I recently attended an ISO 14064 part 3 training course. It was a three day course that was very intense, referencing materials in a 4-inch binder, doing group case studies, and  a quiz and a final exam, It was a course in greenhouse gas (GHG) verification. If you pass you are officially certified/qualified to audit companies and certify that their GHG projects are providing GHG savings at the level of the ISO14064-3 standard. I attended just to get more background on the requirements of the standard and took the exam since “I was there anyways”. I wasn’t expecting the 2 hour exam to be as long or tough as it was so I don’t think I passed (need to get a minimum 70%). The other participants were mainly certified accountants and engineers already involved in auditing - and that is who this course was most suited, 

It was the first year for Manitoba’s “Louis Riel Day” (~Family Day). It is a provincial holiday on the third Monday in February (this year Feb 18). We were hoping to enjoy this vacation but instead the alternator went on our Ford Explorer on the 17th so we were stuck at home. This was particularly bad for Wanda as she was running behind with her StatsCan work and this additional complication just increased her stress. After charging up the battery I was able to get the SUV to an open garage for repair on the 19^th without a tow. However, it turned out the alternator they had in stock was the wrong one - we needed a specialty alternator that wouldn’t be available until the next-day and it cost an additional 50% to boot. Ultimately the alternator was repaired and everything is running well now. We’ll see how long until the next problems.

We’ve noticed that we have Pine Grosbeaks are back at our birdfeeder again - they are becoming a regular late winter phenomena. Speaking of phenomena we also had a lunar eclipse this past week. It was easily visible as it was cloudless, the event ran over several hours, and the event started early in the evening - the kids were even able to see it before bed. That is a good thing as the next one in this area isn’t until 2010. I took a picture but because it was cold (-30 C) so I didn’t play around with the settings to optimize the picture - so unfortunately it isn’t as good as I would like. The following is the picture.