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So it turns out I’m Corsican after all. 

Yes, you guessed it.  I made fire!

I went out to the Cave of Wonder (my Uncle’s garage, where has has pretty much anything and everything you might need for anything) looking for an axe, so I could maybe chop up some of the blocks of wood I have into smaller pieces.

I couldn’t find the axe (I’m sure it’s there, but only he knows where everything is and I didn’t want to disturb whatever sense of order is in there), so I was standing by our woodpile, likely looking a little forlorn… when my Aunt came walking up.

Qu’est que tu fait?

(Which, loosely translated into English means, "You dumbass, I heard you couldn’t make a fire. Now you’re standing here looking at your wood? What? You think it’s going to carry itself into your fireplace and light itself on fire?  I’ll show your sorry Canadian butt how to make a fire. Here, follow me. )

So she leads me back into the Cave of Wonder, where there is secret stash (I had never seen it during my cave exploring outings) of dry sticks and twigs.  Actually, a bag of the stuff. My aunt points to this bag and says, "You need this.  Moron."  OK, she said it in French, but I’m pretty sure that’s what she said.

Ah ha! That is the secret to making a fire. Dry wood.  And the right type.  And small.  Ros, you were right…  :)

So I went for a walk.  Up a ways, past the little cottages and houses and into a big wooded area, where I figured there are trees there must be wood. 

Did you know that the floor of the woods is literally covered with twigs and broken pieces of branches?  I guess I never noticed this before.  My mountaineering experience is mostly in the high mountains, and I have to pack fuel for the stove.  There’s no trees above the treeline, and I don’t particularily like forests much.  I suppose I never really noticed all the stuff on the ground.

I packed my big bag (one of the corsican "recycle" bags), full of little twigs and what I felt would make good firestarter.  Took me only about 45 minutes, which isn’t bad.  My exercise for the week, so I killed two birds with one stone there. Ya for me!

Anyway, I get back to our place and show Cara my treasure.  She is suitably impressed, although she does notice that my bag of wood is rather wet. Sure, makes sense, after all it’s been raining for the last few days. 

Then my Aunt knocks on the door.  My Uncle is going to be delayed (snow on the road in the mountains, etc), so she’s here to show me how to start a fire. 

She brought her bag of twigs with her.

I showed her my own bag of freshly gathered wood and twigs, and she said, "Non, pas sec".  Which translated roughly means, "You really are a dumb canadian immigrant, aren’t you? The twigs must be dry.  Dry!  Can you hear me.  DRY!"

Then she shows me the secret. 

Well, first she validated my theory that the problem was the wood.  It seems my wood is not good wood for burning in a fireplace. So she went out and got a few choice peices of her own wood.  (Conveniently stacked right next to mine.  Or rather, my wood is stacked next to hers.)

She placed a few crumpled up bunches of newspaper on the bottom layer, then a whole heap of *dry* twigs on top, and then a small/medium log on top of that.

Then she lit it up with matches.

And she showed me how the fireplace works.  You see, it’s an insert.. which is a special type of fireplace, specifically designed to work with fire. You can use it to manage your fire, by adjusting various sliders to limit airflow into the fire area.

She closed the fireplace door, and *immediately* the burning paper just went crazy and rapidly started to be consuming by fire.  Apparently, the fireplace really doesn’t work too well with the door wide open… which is how I was trying to do it.  Immediately, I realized that yesterday during my fire starting attempts, if I had just shut the door and opened the air-vents.. all would have been well.  My mistake was keeping the door open and not understanding the airflow issue. Instead of practically knocking myself out with blowing, I should have realized the fireplace could do this for me, with heat-induced air circulation. How snazzy is that?!

Then the fire went out.  Well, the paper stopped burning. 

She turned a little sheepishly to me and told me that, usually, she didn’t start the fires.. it was Dominique who did it.  He is the fire expert, she says.  She’s just lighting this fire because he’s delayed and she knows Cara is cold, etc… 

She tries a few times to get the fire going, with new crumples of paper.. but it doesn’t work.  Finally, she stands up and tells me that we’ll have to wait until Dominique is home. No problem.  I’m reasonably confident that, now I understand how it works, I can get a fire going.

And I did.

After a brief inspection of the air-flow system, I figured out how it works.  It’s really simple, actually. The grill under the fire area is where the air comes out, so if you start your fire there (right in the middle), with lots of small twigs that will catch quickly… you only really need a few peices of paper to get it going. 

The fire gods, satisfied in my progress of study, once again deemed me worthy, and blessed me with fire. My sacrifice of pride was accepted.

