Yes. Those are moths flying out of my pockets.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
I'm An Artist Too (127)
Yes. Those are moths flying out of my pockets.
Monday, July 05, 2010
My Car, My Hassles (Part 6)
Long time blog readers will remember just over three years ago I bought a new car; a Saturn Ion. The car has served me well over that time. Very low maintenance. Just some brake work. Until this week.
This week, Ottawa saw some record highs. It went up to 34 degrees on Tuesday, and 35 on Wednesday. While I usually take the bus to work, I drive to work for extreme temperatures. If it's supposed to go above 30 degrees, I drive in. I'd rather have 1 hour in an air conditioned car, than 2 hours in a full, stuffy, stinky, sticky bus.
Everything was fine on Tuesday. Then, on Wednesday I drove to work. I didn't need the air conditioning in the morning. In the afternoon, the temperature at Gatineau Airport was 35 degrees Celsius. I was looking forward to my nice, cool car. I got in the car and started it. I turned on the air conditioning. I put my hand up to the vent. Only warm air was blowing through it. I didn't think too much of this. It usually takes a minute or two for the air conditioning to kick in.
After an hour, when I got home, the air blowing through the vent was still warm. I thought that because it was so hot out, the air conditioning system was constantly fighting the warmth outside, and since the car was sitting in a hot parking lot all day, that maybe the whole car was so warm, that by the time the air conditioned air came out of the vents, it had warmed up. I took the car out again in the evening, after it had been sitting in the shade for a while.
Still no cool air.
I opened up the hood to see if there was anything obvious like a big "On/Off" switch stuck in the "Off" position. No such luck. Nothing obvious. So I closed the hood. Except it wouldn't close completely. There are two latches that keep the hood closed. The first one keeps it all the way down. The second one prevents the hood from flying up if the first one fails. The first latch was broken.
This is not good. I was willing to live with out air conditioning for a while, but I need my hood to close. On Thursday I called a local GM dealership to see if I could bring my car in for a servicing. My car is just past the basic warranty plan. I was hoping my extended warranty would cover these repairs too. Air conditioner fixes are not cheap!
When I bought it in, I told the guy I bought the extended warranty. He said the repairs should be covered, minus the deductible. "The deductible will be about $100 or $200. You could have gotten a $0 deductible, but those are usually really expensive, like over $3000."
I said "Yeah, I probably got the $100 deductible. I'm too cheap the pay an extra couple of thousand to save one hundred."
So I left my car there and went to work. He said he'd call me when he knew what was wrong, and what needed to be done to fix it. I got that call in the early afternoon. "Well, the good news is the hood latch just needed to be lubricated, so that was quick and easy. The bad news is we need to replace your air conditioner clutch compressor coil. Now, if you had gotten the extended warranty, it would just cost you the $100 deductible. As it is, it's going to cost you over a grand."
I had a mini heart attack. "I thought I did get the extended warranty."
"Are you sure? Here, let me check the GM system.......Oh yeah! I'm sorry! My mistake! You did get it. You have a $100 deductible."
"Whew!"
"Do you need wheels tonight? We're going to need to keep the car over night. We'll get you a rental for the night - covered by your warranty."
"Yes, please. I need the car to get home."
When I got home, I took out my folder with all my car purchase information. I took out the paper detailing my warranty - called Schedule A. It said I had a $0 deductible. What?! That guy said I had a $100 deductible! I'm being scammed!
Then I took out my "GM Warranty Service Plan," which is something GM sent me after the purchase of my car. It said I had a $100 deductible. Okay. What's going on?
I called GM. I told the customer service representative that Schedule A had different information than the Service Plan. She told me that Schedule A would be correct because that's what I bought at the dealership, and they probably made a mistake when they entered the info into the computer. She told me to fax her Schedule A and she would fix it in the computer. Then I could have the dealership call GM for confirmation if they wanted. I faxed her my Schedule A and waited.
The local dealership that had my car called me to tell me about the repairs. I told them about the $0 deductible, which I had just told GM about, and that they should could call GM to confirm. She checked the computer and said she still saw that it was still a $100 deductible. She told me to get GM to call them.
