Saskatchewan

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Making the Best of a Forced Internet Sabbatical

After I hung up with Bell on Tuesday, I used Caroline’s computer to email some clients to let them know that I’d be out of touch for a few days. Then, I went home, tidied up the whole rig, rearranged my pantry, and made a nice dinner.

Then, I spent the evening searching for the lagoon where I can go dump my holding tanks (I took my Blue Boy once to the dump station in Assiniboia, but that was a hassle). Well, I finally found said lagoon, but accessing it requires four-wheel drive. So I will go there every few days with a partially filled (ie. not too heavy) Blue Boy that I can slip into and out of the truck and drag up the hill to the lagoon by foot. Not ideal, but cheaper than going to the dump station.

I called my mother on Wednesday morning and learned that she had work for me to do. Even though driving to Assiniboia to use the library wifi would cut into my profit, I needed the work experience, so loaded up my PC and headed into town. The very nice librarian gave me the wifi password and I spent about three hours getting the work done.

Even though I knew there was no hope in hell that my package from Bell had arrived, I checked in with the post office and they got my info and promised to be on the lookout for it.

I came home and just wilted. Caroline was doing the lawns, so I got my yard cleaned up. My yard didn’t get done, so I had dinner then went out to whack some weeds. Before long, Charles was back with the mower to do my lawn (and by that I mean jungle of weeds). I got the water hose and antenna wire out of the way for him. I had been sleepy all afternoon. So that done, I went to bed at 8:30, and slept to 8:30 Thursday morning!!!

Thursday morning, I headed up the hill with the booster and cell phone to call the post office. They don’t pick up, so you have to leave a message and wait for a call back. Hence why I decided to use my own phone rather than wait at C&C’s. I brought my iPad to pass the time… but the call back came in minutes! No Mifi. 🙁

So I called Bell to make sure the order had gone out. I’m glad I speak French as the rep I got had only very basic English skills and I have no idea why she was put on an English line. Anyway, no skin off my nose. She had a hard time finding confirmation that my order had gone out, but she eventually figured it out and got me a tracking number. I thanked her and headed to C&C’s to check my email and the status of my shipment.

C&C had started work on their addition so I arrived in a construction zone, but Caroline dropped everything to get me online (bless her) then left me to do what I had to do. I knew my modem wasn’t going to arrive that day so I went outside and asked if they needed help. YES. So I went home to change into grubbies and work boots, grabbing a pair of gloves and my hammer on the way out.

I spent the day pounding nails out of 2X6″es that had covered the old deck. Like me, C&C are big on recycling, so there was no way that good lumber was going to waste. It was hard work, but I was fed a nice lunch AND a snack, and there was lots of cold water. I even got a gin and tonic with lime with my snack. 🙂

Reading took up the better part of my evening, I went to bed at a more normal hour, had another good night, and woke up ready to face yet another day without internet. So imagine my surprise when I learned at C&C’s that my Mifi had landed!!!

I didn’t head straight to town, but rather helped Caroline pack away some fragile items ahead of the day’s grand event: jacking up their house to make it more level. That done, I got a tiny shopping list from Caroline and then headed to town.

After I got the Purolator thing sorted out, I continued a few blocks to Subways, Fridays being my treat (not cheat) day. I made healthier choices than I normally do there and enjoyed my sandwich (bread, oh bread I have missed thee) immensely. I headed back up Centre Street to the Co-Op, got Caroline’s groceries, and then went back to the post office to get my truck.

When I got in, I immediately headed over to C&C’s, put the groceries away, and went to help with the jacking up the house. They had thought they wouldn’t need help, but I’m pretty sure I was helpful, if only in using the sledge hammer (that thing was HEAVY) to wedge 2×4’s between the foundation and the house.

It was really impressive to see the house corner lift a full three inches! I didn’t go inside after, but apparently the ski hill in the kitchen and living room is gone. Water on the counter would always run to the northwest corner of the house and now it just sits where it’s spilled. What an improvement! Now that the house is reasonably level, they can build the addition.

Now, I’m trying to catch up on an unplanned week offline and trying to figure out how I’m going to make up for the income shortfall.

In happier news, my friend L is incoming and should be here next week! Other blog readers are in Montana and might be landing the first week of Augustish! I am SO pleased to be able to return some hospitality.

Finally, wow is the Yagi antenna sensitive. My connection just slowed to a crawl (not dropped) and I looked out to see that the pole had turned a couple of inches, dropping my connection to -105 and one bar. A small turn and a couple of wedges later, I have -96 and three bars. Let’s hope that my internet woes are over!

