And the beat goes on

Today I paid my Sasktel Mobility account online. Then I went into Quickbooks to record the transaction. When I entered Sasktel as the vendor up popped an amount that didn't match what my account statement said I had paid last month. What the hell??? So after a bit of checking it turns out that Sasktel was trying to steal $106.27 from me. Maybe "steal" is a bit harsh - that implies intent and that would require a measure of intelligent thought that I am loath to ascribe to Sasktel. Its obviously just ongoing incompetence but the effect is the same.

For those who missed the original incident the details are posted here.

(update)
Sasktel claims that they didn't actually steal $106 from me - they just were too incompetent to get my payment posted for 5 days after it left my Credit Union account. Since their "system" is too primitive to let me see what is actually going on in it until over a month after the fact I have no way of verifying or contradicting what they claim they have done. Based on my history with them I am unwilling to take their word at face value.

The people get the government they deserve

Does anybody ever actually listen to the stuffed shirt currently living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave? I mean really listen to the words that come out of his mouth and try to discern a meaning revealed (or concealed) in the sentences he speaks? His speeches are full of "transparency" and "meeting the challenge" but they simply don't make sense. If you really listen to what he says it comes up zero. Other than blaming everything on Bush and promising a better tomorrow the man's words are without substance.

Newsflash: THE ELECTION IS OVER. YOU WON. You don't have to fight the election anymore but you do have to lead.

We can only hope that Obama turns out to be another Jimmy Carter flash in the pan who is followed by a strong Republican who actually knows how to lead.

Florida in the rearview mirror

I guess we enjoyed our time in Florida but the weather was a major disappointment. We’ve now crossed three states since leaving Florida – Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana - and we’re starting the long grind across Texas. It’s pretty daunting when you enter the state and the mile markers start at 880.

Monday night we squatted on a Walmart parking lot on the east side of Houston. We left Gautier, MS early Monday morning after stopping at the Thousand Trails membership transfer office in that sleepy little town to pick up our membership materials for our Thousand Trails campground membership. We’ve been researching membership campgrounds since we started on this great adventure but hadn’t got serious about buying one until this winter. I started out by bidding on a couple on ebay but got outbid. I was kicking myself one night because I had an opportunity to exercise the buy-it-now option on a membership at $350 but thought I could steal it for less. That one ended up fetching over $450.

I kept looking and eventually stumbled onto one on Craigslist somewhere in Texas that the guy wanted to give away. Its hard to beat the price on a freebie but we have learned that these memberships come in a host of different flavours and you really have to know what you are getting. I’m sure there will still be some surprises along the way but so far we are pretty pleased with ourselves. In exchange for $1000 US in transfer fees we have the right to camp for 50 nights free of charge in about 40 locations down the west coast, across the gulf and up the east coast of the US. Next year we will have to pay $500 to keep our membership current. If we go over our allotted 50 nights the extra nights cost us $5 per each. We can spend up to 14 nights in one location and then have to leave that location for a week but we can go directly to another location in the “system”.

The flaw is that there is only one campground in Canada that is part of the Thousand Trails system but that one happens to be located in Cultus Lake, BC so there’s nothing wrong with that for a location. We’re locked into a 10 year contract at $500 per year so that could get tiresome but we already know that these things are saleable for over $400 if you know how to do it. There are some of the same memberships advertised on ebay for over $3000 but I have to believe those are owned by fools. These things are like timeshares – there is a lot of money in them for the guy that is selling them.

So today we settled into Colorado River campground – which is on the Colorado River halfway between Houston & San Antonio, TX. We had intended to hotfoot it across Texas to Mojave and get our awning installed before going to Mexico but I talked to Clifford a couple of times in the last two days and we are now waiting for some essential parts to arrive so the awning will have to wait until we get back from Mexico. That’s not all bad because it eased the time pressure for the run across Texas – which you may remember is 880 miles.

The campground is located well away from any other signs of civilization, about 6 miles off the interstate. They call these places “Preserves” and they do a good job of maintaining a natural appearance. There’s lots of trees, relatively large sites and lots of green space between the sites. On the downside the cell coverage is crap but we will cope with that and the wind has blown steadily since we arrived. We’re both still scratching the hundreds of bug bites we got in Gautier so a little wind isn’t all bad.