So I called GM to ask if the change had been entered into the system, and if they could call the dealership to notify them of the changes. The guy at GM told me "Oh yeah, I don't know if the girl who got your Schedule A put it in the system, and she's on break now so I can't ask her. And if she did, it takes 3 business days for the update to go through."
While I wanted to tell him they have these new things called "computers" and "the Internet" that allows information to be updated and disseminated in seconds instead of days, I decided to ask him to call the dealership.
"We don't call the dealerships. If you could get them to call us, we'll happily confirm."
I'm getting dizzy from going around in circles.
"Or you could try to get them to not submit the warranty claim until Tuesday. Or, better yet, you could just pay the $100 + tax deductible now, and on Tuesday call us, and we'll cut you a cheque."
Fat chance. I don't trust companies to do that. Getting money out of companies, even large prosperous companies like GM, to give you money can be harder than plugging an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. "Look," I explained, "the dealership told me to get you to call them to explain this to them."
"Okay, what dealership did you take it to?" I told him. He put me on hold for a few minutes. He came back and said "Okay, I just spoke to the dealership, and they have the updated information, so you won't charged for anything the warranty covers."
"Thank you very much."
I have to say I thought I was going to have a hassle when I got to the dealership to pay for the car, but I didn't. I got my car back, and drove home with the air conditioning on! Oh it felt so good!
This week, Ottawa saw some record highs. It went up to 34 degrees on Tuesday, and 35 on Wednesday. While I usually take the bus to work, I drive to work for extreme temperatures. If it's supposed to go above 30 degrees, I drive in. I'd rather have 1 hour in an air conditioned car, than 2 hours in a full, stuffy, stinky, sticky bus.
Everything was fine on Tuesday. Then, on Wednesday I drove to work. I didn't need the air conditioning in the morning. In the afternoon, the temperature at Gatineau Airport was 35 degrees Celsius. I was looking forward to my nice, cool car. I got in the car and started it. I turned on the air conditioning. I put my hand up to the vent. Only warm air was blowing through it. I didn't think too much of this. It usually takes a minute or two for the air conditioning to kick in.
After an hour, when I got home, the air blowing through the vent was still warm. I thought that because it was so hot out, the air conditioning system was constantly fighting the warmth outside, and since the car was sitting in a hot parking lot all day, that maybe the whole car was so warm, that by the time the air conditioned air came out of the vents, it had warmed up. I took the car out again in the evening, after it had been sitting in the shade for a while.
Still no cool air.
I opened up the hood to see if there was anything obvious like a big "On/Off" switch stuck in the "Off" position. No such luck. Nothing obvious. So I closed the hood. Except it wouldn't close completely. There are two latches that keep the hood closed. The first one keeps it all the way down. The second one prevents the hood from flying up if the first one fails. The first latch was broken.
This is not good. I was willing to live with out air conditioning for a while, but I need my hood to close. On Thursday I called a local GM dealership to see if I could bring my car in for a servicing. My car is just past the basic warranty plan. I was hoping my extended warranty would cover these repairs too. Air conditioner fixes are not cheap!
When I bought it in, I told the guy I bought the extended warranty. He said the repairs should be covered, minus the deductible. "The deductible will be about $100 or $200. You could have gotten a $0 deductible, but those are usually really expensive, like over $3000."
I said "Yeah, I probably got the $100 deductible. I'm too cheap the pay an extra couple of thousand to save one hundred."
So I left my car there and went to work. He said he'd call me when he knew what was wrong, and what needed to be done to fix it. I got that call in the early afternoon. "Well, the good news is the hood latch just needed to be lubricated, so that was quick and easy. The bad news is we need to replace your air conditioner clutch compressor coil. Now, if you had gotten the extended warranty, it would just cost you the $100 deductible. As it is, it's going to cost you over a grand."
I had a mini heart attack. "I thought I did get the extended warranty."
"Are you sure? Here, let me check the GM system.......Oh yeah! I'm sorry! My mistake! You did get it. You have a $100 deductible."
"Whew!"
"Do you need wheels tonight? We're going to need to keep the car over night. We'll get you a rental for the night - covered by your warranty."
"Yes, please. I need the car to get home."
