The days move inexorably along. Only 4 weeks and 4 more days to go until the bandages come off. I don't look at them much. Usually they stay wrapped up in tape and a tensor bandage covered by an old sock. The wrappings are looking a bit ragged and it's itchy underneath sometimes, but things are progressing well, I think. It certainly feels fine.
A current photo of the foot in question. Still bandaged. Aren't I well behaved?
The days pass inexorably along. I spend time each day reading. What I'm reading is reminding me of my "radical" environmental days back in the late 60s and early 70s. Not that it was all that radical.... These days it's more to do with social justice, the ruination of the economy, climate change, of course... 
Over the past few days, I have discovered techniques that have allowed me to ditch the crutches. The walking, however, is slow. Very slow. I'm glad to be able to walk unassisted at all, though.
[My brother had an experience with his Internet Service Provider that he'd rather not re-live. With his permission, I'm posting his final communication here...He lives in Montreal...]
Re: Switching long distance and internet service to Bell for account number xxx
To whom it may concern,
I recently switched my long distance plan and internet service (ISP) to Bell, and I am writing to tell you it was the most frustrating experience I have ever had with a telecommunications provider. The level of incompetence that some of the Bell employees demonstrated was breathtaking. I would only be able to recommend switching services to Bell to someone with five hours to waste and the ability to spend hours on the phone while at work. To be truthful, I will not be able to recommend to anyone that they switch to Bell.
Why?
When I contacted Bell on March 2, 2011 to ask for long distance plan rates, the first customer agent could barely speak English (her mother tongue was not French, either). Getting a straight answer on the cost of a LD plan took a long time, thanks to Bell’s near-endless list of plans, specials, bundles, caveats, exceptions, outdated, insufficient and/or misleading website information.
When I got that straightened out, I asked about the cost of Bell’s internet service. I was transferred to an agent who handles that. To my astonishment, the agent I was connected with had been told that I wanted this service, and I found myself already signed up for it. I had to repeat about seven times that I just wanted prices, to someone who had only the barest grasp of English (no, this was not a French agent).
I do not appreciate being called Mister Cornick, or Mr. Carroll. Is Bell operating call centre sweat shops in China or India?
Thanks to Bell’s byzantine collections of plans, promotions, bundles, moving-target prices, etc, etc, it took me over an hour to decide that I could save money by switching my LD and internet services to Bell.
But then, when I received an email confirmation of my order, the LD plan was listed, but the internet plan was not. So I had to spend another 45 minutes or so on the phone to get the internet service added. One agent I called spoke such poor English (no, it was not a French agent) I hung up in frustration and called again.
To my amazement, despite your website stating that a technician would visit me to install the modem, I had to argue with another agent to get this service. He insisted that it was “very simple” to install a modem and most people can do it themselves, and receive the modem by mail. Does Bell train its agents to blow off customers this way?
Anyway, I had to make more calls because the prices on the order were not the same as those quoted to me, the technician visit day was screwed up in the order … by call number six I was speaking to the Loyalty Department, a presumptuous name, I think. It should be called the Fix the Screw Ups Department.
I got good service from the Loyalty Department, I must tell you. But then on the next confirmation order the technician visit/modem install date was wrong, and I had to call Bell again.
The technician arrived and did a good job. I was very satisfied with that phase of the operation.
Since my faith in the competence and ability of Bell to do what I asked it to had long vanished by this point, I made another call to make sure I would receive all the services I had asked for, and at the prices quoted to me, well, at one of the prices quoted to me.
Most recently, I checked my Bell account to see what services were listed there. Of course, the LD service was not listed. I called Bell again.
Then I got some sort of service summary from Bell, which included a $49.95 one-time modem rental fee. I called Bell again and was told that this form was outdated and that there was no fee. The agent said, “It takes time to make these changes.” Was he kidding? Bell doesn’t have the manpower to make changes to boilerplate forms it sends to how many tens of thousands of customers? Bell would prefer that its customers scream out loud than update its damn form?
I asked the agent for a phone number or email address where I could lodge a complaint with Bell, and he could not find a number for me. I hung up in total disgust. I went back to the Bell website and found your email address, deeply buried. I only found it by doing a word search on your website.
Thanks for making it so hard to lodge complaints. I appreciate your desire to … waste my time!
I had other miscellaneous problems with your website: To log in I had to enter my user name and password three times!!!! before getting in. When I tried moving to the page that listed my services, the website threw me out and I had to log in again. What the hell is going on???
In summary, your technician visit and service was great. Your Loyalty Department agents were good.
Your first-line agents were variously incompetent in English (no, they were not French) could not quote the same price two times in a row, had to repeatedly leave me waiting while they found things out. One didn’t even know what ISP meant! That’s like a shoe store salesman not knowing what shoes are. Your pricing is so complicated that I could have screamed. I received a discount special for buying a bundle, which entitles me to $15/month off, for one year, I think, I hope. I am still deeply suspicious of your agent’s repeated assurance that I will be able to renew this discount next February, for another year. I can tell you now that it is the discount, not the basic price/service, that made it financially worthwhile for me to switch to Bell. If the discounts are not repeated, I will be looking for a lower-priced provider next February. As it is, your prices are too high. Telecommunications providers are gouging Canadians, and that is a fact.
