Victory!  Rogers did the right thing.  Kinda……………

This victory, however, felt like the war in Afghanistan.  Is there really a victory for any one if there are so many casualties? 

It was an ugly battle.  Rogers employed the old Chinese Art of War strategies: death by a thousand dropped calls, uncountable referrals to others, the ‘hold-and-listen-to-ads’ torture and, of course, the ‘Solly, me no speak Engrish!’ retort or sometimes the more subtle variation, “Right, I understand the problem.  Now, just so I can put you through to the right person to fix this, what is your name again?  Your ten digit phone number?…………..and your date of birth, postal code and mother’s maiden name?”

I got pretty frustrated and when asked my birthdate for the umpteenth time, I once replied, “January, 1948”.  “Unh……..sir, I need the day of the month………..unh………?”  “You do?  You think it was just a lucky guess that I managed to pick the right postal code, phone number and 2 parts of my birthdate?  Do you really think I am a cheater trying to get some advantage over you but you may have CAUGHT ME ON THE BIRTHDAY QUESTION!?”  “I am sorry, sir, but we are required to……………“

I got one woman who was pretty high up.  She came across as pretty confident, pretty arrogant, really, but my perspective may have been off.  She was demanding the oft-repeated ‘fact check questions’ before deigning to speak to me.  I interrupted.  “Excuse me.  Do you have the power to make decisions?” “Of course!” She snapped. “You are now at Senior Customer Care!”

“Wow!  Does that mean you are senior to the other fools I have dealt with so far or does that mean you are a specialist in dealing with Geriatrics?” 

“What!?”

“Never mind. Back to the decision making.  Can you credit my account with a $5.00 credit?” 

“Yes.  Of course.  This is the senior……….”

“Good.  Because I want a credit please.  Put $700.00 credit on my account.  Read the file for the rationale.  Thanks.  It has been great talking with you.  Bye!”

“Wait.  I can’t authorize $700.00.”

“But you are senior something.  You can make decisions.  You can also, presumably read so just read the notes and make the decision.  At this stage, I don’t care either way.  Just make it.  Thanks.  Bye.”

“That is above my limit!”

Oh!  What is your limit?”

“$100.00.” 

“$100!!??  How senior is that?  Is there an antiquities level somewhere?  Do you have a pre-Neolithic department?  Any Palaeontologists on staff?”

“What?”

“Never mind.  Send me as far up the chain as is needed to get a yes or no on $700.00.  And, while you are at it, could I please have the address – e-mail will suffice – for your legal department?”

“I can’t give that information out, sir.” 

“Why not?  It is a department within the corporate offices.  It is findable.  The lawsuit has to be delivered somewhere.  I know!  If you give me your home address, I’ll mail it to you and then you can, while protecting their corporate address of course, deliver it yourself.  How’s that?”

“Sir, I have to put you on hold.” 

“If you put me on hold one more time, I will lose my mind.  I’ll snap.  That wouldn’t be good for senior care, now would it?”

“Senior Customer Care!”

“Whatever.  Unless you can put me through to the president, his or her spouse or the corporate psychologist, I would prefer you to do this instead: make a decision yourself or pass my e-mail address on to someone who can.  I am not going to talk on the phone any more.  I am off to find the address of your legal department on the internet.  Bye.

“Sir, I’ll have my manager call you.”

“How old is he?”

“Pardon?” 

“Never mind.  He is senior to you, I assume?

“Yes!” 

“Good!  Make it so, number one!”

This guy called the next day.  Stan.  When we spoke he was impressed that my account with Rogers was older than he was.  I said that alone should be enough for me to get my way.  He agreed.  That call took less than a minute.  But the whole beginning-to-end farce took hours spread over six days. 

Sal asked if it felt like a victory.  “No.  It felt more like a protracted case of the flu.”

As you know, I live remote.   No roads.  No hydro.  No ‘grid’ services and, naturally, no stores.  We are, as they say, ‘out there’.  Imagine my my surprise to meet our local bag lady!