When I got home, I took out my folder with all my car purchase information. I took out the paper detailing my warranty - called Schedule A. It said I had a $0 deductible. What?! That guy said I had a $100 deductible! I'm being scammed!
Then I took out my "GM Warranty Service Plan," which is something GM sent me after the purchase of my car. It said I had a $100 deductible. Okay. What's going on?
I called GM. I told the customer service representative that Schedule A had different information than the Service Plan. She told me that Schedule A would be correct because that's what I bought at the dealership, and they probably made a mistake when they entered the info into the computer. She told me to fax her Schedule A and she would fix it in the computer. Then I could have the dealership call GM for confirmation if they wanted. I faxed her my Schedule A and waited.
The local dealership that had my car called me to tell me about the repairs. I told them about the $0 deductible, which I had just told GM about, and that they should could call GM to confirm. She checked the computer and said she still saw that it was still a $100 deductible. She told me to get GM to call them.
So I called GM to ask if the change had been entered into the system, and if they could call the dealership to notify them of the changes. The guy at GM told me "Oh yeah, I don't know if the girl who got your Schedule A put it in the system, and she's on break now so I can't ask her. And if she did, it takes 3 business days for the update to go through."
While I wanted to tell him they have these new things called "computers" and "the Internet" that allows information to be updated and disseminated in seconds instead of days, I decided to ask him to call the dealership.
"We don't call the dealerships. If you could get them to call us, we'll happily confirm."
I'm getting dizzy from going around in circles.
"Or you could try to get them to not submit the warranty claim until Tuesday. Or, better yet, you could just pay the $100 + tax deductible now, and on Tuesday call us, and we'll cut you a cheque."
Fat chance. I don't trust companies to do that. Getting money out of companies, even large prosperous companies like GM, to give you money can be harder than plugging an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. "Look," I explained, "the dealership told me to get you to call them to explain this to them."
"Okay, what dealership did you take it to?" I told him. He put me on hold for a few minutes. He came back and said "Okay, I just spoke to the dealership, and they have the updated information, so you won't charged for anything the warranty covers."
"Thank you very much."
I have to say I thought I was going to have a hassle when I got to the dealership to pay for the car, but I didn't. I got my car back, and drove home with the air conditioning on! Oh it felt so good!
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
I'm An Artist Too (126)
The cellmate asks the computer "What are you in for?"
The computer replies "I performed an illegal function call."
I find it humerous when people see that on their computer and think the computer did something in the statutory legal sense and they think the cops are on their way. For those who don't know, when your computer says that, it generally means that something got messed up and a program tried to write to a memory or disc location that it didn't have permissions for, or execution of bad code, or something. It could mean a lot of different things; none of which you need to call your lawyer about.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
I'm An Artist Too (125)
I can't think of anything to write about today's Coffee Cup Art. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Move It On Over - Part 2
Last year I blogged about my previous moving experiences. It seemed whenever I had to move, I hardly had to look around. There was always an obvious no-brainer choice; a God event. When I went looking last year, there was no obvious no-brainer. There didn't seem to be a God event. Then Jack told me that if I didn't mind uncertainty I could stay with them. It sounded good to me.
Throughout the year, one of the places I looked at kept coming to mind. I would pass it on my drive home from work. I'd be stopped at a light, look up at the building and think "If I had taken that apartment, I'd be home by now." As it was, I had another thirty minutes to drive.
Last Sunday afternoon it has became clear that I would likely have to move out of the McQueen's house. I began to contemplate my options. Apartment vacancy rates are really low. There are still bidding wars over houses. And there was always a chance I could stay in Embrun. I asked God for His guidance. Like Gideon, I put out a fleece. I asked God for a 1 bedroom apartment in the aforementioned building facing East on either the top or bottom floor coming available in July.
On Monday morning I called to ask about available apartments. I told them I was looking for a 1 bedroom apartment for sometime between June and September. They told me "Yes, we have a one bedroom apartment on the top floor coming available in July."
"Oh really. Here's an odd question for you. What direction does that apartment face?"
"East."
"Sweet. I'd like to take a look at it." On Tuesday I was shown the apartment. I filled out an application. On Wednesday I was told my application had been accepted. Then yesterday I signed the lease.
