Rogers Followup

Now to follow up my change of phone supplier. This isn’t another rant, but things did go from bad to hysterical (and that was the Roger’s manager that I spoke to!) It only took an hour and a half on the phone to them trying to work out why I couldn’t transfer my number. Seems that I had been given bad information a month ago about how to transfer numbers – seems I shouldn’t have cancelled my Rogers account, I should have just let Fido take the number. Cancelling an account makes the number unavailable. Now, that sounds all well and good, but the manager then told me I had to pay for 30 days of use after the number had been taken. I told him I didn’t understand. It seems it’s in the contract. I can’t close my account and then move the number 30 days later. I have to move the number straight away and pay for a month I cannot possibly use. The manager, to his credit, tried all sorts of different things, and eventually came to the conclusion it was impossible to not pay for a service I wasn’t using. It was at this point be became slightly hysterical and started laughing at the absurdity of it all.

I mentioned (laughingly) that in the UK it would be called highway robbery, so he said, and this is the big mistake, “How is it done in Europe?”, so I told him that all the things we pay for in Canada are “free” in the UK. Well we parted on good terms. I learned something, and so did he. Any longer and I’m sure Cath and I would have been invited over for dinner. His parting shot was to thank me for being understanding and that he would refund a lot of the charged for me while writing up lengthy notes.

So, it was a surprise email I received on Monday (a bank holiday as well!) asking for $270. Seems that during the process on Friday during which my account had to be temporarily reopened (for about an hour) and then closed I incurred an early contract termination fee! Blimey. Even though me and Mahmood were good friends by now, I didn’t think I could cope with another session (I’d have been no good at the START talks!) so Cath had a quiet word with a rep who put her on hold to read the notes. God only knows how many there were because he was gone a good few minutes. He finally came back and told us that everything had been refunded. So, after a month and almost three hours of phone calls I now have kept my number and changed service provider! Yaay!

Early

It’s ten past six in the morning and I’m up and about. The birds are up in the trees singing chirpy chirpy (which is weird, it’s like a dog actually saying “bark”) and I’ve given up sleeping because Cath has spent trying to tickle the bottoms of my feet with her big toe. Lord only knows what she’s dreaming about!

Back to Elkford

Well here we are again. You get the feeling that these bears live in the area – at least at the moment. We took our friends Sat and Jo over to Elkford so that they could watch Cath in her mad dash up that hill. Cath left Fernie before us to get a head start, and we found these bears again just outside Elkford near the golf course. We didn’t want to spook them, so this is a crop of a long zoom lens. Not bad eh? Bears twice in two weeks!

Anyway, we met Cath at the top of the hill and had a quick chat before driving down to the end of the road and back. The bears had gone by the time we got to town, so it was back to the end to wait for the mad cyclist. Anyway, when we got back Cath realised she had done the whole 45km (with large hill) with the brakes on – there’s no wonder she had a hard time of it!

Paparazzi

Blimey. This is doing the rounds at the moment, and the kid turned up on Ellen the other day. Pretty impressive I recon!

Early Fernie Morning

We’ve been waking up recently at 6am then trying to get back to sleep, but in the end faced up to the inevitable and started taking part in the “best part of the day”. Is that too early for a power saw?

It’s funny, when I was working in London I was up at 5am every week day to get the bus in to Baker Street, then the tube, then the windy old walk into docklands and, while I wouldn’t say I thought nothing of it, I certainly wasn’t bothered by it. Now, I think I’d crumble if I had to do it again!

Anyway, a few photos the other day of our wander down to Freshies.

Show as slideshow

Summer starts here?

Warning: stream of unconsciousness to the sound of thrashing lawnmowers ahead as our neighbours start their summer campaign against dandelions and other assorted pests.

So I’m sat here with Chicory Tip playing Son of my Father, Tony Christie is back in the box, and Morecambe and Wise are going to get revved up on iPlayer any moment now. Oops maybe not.

Well the days are warming up here in Fernie, and everyone (with the possible exception of Bob, our powder hound) is saying bring on the summer! We’re due for 24C over the weekend, so we’re joining our friends Colleen and Thomas on a hike up to the tops of Castle Mountain behind the house. I’ve just spent the last couple of weeks writing a website for Colleen’s real estate work that will be up and running in the next week (it’s at www.colleendunn.ca if you want to have a look and let me know what you think (eh Keith?) )

Good god, wig wam bam – youtube on shuffle is a beast

We’ve a couple of friends that are turning up later this afternoon. Jo and Sat have been travelling the world (skiving) for the last year and have finally made it to North America having travelled around the Himalayas, south east asia and Australasia. We’ve been keeping up with them on Facebook, so it’ll be exciting to see them. That said, I think the photo session might take a while!

Cath is in Alberta having dipped her change in vinegar at the border to get her bike fitted. Her first race is next weekend in Calgary. It’s a short one by Cath’s standards so it’ll be good as a warm up. It’ll also be interesting to see how she gets on after all the problems she’s had over the winter with her back, allergies, and currently her foot (she’s back in physio at the moment with that one).

