Kevin's Ramblings…

This has been a whirlwind of a week in Idaho, that’s for sure.

I arrived around 9am on Sunday to my friend and co-workers place in Twin Falls where I was staying until Wednesday. As I said, I brought my trailer down with me – good and bad. The good is I have somewhere comfortable to sleep and the dogs feel “at home”, the bad, the amount of extra fuel it costs me to drag that thing around. As some know, I have two trailers, who doesn’t need two, right? So, I brought the smaller trailer down here, a 1983 20 foot trailer that’s built like a tank. It will probably outlive all of us – they knew how to build things back then.

Anyway… We parked in front of the Hornbacher residence and connected to his power. It tripped his breaker. We eventually ran an extension cord to the trailer so I would have power for lights and a fan. Turns out we think it may be a faulty extension cord. It rained a lot of the day on Sunday but we were able to get out for a few hours with the dogs and go for a walk and some sightseeing.

There is an amazing canyon in Twin Falls and a pretty cool arch bridge going over the canyon. We were able to watch a group of base jumpers do their thing and jump off of the bridge, not something I would do.

Sunday for dinner, I had brought Alberta beef with me, New York Strips and some Texas Twinkies as well (jalapeno stuffed with cream cheese inside a chicken breast and all of that wrapped in thick cut bacon) and I made my World Famous potatoes. Dinner was great.

Monday, I took my hosts out for dinner, it was their one-month anniversary. We went to a place called Elevation 486, pretty good food indeed. They need to work on the Caesar salad though.

Tuesday, DH smoked a tri-tip that he wasn’t impressed with, but I loved it. My Mom used to cook roasts until they were extra-well done, so this was juicy by comparison. Wednesday was a travel day and I stopped at the house of one of the people who works for me to ensure I saw her and her husband in person. I was supposed to have dinner with them, but timing just didn’t work out unfortunately. They were kind enough to get me a take-away bag of food though so that was awesome of them.

Wednesday night, I checked into the Meridian (just outside of Boise Idaho) KOA – Campgrounds of America, or Kampgrounds, perhaps. Really nice campground, that’s for sure, one of the nicest I have ever seen. Thursday, I worked in the Boise IBM office and commandeered my Director’s former office. Thursday night a bunch of fellow IBMers went out for dinner to Kona Grill. I had an amazing stir fry and a double brownie dessert.

Today is my last day in Idaho. The dogs and I will camp again this evening and will head out at first light tomorrow. We will stop again in Twin Falls and will have breakfast with the Hornbachers and then hopefully stop further along the line and meet another co-worker for a coffee.

I plan on making it to Great Falls Montana by Saturday evening and I will find somewhere to park the trailer and spend the night – quite likely a Walmart parking lot. Sunday morning, I will get to Lethbridge Alberta and will stop at Costco for a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving dessert on Sunday night. After dinner, we will make the final 2.5 hour drive north to home and then back to work Monday morning.

What a week it has been…

The dogs and I left Balzac right on time, which is sort of a surprise. I had to head into downtown Calgary to test out my ID bady to ensure it was programmed properly. I must admit that I’m not used to Calgary traffic any more.

I found the office easily enough and my badge let me into the office, no one was at reception… I replied via email to let the security people know I was in and returned to the truck.

I paused at Wendy’s for a bite to eat and then took the dogs for a quick walk near the vets office. Got the all clear on their health and Kevin was very happy with their weight, both dogs are in great shape.

I picked up Blondie’s urn and a paw print that was made. Sad to get that, for sure, but brings up tons of memories of an awesome dog.

We headed South towards The Pass and got in right around 830. Had a great night sleep in the trailer and woke up to rain. I was planning on leaving before first light, but with temperatures near freezing and fairly heavy rain, I decided to wait until first light to head out.

My neighbour was nice enough to make breakfast, bacon and eggs plus toast. I headed to the US with a full stomach.

We had one of the friendliest border agents, and it was quite obvious that she was a dog lover. At about 20 minutes into Montana, there was snow on the ground, I was thinking this is a bit early, it’s only September still. We only had to drive though that for about a half hour.

We got to about 20km North of somewhere called Browning Montana and one of the trailer tires decided to blow up on me. What fun…

A driver stopped and told me there was a tire shop in the next town, I wasn’t too optimistic that a small town tire shop would have what I needed. Another Albertan headed South stopped and helped me get the blown tire and rim off, very nice of him.