We’ve had the well established cat lady for years so the eccentric lone woman syndrome is not without company.  In fact, we have a list.  Cat lady is a reclusive old crone with dozens of cats living in residence with her in a small domicile not quite up to conventional health standards – even the standards of Calcutta. When the barge delivers fuel to others, it ships cat food and kitty litter to the cat lady.  Used cat litter is dumped just outside.  One of the local heroes went by one time and, with his front end loader, took a load of the stuff and packed it out on his barge.  Didn’t get it all.  Barge was full.  Visualize that.  If you can.

Anyway, the other day we are coming home from the store and noticed a haze of smoke at the old squatter’s cabins across the way.  That usually means Mike has dropped in for a respite from his hurly burly days in the city.  ‘Not this time’.

The squatter’s cabins aren’t really cabins.  They are shacks with at least one wall missing each and both of them list to one side at a 15 degree tilt due to the log foundations settling on the sloping beach.  Imagine a small garage with the front door missing and the wooden floor missing planks, the roof leaking, the walls with fist-sized holes open to the outdoors and no amenities whatsoever.  The motel Deliverance in West Virginia is 4 star by comparison.  Hell, the floating-at-monsoon villages of Bangladesh are better!

The smoke was coming from a cut-off oil drum on the beach and a small fire was being fed by a tall, thin woman in her mid fifties.  Emaciated in that runway model kind of way, she was somewhat striking if not skeletal and frightening.  We stayed offshore with the engine at idle.  Sally and she exchanged a few words and she ended her part in the conversation with a broad smile and a curtsy verging on flirtatious for us taking the interest to check on her.

She had arrived by kayak.  It was a bag-lady kayak.  Old, beaten up, faded and lacking all the normal accoutrements, it was spare and basic in the manner that old shopping carts are.  Adding to the impression were shallow boxes strapped on to the deck of the vessel.  These boxes held her possessions.  Possibly some food.  A la bag lady de l’eau.

I confess to being touched by her warm and ready smile.  She was likely mad but quite gracious and pleasant nevertheless.  What struck me most, tho, was that she was there in the first place.  One has to work hard to get this far and the Squatter’s shack is amongst the least appealing places in the area being located in a dark, dank, mosquito ridden location on the rocky and uncomfortable beach on Quadra’s eastern shore.  Weather was socked in.  Location was poor.  Supplies were minimal and company was absent.  What’s the appeal?

That she was poorly equipped, inadequately supplied and really minimally prepared in every way was obvious in the extreme.  Glaring, actually.  Think: bag lady with paddle.  But she was also independent and clearly choosing to remain so.  Carried herself with a kind of pride, actually.  We asked again after her needs and hearing of none pressing, we bid her adieu and departed with a wave.

She was gone the next day.

I probably won’t.  But I could.  Rogers is really bugging me and so I have resorted to one of my old favourite threats; “You see, I think I am right and I think you are wrong.  I may be wrong, of course, it is certainly possible.  But after years in business, government and law (OK, I am stretching the arbitrator’s diploma a bit but they don’t know that),  I am pretty sure I am right.  

“But, what is way more important to the issue is that I am retired.  And I am bored.  I have nothing better to do than make this issue my reason for getting up every day.  I don’t have a job.  My kids are grown.  I live remote.  So, I am gonna make you my hobby.  I am looking forward to it.  Imagine the fun we’ll have?  Oh, I know it sounds a little crazy right now but, in retrospect after a few months, you’ll find that this exercise will help you develop as a person.  You’ll see.   I have done this before.  It won’t be much,  just a few minutes every day.  You know, writing letters, sending e-mails.  Filing files. Responding to superiors.  Maybe fill out a few forms.  I already have your name.  Could you spell it for me, please?”

That always gets their attention (if not the correct spelling) and all sorts of things begin to happen after that.  I currently have Raviid, Christina, Ron and Alex ‘on the job’ and we’ll see what they come up with.  I am toying with adding to the threat:  

“Do you want my blog address?  I will be writing all this up, you know.  Every day.  I love this stuff.  You can’t make it up and yet everyone knows how true it is.  The way I see it, it is a form of ‘documenting my case’ for the lawsuit.   You really should read it for your own protection”.  

