2024 A Year of Challenge and Patience

December 4: For the last year – or perhaps two – I have known that I needed to deal with my “technology”: cellphone, internet, cable TV and home phone. In total, they cost me more than $325 a month. I am a very limited user of cellphone time, and my home phone is used only sparingly by people who have known me at that number for decades, or by ubiquitous duct-cleaning salesmen. While the need to do something was obvious, there was a certain inertia brought about by the need to wrangle with both Rogers and Bell to get it sorted out. They did not disappoint.

I went with a Virgin Mobile package which included internet and a new cell package. They use the Bell network. An appointment was made at the oh-so-friendly Virgin store and in due course the Bell tech appeared to do the switch over. The first thing he did was check the telephone number on my line. It turned out to be wrong. He disconnected the phone – which had been working perfectly for more than 3 years – and after talking to a manager at Bell,  told me that I had to call Bell to get it reconnected. Did I mention that he was a Bell tech ?

Whatever. I called Bell and after navigating through the system and finding an actual person, made an appointment for another tech to come out the next day. They didn’t show up. I decided to call Bell back and cancel the phone entirely which led to the inevitable barrage of “things we can do to keep you as a customer”. After much hemming and hawing, their best deal was to cancel the wire-care package – a $4 saving. So long Bell.*

Next up was Rogers. Virgin actually cancelled my Rogers cell package when I signed up with them, and I thought that they had done the internet as well. When I went to return the modem to the store, I was told that the internet was still active and that I needed to call Rogers – from the fecking Rogers store – to get a work order. Again through the answering tree to a live person. She took some data – birth date and postal code –  to identify me then said that she needed to talk to “scheduling”. I was going to ask what exactly we were scheduling, but she was gone before I could betray my stupidity. Many minutes passed. Many. She returned. Sorry for the delay, she was waiting for them to “pick up”. She inquired whether I would be interested in a less expensive TV package. When I responded positively she disappeared to check on what might be available. Many more minutes pass. Finally she returned again. Without a word about TV packages, I was handed over to the “Senior Care Specialist” in scheduling.

At this point I had waited about 20 minutes. Had it not been for the fact that I needed him to do something for me so that I could return the fecking modem to the fecking store in which I was actually standing at that precise moment, I might have said some rather imprudent things. After a very sympathetic few moments – he was obviously specially trained to deal with doddering seniors – he managed to click all the right boxes and I hung up as quickly as I could. I am quite sure that the whole exercise is a way to burn up as many cell phone minutes from a new carrier as possible.

As I returned to the counter in the Rogers store where I had been standing while waiting on “hold” for the last half-hour or so, I mentioned to the sales guy that this level of service is one reason people are so pissed with his company. He said that it’s pretty much the same at Bell. No argument from me, but when was it ever good for business to be as bad as your chief competitor ?

The whole process of getting a better rate seems to be an exercise of bouncing back and forth between the two major companies.  I was once naïve enough to think that one of them might actually reduce my rates because I had stayed with them for so long – probably 20 years for each. But neither one really cares. Loyalty does not pay. The way to game the system is to go with one carrier on a new client rate and then switch to another when that runs out. The really great news is that you can then spend a day of your life dealing with their “customer service” teams. God help you….

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By comparison, when I was in Europe this summer, I bought a Lycamobile SIM card for 35 Euro. It came loaded with text messaging and phone minutes – including long distance calls to Canada – at about 6 centimes a minute. In every country on the continent. I bought it at a corner store, used it all summer, and still had about 10 Euro left. It showed me very clearly how badly served we are by the providers and regulators in Canada.

* After this was written I found a home phone package with Koodo for $5 a month. Of course, it’s a special rate for new customers which expires after 6 months…..

November 15:

4:30 PM

… one week later than last year.