So now you can all stop worrying about how cold Cara says she is.  The fire warmed up our place to a nice 18.9 degrees.  Not too hot, but not cold. Just perfect. 

Now.. couple of questions for you fire-people out there. (Corrie/Dawn, Ros, Oksana!)

1) Do you keep your fire going all night and day long?  Or do you let it die after you go to bed, and then start it again the next evening? 

2) Wood. How much wood is "normal" to use?  I think our fireplace insert has a leaky front window, because I can hear air whistling through the spaces.  I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be air-tight if I close off *all* the air-vents, but in our case.. air still gets through.. and so I think the wood is burning faster then normal.  Should I fix that?  (ie: scrap off the old seal junk and then buy some new sealer? I think it’s like a white fluffy sort of barrier thing.)

3) Any tips/tricks/suggestions on fire stuff in general?  I haven’t (yet) gone to the internet to do some research on using fire to heat a house (yes, I’m a geek!), but if you’d like to share your own experience and suggestions… well, I won’t pay you for it.. but consider me thankful.  :)

I am a crappy Corsican.

Why?

Because I can’t make a freaking fire in our freaking fireplace. 

Over an hour I spent trying to get a flame going… but no.. the corsican fire gods scoffed and spat on my effort.  Perhaps literally.  No fire for you!

Personally, I think it’s the wood.  You see, I’m using compressed lumber that was kindly donated to us by my cousin, who felt sorry that we didn’t yet use our fireplace since now Corsica is Land Of The Cold. (Well, it isn’t really.. but *they* think anything below 17 degrees Celsius is just Cold…)

Anyway, he went to visit his friend and then stopped by our place today and we unloaded about 2 big boxes of this wood he got for me.  Basically, they are "end pieces" from his friends woodshop.  It’s lumber, like the kind you would make big roof rafters out of.  (Think 8" by 8" huge blocks of wood cut into pieces about 2 feet long each.)  Did I mention that the wood is wet?

But.. I’m still a bit discouraged nonetheless.  After all, I have my pyrotechnic license for crying out loud. I am a certified fire maker.  I *love* fire.  Fire loves me.  We have a relationship.  A friendship.  An agreement. I will love fire and nurture it and make it big and strong.  Fire just has to show up.

Damn fire.

So what is it? What am I doing wrong? Is it the wood or is there some kind of trick to making a fire in a fireplace or something? Is there a secret Corsican fire starting ritual that I didn’t perform?  I used paper… I used small little wood pieces that I sort of chipped off from the blocks of wood… I even stole a few "normal" pieces of branches from my Uncles stash of wood.  (Shhh)

The problem is that the fire starts up, and even crackles and pops for a while.  But then it slowly begins to wither and finally dies after a while.  If I blow on it… it gets bigger of course.. but then I start getting dizzy and I don’t want to pass out and wake up in the hospital as a roasted Henri-kabob.

Tomorrow I’m going to stuff my incredible sense of humility into the closet and call my Uncle to see if he’ll let me watch him light his fire in his own fireplace. I’m sure he’ll laugh at me and make a few jokes out of it.. in fact I know this will be a running joke for a while… but you know what?  Electrical heat is expensive, and my desire to save money on heating is higher then my desire to retain my pride.

Besides, I can always prove my firestarting abilities at a later date by showing him how to make a home-made flamethrower.  He’ll like that.

Wish me luck! I hope he shows me nice and slow (like when he’s teaching me a new French word), because I don’t want to miss any slight-of-hand super secret tricks. Maybe he uses special matches?  I don’t know.  I still think the problem is the wood.

If I can’t get it after watching him, then I’m resorting to lighter fluid.  Pretty sure that’ll work. And hey, the house is made out of concrete so what’s the worst that can happen.  Yes, I have medical insurance.

First, before I get going.. a brief warning to my readers who don’t know much about me.  This will be a religious post.  The purpose of my blog is to write up whatever I please… If you don’t like religious stuff then just skip it, or read it and ask my if you have any questions about what or why I wrote it.

I’m surprised the payforaprayer.com domain is not taken.  By some catholic.  Who wants to charge people for praying for them or someone else.

OK, I hope this post doesn’t offend anyone… but I’m going to rant a little bit about the Catholic church and how surprised (or not surprised?) I am about something.

Last Sunday there was a mass for my dead Uncle.  He died about 6 months ago or so, and the mass marks the "end of mourning" when my Aunt is now allowed to start wearing colors besides black.  I’m not sure exactly how it all works, but I was told this mass is the public "showing" that the mourning period is over. 

