Due to significantly increased work travel, I’ve elected to get heavily scrutinized by our government so that I can go faster through customs. I’ll let you know how the “interview” goes and whether I even qualify or get locked up. You can have all this freedom as well, you just have to fill out a CANPASS application form.
4 comments July 10th, 2006
I am mostly a self-service banker. Don’t really need to talk to someone most of the time, don’t really do much other than automated bill payment and withdrawing cash at ATMs. On occasion I need to transfer money from one bank to another to pay off debt or other things that I have incurred. Mostly that means going to TD, whom recently have posted lots of marketing on their branch windows about how customer service is #1. So, I go to this branch and ask to transfer money - something like $4000 or so. They can’t give me cash, you need to order it in advance. This is a bank?! Do they not deal in cash? Ok what can I get? Bank draft. Fine, give me that. Who’s it made out to? Me (duh). Here you go, the $4000 and there is a $6.50 service charge for the bank draft. Huh? Why are you charging me? Because it’s a bank draft. But it’s because YOU couldn’t give me cash. We charge $6.50 for bank drafts. (wanting to close all my accounts on the spot) Can you not waive the charge? Yes, however we can’t do that in this case. (me pointing at the sign on window) Service is #1! (walk over to CIBC, literally 20 steps the other side of the mall entrance) I want to deposit this bank draft. Done; there will be a five day hold on it until it clears. But I need it now. Bank drafts aren’t the same as cash, 5 days to clear. *sigh*
My question is, how come banks are allowed to make billions of dollars every year off of us but provide less and less service for doing it? Looking at it, they use a lot of my money to make their own, charge me money for letting them do it and aren’t involved in my financial dealings at all (98% of my banking is all online). I seriously hope there is a reckoning in my generation with these (and all) greedy corporations.
3 comments July 9th, 2006
So, Thursday I bought a new car stereo that enables our iPods to be used with it. It’s pretty good — you can control the iPod through the stereo controls and it sounds much better than the FM iTrip connector playing through the radio. Our next car, we’ll elect for the option right out of the gate rather than having to put in an aftermarket deck.
Add comment July 7th, 2006
A friend of mine Tiffany just got accredited as an FDC instructor (yay Tiff!), and while great news, it just shows that I have to get off my ass and do it myself. I asked to assist at the Paddy Crean in Banff this year (the last one I attended was Paddy’s last in 1999) and I’ve always longed to go back and do that workshop again since it was the best I have ever taken (with so many stage combat people from all over the world). I can’t wait for it at the end of this year, even though sadly they always put it bridging New Years and thus I have to give up celebrating with Karen and friends.
1 comment July 6th, 2006
So, this day has been a mixed bag for me. Started with my parents leaving for home at 6am (never fun to see them go and especially when it’s so early). Next it was Craig’s second day at work which is a tentatively fun thing for me being that we’ve known each other for years and get along fantastically. I think we’ll have some very good ideas come out of him working for us (and our subsequent discussions) and we’ve come a long way from being co-op students together at Hayes. Then, I got a raise, which to most is very good, but I personally think is CRAZY! (my boss wants me to buy a new higher quality stereo) And finally, we announced our intention to acquire another company (during which, I will be heavily involved in the acquisition), so that’s probably why I got the raise — I have a lot of work about to crush me.
1 comment July 5th, 2006
Looking at the old photo site, it’s not that great. It’s clunky and huge (back when I uploaded all 200+ photos of a vacation) and needs to be reworked. So, like many people, I figured I’d give Flickr a try to see how that works. I just uploaded some photos there and will be looking to migrate the previous photo gallery to the new one as time permits. The tools are much nicer, and should allow me to bulk upload photos from iPhoto, which in turn means more photos will get uploaded. The new online photo album can be found here.
1 comment July 3rd, 2006
Mom, Dad, Karen and I went down to the UW Canada Day celebrations - it was even bigger than previous years with much more stuff for kids to do. Very fun. We went back at night with the privilege of flashing my ID card to the police to be waved through security. We watched the fireworks display from the 3rd floor of our office, in a meeting room in comfy leather chairs, overlooking the lake (where Sean, Shae, Adam and Johanna joined us); it was an excellent view! Getting out from Columbia Lake was also trivial — much different than previous years where we had to wait for an hour to get home because of the crowds.
Add comment July 1st, 2006