November 7: As I went to bed last night, a wicked westerly wind was rattling the windows of my apartment. Waves of red and yellow leaves scuttled across the lawn as the temperature dropped to the single digits. I had been watching a TVO documentary on the First World War that reminded me of the deprivation and horrors those men endured. I was glad to be safe and warm in my bed. I thought about how those men must have felt when they too were finally able to find a comfortable bed and leave the battle behind.

It continues to amaze me that on some level they had chosen to be there  – most of them, at least in the early stages of the war, had volunteered. My own Father volunteered during the Second World War and became a navigator on a Halifax bomber. The sole story he shared willingly was about the night his plane crash landed near Leeming in England (November 22, 1944). They had sustained damage due to flak and knew they would not make it back to base. The pilot picked out a field and told them to prepare for the landing. My Dad and the mid-gunner were braced in the centre of the fuselage between the wing struts when there was a forceful impact that they believed to be the plane hitting the ground.

In fact, the plane had gone between two trees and sheared off the wings. Seconds later they hit the ground and Dad, who was facing aft, watched as the rear of the plane disintegrated. When the plane stopped moving, he and the gunner ran off across the field, thinking that the plane would explode. Only later would they realize that the wings, and the fuel tanks, were gone. I recall him saying that they had some time off after the crash, and there is a gap in his logbook until December 24 when they flew to Dusseldorf. He flew a further 23 missions before his war ended on March 22, 1945.

As I lay in my bed, I tried to imagine how he must have felt that night when he escaped the plane. Did he take comfort in a warm bed with the blankets over his ears, or was he awake for hours reliving the events he had just survived ? Was his bed a refuge from the war or a place of torment, of nightmares and dread of the dawn yet to come ?

And finally there would have been the night when he was finally home in his own bed with the realization that he had survived in one piece. How wonderful it must have been to feel the warmth and comfort and security of his bed and realize that the horrible chapter of the war had been closed. It’s a feeling I will never have. But as I lay awake in my own bed, listening to the witch of November outside my windows, I was flooded with gratitude for the sacrifice of my Dad and so many others. We are where we are today because of them.

Sleep well, bhoys. Sleep well.

October 30: On May 9 I declared Spring officially underway in a post that featured a photograph of a Saucer Magnolia in bloom at the end of my street. Today I went out and discovered that the adjacent tree is fully aflame with autumn foliage, while the Magnolia ironically has not one leaf of colour.

Today is also the day I chose to move my motorcycle into storage in my cousin’s garage. This is the first time in about 15 years that I have not stored the bike with Pro 6 – my repair and maintenance guys of choice. Past experience with storing the bike on my own suggests that it will be harder to get going again in the Spring, but we will have to wait and see about that.

Having parked the bike in the garage, I took TTC home. Since I was wearing my riding jacket and carrying my helmet, there were a few inquisitive glances, but it wasn’t until I got on the bus, that someone – the driver – asked “Where’s the bike ?” Turns out he is way more committed than I and has a bike he rides year-round. As I got off the bus, a guy going in the opposite direction also asked about the bike. It was as if the helmet and gear broke the ice and gave people permission to start a brief and enjoyable conversation with a stranger.

Whatever it was, during those conversations, talk turned to the end of the season and the approach of Winter. Harbingers abound: Squirrels stashing nuts at a furious pace; raptors lazily circling on thermals as they migrate south; the crack-head garden crew assaulting my ears with leaf-blowers; and, of course, trees changing colour. My neighbourhood Saucer Magnolia seems determined to resist that trend, a determination I applaud. Perhaps it is not quite Autumn yet, the death of Summer called prematurely.

October 25: The following is from an opinion piece written by Jared Yates Sexton that appeared in todays’ Globe and Mail. He is an associate professor at Georgia Southern University and the author of The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore: A Story of American Rage. He writes about the attempted bombings of CNN and Democratic party officials.

“We now sit in terrible expectation of tragedy, and all because a portion of the country has been force-fed lies and rumours designed to keep them angry and complicit in politics that never serves their actual interest.

