Effing bloody technology

For the past month or so my Blackberry has been reluctant to take a charge.  It seems like I need to get the contact in exactly the right spot or it won’t charge and sometimes that right spot is actually with the plug pulled most of the way out.  That’s why I know it was OK last night because the last thing I do before I go to sleep is check the icon on the main screen to be sure it is taking a charge.  This morning when I picked it up it was dead.  Its not unheard of that it would shut itself off overnight – unusual maybe but not unheard of.  So I commenced pushing buttons to get it to turn on but no joy.  Nada.  Zip.  This is a former Blackberry.  This Blackberry is expired, gone to meet its maker, etc. etc.

WFT.  So what do I do now?  I can’t live without a phone and I depend on a tethered Blackberry for much of my computer access.  But my phone plan is in Saskatchewan and we’re 1000 miles away in BC with no immediate plans to return to Sask.  So I borrowed Marilyn’s phone and phoned SaskTel. 

After wading through layers of voiceprompts I eventually got to the low-level “support” person and explained what had happened.  I asked her how I could go about replacing my phone in BC and getting it activated on the SaskTel network.  She started blathering about retail outlets and how she knew they had one in Alberta but didn’t know about BC.  Then she went offline to inquire with wiser minds (finding a better mind than hers didn’t seem like any great stretch).  After an interminable wait she came back to tell me that – wait for it – SaskTel doesn’t have any retail stores in BC.  No?  I could hardly contain my surprise.

According to her I was going to have to come back to Saskatchewan to buy a phone.  I told her that wasn’t going to happen, thanked her profusely for her “assistance” so far and informed her that she needed to escalate the call.  She resisted that plan but I was persistent – some would say stubborn.  Eventually “Charity” came on the line and pretty well her opening offer was that she would sell me a phone and priority mail it to BC.  That didn’t seem ideal but it did seem like a workable solution and it was considerably better than climbing on Westjet in order to buy a phone. 

With the phone crisis safely behind us we cast off the lines and cleared Burrard Bridge about 11:00 boat time.  It was even kind of half-assed pleasant this morning with an occasional burst of sunshine as we chugged our way out of English Bay and north past Horseshoe Bay.  We came around the north end of Bowen Island and eventually down into Shoal Channel south of Gibsons.  Those Canadians among my readers will recognize Gibsons Landing as the setting for The Beachcombers which was a made in Canada TV series that ran more years ago than I care to remember. 

BC has some wonderful marine parks and we’re in one of them tonight.  We’ve used some of the water access parks on the Shuswaps in the past so we were familiar with the concept.  This one gets really busy in the summer but tonight there’s us and Bruce.  There’s a couple more boats tied up here but no sign of life around them.  In the summer they charge admission but I guess it isn’t worth coming around to collect at this time of year so mooring here is free through the winter.

Bruce is a Nova Scotian living aboard his partly started fibreglass project boat.  I thought it was ferro at first because of the rough finish but he says it is fibreglass built without a mold.  I’m not quite sure how you would go about doing that but I’m sure I’ll find out because Bruce likes to visit.  Fortunately I’m able to steal somebody’s wifi signal with my Pepwave booster because as I mentioned earlier my Blackberry is hors de combat.