Monthly Archives: September 2008

Hurricane Kyle & Fall Foliage & Monty’s Swim

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Hurricane Kyle is approaching the southern tip of Nova Scotia this evening. We are not in the direct path of this storm, so we should only get some rain and right now they are predicting 80 km/hr wind gusts over night and tomorrow morning. I am concerned that the US hurricane centre has the path of the hurricane going distinctly further east that the Canadian hurricane centre. Hopefully people aren’t caught off guard if the US centre is right.

I went out this afternoon and took some photos of the fall foliage before the wind blows the leaves off. The fall colours here are really more rusty than vibrant. We have very few maples around so we don’t have their bright colours.

Here is the view from me standing on our driveway looking across the valley. Notice the white farmhouse across the lake just recently painted their shed(?) bright orange. I’m wondering if the house is next :D

Fall Foliage photo

Fall Foliage photo

I love these purple flowers that come out in our flowers gardens in the fall. I took some nicer photos of them last fall and had them framed for our guest room.

Fall Foliage photo

Notice the blueberry field across the valley turns a rusty red colour after harvesting.

Fall Foliage photo

Here is our house. The large cedar shrub on the left is too overgrown now so we plan to cut it out and plant something smaller.
Fall Foliage photo

Whatever these are, they are pretty flowers.
Fall Foliage photo

Fall Foliage photo

Our supply of wood for the winter:
Fall Foliage photo

Bored Monty, wondering what I am doing.
Fall Foliage photo

Make that Canadian Champion Monty :D
Fall Foliage photo

Monty needed some exercise so I took him down to the picnic park at the lake one down from ours and let him swim for awhile. I threw bumpers for him and he swam out to fetch them, over and over, until the waves on the lake were starting to pick up with the wind gusts that were moving in.

Monty swimming photo

Monty swimming photo

Monty swimming photo

Still no dial tone – Aliant, please now… this is silly.

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To continue from my post on Thursday…

Our dial tone came back on Thursday night but sometime during the day on Friday the dial tone was gone and still is.

I emailed Aliant to cancel the technician on Thursday night.

On Friday, they left a voicemail on our dead phone line asking if we had a problem and they would send someone out.

We got home from work – phone line is dead again.

Sunday I email their help line again and tell them it is still out. Here is the latest:

By the end of the work day on Friday, our phone service was out of service again. We’ve had no dial tone all day Saturday.
If possible, please send a technician on Monday. Call 902-968-06xx with 30 minutes notice of their arrival and I will leave work to meet the technician.
Thank-you.
Lisa Schuyler

This morning, here is their reply:

Hello!

Thank you for contacting Aliant Trouble Resolution.

Your Aliant Internet Service account history shows that since our
last conversation, you have called our helpdesk for assistance and
were able to find a solution. I hope that we were able to
satisfactorily answer all of your questions.

If you have any other requests or inquiries, please do not hesitate
to contact us again via email or by phone at 1-800-773-2121.

Thank you for choosing Aliant. We appreciate your business.

Have a great day!

Luc

This is nuts – everytime I email back the case number is in the subject and the entire history of our emails are attached. I emailed back:

NO, we have not contacted Aliant and have not found a solution!
We still have no dial tone.

Lisa

They responded back again

We have a cable technician scheduled for today, to fix your problem,
the ticket sent by Mike on 2008 09 18 12:36:19 is still open, when a
problem is not fixed directly, the issue remains open until a
solution can be found, In this case It has been referred to our cable
tech’s, since we have found a problem on lines outside.

New Wood Stove

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The new stove is pumping out heat (and stink) RIGHT now!

To catch you up, last year we used the old KOZI 100 pellet stove that came with the house. It was old and messy and didn’t heat the house well (we lived at 16°C last winter) so this summer we bought a Napoleon 1900 wood stove.

A week ago the installers finally were able to come by to hook up the new stove, and to remove the old pellet stove. They are REALLY busy. Most rural people here heat their houses with wood already – and the few that didn’t are ditching their oil furnaces and moving back to wood. The installers told Jeff that some people just won’t get their stoves installed before it is cold. They are already working long days and weekends and are burning themselves out. I believe they are doing 3 installs a day right now.

Here are a few photos of the stove after installation. Now we have to mop up all the soot and dirt left from the messy pellet stove.

Photo of our New Wood Stove

Photo of our New Wood Stove

Photo of our New Wood Stove

The first few fires are supposed to be hot kindling fires to season the fire bricks inside. The paint stinks too. The manual says we shouldn’t expect good heat from it until it has burned for 30-40 hours total.