Mr. Trump, our conspirator-in-chief, owns no small portion of the responsibility. He has made his career on scapegoating the Clintons and hinting at the more deranged conspiracy theories peddled by fringe media. He cut his political teeth framing Mr. Obama as a foreign-born infiltrator, at times hinting at the possibility he could be intentionally subverting the United States. In nearly every speech he gives, he points to the reporters and journalists doing their jobs and calls them the scum of the earth and the enemy of the people.

I’ve met my fair share of pundits who believe this is all a ruse by Mr. Trump to create a binary world in which it’s Him vs. Them. Certainly it’s gotten him this far, so there is a validity to the strategy, but at what cost? Mr. Trump has continually fueled dangerous rhetoric that spins a story of a world with shadowy figures operating at the margins, a massive conspiracy that is funded by Mr. Soros, led by the Clintons and Obamas, spearheaded by the Democratic Party and carried out by a complicit media. In this world, this treacherous and perfidious world, the United States is a country under siege. The borders are open and we’re vulnerable to attack. And these people, the very same ones who were destined to receive bombs in the mail, are complicit.

It’s a lie, a shoddy lie at that, but it does more than inflame passions and inspire people to the polls. It inspires them to take action. It inspires them to grab their gun and pull the trigger. It inspires them to send bombs. It inspires them to declare war and murder and terrorize and erase any facet of free society until all that is left is the dull shade of fear and unadulterated fascism.

We live in a new world now, a world where the cold war of American politics has transformed into a live combat zone. The message has been received. Mr. Trump’s and the Republican Party’s base has heard them, loud and clear.”

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-make-america-hate-again-when-political-rhetoric-turns-violent/

October 15: I have been home almost a month now, and some random thoughts from the trip stand out in my memory:

In 2015 I began my journey in Albert, close to the First World War battlefields. Visiting the site of those battles, and seeing the cemeteries devoted to those that had fallen there made a huge impression on me. Until that point, the killing and the scale of the slaughter had been abstract. Since then, in virtually every town I have visited in France, I have found a memorial to those killed during that war. It is sobering to see the number of names – often with the family name repeated – to understand the impact that loss must have had on the town. For example, this is a marker in Liepvre in Alsace, an area heavily impacted by the war. There are almost 40 names inscribed as victims of the first war. In 2015, the population of the town was about 1700 people. If that was the case during the war, the loss of so many sons and brothers and fathers in a town that size represents a whole demographic lost to a senseless slaughter. It is staggering and repeated across the country.

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On a lighter note: I often came upon camper vans trundling down some winding back road, usually at the head of a long line of cars and trucks trying to find a place to pass. In most cases, they were driven by middle-aged to slightly elderly Brits, although the Dutch seemed to be a close second. You would see camps of these things huddled together at barren campgrounds on the edge of town, as here in Vassieux-en-Vercors. Almost inevitably, the builders of these things calls them Sprinter or Gazelle or Ephemera as if these names somehow camouflage the fact that these are the lumbering, mouth-breathing cretinous relatives of real vehicles. It’s like the 300 lb guy in spandex that everyone calls Slim – it just doesn’t work.

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I could – and probably will at some point –  go on at length about the impressive driving skill of European drivers. There is a mis-perception that most Europeans are worse drivers than North Americans. I think that is because Europeans are more assertive when driving: they drive faster and maneuver closer than we usually tolerate here. The cars are smaller but the roads are narrower, so more skill is needed. And more patience and respect. They treat pedestrians and cyclists in an exemplary fashion.

In the entire 2 months I was in Europe, I think I heard car horns – in anger – perhaps 5 times. When I came home, I started hearing horns every day. Drivers here are slow and inattentive. They do stupid and inconsiderate things and ignore the danger they place on other drivers. And I have noticed that among the worst offenders are Uber drivers. It must be a job requirement. Give me a Frenchman pretending to be Alain Prost any day.

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October 5: I’ve now been home a week and have crunched some numbers related to the trip.

