Haven

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SaskTel President Ron Styles Continues to be Ignorant and Threatens Me

Just when I thought that this file was closed, I received another, nasty-toned, email from SaskTel president Ron Styles, which I am reproducing in full. My comments are interspersed.

As you are aware from my previous response, as well as your conversations with other SaskTel representatives, I can only speak for SaskTel’s cellular data and high speed Internet alternatives, not for networks belonging to other providers.

Here, he’s referring to my comments about satellite service offered by Xplorenet. He is just being ignorant because he is the one who referred to Xplorenet as being SaskTel’s ‘partner’ and, in fact, the service is offered on the SaskTel website. I firmly believe at this point that SaskTel is getting some sort of kickback from Xplorenet.

St. Victor’s valley location creates geographic line-of-sight interference with the local towers at Willow Bunch (at a distance of 19 km), Assiniboia (at a distance of 25 km), as well as the tower at Scout Lake (at a distance of 10 km). The primary purpose of the tower at Scout Lake is to provide coverage along Highway #2, and providing cellular service to St Victor’s was an additional benefit.

Again, I have evidence that coverage along highway #2 is provided by both the Rockglen and Assiniboia towers and that there is absolutely no benefit to that area to have the tower up there. So I continue to maintain that there is something shady going on here.

St. Victor is unable to receive SaskTel’s Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) high speed Internet because the service is a distance sensitive technology. SaskTel Basic High Speed Internet Service can only be provided to a maximum distance of four kilometers from the distribution point in the local Central Office (CO). This distance is not measured “as the crow flies”; rather, it is calculated as the length the cable travels as it loops from the distribution point to individual customers.

In order for St. Victor to be provisioned for DSL Internet service or the installation of a new cellular tower, fiber would need to be ploughed from the closest viable network point to St. Victor. Cabling and facilities, as well as further equipment, would need to be installed and maintained requiring a significant capital investment on the part of SaskTel. Unfortunately, SaskTel has determined that there is no positive business case to provide St. Victor with either of these services.

We have landline telephone service connected to the outside world that occasionally needs repair. Why not replace worn sections of cable, as needed, with whatever type of cable is necessary to provide DSL until we’re connected? I know this wouldn’t happen overnight, but if you’re already working on a section, why not upgrade it?

SaskTel wireless is aware that a number of communities do not have access to SaskTel cellular service. SaskTel appreciates that you have found a creative solution to the geographic limitations of cellular service to St. Victor. However, SaskTel does not reimburse customers for the purchase of third party hardware and will not be reimbursing the costs for your recently purchased commercial grade booster. I also need to advise that if the commercial booster interferes with the network, we may need to ask you to make changes to or shut down the booster.

Yup, he just threatened on record to cut off my service if they don’t like how I use it! My booster meets all the codes for possible interference. There is no way I could threaten SaskTel operations. But I can just see SaskTel shutting me down if I continue to up the usage on my unlimited plan.

Regarding your concerns of communications for local emergency services, you may not be aware that it is the Ministry of Government Relations who coordinates the Provincial Public Safety Answering System (PPSAS), not SaskTel. The PPSAS operates on a different system than SaskTel’s cellular network.

PPSAS is designed to meet the specific needs of public safety and public service agencies such as fire departments, police services, emergency medical services, emergency preparedness, volunteer search and rescue groups, provincial government emergency response or enforcement agencies and other related groups. I would encourage you to contact the PPSTN at 1-888-953-3693.

The man really does think I’m an idiot! Of course I know this. He completely missed the point that the average tourist on the street isn’t on this network and has no way to contact emergency services!

Thank you again for taking the time to share your concerns.

Sincerely,

He’s so funny!

Ron Styles
President and CEO

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A Workshop and Gardening Shed

I made a classic decluttering/organizing mistake as I started to work on my shed: shopping for organizational products before actually knowing what I needed. I know better than that! Thankfully, I didn’t actually buy anything beyond the workbench materials, which I did need.