My on-going dialogue with Aliant

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I am going to cut and paste my on-going discussion with Bell Aliant here – please rest assured that I am cutting and pasting this so the spelling and grammar mistakes are not my transcription errors.

Last night Jeff noticed our phone line was dead. I found a place on Aliant’s website where I could report the problem online. I filled out the form and got this response:

Hello!

Thank you for contacting Aliant Trouble Resolution.

Please try the following:

1. Unplug all telephone sets from all of the telephone jacks
throughout the home.

2. Aside from telephones, also unplug all Internet modems [dial and
HSI], fax machines, high-speed microfilters or any other phone
devices.

3. All phones and phone-devices must be left unplugged for 3 to 4
minutes.

4. After waiting 3 to 4 minutes, each phone must be plugged back in
one at a time. For testing purposes, plug the phone directly in the
jack [not through a micro-filter or fax machine, as the micro-filter
or fax machine may be causing the issue].

5. After each set is plugged in, check to see if the issue still
exists.

If the trouble persists, please reply and we will set up an
appointment for a technician to visit and fix the trouble.

If you have any other requests or inquiries, please do not hesitate
to contact us again via email or by phone at 1-800-773-2121.

Thank you for choosing Aliant. We appreciate your business.

Luc
Aliant Trouble Resolution
E-Contact Agent

So we followed their suggestions and the line is still dead. So I responded today at noon (I was home sick from work today).

We still have no phone service – since last evening. Is there a community outage or is this localized?

Lisa & Jeff Schuyler.

Hello Lisa & Jeff,
Thank you for contacting Aliant Trouble Resolution.

An appointment has been booked to send a tech on Friday, Sept 19/08
between the hours of 8AM and 5PM to fix the ongoing issue. If the
selected date doesn’t meet your requirements, please notify us and
we’ll make the proper modifications.

There are potential charges applied if a jack or inside wiring needs
to be replaced or fixed. The installer will advise you before doing
any changes.

If you have any other requests or inquiries, please do not hesitate
to contact us again via email or by phone at 1-800-773-2121.

Thank you for choosing Aliant. We appreciate your business.

Mike

My response:
We will both be at work from 7:30 until 4:30 on Friday and will not be home.

Hello,
Thank you for the quick reply. When would be a better time for you?

Should you have any further questions, or if you require assistance,
please feel free to contact us.

Thank you for choosing Aliant. We appreciate your business.

Have a great day,

Mike

I am home from work today. Tomorrow we are home after 4:30. I don’t know if your technicians only work regular hours or not.

Hello,
Thank you for replying. That is the only availible appointment we
have for Friday. The next Availible appointment would be for Monday,
Sept 22/08.

Should you have any further questions, or if you require assistance,
please feel free to contact us.

Thank you for choosing Aliant. We appreciate your business.

Have a great day,

Mike

Can you specify a specific time rather than the entire day??

Hello!

Thank you for contacting Aliant Trouble Resolution.

Can you provide us with your phone number, i’ll have a look if we
specify a visit.

If you have any other requests or inquiries, please do not hesitate
to contact us again via email or by phone at 1-800-773-2121.

Thank you for choosing Aliant. We appreciate your business.

Luc

Our home line that isn’t working is 902-783-28xx
You can reach us by cell at 902-968-06xx.
Even if we had 30 minutes notice before the technician was due to arrive, one of us could arrange to leave work to meet him/her.

Hello,
Thanks for replying. Unfortunately this is the only time we have
availible for a technician to visit. Is there any way to arrange for
someone to bet there?
Should you have any further questions, or if you require assistance,
please feel free to contact us.

Thank you for choosing Aliant. We appreciate your business.

Have a great day,

Mike

As I just said, there is a way to arrange someone to be here if we could have 30 minutes notice when you will arrive, rather than telling me anytime between 8 and 5.
Call me at 902-968-06xx with 30 minutes notice and I’ll leave work tomorrow during the day.

Lisa

Hello!

Thank you for contacting Aliant Trouble Resolution.

I have updated the information in our ticketing system to advise to
call 30 minutes in advance.

If you have any other requests or inquiries, please do not hesitate
to contact us again via email or by phone at 1-800-773-2121.

Thank you for choosing Aliant. We appreciate your business.

Have a great day!

Luc

As of 10pm this evening, our phone line is back in service! Yahoo!