I made nine phone calls, spent who knows how much studying your “designed to confuse” pricing, had to fight to log on to my account, had to endure agents with an insufficient command of English, just so Bell can save money, I am pissing away another hour writing this damn letter, which Bell will probably ignore, and I can look forward to who knows what billing errors in the short term, and price increases next February.
I have left out some details, but I hope I have painted a picture you can understand.
I will happily recommend Bell to every masochist and self-flagellator I meet, but not to anyone else.
Yours with great disappointment and disgust....
We've been flirting with fall for a few weeks now, but there still hasn't been a real frost, the squash are still on the vines, the flower pots are still blooming away out on the deck and the leaves have only recently taken on their fall colors.
The past few days have been busy and I guess the photo shows the reason. At the beginning of the month, I was down helping with some painting and cleaning in the new house with my daughter and her hubby. Late on Wednesday we get the call that the twins have made an appearance. We made the trek down to see the little guys (aren't they cute??) and spent the next 5 days cleaning, moving stuff and admiring the two boys. We only made it home on Monday. Looks like some serious grandpa and grandma time in our future :-)
After weeks of hot, dry weather, we seem to have arrived at fall. The days aren't as warm, the nights are definitely cooler, some leaves have started to change color and it's the end of September. 
A view down Kootenay Lake after sunset the other day. We had paddled across the Lake for a campfire and a hot dog roast. The return paddle was done after dark with the full moon coming up behind us.
The day after returning from our little camping trip to Washington and Idaho, we loaded up the canoe and headed over for a quick canoe and camp on Slocan Lake. For the second time, we had a lake like glass and warm temperatures.
We had a few days free between working around the hacienda and waiting for the twins so we made a quick trip for some camping down into NE Washington and northern Idaho. Mostly, this was in the Colville National Forest at Sullivan Lake and at a forest site near Bonners Ferry, ID.
It's been awhile since we joined the "Sunday Hikers" on their regular day-trips, but this weekend's hike was not one to pass up. The Healey Creek FSR, north of Gerrard, is normally inaccessible because of various slides and road conditions, but, because of some mining exploration going on up that way, the road had been cleared. Accordingly, a group of us headed up there on Monday.
Stu and I decided that another exploratory hike was in order, just to see if there was another possible access route to the Horseshoe Glacier. Accordingly, on Friday, we thrashed our way up a valley at about km 27 (?) on the Glacier Creek FSR, a valley that heads towards Ochre Peak and one tongue of the Glacier in question.
Ever since hiking the Earl Grey Trail last September, we've been thinking of re-visiting the east side of Earl Grey Pass just to see the scenery that we missed the first time. As dedicated readers will recall, our last 2 days on the trail were rather wet and Earl Grey Pass was foggy, rainy and cold. We didn't linger at the Pass then to look at scenery we couldn't see.
This past week, in honour of Gerald's Thrash & Bash (T&B), four of us decided to explore the area around the Horseshoe Glacier, a smallish icefield not too far from Jumbo Pass, at the south-east end of the Glacier Creek valley.
In conjunction with the family gathering in the South Okanagan, a group of us decided to have a go at the Kettle Valley Railway trail system (the KVR). Accordingly, the group packed up bikes and water and food and headed for Myra Station first thing in the morning. 
Spent a couple of days in the South Okanagan to celebrate the 90th birthday of my mother-in-law. Had a gathering with nearly everyone from the clan in attendance. Sunny and warm. Lots of food (as usual with this group) and with a chance to do a longer bike ride on the Kettle Valley RailTrail system (see next post).
Four of us spent a day on the approach to Mt Willet, a twin-peaked mountain up the Lake from us.
Nearly each summer I volunteer as a Camp Manager and amateur leader on one of the Club's mountaineering camps. The past few have been camps catering to a "more mature" group where, generally, I have been one of the younger members in attendance.
We've been picking raspberries from the garden for the past week and today we drove up a nearby logging road to see if there were any huckleberries. What we found were ripe and plump. After the lousy spring/early summer weather we were wondering if there would be any berries this year, but it appears it will be worth exploring for some in another week or so.
Just finished helping out with the Sask Section's Mountaineering Camp, where we take (relative) beginners and start the process of helping them learn how to travel in the mountains safely.
One of my volunteer activities is with the Alpine Club and their hut maintenance projects. The past 2 days were spent in the Rogers Pass area at the Asulkan Hut, which is about a kilometer above Rogers Pass at the edge of the Asulkan Glacier. This is a decent summer hiking objective with numerous mountaineering opportunities in the area and a prime backcountry skiing destination in the winter. The Asulkan Hut was/is owned by Parks Canada, but the entire operation of the hut has been taken over by the ACC, hence this trip.
Summer arrived in earnest a few days ago so we decided to take one particularly hot, calm afternoon and canoe over to the other side of the Lake, absorb some infra-red radiation, generate some Vitamin D, have a little fire on the beach, roast some hot dogs and paddle back home.
This is a warning sign that nicely summarizes driving in the UK.
