Work

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Why I Pay For Mobile Internet Instead of Relying on Public Wifi

I’ve been using my own mobile internet connection in Canada for years now and am in my second bout of using it in the US. When I have access to a safe, reliable, and fast wifi connection (such as at a friend’s or family member’s), I’ll go with that since mobile internet can be slow and the bandwidth is limited. But when I’m traveling or staying in a campground, my own connection is preferable.

In no particular order, here are the reasons I pay the high prices for mobile internet instead of relying on public wif:

– I need access to do business. My mobile connection doesn’t always work, but I can pretty much rely on having internet access anywhere there is cell service. I don’t have to hope that I find a wifi hotspot with a good signal and I can do my own troubleshooting. It really sucks to be relying on someone’s wifi and have that person’s router fail and need a reboot when you don’t have access to the device.

– Using public wifi for anything more than checking email and doing very light surfing is stealing. I didn’t understand that when I hit the road. I thought that access to wifi meant access to unlimited bandwidth. That is not the case. If you start downloading massive files or go on a streaming marathon, you’re reducing usage availability for everyone else by slowing down the network. In some regions, you can even incur huge bandwidth overages for your hosts to pay.

– My connection is secure. I have no idea who is monitoring a public network.

– My cellular connection tends to be faster than most park wifi.

– I can go anywhere on the web with my connection. I was having trouble getting my computer to recognize the handset this morning so I used the the park wifi for a short while. I could not access several sites because the state of Louisiana has blocked them.

– It’s a tax deductible expense.

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Monday Matinee

I decided to take most of today off. Being able to take time off on a weekday is a great perk of self-employment!

First off was a sushi brunch at Toyko Thai in Smithfield. I got the three-roll special with miso soup for $10.50.

yellowtail, spicy tuna, BBQ eel & cucumber

Notice that pale yellow ginger in the lower left hand corner? That’s what pickled ginger is supposed to look like. For some reason, North Americans think good pickled ginger is supposed to be bright pink. Is ginger pink? Nope. Tokyo Thai is the only sushi place I’ve eaten at in my travels that has such good ginger!

After lunch, I meandered my way to the cinema in Chesapeake. I really, really, really wanted to spend another two and a half hours with Abraham Lincoln, but I know I’m going to buy ‘Lincoln’  on DVD, so I decided to see another one on my list that my friend won’t want to see, ‘Flight.’ It was quite a good story about addiction and how it affects daily function. I’m glad that I saw it on the big screen, but it’s not one I’ll want to see again. It was a great choice for a matinee.

When I got home, I discovered this beautiful thing waiting for me:

Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000

I have wanted an ergonomic keyboard since Microsoft put them out in 1994, but they were incredibly expensive. I was just never sure enough that I would like them to put out the money. I have made do for a very long time with the Microsoft Comfort Curve Keyboard 2000, a keyboard that has served me well and that keeps dropping in price.

This summer, while at a client, I had a chance to try out the latest incarnation of the ergonomic keyboard, the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000, and my interest was renewed. But they were $50 at Staples, still too rich for an experiment when my Comfort Curve model was serving me so well.

I kept the ergonomic keyboard in my Amazon shopping cart for several months, watching the price yoyo up and down a couple of dollars. On Black Friday, I decided to see if it might have gone down enough for me to make the plunge. YES! I got it for $30 with free shipping!

So far, my only quibble with it is that the six/question mark are located for proper touch typing, so on the left side of the keyboard, while I have gotten accustomed to over reaching with my right index finger. So that will take a little getting used to. Otherwise, the layout is like my Comfort Curve, so I know the Windows key is my command key, the alt is the option, and where all my accents are. The ù is just a little less of a reach for my pinky, which is great. And I love how solid the keys feel under my fingers. I’ve only been using it for about a half hour and it’s like I’ve been doing this forever. Those years on the Comfort Curve have prepared me well!

In other news, gas prices in Virginia are INSANE. I filled up my truck at $3.09 a gallon! To put that into a little perspective, I needed 12 gallons of fuel, so my total was $37.20. When I was traveling through the US in June, I paid an average of $3.75 a gallon, so the 12 gallons would have cost me $45 then. And the last time I bought gas for my truck in Quebec, I paid $1.30/litre, so converting gallons to litres, I would have paid $59.15 for that 12 gallons. I am not complaining and it is great that I can drive all over with my truck and not feel a pinch!

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Steady As She Goes into St Clair, PA

What a great day on the road!!! I love my new rig!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have found NO disadvantages with my new setup so far, except my truck having worse fuel consumption than did my car.

