Kevin's Ramblings…

I am about 90% moved now and 50% unpacked and organized. It’s been a very busy few days.

The moving company that I contracted did an awful job. They were 1:20 late arriving on Friday morning and took over 3 hours to load the truck and get to the new place. Unloading was relatively quick at least and nothing was broken but wow, not a great experience.

Internet in the apartment was supposed to be free, but, it has not worked since I moved in. We’ve spoken to support and the access point in my suite is fine, the main modem needs to be reset and when I tell the building person that, she argued with me. So, yesterday I scheduled Rogers to install 2gbps service and they’ll be here tomorrow (Tuesday) between 11-1. It’s not overly expensive, cheaper than what I was paying with Freedom. Speaking of Freedom, although I still have their equipment, that had to be returned and it would be approximately 2 weeks before they could set me up here. Yeah, fuck that, I have to work.

I love the place. It’s small, and I am basically using all the space. The dogs seem to be settling in nicely so that’s good. The little dog park in the visitor parking lot is great and Apollo will even poop there so that’s great.

I think we’ll be quite happy here.

It was a very long day today.

I woke up at 150am which is easy to early by my estimation. I got most of my packing done. Most is the keyword here.

I went and picked Michel up. The dogs were happy to see him, as was I. We tried to nap together, didn’t work out perfectly, oh well.

The moving company was an hour and twenty minutes late arriving which isn’t acceptable. The owner claimed it was due to the truck, whatever.

They started loading my worldly possessions up and Michel and I headed to the new place. I made a side trip to Costco while Michel waited for the movers to get to the new place.

And wait is what we did. They took almost 3 hours to arrive and were full of excuses. They quickly unloaded which was the only quick thing they did all day. I started the process of unpacking which I’ll continue in a few hours.

This evening at bedtime, Apollo got away and had himself a little adventure. A young neighbour somehow found him, put him in an adorable jacket and returned him to me. Bad dog, great neighbour.

Anyway, 23 hours later and I’m hitting bed. Good night.

It’s here, moving day. When I signed the lease, February 20 seemed like such a long time away. January always takes about 3 months to finish up, this January was no different. January ended and then February crawled it’s easy through until now, it’s moving day finally.

I’ve never, ever lived in a brand new build. No one has been in there before, just the occasional walk through to show the place. Something fresh, something exclusively mine. I’m really looking forward to it.

I’m downsizing, that’s for sure. It’s 678 sq ft of living space. Living room, kitchen, bedrooms, walk through closet, bathroom and den. The den is a good size, it just can’t be called a bedroom as there is no window. It’s got an island in the kitchen so I’ll be using that as opposed to a dining room table. The laundry is in a closet right by the front door. The patio adds another almost 200 sq ft. I’ll have my BBQ, a deck box and a couple of chairs out there. It’s fully covered so BBQing will be great. I’ll probably BBQ tonight for dinner.

My furniture arrives over the next few weeks with my leather couch and loveseat arriving in August. I’ll be “roughing” it until March 5 when my sectional arrives and gets delivered. The dogs will actually have to use their dog beds. The poor dogs eh…

I want to get everything unpacked and organized by end of day Saturday which is fairly ambitious but since the reusable plastic moving boxes are getting picked up Monday, I’ve got no choice.

I’m looking forward to starting over fresh. A clean break in a new place. Might be exactly what I need.

Tomorrow is moving day. I’m behind schedule on my organizing and packing. Badly behind.

I haven’t done any laundry and I have three or four loads to do. Hoodies, towels, bedsheets and a comforter, at the very least.

My packing is also behind, badly.

For those who aren’t aware, I do have 3 Doctorate degrees in Procrastination, so this isn’t out of character, at all. I do work better under pressure, well, I’m under pressure.

As soon as I’ve posted this entry, I’m going to drag my laundry basket from upstairs to the laundry room and get a load going. I’ll also put the clothes that are clean in the laundry room and put them in crates ready to move. They’ve been down there, waiting to be folded and put away for months now. Yes, it should have been done ages ago, but, it is what it is.

