I’ve been thinking of getting a bicycle for the last while so I’m heading to the Calgary Bike Show this morning.
It’s at the Calgary Stampede grounds in one of the large buildings, $14 admission I think it is.
At the very least, I’ll get to see what’s new in the biking world and perhaps I’ll take a look at some e-bikes as well.
At any rate, it’ll be a good Sunday morning.
I have a Google Pixel 10 XL Pro through Freedom Mobile. Apollo was nice enough to chew the screen.
I’ve been using an iPhone for the last couple of weeks, it’s my work cell.
Today, I called Mobile Klinix (I think it’s called) and they had a Google Pixel 10 XL Pro screen I stock and it was $349 for the replacement including installation. So, after waiting about 25 minutes, my screen has been replaced and I’m using the Pixel again.
The iPhone worked and kept me going but, after using it for 2+ weeks, I did not enjoy the experience. It’s a far inferior product.
Glad to be back to my Pixel.
I had to make a trip to Pincher Creek on Thursday night. My car reported that I had 480km of range. That should have gotten me to Pincher Creek and back without any issues. Yeah, no.
I made it back to the Calgary city limits and I ran out of gas. Inconvenient for sure, but, luckily I have AMA (Alberta Motor Association). I called them for fuel which is a free delivery service. The arrived a ataggering 2.5 hours later with my fuel. Apparently, even though Calgary is a city of 1.3 million (or so) people, they have few trucks working overnight. OK, fine. I head home, another 60 or so kilometers.
I got to within 3 kilometers from home and AGAIN, out of fuel. Ridiculous. I call AMA again and this time, it is estimated that it will be nearly 4 hours for someone to get fuel to me. Now, I didn’t fill up in Calgary as I was very short on cash. I decided since I was so close to home that I would walk home with Twix and Apollo. It wasn’t overly cold and it was a pretty good walk.
Friday around Noon or so, I decided to go and retrieve my vehicle, so I put another call into AMA to get fuel delivered. I started on the walk back to the car, but, low and behold, it wasn’t there. Great…
When I got home, I called the Calgary impound lot, hoping my car would be there. It was. Excellent, at least now I know where it is. Can’t get it because, well, I have no money.
7:30pm or so on Friday evening, I get my income tax refund and the impound lot is open until 10pm so I decide to get my vehicle before another day of storage is added to whatever my bill is going to be.
I order an Uber, it’s under $20 so that’s reasonable. I head to the impound lot. My impound fees are $357 which is sort of ridiculous, it’s a pure cash grab. I pay the fees.
I call AMA, again, for fuel and it says they will be there within an hour. OK, fine.
I get a call back from AMA, they can’t refuel a vehicle for whatever reason (not explained to me) in an impound lot, they can only tow out of it. Fine, come and tow me to the nearest gas station. He puts me on hold.
He comes back about 5 minutes later and informs me that they have no trucks available until Saturday. What? You’re bloody AMA and you have ZERO trucks available? What, exactly, am I paying for?
Lukcily, there is a flat bed truck right beside the impound lot and I get him to flatbed my car to the nearest gas station, less than 5km away. That bill is $126. Sigh. At least AMA will reimburse me for that towing fee.
I put in $88 of gas in the car. Yes, $88 somehow fit into the tank. Now, it was bone dry but come on, gas is a bit ridiculously expensive right now. Sigh, again.
So, I have my car with a full tank of gas and I am out of pocked, what:
$20 for an Uber. $357 impound fees. $126 for towing. $88 for gas.
Yesterday was an expensive day.
I am currently living in a one bedroom one den unit, one bathroom, kitchen and living room. I love it, it’s a great building and offers excellent facilities. I don’t really have enough space though, so, I am considering moving next door basically (and literally) to a 3 bedroom unit with 2 bathrooms. I don’t really need two bathrooms, but the 3 bedroom units come with two, so, I guess I will take two.
The move would be a bit of a pain in the ass. I would have to pack everything up and move it. I would hire movers though, so that part isn’t too bad.
I am going to look at a 3 bedroom unit in 15 minutes actually and I will lilely decide to make the move.
There are some incentives to moving into the larger space. First, I get a second parking stall which is good since I will soon have a second car. I may or may not get the rent incentives, they do offer new tenants 2 months free rent – I sort of doubt I will qualify for that though, we’ll see.
It’s a great place to live for sure.
Well, quite a lot, actually.
I received some bad news on Sunday. My friend and former co-working Patricia Bulpit passed away on Saturday. Her daughter-in-law found her in her in-law suite. Patricia was let go from her job last year, in October I believe and has had health issues since then. She refused to go back to the hospital last week for whatever reason, perhaps she knew the end was near. I was worried about her and said if you should pass away, please ensure your Son calls me. Well, she listened to that and I got the call that no one wants on Sunday. I will miss her.
Tuesday was March 17 and it would have marked one year that JT and I were seeing each other, well, that’s if he hadn’t left me last June.
Anyway, I was woken at 12:10am on Sunday morning by Apollo barking. I yelled at him to shut up, but he wouldn’t and then I heard a knock at the patio door, not a usual thing for sure.
So, I got up and low and behold, it was JT in person.
He apologized for everything which was nice. He found me accidentally. He’s looking to move into this apartment complex and was doing a tour and he saw Twix and I coming in from a walk, so, he decided to pay me a visit.
He had been sleeping in his vehicle – he only recently returned to Calgary and is again working as an electrician. I agreed to allow him to stay here until he gets his place. I said that we couldn’t live together longer, not at this time, we really need to get to know each other again and trust one another.
We did have sex and it was amazing, as it always has been. We showered together, twice, gotta save water, am I right? We went out for breakfast and he went off to work. Twix was a very happy girl seeing him again, she definintely remembered him and how he spoiled her.