I got into town and the tire shop was only open until noon, it was 1130. He had the tire size I needed and we were on our way within an hour, so not much of a delay at all. All in, it cost me $113 USD, not bad at all, I’m sure it would have been well over $200 in Canada.

At this point, I sort of doubted that I’d make it to Twin Falls on Saturday and sure enough, I didn’t. The dogs and I stopped about 45 minutes north of Idaho Falls at a rest stop and spent the night. We headed out early, around 5am with 3 hours ahead of us.

It was an uneventful drive the rest of the way. Sunday was rainy and cool. I met with a bunch of coworkers for brunch, had a great time. I stopped at Costco and got some food for the dogs and a bottle of wine for Sunday dinner. DH and I, along with the dogs, off course, toured the canyon in Twin Falls and watched some base jumpers jump off of the bridge. Insanity, if you ask me.

So, that was the whirlwind weekend. It’s back to work this morning. It should be a good week, I’m looking forward to it. We are going out for dinner tonight to a restaurant overlooking the canyon, I hear the food is great.

Tomorrow after work, I am heading to Calgary to take the dogs to their annual vet appointments. Both Hera and Twix are doing well, no health issues. One of them needs a rabies shot and both get the kennel cough vaccine and distemper, so they’ll be good to go when I have to put them in boarding at the end of October when I head to Ontario for a week.

After the vet appointment, we will head South to Crowsnest Pass. I am hoping to get out of the vet’s office by 530 (I will need to try to not talk so much) and then we will get to the Pass by about 8pm. I discovered that taking Highway 2 all the way to Highway 3 and then heading West only adds about 11 minutes to the trip. It also means that I will have cell coverage the entire way and there are towns that we pass through in case I want a beverage, or something.

I was planning on hooking up to the trailer right away and heading to Kalispell for the night. I had looked at camping in Kalispell and for $65 for the night, I found a place that offered only a power hook-up. $65 eh? And I would use, maybe $2 in power? The campsite also had NO FACILITIES at all, nothing… Yeah, don’t think so. The updated plan was to park in the Wal-Mart parking lot and then pull out early on Saturday morning. Now, I have reconsidered and I think I will “camp” in front of the old house for the night and head out early Saturday morning. It’s about an 11 hour drive from Coleman to Twin Falls Idaho, so, a bit longer of a drive than I like in one day, but that’s what I am going to do.

So, I will be pulling my small trailer and the dogs will be joining me. This’ll be, by far, the longest road trip they’ve taken. I will need to ensure I stop more often, for them – I drive through and only stop when I need to use the washroom or I am starving.

I should get to Twin Falls before dark, likely around 6pm or so, presuming I leave at first light, which is the plan. We will be in Twin Falls, “Camping” in my co-workers driveway or on the street in front of his house. I will be there Saturday and will head to Boise on Wednesday after work. I’ve been invited to one of the agents who works for me for dinner on Wednesday evening. She is on the way from Twin Falls to Boise so it will work perfectly.

We are actually camping in Boise at KOA until Saturday morning. Thursday night, a group of co-workers and I will go for dinner in Meridian and Friday morning a bunch of us are going for breakfast. Saturday morning, the dogs and I will head North back to Canada and will stop “Somewhere” along the way for the night. I am guessing somewhere in Kalispell Montana, and quite likely the Wal-Mart parking lot. We will continue through to Coleman on Sunday and will have Thanksgiving dinner with my neighbour and then will head back to Balzac either late Sunday or Monday.

So, it will be a quick trip but I am looking forward to it. It will be nice meeting people that I have worked with for the last year and a half and seeing some co-workers again that I met back in May when I did this previously. Will be a good time for sure.

It’s been a busy few weeks since I last posted a week ago.

I’ve completed my move to Balzac. The dogs and I headed to Crowsnest Pass on Friday afternoon after work. I picked up my small trailer from my friends property and towed it to my house in Coleman, there was no way I was going to try sleeping on that air mattress again. I went out for dinner and then went to bed around 930pm. The mattress in that trailer is pretty darn good, very comfortable. Although I made up a bed on the floor of the trailer for Hera (I forgot the dog bed in Balzac), she was the first to jump on the bed.

