Eight Days from Possession

Been away for a while. Sorry about that.

Well, we're 8 days from possession in Thompson and we've got a busy week ahead. Transfer party tonight, sign papers for the home here on Tuesday, pack Thursday, load Friday, hit the road North on Saturday.

In the little bits of space in between, we're cleaning out any crap that needs to find the dump, emptying gas-powered tools, disassembling stuff that needs to be disassembled, cleaning up around the yard and trying to make sure both lawyers, the bank, the CRSP and the RC are all on the same page. It's a tad stressful, but we'll get through.

Last I wrote, I think I was trying to change my address and services with all of the utilities and such. Without going into great detail, it was a trying experience. But in the end it was accomplished.

With MTS, I was looking for 12 months of high-speed internet access at $19.99/month because it had been offered by telemarketers who had erroneously promised me high speed at this house, when it was not available - on three separate occasions. After arguing with the customer service rep for half an hour or so, and after being refused the chance to talk to a supervisor, I called the customer relations department. Kelly listened to my story, was surprised my request for a supervisor was refused and then granted me the deal I was after. She was very pleasant and reasonable. It was nice. Too bad I had to go through the Customer Service Rep prior to speaking with her. But it all worked out.

Bell Television worked out eventually as well. But I had to speak to Dominic, who had a severe French-Canadian accent, for an hour before he finally agreed to let me speak to his supervisor. And, after wasting an hour of my life, I solved the problem with Alan in about 45 seconds. Alan understood what I was saying. Dominic did not.

Both of the stories above could have been separate, lengthy blog entries. I did actually keep notes. But I just didn't feel like rehashing them again.

In any case, we're in move mode now. We've been through the list of non-admissable items and are doing our best to use them up. For supper last night, we had pickles, washed down with olive and canola oil - - no liquids may be transported. For breakfast this morning, I think it will be frozen waffles, covered in syrup, worcesteshire sauce, honey and vodka. Waste not, want not.

I hope to keep up the writing throughout the move, but I can't promise. Busy, busy days ahead. If I can't keep up, then we'll see you in Thompson, once we get settled and that high-speed internet gets hooked up. Woohoo!

Disconnected

Okay, house is sold, another house is purchased. We're on our way.

And now begins what I am discovering, and what I expected, will be one of the most annoying phases of the moving game . . . disconnecting and reconnecting my services.

Take the good folks at MTS . . . please. That, for those living outside of Manitoba, is the Manitoba Telecommunications Service - my phone, my cell phone and my internet "service."

I began my quest to change addresses at the handy and convenient MTS website. Where, to my surprise and pleasure, I found the MTS Moving Wizard, a program designed to make my move happen for Phone, Internet and Mobile service, all in one easy, convenient step. Oh joy!

Now before I go on, I should point out that I have dial-up internet service, because the MTS monopoly has not made high-speed available in my neck of the woods. In spite of this, over the years, I have received several phone calls from MTS telemarketers telling me that "high speed internet is now available in your area," and asking me if I wanted to sign up. Each time I have said, "Yes, thank goodness. It's about time. Sign me up, I want it, I want it, I want it!"

And each time, I have called back two or three weeks later only to have a helpful MTS representative tell me, that, no, it is not available. Never, ever, ever did they call ME to let me know. I had to call in spite of the fact that they made the offer and I accepted. At one time, MTS even cancelled my dial-up service in anticipation of my high-speed service and, again, didn't bother to tell me when they discovered high-speed wasn't available at my home. Nor did they re-connect my dial-up service until I called them to complain.

And so, with my blazing dial-up service, I set up an on-line account so that I could take advantage of the wonder that is the Moving Wizard. That took about 15 minutes. But half an hour into trying to use the Wizard, I gave up. The dial-up is just too freakin' slow and, with two toddlers running around, I don't have a few hours to sit at the computer waiting for the next screen. Nor can I tie up the phone line for several hours as I am often waiting for calls from the bank, the lawyer, the real estate agent or the Contracted Relocation Service Provider (CRSP).

And so, this morning, I called MTS to speak to one of the live Wizards and make the change. I went through all of the "For service in English, press 1 . . . for phones, press 1, for Internet press 2 . . . please enter your seven-digit phone number so that we may serve you better . . . please spell out antidisestablishmentarianism using the touchpad on your phone . . ."