I then have to get packing. It’s not like I have a ton of packing to do, I downsized big time when I moved into my 5th wheel trailer and haven’t gotten a lot of new stuff since. I’m just, well, a procrastination expert.

I’ll get it all done. I don’t have a choice as the movers will be here tomorrow between 10 and 1030 and I’m moving.

It’s going to be a cold move. Tomorrow will start out at around -22 with a day time high of about -9. It’ll be sunny at least, no snow tomorrow. We got our snow Monday night through end of day Tuesday, about 30-40 centimeters total. The snow clearing company for this complex did a shitty job of clearing the snow on Tuesday, they were back late Wednesday to clear again so at least there is a path from my front door to the loading area for the truck.

I’m guessing the snow will be less of an issue where I’m moving to. I hope so anyway. It’ll be nice having heated parking moving forward. No snow and ice to brush off the car. No freezing walking to/from the car in sub-zero temperatures.

I’m going to miss my whackadoodle neighbour, she’s such a nice lady. I can definitely go the rest of my life without thinking about her craziness. I hope she’s able to get the help she so obviously needs.

Anyway, wish me luck on everything I need to do to prep. I’m going to break around 645 and head out to Stacked for their weekday breakfast special, 2 eggs, home fries and bacon plus toast. It’s $6.99 and the coffee is even really good. That’ll give me the energy I need. Tonight is wing night at the pub so that’ll be dinner. I’ll probably go back to Stacked tomorrow for breakfast and Friday night will be a pizza night.

Here’s to moving 😎

We had 10 days, perhaps two weeks at most of cold, snowy weather around Christmas 2025. January was way above normal in terms of temperature and below normal with snow, this carried on into February as well. For the last 5 or 6 weeks, daytime temperatures have been in the double digits mostly, as warm as 24C one afternoon. All of the snow that we had melted long ago. It looked like we weren’t getting any significant winter weather.

That ended, at least temporarily last night. A cold front moved in and through the end of the day today, Calgary is supposed to get up to a foot of snow. As of this morning, there are 4-5″ and it’s -7C. Tomorrow through Saturday, the temps will be as low as the low -20s with highs in the -teens…

No more snow is forecast after today but it’ll remain cold. I’m moving on Friday, and the high is supposed to be -14C. I guess we won’t be sweating while moving boxes and furniture.

Looking West, the mountains have very little snow on them, just what appears to be a light dusting. They’ve probably picked up a better covering with this dumping, but, we could have a very bad forest fire season come August and September. It’s been unusually dry for sure.

Spring is just over a month away, I’m looking to warmer days and baseball season returning. It’ll be nice to umpire again, my 29th season I believe.

Well, get the shovels out and drive safely. Warmer weather returns next week.

My moving boxes arrived yesterday. I use a service called EcoBox when I move. They are reusable plastic totes that have closing lids and are completely stackable. It’s a great service and I’ve used it a bunch of times. I move too often.

I wouldn’t be moving out of this place, but the owner decided he wanted to sell. In hindsight, it’s a good move as the neighbour is insane. I haven’t seen her in a few weeks, so that’s a good thing and I hope I won’t see her prior to moving.

Anyway, I have 10 large moving crates and 20 small moving crates. Today I’ll start to pack up my stuff.

Moving day is Friday and the balmy winter weather we’ve been having will leave us on Tuesday. Friday’s high temperature is supposed to be -15C, well, al least we won’t get overheated moving stuff.

I’ve listed my couch for sale on Marketplace. One person tried to scam me with an e-transfer scam. Hard to believe anyone would fall for that type of bullshit, but since people try, it must occasionally succeed. If no one offers on the couch, I’ll bring it with me and use it until my custom couch order is ready to be picked up in late August. Wow, that seems like a long time from now but it’ll be here before we know it.

