Author: Rae

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Finding Treasures

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Yes, that’s a guy hunting (gophers) behind my home. Doesn’t even make me blink anymore.

Moving on…

Those of you not on Facebook are going to have to wait to find out how my first week of work with my booster went! I want to make a few more adjustments.

My work week finished at 2:00 and as I got closer to that time, I realised that I had plenty of time to go to the Willow Bunch Thrift Shop before it closed at 4:00! I’m really not disliking my 6AM start time, except for the fact that I’m starting to eat at ‘weird hours.’ Yes, I just wrote that. Me who hasn’t had a ‘normal’ schedule in years. It’s funny how slowly becoming more of a morning person has changed things. But I digress.

I was greeted to a round of applause at the thrift store for my work on the internet situation. I was actually disheartened by this because everyone is so keen to tell me I’ve done good work on this, but no one wants to help. 🙁 I caught up with one of the ladies from the museum since we’ve only been corresponding about translations, then I started digging for treasure. And treasure I found. I actually got to the point where I said, “Enough!” and I made a beeline for the cash register without looking at anything else!

The first things I found were two tee-shirts. I really haven’t bought many clothes this summer because I didn’t need anything, but I have kept my eye out for tee-shirts. I buy cheap ones and rotate through them. I found two today that were colours I liked. The blue one has stitching on the sleeve that I’m not nuts about, but it’s otherwise in good condition and the colour is lovely. The pink one still has the original tag!

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Then, I found what I am fairly certain is a diaper bag, but I am planning to use it as a computer and airplane carry on bag. It is really cute. I love all the pockets, as well as the découpaged flowers!

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It has a lot of pockets in addition to the roomy middle compartment. There’s even a separate mini case for my cell phone.

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Then, I found a little purse/wallet. Much as I love the purse/wallet I bought in Madrid, after living with it for a few months I know it’s not going to work well for its intended purpose on Isla as it’s too big and floppy and the change compartment is too small to really see what you’re working with. Like in Mexico, I use a lot of coins in Canada, and if I’ve been frustrated here by how hard it is to pull out a toonie or whatever, I will go nuts in Mexico where most of my transactions are with coins.

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I like the colour and it is just as roomy as the Madrid purse/wallet, but will allow me to be better organized.

Finally, I bought a purse… I’m a sucker for a good quality genuine leather purse in a style that I don’t own. I had a colleague back at the government who was really into high end expensive purses and taught me how to spot one at a second hand shop. So when I saw that this purse had feet and a beautiful liner, I was not surprised to find the ‘genuine leather’ tag. Danier is a brand I know well from Quebec since they made my old coat that I am still mourning (except for the fact that it was a size 18 or 20 and I’m a size 6-8 now…).

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And the colour! It’s a dark rustic rose with coarse ecru stitching, totally me. It’s the perfect “in between bag” between my giant tote and my purse/wallet. I really don’t ‘need’ another purse, but this one could not be left behind.

That was it! I grabbed my haul and went down to the cash register, where I was glad I had my chequebook since I only had about $14 total on me. That was twice as much as I needed!!!! Yes, I paid $7 for this entire haul!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reeling from shock, I left the shop and headed to the Jolly Giant pub to get a burger to go. That would put dinner around 3:30 by the time I got home, but I had breakfast at 5:00 and lunch at 10:00, so my stomach was adamant that it was time for dinner!

The burgers at the pub are just gorgeous, with a homemade bun, homemade patty, generous slices of tomato and red onion, romaine lettuce, real cheese, mustard, and relish (I have them hold the mayo). And look at those fries, just like what I’d get back in Quebec! A real bargain for $10.45.

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SaskTel President Ron Styles Doesn’t Understand the Needs of the 21st Century Internet User

SaskTel president Ron Styles finally got back to me today and claimed that he was also writing on behalf of Minster Jim Reiter, responsible for overseeing SaskTel. With men like them at the helm of this telecom company, it’s no wonder money is being wasted.