So, is JT back in my life? Well, it would appear so.
Now, I guess you are up to date on what’s been going on.
Where the hell did Saturday go? Wow.
On Friday, when I was out watching the WBC (Canada lost to the US and was eliminated), Apollo decided that my cell phone, a Google Pixel 10 XL tasted good and he destroyed it. Sigh.
I would estimate that he had now detroyed $2000 worth of stuff… That’s insane. Here is what I can remember:
That’s all I can think of right off the top. Oh, and several t-shirts and underwear (from the dirty laundry). I remind myself that he is a puppy and likely only 7ish months old. I recall, vididly Blondie’s pupphood and Hera’s as well. Hera chewed the woodwork on several set of stairs and the carpeting and underpad in one of my rentals. That was also in Ranchlands, so, perhaps I will stay away from that neighbourhook moving forward. Sigh.
So, I need to figure out my plan for my phone. I do have an iPhone 16e for work, so, I think I will move the SIM card from my Pixel to the iPhone. There is no comparing the two, the Pixel is so superior. However…
A replacement is also $1500 so my earlier estimate of $2000 in damages is low. Wow.
For now, I will use the iPhone but man, I hate iPhone.
Actually, I have three Doctorates in Procrastination. I procrastinated in getting them, of course, if you don’t, you can’t actually get one, never mind three. It shows the level of committment that I have to procrastinating.
Right now, I am procrastinating on finishing setting up the office. Well, it’s setup, it’s just not organized and I have crap to find homes for. I also need to take stuff to my storage locker. The bedroom, kitchen and bathroom are done. I am coming up to the end of my third week here, so, I am doing a pretty good job procrastinating, if I do say so for myself.
I will get it done and I will get it done before Friday when my cleaning lady comes. I don’t want her to mistake potential laziness for what it really is. So, I will buckle down and get the office organized and the stuff that needs to go to the storage locker to the storage locker.
I really have no excuses. I wake up at stupid o’clock every morning and I am now done work at 2pm. Mind you, because I get up so early, I tend to want and/or need a nap in the afternoon so that I don’t pass out at 6pm.
That’s an excuse? Right?
Well, it probably is, but it’s true anyway. But, I will get it done, before Friday. That means by EOD Thursday since my cleaning lady comes early on Friday morning.
So, I have set a goal and I will accomplish that goal.
I will report back here that I am done, or ramble off some sort of excuse as to why I am not done. Wait for it. 🙂
I’m back to a Monday through Friday shift now, 6am-2pm. I have been working 12 hour shifts for the last year and a half while working on the Airbus project, now that has ended I’m Monday through Friday for the next while. Getting off of work at 2pm will be nice, I’ll have the afternoon to take the dogs to the dog park, do errands and, perhaps, nap.
I’m looking for a new project at work, or a new job elsewhere. I’m not really looking at the moment, I’ll start up soon. I’d love to get out of IT, but, I realize that’ll likely mean I’d take a big pay cut to start over. We’ll see what happens.
For now, I’m upskilling at work, getting some certifications while I am still being paid. It’s called “the bench” and it’s a good program, far better than being laid off for sure.
So, for now, I’ll continue with training and see where it takes me. I should be able to remain on the bench until August or so, then my utilization will be too low and eventually, I’ll get terminated without cause. A new dedicated client should come along in the meantime and I can jump onto that, or shared services may lose a body or two and I can move over there. Regardless, my pay keeps coming in so that’s a good thing.
Wish me luck on my next adventure.
Today in Alberta, and most of Canada and North America (and elsehwere), we moved the clocks ahead by an hour. In the Fall, we set the clocks back an hour. Why?
It used to be so that farmers would have extra daylight at the end of the day for harvestung and what not, now, it really doesn’t make much sense to most people, yet, politicians seem to be reluctant to stop the age old practice.
British Columbia has decided that they will now stay on permanent daylight savings time so, if Alberta doesn’t follow suit and we “Fall back” in November, we will be 2 hours ahead of our neighbours to the West.
Ontario has apparently said they will only stop the practive if Quebec and New York also stop the practice. What difference does that make really?
The Premier of Alberta has suggested that perhaps Alberta will also abolish the practice. I guess I hope we do. It seems senseless to me. I don’t really care if we stay on daylight savings time or if we stay on standard time – six of one, half dozen of the other.
This morning, at 7am it was still dark. Tonight, at 7pm it won’t be – does it really matter? No. Just pick one and stick with it. Thanks.
There was a bit of back and forth between my ex landlord and I via email.
He tried to justify the outrageous amounts he was claiming in my move out report. He attempted, unsuccessfully, to say that me paying for him to change the locks was justified. He also indicated that charging me for helping move stuff to the kitchen is allowed under the landlord tenant act. I don’t know that it is, but I’m highly doubtful.
My final offer to him was to walk away, her could keep what was left of the damage deposit, I owe him nothing and he owes me nothing. He declined indicating that I still owe him over $1800 after my security deposit was taken into consideration.
I told him that was my final offer and that he’s now blocked via text message and email and that I haven’t no interest in hearing from him again. As far as I’m concerned, that’s it.
He doesn’t have my forwarding address and now cannot contact me again. That sounds good to me. He claimed that he’s going to file a dispute with the landlord/tenant board or whatever it’s called. Hi ahead, make my day.
Not all landlords are idiots, this guy definitely is. I’m very glad to be out of there and if there weren’t two great restaurants in the Ranchlands area, I’d likely never get within a kilometer of Ranchlands again.
Ben, how about you go fuck yourself, that would be nice.
Kevin's Ramblings... 