Snow Clearing

I don’t know how snow clearing works where you live, but here in Calgary, it is as if what roads are to be cleared are being decided by some descendant of Paul the world cup octopus oracle - it's random and without purpose.

This is decidedly a local rant, in fact maybe even neighbourhood based, but the approach the city has clearly doesn’t work.

Friday morning we had the snowfall warning - 25 cm over two days, not much by Eastern terms, but big for Calgary exacerbated by the fact that the major snowfalls usually follow a very mild period and are accompanied by cratering temperatures. This means the first snow hits, the temp drops, it freezes and ice, ice and more ice. Snow started on Friday aft.

Sure enough, I woke up on Saturday morning to a fresh skiff of 6 inches of white stuff.

During the course of Saturday morning I shuttled the girls around to dance and other stuff and I saw not a single snow plow. Unlike Montreal where I grew up, homeowners in Calgary are responsible for shoveling their sidewalks. I personally think if the citizens of Calgary can be responsible enough to have already shovelled and cleared a majority of their walks by noon on Saturday, surely the City public works can get their heads out of their collective asses long enough to run a plow down the major road near our neighbourhood - which only connects the only two north-south roads to speak of in town.

Ironically the salt and sand truck apparently passed by - over the unplowed major thoroughfare - how in the h*** is that supposed to be effective?

I am told that the City of Calgary actually has less plows now than it did 20 years ago when the city was half the size and two thirds the population. How does that math even work?

This is more than an annoyance – this is dangerous. The City is putting its citizens in jeopardy by not doing this right. I am outraged with every snowfall but nothing ever gets done. Most people just shrug it off and say that “the city is saving money by just waiting for a chinook” which is a nice laissez-faire way of saying that expectations are so low that people have resigned themselves to a possible early death from some yahoo spinning out in front of them.

We claim to be a world class city, but when you look at the delivery of some pretty basic services, we are definitely bush league. Grr.

Dear City of Calgary - snow plows, graders, snow blowers, dump trucks. Is it too much to ask?

Oh yeah - they call it snow removal here... Note to civil servants, if you call it removal, please remove it.

When Fast is Relative

So, this is the whole value of time thing again. Combined with a little "oops" and "duh" on my part. And a little bit of technological slavery to round it out.

So, I have this old war-horse laptop, I think it was designed by Thomas Edison, but I can't be sure. At any rate, it has served me well, I technically never paid for it and it gets me from point A to point B in a spreadsheet or on the Internet with a minimum amount of fuss.

It is also home to every single last iota of work, personal data, photos, music and whatever else you can think of. Since I back up my laptop as often as people change their tires (i.e. only when they get a flat), you can guess what complete, horrific and unmitigated disaster was waiting for me.

It all started innocently enough. I noticed the laptop was running a bit slow so I decided to power it down and restart it as it hadn't had any rest since, oh I don't know - December 14. Anyway, I try to turn it off using the standard Windows function - click on Start, make a coffee, see if the menu has come up... That doesn't work. Then I push the power button (option number 2). That doesn't work. Then the menu finally pops up. The old Thomas Magnum voice in the back of my head is practically screaming at me at this point to "NOT TURN IT OFF UNTIL YOU DO A BACK UP!!!!!!". So of course Monkey Stu clicks shut down. And that, as they say, was that. Laptop deader than a dead parrot.

Swiftly flying into action, I began cursing and swearing like a crazed person. By the time I calmed down though, I had formed a plan of action - go to the local computer store and get the data backed up and purchase a new laptop - I understand the ones they make now actulally show pictures and don't have an amber screen.

The next morning while reading the paper, I note that Dell has a boxing day type special on, so I figure what the hey, if I am going to buy a laptop, why not get a higher end one, so that when it breaks I can cry that much harder. Ever helpful sister in law does some research for me, specs out a killer machine and even confirms with Dell that they have multiple shipping options. Things are looking up.

I confidently take my laptop to the computer store and ask the lady to back up my hard drive and not to try to revive the laptop. She sets off to work on it, but not before asking me if I would like to purchase a laptop from them, as they are a Dell reseller. No, I say, looking at the laptop in the display, not necessary - I have already ordered one. Which I had.

Because prior to leaving the house I had used my even older, spare, laptop (otherwise known as the abacus, or that piece of **it) to go to the Dell website and order the first, flirty business laptop that came along. Options selected, ready to go, I am about to be in the saddle with this sweet little number for all of $700. Awesome - although, why does my price not match the one my sis-in-law found? I text her immediately. Did I select the "Fast Ship" option she asks? Crap say I. Completed my order and noticed buried in the corner the 15 business day minimum shipping.