I now have:

-a slightly less fussy towing system (yes, a review is forthcoming)
-improved braking power (I actually don’t notice any difference, but I like the idea that my heavy toad is slowing down on its own)
-a steadier rig that drives straighter and truer
-an improved turning radius
-not an iota of loss in my RV’s engine power or gas consumption! Miranda has no idea the truck is back there!

This trip feels almost like a do over for me. My rig is not only in great physical shape, but has many improvements. Self-employment has offered me more mobility. I feel as giddy as I did when I left Quebec in 2008, as though all the past failures and setbacks never happened, except that I get to keep all that knowledge and experience.

One of the things I’m working on is managing my stressors, the biggest one of which is getting fuel. I would get so worked up over finding the ‘right’ gas station that I would drive till the gas gauge needle was deep in the red and I absolutely had to use the next service station. Now, I’m making an effort to stop before the critical point so that I can exit, look for a good option, and move on if I don’t find one.

I was just about in the red when I hit Hazleton this afternoon. The first exit had tons of fueling stations, so I got off, picked the best looking one, and realised only after I was committed that getting out might require a slightly tighter turn than I could make with a toad. I looked at the turning space and experience told me that the turn would be super tight, but doable. Well, my new tow bar allows for slightly tighter turns than did my old one and the truck just swung around as smooth as can be!

This wasn’t a great fueling stop, however, because I ended up having to go through very steep-hilly and under-constructiony Hazleton to get back onto I-81S. But with only 30KM to go, I was feeling very good and glad to be landing just before dark.

With 6KM to go, traffic ground to a halt in a construction zone and it took half an hour to drive the last 6KM to the exit, with another 6KM to go down a steep, twisty road in growing darkness. Was I glad to arrive feeling very zen into that construction zone and to know that the steep and twisty grade was ahead of me! I pulled into the Walmart at bang on 5’oclock. By the time I came out of the store with permission to park, some fresh ravioli (I put homemade red sauce in the fridge to thaw today), mozzarella, cheesecake, and crudités to tide me over till dinner, it was pitch dark out.

The weather is noticeably better than yesterday. I was comfortable walking across the parking lot in my fleece hoody while at this time yesterday, the hoody, winter coat, tuque, and gloves were unable to ward off the chill. It’ll be cold overnight, but nothing like yesterday.

Mmm! I think my casserole is ready!

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Four Years As a Full-Time Canadian RVer

Having finished a marathon transcription weekend this evening, I find myself with time now to reflect on my four years as a full-time RVer.

I have reached this anniversary a little weary and jaded, but after analysing my feelings, I am relieved to realise that I still very much love RVIng and it is still the right lifestyle for me. It is the context in which I live my life that has grown tiresome. In short, after four years of full-time RVing in Canada, I can say without reserve that I have had enough of full-time RVing in Canada. And let me say that having seen as much of it as I have, having done everything I could to twist myself dream to fit the legislation, and having spent so much time and energy trying to understand my country, I have earned the right to say that I am sick of it!

When I started RVing, there were no resources for young Canadians starting out on the road. And so, I left with an American vision that is not sustainable in Canada. Our legislation unequivocally denounces the transient lifestyle and makes it impossible to legally have health coverage, insurance, a driver’s license, and a duly registered vehicle.

And let’s not get into the vast different of philosophy about the management of public lands, with the Americans offering all the free long-term spots a boondocker could want while Canada charges upwards of $40 or $50 a night to dry camp on a concrete slab in a national park.

The Canadian climate means that unless you are willing to endure six months of grey dampness in the most expensive regions of our country, you will have to take a chance at an international border crossing. You will have to take several days (and spend hundreds of dollars in fuel) to out race snow to a warm locale in the fall and back north in the spring because, at best, you can only have six months south of the border and our winters are longer than that with their shoulder seasons.

If I was an American, I would be living a very different life on the road. Two of my four Canadian winters literally bled me dry financially and I have not been able to recover from them. The biggest mistake I made on the road was the first major one I encountered: where to spend my first winter. I should have gone south right then. But I thought I’d be able to work through the winter. Ha.

That’s another mistake I made, thinking I could support myself American-style through camphosting and other jobs that target RVers. No. There is no such industry in Canada. The only way to make a self-sustaining living on the road in Canada is to be self-employed. That’s the second mistake I made. I should have focused on building a business right from the start instead of slaving away at jobs that paid minimum wage or slightly better.