There were three things that really attracted me to this apartment. The first was that it was mostly seniors. I really don't want to live in a building with a lot of students. I like to go to sleep at night. The second thing was that the rent was in the right neighbourhood. If the rent is too low, you're asking for trouble. If the rent is too high, I'd be better off owning. The third thing was the location. It's close to almost everything in my life! Here's a partial list of things it's close to:
Throughout the year, one of the places I looked at kept coming to mind. I would pass it on my drive home from work. I'd be stopped at a light, look up at the building and think "If I had taken that apartment, I'd be home by now." As it was, I had another thirty minutes to drive.
Last Sunday afternoon it has became clear that I would likely have to move out of the McQueen's house. I began to contemplate my options. Apartment vacancy rates are really low. There are still bidding wars over houses. And there was always a chance I could stay in Embrun. I asked God for His guidance. Like Gideon, I put out a fleece. I asked God for a 1 bedroom apartment in the aforementioned building facing East on either the top or bottom floor coming available in July.
On Monday morning I called to ask about available apartments. I told them I was looking for a 1 bedroom apartment for sometime between June and September. They told me "Yes, we have a one bedroom apartment on the top floor coming available in July."
"Oh really. Here's an odd question for you. What direction does that apartment face?"
"East."
"Sweet. I'd like to take a look at it." On Tuesday I was shown the apartment. I filled out an application. On Wednesday I was told my application had been accepted. Then yesterday I signed the lease.
There were three things that really attracted me to this apartment. The first was that it was mostly seniors. I really don't want to live in a building with a lot of students. I like to go to sleep at night. The second thing was that the rent was in the right neighbourhood. If the rent is too low, you're asking for trouble. If the rent is too high, I'd be better off owning. The third thing was the location. It's close to almost everything in my life! Here's a partial list of things it's close to:
- Tim Hotons
- Country Style Coffee
- Blackbelt Baptist Church
- At least 2 grocery stores
- 2 malls - a major one and a minor one.
- My favourite multi-screen theatre complex.
- Some of my favourite restaurants including an all-you-do-eat sushi restaurant.
- A Farmboy
- Zellers
- Canadian Tire
- My dentist
- Giant Tiger
- Staples Business Depot
- FutureShop
- The Highway
- The Transitway
- Chapters
- A low-traffic route to and from work.
- My bank
- A Public Library
- My friends.
- A Blockbuster Video.
- My doctor's office.
- My barber
- Other things that I'll figure out as I find I need them!
Monday, April 12, 2010
Church Hopping - Part 4
It's been a while since Church Hopping - Part 3. Since then, we've mostly been going to Blackbelt Baptist. We did go back to Golgotha Baptist once because they were having a retirement service for the pastor there. Since my last post on the subject, I have visited the following churches:
- Fate Anglican Church
- This was one of those small churches in a school gym. The pastor didn't like the liberal direction the Anglican church of Canada was going, so he broke off and joined a more conservative network of Anglican churches. You gotta really respect that. So, given what it was - a small church, it wasn't bad. I liked how the pastor had a Q&A period at the end of his sermon. It was different being in back in a liturgical church. I can see how some of those prayers and creeds could get old. They become just words you say every week, but once in a while, they're really good. The authors obviously put a lot of time and effort into them.
- Redemption Alliance
- The oddest thing about this church was that all the music was played before the sermon. There was no closing song. The music was very good. I enjoyed it much. The people were somewhat friendly. One distracting thing was this one guy on the worship team was wearing a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt. This was in February. It was out of place! Other than that, it seemed to be a run of the mill church. Nothing special either way.
- Oak Orchard Church
- Every so often Blackbelt Baptist and Oak Orchard Church have combined services. They also combine for their youth oriented groups. I've been to Oak Orchard twice; once in a combined service, and once in a regular service. The music was always very good. The people were really friendly. I haven't been assaulted with that many "Hello and who are you?"s since Beaver Creek Baptist Church. They do communion every week, which is odd to me. For communion, they just have one loaf of bread that everyone breaks a piece off of. The germophobe in me doesn't like this. Thankfully I brought my hand sanitizer with me that morning. Then the speaker, who wasn't the pastor, started speaking. He was to give a "quick summation" of the life of Joseph. This "quick summation" took a long time. I think it would have been just as fast to read that portion out of Genesis. All in all, it wasn't bad. I'd go back a few times.