“Small Claims court only, of course, but that still takes up a lot of time.  Thank God the paperwork is simple for the plaintiff.  You can file in five minutes.  ‘Course, you’ll have to come to Campbell River.  Like salmon fishing, do you, Alex?  Gimme the name of your supervisor and maybe I’ll just subpoena her.” 

“Dave, get a grip!   There are more important things to do with your time”.  Yeah, I know.  I’m mostly just rattling their cage.  Push comes to shove, I’ll probably just shove off and go to Telus.

Maybe. 

……whether we need to or not, we go to town for the 2nd biggest ‘shop’. 

The first biggest shop(s) happens in the spring and the fall when we go to Costco and fill up on things like 50 pounds of salt with an accompanying free 25 pound bag of mustard seed or something equally as mad.  A 60 kg wheel of Brie.  You know the philosophy, having 40 kilograms of something you once ran out of should prohibit that from happening again.  And it seems to work.  I am still operating from the original pack of Chia seeds I bought two years ago.  And my instant Chai tea inventory is still strong.  I got Bold BBQ sauce up the wazzoo.  We are good to go on that score.

But the things we actually use on a regular basis need to be replenished more frequently and we have managed to limit our ‘real life’ consumer runs to once every three weeks.  In theory we could go for as long as a month but, in truth, a three-week shop is all we can squeeze into the truck.  It’s not just food, you see.  We always have building supplies, one-time purchases (this time three sheets of plastic) and the like.    Plus we have totes, garbage bags and a few changes of clothes.  The SUV earns it’s keep.  All 1-200 kms a month.

The 3rd ‘shop’ is rare.  Twice a year we go only as far as Quadra Island.  Maybe three times.  Pick up a few things in anticipation of guests.  Haven’t been to Vancouver for over a year and a half.    

Bought my ICBC today, too.  At 100 kms a month driving, I pay approximately 60 cents a km for insurance. 40% of it on dirt roads.  ICBCs risk is low.   

I bought 6 bottles of scotch this time.  There was only one bottle on the store shelf so I asked if there was another in the back.  The woman went back and came out with a 6-bottle case.  At that same moment I noticed that the scotch had risen in price for the fifth or sixth consecutive time.  Over roughly 10 months, it was now $7.00 more than the $48.00 it was less than a year ago.  That is close to a 15% increase.  I decided I was ‘saving’ money by laying in a better supply.  I should have bought six cases, but one has to save some room in the vehicle for other things.  Like food.   

I’d do the same with gasoline if I had the capacity.  When a barrel of oil was $140.00 the price at the pump hit, I seem to recall, $1.20 a litre.  Maybe as much as $1.29.  My mind was befuddled at the time.  Now that a barrel of oil is half of that, the price at the pump has dropped between 8 and 15 cents at the pump but the price-at-the-barge, is exactly the same.  I pay $1.20 as a rule.  Plus HST (yeah, the barge charges for delivery and then HSTs the delivery). 

‘Course, the government is saying inflation is around 1% and the US Fed is worrying about ‘devaluation’.  Prices are dropping, they claim.  I don’t know about you but prices are not dropping for me.  Am I the only one buying scotch and gasoline?  Try to buy a sheet of plastic or wire mesh at Home Depot.  Tires anyone?  Gee, maybe the government is lying yet again.  You know, I honestly can’t remember when they last told the truth.   

I dunno.  Maybe I am just living too high off the hog.  But, if I am, that shouldn’t do it.  Pork is cheap, really cheap.  We don’t eat it because it is one of those ‘industrialized’ products now with the animal processed like a lump of cheese…………….probably with the addition of dyes and chemicals, too.  But pork is cheaper by the pound than most vegetables right now. 

Prices don’t make sense. 

And don’t get me started on Chinese generators.  You can buy a Chinese-made, 5,000 watt genset for about $500.00.  That same genset made well by a reputable company like Honda is $4,000.00 in Campbell River or $2000 in the USA.  Hasn’t free trade and NAFTA been good to us?   Even tho the Chinese genset is junk, they still had to make it.  It still runs (not for long, tho) and it still has a lot of sophisticated parts and was shipped across the Pacific.  In effect, China makes gensets cheaper than we can make a tire – or have dinner at a fancy restaurant.  Is it just me or do all values of things seem out of kilter?

