out the Oakville house. That's a big concern off the table as now the house will be paying for itself. Her brother will be our property manager. Now she just has to pack up and clean up. We're keeping the bulk of our stuff, not that we have much, in a locked room in the basement.
I went orienteering again yesterday. After the race, I checked the times on the scoreboard for my category, and saw that I was near the bottom of the times entered thus far. However, after checking the official results this morning, I guess only the top people had written down their times yesterday because I got 10th out of 37 overall (plus 6 disqualified). Not bad! I beat the winner on 5 posts out of 22 so I'm happy about that too. I thought it was interesting that the 4 fastest were within 1.5 minutes of each other, then one a minute later, one a minute after him, and then a gap of four minutes to places 7, 8, 9 and 10 who finished within 1 minute of each other.
I went out Saturday night with K. and her friend M. who was visiting her from Oslo. K. will be doing a long (180km) bike ride from Lysebotn to Kristiansand this upcoming weekend, so I'm lending her some basic cycling gear.
I've almost got all my issues sorted out with the umbrella company I was working under when I first arrived here. After leaving them due to their screw-ups, they changed my tax scheme so that I was paying all my income tax here in Norway. This had the effect of greatly increasing my tax rate overall and thus costing me a fair bit in back taxes. As lame as that was, I don't think it's worth fighting from a legal standpoint. However, I'm very carefully checking their math after I found some errors to try to make sure I get every penny I'm owed. I also need paperwork from them showing proof of earnings and taxes paid.
M.'s credit card info was stolen a few days ago, possibly while filling up on gas in Mississauga. Her credit card company cancelled the card and now she has to wait a few days for a new one. The scary thing is she did not lose her credit card, so somehow the information was copied without her knowledge. Possibly scarier is that the only reason the fraud was caught so quickly is because the criminals were stupid and made 'red-flag' purchases (gas three times in three days). Had they made 'normal' purchases, it would likely have taken longer to cancel the card. This is a good lesson for those who don't check their credit card and banking statements regularly.
I move out of my nice apartment in Stavanger at the end of August, and into a ground floor apartment in Sandnes. That means I'll also lose the car, but at least I'll be much closer (half the distance) to work. My employer has not been paying for my apartment since the beginning of August, and I can't justify the 15000 NOK ($2718 CAD) monthly rent cost of the apartment I'm in right now. Hopefully the new place is good enough or I'll be looking again soon.
Work is pretty boring/slow at the moment, but at least the fact that project I'm on is behind schedule means that my contract is not likely to be ended early. I'm slated to go offshore in about a month. I've also been getting a surprising number of recruitment calls in the last 10 days, and activity on my LinkedIn profile has picked up. The recruitment calls are for jobs around Europe, so I'm really happy about that!
My parents are doing another stretch of the Camino de Santiago, expecting to travel back to Porrino on September 1st. They finally started blogging.
No new pictures to upload as I haven't really done anything picture-worthy lately. I've been busy with a lot of sports instead. In addition to commuting to work by bike (10km each way), I'm playing soccer twice a week, orienteering once a week, going to the gym 2-3 times per week, and running 2-3 times per week. Whew! However, it's always nice to train for something more interesting.
That's all for now!
First, on Monday M. signed a one-year lease to rent out the Oakville house. That's a big concern off the table as now the house will be paying for itself. Her brother will be our property manager. Now she just has to pack up and clean up. We're keeping the bulk of our stuff, not that we have much, in a locked room in the basement.
I went orienteering again yesterday. After the race, I checked the times on the scoreboard for my category, and saw that I was near the bottom of the times entered thus far. However, after checking the official results this morning, I guess only the top people had written down their times yesterday because I got 10th out of 37 overall (plus 6 disqualified). Not bad! I beat the winner on 5 posts out of 22 so I'm happy about that too. I thought it was interesting that the 4 fastest were within 1.5 minutes of each other, then one a minute later, one a minute after him, and then a gap of four minutes to places 7, 8, 9 and 10 who finished within 1 minute of each other.
I went out Saturday night with K. and her friend M. who was visiting her from Oslo. K. will be doing a long (180km) bike ride from Lysebotn to Kristiansand this upcoming weekend, so I'm lending her some basic cycling gear.
I've almost got all my issues sorted out with the umbrella company I was working under when I first arrived here. After leaving them due to their screw-ups, they changed my tax scheme so that I was paying all my income tax here in Norway. This had the effect of greatly increasing my tax rate overall and thus costing me a fair bit in back taxes. As lame as that was, I don't think it's worth fighting from a legal standpoint. However, I'm very carefully checking their math after I found some errors to try to make sure I get every penny I'm owed. I also need paperwork from them showing proof of earnings and taxes paid.
M.'s credit card info was stolen a few days ago, possibly while filling up on gas in Mississauga. Her credit card company cancelled the card and now she has to wait a few days for a new one. The scary thing is she did not lose her credit card, so somehow the information was copied without her knowledge. Possibly scarier is that the only reason the fraud was caught so quickly is because the criminals were stupid and made 'red-flag' purchases (gas three times in three days). Had they made 'normal' purchases, it would likely have taken longer to cancel the card. This is a good lesson for those who don't check their credit card and banking statements regularly.
I move out of my nice apartment in Stavanger at the end of August, and into a ground floor apartment in Sandnes. That means I'll also lose the car, but at least I'll be much closer (half the distance) to work. My employer has not been paying for my apartment since the beginning of August, and I can't justify the 15000 NOK ($2718 CAD) monthly rent cost of the apartment I'm in right now. Hopefully the new place is good enough or I'll be looking again soon.
Work is pretty boring/slow at the moment, but at least the fact that project I'm on is behind schedule means that my contract is not likely to be ended early. I'm slated to go offshore in about a month. I've also been getting a surprising number of recruitment calls in the last 10 days, and activity on my LinkedIn profile has picked up. The recruitment calls are for jobs around Europe, so I'm really happy about that!
My parents are doing another stretch of the Camino de Santiago, expecting to travel back to Porrino on September 1st. They finally started blogging.
No new pictures to upload as I haven't really done anything picture-worthy lately. I've been busy with a lot of sports instead. In addition to commuting to work by bike (10km each way), I'm playing soccer twice a week, orienteering once a week, going to the gym 2-3 times per week, and running 2-3 times per week. Whew! However, it's always nice to train for something more interesting.
That's all for now!
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