Grew Up Stopping

Growing up in Saskatchewan, prior to cell phones, it was common to encounter a car at the side of the road, and you’d slow and stop to check they were okay. They might not see another person pass by for hours, and could be in need of a rescue. We did save the lives of some elderly neighbours once who’d slipped into the ditch and couldn’t dig out and would have frozen if we’d not pulled their truck out and got them warmed up.

The other week I noticed this amazing story of a woman who used Facebook to send out an SOS, and people identified where she was and found a farmer able to come to her aid. The story gets more amazing:

In reality, most people in Saskatchewan are generous and kind.

"Bouvier didn't want much credit for his efforts for a stranger in need.

"Everybody would have done the same thing," he said. "You don't think about it, you just do it." https://t.co/qpE2zXs0Rb

— Saskboy from Saskatchewan (@saskboy) February 14, 2022

Thanksgiving Sadness

My Mum passed away in the early morning of Thanksgiving this year. She’s being missed by all who cared for her, and nearly everyone who met her cared for her because she was a lovely person.

I didn’t know what to put on my blog about this. I’ve been braced for this time for most of a decade, with her first getting very sick almost 8 years ago. She wasn’t expected to survive, but the surgery and chemo then worked, and she outlived my Dad who got cancer after her, but died first. They joked that they were racing to see who would first. Mum lived to her mid 70s, which is a whole lot better than mid 60s, but of course I’d rather mid 90s like her Mum, my Grandma. Cancer took both my parents, which sucks.

I have memories of a lifetime, and also special ones kept safe online like this one from the National Film Board where she makes an appearance:

What It Is Like Biking In Regina In Winter

I was glad this was mostly a tail wind, because below -15 it’s too cold to deal with a head wind all this way. I needed to angle the bike a bit more into the wind, so it wasn’t vulnerable to tipping while I was off it.

Moving Boxes and Furniture

I spent many of the last few days moving boxes, furniture, and an assortment of household items. Fortunately no appliances to move, so there’s that ray of hope.

A Tale About Buying an Electric Car

There’s no place to buy a used Electric Vehicle in Regina, in 2017. This is a problem. It’s one I don’t have the ability to solve, but it affects me because I’m interested in helping people know how to get an electric car if they live in southern Saskatchewan.

There was a site my friend had directed me to, and it had less selection and higher prices than I was looking for. I started looking earlier this year, and the prices on Auto Trader, although better, were still a few too many thousands of dollars out of my price range. I put the project on hold until the new Nissan Leaf was set to be announced in early September. After patiently dealing with a sluggish salesperson for a couple days in Port Moody over phone-tag, I found a 2014 Leaf SV in Vancouver for $16000, with the features I was looking for, and put a $500 down payment on it easily by credit card. Then, the real difficulties began…

I bank with several different banks. The one with the money for the car is not a Big 5, but it’s owned by the Big 5. They don’t have a SWIFT code, which is apparently required to send money by wire transfer. It would have been at least 2 days to move the money to another bank, and $50 to wire it, or $10 to buy a bank draft and courier it to me. I chose the latter, and Purolator didn’t successfully leave me a notice of the delivery. I phoned the bank 3 days later asking what was going on, and they said it was already in Regina. The following morning I went to pick it up, and courier it to the auto dealer in Vancouver. That evening, I got word that my Dad had passed away.

The following week, I got a paper to sign and send back, which I did electronically, and was soon told the car would ship and be in Regina at Regina Honda by “mid-week”. When Wednesday rolled around, and I didn’t get a phone call, I got in touch with the sales person (who was the 2nd I dealt with, as the first one left employment at the Vancouver dealer in the meantime). They noted the car hadn’t been picked up by the shipping company yet! They got a new promise of 7-10 days from the following day when it would be picked up, he assured me. I suggested a partial refund of $200 may be in order. He and his manager were not eager to make such a deal.

Day 10 was about to roll around, so I called to get some facts, and they said it was set to be delivered on Monday. I was hoping for the Friday, but close enough. On Monday, no phone call arrived. I called the Regina Dealer, to check it hadn’t been dropped off, and it hadn’t. The Vancouver sales person emailed the shipping company and asked them to contact me with what happened. They suggested that they hoped it would be in Regina a week later!

I was not pleased. I suggested that was unacceptable. My salesperson agreed, and also demanded better of the shipping company Car-Fre’.

3 and a half weeks waiting for it to arrive was too long. The dealer/shipper missed 2 self-imposed delivery dates. The Port Moody dealer finally admitted they were taking too long, and promised a $500 refund of the $1000 to ship it, which I happily accepted.

It arrived October 19, 2017, at Regina Honda on Broad St. The truck operator unloaded it, it was conveniently placed at the back of the semi trailer. I went to Galon Insurance down the street, they collected the PST, the conditional 28 day registration, gave me a plate, and I bought an AutoPak from SMI, it was about $40 less than SGI’s. I didn’t have a wrench with me to get the new plate on, so a salesperson at Regina Honda helped me out. As we walked to the vehicle, they asked why we didn’t buy directly from them, “You don’t sell it, unfortunately.”

I got back to work, and parking was temporarily free in the lot I picked, BONUS! It should be free-ish for EVs anyway, at this point in Regina’s history, at least until they become much more common.

I’d hoped to be able to offer a template to others so they could copy my experience, but it’s better if they don’t. While the Port Moody Honda dealer eventually made things better with the partial shipping refund, they weren’t really keen on shipping out of province, and only do it a few times a year.