I was going to replace my queen size bed with a king, but I decided I’ve spent enough money of late and will be keeping the queen. It’s only 7 years old and is still comfortable. The queen bed frame from Amazon will stay as well.

I’m getting my TV wall mounted (I already have the mount) after I move in so I don’t have a need for a TV stand. I’m also getting my Sonos sound bar mounted as well as the two surround speakers. They’ll also hide the cords for a nice, clean look.

I’ll say goodbye to Ranchlands for the second time and goodbye to the whackadoodle neighbour. At least CPS hasn’t visited me in a few days.

I’m using movers so it should be smooth. I’ll take a couple of days to unpack and organize and then the boxes get picked back up. I’m off work to get everything organized, I may go back on the Tuesday after I move to save some vacation days.

Wish me some luck for a smooth, uneventful move.

I’m planning a trip to Ontario at the end of August. I received an email from Air Canada and one of the deals was a return flight to Toronto and the price was ridiculously inexpensive. So, I’ve booked August 27 – September 3.

I’ll spend one night in Toronto and then head to Niagara for the weekend and possibly Ottawa overnight as well.

I’ve arranged for a rental car and when I looked at SUVs they were around $1300 for the week, a bit pricy. I was able to get a luxury sedan though, BMW 3 series, Lexus or Audi for $830 for the week, so I’ll be driving something nice which will be cool.

I’ll be staying with friends in Niagara and seeing those that I can over the weekend, it’ll be great to catch up. In Ottawa, I’ll be visiting a friend that I met when I was going to Niagara College over 30 years ago, I was in their wedding party in 1999. They have 3 daughters, I met one of them when she was a baby and she’s in her mid 20s now. I’m looking forward to seeing and meeting them in August.

Trips to the Mandarin for Chinese food are in order and I’ve planned lunch with 2 guys that used to work for me, Indian buffet in Brampton.

I still need to find accommodations for Twix and Apollo, unsure where at the moment but I’ll find something, lots of time.

I enjoy visiting Niagara and the GTA, but Alberta is home now and I’ve no intention of ever living in Ontario again.

So I went and looked at and priced out a Jeep Wrangler 2-door Willys Edition, fully loaded, all the bells and whistles that a Jeep offers. It came in at around 62k, before GST, so, under my spending cap of 65k.

I’ve owned two Jeeps before. I had a 2005 Jeep Wrangler TJ, it was a lot of fun, a great vehicle and one of the only vehicles I’ve owned that I actually regret selling. They are versatile vehicles, roof off, roof panels off, doors off – you feel free while driving. It’s also one of the few vehicles that still comes with a standard transmission. Now, I’m not entirely sure I want to drive a standard again or not. They are fun to drive, but also a pain in the ass in stop and go traffic, always clutching, clutching, clutching.

I was sort of set to get it or at least put it at the top of my wish list then I got a call from the Sales Manager at the Ford dealer regarding the Ford Bronco. They are pushing HARD for my business and it’s sort of exciting. They’ve reduced the price and offered a cash back discount since I’m paying cash for the vehicle. I’m meeting with the Sales Manager today. He wants to order it now and then they’ll hold it until August when I’m ready to buy. By the looks of it, it’s about 5-6k LESS than what the Wrangler comes in with more options and it’s in a really cool colour as well.

The only other vehicle I’m considering is the Hyundai Santa Fe. It’s got all of the options that the Bronco has and is even less expensive. It comes in under 50k. Between the 3, it’s a tough choice.

I’ve eliminated the Mitsubishi Outlander, I already have a 2019 and although I love it, I don’t really need two of them in the driveway at the same time. The Nissan Rogue is out as well, as is the Honda Passport. The Toyota dealer had no 2026s in stock so I wasn’t able to even look at one, so it was out before it started.

Tough choice. Spending 50-60k on a vehicle isn’t just a whim, I want to make sure I’ll love what I’m buying and having these dealers sort of fight for my business is sort of exciting.

More to come…