Mr. Styles addressed a number of my claims in his letter, which I am reproducing in full here in italics, with my thoughts interspersed throughout:

Thank you for writing to discuss your concerns regarding wireless coverage for St. Victor. I understand that you also contacted The Honourable Jim Reiter, Minister Responsible for SaskTel. The Minister has asked that I respond on his behalf.

We understand the importance of providing communications services in rural areas. SaskTel faces a unique challenge as Saskatchewan has the fewest customers per square kilometre of any province and therefore SaskTel incurs significant costs to deliver service to rural locations.

Notice here that he said provinces. What about the three territories?

My response to this:

I have a friend who lives deep in the Yukon bush south of Dawson City. She has full LTE service at her cabin after asking Bell Mobility if there were any plans to increase the gain on an antenna built fairly close to her (10-20KM away), but which she couldn’t connect to because of terrain. I don’t know what they did, but it only took a few weeks for her to go from half a bar of service on the top floor of her house to full service all over her property! So I don’t buy your arguments that we’re too remote or too small a population to give service to because I know communities that are much more remote than us that have good service. I lived in Yukon for two years and traveled through the Territories. Any community St. Victor’s size with road access was online with DSL and often cellular, too.

While SaskTel’s wireless network does extend to 98 per cent of Saskatchewan’s population, there are locations where coverage is either poor or not available.

SaskTel does provide high speed Internet to 100 per cent of Saskatchewan’s population through different technologies. SaskTel Satellite Internet powered by Xplornet may be a solution for customers, such as yourself, where Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) service is not an effective option. SaskTel High Throughput Satellite (HTS) Internet Service powered by Xplornet, which offers faster download speeds, will be available in the St. Victor area by the end of 2015. We would be pleased to discuss this option with you further to help address your needs for High Speed service.

This is proof that he is the wrong man for the job. My response:

The fact that you think that satellite internet is a reasonable alternative to cellular broadband for anyone in southern Canada shows that you have never used it and have no understanding of the internet needs of the average 21st century user, much less a business owner. Satellite has huge latency issues, which make VOIP services, like Skype, unusable and streaming difficult. It is disturbing that SaskTel is expanding that inferior service to rural areas and passing it off as being something we should be excited about instead of adding repeaters to extend tower ranges, or even extending DSL lines. Has SaskTel even considered giving us DSL service instead? We’re less than 18KM from the nearest house that has DSL.

You mention that SaskTel operates as a monopoly; however, I can assure you that SaskTel operates in the most competitive telecommunications market in Canada. The decision of any company to enter, or to not enter, the Saskatchewan market is not something that SaskTel or the Government of Saskatchewan controls.

I am waiting on Rogers before replying to this claim. Rogers is the only other telecom in the country to have towers in Saskatchewan.

We appreciate your suggestion to adjust the angle of the equipment on the tower. However, after analysis of the St. Victor area, our computer projections indicate that if we pointed the nearest antenna directly at St. Victor, there may be marginal improvement in coverage in the community at best, while compromising service to surrounding areas.

Other areas that are served by the Rockglen and Assiniboia towers. I doubt that any analysis was actually done because I have my own data from an expert in this field that confirms anecdotal reports that the Scout Lake tower is actually servicing no one that isn’t already serviced by the Rockglen and Assiniboia towers.

SaskTel is very thorough and deliberate while selecting wireless sites, and decisions are made based on several factors, including: the local geography (including hills, trees and manmade structures), the number of permanent residents covered by the site, in-season population growth and tourism at resort communities, distance from major highways and the opportunity for
revenue and cost recovery.

Another line of bullshit. I’m calling it what it is. St. Victor gets a lot of traffic daily from visitors traveling between Assiniboia and St. Victor. We are a tourist destination because of our petroglyphs and get visitors from all over the world. We host a huge biker rally every year. We even have two museums right here in the hamlet! Everyone in the area is just waiting for the day that a big emergency breaks out at the St. Victor Boogie with lives lost because of the inability to call out since we know that’s what it’s going to take to get service here.

I have no proof of this, but SaskTel selected the location of the Scout Lake tower because they got a better lease rate than they would have from someone down here in the valley. I have not brought this up with anyone, including the CBC, because it is conjecture, but at this point, it is the only conclusion left and a very likely one at that.

