Stressful Times

While it is still cold I am holding out in my IKEA recliner trying to solve a problem that has been with us over the last few weeks. When we developed our new tourism product “Island Discovery Tours” we also hired a web designer to make up a site for profiling and sales. She worked up a site which was graphically pleasing, but confusing to use for potential customers. She registered the site and received access information. When we demanded changes to the website to make it more usable she walked out on us abandoning the work and never gave out access information, which left us out in the dark. We could not access our own website, had login and no ways to do the necessary changes. After many attempts to contact her I lost my patience and called the registrar of the domain. I supplied them with IDs for company and ownership and they changed access information. But the battle wasn’t over. The website was hosted in a different place. I contacted the hosting company in Utah, but they could not help me. Our former webdesigner had several domaines registered in the same account and by that reason we could not gain access to the account.  I decided to make up a new hosting account at the registering company. After that was done I had to upload the revised website and get the name servers changed ….and much to my frustration the website still showed under the old hosting company’s name. So I called the new host and learned that it takes up to 48hrs. until a new site has “propagated” through the World-Wide-Web. So, if we are exceptionally lucky, we might see our new site coming up on www.islanddiscoverytours.com  in a day or two. Under all this I had to deal with a less than adequate internet connection from Bell Aliant. Oh yes, I received a call from corporate where a lady whom I could hardly hear, talked about that she would “bring on” our problems, but whether I meanwhile would accept $15.00 of the monthly bill??? It ain’t gonna make the problem go away, and I feel it is an insult to the entire island. I think a lot more action maybe involving our government is required. Reading other blogs I realize that problems exist also other places. We were quite astounded to find “RV-SUE’s” blog has been taken off the net by the provider. And Al and kelly over at the Bayfield Bunch are struggling with medical problems. Makes my problems seem tiny and insubstantial. Hope you guys getting better soon. Thanks for reading my rant of the day!

The Old Tree

This morning I read a special posting in a special blog. The blog is named Dave and Susie’s Musings. Their last posting speaks of Timber being destroyed by storms. That brought me to a special experience we had in Alberta. I will tell you about an old tree we had. It was the time when we lived on a very large property in Alberta, Canada. We lived in an old house from 1936. It had a roof of asphalt shingles. A couple of large Jack Pines were standing close to the house. They had survived a huge forest fire around 1910. We were always afraid a lightning would lit up these trees which invariably would lead to burning down our house. One year we came back from California. It was in April. One of the old Jack Pines had been attacked by a tree porcupine which had stripped off bark all around the tree. We could already see that the tree was dying. A month later I started my chainsaw. There was no other way with it, the tree had to come down. When it fell our eyes filled with tears. It was a very emotional moment. This tree had probably seen Indians moving around and just how many bears had used it to scratch their backs? After surviving the major forest fire, it now had become a fire hazard itself. I started to cut up the huge trunk. When I got to the really big lower parts I had an idea. maybe we could use this for something other than firewood? I had always had the idea of carving something with a chainsaw. So I made these chunks of the lower end fairly large. After we had cleared all the debris away I started the chainsaw again and carved a 3ft. tall pelican of it. It was painted white, and I left the beak in natural wood. It was beautiful. Why I made a pelican? Because every summer we had a small group of pelicans on the lake. You see the pelican in the picture to the left. We put it where it belonged in the most natural way – on top of the root of the Jack Pine from where it guarded the property. There was enough wood to carve several pelicans. One of them was purchased by someone in Ontario. It ended up in his garden. We have again fought our way through an impossible internet connection with Bell-Aliant. With the long weekend nearly over I hope and expect some reaction to my Bell-Canada letter the coming days. We are also back to the normal cold AND rainy weather. And the news is it’s gonna last for several days into the next week. YOU have a great week and thanks again for visiting!

A Sunday In May

Usually I am up around 6am, but today I held out until close to 7am. Molly, sleeping beside of me on her own floor bed had started to make a few noises. A sure sign that she needs to get outside. So here we go again. A fresh cold breeze outside, call Molly back from the lawn, make some coffee and start looking up emails and blogs. Today I made the breakfast European style with boiled eggs and a crusty roll for each of us, some cheese and jam.   Slowly it’s sinking in to my mind: It’s Sunday! Yeah, the sun is out, but it is pretty cold. Wind’s blowing out of the east-south-east. Coming right off the cold waters of the Gulf of Maine. Is it ever going to warm up? After breakfast I take Molly out for a real walk. Down the street I meet a neighbour with HIS Yorky-dog. We have a chat like man-to man. I talk about my bout with the RBC-Bank. And he states that they basically refuses to deal with them. Must be quite the place – really! I also had an email yesterday saying that my email to the President and CEO of Bell Canada was read. But so far no reaction. Guess he is in his roomy cabin by the lake and must mull it over first. After all Canada has its Victoria weekend now. Give him some time into the next week.     Since it is pretty cold outside I go upstairs and throw myself into a battle with going through some old stuff in our storage room. There is a need to throw things out, if we are ever going to make something of this room. I find papers from 10+ years back in time. All the old stuff is piled up high, but since I can’t just throw it into the dumpster I decide to burn it outside in our fire pit. That keeps me busy for a while. And it is a lot warmer by the fire. :-) After lunch we went for a drive in the Red Lady. Took Bea and Molly down to the southern part of the Roosevelt Park. There is a small winding path along the coast. A few places it offers a view across “The Narrows”. The International bridge comes into view, and one gets really close to “The Sparkplug”.  The soft light green path is a pure pleasure to walk along. Small wooden bridges cover wet areas. Out here one can find really big old shade-giving trees. Too bad that so few people get to discover these parts of the island.    Back at home we could enjoy a piece of “Peter’s Apple Cake” of course with real whipped cream!  Thanks for this hike, Nature!!