Our ‘shop’ is all day. Throw in a few variables and we could easily spend two.  Our cell phone has gone wonky.  Rogers employs imbeciles and you have to wait an hour on a broken phone to talk to them (just to be cut off within the first few sentences!).  So, I went into town and addressed the problem personally – to no avail.  But that exercise, like so many others, takes an hour or more.  Try getting twenty chores done within a six hour window and ‘shopping day’ invariably turns stressful. 

But we console ourselves by saying, “Ya know, it is hell, to be sure, but we only have to do it once every three weeks.  We can do that!”  And we can.  I just wanted to rant.

The Chinese volunteer teaching program is over.  Seems China’s one-child policy is having an effect and school enrollment is down considerably.  The govt. is closing schools.  To be able to stay open, all the schools that remain are hunkering down and emphasizing the curriculum and exam results.  They are stepping up the rote learning.  More work,  more boredom.  They are hoping for better results in the crammed-for-the-exam time from students who are half asleep, disinterested and force-fed. 

Our program was a ‘frill’.  So, it’s over. 

I am not a big fan of dogs. Not really.  Ours are pretty good but, like, who needs dogs!?  Still, every once in a while they do something I like.  Right now, I admit to being pleased with the ‘fetching thing’.  I am, however, a little worried about Sal.

Dogs have been fetching for some time.  That part isn’t new.  But this is different.  Because we live in a house built on the side of a precipice, the front balcony overhangs the sloping front yard by a considerable height.  Because I am fed up throwing disgustingly chewed, saliva ridden, stuffed toys for the dogs, Megan decided some time ago to push her own toy over the edge and then, after making sure that it fell and lay still, she’d then run to retrieve it.  Now that is a pretty good trick: a dog who throws and retrieves for itself!

Of course, being the lazy sods we are, we tried in vain to teach Fiddich the same trick.  He just didn’t get it (yes, pun intended).  He’d just look at the toy placed near the edge and wait for it to jump.  Finally, we gave up.  But then, because Meg spent a few extra seconds making sure her toy was dead-still after pushing it over the edge, Fiddich used that time to get ahead of her and he would end up doing the actual fetching.  Now we have Meg throwing and Fiddich retrieving.  Not bad.

They won’t do it unless we are there so we are not off scott-free.  We have to supervise.  But Sal loves the trick.  She loves to supervise, too.  She can sit there with a grin on her face for hours while the dogs play ‘fetch’.  And she plays ‘dog supervisor’.

I dunno………..do you think we might have a problem here?

Whew!

Sal and I were reading last night and Fiddich was barking.  I tend to ignore him when he does that but it was incessant.  Wolves?  I went out and there he was facing the wind tower in the dark and woofing at it.  It was making a slight ‘swooshing’, fan-type sound.  It was working!  Wahoo!

Not that BC Hydro has to worry about this sort of thing catching on.  In fact, even tho the turbine was whining, it was not appreciably adding to our power stores but, then again, who wants to watch a battery fill up?  I went on with things more interesting than staring up at a tower in the dark.  Fiddich continued with his suspicions.  That’s the main difference between dogs and men; men have shorter attention spans.

Evenings here are like that.  Usually no ado about anything.  We have dinner and then watch a movie or read.  We don’t talk much unless someone calls us on the phone (which is not working) and then Sally has a great deal to yell from downstairs if I am answering it and, to be fair, I am prompted to shout loud contributions when she answers.

I talk to her, of course.  I am always suggesting conversational topics to which Sal usually replies sweetly, “You go ahead, sweetie.  I can hear you and read at the same time.”  You’d think that would deter me but it doesn’t.  We have really good monologues, Sal and I.

There is a tendency to disagree over the movies, tho.  I kind of ‘win’ on that score but mostly by default.  The local video store owner is an avid fan of the Bruce Willis, Stephen Segal, Sylvester Stalone genre and even tho we both appreciate a better standard of film, I am reasonably entertained so long as a few cars blow up.  So, it doesn’t matter to me what we watch so long as the bad guys die by the dozen, cars are littered over the landscape and Angelina Jolie is fleetingly glimpsed in the shower. Sally, bless her, wants more.

