The Squamidian Report – Oct. 8 / 05

 

Also in this issue:

A Note From Ewan

The Ontarion

 

Hi All,

 

With the advent of cool autumn weather here on the west coast we can now look up at the high country and see nice new snow. I’ve always liked that, you can see the freezing level. It is where the snow starts.

 

We had one of those days at work this week were all sorts of things went wrong. There has been a frenzy of activity as we prepare for curb pouring through out the upper village at Britannia. Trucks running all over the place, machines digging all over the place. That kind of thing. One of the 6x6 off road trucks backed into a concrete hydro pole and snapped it off. The top came down onto the construction trailer, bringing the wires with it. The people inside knew enough to stay put until the power could be turned off. Once the power was off I had to lift the broken pole off the trailer with the excavator and set it down onto the ground where the hydro crew could un-bolt the wires from the cross bars. Then I had to pull out the pole stub and dig a hole for the replacement pole. Our ground here is very rocky so they don’t bother trying to drill holes.

 

Standing the new pole up and setting it into the hole was the next step. The upright pole was then steadied by the Hydro boom truck’s cherry picker while I backfilled around it. They hooked up the wires and turned the power back on. I then cleaned up the ditch and road and everything was back to normal.

 

Some minor Geek Speak!

 

There was a time when my old 19” CRT computer monitor was state-of-the-art. It had been the best available at the time and of course very expensive, very large and heavy as a horse. Now that LCD monitors are almost run-of-the-mill no one really wants to sit in front of a CRT. Who wants that eyestrain? We were hardly using the old K7, we all wanted to use the P4 with its 19” LCD. So while we were in the city I picked up a nice new Benq 19” LCD to replace the old monitor on the K7. Prices have come way down and you just can’t beat the picture quality of the flicker free display. This unit has both analog and digital inputs. The old graphics card is analog but any new card that may replace it would have a digital output.

 

There is also method in my madness. The old K7 is way past due for a major upgrading of everything, which is a sneaky way of building a whole new computer one piece at a time. That way now one knows your are actually building a new one. By having it already matched with a new monitor the most visible part of a re-build is over with. Now I can smuggle all the other new components into the house one piece at a time.

*

Google Maps. Kind of in the same vane as the Google Earth program we talked about a while ago but displays street maps instead of satellite photos. However, Google Maps is not a program you down-load but a search function on the Google web site.  You simply enter an address and click the search button. It zooms you right to the spot you are looking for and points at it. You can increase or decrease the zoom level and move the map around by dragging it. You can have it give you directions to or from that point to another. It’s not new, many of you are probably already playing with this tool but it is kind of cool.

 

http://maps.google.ca/?hl=en

 

d

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A Note From Ewan

 

Hello again,

 

This is just a quick note this time! I haven't figured out how to reply to so many people from my Canoemail address yet, so this is sort of a follow up from last time. Wow, that was a great read, I had missed the Squamidian! Four different stories so totally different, but connected through us. Sus, your story was so dramatic and emotional, I really enjoyed it. It's amazing and lucky that Heather reached you in part because of Doug's website, and the one for Fern Glen Inn. That just seems remarkable to me.

 

Michelle, welcome to the Squamidian!

 

Fern Glen Inn was great, and I was happy to see that Jackie and Jim had their hands full with plenty of guests. When I got back some coworkers were asking me about it and I recommended it to them too. It doesn't surprise me a bit that business would be brisk this time of year. The turning leaves are in their glory, but still with a lot of green left too.

 

Last year September for the first time I actually enjoyed driving, leaving northern Algonquin Provincial Park. I always thought people were nuts to ever go for a drive just for the fun of it, seemed like a chore to me. But I have to say this time of year driving in the area north of Huntville, well away from any busy highways, was terrific. A striking contrast with driving in Toronto. Perfect conditions, excellent scenery, zero traffic, and endless curves and hills. It was like driving through a non stop postcard. At this point in my life I don't have to be going very fast to get a thrill.

 

Jackie and Jim made us very comfortable, with good food too. The stars were out, and we lost count of the shooting stars. That could be a whole e-mail unto itself. I had no real plan when I headed up, but they have a long list of great fun to be had in the area. All the other people we met were very nice too. Once things were quieter on Sunday night it was good to have the chance to get caught up with them. Their B&B buildings and land are impressive, but warm and inviting at the same time. Getting away like that would probably seem like a bigger deal to the city folk, compared to the ones in the country. It might not be such a big deal for the family in Nova Scotia... Too much like home.

 

Beth, I'm sorry I missed your B-day party! Hope to see you soon.

 

Hopefully I'll talk to everyone else soon as well.

 

Ewan

 

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THE ONTARION REPORT

 

Well hello there my fellow Squamidians!