I figured she wouldn’t stay when Twix got up, but she did. When I joined, she was in the way of my feet and I thought for sure she’d jump down. Now, keep in mind, she’s always welcome on the bed. She simply moved over and the 3 of us slept through the night. That was the first time Hera’s slept on the bed in a long time, probably 2 years or so.

I joined my neighbour at 5am for coffee, very thankful to have a cup of food, strong coffee. My housekeeper arrived at 7am to help me with garbage and recycling removal, packing the last of my stuff into the truck and a thorough move-out clean.

The town was doing a community garbage day where you could take your junk and dispose it at the arena, that saved me an hour driving to the dump and back. We got rid of a ton of recycling as well, although oddly, they don’t accept glass recycling. We loaded the truck and it was full, but, we got everything loaded.

I went to my neighbours granddaughters 7th birthday at the park while my housekeeper cleaned the house. By the time I got back just over an hour later, the house looked great. The basement was cleaner than I had ever seen it and the entire house looked and smelled great.

I went for a Chinese food buffet for dinner, it was good, I’d go again. Not a huge selection, but all the food was fresh and hot. The dogs and I headed back to Balzac and made great time. I slept like the dead, it was a long day.

Sunday, I umpired what was likely the two worst baseball games I’ve ever done before. The first was completely lopsided, but the stronger team made a mockery of it, not trying at all, switch hitting and looking like idiots and generally not caring about the game at all. It ended somewhere around 23-1 in about 2 hours. The second game was marginally better, but not a lot better. Fall Ball this year is definitely a joke of a league. I’m strongly considering just dropping my last 2 games. It would be nice not having to rush back from Idaho to umpire a likely crappy game on the Sunday before going back to work. Fall Ball has been a disappointment, for sure.

I didn’t do much last night after getting home, although I did have good intentions. I need to unload the truck and organize stuff that I have no idea where I’m going to organize it to. That’ll be a challenge.

This week should be pretty low-key. Friday after work, the dogs and I are going to their vet for their annual checkup and then heading back to the Pass. I’ll pickup the trailer and then the 3 of us are heading to Idaho for a week. I’m looking forward to the trip.

It’s a new week, ensure that you enjoy yours.

I am in the third week of living in my 5th wheel trailer and thus far, I am loving it. Getting a place for everything and everything in its place has taken a bit more time than I thought it would, but I am getting there. I also think that coming from a 2-bedroom home into a 30 foot trailer is a HUGE transition and I didn’t realize how much stuff I actually have. Turns out, I have (had?) a TON of stuff.

The house still isn’t empty, although it will be next weekend. I am heading back to the Pass on Friday evening and my house cleaner is meeting me on Saturday morning to do the move-out clean and help me load for a dump run and then whatever else I am bringing back to the trailer with me. It has to be done Friday/Saturday as the following week, I am heading to Idaho for a week, more on that, shortly.

I have been umpiring again for a few weeks and have enjoyed it. The quality of ball has not been the greatest, but it’s been fun. Sometimes, Fall Ball is really good and other times, it’s not so good. Well, this Fall season, it’s not so good. However, it’s still fun. Only a handful of games left until I am done for the Fall since I will miss 2 weekends due to my trip.

So, next Friday I head to Idaho for a week. I have decided that I am going to bring my small trailer with me, and the dogs as well. There was an incident where they were supposed to board and I am not comfortable leaving them there now. So, I will drag the trailer with me. My gas expenses will double but then I will save boarding fees and hotel fees, so it should be a wash, approximately. I am looking forward to the trip, I am hoping the weather will be great.

At the end of October, I am heading to Ontario for 6 days and am really looking forward to that. It will be a quick trip, but it will be nice to see friends and family and I will be able to meet a number of co-workers as well, we are going to the Mandarin for lunch – gotta love a Chinese food buffet. The whole trip revolves around food, big surprise.

The dogs will be boarding in a “new to me” facility near where I am living. It’s not cheap, $100 per day for 2 dogs, but the suites that the dogs are in look nice and they have a large private run for each suite. Hopefully the dogs will enjoy it as well.

Well, wish me luck on getting everything to the trailer and organized, I will need it. 🙂

I headed down to the Pass yesterday after some appointments. It’s amazing how much stuff one accumulates over the years. I’ve sold, or given away most of my large stuff. I’ve kept my mattress (it is super comfy and pretty new) and my desk and chair for working, my BBQ, a good size outdoor table, small kitchen appliances and my clothes. Everything else has been sold.

