Christmas eve

The reason for the new look blog, is the other theme was too slow. no matter what PC it was viewed on, scrolling was slow and tiresome.

Russian Visa
On Thursday we submitted our Russian visa application at the consulate. When Cassie called the consulate earlier that week with a list of concerns surrounding the visa application process, Natasha (perfectly Russian name) forwarded her to the website. Not a great start as we did have an information overload already. However when we met her on Thursday, everything couldn’t have gone smoother.
After looking over the form Natasha effectively said, “ok no problem, visa will be ready 11th Jan. Your visa will start from that point”. All of our concerns seemed to be melted away at that point. Finally a human who said ‘it’ll be fine’. So I’ m 60% confident we’ll get the visa we want. In the short time we built up a good rapport which was nice. It was nice to see the ‘cold, cold, cold’ front that the Russian’s seem to put forward be melted with some pleasant small talk. Even the guy who told us we were in the wrong spot was abrupt but helpful.

Sale of drawers
I’ve been emailing back and forth with a gentleman from Bendigo, VIC regarding the sale of the 4wd drawers I made for the Pajero. He said that he would be here on the 24th, and sure enough he was. I had sent plans, photos and dimensions.

After unloading and reloading his ute and canopy which was full to the roof, we test fitted them and they fit within the millimetre. My heart was in my mouth when after the deal was done, it didn’t look like the tailgate would close. In the end it was a great feeling to see someone else so pleased with the efforts that I’d put in… all by chance, every design characteristic I had implemented had been what he was looking for.

Also today someone came and picked up the alloy bull-bar I purchased. I did make a loss on that one, but at least the space is clear now. I’ve been putting off cleaning it, which I want to do tomorrow but Christmas seems to have gotten in the way. :-P