Kevin's Ramblings…

The weekend was good, as most weekends are, but it went by way too quickly, as most weekends do.

Saturday, I did my monthly run into Lethbridge.  I had a 9am appointment at TD bank as I wanted one of their debit Visa cards.  They found an old account of mine that was last accessed in 2003 and it was an RRSP/Savings account that I had set up back in 1990.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to retire on, so I guess I will work today.  After the bank, I did my trip to Costco.  The Lethbridge Costco is SO much better than any of them in Calgary.  You can actually find a parking space within a few feet of the entrance and it isn’t so crowded that you can’t maneuver your cart around.  I was in and out pretty quick, dog food was the main objective and I got some other needed items.  I had asked for recommendations on Facebook some time ago and a lot of people suggested the Kirkland brand of dog food.  I did some research into it and it was just about as good as the food I was feeding my dogs, but it costs me about 1/3 as much.  I was spending a bit over $250 per month for food, 3 bags per month.  These are larger bags (isn’t everything at Costco larger?) and cheaper, I now spend $85 per month.  I will use extra gas and time getting to Lethbridge, but it’s a good Saturday morning out of the house.

I stopped in Pincher Creek on the way back to look at beds at the Brick, they have some on sale but I am not quite ready to buy as yet.  The people cleaning my place were here shortly after I got home.  The renovations have all been completed so they were cleaning some of that mess up and some trouble areas from the previous tenant.  All is well now with the house which is fantastic.

Sunday was sort of a miserable day weather-wise.  It was cold, windy and rainy.  At times, I thought we were having a monsoon.  I wasn’t able to go on a hike with the dogs.  Well, I guess I could have, but we’d all have been soaked through and I am sure it would not have been a lot of fun.  I tried a new sports streaming service called DAZN to watch the Bills game yesterday as it wasn’t on TV here.  It was quite good, no buffering, good video and good audio.  If it continues being that reliable, I will subscribe, I am on a free month.  It’s only $20 CDN per month which isn’t bad at all.  It also includes baseball so it means I won’t need MLB.tv next year if I do subscribe and it supports Chromecast as well.  I also watched the “new” Ghostbusters remake, it was excellent, possibly better than the original.  I had heard bad things about it, all of those things were wrong.  If you haven’t seen it, I would highly recommend it, one of the best recent movies I’ve seen.

I watched the Sunday Night Baseball game, Dodgers @ Cardinals, the Cards won which is good for my team, the Rockies.  I think I’ve also decided that the Dodgers are now my most hated team in baseball, displacing the Yankees from their long-held number one spot.  Congrats Dodgers, that was a tough thing to do.  I hope your playoff aspirations die quickly in the last few weeks of September.

So, back to work this morning and another new week.  Enjoy yours.

Well, my plan to help out my friend with her dog has hit a snag. I checked with the property management company and I’m not allowed any additional dogs.

I can’t say I’m surprised by this, who really wants more than three dogs in a house, 3 is a lot to begin with. I feel very bad for my friend though. She is likely going to need to re-home her dog and she’s quite stressed about it.

I guess, in hindsight, I shouldn’t have offered before I checked.

So, no guest dog for me and no new friend for Blondie, Hera and Twix. Hopefully the dogs can play together a bit over the next while.

It’s the weekend, yay to that. The weather does not feel like late summer, but rather late fall. Of course, I’m not in Calgary any longer. We had snow flurries the last few days, none stuck to the ground luckily but the mountain tops are now snow covered. I’ve turned on my heat, the earliest ever. Yesterday morning, the house was a rather chilly 12°C. So, I weakened and on goes the heat.

In other news, I’ve reluctantly decided that I have to cancel my trip to Ontario for October. I’ve spent way too much money lately and airline tickets for flights in Canada are ridiculous. I also looked at how much I’d likely spend while in Ontario and I don’t want to burry myself. I’m thinking I’ll plan for a spring trip. I had though about heading to California in the spring but my cousin will no longer live there as she’s retiring at the end of the year. She’ll be back in Toronto come spring anyway so I can see her there. I’m disappointed that I won’t see friends and family, it’s been a year and a half now. I can save over the winter now though and it’ll be much easier. So, planning now for the end of March or early April.

I called my internet provider yesterday, Xplornet and cancelled. It worked great in August when the weather was good. It’s been very cloudy this week and my internet is going up and down like a yoyo. Since I didn’t have that issue when the weather was good, I can only presume it’s cloud related. From what I hear, it’s far cloudier here than it was in Calgary. I need reliable internet, I use it for work, so, while I’m still in the free month, I decided to back out. They’ll refund the money I’ve paid out and a tech will come to remove the dish and reclaim the equipment. I’m keeping my Rogers Hub, it works great. No latency issues and actually seemed far faster than satellite. It’ll cost me a bit more, but it’s worth it to be reliable. Sorry, Xplornet, I had hoped it would work out.