I wanted to downsize and minimalize, I’ve accomplished both. Not much of a choice when you move into a 30 foot long trailer.

I took a large load of stuff back from the Pass, it’s currently waiting to be unloaded from the truck. It was late when I got back, so already dark, so it say outside. I did check the forecast and there was no chance of rain overnight, and, for once, the forecast was accurate.

Task one for the day, unload the truck and organize and out away the stuff that I brought down. I hope I can find room for everything.

I have until about 3pm when I have to head out to umpire a 4pm game. Tonight, I may be going to RibFest, that’ll be fun.

Enjoy your weekend, it’ll be over before we know it.

I finally got my internet connected yesterday. I had to climb onto the roof of the trailer, relatively easy considering that there’s a ladder at the back. The hard part, for me anyway, was getting the receiver on the roof at the same time. I’m not a firefighter (good thing, as it turns out) as I don’t seem to be able to climb a ladder while carrying something. So, one of my neighbours was out walking her dog and I asked her if she’d pass me the receiver. Fifteen minutes later, I had a solid connection. I had been tethering to my phone this week, that worked well enough and will be a great backup, but my TV and Chromecast won’t connect to the phone when I share, so there’s that.

Just about everything is setup now, I still need to put away clothes and dispose of boxes, but it’s feeling like home. It’s nice being back in the Calgary area, but wow, you really forget how bad the drivers are in a big city.

I start umpiring this evening and I’m really looking forward to it. It’s been almost 2 years since I’ve umpired a game. I’m sure it’ll come back, like riding a bike. I don’t know my partner, it’s a name that I’m unfamiliar with. Babe Ruth Fall Ball is always pretty decent baseball, should be a great Fall season.

On Friday evening, I’m heading back to the Pass to pick up another load of kitchen stuff and clothes and take pictures for the landlord so he can rent the place out again. I’m umpiring this weekend so that’ll be good.

It’s definitely Fall, it’s currently 4C and the days are only getting into the upper teens. Winter in the trailer will be interesting, it’ll be an adventure, to be sure.

I picked up my trailer on Thursday night, the flooring was re-done. The previous owner had put in flooring and was either an idiot through no knowledge on his part, or was an idiot in how he tried to install it. It was simple peel and stick flooring – he didn’t peel, he just laid it down so it was essentially a floating floor. That was fixed, along with a few other minor issues.

On Friday morning, I woke up rather early, it was 2:30am. My house cleaner was coming over at 7am to assist me with organizing, packing and loading the trailer. We broke at 10am or so and went for breakfast at the Golf Club, great food, I will miss it for sure.

I got out a little later than I had planned, what a surprise there. I stopped again in Lundbreck and had my buddy properly attach my StarLink satellite receive stand to the roof of the trailer and he sealed it properly. The dogs and I headed North at about 2pm.

The drive was uneventful and we got settled by 5 or so. I levelled the trailer and began the process of hooking up to power, water, etc., when I noticed that I was too close to the power connection and would not be able to extend the slide-outs. D’Oh… So, reconnect the trailer and back it up and forward to move it over 5 feet or so. All good now.

Connect the power, realize that I have forgotten the water hose so I can’t connect water – I will get that on Saturday.

I wake up even earlier on Saturday morning, 2am. We headed out at 4am and arrived in the Pass around 6:30, great drive South. I had coffee with my neighbour and started more packing and organizing. I had to do a dump run on Saturday and a neighbour had lent me his flatbed trailer for it, that took about 3.5 hours in total. I headed back to the Pass around 2:30 or so with a truck full of stuff. I did not get everything I wanted/needed in this load.

I relaxed on Saturday night and had friends drop by for a drink. I went to bed and died – I was exhausted.

On Sunday morning, I discovered that the former owner of the trailer left BOTH the black and grey wastewater tanks FULL. Unbelievable. Now, normally, it would be a process of hooking up the trailer and moving it to the dump station, however, to save space in the back of the truck, I removed the 5th wheel hitch so no moving the trailer right now.

I will be back in the Pass on Friday evening and will return with the hitch and a bunch of other stuff. What a pain, indeed,

The dogs and I are settling in, Unpacking is going slowly, but it’s getting done. I think I am going to enjoy it here. I have my first umpiring on Wednesday night, I have missed that.