Riveting place

Yesterday we moved and ended up here. Today Mike & I are going to tackle replacing some of the mild steel rivets that doofus put in the bus when he did the original conversion. It looks like he replaced a few of the stainless steel panels but ran out of SS rivets. So he just used mild steel rivets and kept on going. I'm sure that looked OK the day he did the job but its looking a bit rough now. Mike has a couple of air power riveters. I'd never even seen an air powered riveter until last night and he has two of them. He's also got a seriously well equipped bus shop, complete with an L10 Cummins that he pulled out of one of his two spare parts busses.

(later)
Friday morning Mike & I did the rivet job. That went surprisingly quickly. I have put pop rivets in with a hand rivetter and it is a tiresome process, particularly with SS rivets. The SS rivets are much harder to pop than a mild or aluminum rivet. But not so with the air gun - one squeeze and they are popped. So by noon all the rivets were done and we were looking for another project. Which turned out to be tearing down a comm tower that Mike had scrounged from a neighbour.

If it had been me I'd have been up the tower with a chunk of 3/8" rope around my waist and another one to lower the sections but Mike is quite a bit more focussed on safety. He had a complete climbing harness with safety lanyards and a work belt. We spent the afternoon tearing down the tower and hauled it home in time to have supper.

Yesterday we left Mike & Diane's place and headed west out the Florida panhandle. For the next couple of weeks we don't really have a destination but we wanted to put a few miles behind us over the weekend. Last night we holed up in a rest area just west of the FL/AL border. This morning we crossed Alabama - all 60 miles of it - and entered Mississippi. We found a nice state park outside Gautier where we are spending the night waiting for the Thousand Trails membership transfer office to open in the morning.

Sasktel incident update

Regular readers will remember this link and may have been wondering whether anything ever came of it. Well not much did. Early this afternoon I got a nice personal note from Robert Watson's email responder person president.comments@sasktel.net In that note Mr. Watson's apologist accepted no direct responsibility for any of the havoc he created but hey, at least he responded. Or so I thought.

At the same time as I posted the original link I also sent an email to the Honourable Ken Cheveldayoff. I happen to have Ken's email address, having met with him on a few occasions and Ken just happens to be minister of crown corporations. What a fortunate coincidence I thought.

Less than an hour after I received the aforementioned note from Mr. Watson's apologist I received a note from Ken's EA acknowledging my earlier email and indicating that he had been informed that Mr. Watson had already contacted me and that the matter was resolved. Translation for those of you that haven't been paying attention (or those of you who are less cynical/realistic than I am):

• Mr. Watson had no intention whatsoever of even acknowledging my existence let alone responding to me.
• Somebody from Ken's office contacted Mr. Watson.
• Mr. Watson either fessed up that he had done nothing or lied saying that he had already contacted me.
• Either way I immediately got an email from Watson's office.
• That's probably as good as I could have hoped for.

The magic silver spoon

The new photo on the front page is of Jorgito pointing out the magic silver dipper that always has his favorite food in it.

This post is really just an excuse to try out Google maps by pointing out our current location which of course we will be leaving on Thursday.

That worked rather well didn't it? For those of you who aren't acquainted with Google Maps, notice the little man at the top of the slider on the left side of your map. If he is yellow then you can drag and drop him on the map and he will give you a street level view from that location. Neat, eh?

National emergency

I thought I should point out the dangerous state of affairs that CBC just revealed to me. Some of you may not have seen the report so I felt it was my duty to repeat it. Apparently there is mold on the walls of some homes on an Indian reserve in BC. Maybe that's a "first nation" - whatever - its a first nation with moldy walls. Apparently its a national disgrace. Some pimple faced junior politician from BC is all over it. Evidently she hasn't heard about bleach.

If only we had known. When we were in the middle of selling the acreage last November Hughene noticed that we had black mold on the walls of the cold room. Obviously I should have phoned CBC. Instead I foolishly got out the bleach and a mop. About 10 minutes later the walls were white and the mold was dead. Little did I know what an opportunity I was missing to participate in a national emergency.