- Village Baptist
- The music was odd. They had a lot of talented musicians, but the layout was different. They had two stages. On the main stage stood the guitarist, two vocalists, and an old-school choir. On the second stage sat the bass guitarist, an electric guitarist, a keyboardist, and the drummer. I find it really odd to have a choir singing contemporary worship music. But, they made it work. The preaching wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. And no one, not even the ushers, said "Hi" to me. I won't be going back.
- Riverview
- I enjoyed this service. There was a huge young adults group. I think they took up about 4 or 5 pews. I haven't seen that since my church in Sault Ste. Marie. One guy came over to talk to me and invite me to sit with the young adults. The preaching was decent. The music was good, although they lacked a drummer. (Ohhhhh, if only I lived closer to that church!) I'd go back.
- Glebe Baptist
- One morning when I was staying in the Glebe I didn't feel like driving very far so I decided to check out Glebe Baptist. It reminded me of my church in Sault Ste. Marie. The old wooden pews, with red carpet was like my Sault church. The percentage of the pews filled up was about the same was the Sault church when I left. And, they had an old-school choir, just like my Sault church when I moved there. Besides the piano and organ, this choir was accompanied by a bass guitarist. I thought this to be odd. That's usually one of the last instruments to be added to a worship team. There's not a lot of bass guitarists out there. They even did a contemporary worship song. The preaching wasn't too bad, except the preacher kept saying how Christ died for us out of his love for, and devotion to us. I thought Christ died for us because of his love for, and devotion to his father. Perhaps that point is debatable? Anyway, A few people came up to me and introduced themselves to me, so I felt welcomed.
- Chedarview Alliance
- I'm writing this the day I went to Chedarview. Let me say, it was not a good morning. It all started on Saturday when I had a late lunch. I skipped supper that night. I intended on a breakfast at Tim Hortons on Sunday morning on the way to church. I had picked the Tim Hortons closest to the church so I could stay and enjoy my breakfast sandwich. When I got to Tim Hortons, it was closed for renovations! I was hungry, grumpy and not happy! I drove around Farhaven looking for another Tim Hortons, and all I could find were gas station Tim Hortons. I wanted to sit down and read a book. I didn't want drive-thru! I decided to go to church hungry and get a big lunch afterwords. When I got to church, no one said "hi" or shook my hand - not even the guy handing out the bulletins. That was disappointing. The music was tight. But the preacher went on and on and on. And on. He was the freakin' Energizer Bunny. He just didn't stop. Even the best preachers start getting stale at 40 minutes. This guy was far from the best. I expected he's preach for about 30 minutes. After 45 minutes of preaching. I noticed people getting up and leaving. I would have left too except I wanted to know how long he intended to bore us. Was he planning on keeping us there until Jesus came back? It felt like it. After 50 minutes he finally closed in prayer. (My prayer was one of thankfulness.) The worship team cut their last set down to one verse of one song. I won't be going back.
Monday, April 05, 2010
Stick a Fork in 2009; it's done!
2009 has been a pretty bad year for those of us living in the McQueen household. I am writing this on New Years Day, 2010. Now that the year is over, I'll write about why it was so bad.
The bad stuff started happening in December of 2008, so I'm going to lump that in with 2009.
Some things are worse than others. As the year started showing a trend of being "one thing after another", I started keeping track with a list. The first part of the list was the order I remembered things happening. After that, I added to the list as things happened.
The following order is the order of the list I recorded.
But, it wasn't all bad. Let's look a the bright side of 2009:
So far, 2010 is shaping up to be a better year for me. The federal budget came down in March, and it seems as though my job is safe....for another year anyway. It has been a beautiful winter. As I write this, I'm living in the Glebe for a few weeks. Sweet!
The bad stuff started happening in December of 2008, so I'm going to lump that in with 2009.
