Well, I'm up early again. I can't seem to stay asleep very long these days, even though I didn't get to bed until 11:00 PM last night. Partly the excitement of being in my new place, partly, possibly, because I had a Diet Coke at dinner.
I tried out my new ensuite bathroom, and new bathtub. I like the depth of the bathtub it's great. Unfortunately, I also found that the overflow preventer/drain on the bathtub does not work. At all. Something else for the deficiency report. Hopefully, it's not a major problem and only some kind of minor issue that can be resolved easily.
I've got no blinds or drapes on the place as of yet, and there are quite a few windows in some areas. Oddly, possibly interestingly, there are no windows on the west side of the house. The east side of the house, of course, is my common wall with the top floor unit on the other side. Anyway, the windows are very large in the master bedroom, and the living room, which sort of doubles as the great room, or main room, of the house, and contains the total area occupied by the dining and kitchen areas, as well as a bit of a hallway. The windows there look out to the north. They look over Port Alberni, but at some distance, so I suppose I have a reasonable expectation of privacy, although if I wander around in the altogether, somebody with a pair of binoculars might get an unpleasant eyeful. One area of the living room does have an east-facing window, which looks on to my patio/deck/balcony, and then is possibly visible to my next door neighbor. But she's not back for a couple of weeks anyway. So, as long as I don't go into the south rooms, which are my office and guest room, but are at ground floor and visible to anybody in the parking lot, I don't have to worry about my personal privacy. Then again, for a security maven, I've never particularly worried about any kind of privacy for myself, so that's not an issue. I do, however, try to be cognizant of what I am presenting to the world, and try not to scare the horses and small children.
However, I was up shortly after 4:00. That was a few hours of sleep, but not as much as I think I should be getting. Hopefully when all this settles down, I will settle in, and the lack of sleep won't become a major issue.
Thinking about it, I realized that I was in a bit of a dead zone for wifi hotspots. There is a coffee shop down the street: it's only open four hours a day. And, in any case, I haven't yet determined their wifi password. They do have a strong signal, and provide free wifi, but since they're only open four hours a day I haven't had the opportunity to get in and find out what their password is.
City Hall has a good free wifi system, but they are at least a kilometer away. The library has free wifi, but they are over a kilometer away. The drugstore, and the grocery store, both generally provide wifi, but they're a little under a kilometer away.
So, having no wifi access, I read the owners manual. For the house. This does contain some of the owners manuals for some of the appliances, but mostly it's promotional bafflegab from the developers, saying what great materials they used to build the place, and how easy it will be to maintain. It also has a number of warranty cards to register warranties, but unfortunately contains none of the model or serial numbers that would be necessary to do such a thing. After my bath last night, I thought that I might kick up the hot water tank a little bit to get a warmer soak, but the water tank doesn't seem to have an accessible temperature control. There is a panel that I think might cover the temperature control, but it is secured by being screwed down, so I won't be able to access that until I get some tools. So, with nothing else to do around the house, I had it off to map out wifi hotspots.
There is a motel and take out pizza place a couple of blocks away, and, while it does have an open wifi, it's one of the ones that requires you to enter a voucher number from the motel. However, it also has a Shaw Open hotspot (obviously their wifi and Internet access is provided by Shaw), and I previously registered the phones, so I was able to dictate this. Well, off the map out other spots in the neighborhood.
The motel with the pizza place has a fairly limited Shaw wifi hotspot, and so while I dictated that part, I wasn't able to move around very much, so I didn't get any walking in while I dictated it. Fortunately, next door is another motel, with a U-Haul rental place and a cannabis shop, and one or the other of them has a stronger signal and so at least I can do a little bit of walking around while I dictate. But still no free wifi hotspot being provided by any of the businesses.
At the moment, the best bet seems to be a McDonald's, about eight blocks away from my house, that is next door to some place with a Shaw hotspot. At least I can register the Shaw Open connection there on a regular basis.
The easy winner of for community provision of community wifi, though, has to be Save-On Foods. Their signal is extraordinarily powerful. You can walk all the way around the outside of the store, that is, the exterior of the store, and not lose the signal anywhere. You can't even do that at Walmart. You can also get a strong signal anywhere in their parking lot, and, in fact, all the way down the block. If you can see into the store from the outside through their front windows, you can probably get a wifi signal and connect successfully.
(Unfortunately, I may have to take back the award for community wifi provision. While the signal still radiates strongly after hours, apparently, Save-On somehow disables access to it when the store is closed. After hours, you can't connect.)
I was also impressed by the service and provision, particularly for a small town store. Their deli was obviously not designed for it, but they have provided a couple of tables and some chairs so that you can get your deli foods, and get lunch right there in the store. They also have fresh sushi sushi prepared in the store. Since I was in the store shortly after 7:00 a.m., I will definitely have to come back and try that out as an option.
The one problem that I have with them is some carelessness in the product signage on the shelf fronts. But this is a minor issue, and obviously I'm going to have to pay particular attention to Save-On for regular shopping in Port Alberni.
No comments:
Post a Comment