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Bell Canada Makes Up For A LOT

I called Bell at 3:30PM Tuesday about my junky Novatel Mifi 2 crapping out on me. The tech didn’t even have me do any troubleshooting. She knew what was wrong and that I needed a new one. Once we established that going to a store was out of the question, she agreed to Priority post one overnight.

I suspected that my device would be leaving from out east (I was right, Mississauga), so we were right at the end of business day there. So I was wasn’t surprised when I called back Thursday to confirm the order had shipped that it hadn’t gone out till Wednesday morning.

Instead of Priority, it was sent the slightly slower Xpress post route. Having worked in shipping, I know that outside of major centres, Priority and Xpress are pretty much equal in speeds, but not in price. So I wasn’t miffed at all, just disappointed that Canada Post estimated that delivery would be Monday.

So imagine my surprise this morning when I got a call from the post office in Assiniboia telling me the package had arrived! That’s right, the post office called me. Talk about service!

I drove out to town, got my package, and went back to the truck to make sure the new Mifi would work before sending back the old one.

The Mifi 2 is so badly designed that it takes fingers the size of a Barbie doll with the grip strength of the Hulk to remove the SIM card. I am not exaggerating. It took me 20 minutes to get the damn thing out of there and I only succeeded by slamming the device hard against the dash to force out the SIM card. If the device wasn’t dead before, it surely is now. But there is no evidence of my brutal SIM card extraction as the device’s programming might be crap, but the its casing is very sturdy.

Inserting the SIM card into the new device was slightly easier (you just needed the Barbie-sized fingers or longish fingernails). I was pleased that the battery was charged. The device powered right up and I had no trouble connecting with my iPad. Success!

I repackaged all the pieces (device, battery, cord, 120V adapter), keeping all the new stuff they’d sent, and brought the box back into the post office to be taped shut and mailed.

I didn’t even notice that Bell had included a prepaid PUROLATOR bill of lading. The post master was at a loss. He said that he knew Purolator delivers to Assiniboia and that maybe I could bring the package to ‘Great West’ to be picked up there, as he knew they got Purolator stuff regularly, but that I should check with Purolator first.

I spent 20 minutes on the phone with Purolator. The guy wasn’t even able to confirm that they service Assiniboia. Finally, he called a supervisor over and the supervisor said that I should take the post master’s suggestion, but that there was no guarantee ‘Great West’ would accept to hold my package or that a driver would pick it up without knowing s/he had something to pick up.

So I decided to mosey on over to ‘Great West’ and see what they had to say. Worst case, I would call Bell for an alternative sending method.

I left my truck at the post office and walked the block to Centre Street, turned left, and what did I see but a Purolator truck!!! It was pulling out, but the driver’s window was rolled down, so I called out. The guy stopped and I asked if I could give him a package. He asked to look at it and said, “You’ve got a label and it’s being paid third party; perfect. I can take it!”

Talk about serendipity!

I got home and couldn’t get online. I glanced out the window and noticed that the antenna had moved so I realigned it and tried again. Success!

Now, I am going to file a Better Business Bureau complaint against Novatel with the hope of recovering lost wages and the money spent on fuel this week since I have evidence that they know their device is prone to crapping out and they are still forcing it on an unsuspecting populace.

But first, a post about my week!

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The Novatel Mifi 2 Is a Piece of JUNK

My Mifi 2 was wonky yesterday morning, but let me connect to the internet and do some work. The connection was GREAT thanks to my new Yagi antenna! Then the Mifi powered down and refused to power back up. It had done that before and yanking the battery solved matters, but not this time. I went over to C&C’s to use their phone so I could call Bell.

The tech rep immediately listed everything that my Mifi has been doing since I got it — randomly powering down, going dormant despite having a signal, freezing, etc. She said I was lucky that the permanent freeze happened so soon after getting the Mifi 2 as they could replace it free at this point. This is a known issue that Novatel can’t be bothered to fix. What a piece of junk! If I wasn’t stuck with Novatel products for mobile internet with Bell (who has the best mobile bandwidth package) I would have thanked Bell and gone with another device.

Bell has been GREAT. The tech said I could just go to the store to exchange the device, but that’s not an option since I’d have to drive 400KM EACH WAY to a store that carries the Mifi 2! The tech asked me for my phone number and said that she would call me within the hour with a better solution. About 20 minutes later, she rang back to say that the best she could do is have it spent Priority overnight to Assiniboia, the system refusing to send to the hamlet since we don’t have civic addresses.

I’m not holding my breath that the new Mifi will be here today, but I’ll check the post office this afternoon. I’m at the Assiniboia library right now hoping to get some work done. I lost half a day yesterday and hope to make up some of that this morning.

I’m really starting to feel cursed.

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I Can Skype!

