Tech

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Settling Into My Temporary Abode

This has been my second full day in the apartment and I am slowly falling back into my normal routine. I made my first home cooked meal this evening, which meant scurrying down to the rig for onions, a sharp knife, a cheese grater, and a colander. 🙂

Here are some bits of the apartment so far.

First, the bedroom area with the absolutely awesome headboard/bookcase Jody had in storage. Also make note of the little side table next to the bed on which the lamp is resting. It’s the perfect height!

bedroom area (my pretty comforter is in the wash pile!)

Next is the office area. Telus was supposed to send a tech between noon and two to figure out why my hardwired connection wasn’t working. The tech showed up at 11!!! It was a simple fix and now I have 500GB of bandwidth a month! The speeds aren’t actually any better than the cellular connection however. That says a lot about cellular speeds in southern Canada!

office area

The dining area reminds me of a school cafeteria (the floor tiles don’t help!), but the chair is super comfy!

dining area

I like that I have the storage room for the cats. Litter doesn’t get tracked everywhere and the food dishes are out of traffic areas. Neelix was okay with me stepping over him in the dressing room, but Tabitha would bolt if I tried to do that, interrupting her meal.

the cat condo

Here’s Tabitha’s nest under the sink. She’s been going in and out of there since she discovered the spot. I think she appreciates the blanket since she’s moved it around a bit to make more of a nest.

Ms. Bitha’s nest

Finally, I have to say I LOVE having a one-piece pantry. That’s one thing I found hard in Miranda, trying to remember what I had in the various cabinets.

pantry

The pantry is pretty full tonight since today is 15% off day at the Lethbridge grocery stores. I got some awesome deals including two boxes of falafel mix!

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Connectivity, Comfort, and Cats

My high speed internet was supposed to be activated today, but, of course, the plug and play modem didn’t work. I chatted with a Telus rep and he concluded that it’d be best to send someone to check the wiring. I don’t think a single one of my tenants has had any luck with getting the internet to work right off the bat.

What made me laugh is that the tech rep had a hard time understanding that I wasn’t home. I mean, the first thing I asked is “Do I need home phone service to have internet?” (nope). So he knew I had no phone at home and if I was chatting with him, then the fact that I don’t have internet at home should have been pretty obvious. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had this conversation with tech reps from different telecom companies over the years! The tech rep was very good, my joking aside. He acknowledged that I’d done everything at my end and didn’t make me feel like an idiot.

At any rate, no high speed internet till tomorrow afternoon. I’m just grateful that I got an appointment so quickly, that I don’t need to pay for a phone line I have no use for, and that I have my cellular internet access!

I’m also happy to report that my furniture arrived! Wheeeeeeee. I can set up my home office tonight. I don’t think the chair they gave me is going to work, though (no arm rests or wheels) so I may be bringing my chair in from Miranda after all, but I’ll try this one first and see how I like it. Soon as I am set up I will share pictures. 🙂 I have to say that I somehow managed to get stuff that looks good together rather than like a hodgepodge. Geeze, even the curtains that Jody lent me complement the loft curtains! It’ll be nice to be in a lovely place for six months. The only thing left to get now that I have furniture are some more floor mats so I don’t have to walk on the drop cloths all winter.

I have a couple of ‘my cats are amusing’ stories. Before going to work this morning, I put Jody’s curtains in the tub to soak since they smelled strongly of cigarettes. When I came in at lunch, the apartment was very humid and reeked of cigarette smoke. So, I rinsed the curtains and took them outside to dry over the balcony railing, then I left the patio door cracked. Neelix promptly pushed his cushion so it was by the open door and plopped down! As for Ms. Bitha, I came in this afternoon to supervise the furniture delivery and noticed that the undersink cabinet door was cracked open. Tabitha was curled up in there, pressed tightly against the wall. If I catch her there again, I’ll let her know that that can be her safe spot by putting a blanket down for her. I hadn’t planned on using the cabinet anyway.

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Moving Towards Acceptance

I have taken THE big step towards accepting that I will be back in a house semi-bound life for six months: I ordered internet service. Telus has a special; super fast internet with 500GB of bandwidth for $30 a month for the first six months. I will be downgrading my cellular modem to the flex plan so that I still have it available should I travel this winter or the other internet goes down. So that will be $35 a month. The total will be $65 (plus taxes and fees, of course), which is exactly what I pay now for my 5GB mobile account!