When the recorded voice finally said I would be connected with the next available service representative, I got two rings and then a recorded message saying that the office was now closed, followed by the office hours.

Could that vital bit of information not have been imparted prior to the game of 20 questions??

We'll get back to them later.

So on to the satellite people. We have used StarChoice (now Shaw) ever since we started using satellite television. I checked their website for an easy-move option, but again, with dial-up, it takes forever. So I dug around to find a phone number and then gave them a call.

During the HHT, I did notice that there was a dish on the roof of the house in Thompson, but it was too high up to see who owned it, Bell or StarChoice.

"It's not ours," I was told by my friendly StarChoice representative, but that's no problem, we have plenty of time before the move (3 weeks and counting) to have the StarChoice system installed and ready to go. (Remember that as you read on. . . no problem to have a new system installed and ready for action in three weeks). And so, we went through it all: my current address, my future address, name, address, phone number, shoe size, favourite liqueur . . . and then it happened.

I'm sorry, Thompson is a self-install area. We don't do installations there. We can send you the dish, converter and so on, and all you have to do is get the cable, climb on to the roof of your two-storey house, run the cables through the walls to where you want them . . . blah, blah, blah. I had stopped listening.

I explained that I had enough on my plate with the transfer without having to figure out how to do a major installation on move-in day.

"I guess it must be a Bell dish and it will just be easier to go with them," I said.

The kindly representative expressed her grief in my decision, sorry to lose a customer and all that, and then offered to connect me to the customer service people in order to kill my account. But, she warned me, cancellation requires one month's notice. One month's notice?? So to install a new system requires three week's notice, but to cancel the account requires four?? Come on people, do you really wonder why you're hated? Why we feel like we're being screwed over every time we turn around?? Why we're sick and freakin' tired of your "friendly customer service representatives??" Roses and sunshine while we're taking your money, but try to leave after paying for the service for 8 years and we're gonna just grab a little more of your cash before you go.

Anyway, that's my rant for the day. As I continue trying to change my address with all of my service providers, I am sure there will be more to come.

Big smile, big smile.

HHT is Over

Just a quick note this morning.

We're going to cut the HHT short by one day as we seem to have everything in order. Last night we had the home inspected. Everything looks okay, and I'll get the final report this morning.

Awoke this morning, June 5, to snow. Plan is to get breakfast, get the home inspection report and then hit the road, hoping to make it back by 6 p.m. Not looking forward to the drive, but it's part of the package.

In exactly one month, July 5, we will load up the Dodge party wagon one more time for the final trip north. And then it will be three years in Thompson. Mixed feelings here, I'll admit. This city is different than any other I've lived in. Very different. The homeless crowd is disturbing. I'm not sure what is being done, if anything can be done, for them. They wander to the bars and beer stores in the morning, apparently drink all day, and then stumble back to where they sleep throughout the day. It's sad and it's depressing.

Sonwun will start school in Thompson and I hope it is a positive experience for him. Sontoo will start school in the next city or town we move to. It's a strange, interesting, at times stressful and at times exciting kind of life.

Anyway, must get the kids ready, the van loaded and the attitude adjusted for the long drive home.

Offer's In

Good morning and welcome to Day 3 of the HHT.

Last night we submitted an offer on the what we consider to be the best of the worst. It's like so many of the homes here in that it doesn't have it all by any stretch of the imagination. But it has some of the things we think are most important. It is still wildly overpriced - but they all are.

What struck me most this morning, as I drove up the road to Tim Hortons, is that many of the houses we looked at over the last two days had alarm systems. Strange that we're leaving a place where, for the most part, we didn't bother to lock our doors. Here, they're not only locked, they're dead-bolted and the alarms are activated. Sad but true.

Anyway, the offer expires at 4 p.m. today. In the meantime, at 9:30 this morning, we will be taking a second look at one of the other potential properties. If the deal on this first house doesn't happen, we move on, check out some more and make another offer. After all, including today, there are only 3 days left in the HHT. Too much pressure for such an important decision, I think.

As for Thompson, it's a little smaller than I thought it would be. Population, they tell me, is about 15,000. But everyone is squeezed in to a tight bit of real estate here. Going from one end of town to the other takes a little less than five minutes. Packed into that space, though, is a Walmart, Canadian Tire, Safeway, Staples, Tim Hortons, Boston Pizza, KFC and a fair number of other restaurants, bars, beer stores and assorted businesses.

