Sep 21 - out and about

Sandy headed off to see Stef, Kylie, Joyce, Al (hair), St. Lawrence (Market), staying overnight in Oakville, I think.  She called me late afternoon to report that even though she had cellular/mail off, she was still getting emails.  She'd turned cellular data on to be able to pickup iMsg from Joyce and Kylie. 

We've signed up for the Canada/Mexico plan that allows 100 minutes / 100 texts / 100 mb at a special rate of $5 per month per phone.  It was a good deal; don't know if that's a price that expires or continues beyond the three months rate.  If it expires, we'll turn it off while we're in Florida, but we really needed a plan that gave us some data while in Canada.  If we leave data on, even though we're at the cottage most of the time, even email polling will eat up 100mb when we're in range.  We did a test and iMsg polling eats us mb's as well, but that might actually be incorrect if email cannot be turned off; perhaps it was email that was using the mb's.

Prior to heading to Europe, we changed our plans from the linked minutes North American plan that we had, which was a grandfathered option, and 2gb for Sandy, unlimited for me, to Verizon's everything plan that provides unlimited minutes and texts across both phones and opted for 2gb data.  We'll see if that works, but we found that neither of us would hit 1gb in practice, unless we worked at it by sending large pictures or streaming video when we were out of any wifi service.  The plan is "supposed" to give us notice if we approach the limit and we can then extend or simply pay for another whack of data as it occurs, but cheaper to extend retroactively. 

What a game this is.  Hopefully this will knock something off our monthly Verizon bill but who knows.  It's really impossible to work out what the final bill will look like.  The current invoice includes global while we were in Europe as well as bill-in-advance aspects for the changes, so it will be a couple of bills down the road before I see a stable bill, if ever !

Meantime, I went for a bike ride.  I've been riding the Litespeed around here and wishing that I had a longer steerer as I'm finding that it's hard on the back.  My new bike has the bars about 2 inches higher, with shorter reach.  If I want to continue to use the Litespeed for some riding, which is probably a good idea, I will likely replace the fork.  Perhaps I'll order another Ti fork.

Before I went out for my ride, I did some tinkering with the True North (TN), working on the front rack.  I got it straightened (had bent it at PBP) and also worked on straightening the front light mount, which was always a little off kilter.  The other thing that I did was raise the decaleur support for the front bag by 1" by cutting 1.5" aluminum extensions.  It's something that I've been meaning to do.  I could actually raise it another 1/2" because as it currently sits, the bag is slightly squashed, draping over the front rack. 

That's about it.  I had leftover chicken and odds and ends for dinner. 

It's quiet here.  I don't think that I've ever stayed here alone.  I've always kept Abby here when Sandy heads off and vice versa when I head off. 

Here are some pictures of Abby. 

The first one is under the table at the cottage; always close to us.  This was taken during the summer.

Here she is on the way north from Sheryl's a few days ago.  If there was something in the backseat with her, she would rest her head on it while sleeping.  In this case it was the "grandma" plants that we'd left in Sheryl's care while we were away.  Her blue monkey is right there too.  She looks kind of sad here, but not really.  She was always happy in the car.

Here's our pretty girl last Christmas.  She was freshly groomed and ready for the trip north.  The groomer would always put a kerchief on to match the season.   She wouldn't keep booties on her feet to protect them from getting snow packed between her toes but didn't care about the kerchief. 


Here are a few more -- when she was young, before she was ready to leave the nest.  looks like her head had been licked by the mother dog.  She's being held by the lady who bred the dogs.  The second picture is when Sandy picked her up and the third when she was home with us in Radnor. 

 

Last but not least, here's Vickie.  At 17 years old it seemed like she'd be with us forever.  She was having trouble with stairs, losing strength in her hind end, due to hip displasia.  At 17, using the dog-year 7x formula, she'd be the equivalent of 119.  Always eager to play, she couldn't launch herself off the dock anymore, but would still swim and fetch.  A very good dog, she didn't have Abby's range of personality, but our memories are probably dimmed with time.