My neighbour has an old rust bucket of a pickup truck behind his shed. Its rear end encroaches on my property. The truck bed has holes along the side for a canopy. Since one of these holes was very clearly across my property line, I stuck my broom handle in that and aimed the antenna towards the cell tower. *

That puts the antenna almost 30′ from the rig and about 7′ from the ground. I knew from my experience with the whip antenna that I had to get as far to the northwest from the rig as I could and stay close to the ground, hence why I thought the truck would be a good antenna holder.

My RSSI number, the only thing I have to gauge the quality of my signal, dropped from -106 to -96 and has been hovering between -98 and -96. My phone still isn’t working here, but it barely works up the hill with the booster, so that’s fine.

My mother and I desperately needed to have a voice to voice business meeting so I decided to try Skype. We spoke for 28.5 minutes and only got about 10 seconds of fadeout. Otherwise, the sound was crystal clear and there was almost no lag. Moreover, she was on wifi across the house from her modem, not on ethernet, so the fadeout could have been at her end.

I have also been able to effortlessly stream Netflix since I moved the antenna to that location. I am so happy! I just need to find something colourful to tie to the antenna wire so that no one gets decapitated walking across that part of my lawn!

(* my neighbour will likely be happy that someone is putting that truck to good use!)

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Haven Has Improved Water and Internet Access!

I decided to hook myself up to city water, something I haven’t done in YEARS, because I’m tired of having to fill the holding tank every couple of days. Major bleaching of the city water intake ensued. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough water pressure with which to take a shower, so I still have to use the holding tank and water pump for that. Oh, well. At least I have running water!

I added a ‘quick connect’ to the water intake to make it easier to disconnect. It’s an awkward space and always leaks, so I wanted to only have to screw in and leak-proof once. I can now easily separate the hose and connect it to my fancy new sprayer. I also added another 50′ of hose to give me a little bit of play. The hose was cheap, less than $8, and I’m kicking myself for only getting 50′ of it.

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I used my fancy new sprayer and extra 50′ of hose to wash my truck yesterday! The water pressure was awful, so I had to give it several passes, but it was nice to get all the grime and bugs off. I even gave Moya a good hand waxing after, which made Caroline scoff. Yeah, it’s rather pointless to clean your truck when you’re going to be on dirt roads most of the time, but a coat of wax does protect the finish. Anyway, it was wonderful to be able to do wash the truck without worrying about using up someone’s water. The 50′ of hose wasn’t enough, so I wound up driving the truck around back of Miranda since I had just enough space to squeeze around her.

I’m going to order some Poliglow and spiff up Miranda sometime in August.

I was also going to add a quick connect to the water tank intake hose, but decided that instead, it’s high time I properly repair it and put the quick connect money towards repairs. All in due time. 🙂

As for internet, I had a ‘you have a package’ notification in my mailbox Friday. I was very tempted to ring for the postmaster, but prefer to respect her work hours since I have no reason to contact her outside of them. So I waited patiently all weekend with no internet to speak of after I got a great connection on Friday (hence the earlier than expected post).

I have had NO internet since about dinnertime yesterday. I got in and half-assedly hooked up my new Yagi-type antenna because, being the idiot that I am, I forgot to pick up a telescoping pole in Moose Jaw. By half-assedly, I mean I installed it on a pole that I leaned against the ladder like so:

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That’s all I did. I haven’t even tried to point it in the direction of the tower or move it up and down or try different locations around the property. This was still enough to give me a strong steady signal. The blog loads immediately and I’m now downloading a 60MB file. It’s going more slowly than up the hill, but the speed is satisfactory (it has ended up taking about 13 minutes).

Imagine when I actually get this thing pointed the right way?! Once my download is complete, I will see if I can get a phone signal. All appendages crossed that I’ve FINALLY found the solution!

I bought my antenna from the Wilson Amplifier Store based out of Laguna Hills, CA, and was very pleased with their service, albeit a little confused at first.

I saw my package go from Utah to California and the status change to ‘complete.’ I emailed customer service asking what was up with that. They replied promptly that their Utah warehouse can’t ship to Canada, so all orders go to Laguna Hills where they are forwarded on to Canada. They gave me a new tracking number and I was gratified to see that the package had already hit Canadian customs! Shipping was expensive, almost $40, but even with the two-step process, the package arrived here very quickly.

The reason I went with a US supplier is that the Wilson Amplifier Store offered a complete package. I didn’t have to cobble together the antenna, cable, and mounting hardware. I did need an adapter to fit the antenna with my Sleek booster, but the adapter I used with my bigger whip antenna does the trick.

Well, I’d better get to work. It’s nice to have a full plate of it upon return from vacation. I have a lot to make up for, what with all the time off I’ve taken this summer!