The Story Of The Little Foxes And A Trip To Town

Several weeks ago I saw a big fox running right underneath our kitchen window. It turned out it was mother Fox being busy with finding food for her kids. At the time we neither knew that she was a mother nor where she had her den. But neighbours had seen the mother fox and possibly the father too in a decrepit barn down the road from us. The barn was just a ruin as a tree had fallen across the roof during the last winter.   About 10 days ago we heard shots from the woods bordering our property. Shortly after, Bea came back from meeting a neighbour and told me that someone had shot the parents of the little foxes. We just couldn’t believe that someone would do such a horrible thing. We still don’t know who the shooter was, but we saw two little foxes looking quite forlorn into this harsh world.   Meanwhile there are at least 2 people feeding the fox babies with hamburger and cut-up sausages. They have adjusted and every evening they are sitting and playing around the old barn. We feel so sorry for the two foxes but are glad that they look to survive the loss of their parents.   On a much happier note I went to St.Stephen today to get our Florida-van registered and RIV-inspected. First stop was at Canadian (Crappy) Tire where an employee took care of all the papers and stamped them. Afterwards we went outside where he checked the VIN-number and all the weight figures.   It was all over after 20 minutes – pretty straight forward procedure and yet absolutely unnecessary as all this has already been done at customs. Next stop was at an auto glass shop where I wanted to get a small window on the passenger side of the van replaced. It was a plexi-glass window and the sun in Florida had pretty much destroyed the plexi to a blind piece of plastic. I couldn’t even see the outside mirror through it. They suggested to replace the plexi with a piece of real auto glass. So “Tom” started by removing an inside cover underneath the window. Next thing he pulled out was a steel base and finally the piece of plexi came out. It was about 10x18 inch. A piece of auto glass was found and placed on a table. Tom followed a procedure I have never seen before. After a glass cutter was used on both sides the area was sprayed with a liquid which Tom ignited with a lighter. I saw a flame creep along the cut and before I knew it Tom had the cut-off in his hand. After all the cuts were made he went to a band sander and sanded the edges and the round top. Back at the van he then inserted the new window glass from beneath – and made a face. The piece didn’t fit. What neither Tom nor anybody else had realized was that the glass was curved. The straight piece simply wouldn’t fit in. Tom went to his boss and a decision was made to use Lexan – plexi instead of auto glass.  Lexan is UV stabilized and has a certain flexibility to follow a curved profile. This time the piece was cut out with a jigsaw. Another careful sanding of the edges followed and after another 30 minutes I had a new clear window on the passenger side. Taking out the old pane Tom had discovered some rust on the metal frame of the glass. He scraped off loose rust and applied a rust converting primer. I was impressed how professional this guy went about his work but was curious about how much i would have to pay for all this. By this time I had been traipsing around the shop for close to 2 hours. When it was time to pay the bill it was just $124 bucks for the material and one hour of labour. Not a bad deal at all. But I had 2 other errands on my list. First I needed the New Brunswick license plates from “Service New Brunswick”.  Normally this office is so busy that one has to calculate a lot of waiting time. Not so today. It was almost empty and I didn’t even got my butt into a chair when my number appeared on the screen. I dumped all the papers and stamped forms on her counter and 400 Dollars later I had my registration and license plates. The 400 Dollars are also containing 8% provincial sales tax which New Brunswick is asking for EVERY time a vehicle is changing ownership. I had previously paid the federal part 5% GST (Goods and service tax) at the time of importation.   From Florida……………………………………………to New Brunswick Now I had only one more errand left. I was thinking of establishing a business bank account at the RBC, the Royal Bank of Canada.  After entering the bank I was standing around at the information counter, but the lady there seemed to be very busy with something else. There was no other customer around but nobody made any attempt to step up and ask how they could help me. Finally after about 5 minutes a lady came up from behind one of the teller counters to inquire about my business being there. I told her my errand and she asked whether I had an appointment which I had not. I replied by asking her whether that was needed, which she confirmed. Yet she went to the rear of the offices but came back with that professional “I’m sorry-look” in her face. Nobody was available to take on a new customer for establishing a business account. All I got was a business card with a number to call. Let me just say that I NEVER EVER will walk into that bank again. I’m certainly not spending another  three hours on the road to see an arrogant bank officer, If it is not possible to walk into a bank and get a bank account without a prior appointment they do not deserve to have customers at all. On my way out of town I had to wait more than 30 minutes to get across the border. The Americans have currently closed a 2 border crossing west of St.Stephen so more traffic is going across the bridge between St.Stephen and Calais. In fact, the traffic line-up went all the way through Water Street. It was slow going, but I finally got trough. For our American neighbours: EU=French for Etat Unis      Our Head Harbour Lightstation is welcoming visitors to New Brunswick     Thanks for visiting!