In the meantime, here’s one for Flo and Dawn whio have just got back from visiting dad in Thailand.

Remember, it’s summer now, the bears are out, so don’t put your bins out the night before for collection, otherwise you’ll find these fellers looking for breakfast.

Spring

Spring is here with a vengeance now. The snow line is rising up the mountains, and the ski hill is not the place it was only a month ago. Cath is out in Elkford, “centre of the wilderness” climbing a huge hill on her road bike. We were there looking at it a couple of weeks ago. The road (to Fording Bridge Mine) is about 25km long, and rises something like 600 metres along it’s length, most of that rise is in only 4 or 5 km, so you can imagine, it’s very steep in places. Once you get to the top you really feel like you have gained height as you go from huge pines and firs in Elkford to high alpine at the top – small trees and alpine meadows full of deer and huge herds of elk (it’s not called Elkford for nothing)!

Hopefully (cougars notwithstanding) Cath’ll be back about 3pm so that we can go to a friend’s party in town – Cath’s already baked the cakes for it, so it’ll just be a case of getting changed.

Myself, I’ve been off the running for about three weeks. It started with a bad knee, so I got on the bike instead, then Ian came over, and we wanted to dedicate our time to him, Alex and Kate. Then it was my birthday, and I managed to get a dose of food poisoning that lasted nearly a week (keeling over, that sort of thing), and finally I did my back in – *lying down*!!!! How exactly does that happen?? How many excuses do you need? Well the good news for me is that after a rather marvellous massage from Cath, I’m now sorted. On my actual birthday day I wandered into a running shop and bought a pair of trail shoes (try running with stomach cramps!) so yesterday was the first chance I’ve had to put them on and do some damage with them. Surprisingly I felt really good, and even better, so did they, so looks like I’m up and running again, as it were.

What else? Well  (my bro) Ben’s coming over in about four weeks time, so we’re really looking forward to that, and if he keeps his nose clean and doesn’t get a criminal record before the end of the month we’ll take him over the border into Merca for a sloppy burger. I’ve also warned him that he needs to buy hiking boots as there’s every chance his  shoes won’t be able to take the pace at the places we’ll be taking him to!

“Breakfast smelled so good it woke my wife up”

The title of the latest review on Trip Advisor from one of our guests – they only stayed one night, a great couple – as you can, they had a sense of humour too! So that’s 8 reviews – 5 out of 5 – woo hoo!

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g182167-d1492227-r62259925-Cinnamon_Bear_Lodge-Fernie_British_Columbia.html#CHECK_RATES_CONT

Cheers

Thanks everyone that wished me a happy birthday by text, email and Facebook (good job I can remember the password!). I was ready for you this year and turned my cell phone off until I woke up! Those pesky time zones! The messages were very much appreciated, especially when you consider I don’t see you all as much as I used to.

I had a great weekend up there in that Calgary. Unfortunately I managed to get food poisoning on Friday night – thar’ll teach me to eat junk food!, but I was valiant to the end. I certainly didn’t let it interfere with a trip to the Chinese that I’ve been looking forward to revisiting after being there in 2005! Biggest one in Calgary/Canada/North America (choose one) don’t you know.

Anyway, thanks Colin for putting us up, Keith for providing tea, and Julie for providing coffee, and like I say, everyone else for the messages.

Rogers Mobile Phones

Homage to Keith who we were lucky enough to see yesterday.

Don’t do it! Just don’t. I tell you, we used to think O2 were bad, but they’ve nothing on the cell phone shower over here. Not only do you have to pay $70 for a sim and to have it “set up”, pay for 911 calls on a monthly charge, and pay to find out who’s calling you, but we’ve just found that Rogers make it easier to leave them than to stay with them if you want to change your plan. When I first set up the phone last year I worked out what I did and didn’t want to pay for in monthly fees. This gave me a bare bones rate. The woman asked if I wanted a 1,2 or 3 year contract. I asked them how much cheaper my monthly payments would be on a 3 year contract – “oh, they are the same price” she said! Now why on earth would anyone want to lock in for 3 years with no gain?

Anyroad, we are looking at changing the plan now, and they’ve told us it would cost $50 in admin fees (not bad for 30 seconds work). Alternatively, ending the plan and going into a Rogers store and starting a new one would cost $35! Honestly, they’re really crap over here! Here is an idea of our “local calling zone” – it’s the tiny black rectangle around Fernie – so long as I’m inside it I can make a local call.

Vodafone, Carphonewarehouse, you might not be very good, but you’ll find a welcome here in Canada I’ll bet.

Rant over, carry on.

Update: Bell can’t do text messaging on paygo with smart phones. Apparently it’s too difficult. bah. Mind you Fido, a subsidiary of Rogers appears to be a bit more customer focused, so there’s every chance we may jump department if not company.

Finally: We have moved to Fido. I confused the hell out of the nice lady at Rogers. “I’m sorry to hear you’re leaving, anything we can do?”, nope, “Do you mind me asking who you are going with?”, yes, you, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand”. Bless ‘er. Nice lady, poor plans.