I Thought This Post Wasn’t Going To Happen

Greetings all.

Our internet went down hard yesterday (Thursday) morning. Rebooting the cable modem did not resolve it. Nothing I tried fixed it, in fact. So I called the ISP and talked to them for over an hour and they filed a ticket with the provider. (I use a reseller and the underlying provider is one of the big Canadian telcos. I do that because my past experience with telco support in the US is — frankly — awful.)

Anyway, despite all the help they could provide nothing worked. Later in the day I tried it all again on my own and while it worked briefly, it immediately stopped working again and we were still down. An hour later the ISP called me back to say that the big telco had looked at the trouble ticket and found my modem was down. Naturally it was down… I was rebooting it 55 times trying to make things work. We tried a few more things (all unsuccessful) and eventually sent the ticket back asking them to look again.

They called again this morning and the telco now said the modem was up and asked us to try a reset that would clear what is called a “MAC lock.” (If you want to know what a MAC lock is, just ask. I can explain it, but it’s off topic here.) We did that, and a laptop computer plugged directly into the modem started working. But when we switched over to the router it didn’t work. Back to the computer and it once again was not working. It sounded like the MAC lock was back, so we did that reset again, but this time connected to the router instead of the computer.

Initially everything was still dead when the reboot finished, but after about a minute something cleared and it started working. There are many options for what it might have been, but none of them make sense. I’m lost, the tech support person was lost, and in the end I think it was fairies. They must have been slow to sprinkle the needed magic pixie dust in the right places, but did eventually get the job done.

In any case, we’re alive on the net once again, so I can write this post. Sorry.

For those following along at home, the damage to BC’s infrastructure from the first (ahem, foreshadowing) atmospheric river has been huge. Lots of mudslides over roads, some roads completely washed out, trains not running, pipeline down, many flooded homes and businesses, lots of dead livestock, and so on. The government has instituted 30 litre limits on gas purchases, though apparently it is not being firmly enforced by anyone. The local gas station was shut down completely the other day, though, and I have read that gas is now being shipped into the Vancouver area by barge from the US. The local refinery that makes most of the local gas shut down due to lack of incoming fuel to process, but the pipeline might reopen soon. To go with that, trucks trying to go to or from Vancouver lately have been going through the US because of the closed roads here in BC. It really is a mess, but things are starting to improve and reopen.

That, however, assumes the weather cooperates.The second atmospheric river finally pushed off to the east sometime last night. We had nearly another 2" of rainfall as a result, but I see no news about additional damage or flooding so far. That said, the forecast calls for two more atmospheric rivers to hit this week (bringing the total to four in about two weeks) so the real question is just how fragile the remaining infrastructure is. Time will tell.

If these rain events are less powerful and cause no new issues, things will gradually return to “normal” as of a couple of weeks ago. After that, time and the new Omicron COVID variant will start to have their say.

In semi related news, supposedly the border is going to open for short trips sometime next week. That means it should be possible for Canadians to cross the border, shop, and come back without needing to get a PCR test to confirm their negative COVID status for reentry into Canada. That will be a big change, and the border towns on the US side, are definitely looking forward to it.

In terms of my life, I managed to finish up the baseboard in the hall closet and put it back together. All except for the doors, which are primed and await final paint. No photos of this, sadly, as I am in something of a rush. Lots to do today.

I also managed to paint some of the trim and baseboard in the hallway, and have more of that to get done as well. Again, no photos. That would not be obvious in any case.

I’ve also spent some time painting in the conservatory, where I did the wall fix. I am nowhere near done, but…

The ugly, bright yellow is going away. As near as I can tell this room was painted once, probably in the 1970s when it was added on, and has never been painted since. There is a LOT to clean up in there as a result. We’re painting the ceiling our typical white, and the walls are an ivory colour, since the floor is orange, Spanish tile. It’s going to take several more days of painting for me to get this room finished, and there are other projects going on as well, so it might not even be done next week. We’ll see.

On a completely different note, I finally got out for another walk with my friend Heather in between storms. We went over the Seymour river on a suspension bridge I have previously photographed. This time I only grabbed a picture of a sign at the entrance to that bridge:

I do not understand that. Do they think that two horses and their riders weigh as much as 100 people? I don’t think that is the case. Google tells me a horse weighs 400 kg, which is about 882 pounds. If we assume that a human weighs (on average) 100 pounds (which seems reasonable, given there will be kids in the mix) 100 people would weigh about 10,000 pounds. That’s a LOT more than two horses and riders. It’s also a lot more than a 3000 kg vehicle, which is 6,614 pounds.

In short, nothing about that sign make sense to me. Weird.

Anyway, on the way back, as we were almost back in civilization, we saw this:

Those are not deciduous trees. Not even close. They’re cedars. Interesting colour, don’t you think?

When we popped out onto the road, here is what we saw:

And here’s the cause:

It was a striking view. I’m not used that kind of colour in the evenings lately.

That’s all I have this week. Next time will be all about painting various things, if all goes well. More discussion about our internet connection would mean something has gone horribly wrong. Fingers crossed.

And I hope it has been a happy Thanksgiving for all my American readers!