“Sweetie, there is no more.  It is either Bruce against the aliens, Bruce blowing up cars or Bruce cracking one-liners while he battles the aliens by blowing up the cars they are in. We could go with an old Nick Nolte where he just swears for 90 minutes?”

“I don’t think so.  As appealing as they are, I was kinda hoping for a quirky British heroin addiction movie or something equally as cheery from Eastern Europe.  Or maybe something where the puppies die, the kids have Lukemia and all the farmland is polluted by industry, ya know?  The women have to suffer.  Something real!  I`d really like something like a black and white documentary where all the girl children are sold into sexual bondage or something.”  

“Oh that!  That has been done to death.  Can’t get a documentary anymore without that kind of nonsense.  Manufactured Landscapes, Big Oil,  Born Into Brothels, Priest Recruitment movies!  How about a nice space alien adventure comedy with Eddie Murphy as the Martian commander.  It`s Pixar, you know, with the little hopping table lamp?  All done in animation?”

We compromised and got the Kill Bill series.

Truthfully, we read voraciously.  I tend to the non-fiction almost exclusively.  Sally to fiction (always about weird, crazy things like gender changing, women and children suffering, Harvey Milk, whatever is the latest pop psychology-based novel by a reformed addict from some kind of oppressed minority).  It’s all pretty grim as a rule but these are the choices of her book club.

I read political analysis, economic analysis, social and cultural studies (especially about China) and, sometimes something outrageous like, A Year of Living Biblically by AJ Jacobs.  It’s all comedy, really.  No one has a clue.  The second latest waste of time was China Megatrends by the author of Megatrends, John Naisbitt.  What a doofus!

The last one was Where Men Win Glory by John Krakauer.  It is the Pat Tillman story.  The book is good.  The story even better.  But the revelations about the US Army and the Bush Administration are enough to make you wonder about that country and it’s military – if you hadn’t wondered enough before.

I’ll leave you with this gem.  Approximately 20% of the casualties suffered by the American armed services in WW2 were from friendly fire.  They shot themselves!  In Vietnam that number jumped to 30-something percent!  1 in 3 soldiers hurt in Vietnam were untouched by the enemy!  In the first Gulf war the number is an unbelievable 52%!  Iraq is currently running at 33%+ and Afghanistan is only one in seven. 15%.  For every seven soldiers killed or wounded in Afghanistan, one of them was killed or wounded by their own side.  And that is how Pat Tillman died.

It would seem that all one had to do to win a war with the US was to declare one and then hide.  They`ll do the rest!

And some of you wonder why we left.

Interesting.  Rain. Sun.  Clouds.  No wind.  How is this possible?  How does the weather change without wind?  The turbine is as still as Ayers rock.

I’ve moved past my cell phone crisis.  I never get any calls anyway.  What’s to fuss about?  Sal took the phone into the middle of the channel and, lo and behold – reception bars.  She got our messages.  There was one.  Four days without service – one message.  Maybe we can save the money and just cancel?  Wouldn’t Chun be surprised?

But, you know what?  Chun knows squat!  I know that because I got a call out today (no wind to interfere with the signal, I guess) and phoned the Rogers store.  Told them what happened.  “Aaaahhhhh………..sir……….uh……..I shouldn’t say this but the customer service people know squat!”

“Really?!  I am shocked.  What is the world coming to?  Think you can do better?”

“Absolutely.  No worries.  Bring it in.  I’ll fix you up.“

I believe this guy.  Three years ago he performed some kind of miracle and I was so impressed I went out and bought him a bottle of scotch.  That is not an easy thing for me to give away.  He must have been good.  I don’t remember any part of the actual problem at the time but I remember the giving-away-the-scotch part. That is enough of a memory to remain impressed.