This morning’s project was to make sense of the gardening/yard side of the shed, empty out the RV basement compartment full of ‘stuff’ that could be stored in the shed, and continue to organize the workshop side. Now that I had a large stable worktop, I could start arranging things by categories and figure out how best to containerize or otherwise make them accessible.

So here was the gardening/yard side when I started this morning, a jumble of tools and materials. Things that I need to be able to take out easily, like the mower, ladder, and wheelbarrow were stored at the back.

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It didn’t make long to build a simple support for my gardening implements at the back of the shed and then move the ladder, wheelbarrow, and mower to the front.

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Then, using what I had for containers, I sorted through my things and arranged them neatly either on the workbench or under it. I put my wrenches and pliers into old coffee canisters I’d saved and added screws to hold things like a hand broom, bag of tie wraps, levels, and squares. I hung my hammers from the same backer board as my screw drivers and clamps (and boy do I have a lot of clamps!). Does it look as pretty as a pegboard on Pinterest? No. But it’s just as practical and, best of all, it didn’t cost me anything. One my favourite bits is that I hung my tool belt from a hook and then clipped my tape measure to it because I’m always looking for it!

I macro organized hardware, with one tub for miscellaneous screws and another for everything from washers to eye hooks. At some point, I’ll find cubbies or some other organizational product that will let me sort these bits at the micro level. One thing I don’t have that surprised me were any nails! It would have been nice to have some big nails to use as hooks, but I have so many deck screws that it didn’t hurt to use a few of those instead.

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Now, check out the other corner!

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Wow, I didn’t expect to be left with so much room! I’d rather not fill it up since it gives me room to really spread out a project and to use my table saw. One of my next projects will be to come up with a platform on casters so I can roll it around. I also want to build a ramp to more easily take heavy wheeled things outside.

Well, I had a productive long weekend and managed to get away from my computer. Back to work tomorrow! And I may be off to Montana again on Wednesday afternoon, which would be a fun way to break up the week. That will allow me to finish up the booster project so I can post about it! The post is written, but needs some final photographs.

I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do next with myself. Work on my Mexico packing list, I guess! 😀

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Building a Workbench

Since expanding my home outside of the RV, I’ve been a bit scattered as far as tools and other renovations bits and bobs go. I’ve had my shed ‘done’ for months now, but just haven’t been able to prioritize the tool organization project. I have kept it in mind, looking for storage solutions, like a tool chest or even a dresser, but haven’t found anything.

One of the things I did decide on very early in my thought process was to build a workbench. I found a plan for a workbench that looked very easy to make and which would afford me not just a work surface, but also some storage. After I bought my table and circular saws, I just needed a nice free day to do the project. Well, it took almost two months, but today was the day!

I bought my materials in town on Friday. The workbench plans claim that it can be built for 50USD, but this being Canada, the project cost me 101CAD all in, including two carpenter pencils and some wood glue. I didn’t have to buy any screws, so that saved me some money. Lumber was 15 2x4s and one sheet of plywood. The workbench plan is really clever as it uses almost the entire materials and has very little waste.

Buying the lumber was very disheartening since it was all crap. Even the ‘best’ 2x4s were warped and chipped and the edges of the plywood were delaminated. I understand now why Charles gets all his lumber in Glasgow, MT. He says it’s not just in Assiniboia at the different home stores that he sees bad lumber, but that he had the same problem in Manitoba. Just another case of Canadians getting shafted, with our good lumber going to the States, we having to pay a premium on the garbage the Americans won’t take, and then having to pay taxes and duty to reimport our own wood.

I had the lumber yard do all but one of the cuts on my plywood so that it would be easier to bring home and so I wouldn’t have to wrangle a huge sheet on my own and try to make straight cuts. They weren’t too keen on doing that for me, even at $2 a cut ($4 total since the first cut was free), but they eventually agreed to.