I arrived in Europe on July 26 and departed September 26 for a total of 62 days. I was on the bike for 39 days and covered 7,416 km for an average of 190 km per day – roughly the same as a trip to Bracebridge. Although there are a couple of longer days hiding in there, the average highlights the fact that you don’t need to travel very far in Europe before the context changes into “something new” worth investigating. This year I included a short loop through Austria and northern Italy which were really enjoyable and accounted for many of the mountain passes I crossed. Although I didn’t count them all, I suspect I tallied more than two dozen above 1500 metres including well-known routes like Val d’Isere, Galibier, and Col de la Madeleine.

I managed to get out for a run 16 times – less often than I had hoped. That happens here too, so I feel pretty good that I actually got out on those days. Strangely, I only ran once during the 10 days I was together with my friends from the Running Room at the house in Velleron and in Paris.

The total cost of the trip was $16,400 or $265 per day. This includes airfare; bike storage, service and insurance; my share of the rental of the house in Velleron; transportation to Paris and back from Avignon; car rental in Velleron; and, daily expenses during the rest of the trip (including hotels, fuel, food and accommodation). With some care, this might have been marginally less. However, I suffer from saying “why not ?” when an attractive hotel or restaurant appears and I feel like a treat. I rationalize this extravagance by thinking that the room or restaurant will be less expensive next day, although it seldom works out like that consistently. That indulgence may also be at least partly to blame for the additional 2 kilos of weight that I am now trying to shed. There is something addictive about baguette that makes it impossible to resist at every meal.

So there you have it: Europe on $300 a day or less. Not cheap, but full of memories that will last forever.

September 18: It seems that I have a day on every trip when my optimism and enthusiasm outweigh my normally conservative approach to touring. Today was one such day. Before leaving the hotel in Lausanne, I noticed that the bike was low on oil. I found a Honda dealer not far from the hotel and the guy took the bike in, gave it a once-over and then topped up the oil for 6 Euro. A kind gesture, and it restored my faith in mankind.

I left along the shore of Lac Leman toward Geneva and at Nyon, turned inland and immediately got lost. I found a taxi garage and the guy was headed out on a call so he led the way to the route I was trying to find. Score: Mankind 2 Failure 0. The pass over the Jura was really nice. It was pretty and with not a lot of traffic, I started to make good time. All of this put me in an optimistic mood, and I started thinking unrealistically about how much ground I could cover during the day, and I mentally picked a town that was really too far for my own good.

I was following a “tourist map” for motorcyclists put out by the Doubs region. A great idea but the map was essentially hand-drawn and had some roads that were not numbered, and towns that seemed to be in the wrong place (according to my infallible internal compass). So the navigating was a pain in the ass, and it took most of the afternoon to cover a relatively short distance. At this point, a sensible person might have decided to look for a hotel and call it a day, but I was committed and, to make up some time, I got on the Auto Route and wailed up toward Mulhouse.

When the Auto Route became tolled, I got off and tried to follow a cross country route to a pass over the Ballon d’Alsace and, of course, got lost again. had optimistically decided to see if I could reach Thann in Alsace. I’ve stayed in a hotel in the centre of town that’s quite nice but it was a huge gamble whether they would have a room when I arrived.

At this point, there was a huge thunder storm dead ahead and I was pretty sure that I would get soaked before Thann. But, by sheer luck, I found the pass and landed at the hotel. Of course, they had no rooms left. There is one other hotel in town, definitely a step down, but they did have a room and it was fine for the night. It looked like nobody was recently murdered there, and the commuter trains passing by the window didn’t keep me awake.

All in: 300 km, the longest day of the trip so far. Hot, exhausted, stinking and in need of a shower and a glass of vino, my self-imposed ordeal is over. But at least I avoided the rain. Ain’t travel great ?

September 18: Fortunately, the Paris discussed in the following post was not typical of our experience of this wonderful city. Suffice to say that it did not disappoint.