It’s different out here.  Hard to explain.  You can’t subscribe to anything or get Fedex or anything delivered because the computers don’t recognize the box number as an address.  ‘Course it isn’t a real address so the computers are right.  But when they ask for the ‘place you live’ and you say, ‘on a remote island rock in the middle of nowhere’ the dialogue just ends.  We have taken to making up addresses to ‘fool’ the computer.  I live at 53 Sheer Point Place, Surge Narrows.  Sounds like an up-scale cul de sac don’t you think?  It works.

Many postal code ‘look-up’ systems don’t bother with V0P 1W0.  “I am sorry sir but your postal code doesn’t seem to exist?”

“Yeah, I know.  You just have to write it in.  V-0-P-1-W-0.”

“I am sorry sir but my computer won’t allow me to do that.  Do you live anywhere else?”

“Yeah, ‘course I do.  I was just messin’ with you.  I have an apartment in Campbell River.  And we winter in Rio, of course.”  And then I give them my friend John’s address.  They are happy with that and I am sure they are wondering……..“Duh! Like why does the guy, like, live in Campbell River and, like, try to get stuff delivered to a place that doesn’t exist?  Like?” 

I’m not complaining.  It is way better this way.  I am the dogie that got away.  When they come to herd everyone up, I’ll be off-the-radar.  Reminds me of a friend of mine who was of French Canadian descent and fathered a blond, blue-eyed little girl.  The parents named her Wang Su.  “Geez, man, why did you call your kid Wang Su?”  “Because when the revolution comes and they are looking for her, they won’t be looking for a blue-eyed blond!”   Hard to argue with that kind of logic.

We are very appreciative of being off-the-grid.  It just gets better.  But, to be honest, I really think you have to be out-of-the-gene-pool to really make it work.  And there is no question I am out of the gene pool.  I couldn’t even do a lap in the gene pool (pun intended).  And I look worse than most old men in a Speedo (hard to imagine, eh?).

No, I am off-the-grid, out-of-the-gene-pool and now staying under-the-radar.  There are a lot of phone books and Rolodex’s out there without my name in them and I am OK with that. 

Phone is kaput.  Seems Rogers has never had coverage here.  Imagine that!  My previous six years of service were ‘just a fluke’.  I got that answer from Chun, he of the Rogers website ‘chat line’. 

“Well, Chun.  I can accept that.  I am basically a very lucky person to have had that non-service for so long, you know?  Mind you, Rogers still billed.  Even better, I finally got you to help me with my new problem, didn’t I?”
“Pardon?”
“Never mind.  What do you propose for a guy who has had his phone service disrupted?  Can Rogers realign the towers or something.  Is the system down?  Am I not paying you people enough?”
“Pardon?”
“Chun!  You with me on this?  This is simple stuff.  My phone does not work.  You are there to help.  Work with me on this.  Can you fix it?  You seem a little spaced out, you know?  I am not feeling the love.”
” I am sorry sir.  Will there be anything else?”
“No disrespect, Chun, but could you transfer me to a supervisor?  I need some help here and I don’t think you are up to the task.  Forgive me”.
“Pardon?”
“Supervisor, Chun!  SUPERVISOR!!!  GET ME SUPERVISOR!!”
“Please call 1-800-Rogers, sir, for supervisor.”
“Chun, my phone does not work.  That is why I am on the web chat.  I told you that.  How can I phone the supervisor if I do not have a phone?”
“I am sorry, sir, if you do not have a phone, I cannot help you.  You should contact Rogers and subscribe.”

Every day Sally and I give thanks to the almighty for delivering us from the madness that is the ‘system’.  NOT having the phone wouldn’t bother me in the least if it weren’t for Ben and Em.  We are their parents.  We want to be there for them.  At their convenience, of course.  Wouldn’t want to interfere or anything.  Ya know?

We made a second mistake today.  Sal turned on the radio.  What a delight that is!  We only get the CBC and it has always been like a cross between a tranquilizer and a shock for me.  What unbelievable inanities they can get up to.  And still be boring as hell!  The low point of the CBC is, of course, any attempt at playing new Canadian music.  OmyGawd!  No wonder they had to legislate programming Canadian content.  It is so bloody abysmal!

And the ‘chirpy’, almost-laughing-as-they-speak, tragically ignorant hosts drive me mad within minutes.  They can’t pronounce most of the words they read and, if they can, they clearly don’t understand the content of what they are reading. 