I empathize with your desire for improved wireless coverage, and I can state that SaskTel is always reviewing our network and coverage to ensure that we provide all residents of Saskatchewan with access to the most expansive mobile service network in the province.

Don’t patronize me, Mr. Styles. You’re dealing with someone who has an unusual amount of knowledge about telecom coverage in this country and what it actually means to be a remote community.

As previously indicated, there is not a good business case for SaskTel to expand wireless service in the St. Victor area.

And there was to Scout Lake???!!! I want a rational line by line financial report of your justification.

However, we would like to discuss possible participation in the Shared Model Program if your community is interested in this option. Bill Beckman, Director of Strategic Business Development, would be pleased to discuss this with you or other residents, if you so desire. Bill can be reached at 306-777-4208.

Bill is going to do like that private company in Calgary and quote my municipality an amount that it can’t and shouldn’t have to pay for a service that you should be providing to us.

Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns.

There he is patronizing me again.

Sincerely,
Ron Styles
President and CEO

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A New Booster Teaser

It has been a very, very, very long and physically tiring day, but the initial work on getting the new booster set up is done. I still have tweaks to do. It’s going to take days for me to know if I’ve made any improvements since my refracted signals here are so variable that I can have great service one second and none the next. My signal strength appears worse, but internet is working wellish (so far) and Caroline marveled at the crystal clear quality of a call I made to her.

I’m therefore not ready to give a full report on the booster and the store that sold it to me. But I have worked way too hard today not to share a few pictures. 🙂

After much trial and error and tests and determining my physical limitations with regards to the equipment I have for working at great heights, I wound up putting the antenna back where the old yagi was installed.

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I did improve the mount on the eave and I also added a mount/stabilizer partway down. I was able to use my table saw for the first time today and boy did it come in handy!!!

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I actually don’t think that this is the best position for the antenna. I got a better signal strength and a signal through most of the property and definitely in my yard when I had the antenna just 10′ off the ground next to the truck. So this work may have been for naught. Time will tell…

Once the antenna was up and I knew the system was working, I brought the cable in through the roof hatch in the office:

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And then I mounted the booster above the converter:

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Those orange lights should not be on. I make them disappear for a bit and my dB improves, then they come back. So that’s part of the tweaking I have to do. Once I have that set, I’ll be able to decide where I’m mounting the interior antenna.

There’s still lots of work left for me to do, but I think the physical part of this exercise is done. Time for a beer!

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Soggy Saturday

BRR. I want a refund on my summer! 🙂

I woke up very late this morning, thankfully, since I’ve been desperate for a good night’s sleep. I had a slow morning responding to a few comments and emails from ignorant people. I finally got dressed (jeans and a heavy sweater, in August!!!) and went to town.

My first stop was Western Financial to deal with my truck registration and insurance renewal. I have to make an in-person declaration about my being a snowbird while maintaining SK residency so that I can take the truck out of the province for as long as I want. SK is the only province that allows a vehicle (and driver) out of the province as long as they want and still maintain insurance coverage, one of the many reasons why I chose to move here. The computer system didn’t have Mexico as a destination and the clerk and I figured that it was likely because I’m covered by Mexican insurance there rather than SGI (SK government insurance). So she put down that I would be in various U.S. states to make sure I’m covered while transiting. Add a signature and done. So easy and efficient!

Then, I went to Trifon’s for lunch since I was seriously craving pizza. They do a 6″ pizza with two toppings and Greek salad combo for a very good price. Their pizza is rather like Pizza Hut’s and the salad is very hearty since they don’t skimp on the feta and olives. My server was attentive, making sure I never saw the bottom of my coffee cup. I took my time with lunch so that I could catch up on some online stuff.

After, I went to the Co-Op home store to pick up two more sections of pole for my booster antenna. I don’t think I’ll be able to get them both up without finding a way to guy-wire the top section, but I’m going to try anyway and see how stable (or unstable…) the setup feels. I will, of course, reinforce the bracing on the bottom sections.