What now? Well, I will just rebuild my order, with an equivalent Fast Ship option. Better yet, I will call Dell and get them to place the order for me so no mistakes can be made!! Aha!

Soon, I am through to my new "Dedicated Sales Rep" who puts together the order for me, finds the model I was looking for and says it is available on Fast Ship, which I have variously been told can be overnight, next day or a few days. Rock and Roll!!! Oh, and the laptop is now $950. No matter, I am the master of all this stuff - I gladly pay the premium, confident that I will have the weekend to configure the beast before I go back to work.

That was December 29.

On December 30, I stop by the computer store and pick up my backup and look half longingly at the $1,000 Dell laptop sitting in their display, but, I say to myself - MINE will be better!

December 31... January 1... January 2... January 3...

I email my Dedicated Sales Rep and she tells me that laptop has shipped - oh joy! Not though from Mississaugau or wherever to Calgary. Nope, it's coming from the States to Canada. I get a tracking number that doesn't work. I get a nice email from Dell telling me my order "has shipped". That's it.

January 4 - my rep assures me that the laptop will be in Canada sometime this week. My laptop is presently in Hoboken. I presume that means it will be in my lap sometime in February. That means I use the Abacus until something better comes along. And I assure you - it is junk.

We are now at 7 days and counting. Day 15 would be the end of next week, which is when I likely would have received the $750 not-Fast Ship option. Of course a week ago tomorrow is when I could have had the Dell from the local shop or any number of perfectly acceptable off the shelf generic laptops from Best Buy, Future Shop, other computer stores or wherever.

What is the lesson? Heed your own lessons - time is money! Through this whole exercize I ended up spending more than I wanted to, have been withut laptop longer than I wanted to be and have elevated my blood pressure and reduced my work efficiency more than usual.

On the plus side, I have a cracker jack new "Dedicated Sales Rep" who I will probably never speak to again and who has probably already left for the Caymans using my Amex number and, even better, I now get daily emails from Dell telling me how fabulous they are and how they can meet all of my technology needs, almost always with a Fast Ship option.

People who don't value time

So, day after boxing day.

What is with people? The population of a small city descend on a mall to capture specials that they could have got online or before Christmas or most days of the week without the pain, suffering, angst and general annoyance that comes with horde-shopping.

These are people who obviosuly don't value their own time.

So here is how it works.

Take your annual salary and divide by 1900. This is roughly how much your employer values an hour of your time.

Take the hours you wasted standing in line for that "Once in a lifetime deal" and multiply it by the value of an hour of your time. Subtract that from what you "saved" when you bought the item.

If the result is negative, you lost money on the deal.

Put another way, if you get paid $38,000 a year, your hour is worth $20. If you spent 6 hours chasing deals, you would need to have saved in excess of $120 to make it worth your while.

Don't even get me started on the environmental cost of how long your engine idled and how much gas you wasted or the health care costs of the days taken off your life from high blood pressure.

Meh.

Does it really have to be like that?

So, I am just winding down from day 3 at Disney World. The songs are still rattling around in my head and everyone I see seems to have some kind of exaggerated movement and amplified voice. I have met at least five princesses. So I know what you're thinking - another slam of the mouse, but that's really not where I'm at. I actually think Disney is brilliantly conceived - the rides, the shows, the parades, the exceptionally awesome selection of greasy food, the massive organization required to put on this display day in and day out 365 days a year? Outstanding. My girls loved it. I loved that they loved it. I couldn't help but smile while I was there (well except for Epcot, but that's for another day)

But...

The crowds. Seriously, what planet do these people come from?

You know the ones I mean. The gate runners, the gate-pushers, the line-cutters, the dodgers, the pushers, the family-joiners, the six wides, the oversized, the undersized, the ten year old in a stroller, the show and ride texters (seriously, who texts while a country bear is having a jamboree?), the sudden stoppers, the slow walkers, the stroller kickers, the upstream swimmers, the bewildered numbskulls, the foot steppers, the backpack whackers, the unapologetic kid-smackers, the loud talkers, the walking video and photograph takers, the washed and unwashed. We were pushed and jostled and forced to run a slalom from the moment we got out of our car until the moment we got back into it.

I know it's a small world after all, but does it have to be so full of yahoos?

Have a magical day.