The shipping company dropped the ball completely. They only came through at the end because an auto-dealer lit a fire under their butts. Their latest review on Yellowpages was from another unhappy customer. If your expectation is that it’ll arrive sometime long after promised, they’re good enough. If you want it the same month, try another method.

If you’ve enough money for a new car, a more immediate method of getting an EV to Regina would be to buy one at Evergreen Nissan in Prince Albert. It’s 400km away though, so you’ll still need to ship it, or take a full day or two to drive it down to Regina. Maybe Regina Nissan will catch on, or be dragged into the future not too long from me writing this.

UPDATE: The PST and shipping refunds arrived at the end of October by mail.

What A Week

A week ago my Dad passed away from complications due to his cancer treatments. I last saw him in person 3 weeks ago on Labour Day Sunday, and he seemed to be doing about as well as anyone who has been through months of chemotherapy. Earlier in the week my Godmother, Betty Klein, also passed away from cancer. Prior to that, my friend Dawn lost her husband to cancer too.

Then I had to move some furniture around in my condo. All this after a thousand kilometers of driving in the past few days. A couple muted birthday celebrations in the middle of that too. I did enjoy seeing my extended family, although many noted we all wished it was under happier circumstances. We’re getting to the older side of life where more often we all meet during a funeral than a wedding or holiday.

The worst news

For those who didn't get to meet him, here he is in the National Film Board short film about Wood Mountain, Sask. https://t.co/emQenWXNeP

— Saskboy (@saskboy) September 22, 2017

Moose Jaw Reunion

I was in Moose Jaw for a family reunion on Sunday. My Dad was in hospital fighting off another infection, while his immunity is compromised by chemo. The rest of the Kleins who could make it were in Wakamow Valley Park. Some other family had taken over the pavilion we’d booked, but we easily found a nearby suitable site by the iron bridge.

I’d brought my Sondors ebike along, and after some others in my family had a spin, I took it around the southern part of Moose Jaw.

Wonder Woman

Last Tuesday I went to see Wonder Woman [9/10], with Jeri. We tried the reclining seat theatre at the Southland Mall. The chairs were not so great. They had cool electronic buttons to kick up the foot rest, but they didn’t recline worth a darn. As a Klein, I know a good re-kleiner when I feel one, and these gave me a sore neck and/or spasmy back. It felt like being held in an awkward L shape by an Amazon woman.

The movie on the other hand was rather enjoyable, and I’d definitely recommend it. They didn’t make it obvious enough to some viewers that it’s World War I; I heard someone speaking after, thinking it was during WWII.

This is a piece of preserved leather Roman armor made out of a crocodile hide. pic.twitter.com/9Wpghyt7Q1

— Amanda Weaver (@AWeaverWrites) June 25, 2017

Paved Paradise Because Parking Was Already There

July 5th, 2016, after years of a mud pit following the rip-out of the previous playground:

Now it looks like this again:

Reasoning given:

 A project of this scale requires a large site and staging area directly adjacent to the building. The site, the courtyard immediately west of the building and south of Wascana Daycare, is a centrally located site that allows for a full and safe construction staging area which will house cranes and heavy equipment.

This area creates efficiencies for the contractor, minimizes the impact on surrounding community and safeguards all who need to access the building and surrounding area. Using this site saves us money on the overall project, even if you include the cost of removing and reinstalling the playground.

When the playground was initially constructed, approval for the College West construction program was not yet granted.

A faculty member responds:

“As Dena mentioned, there was no approval for the $38M+ project prior to building the playground. But surely it must have been on the radar – $38M+ projects don’t materialize over the course of a few months, do they?  Or perhaps they do, because in fact, the BoG approved the renovations of College West on July 5th (the same day the fences [were] installed, it seems; …

Perhaps being prudent in building the playground would have been wise.”

A parent with an impacted child thinks so too:

“when I dropped my son off on Monday, he was DEVASTATED to see a bulldozer tearing up the his new playground. While it is posed to be rebuilt, it will not be until 2018.”

This is another frustrating example of construction on the University of Regina campus. Over the years I’ve proposed and supported many projects. Some are now realities, like the park and ride at Conexus Arts Centre (used by the Health Region instead), The RPIRG Green Patch garden, and the U-Pass universal bus pass for students which drastically cut the cost of a bus pass for students and increased bus service on campus. But also many more ideas have been rejected or have yet to be built. There’s no wind-row composting system on vacant University land. There’s still no energy dashboard, but there’s one apparently in the works and behind schedule. And there’s no separated bicycle infrastructure on streets. There’s no single-stream recycling system. No composting system. Not a single on-grid solar panel array. The thousands of dollars that went into constructing a playground and fence in use for less than 4 months, could have gone a long long way into implementing any of those other ideas and wouldn’t have been bulldozed in under a year.

I usually keep these sort of writings internal and send them directly to President Timmons, since she does respond and listen to what I have to say. This example though is already done, and was already done wrong. The money is gone, wasted. What do I hope for? Better foresight in project planning, and more willingness to try ideas proposed by staff and students. I can’t help but feel that a playground was destroyed literally in front of children who loved it, because a nearby parking lot is too precious to people who need to get over their love affair with their cars.

There are places in our city that fund raise for playgrounds, and our University is creating and destroying them in an unimaginable time scale. This is not sustainable growth. Unless you can build, destroy, build, destroy, then rebuild a playground within ten years in a sustainable way.