Webcam fixed, internet access woes, and hold the grease please

Good news! I fixed the webcam so you can look out my window again.  I think I should look for sponsorship, maybe from a landscaping company or John Deere so we can keep the lawn and gardens looking nice for you 🙂

Looks like it is time to cut more trees down, you can barely see the lake! Maybe this weekend we’ll fire up the chain saw and sharpen up the Sandvik.

Internet Woes

It was another weekend with a challenge.  Living out here in the country, we don’t have many options for internet service providers. We use a company (Seaside Communications) that offers wireless internet from their towers that were funded by provincial government grants.

Unfortunately their internet service leaves a lot to be desired at times, especially on holidays and weekends.  It was not usable for a good chunk of Saturday, and all day Sunday until 8pm.  Yesterday it cycled on and then off every 2 minutes or so for HOURS and hours.

I want to give this trial job opportunity everything I have and these roadblocks are so stressful. I need to get a reliable laptop and  a backup working location in town where the internet is much more reliable.  I think Antigonish needs a co-working place!

Ewww, the grease!

I came into town yesterday to escape the frustration of the internet unavailability and get groceries.  I went through the McDonalds drive thru and ordered a couple chicken snack wraps.

I drove away to park somewhere peaceful, beside some trees, and opened the bag to discover an extra-large fry order, and 3 specially ordered double cheese burgers with double cheese, one slice of bacon, ketchup, and no other toppings.  Ewww yucky.

(I caved and ate one) (regretted it for hours)

I should have went back, but I never do that.  Why? I have no idea.

Wonder how happy the guy who ordered that was to find just 2 chicken snack wraps?  I thought the bag felt kinda heavy.

Fibre Op

While I was in town, I went to the Bell shop in the mall to ask about their fibre optic internet service. We were told our little rural community would have it by last Christmas. We regularly spotted their contracted surveyors studying the route from town to just past our place.

The two people working the desk at Bell laughed at me.  They said it’ll be AT LEAST another 2 years before we see the fibre.  From what they told me, Bell has finished installing it in Antigonish and now plans to spread out along the TransCanada highway to Cape Breton.

Sigh 🙁

The wireless is slow, but it is perfectly usable (unless you want streaming video). But the regular downtime is frustrating.  Not frustrating enough to reinstall the satellite internet or switch to dial up, but really not far from it. I just wish we had options. Even a cell data plan is out of the question since we only have 1-2 signal bars, and only when we’re standing against the front windows of the house.

I guess this is one of the few cons to country living!

Tropical Storm Andrea

The weekend was cold and wet as the leftovers  from Tropical Storm Andrea came through Atlantic Canada. We really only had one good wind gust on Saturday that felt like a tropical storm and the rest was rain. I didn’t feel the warm, moist air that we were supposed to feel as the storm approached, but I was probably working and oblivious to it.  We got about 40-50 mm of rain. Nothing we couldn’t handle.