Some things are worse than others. As the year started showing a trend of being "one thing after another", I started keeping track with a list. The first part of the list was the order I remembered things happening. After that, I added to the list as things happened.
The following order is the order of the list I recorded.
- The OC Transpo Bus Strike
- This started in December and lasted two months. By the time they put the rural buses back one, it was four months. I take a rural bus. I had to drive in to work every day for four months. I live far away from work. I put 8000 kilometres on my car in that time.
- My health
- Normally I don't get sick. I might get two colds a year, and that's it. This year I got four colds - twice as many as usual. But the worst of it was I got the stomach flu twice. I got it in December a few days before I went to Halifax for Christmas. I threw up for the first time in 18 years. Not cool. Then I had a relapse when I was home in Halifax.
- The Economy
- We're in the worst recession in a long time. Some were comparing it to the 30s. I don't think it was quite that bad - at least in Canada, but it was still pretty bad.
- Pandemic
- While the Swine Flu pandemic turned out to be pretty tame, it still was, by definition, a pandemic. It was a new virus that few people had immunity to that was hitting young people harder than old. It was the first pandemic in 41 years.
- Pastor Jack Left Yahoo! Baptist
- The very day I returned from Halifax from my Christmas vacation I found out Pastor Jack would be leaving Yahoo! Baptist. For the McQueens it would mean changes were likely on the horizon. They would probably move before too long. They would be facing unemployment in the worse economic situation in years. This would not be a year of plenty for them. It also had implications for me. If the McQueens moved, so would I . If I moved, I would surely face a huge rent increase. If my rent increased substantially, the possibility of finishing off my pilot's license in the near future would be pretty small. There goes that life goal.
- Being on-call at work
- Due to the recession, the Government of Canada put forth an Economic Action Plan which included an EI workload increase. So a bunch of us had to do some on-call time. I hate being on-call. I've done it three times before. I hated it.
- Euphoria drinks rose in price
- Euphoria is a store near by that sells smoothies and fruit drinks. They're really good, but a bit expensive. They just got more expensive. It's not a big deal. Just an annoyance.
- July was the wettest on record
- This summer stunk because it was really wet. The days were cool and the nights were warm. I want the opposite. I don't care if it goes above 30 in the day, I want to get cool at night. Instead, in the summer of 2009, it would get up to about 22 in the day, and go down to 19 at night. It was very humid. It was very hard to sleep. If I had continued to work on my pilot's license, I wouldn't have gotten very far due to the weather. So, at least the weather wasn't taunting me. :)
- Pastor Jack fell off the roof, and broke his ankle
- Being out of work is bad enough - this was just terrible.
- The McQueen's car made several trips to the garage
- They're out of work. The last thing they need is a failing car!
- Corner Gas ended
- This is a minor one. I really enjoyed that show. Now it's over.
- Record Federal Deficit
- The last time there was a record federal deficit in Canada was in the 90s. In order to balance the books, the government slashed a lot of programs. In the process they cut about 45 000 - 50 000 federal public servant positions. If they do that again, I don't have enough seniority to survive. So, this causes me to worry about my job security.
- Saturn Dealerships closed
- Saturn had such potential. But now it's over. GM says that any GM dealership should be able to fix my Saturn, but Saturn has a few parts that are different from other GM cars. I want to sell my Saturn and replace it with a car from a company that's still in business, but I'd never get for my Saturn what it's worth to me.
But, it wasn't all bad. Let's look a the bright side of 2009:
- I got to fly First Class to Halifax at Christmas time.
- 'Nuff said
- The McQueens didn't have to sell their house.
- God really provided for them and allowed them to stay. Since they got to stay, so did I. While, I didn't get to resume working on my pilot's license, I was able to put some money away. If they (and I) can manage to stay there for another year my question won't be "What apartment building should I move to?" But "What condo building should I buy a condo in?"
- The McQueen kids got to go all over the world for school.
- Bruce returned to Vancouver. Jane went to LA. Robin got to go to England.
So far, 2010 is shaping up to be a better year for me. The federal budget came down in March, and it seems as though my job is safe....for another year anyway. It has been a beautiful winter. As I write this, I'm living in the Glebe for a few weeks. Sweet!
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