Once again, I’d like to make it clear that the only reason I am staying in Lethbridge this winter is the sudden availability of health services. Getting signed on with a family doctor in just two phone calls was life-altering, but what followed was even more amazing. I had initially booked a physical for January, but I don’t want to wait that long to see the doctor. So I called and asked if I could get a regular appointment sooner… and I got one for October 5th!

I have no intention of getting settled into this apartment. I will make it as cozy and functional as I can for six months, but I am bringing the strict minimum with me and will invest as little as possible into making it habitable. There are so many things I will miss: having many rooms, the double sink in my kitchen, my kitchen’s much more functional layout, my huge shower. But I am looking forward to having a bath!

In the next week I will scrub every inch of the apartment and start to make an inventory of what is coming into it. Of course, Miranda will be parked very close by, so I can grab what I need, but I want to see how little I can live with.

November should be a much slower month for me with nice days at the beginning. So with the rig empty, I’d like to repaint the study and do another coat of yellow in the kitchen/library/loft. I’ve made a list of other small projects that I could do weather-depending that would be much more doable with the rig empty.

The only big project on the table for this winter will be planning my shortened US route for my trip through there in the spring! Six months will go by fast, I know it, and soon I will be back on the road, healthy and ready for more adventures. That’s how I’m looking at this winter; just one more adventure in this crazy, wonderful, nomadic life of mine.

 

 

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Enjoying My Weekend

The last week of July and first week of August were busy at my apartment management job. I worked 12 days in a row since I had to go in for a few hours both days last weekend. It’s nice to be able to stay home this weekend even though I took on five small transcription jobs.

Between transcription bursts, I’m still working on destriping the rig. The driver’s side stripes are tenacious! It’s taking way longer than did the passenger side, probably because it’s not in direct sunlight. I don’t have much longer to get this project done so I try to do a little bit every day that I’m not completely swamped with apartment management, fliers, and transcription.

The weather gets very, very hot in the afternoons and Miranda becomes uncomfortable, even with windows open and the fan going. Add to that a Macbook Pro that runs very hot and I can’t get much work done between 4 and 7.

Yesterday, I put on my walking shoes, grabbed my iPod Touch (and new armband for holding the device), and went for a long walk, listening to several chapters of an audio book, enjoying the slowly cooling air. I then came home, put the iPod Touch in the dock (bought for my old iPod, but working great with the iPod Touch!), and continued to listen while making, having, and cleaning up after dinner.

iPod dock

I love that the days get so hot but cool right down at night so I can sleep comfortably. My cats aren’t struggling with the heat at all. They lie by the fan, the door, or an open window, and I put a couple of ice cubes in their water in the morning so that they have cold water all day. Both are eating me out of house and home, so as long as that keeps up I’m not concerned!

Back to work I go. 🙂

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A Year With Telus Mobility Internet

I’ve been using Telus mobility for a year now to get online on the road. I am polarized in my sentiments about this company.

The pros are strong: 1) coverage is fantastic, 2) speeds are equivalent to high speed once you get into the southern part of the country, 3) the service is reliable.

The cons are also strong: 1) their plans stop at 5GB/month ($65 + tax), 2) an extra GB is $51  (5 cents per MB).

I went over my allotment this past month and imagine it will be very hard not to all summer, and that’s without downloading anything that isn’t absolutely vital and not watching videos!

This morning, I called the Telus department and asked to be transferred to their retention department. There was absolutely nothing they could do for me in terms of reducing my monthly bill or giving me a discount on the per MB cost of going over my allotment.  It was pretty much “That’s what it is, feel free to go with someone else.” They have you over a barrel because the other providers have similar terms and prices.

However, Telus has a new device out called a Smart Hub. It’s a 4G router. This device has much better plan options, $70 plus tax for 10GB and $20 per GB over that. The catch, of course, is that without a contract the device costs $400. Moreover, the device has to be powered.

I can see that this Smart Hub is the best option in Canada for mobile internet right now. It’s still not a great option for me, but I am trolling Craigslist and Kijjijji for a contract takeover.

I’m going to reinvestigate my US options. Last year, I could go with Verizon wireless for about $150 a month and have coverage in both the US and Canada. If I do end up spending part of my year south of the border such an arrangement would make a lot more sense. I just pulled up the Verizon website and the options have increased so I’m going to have to start my research from scratch. Plus, I need to make sure they are the best choice, coverage-wise.

It’s so frustrating to have a fantastic mobile connection and be so limited in my bandwidth. I have some software updates to do and will need to pack up the office and go to a Starbucks or other wifi hotspot to do them. If Telus were more reasonable in their cost per extra GB, say $10 each, I’d just stick with them and gladly pay my overages every month.