Welcome to trailer life I guess eh? 🙂

I had a moving sale this past Sunday. It wasn’t anywhere near as busy as I was hoping it would be. I advertised in the locals buy/sell groups on Facebook and had signs out on the highway, only had 20 or so people come by in total and I sold about $600 worth of stuff.

I’ll be giving a bunch of it away now. I have some decent clothes that I’ll donate to charity. Other stuff I’ll post on Facebook Marketplace and say it’s free and the vultures will come, I’m sure.

After the sale, I went out with a neighbour for dinner to the local Chinese restaurant and the food was absolutely delicious and even leftovers so we both had an extra large meal. I’ll miss that restaurant when I head north.

Tomorrow will be a busy day. I’ll go and pick up my trailer, it’s getting a few last minute fixes done. The floor in the trailer where the slide out is wasn’t installed properly, that’s getting fixed and some additional security chains are being in for the 5th wheel hitch. I also want to see if it’ll properly support a swing arm for the TV, I’m pretty sure it will.

I’ll bring it home Friday morning and will start loading it up, clothes and kitchen stuff. My housekeeper will be over to assist, then we’ll organize and get rid of a bunch of stuff in the house.

The dogs and I will head north around noon, I’m hoping, getting to Balzac by 230ish. I’ll setup and level the trailer, connect to power and then settle in. The dogs actually haven’t been in the trailer yet, they’ll get a preview on Friday morning. Friday night should be relaxing, I hope anyway. I’ll head back to the Pass first thing Saturday morning to make a couple of dump runs.

We’ll head back Saturday night and I plan on relaxing Sunday. I’m back to work on the holiday Monday and that’ll be my first day working from the trailer. I’ve been testing StarLink internet for the past week and it’s been solid. I have a new cell plan with Bell Mobility and that’ll serve as backup.

I’ll miss aspects of living in The Pass. I’ve made a couple of good friends and I’m going to miss the closeness of the mountains, the lakes, the peacefulness. I won’t miss the almost constant wind that you get here, that’s for sure, and I won’t miss all day trips into the city to buy everyday essentials.

I’m excited about this, I really am. The change will be a good one.

I have a Pixel 7 Pro from Google, the phone is absolutely amazing and I love it. I likely won’t be able to buy anything other than the flagship phone moving forward, but that’s ok. Google phones are so much better than anything that Samsung produces that it’s not even close. The Samsung hardware is good, no doubt about it, but what they do to the OS should be illegal. I’d actually prefer iPhone over a Samsung phone. I digress.

So, a feature that Pixel supports is a dual SIM. It supports a regular physical SIM card and also an eSIM. An eSIM is an electronic SIM, or a virtual SIM. I’m not sure, but from my recent experience, the carriers, or at least Rogers and Bell do not, I repeat, DO NOT know how eSIMs work or how to configure them.

For reasons sort of unknown to me, I decided to add another phone number to my phone. My intentions were good, I was going to use this new number for work. Anyway, I called Rogers and asked to have it setup. They did, or at least they tried.

For a bit, I had 2 numbers on my phone. My original Alberta number that I’ve had since April of 2017 and a new Ontario based number for work. Unsure why I went with an Ontario number, but I did. Now, on my Alberta number, I had unlimited calling and texting and US data, I wanted this moved over to my new number – this is where the problems started, I think.

I was getting data on the phone, but since data wasn’t on the second number, the phone was showing that it was partially out of service. Odd, to say the least. I played with it and couldn’t resolve and figured it might just be easier to remove the second line since I hadn’t started using it, so, I called into business support and had them remove the second number.

Something happened here that wasn’t expected. Since my data was moved to my second line to go along with my unlimited talk and text, when they removed the line, it removed the data and the agent didn’t notice this.

I called Rogers a number of times and spoke to a number (6, I believe) agents and none were able to fix them issue. At 6pm last evening, I got tired of my call with them, after 3+ hours and said that I had to go. She tried to keep me on the line, but I was done. She promised to call me back the next day and would figure this out. I, however, had pretty much decided that I was done with Rogers.

I went to Bell after work today and got a REAL SIM card and my phone was reactivated. I’m on a good plan and paying less than I was with Rogers.

I was with Bell back when I was in Ontario and never had an issue, well see how it goes now.

So, Rogers, you really need to work on the training both with your sales people and your tech people, they lost you a long time customer last night, although the last rep did at least try, was just unsuccessful.

Welcome back Bell, I hope we have a long and trouble free relationship.