I know I sound terribly negative about my life, but it’s not so. In my old age, I will look back on my first Klondike Summer, the friendships I have made, the incredible Canadian scenery that made me weep with awe, and the satisfaction that all I have experienced enabled me to write an important ebook. These memories will make the bitter memories fade away like frost under the first spring sun. I will only remember that I made choices that set me free, opened up my horizons, and left me feeling profoundly satisfied.

I like where I am right now on the eve of my fourth anniversary of full-time RVing. My rig is in great shape, my business is finally taking off, I have a couple of successful border crossings under my belt, and I really think this will be the winter where I will sit on a beach by the Gulf of Mexico and drink wonderful rum-based drinks out of coconuts. Really, this is it!

So the negative things I’ve enumerated above only serve to drive me to make changes in how I approach my life on the road and to shape my future in the way I want it to be, not the way the Canadian government says it must be. I am not one of those bloggers who likes to lay out her maybes for commenters to pick apart, but rather one who prefers to present faits accomplis, things that are done. I will just say that the wheels are churning and the last four years have given me the courage to face a new challenge. The only hint I will give is that when you are as sick of your country as I am of mine, maybe it’s time to see how other people live so you can gain a little perspective.

It may be too soon for this radical change in direction or exactly the right time. I won’t know until I get south of the border this fall. But the research and planning and discussions are making me come back to life again the way I did emerging from my first winter as I headed north on the Alaska Highway.

Sometimes you don’t know when you’re taking the first step through a door until you’re already inside. Ann Voskamp

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Working Hard

There hasn’t been much to report in the last few days. I’ve been continuing training to work remotely for a new client.

The most challenging part is not learning the job itself, but learning to work with Windows 7. I do have a bit of experience with Windows XP, but the last time I really worked with Windows day in and day out was on version 98. Windows 7 does have a lot of similarities with OS X, but they are mostly cosmetic. I don’t want to start a Windows vs. OS X debate in the comments, so that’s all I have to say about my experience with Windows.

Today, I set up my new printer. The physical setup was a breeze thanks to videos integrated in the control panel of the printer showing everything from how to install the duplexer to how to size the paper trays.

Getting the printer and scanner to actually work was a little more challenging until some research told me that the OS X drivers that come on the CD, and all accompanying software updates, are for Snow Leopard. So once I found, downloaded, and installed the Lion drivers, everything went smoothly. I even set up ePrint to work with my iPad!

I received a massive transcription project for the weekend (30 hours of work due 11PM Monday), the first serious transcription project in almost a month. I am rather relieved! It’ll be a busy weekend, but it’ll be nice to spend so much time on a non-frustrating computer. Okay, so that wasn’t all I had to say about working with Windows! 🙂

The weekend will be broken up tomorrow afternoon with the celebration of my niece’s second birthday. She has been visiting all week and I have really enjoyed getting to spend so much time with her. My eldest nephew spent a few days here, too, happily playing games on my mother’s spare laptop while she and I worked side by side. I’ll be babysitting him and his brother next week for the first time.

Tonight, I’m doing a serious cleanup of my Mac. It has been running a little sluggishly and inefficiently since I upgraded to Lion. I installed more RAM a couple of days ago (going from 4GB to 8GB) and the difference has been phenomenal! I didn’t expect to notice a difference, but it was $90 (including shipping) very well spent.

Now that the computer is running more smoothly, I decided it was time to start cleaning up folders and managing files more efficiently. I am test running Hazel, an app that creates automated processes for OS X. I am fairly certain I will be buying the app as it will save me tons of work. My next project is to master my inbox. I have been working with Apple Mail for nearly 10 years now and I still don’t use it efficiently.

Needless to say, if I have moved on to virtual organizing, my home must be running smoothly. Indeed!!! Tuesday, I did the first really big and proper grocery since the accident (yes, in four months) and I have been cooking nice dinners and experimenting with new recipes. This week, I mastered sushi rice! Will I start making sushi at home now? Hmm…

The battery bank project will hopefully happen next weekend. I really don’t want to delay it much more than that.

As for my leak, it has been raining something fierce the last few days and it looks like my leak repair is holding at last! Miranda is looking really, really good.

I can’t believe that tomorrow is September 1st. This is the last month that I can count on decent weather for exterior projects. I am hoping to be here through October to get in as much work training as possible and delay crossing the border, so the count down to departure isn’t on yet, but I am thinking about it.

As proof, look what came in the mail the other day: