weblog d'oobedoo

I spent a little over an hour today out at Red Deer Regional Airport. I was there to get a photo of a Boeing 737 that was transporting air cadets in and out of summer cadet camp. Technically, the runway isn’t long enough for 737 service, I understand. (Actually, I don’t understand at all. AFAIK, they’ve been landing 737s here for more than a decade. Since there’s none hanging around, they must be taking off as well).
When I arrived, the Boeing was already there, which was too bad, I had hoped for a photo of it landing.
So, while I waited for it to refuel, reload and taxi away, I watched a remarkable amount of activity. I didn’t count, but a lot of aircraft came and went while I watched. there were four from Skywings doing circuits. It appears the pilots in training were the aforementioned air cadets. I watched as an ambulance pulled out on the tarmac and personnel loaded a patient onto the Alberts Air Ambulance and it flew off.
An Electra water bomber was wheeled down to the far end of the runway, where they were testing it – I had hoped it would fly right by, but it never left the ground. A young pilot arrived in a DA20-A1 Diamond Eclipse, which I later tracked down to the Edmonton Flying Club, so he was doubtless building up hours.
One of the Skywings planes landed, the instructor got out and walked back to the office; the young pilot went off and did circuits solo. I wonder if I was witnessing his first solo flight? A helicopter came in low overhead and,oblivious to all the activity, dropped down onto the tarmac near the 737.
Finally, a boisterous group of cadets filed out and onto the 737 and a few minutes later, it went from being the biggest thing on the ground to a tiny speck in the sky.
Felt like an hour off to me.

Got a call this morning from Greg at Telus. He was the manager that I spoke with yesterday regarding the acid trip our Telus TV install turned into. He made no excuses, but he did make amends. I’m pleased to announce that rbgilgan@telus.net is now funneling email into my inbox again. The first since June3.
The second digital box will arrive on August 9 and then I can watch TV on my computer again. Or not, which is generally the case outside of hockey season.
And the over-arching grievance, an overcharge that lay hidden in the peculiar language of the phone bill, is to be credited on our next bill. And we’ve come to an agreement on salving the pain from the days of waiting; as they say in the hockey business, terms were not disclosed. Suffice to say, the future is no longer fiendly.
So – now I can move on and find something else to blog about. I’m on it.

Another ruined day, courtesy of Telus. I bet you thought we’d seen the last of this thread when the high speed turned out to be real, honest-to-goodness high speed. I know that’s what I was wishing for. God knows, I have better things to do than blog about an incompetent telecommunications company.
So – why don’t I just quit my bitching and tell them to come and get their crap and get out of my life and buy my services from someone else? Well, it’s like this: I’m connected to countless web sites, services, accounts, people and businesses through my email address, which I’ve had for more than a decade. Dropping that address means many, many hours of reconfiguring and updating information and I’m really concerned that I’ll miss a couple. That won’t just impact me, but could also impact clients of mine and I wouldn’t know it happened until the damage was done.
Now, I’m going to do a bunch of that anyway. If I’ve learned something from this debacle it’s that these companies aren’t particularly credible. Having myself anchored to one probably isn’t the best idea. At least with rob@gilgan.com, the whole situation is portable, on my terms, more or less. I can move my domain and the mail will just follow me.
So – today’s issue – when they installed the Telus TV, the installer only brought one digital box. Even though when we ordered the service and explained in great hoary detail how we’d be using Telus TV (in the livingroom and in the office) and what equipment specifically would be connected (right down to the model number on the TV tuner for the computer), the guy couldn’t install the second box. No, that would require another order, through, wouldn’t you know it, another ordering queue entirely.
And when this whole peculiar trip began back on the 26th of May, Telus had to release our decade-old email addresses and couldn’t assign them to the account until the installation was complete. Ordering the second digital box (the second time, in my opinion) meant the installation wasn’t complete, which in turn means we continue to have to access our Telus email via Telus webmail – easily the worst implementation of webmail I’ve ever encountered. Oh, Telus? How long you leaving that puppy in beta? But I digress.
We were on the phone from 11 a.m. until 2:45, when we had to leave. The installer was supposed to be here at 10 to install the second digital box. This was a make-up appointment for the appointment they blew off on the 13th. That was a stay-home-all-day-we’ll-get-there-when-we-get-there appointment, but Telus didn’t show. Or call. I mean, they’re a TELEPHONE company. Why couldn’t they call?
So, a disgusted ‘support’ person booked a Saturday 10 a.m. spot – they’d be here for sure.
So – this keeps happening and we’re asking….if Telus will book appointments when they screw up, why don’t they just book appointments all the time and deliver a reasonable level of customer service?
Ya know, the second digital box? Not that important. I won’t likely watch much TV until the fall anyway. But this imbecilic company won’t restore our email addresses, nor deal with the other outstanding issue until the installation is complete. This is their company policy.
The other irony? Nancy, the support person who kept me waiting for two hours on hold today? 31 years with Telus. She’s heard all the horror stories. Starting to see a pattern here.
Anyway – at 4:15 got a call that a manager will call me at 10 tomorrow morning to deal with the escalation of this issue. Think Telus is going to change their bizarre business practices? Me either.
Now, I’ll go take you a nice picture of my yard.

I had the pleasure, this weekend, of touring the new Penhold Regional Multiplex. I shot this feeble video, to give you a glimpse of what the leadership in Penhold have done to ensure a community and not just a town grows out of the prairie south of Red Deer.

I lived in Penhold, from ’73-’77 and again from ’80 – ’82. There was never really much hope on the horizon in those days. It was difficult to have a business thrive with Red Deer so close by. And with few thriving businesses, Penhold depended largely on residential taxes to maintain infrastructure and forge the future.

The suburbs of Penhold were inevitable; as long as serviced land was cheaper there than 10 km north, there was good reason to develop detached housing. But housing, without community just means people sleep there. They’ll do pretty much everything else, like shop, entertain themselves and involve themselves somewhere else. Where the facilities and people are.

So – the Mulitplex is a gutsy move on a whole bunch of levels. It’s a $21 million investment in the probability that regional partners are going to ‘partner-up’. It casts the Penhold community in a strong direction. I think it’s going to take a few months for this all to sink in, for Penhold’s citizens to truly grasp what they’ve got. This video just gives you a glimpse.

I hope as it sinks in they realize that they have something else that will serve them well into the future, if they take good care of it: community leadership.