I didn’t need groceries, but cheese was $4 off for the 800g packs, so I went to the food store after to pick some up. Then, it was time to make a very cold and noisy trip home since I had to open up the windows between the cab and the back of the truck so the poles would fit inside and they rattled!

The rain is clearing up, but it is much too cold and windy to go work on the antenna and booster setup today. Guess I’ll put on a movie and get started on the project first thing tomorrow.

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A Full Day With a Visit to the Big Muddy Badlands and Castle Butte

Today was the day to go get my booster, but it was also the day that my internet situation exploded media-wise. I woke up to a link in a comment to a write-up by CBC about our internet situation. I was, of course, pissed off by our reeve’s lack of support for the project. I was misunderstood/misquoted in a remark I made about the number of people affected and instead of saying something like, “The number of people don’t matter,” he just dismissed my efforts. Lovely to have community support. I then made the mistake of looking at comments and spent too much time replying to trolls. I’ve decided to not go back and look at any other comments!

I finally got on the road around 8:20. I stopped at the gas bar in Coronach before the border to get a coffee and was told I didn’t have to pay! It’s such a small thing, but it really reset my mood! And the coffee was actually quite good, to my surprise!

I was at the border about an hour after leaving home. The crossing was painless beyond having to explain what a cell signal booster does and why I need one. I then enjoyed a drive across Montana landscape that looks a lot like ours to arrive in Plentywood around 10:15. I was picking up my package at the Little Muddy Dry Goods store, which offers a package service for Canadians, but discovered that Main Street isn’t the road that cuts west-east through town. I stopped for fuel (saving 20CAD even with the exchange rate) and got directions.

The package service pickup is at the back of a bright clean open store. I was a bit dismayed that the room was open to the public, like the bar in Opheim I’ve used in the past, but was assured that the door is closed and locked when there is no staff around… I paid my 5USD and then lugged the huge box back to the truck. There, I opened up the package to make sure everything was there and I knew what I was bringing back across the border.

It was about 10:50 by this point. I was an hour earlier than I had thought to be in Plentywood, so it felt like a weird time to hunt down lunch, but I was ready to eat. I’d done research ahead of time and so I headed to the Cousins Restaurant to see if I could order off the lunch menu that early. I got to the restaurant and was greeted very warmly by a server. I find that sometimes these small town restaurants are light on the customer service because they’re not used to seeing strangers and the locals know the drill, but this was not the case here. I was handed a menu that had all their options on it, not just breakfast, so I figured I could order lunch.

The menu was pretty typical American diner fare, so I opted for a ‘patty melt’ which is a fancy term for a hamburger between slices of toast rather than a bun. This turned out to be a slice of ground beef with heaps of perfectly sautĂ©d onions and melty American ‘Swiss’ cheese’ between slices of pumpernickel bread. The menu had said ‘marble rye’, but the pumpernickel flavour was really strong, which was a plus! It elevated the sandwich from pretty ordinary to something special. The sandwich came with fries for 7.99USD. I gave the server my last 10USD (I’d withdrawn 50USD from my US account, so if you’re following my day, you’ll know that I had 10USD left!). I’m really glad I had lunch at Cousins Restaurant.

Then, it was time to head up to the border at Regway/Raymond, which I hadn’t even known existed between Portal and Scobey until John in Santa Fe told me about it! There, upon seeing my passport and being told where I live, the customs official exclaimed that he recognised me from the radio this morning…

I declared the booster and he had me go in to pay. Then something interesting happened. He clued in that I’d said I work from home as a transcriptionist/proofreader and that I was bringing in a booster, so he asked if I was bringing it in for commercial purposes. Oh, boy, I thought. This is going to cost me! I cautiously asked what’s the difference. He looked at me like I had snakes growing out of my head. “Has no one at the border ever told you that if you import stuff for your business you don’t have to pay the PST???!!!” HUH???!!! Well, that was news to me! Dang!