 

It’s been one heck of a run this past week! Just like most people in Ontario, we’ve been Bell customers for 33 years. Back in August we got a phone call from “Roger’s Phone Systems”. The caller asked if we would consider switching our phone account from Bell to Roger’s. She assured Carole that Roger’s offered exactly the same services for our telephone as Bell but at a much lower cost to us. All things considered, we decided that it would be worth our while to make the move to Roger’s. Well, that was on August 14th and it took them until this past Friday to change our service over. Once they did this at 9am our phone was quiet for the rest of the day. We finally thought we’d better have someone phone us to make sure that phone was working. As it turned out, we were able to phone out but were not able to receive calls. Not to mention, we were unable to connect via dial up to our INTERNET Server!!!!!!!!!  Holy cow, what would I do??? This put a severe crimp in my day for sure! I knew that I had a column to get out and without an Internet connection, how would I ever do that? Roger’s assured us after spending 3 hours on the phone with them on Friday evening that the problem would be solved by Saturday AM. Well, come Saturday AM, the phone was ringing and lo and behold on the other end was DOUG calling from the west coast wondering what was wrong here in Kitchener. He and Sue were concerned for our welfare after not hearing from me for 2 days and especially not having received the week’s edition of The Ontarion. I told Doug that everything was ok and that I would get the column to him one way or another. Adam said he would deal with Roger’s for us because he understands the computer connection thing better than we do and might be able to get Roger’s to realize the problem wasn’t with our server but with their new system.

 

He spent another 3 ½ hours talking to the Roger’s people all day Saturday and of course got a different story every time they called back or he called them. What a schmazzle! Late Saturday evening, I finally burned my “Ontarion” to a CD and took it down the street to my cousin’s place and used his computer to send it to Doug for publication. Here we are on Tuesday morning and still no Internet capabilities! Our last word from Roger’s is that they will have a technician come to our house sometime Tuesday and bring his laptop so he can see for himself that we can’t dial up our connection. They kept blaming our Internet server but when it comes right down to it, all the server does is receive our phone call and their computer answers to make the connection. It’s definitely Roger’s problem. Even Bell sent a technician to our house on Friday to make sure the lines were physically alright and they were of course. I guess Roger’s is new at this business and will get the wrinkles ironed out but one would think they’d have all that done before offering the service! I’m beginning to wonder if it’s worth all the hassle? In the final analysis, we’ll save approximately $30.00/month so looking at that I guess it’ll be worth switching. After all, $30.00/month will almost pay for my motorcycle insurance! Every dollar seems a tad more precious when you’re retired.

 

Hopefully once the tech gets here he’ll sort the mess out and we’ll be back to normal. I’d hate to think we’d have to switch back to Bell after all this!

 

I decided to write this early in the week in case we don’t have the connection by the weekend. I’ll add more to this edition once the week progresses and let you know how we make out with the “switch”, just in case one or all of you are considering making the move to Roger’s Phone Service. I’ll go for now but will talk to you again before the final version hits “print”!

 

Well, here we are two days later. It’s Wednesday and finally last night Adam was able to solve the phone problem. He spent another two and a half hours on the line with Roger’s Phone people and came to the conclusion that there are just some phone line customers whose line won’t access “Porchlight” dial up internet provider. He said basically anyone that has Roger’s phone service cannot access Porchlight as a provider. Guess we’re out of luck. The Porchlight people have never encountered this problem before but I guess there just hasn’t been a joint customer between these two companies before. This is probably due to the fact that Roger’s is a new service. SOoooooooooooooooooooooo……… being that Adam has wanted to have high speed internet for a long time now, we have decided to switch to Cable High Speed while in the middle of this dilemma. This should make Doug and Clyde very happy that we’re finally coming into the 21st century! LOL! The only problem now is that Roger’s can’t hook us up until Tuesday the 11th of October. I guess we can hang in till that time especially after waiting this long already. What a flooky mess this has been. I guess if Porchlight wants to keep their customers once they switch to Roger’s phone service, they’ll have to improve their technology. Either that or say screw Roger’s and lose the odd one. The Roger’s people have at least credited us with the same amount that we had remaining on our Porchlight account. This should last about 3 months on the high speed. At least now we will be able to be on line at the same time as Adam and also be able to answer the phone. For this week, I’ll forward the Ontarion from my cousin’s computer but we’ll be back to normal operations as of the 11th.

 

I hope you all have a great weekend and I look forward to talking to you all again in the next Ontarion Report.

 

Bye for now …..Happy Thanksgiving!!

GREG.

 

PS: Something to think about>

Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us.

 

 

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The Family and the Squamidian sites:

http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b/ and http://www.thedougsite.ca

Have a good one..

the doug

 

The Fine Print!

The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.