boybleu

ive had this blog for several years.  it started as a journal during my travels to europe.  i had some idealistic thought that i could use it to voice my random thoughts on this and that, vent a little and ….

in the end it has really been just a travel journal and the odd comment on life.

i will, at some point, migrate the content to my new blog – my life in hope – a record of my gardening and other post retirement activities from hope, b.c.

if you’ve dropped in occasionally, thank you.

all good intentions are in the hands of telus.

at last we are connected to the outside world after a month-long delay in getting our phone, tv and internet installed by the all mighty telus.  i’ll attempt to bring things up to date in the next few days (not that there’s much to report)

my friends and coworkers at icbc sent me off with everything i need to get my garden going.  i could not have asked for a better gift or a more fantastic group of people to work with.  thank you so very much!

happiness is...

what a drag it is selling and staging a home.  following our realtors recommendation we “staged” our home to make it more appealing to those without vision.  this necessitated storing items…a cost you should be wary of.  after looking around we found what we thought was the best rate in the neighbourhood of new westminster.  annacis lock-up was our choice and the people were great…if a little chatty.  the rates we’re reasonable and the facility very good.  renting space and having to add more space was not a problem.  ending the relationship was something else.  in the busy time of moving and so forth we missed the required deadline of 2 weeks notice and provided only 8 days notice.  this will cost us another months rental!  greed is the only motivation as we never found them short of space.  in fact they likely have several vacancies as i write.  i had recommended them to many friends and acquaintances if they should ever need storage…something i now regret.  we do not recommend annicis lock-up because of their usurious penalties and lack of common compassion.

we’ve been customers with bcaa for about 20 years…though it matters little to them.  we purchased  a home and out of loyalty to them bought our home insurance through them.  when we sold, we expected to continue with them as we have always been treated well and fairly.  how times change!  our home sold quickly, well before our new home would be ready…the fees for insuring our stored possession, virtually everything we owned along with coverage of our few possession while living in our temporary accommodation at a hotel in vancouver were essentially usury.  we tried to figure out why but the agent had a poor command of english and did not offer any satisfactory explanation for the extremely high rate.  now that our house is nearly ready we asked for a change to our policy back to home coverage.  wow!  what an outrageous amount.  we found a policy almost $400 less with equal or better coverage.  when we cancelled they charged us an additional $180 for cancellation.  this even though we had told them we were in a transition period prior to signing on.  so much for their public goodwill persona. we do not recommend bcaa for home insurance.

Anso Machining Centre Ltd
61 Duncan St, New Westminster, BC V3M 5G3‎ – (604) 525-7321

Cool machine shop circa 1940′s or older. The machinist is cool too. He’s a real craftsman, taking his time and doing it right. I was so impressed that he found the time to do a small job for me and treated it as though it was a fine piece of precision machinery (6 holes in an alluminium bar). He knows the history of the area and had some great stories about Queensborough and Poplar Island which is just out my window, in the middle of the north arm of the Fraser.