Saturday was way too damp and drizzly to work on this project, but it was bright and sunny, albeit cold (8C/46F) at 8:00 this morning. The forecast called for the day to get increasingly cold, overcast, and windy, so I headed right out to cut all my lumber… and make some space in the workshop. This is what I was starting with:

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I used both my circular and table saw, depending on the length of the piece I was cutting, and found the process much more laborious than I would have with a miter saw. I’ll definitely get one again once I start building in earnest. Both my table saw and circular saw worked great and I felt safe using them.

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Now, here are some examples of the crap I had to buy.

I only agreed to buy this sheet of plywood knowing that I could plan the cuts for the worst of that water damage to be the waste bit.

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This 2×4 was one of the best they had:

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I labeled all my pieces as I cut them. It was rather like DIY IKEA!

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I stacked all my pieces neatly so that I could find them all:

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I later discovered that I had an F too many and was short a G because I forget to double check my cut sheet. I could have turn an F into a G, but it wasn’t worth pulling out the saws again and I just used an extra F and did without a G since they were supports and there were plenty of those to start with.

Then, it was time to start assembling! This is the frame for the worktop:

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And here is the bottom shelf:

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Notice that it is recessed so that you can sit at the workbench and have room for your legs. For such a simple design that makes such efficient use of materials, this workbench is really well thought out!

Legs on, height is perfect!

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At this point, it was frighteningly wobbly, but the reinforcement was about the begin.

As suggested in the instructions, I used paint cans to hold the bottom shelf in place so I could screw it to the worktop. But I decided to screw the plywood to the bottom shelf before installing it, rather than after. Not sure why the instructions say to do it after as it was much easier to do it before.

I then built the frame for the top shelf and added the plywood to it. The easy bit was done and my project was starting to look like a workbench:

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The next bit was tricky and where I ended up breaking for lunch near 1:00 p.m. I had to screw the top support legs and then get the thing up in the air and screwed to the workbench. I had to rearrange more stuff in the shed to get me room to manoeuver and the whole thing was very heavy, awkward, and fragile, but I got it done.

If you look at the plan, the legs for the top shelf don’t touch the floor, but mine do. The reason was going to be that I was working alone and didn’t have anyone to help me hold it up, but then I realised that the slope of the roof meant that this was as far up as I should be putting the shelf anyway.

Once the top shelf was secure, I added the backer boards. They are for added support, but also to keep things from falling off the back of the workbench and bottom shelf.

So here it is, and moved into its final position!

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I didn’t hesitate to start using it for storage!

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I was going to get pegboard, but I don’t think I need any. I’ll figure out an alternative way to store the tools that I have left to deal with (wrenches, pliers, hammers, and a few other odds and ends).

My favourite bit is my tape holder. I thought, “Hmm, a dowel would be useful for this and, oh, look, I have one handy. What are the odds?!” I just drilled a hole into the worktop and fit the dowel in it. It could also be a paper towel holder. Time will tell… 🙂

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I was done for the day, but not done by far. Here’s what my makeshift table (plywood on sawhorses) still looks like. 🙂

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And here’s a view of the whole workbench from the door:

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The top shelf so far has my ‘sharp implements’ and ‘drilling’ containers I’ve had for years in office overhead cabinets, then my (empty) tool box that I’ll be able to fill and take to Mexico this winter, then my dad’s chisels with my socket wrench set over top, then my giant bucket of screws. Underneath, you can see my gas cans, tub of painting/drywall implements, oil for the truck, and then you’ll have to trust me that in the corner are my two drills and my circular saw.

So now the workbench part of the shed is done to a point. I still have to organize more containers for screws, nails, and odd bits, as well as sort out the last of the tools, but it’s a very good start.

If the weather is still good tomorrow, I will sort out the yard/garden corner of the shed to make it easy to take out my wheelbarrow, lawnmower, and ladder.

If you want to take on a project like this, check out Zac’s considerations for building a work bench.

I’m beat and wish I could get pizza or Chinese delivered! But since I can’t, I’m off to scrounge something yummy for dinner!

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SaskTel Cut Off My Internet for Twelve Hours and Claims It Was a System Glitch

Something very strange happened last night. I’m sitting here this morning wondering if I’m naïve enough to believe that SaskTel had a huge system glitch or if I’m distrustful enough of them to accuse them of messing me.