Anyway, so we all went to this mass.  Even my communist Aunt and Uncle went.  Of course, he sat in the back row and I’m pretty sure I saw kleenex in his ears.. but he was there.  That’s how important this mass apparently is.  It’s a family thing, so all the immediate family and many of the extended were there.

Great.  So what has that to do with payforaprayer.com?

Well, we (Cara and I) were told that this mass was for our dead Uncle.  Of course, we were expecting some kind of prayer to happen or some ceremony or whatever.  Sure enough, during the "we remember [insert name here] in prayer" part of the Mass the Priest mentioned my Uncle’s name.  (It was in French, so I have no idea what he actually said, but I know it was during the prayer part, as I’ve been to many many catholic masses and they’re pretty much all the same regardless of the language.)

After the mass, we were back at my Aunt and Uncle’s for lunch and chatting about the mass. I don’t remember how the subject came up, but we started talking about money and giving to the church. Oh ya, my Aunt asked if we gave anything for the offering basket.  Before we could really go much further in the discussion, my Uncle mentioned that the priest was PAID to mention my dead Uncle’s name in his prayer.

Paid. 

Yup.  As in my Aunt (the grieving one) had to PAY the Priest to put in a good word to God for her dead husband during his prayer.

Amazing.  I have a really hard time holding back my tongue against a religion that requires PAYMENT to a Priest for a prayer.

While I realize that for most people this "Mass stuff "is pretty much just "tradition".. it saddens me even further that none of my family here know they can simply talk to God themselves.  No need for a priest.  No need to pay a priest.  According to the Bible, God sent his son Jesus to earth so that he would die for us… and it was that action that restored our previously broken relationship with God.  Thus, we can now simply talk directly to God and he will hear us, since his son Jesus stands "in the gap" between us (sinful people) and God (sinless).  Jesus even went one step further and modeled "The Lords Prayer" for us, as a guide on how to pray.

There is no need to pray to Mary. Or to St. Martin.  And no need for payment to any Priest to pray on our behalf. 

My relatives tell me that the priests charge a fee, because they need to make enough money to eat. To them, it’s basically just a business transaction - nothing religious.

I guess I’m not Corsican enough yet, because I’m not able to just look at the catholic church, shake my head, and then move on with my day.  No.  The Corsican people need to know the truth about God, not just the traditions of a church.

And now, back to our regularily scheduled blogging. 

No, my transformer isn’t here yet. My software beta testing is going very well - only a few big bugs found and lots of little ones.  I’ve been keeping some pretty long hours, and getting a bit run down.. but there’s only one big problem left and then I think it’s ready for release.  And then hiring translators, and then redoing the website, and then the order system, and then the integration of my credit card merchant account, and then I’ll start adding on all the other features people have been suggesting… phew! 

My Aunt suggested that I should spend a bit of time outside each day. "Maybe getting firewood", she says. 

We have a nifty fireplace here that actually is designed for heating the place.  The temp is finally getting a bit chilly, so I think I’ll maybe go find some wood and see about making some fire.  I feel so rustic, living in a place that uses WOOD for heating.  Sheesh, do I have a city-boy’s heart or what?

I tried to explain that in our house in Vancouver there is a wood fireplace, but it’s for decoration. You can’t really use it for heat.  It’s for those little logs you buy at the gas station where you light the packaging and it burns in 2 hours and makes a nice cozy little ’show’ fire.  I think they might think we’re a little nuts.

Actually, they were quite surprised.  My cousin was somewhat shocked, in fact.  He told me that the normal image of a Canadian is someone who wears a lumber jacket, heats his house with fire, has sled dogs, and raises beavers for meat.  Oh ya, and we all hunt cariboo, elk, and moose. 

That’s ok.  Before I got to France I thought they were all nuts.  Now I see it’s only a few of them.  So it’s only fair we each have our own stereotypes. 

heh.

Hey, if you’re read this far yippee!  Here’s your prize.  Let me know, by posting a comment, what you’d like me to write about.

And Ros, I haven’t forgotten about you.  I’ll reply to your email about adsl soon!  I promise! 

No, there isn’t a turkey or chicken (or savage pig — inside joke) roasting in the oven.

I’m referring to the software that I have been killing myself to program, for the past 2 months.  It is almost done.  Between myself and two hired programmers, we’ve almost finished it.  Almost ready to go out for testing to the beta testers.. who hopefully won’t find too many bugs or problems.

