The Squamidian Report – April 25 / 15
Online Version
Issue #674
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
I flew home last Monday evening. The airlines have sure turned what
used to be a fun and pleasurable way to travel into a miserable,
uncomfortable mode that is simply endured for the sake of getting
somewhere faster than driving. Oh well. Anyway, 'The Wife' picked me up
at 11pm our time which is 2am Ontarion time. The drive up to Squamish
is usually about 1.5 hr so that put me home late, not matter who's time
you use. Good to be home. Then, very early Thursday morning I drove
'The Wife' to the airport for her visit back. We left the house at
4:45am and I dropped her off at the terminal door at 6am and then got
back out through Vancouver before morning traffic picked up too much.
Poor Willow, she was not happy to see a suitcase being packed. Thats
always an indication to her that something is up. She doesn't
understand why we leave someone at the airport. However, when she comes
along on the retrieval side of the ride she is always excited to 'find'
the one that somehow got misplaced before. Dogs have a hard life.
You know, everyone complains that the drivers in their city are the
worst in the whole country. Well, guess what. Anyone making that
complaint in KW is right, theirs are the worst. I had rented a car for
pickup right at the KW airport and had only driven a few miles before
finding the first example of bad driving. I had stopped for a red
light, a driving habit I've had for years. When the light turned green,
I did another habit I've been doing for years, I looked both ways,
twice, (a procedure that can save your life when riding a motorcycle)
before proceeding into the intersection. Had I not, I would have been
creamed by a kid in a small car, radio blasting, hat on sideways, arm
hanging out the window, as he blew right through what was for him a red
light. Then, a day or so later, we were stopped at an intersection,
waiting to turn right. The light was green but there were pedestrians
entering the intersection from our side. An on-coming car wanted to
turn left into the same lane we were waiting for but the driver, a
young woman, didn't seem to think waiting for pedestrians was a
worthwhile endeavor and made her turn anyway. She should have waited
for the people and then us as we had the right-of-way but instead cut
in front of the people who had the 'walk' signal in their favor and
turned into the on-coming traffic lane, right at the cars that were
sitting there. How can anyone be in so much of a hurry, or be so
selfish and self absorbed that they will risk crashing into people or
other cars just to jump ahead of another car and save perhaps a second
or two. Boggles the mind.
Then, on another day I had walked over to a local plaza for some air
and exercise. On my way back I watched another mind boggling display of
stupid, impatient driving. A car was stopped at a red light. There were
pedestrians in the intersection, crossing the street with the
right-of-way. A car came up behind the one that was stopped. This car
wanted to turn right but didn't want to wait for the people or car to
clear. She, yes, another young woman driver, veered into the bicycle
lane, squeezing between the curb and the stopped car. It was a tight
squeeze because her tires were rubbing on said curb. She nosed her car
in between the people crossing the street, forcing them to step out of
the way. She shoved her way through and on she went. If I were king of
the world I'd be removing drivers like that from the gene pool. There
were numerous other examples of impatient morons but there is no point
in going on with this particular topic. It just raises the old blood
pressure.
So, instead, I'll do a guitar comparison. While in Kitchener last week
I again rented a guitar, this time from the Waterloo L&M. I can't
say enough about how great that music store chain is, no matter where
in the country you are. They always do their best and never fail to see
to a customer's needs. Anyway, I rented another Gibson J-45. I may be
repeating myself but at my age I can't remember so just put up with my
ramblings. As I think I've stated before, Gibson guitars of the exact
same model seem to run the gamut from very good to mediocre. The one I
had rented a month ago was just ok, nothing special. The one I rented
last week was much nicer. Nicer to play, nicer sound. It had also been
set up better which probably helped with the play-ability. Now here's
the interesting thing, as nice as it was, it was no better than my old
Ovation. I will certainly admit that sound, feel and play-ability are
very subjective and this is only my opinion. Someone else could very
well come to a totally different conclusion and they'd be right,
according to their own evaluation and judgement. Anyway, I would not
trade my Ovation for that Gibson, or if I did, it would simply be for
the 'prestige' of having a Gibson. However, I came home to my HD-35 and
its still just plain 'Wow' and for me thats pretty cool.
And then there was my frustrations with my cell phone bill. Because I'm
still with Bell Mobility I had gotten used to being raked over the
coals, charged for stuff that should be included, basically treated
like dirt, and so on. About the only thing I get from them is the
privilege of sending them money each month. When I was in KW a month
ago things had gone a bit sideways and I knew I'd be getting a big bill
for the long distance component. I had not had a chance to add a long
distance package to my plan and normally I would not have needed one.
However, I should have been covered for text messages because I had
been getting a lot of those, and replying to those, from my riding
friends over the last year or so. So, quite a while ago I had called
Bell and someone there sold my a package that would give me both call
display, a very useful feature, and more texts than I could ever use.
When I got home this past week and checked my bill, I found I was being
charged for each and every text message. That got me riled a bit. I
went on the Bell web site and looked up the package I was paying for
because the extra billing for text messages had stopped when that
package went into effect long ago. So what gives??