I’m up far too early today, heading into Lethbridge for a Costco run, the dogs need food. Hopefully the weather will be good for the trip in, not supposed to snow, but it is still summer after all, isn’t it?

I cancelled my main internet provider today. I’m inside the first month, so they have a money back guarantee. I’m pretty remote and this is satellite internet. In the second half of August, it was fine. Now that it’s September and it’s been pretty cloudy, the connection is constantly dropping. The installer told me it would be fine except in really bad storms. Ummm, no. Not the case. It does not work in heavy clouds. I’m not talking snow or a thunderstorm, just heavy clouds. I use this for work and I need it to be reliable.

So, I’m back to Rogers and am using their Hub. It’s at LTE speed and the nearest tower is about a kilometer away. It works quite well for work purposes. It’ll cost me a bit more, but hey, it’s reliable.

The other issue with satellite internet is the latency. There is a 2 second delay on everything. That doesn’t sound like a lot, bit it makes working from home painful.

Anyway, I’m glad I discovered the issues before my first month was up. I have paid for 2 months of service and installation but it’ll be refunded.

I don’t have a back up now, but I don’t think Rogers will be down too often.

On another note, summer appears to be over. We’ve had snow flurries and cold temps. I’ve had to turn the heat on already, this is the earliest ever. Oh well, we didn’t get the snow that Edmonton did anyway.

The weekend is here. Costco run tomorrow in Lethbridge and not a lot else planned for the weekend. Enjoy yours.

I am on day three of my three day weekend. The weather has been awesome. From the looks of the forecast, this may be the last of summer.

On Friday, I took the dogs down to the lake. A dog that Twix met here was there, so she met Blondie and Hera this time, and the four of them had a ton of fun and my three were exhausted. Twix is quite the swimmer, loves it more than her sisters. Oddly, Blondie isn’t a swimmer, but she’s never really had the opportunity. Back in Ontario when she was a puppy, I didn’t take her to Lake Ontario and when we moved to Alberta, although she’s had plenty of opportunities to swim, it’s mostly been in the Bow River and it’s got quite the current. Anyway, she goes in up to her chest and that’s about it. Perhaps I’ll go in with her and see if I can get her swimming.

I ended Friday at The Pie Man in Blairmore. Excellent food, best fish and chips I’ve ever had. It was a good day.

Yesterday, I made a trip into Lethbridge to pick up some supplies for The Pie Man, took the dogs along for the ride. On the way back, I stopped and looked at a Jeep Wrangler, I know I will get back into one some day. It was a 2 door, like my original Jeep, all of the power options and a navigation system as well.

A nap was in order for the afternoon, ended up being three hours long. Took it easy Saturday night. Watched Kansas City attempt a perfect game, just caught the ninth inning, unfortunately for the pitcher, he gave up a walk in the 9th to end the perfect bid and then a single to end the no hitter. It’s a very rare event, indeed.

Today has started pretty early, although 5am seems to be the new norm for me waking up. The dogs are fed and have been out. I’m going organize the last few things in the house today. I think the dogs and I will also return to the lake later this afternoon. The high is supposed to be 21 and we might not see those temps again this year.

Back to work tomorrow and it’s a 5 day work week. I’ll find a way to survive. I hope you had a good weekend as well.

It’s Labour Day today, in Canada and the US anyway, I am unsure where else it is observed.  So, that means it is a day off for most of us.  In Alberta, stores are generally open, malls, grocery stores, restaurants and what not.  I hope that the people working getting a day in lieu at some point in the future.

My employer is closed of course.  There will be the odd person who will be working today, but it will be fairly rare.  It is, after all, the last long weekend of the summer and also, the unofficial end to summer.  We have a few weeks until summer officially ends but this is pretty much it.

I have no plans today really.  I do need to do dishes, by hand – now, that is labour.  I will replace my dishwasher in the near future, so that will be good.  For now, I’ve been lazy, so there are dishes that have piled up.  I also have to do a load or two of laundry.  So, I guess no plans isn’t really true, it’s domestic chores day.

The renovation guys are supposed to come in today at some point.  The garage needs to be swept out, I think they are done working in there and the new deadbolts need to be installed.  A new partial floor needs to go in the bathroom, I am interested to see what tiles have been purchased, I am sure they won’t match what’s in there since those tiles are likely from the 70’s.

The shed in the back is mostly done, it’s been cleared out, it does need a new door on both sides though.  Most of the garbage has been hauled away, likely only one small load to go.

It will be nice to have the renovations done, I am not banking on today necessarily, but hopefully tomorrow.  When they are done, I need some minor electrical work done and then a cleaning person will come in and clean top to bottom.

It will be nice having a house that’s done.  I will have everything setup at that point which will be good.

So, back to my domestic stuff, I hope that you have a great Labour Day.