“Thirty people burned to death today in Cincinatti, Randy.  A horrible car crash.  Isn’t that just awful (said with a smiling chirpy end-note)?”

“Well, some people will do anything to get out of Cinci, Nancy! Ha ha”

“Oh yes!  I know.  A friend of mine went their once.  Are you going to tell us the weather, Randy?”

“Yes, cloudy with sunny periods in that small region in the Northeastern part of the province where no one lives.  And don’t forget your rain hat if you are going there, Nancy.  Ha ha ha!”

“Ha ha ha!  I would sooner go to Cincinatti, Randy.  But the rain didn’t help those poor people back there!
And now a cut from the new CD by Upside-down Cake, the all-saxophone group out of Moncton, New Brunswick called, ‘In the back of the pick-up.’

Mercifully, Sally turned the radio off.  We were now cut off from the world.  Kinda.  I checked the internet.  More disaster.  What a rat-hole is Surrey, eh?  More on the HST.  Canucks.  Money, money, money.  More Vander Zalm.  Is this some kind of giant social retardation or is it another tear in the time-space continuum?   

I turned off the computer.  I was gonna write in my blog.  But I got bummed by what got to me first.  So, I went out and built a railing for the end of the deck.  That was nice.   Things were looking up.  Just have to stay away from the media in all its shapes and forms.

Except my blog, of course.    
 

We are now entering our third day of dead calm!  Can you believe it?  The wind turbine from hell was conquered and we have been denied the deserved spoils of victory – wind!  Oh what fickle fiends of the forces of Nature are they that torture us so? (sorry, had a Shakesperian spasm, there).  But, really!  No wind out here is like no rain in North Vancouver.  It’s not right!  Climate bloody change! (breathe, Dave, breathe).

It is Wednesday.  Sally to Yoga.  I to the old school Quonset hut to resume our community renovation efforts with Hugh, Dan and Bruce.  We bashed and nailed, hung heavy roofing paper and covered some walls til about noon and then headed down the hill with the yoga crowd to the dock for lunch.  Must have been over thirty people there!  A quick scan of the crowd revealed a few new faces (a kayaking group had infiltrated us) and a huge yacht hung at anchor a few yards off the too-crowded dock.  Goulash on noodles, pizza and baked goods were exchanged and some garden produce was traded.  Youngest was little Ruby-Mae (three or so months) and the oldest was well into their 70’s.  Quite a group.  Mail plane came in later that day and gossip was caught up.  A few summer people were saying their goodbyes.  And I bought a few more pieces of lumber from Doug.

After lunch we went back to work on the Q-hut, Sal gossiped up a storm for a bit longer and then came to collect me for the return home.  Left home at 9:30.  Returned by four.  When we got back, I sat down in the chair outside and almost fell asleep.  Pretty hectic day out there in paradise.

The gossip revealed the reason our dogs were restless these past few nights.  Seems there are two wolf packs nearby and a whole lot of howlin’ is going on.  Our poor, mostly mute mutts can’t really participate in the choir of the wild but they try, rasping out a few dog whispers and the occasional half-bark from Fiddich.  It is just as well.  The wolves call to hear the domestic dogs reply which they then lure to the pack with a female in heat and then have their guest for lunch.  Literally.  Since they can’t hear our dogs, they don’t come this way.  Wolves: natural born liars. 

Which reminds me: last year no sockeye salmon returned to the Fraser.  The 50,000 DFO employees got together in Ottawa (of course) to ponder the problem and decided (after pooling their doctorates in marine biology) that an answer was more likely forthcoming from a BC judge who, from all accounts, likes fish as much the rest of us, but with no other qualifications except being a judge.  Makes sense, really.  “We obviously know nothing about what we are doing so let us appoint a lawyer to figure it out.  Maybe we can sue someone.”

And so Bruce Cohen was appointed by PM Harper to investigate the absence of fish in the Fraser.  But his terms of reference said, “Find no blame.  Find the reason for this massive screw-up but, if anybody’s name comes up, don’t tell us.  We don’t want to know.”  Politicians: natural born liars. 

