The Great Rogers Crash of 2022
Nancy complained that Friday morning about the lack of an internet connection on her cellphone. I tried to uncover the problem.
It fiddled a bit before realizing that she had the WiFi off, and was trying to use data. Our modem, computer, WiFi, and TV are with one provider. Our phones are with Rogers Communication. And a quick search of the internet revealed that Rogers had gone silent at about 3am. A significant portion of Canada had no internet. The company tweeted that they were working on the problem.
Before they found the solution, Canadian businesses had lost billions, people used to a cashless society were in panic mode, Russians hackers were suspected by the conspiracy minded, and Millennials were undergoing e-withdrawal.
I headed for Sunfest.
On my way to the summer bash, I met a man who couldn't get cash. He asked me if I would lend him some and he would repay me with an e-transfer. I don't know if he was in shock from the absence of his precious cellular connectivity or if he was running an impromptu scam, but I did not know this man and politely refused.
How was he supposed to do an e-transfer?
From Sunfest to Home County via Sydney. Women and children first.
Festivals and feasts and gatherings are making a return.
For the last quarter century I have practically lived at Sunfest on the weekend it runs. The pandemic stopped the live event, though organizers tried to keep some of the spirit alive through online performances. I spent some of Friday there, visiting with an old friend. I returned with my wife Saturday for dinner.
Sunday, we had to be elsewhere. My wife was a delegate at the quinquennial UCW conference, filling in for her nonagenarian friend and mentor, Laurel, whose health (she's recovering from a broken hip) advised against travel.
Midway between our place and Pearson International Airport lives my niece and her husband, expecting their first child in August. She refused to have a traditional Baby Shower, but negotiated with the grandmothers-in-waiting a general party in celebration of the impending birth. We brought home-made baby blankets and stayed as long as we dared. We had places to go, and diverse media have been portraying Pearson, unprepared for purported post-pandemic pile of passengers, as pandemonium.
It was crazy, but not that crazy. The biggest inconvenience (other than the subpar signage, which is not new) was the breakdown of the luggage conveyor belt. I was second from the start of a line. Crowds accumulated impatiently behind. The woman in front and the guy in the next line struck up a conversation, which passed the time.
We decided that Rogers must be running the conveyor belts at Pearson.
Our flight to Sydney, Nova Scotia arrived slightly delayed, at 2am local time. My wife spent most of the week at the conference. I poked my head in with guest status for a couple of meals and the keynote speaker, journalist Sally Armstrong, who focussed mainly on the situation on Afghanistan and the attendant change to the status of women, with which she has become closely associated. Some people might have found her comments redolent of the old-time missionary, exporting western values. As for me, I'm okay with viewing the Taliban as, in the words of the award-winning journalist and activist, "thugs." I was also intrigued by her statement that western women, earlier-wave feminists, in their urge to demonstrate their ability in non-traditional roles, often failed to valorize their claims to success in more traditional ones. It's not a new idea. It was interesting to hear it expressed by a female war correspondent.
My wife had one day without scheduled events. We rented a car and cruised the Cabot Trail, famously breathtaking. It really needs at least two days, with accommodations somewhere halfway. The return trip saw us detoured around a segment of the main road that had been washed out by a recent storm and was under repair. The detour roads, cracked and potholed, were, I think, last repaired when a different Trudeau sat in office.
I managed some writing-- I am behind my own schedule, but not hopelessly so. I also touched base with both the local indie book store (which bought a copy of Live Nude Aliens) and the local comic shop: On Paper Books and the Local NPC. My conversation with the guys at the latter suggested Sydney participates in an older style geek culture, guys gathering in the shop and line-ups on Free Comic Book Day, but not so many cosplayers.
I also visited the library to see what I might find of local history. I flipped through a few local books, but I did not have a specific goal and did not want to dedicate much time to going through the archives. I noted, with amusement, that one of the archive drawers was marked "Rita MacNeil to sheep." The library also boasts a large board outside where people can write messages. I declined, but noted that Kathy, Pebbles, and Lorraine, apparently local to me, signed it during their recent "Girls' Road Trip."
Pubs, shorelines, and seafood chowder. The week also saw great weather, an unpredictable commodity on the Atlantic Coast.
We arrived safely, along with our luggage, and quickly left Pearson.
We visited with one of my sisters and her family and stayed overnight. We got to see the setup on a post-breakfast walk of a festival being set up in Bloorcourt Village, but we left before it got underway. Another festival restored.
Back home, I caught a little of the end of the Home County Folk Festival-- like Sunfest less crowded than in past years. Two other festivals ran locally the same weekend.
We're through the pandemic!
For now.
Some links and other ephemera:
I've got online panels in early August at GenCon, Indianapolis and live ones at Toronto's Fan Expo at the other end of the month. I'm also involved in some kind of writerly livestream on Wednesday. Contact me if you're interested.
Accompanying travel video for the exceedingly curious.
My nephew, the composer Shaun Chasin, has an interview at Vents Magazine, in which he discusses such things as composing for the entertainment industry, scoring Snoop Dogg, and the success of his theme for Beyblade Burst.