The kitties came back!! Well… not all of them :(

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The kitties are back! They haven’t been here for 2 weeks. But one of the kittens isn’t with them. :’( The shorter haired one with white paws is gone. I hope he didn’t suffer.

Jeff fed them before I got home, and then I fed them some more. They were hungry little cuties! I put out some clean water for them too. I wish they were tame so I could play with them, but they are not. They watch us through the door though and they have staring contests with Monty.

On another note, when I was eating lunch today I noticed my food wasn’t going down very easily. Within a couple hours my tonsils were so sore and I felt sickish. Now that I’m home Jeff shone his flashlight in and discovered I have big white fuzzies on my tonsils AGAIN. This is year 3 of this. So I attacked it right away with salted water. That really helped last winter to keep them under control. I wish my tonsils were removed when I was little!

Catching Up

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Blogging has been sparse while I am restoring all my files on my new hard drive. The process is nearing completion…

Updates:
-Monty is now a Canadian Champion! We were at dog shows all weekend in Trenton and he did well.
-I haven’t seen the cat or its kitties for almost 2 weeks. I don’t know what happened to them.
-our new wood stove is now installed! We haven’t had time to do a test burn yet – by the weekend we’re supposed to have 5-6 °C at night so maybe we’ll fire it up!
-our gas prices here in Nova Scotia are regulated and the price only changes on Thursday night at midnight. Well this weekend they took the liberties to jack the price way up in response to rising prices across the country due to Hurricane Ike. It’s now at 1.44. Now that the rest of the country’s gas prices are falling back down, of course we’ll be ripped off for the rest of the week at 1.44
-speaking of being ripped off – Nova Scotia Power is hiking our power rates 9.4% this year. Living here in Nova Scotia is so much more expensive than Ontario.

I’ve got tons of photos to get up here still – they are currently being restored from my hard drive backup so soon I can get back to photo blogging!

Chance of a dry boring weekend: 0.0%

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The latest on our weekend forecast:

“The Red Cross is advising people — especially those in flood-prone areas — to be prepared for severe weather heading for Atlantic Canada.

Bill Lawlor, director of disaster management in Atlantic Canada, says the Red Cross is ready to mobilize volunteers to go where they are needed.

A good soaking from the remnants of tropical storm Hanna is part of a wet weather triple-header forecast for the region this weekend.

The first system is moving in Saturday ahead of Hanna, the second will come from Hanna on Sunday, and the third involves a system moving in from the west.

By the time it’s all over on Monday, the region could see upwards of 50 to 90 millimetres of rain.

Lawlor says strong winds are also expected, so people should secure lawn furniture and other loose objects in their yard that could become flying debris.”

My hard drive is dead

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I was up until 2am getting the first draft of a website ready for a client to view today.

I only had a bit of work to get done last night, but then one thing after another. I had to rebuild apache on my webserver for an extension I needed. That too way too long. Then I got on a programming roll and everything was working.

Then my computer crashed.

And then it wouldn’t reboot.

And then I spent an hour bonding with a nice fellow in India working Dell’s tech support line. He was good, but not good enough to resuscitate my hard drive. It is so dead the computer can’t even verify its existence.

I new this was coming – it has had odd behavior, well basically since I bought this computer last November.

So all my files, emails, settings, programs, scripts, photos are gone.

Wait.

But are they?

No they are not! I’ve been backing up everything religiously to Carbonite! So next week when my new hard drive arrives, I will completely clog up our satellite internet connection to download all my backed up files.

If your hard drive isn’t backed up, WHY NOT? You want to lose every digital photo you’ve ever taken?

Anyway, so I was up until 2am working on Jeff’s laptop. I’m totally exhausted today and looking forward to a nap after work!

Please rain. Stop. Please.

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It was amusing how much rain we got and how the rivers are overflowing, and the roads are washing away. Until yesterday.

We had weathered all the rain so well. Until yesterday.

Our driveway received significant damage. It poured so hard yesterday it washed a lot of our gravel away. We have a long steep widing driveway up the hill through the trees. There are new huge crevasses carved in the driveway all the way down. Deep canyons. Piles of gravel at the bottom. A real mess.

And on top of that, it must have poured into our back walk out faster than the drain could handle. The water must have risen high enough to over flow the basement door sill – and soak HALF of our basement. Nothing was too damaged – a lot of things were wet, but nothing perishable.

Hurricane/Tropical Storm Hanna is forecast to hit us dead on this Sunday. We just can’t have any more rain (it is raining now).