So, Bruce, this icon of justice, appoints an advisory board made up of DFO experts.  Bruce, can you say, perception of bias?   And, uh, if they are going to go to the DFO anyway, why did they need Bruce? 

So, it seems Bruce’s advisers are going to help him investigate themselves but they are OK with this because no one can be blamed.  This blatant violation of all things right and just notwithstanding, Bruce undertakes this chore at the same time a hundred year record run of Sockeye show up for this years return!  Not only did DFO NOT know where last years salmon went, they had no idea this years salmon would be so plentiful.

But, somehow, using the same fools for advice, Bruce will find out.  DFO: natural born liars.  

Do you have any idea how much money we spend on DFO?  For 1% of that cost, I guarantee I can do as well………..let’s see, 100% wrong the first time.  100% wrong the second.  When in doubt, hire a lawyer.  How hard can that be?

Question: Which bunch of wolves do I prefer?      

Turbine is up!

‘Course, not a breath of wind all day.  Which, in the beginning was a good thing as Sal was up there next to knife-sharp blades and a sudden gust would have cut off her nose!

Well, that is not really true, but that is what I told her.  Helped keep her amused at the top of a 40 foot tower working with allen wrenches and yelled-from-the ground instructions.  Moved the pace along, too.  I’m a good supervisor.

The blades are sharp, tho.  Approach them too close when they are spinning in a good breeze and you will, if the limb is small, become a practicing amputee in no time at all.  They can be quite dangerous at speed.

The job isn’t done completely but she had had enough yesterday.  Putting the actual turbine on the top required Sal to stand on a small platform 8″ by 10″ (bit larger than a shoebox) and, with a personal tether to the tower, stand up above the tower so as to be able to affix the turbine on top.  The cables securing the tower are below her.  The tower is below her too and the only thing protruding up is a 2″ pipe on which the turbine sits and it is at belly-button level.  That means that she is standing in the sky with nothing in front of her but space and looking forward to heaving a turbine up onto the pole.  She did it with aplomb.

But aplomb is not necessarily long lasting so once it was secured, it was time to get her down.  And we did.  But there is still some wire ‘tidying up’ to do and a few bolts to work on.  We are 97% of the way there and I, for one, am glad to see the end of this chore!  Standing on the ground with one’s thumb in a dark and awkward place is frustrating and tiresome.  I think I have a crook in my neck.  I’ll ask Sal for a massage.

The tower chore has been all-consuming these past few days.  Crazy, really.  The brochure said that, with their special kit (which we didn’t have), the whole thing could be up in as little as two hours.  Not counting the year we ‘took off’ due to the trauma of dropping the first turbine, I would estimate that this effort has consumed about 50-60 hours of time over 10-15 days.

Part of it, of course, is that we declined to use the inadequate pipe they originally spec’d and that had failed us the first time.  We went with a proper tower (ex HAM radio tower thanks to John Robilliard) this time.  Then, we had to get custom length cables attached.  And wire the thing into the electrical panel.  Some custom fabricating (another thanks to John Robilliard) was also required to be able to affix the turbine to the top and the tower to the ground.  Add in ‘stripping bolts’, dropping or losing tools, electrical connections, painting, rigging and platform-making just to name some of the bigger efforts and I categorically deny the possibility of erecting that tower in two hours.  In fact, I’d say an experienced crew would take more than two days and they would have to be really good to be able to do that!  I may be a little over-sensitive about this but ours is not the first turbine to be erected out here and no one has done it easily.  In fact, ours was not the first one to come crashing down either.  One neighbour had a really big one come down. 

This little turbine is a South West Winpower Air-X model making 400 watts at 48 volts.  It is the size of a football with a big fishtail added at the back and 3 sharp 20″ blades mounted on a hub at the front.  In a light breeze, it makes nothing.  Ten miles an hour is req’d to make it turn but then that is all it does.  By the time you are  getting any kind of significant juice out of it, the wind is making the trees bend.  At least 20 mph.  And yet, when the wind is blowing up here, one can expect hours, even days of it.  I am optimistic.  We’ll see.