Paris is a city that invites walking, and we certainly did our share of exploring on foot. After figuring out how to use the Metro system to reach our starting point, Kate and I wandered for most of the day through Luxembourg Gardens, past Notre Dame, around Montmartre and Isle de la Cite. at the end of each day we had memorable meals, the first at Bofinger and then on our last night at Restaurant Paul in the Place Dauphine. Paris can be a wonderfully romantic city and having Kate with me to share the city added an exciting new dimension to my time there.

That said, it is also a city that attracts thousands of tourists. We visited Trocadero on our first day and there must have been 5,000 people looking across the Seine toward the Eiffel Tower. Accessing the Tower required running a gauntlet of dozens of people all hawking the same souvenirs of the city: all of it schlock. Understandably, there was security everywhere we went, and crowds of gawking people were omnipresent. While this may add something to the “excitement” of the city, after a while I found it very tiring and irritating. I was ready to leave when the time came.

As Kate, Sava and Christy were flying home, I made my way to Avignon on the TGV and then to St. Remy to get my bike out of its’ brief rest in storage.  I then spent 2 days in Venasque a hilltop town not far from where we had rented the house. There is one hotel, two restaurants, a couple of artists selling their works from galleries, several cats and not a lot more. The focal point of the town is the fountain, and the adjacent small cafe. At night, the only noise I could hear was the steady trickle of water from the fountain echoing through the streets. After the intensity of Paris, it was a welcome relief.

September 15: When I was studying urban planning at Ryerson in the early ’70’s, my family took a trip to England. My Dad was hoping to rediscover some of the places where he was stationed during the war, and I was hoping to visit some of the “new towns” constructed to repair damage after the war or to accommodate growth around London. I’m not sure either of us was successful.

When I decided to study urban planning I was somewhat infatuated with the idea that I could somehow create an environment that would make life better for anyone living there. Don Mills was barely 20 years old, and the ideals of modern design were in vogue: there should be separate areas for different (and presumably conflicting) land use; streets were for cars and separate pedestrian routes were fashionable; the “shopping centre” was the focus of daily life; density was achieved in mid- or high-rise towers; and open space was programmed for specific uses. Fortunately, I was a student when Jane Jacobs was becoming a voice for a different type of planning focused on a mix of uses and activities within a more eclectic environment – planning au naturel if you will – and I soon lost interest in highly structured planning.

You can therefore imagine my horror when I found that our hotel in Paris was on the edge of a huge commercial / residential project that completely obliterated any resemblance to the vibrant, street-oriented Paris we know. There was nothing wrong with the hotel or the location (about 10 minutes on foot from the Eiffel Tower), it was the context that was so disturbing.

As I understand it, Beaugrenelle Paris was a “shopping centre” built in the ’60’s as an experiment in brutalist architecture. When it started to decline and stores closed during the ’70’s, a renovation project was undertaken. That seems to have been mostly completed, although there are obviously still some elements to finish.

The result is pretty awful: The streets at grade are horrid dark tunnels giving access to parking and service areas. The podium level has pedestrian routes but there’s really very little retail space that would provide any activity or interest. All of that is indoors in a mall – the largest in central Paris. There are only a few connections down to the surrounding streets and many of those have blind areas and entrapment points which must make them very dangerous after dark. Many of the apartment buildings are built in a brutalist style and most sit on elevated pillars so that the lobbies are not apparent and there’s little interaction or supervision of the pedestrian level.

All of this was quite alarming and a good reminder that trying to recreate an ideal environment through conceptual planning is fraught with peril. As a Planner for the City I would often think that there was really no magic to the job; people generally know what’s right and appropriate. Many architects I met had drunk the Kool Aid and continued to believe that they knew better.  In a very general sense, the Planner’s job then is to balance the need for a technically astute building with the values each community holds for its’ public realm. I  would say that in this case, Paris missed the mark by a wide margin.

https//www.beaugrenelle-paris.com