I’m very excited about this, because it is the culmination of over a year of planning and a LOT of hard work. Plus, once it’s done I’ll have a lot more time to spend exploring Corsica.  Well.. that is until my workaholic perfectionist tendancy kicks in and I start thinking of the many many ways I can improve the software even more…  Actually, I already have a big list going for adding additional features/functionality.. but I’m really going to try hard to at least take a few weeks "off" and not think about anything more then bug fixes. Wish me luck!

Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know.. because I’m very excited.  All that’s left is integration of the new licensing and copyright mechanism (so people will stop stealing from me!), and a few minor bugs.  Then it’s out the door for public testing, and hopefully in a few weeks.. public release!

Oh.. crap.  Then I have to update my sales website, fix my order system, transfer about 3000 licenses to the new system, and then deal with the (hopefully not huge) deluge of customers with problems…  oh ya.. and of course let’s not forget my other business, which also happens to deal with a zillion web hosting customers who seem to always have urgent problems that must be fixed RIGHT FREAKING NOW BEFORE THE WORLD ENDS!  Good grief.  I always laugh when I read a helpdesk ticket from some customer who is freaking out because he can no longer log into his shopping cart system, that he installed but somehow now expects us to support.

Ahh… but life is good.  Working from "home" on software of my own sure beats driving 1.5 hours to downtown Vancouver to see myself being billed out for an hourly rate that is more then 10 times what I was making.

Speaking of which.. I was thinking the other day (sadly, this happens only a few times per week).. actually I was more "reflecting" then anything else…  and I realized that I now kind of understand Dave (my step-dad) a little better.  I remember talking to him once, a long time ago when I was his helper for a summer and brought bricks up ladders to high places and stirred thick cement in a wheelbarrow.. about how he was self-employed.  He told me he always has been.. and always will be.  At the time, I couldn’t understand that.  I figured, if times ever got tough, then how hard would it be to go and work for someone else, either on a contract basis or directly? After all, if you need money you have to work to get it, right?

Now I understand.  Having been totally my own boss now (self-unemployed) for only about a year, I think I’d rather have another kidney stone then work for someone else ever again. The concept of working *for* someone else just makes my whole body start to shake and sweat start to form on my forehead. Even the *thought* of working for "the man" again makes me panic.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I am confident I’ll never get another paycheck without my own signature on it.

Hi everyone,

The latest news is that it turns out I’m a moron. Sure, this is no surprise to many of you.. but it’s an absolute letdown to me. I had no idea! 

No, seriously… here’s the story.  Before we left for Russia in August, I checked 3 or 4 of the "wall wart" power transformers that we were shipping to Corsica, to see if they would work with the different electrical system in Europe.  All the ones I checked showed they would work fine with 220v/50hz power, so I just figured (assumed) that all of them would work.

Wrong, Mr Smart Guy. (Also known as Mr. Perfect, Mr. "The Great", Mr. Wonderful, and sometimes Mr. Amazing.)

The ONE power plug that we actually need… doesn’t work with the electrical system over here. This is the one for my wireless router.. which is needed to "split" our internet line so Cara can have a connection, our VoIp phone can have a connection, and I can have a wireless connection for my laptop (so I can work somewhere besides this damn couch!), etc…

After visiting no less then 5 different electronics stores here on the island, I realized that it just not something I can buy here. Most of the store owners looked at me like I was nuts. Knowing they couldn’t possibly know this to be true, I realized their look actually indicated they didn’t know what I was talking about.  (Yes, there is a subtle difference!)  It appears that not many people move to Corsica and are stupid enough to forget the necessary step-down power transformateur (nice French accept I have, eh?) to make their critical electronics equipment work.

(A step-down power transformer, for those of you who don’t know.. is what converts the electricity here in Europe to work with any electrical devices that need the same type of power from North America.  For any Daystar folks who are reading my blog.. I basically need one of those heavy little white/black things we used for all our concerts in Russia to plug into their power.  Yes, the same little device that continously electrified the sound board and gave me a thrilling shock each time I touched anything metal on it.)

So.. after searching a few online French websites, I found what I needed.  It only would cost 76 Euros, plus 10 for shipping.  That’s over $100 USD. No thanks.  For 10 euros more I can buy a brand new router.

So I checked out English websites, and found the exact same transformer for "only" $9.95 USD plus $30 shipping to France.  A better deal.

To make a long story short, in about 4-6 weeks, after this 5 pound transformer brick arrives, we’ll have our internet phone working, Cara will have her own computer/email, and I’ll be able to get off this couch and work from anywhere in our "house" (even outside!).

I hope everyone is doing well.