I was in the middle of a download yesterday evening when I hit 23GB of data usage and promptly received a text message that I was being throttled again.

Sure enough, my download slowed to a crawl, going from the roughly 256Kbps throttled speed they give me to less than 100Kbps. I could barely get online. Text-only pages took about 10 minutes load, pages like Facebook were unavailable.

My first instinct was to check to see if they had changed their fair use policy. Yes, just a month ago, but there was nothing about double throttling on unlimited plans and, in fact, the only thing that applied to me was super positive as they had removed my data limits when outside of SK (but still in Canada). Yay for that.

So I got on the phone and after waiting on hold for more than 15 minutes, I finally got hold of tech support. The guy looked at my account and told me this:

  1. When I had a major data issues at the start of August, when I didn’t even have service in town, the tech removed my plan and put it back, which brought my data back. I triple checked with her that I was going back to my grandfathered unlimited $70 a month plan, not the limited, and she said yes. Last night’s tech said that I was actually on the limited plan and after 23GB you get cut off because of excessive overages and that I had about $300 in overages on my account.
  2. After 8:00p.m., tech support doesn’t have access to your full file and cannot help with complex issues like this, so I had to call back in the morning.

This morning, I called them right at 8:00 when they open. I’d been up for a bit and been online and my connection appeared to be back to normal….

This is what this morning’s tech told me:

  1. I am still on my unlimited plan.
  2. There is no way I could have the overages last night’s guy said I did because the new telecom laws force them to cap your data at $50 of overages. I know about this because when I still had my Bell Mobility account I was tired of having to call every few days to tell them that I knew my account was at so much in overages and they finally had me sign a document that meant I no longer got capped after a tweak in the law gave them permission to do so. I haven’t done that with SaskTel since I’m on an unlimited plan.
  3. There is no automatic throttle at 23GB for any plan.
  4. There is nothing wrong with my account. They must have just had a huge glitch last night.

SaskTel’s frontline techs are usually very good, so last night’s experience was a huge anomaly. The lady who helped me on August 6th is my favourite as she is really quick to understand what is going on and find a resolution. So I trusted her when she said that she would give me back my unlimited plan after taking it off (and that doing this would give me back my data). So I was shocked last night to be told that she had betrayed me. I’m glad to know that she didn’t.

So happened last night? Was it truly a system glitch that put the wrong information in my file, was it a tech guy who was making up stuff because he didn’t have access to my full file, or was there some sort of trap put into my account that was triggered when I hit the 23GB cap? Just a few months ago, I would have gone with the tech support guy making up stuff. But now, I’m rather suspicious.

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A Life By Design

I tend to present my projects as faits accomplis, done deals, except to a chosen few who are cursed with hearing all the details about a plan. I’m not sure why I do it that way. Fear of failure, perhaps? Fear that if I bring my project into the light of day, the universe will strike me down for my pride and put stumbling blocks in my path? Who knows.

There’s a lot going on with me right now that I think I need to share because I have chosen to put my life out there with this blog. I know that I sometimes appeared scattered, jumping from one idea to the next, but I actually do have a plan for my life and it is coming together behind the scenes. I think it’s time to draw the curtain. When things come together for me, they tend to do so very, very quickly and I don’t want to feel that I need to explain myself with any future moves.

I’ll start off by saying that I have always known what I wanted to do with my life: see the world. Travel has always been the constant yearning and everything else has been but a balm on an itch. Science has proven that there is such thing as a wanderlust gene. If you look at my family tree on my mother’s father’s side, you will see the names of some of the greatest explorers in Canadian history. I am hardcoded for wanderlust. It truly is a biological imperative.

It took me a very long time to figure out how to see the world. I can’t count the number of hours I’ve spent tallying up how to pay the rent and the bills and maintain a certain lifestyle while saving up to take two or maybe three weeks, if I was lucky, to go exploring. I took a few trips, most notably to Scotland in 1998, and the more I traveled, the worse my urge became. It actually helped somewhat to not travel and focus on the half of me that is a stereotypical 1950s homemaker.