The package, or bundle as they call it, had somehow changed. It had
been quietly modified to enhance their profit levels. The included text
messages now only applied to texts to and from NON- North American
countries, but not within Canada or even the US. What kind of lunacy is
that?? Why would anyone want or need to such a 'feature'. I phoned Bell
and was very polite as I talked to one of their agents. After a lot of
'looking things up' he came back and admitted that the bundle had been
changed without notifying me or assumably anyone else. He offered to
add Canada texting for another $5 but I told him to stuff that up his
*&^%$ and fix this properly. I had no intention of paying more, and
in fact they were guilty of some kind of fraud. I really don't know
when they started charging me for texts that I was already paying for.
He finally decided he could reverse the charges on that bill and that
there would be no further charges for text messages, the messages I was
already paying for. I've had other run-ins with Bell over the years and
the only reason I hadn't dumped them long ago is that my old phone, a
very high quality and expensive phone at the time of purchase, can not
be used on someone else's network. Its just too old, heck its just a
'phone'. So, as we speak, Ryan is researching other options and at some
point in the near future I will be retiring my old phone and saying
good riddance to a 35 yr long customer relationship with a company that
has never once demonstrated the slightest interest in treating their
customers fairly, or even keeping them for that matter. The sad state
of affairs here in Canada is that none of the cell providers could give
a rats ass about their customers but at least most other phone plans
include things like texting, long distance, and enough monthly minutes
to at least carry on one decent conversation without going over your
time limit.
And now for something good, literally. Before I flew back this last
time, 'The Wife' had made me a rhubarb strawberry pie, using fresh
rhubarb from our garden. It was very, very delicious to say the least
and I had worked tirelessly to consume as much of it as possible before
flying out for the week. Well, I got in late Monday night and she flew
out early Thursday morning. Somehow, in between those days, she found
time to make another rhubarb strawberry pie, with rhubarb freshly
picked from the garden. And it is oh so good. Am I spoiled or what?
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Brrrrrrrrrr…..! This last few days have been a flashback to winter here
in KW! I thought we could all put our winter coats etc away until next
November but I guess not yet!
Thursday we woke up to a blanket of snow once again and it sure was
discouraging to say the least. I attended our Waterloo Firefighter’s
annual Retirement Banquet on Wednesday evening and as I exited Golf’s
Steak House in the Bridgeport area I was shocked to see the vehicles
covered with show at 10pm. The day had been around the “Zero” mark with
a few flakes that melted as they hit the ground but I didn’t expect to
see snow that stayed on the ground. Oh well, I guess all we can do is
wait for it to melt once more and hope that it stays away from then on!
Each year I look forward to attending the banquet, which is a
celebration to honor the WFD members that have retired during the past
year. It’s also a chance to invite those who have retired over the
years from the fire dept and are still alive and kicking. Each year the
president of the Waterloo Firefighter’s Association reads out the names
of the deceased members. This list when I first started on WFD was one
of members that had passed away many years before I joined the
organization. The most recent death on that list was one that had died
of natural causes about 10 years before my joining. Each year we
managed to hear the list without any recent additions until I was on
the dept for approximately another 10 years. Over the years of my
career there were several names added to that list but thankfully none
of those new additions died on the job. There was only one who passed
away while on vacation in a drowning accident in Dominican Republic and
attending that funeral in full uniform was a very difficult event
indeed. Alan Gross was due to be promoted to the position of Platoon
Chief upon his return from vacation and he would have been the PC on my
platoon. We were all in shock when we received the news of Al’s
passing, especially since he was only in his early 40’s. He and I had
worked together since our hiring within a few months of each other and
progressed through the ranks with enthusiasm. I was indeed looking
forward to having him as my Platoon Chief. Unfortunately that wasn’t to
be and we were all reminded of the difficult time of his passing on
Wednesday evening at the banquet. As we listened to the reading of the
names on the list it was indeed an eye opener to think that we now have
as many as twenty members of WFD that all of the present retirees had
worked with that are now on the list of deceased members. I sincerely
hope that the Firefighter’s Association continues to celebrate the
retirees living and dead for as long as WFD exists. I know from
personal experience that it is important to me that I am still
recognized for the 30 years of service I dedicated to the City of
Wateroo and it’s citizens to maintain their protection both from fire
and many different emergency situations one can list! In speaking with
many of my fellow retirees that evening we all feel that the annual
banquet is our reward for having done a professional job in a very
difficult career and of course we all give thanks to the present day
members of WFD for remembering the effort we all put into making WFD
the career that they can continue enjoying in our stead!
Well, that’s my nostalgic blabber for this week!
I sincerely hope that I’ve inspired all of you to think back on you’re
lives and the effort each one of you put forth with regards to making a
living and in doing so I hope you are all as proud of your work history
as I am! Since most of the Squamidian members are either in mid life or
later years at this point I’m sure you can all be very proud of the
effort you have put into making a living and supporting your families!
Thanks so much for continuing to support The Squamidian and The
Ontarion Report as they are an important part of life for both Doug and
myself in our retirement and we’ll keep it up as long as it seems to be
relevant!
That’s it for this week folks!
Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!
Buy for now … Greg
PS: Something To Think About>
Some days you’re the top dog, some days you’re the hydrant!
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Have a good one..
the doug
The Fine Print!
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