Last night we took Sonwun and Sontoo to a playground at one of the local schools. There were a lot of kids there, which is nice to see. Sonwun had an absolute blast playing with the other kids, climbing things, running around like a maniac, falling off things . . . everything he's been denied for the last few days. He's been strapped into that damn car seat since Sunday, going from house to house, not being allowed to touch, not being allowed to run. He was a bomb waiting to go off. I think we'll be going back there at some time today.

Anyway, the boys are up and it's time to get the day under way. Wish us luck.

HHT Day 2

Good morning and welcome to Day 2 of the HHT. Yesterday we looked at about a dozen overpriced houses. The list is shorter today.

I must admit I'm a little shell-shocked. These places we looked at, which have an average price of about $245,000, are old (built, on average, in 1965), in need of work and, in some cases, downright ugly. We found one house that seems to be in move-in condition, but the taxes are ridiculous ($258/month), it has no garage and is in a questionable neighbourhood. And by questionable, I mean it is surrounded by low-income housing which, I'm told, is home to many of the many gang members in Thompson.

I guess it's probably true of any house-hunting trip. You find one house in your price range with a nice upstairs, another with a nice rec room in the basement, another with a beautiful garage and another with a well-landscaped yard. But you just can't find one that puts it all together . . . unless of course you have a good chunk more than a quarter of a million dollars to spend on a house. We don't.

We're not looking for the Taj Mahal here. Just a decent house on a decent street at a decent price with a reasonable amount of space for a family of four. And I'm beginning to believe that, in Thompson, we might as well be looking for the Taj Mahal.

Before I go any further, I should point out that, after 8.5 hours of driving on Sunday, I got about six hours sleep. After a day of house-hunting with two children in tow, I got about 4.5 hours. So if I spell something wrong, or miss a word or sentence entirely, forgive me. But I digress.

The plan today is to look at a few more houses. Two of them we ignored yesterday because they only had two bedrooms on the main floor. We'd prefer three so that we're closer to Sonwun and Sontoo. The third house we plan to see today is . . . you know what? To describe the house for you, I just checked the real estate sheet. There's not a snowball's chance in hell we can afford it. So, maybe we'll only look at two today.

One of the two-bedroom homes we planned to look at today was built in 1969 (40 years old). It's on a 54' X 100' lot and it is 1008 sq ft. Gross taxes in 2008 were $2,919.93. It has oak cabinets in the kitchen, two bedrooms upstairs and one down, two bathrooms and a "fully fenced and landscaped yard." And forgive me for being pessimistic, but I saw several "fully fenced and landscaped yards" yesterday that were, well, mostly fenced and somewhat landscaped. So we'll just have to wait and see. Asking price, by the way, is $249,900.

We'll also be looking at a newer, two-bedroom home today, in a decent neighbourhood. It looks nice on line, but so many of them have. This one was built in 1990, is on a 60 X 120 lot and boasts 1190 sq feet of living space. There are actually 3 bathrooms, including the ensuite, it has a concrete foundations, 2X6 wall construction . . . blah, blah, blah. Asking $259,900. Oh, yeah, and gross taxes of $3444.60 per year.

Anyway, that's what's happening here in the Hub of the North. Stay tuned . . .

HHT Begins

Well, we made it to Thompson.

Took about 8.5 hours from home, including an hour for a crappy breakfast and a couple of roadside stops to keep the kids sane. Stopped at Pisew Falls for a quick look - beautiful. Ice bridge at the base of the falls, similar to Niagara, only on a much smaller scale.

First impressions of Thompson are not great, I must say. There are a lot of apartment buildings, many in less-than-impressive shape. To be fair, we only got a brief tour on our way to the hotel. We're staying at the Country Inn and Suites and I can't complain about it. Pretty clean, nice suite with separate bedroom so the kids can go to sleep in a quiet area.

We had dinner last night at one of the "fine dining" establishments in town: Grapes. Food was okay, but steady stream of less-than-sobre individuals making their way in and out of the "lounge area," took a little out of the experience.

Today we head out on the first house-hunting expedition. After only about 6 hours sleep, I'm a tad tuckered, but breakfast should remedy that.

Anyway, will write more later as time allows. Also hope to post some pictures for your amusement.