It was then time to figure out what I owed now that I was importing as a business. I had my USD invoice and my PayPal receipt showing what I’d paid in Canadian. He said that I’d probably get a better exchange rate through whatever system they use and I said that the exchange rate is worse now than it was when I bought the booster almost two weeks ago. He did the math and went, “Yup. According to your PayPal rate, you owe me $53. According to our rate right now, you owe me $61. That will be $53, please.”

First time I came away from the border having paid less than I expected to pay. Lovely guy. And yet, he and another guard then emptied out my truck (thankfully, I had very little in it) and even went through my purse, which I had left on the front seat. It’s so lovely to be waved through into a foreign country and be treated like a criminal when coming into your own. But, hey, I saved $53…

From the border, I headed north into the Big Muddy Badlands, eventually pulling over to check my emails. I had a voicemail from someone at CBC Radio wanting to schedule ad interview for later that day, so I was able to return that call and set up a time for them to call me.

Then, it was time to head on to Castle Butte, a famous landmark in the area. I thought I’d have trouble finding it, but there was a sign announcing the turnoff. Castle Butte is a particularly remarkable hill in the middle of lots of other hills and was used as a landmark in the old days. I arrived, changed into a hiking skirt and my Keen sandals and pretty much crab walked my way to the top. It was very slippery! But I got up there without much incident and was surprised when I reached the summit effortlessly.

The trip down was another story, though! I crouched down and pretty much slid my way to the bottom. Then, I had a walk around the entire structure.

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And people think Saskatchewan is flat…

From Castle Butte, I took the back road through Harp Tree to get to Willow Bunch. There were just one or two signs the whole way there to assure me that I was heading in the right direction. Just as I was certain I was completely misplaced, I saw the red tower of the Willow Bunch Museum! Whew, what an adventure! But I wouldn’t have really needed a search party since I had cell service the whole way through this particularly desolate part of the province…

When I got in, I called Caroline, who got home late last night, to check in as she’d left me a message and asked me to do that. I asked if I could come by around 4:00 so I could do my interview from their landline. Of course! So I called back my contact at CBC Radio and gave him C&C’s number.

I then very carefully unpacked my booster, making sure I kept the packing material and did as little damage to it as I could. The materials are really heavy and obviously of better quality than what I’ve received from Wilson.

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I tried to set the booster up temporarily without mounting the antenna at any great height, but I got the ‘you have oscillation’ error message that means that the interior and exterior antennas are too close together. I managed to get the old antenna off the pole and the new one mounted with a minimum amount of effort, but I still couldn’t get the booster to work. I went so far as to install the booster in the shed, which was as much horizontal separation as I had cable for, but that still wasn’t enough… Tomorrow, I’ll go to town and get another section of pole and hope that another 10′ of vertical separation will do the trick. If not, I’m at a loss and will contact the sellers to get their thoughts. I’m disappointed, to say the least. I had a feeling this unit would be overkill for my small property and I might be right… But I’m not giving up yet!

Then, it was time to head over to C&C’s, where I had a coffee and catchup before my interview. I think the interview went well and I was able to share how I lose internet during the day and have to pack up my things and race up the hill.

I think I’m done with this issue because nothing is going to get done. I’ve fought a good fight, but with SaskTel not having to answer to anyone and my community management not willing to get involved, this will never get resolved. Time to start thinking about where I’ll spend next summer since it won’t be here…

After my interview, I got another coffee and then Caroline asked if I could stay for supper! Of course! 😀 She made her amazing whisky-marinaded salmon with scarlet runner beans, corn on the cob, and grilled zucchini. She is such a good cook! It was a lovely meal where we all came away replete, but not stuffed. They don’t do dessert, but they do do wine! So we sat out for a bit to finish our glasses of fermented grape juice, then I headed home with a giant zucchini.

When I got in, I remounted the old antenna onto the broomstick and stuck the whole thing in the truck like I used to have it set up, then restarted the old booster. It’s going to rain tomorrow, but hopefully I can do more work on the new booster Sunday and Monday and get it working… Croft, you’d better be online this weekend! 😉

Whew, it’s been a very long and full day. Time for a hot shower and hopefully a good night’s sleep. I’ve been so stressed that I have been sleeping poorly, but hopefully the exercise I did today will help.