(no subject)

I went in person to Canada Services center. I was wary of Covid exposure, particularly since people asking about immigration services may well have been flying recently. But I felt kind of stuck.

I've been trying to pay a fee, but I'm not able to log in to the system online to do so. I've been trying to call, but over the past few days I just keep getting a message saying they can't transfer me to an agent because the system is too busy.

So I stood in line for a little over an hour to get to the first counter. My interaction lasted for about 2 minutes. Most of that was the clerk asking someone in back what to do about my situation. When he came back, he said that they're not able to help with logins or take payment there, but he gave me a number to call on a little piece of paper.

When I got home, I checked and, sure enough, it's the same number I've been calling.

Getting Ready to Move

It finally looks like buying the condo is a done deal. We close on the 26th, and I'm preparing for the move.

I'm going to rent a truck, borrow a hand truck from a local person on the trans Discord, and do the moving myself.

Miriam is concerned about my ability to manage this on my own, and to be honest I've been a little concerned too and have done some thinking about it. But I also feel like it's safer to do it myself and keep minimizing Covid exposure. And save money too. I can't think of anything we have that won't come apart into bite-sized pieces to wheel out with a hand truck. It just might take a while.

I'm definitely going to buy the mover some pizza.

We have two options for internet: Access and Sasktel. Sasktel has a fiber-to-the-home option that has *vastly* better upload speeds, but though their site says it will be in our area in 2022 it's not available at our address yet. The condo board minutes actually mention contacting Sasktel to ask about the status, but it's not yet an option.

To get decent pricing, we need to buy in to a 2-year contract, and speeds for equivalently priced 2 year contracts are vastly better with Access, until fiber becomes an option. It would be nice to sign up with Sasktel and just wait for fiber on the assumption they'll let us change services under contract, but they offer 50 down and 10 up for $70/month, whereas Access offers 175 down and 10 up for $60.

The fiber-to-the-home option is 150 down and 75 up for $65/month. But again, that's not an option. So we're going to go with the option from Access and just live with the low upload speed for 2 years. It probably won't make much of a difference for our purposes anyway.

Where Have I Been All My Life?

If I'm remembering right, this condo will be the 14th address I've been at in my life. That's if you count where I lived as a very small child, and the month Miriam and I spent with her parents after Europe before moving to Regina. And if you count the two times I lived at the same address in Kenosha.

DeKalb, Illinois, USA
Mundelein, Illinois, USA
Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA
Warren, Michigan, USA
Back to Kenosha
Rogers Park in Chicago, Illinois USA
Back to Kenosha
Syracuse, New York, USA
Evanston, Illinois, USA
Amstelveen, the Netherlands
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada (with Miriam's parents for just a month)
Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
And now, moving within Regina.