But then, the door to travel opened for me after my dad died and somehow, with a courage I did not know I had, I stepped into the unknown. Followed some of the most amazing years I will ever have as I traveled the continent on a super tight budget, seeing more of it than I could have ever dreamed of doing on four, even five times the annual income. I thought RVing could be It for me, the way to soothe my wanderlust forever, but, like an addict, I needed a bigger and bigger fix. After just about completing my Canadian and U.S. bucket lists, Mexico beckoned, but was just out of reach.

I thought that spending a few more winters in the U.S. while I continued to get my financial footing before going to Mexico would suit me, so the next logical step in my life was to get a home base. Some permanent travelers have friends or family they can always return to and where they are nearly indefinitely welcome, but that wasn’t the case for me. I had to find my own Haven, and I did. I think I knew deep down as I signed the property transfer papers that my RVing life was winding down, but it took those final two cross-continent journeys to prove it to me. I had an amazing final winter on the road, but the journey to a place I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go was fraught with difficulty… and wonderful encounters with generous people.

I was afraid when I landed here in the spring of 2013, afraid that this was going to be It for me because I couldn’t see a way past being here, and that fear mounted as my summer stretched into a winter and then a second summer. I was financially and emotionally at one of the lowest points in my life and so very weary, but this place renewed me. I knew that I finally had a well of infinite energy from which I could draw, that no matter where my life took me, I could return to this place and emerge renewed.

And sure enough, from my time here, where I could focus on monetary matters, the future became a little clearer. I got the contract that gave me the courage to head for Mexico, and we all know how that turned out (for those who haven’t be reading, Mexico was an amazing fit for me!). That contract did not pan out, so I was left in Mexico with just the contracts I’d had before, which I would never have thought would be enough to sustain me in so bold an endeavour, but I did just fine.

I figured out very early in my RVing life that working for myself was going to be the key to my freedom to see the world and there were a lot of false starts as I figured out what I could do from the road and find enough work to support myself. By the time that big contract came in late February of 2014, I was at my limits. If a big break didn’t come, I was ready to give up and get a job. So while the contract didn’t work out, it came at just the right moment, buying me enough time to get to Mexico and realise that I wasn’t ready to give up all my temporal freedom for the sake of a full-time job. I did consider a part-time summer job in Saskatchewan, however, and that’s rather the mindset I had on my way home last spring. But I’d built up enough of a buffer in Mexico that the urge didn’t feel as pressing as it had a few months prior. I knew I wouldn’t have many distractions this summer and that I could focus on getting better paying work.

Things came together for me as they always do when the time and place are right and my dream job fell into my lap. I still don’t want to say too much about it, but I am working for a company whose founder had the same dreams for his life as I do for mine, and fulfilled them, and so I know that I can always fall back on that if an immediate supervisor who doesn’t understand my lifestyle gives me grief when asking for a modicum of flexibility. In fact, much of what I proofread is relevant to the next step in my life journey and is helping me prepare for it. If that is not proof that I am firmly on my Path, I don’t know what is!

Let me backtrack a bit here to reiterate that when I bought my property, I expected it to eventually be a place I could retire to. I envisioned my future with the resources I had then. I don’t play the ‘if I win the lottery’ game, but plan with what I have and remain flexible if things change.

Well, everything has changed for me this summer because of this new client. I’m really pleased that I pushed the internet thing through as far as I did because it not panning it out was just the kick in the seat that I needed to stop clinging to old ideas I had about my future when so many doors have opened up to me. It’s a really surreal. I feel like I won the lottery without having realised that I was playing all along.

It was only seven years and three months ago that my old financial planner told me to go out into the world and play. He warned me that I would have years of misery as I built my new life, but that he was convinced that I would do better for myself financially than I ever could working my 35 years for the government and that I’d have a life to show for it all. He was absolutely right.

Why remain here in a (beautiful and wonderful!) Canadian backwater when I can work from anywhere? I am too young to be here puttering around and working myself to the bone. My second Mexican winter is upon me (in fact, I will be arriving this day in two months!) and it will be glorious, with all that extra free time and money available to me.

But what of next summer?

Even though my internet situation is greatly improved (and due to be blogged about), the severance has been made. I love this place and it will always be here for me, but it has played its role for the time being. I’m going Somewhere Else for most of the next summer. I need good internet, a time zone difference compatible with work, a super cheap cost of living, and a stable enough political situation. The answer is a country so far off my radar that I didn’t even know where it’s located until I pulled out a map! So here is my first big public announcement after all that bla bla bla: I intend to spend 90 days next summer in Bulgaria.

A decision like that always leads to new discoveries as I do research. Bulgaria is part of the Schengen Agreement, which comprises most European countries. Ninety days would be barely enough to see all of Bulgaria; what if I wanted to stay in Europe instead of coming back to North American so I could try another country? This question led me to the jackpot.

The gold standard in passports is to have one from the European Union. It opens up the entire European continent and all its benefits. It is also very difficult to get one unless you work in a specialized field or marry a national. I have tried for 20 years to figure out how to get myself a European passport short of marrying someone and the answer fell into my lap today. Just like that. It was one of those lightning bolt moments that makes me understand some of the trials I’ve been put through as it makes sense of a lot of my pondering.

Some European countries, like Spain, have a permanent residency scheme and path to citizenship for freelancers, folks with independent income from outside Europe… Of course, there’s a lot of red tape and it’s never as simple as it looks on a website, but the short of it is, you move to Spain as a freelancer, get your permanent residency, and then ten years later, sooner if you meet certain criteria, you become a citizen.

I could do that!

But here is where things get a little interesting. If you are a citizen of a Spanish-speaking country, you can get your Spanish citizenship in about two years rather than ten.

It takes about five years to get Mexican citizenship. On paper, it looks like I could get both Mexican and Spanish citizenship in less time than it would take to get just Spanish. Of course, I’m sure I will encounter tripwires with this idea/plan, but it’s one worth exploring. So discovering that I could get a European passport doesn’t derail at all my plan to get Mexican citizenship.

So from where I’m sitting tonight, with the resources currently available to me, I see myself back at Haven for about three months next year, as bookends to my Bulgaria trip, and then off to Mexico for as long as it takes to get my citizenship. It could mean being in Canada well into the winter as a good part of the permanent resident visa process must be done from your home country. But with the nearest consulate being in Calgary, I’d probably just get a short-term rental there while I deal with the paperwork so I wouldn’t be living in an RV in -40 weather again.

Once I have my Mexican citizenship, the next step would be to move to Spain and repeat the process there. And then? Who knows… I’ll be nearing 50 by then and could, in theory, retire at 55, especially if I choose to base myself in a country with a low cost of living, like Mexico. That will be the beauty of having all these citizenships, that I won’t have to base myself somewhere that I’d have to pay usurious taxes, which eliminates Canada and most of the European Union.

But Haven will always be here. I like the idea of finishing up enough work to have a rentable property here, just for a bit of added income, especially if the oil comes, as we suspect it will. I will always have this port of call in between projects. For instance, if I find that I can’t get everything aligned to go to Mexico right away, it won’t cost me much money to wait here, and the same for going to Europe. I am aware that I need to figure out a modicum of property management while I’m gone, however.

Some or none of this may come to pass. But many more possibilities exist where fewer were before. And long-term blog readers will remember that I talked about RVing till I was about 40 and then taking off to see the rest of the world. So rather than shaking your head at me with my grand ideas, take note that I’m four years ahead of where I thought I’d be… and I have a paid for property, not something I had factored into those dreams. When I want something, I make it happen. So don’t be so surprised next year if I do end up blogging from Sofia!

This was post was edited on November 4th, 2016, to add categories and tags. I am just grinning as I reread it, having come from four months in the Balkans, including 90 days in Bulgaria. I do talk big… but I get things done. 🙂