Often, when I’m chatting to my friends and neighbours these days, I’ll find myself asking “did you read Allan Rankin’s column in The Graphic this week?” by way of introducing something that I’ve been pondering; because Allan’s given me an intellectual kick.

I’ve known Allan for more than 20 years, and over those years he’s become a friend. He is a passionate, talented Islander, and a passionate, talented writer. He also happens to know, by virtue of his many years of public service, where many of the bodies are buried, and some of his more entertaining and illustrative columns are those where he runs up to–and sometimes crosses a titch–the line to telling tales out of school.

Of course he also knows that skillful rabble-rousing sells newspapers, and he fulfills his duties in this regard admirably and provocatively.

I don’t agree with Allan’s take on every issue: it was difficult to be a Rankin-confederate this spring when he was tearing strips out of PEI Home and School Federation regularly for the way we chose to confront the prospect of school change. But Allan doesn’t lie, and even when I don’t agree with his take, I recognize that his take represents an important chord of opinion that needs to be aired.

Last week Allan wrote of rural vs. urban Prince Edward Island, in part:

And speaking of driving, have you ever noticed that Charlottetown people find it difficult to leave their metropolis. The distance to any rural location seems intimidating and formidable, almost like a cross Canada expedition. “Drop the sweater off when you’re in town,” is the city dwellers expectation, not “I’ll drive out and pick up the sweater.” The highways connecting rural Prince Edward Island to the capital city seem to go in only one direction, and our government has encouraged that one-way traffic with policies that make it increasingly difficult to live in rural communities east and west.

As someone whose day to day spine of existence runs the short distance from Prince & Richmond to Queen & Richmond, I know the truth of what Allan expresses there, and when I’ve run this paragraph by those that live outside the Charlottetown orbit they breath a sigh of knowing realization. If you want to get someone from West Prince started, try explaining to them how Charlottetown is the “halfway point” for a provincial meeting of any sort; it is demonstrably not the case, and, for those from Greater Miminegash, life in provincial affairs is a constant battle to explain that fact.

This week Allan turns his sights on the Confederation Centre of the Arts, writing, in part:

But given the vapid thinking and huckster approach of the current Confederation Centre of the Arts board and management, I doubt very much if either Anne or Belinda would make the Festival cut today. Both scripts would be looked upon as risky commercial propositions, possessing too much local cultural content, and unlikely to draw an audience.

I am compelled to say this in light of the Centre’s decision this year, marking the 150th Anniversary of Canadian Confederation, to produce Million Dollar Quartet, a jukebox musical featuring the songs of three dead and one almost dead American musician.

Propriety and proximity dictates I withhold expressing my own take on the Centre as strongly as Allan has opted to, but, again, the truth is easily mined from his rhetoric, and that truth is something that we owe ourselves to pick up and examine carefully: somebody has to point these things out, and good on Allan for being that person.

Allan’s column is served up several ways: you can read it on The Island Heartbeat, his own blog,  you can read it online in The Eastern Graphic, which is a more annoying and advertisey and “you’ve read X of Y articles this monthy,” but also pays the bills. Or you can subscribe to the real live physical Graphic, which is probably the very best way of all because it both pays the bills and helps to keep print alive.

At the beginning of the month I wrote about Android Pay coming to Canada, and I pondered what the benefit of paying with my phone vs. paying with my credit card were, given that the physical complexity of paying with each was about the same. What I learned in the interim is that if you have an unusual-looking phone, like my Nextbit Robin, you get a lot of “hey, that’s a cool looking phone” comments when you pull it out to pay. Which, if you are prideful, is self-reinforcing behaviour: who doesn’t want to be that person with the cool looking phone, after all.

On Sunday night, on VIA Rail Train № 14 from Montreal to Sackville, I set up a complex nest of devices–two phones, two laptops, an external battery pack–to charge on the table in our room. As I did this before the train started to move, I paid no heed to the fact that these devices would be in motion as the train moved, and that this motion might result in disaster.

And, sure enough, when I woke up at 6:00 a.m. the next day, they’d all tumbled to the floor. Fortunately, the only casualty was my phone: Oliver’s laptop and mine were fine, as was Oliver’s phone and the battery pack. My Nextbit Robin, however, had a cracked screen. It still worked, mind you. It’s just that using it ran the risk of embedding glass shards in my fingers:

While this was a (preventable) accident, I can’t help but thinking that it ultimately amounts to punishment for my prideful attitude. At least that’s what my more religious ancestors would tell me if they were still alive.

So, for now, I’m back using my 8 year old Nokia N95 (I used it to take the picture of the shattered Robin). As much as I’d like to keep using the N95 forever, it’s just one generation too old to bear the complexity of connecting to the Internet, typing T9 style, and so on. That said, having a dedicated camera button, and dedicated slide-out audio controls was brilliant at the time, and I miss these dearly.

And as much as I’d like to be able to go phone-free, or to revert to a flip-phone, there are just too many aspects of my mobile lifestyle that require ready access to the Internet, and so I’m looking at my options. Repairing the Robin might be possible, but there are also newer sexier phones that have come along since that attract my eye.

Oh, right, pridefulness.

My mother grew up in Cochrane, Ontario, a town built at the junction of two railways, the National Transcontinental and the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario. So you might say that I have train whistles in my blood.

We visited Cochrane many times when I was a child, and once we took the Polar Bear Express train up to Moosonee for the day. One of the things I found remarkable about that trip is that the train would stop at places that looked like the middle of nowhere: no station, no sign, just a patch of forest between Cochrane and Moosonee. “The middle of nowhere” is relative, of course: for many people those patches of forest were home, or the start of a canoe journey (you were allowed to check canoes in the baggage car).

It turns out the VIA Rail will stop anywhere you like on certain trains:

On some VIA Rail routes, you can get off and on the train exactly where you want — even in places where there is no scheduled stop! The ideal solution for outdoor activities - at that little lake deep in the forest, or that wild river you’ve been dreaming of for so long!

To use this service, you must purchase your ticket at least 48 hours in advance and tell us the exact spot where you want the train to stop by specifying the exact mile marker at which you would like the train to stop.

This is such a compelling offer that I only wish that I had a mile marker to call home so I could try it out.

Today has featured lovely brunch with my in-laws in Napanee, a too-quick visit with my old friend Stephen and his mother in Kingston, a 90 minute train delay from Kingston to Montreal, sitting across from an unusually drunk person from Kingston to Brockville (who was either flirting with me, or not aware I was there) and continued frustration for Oliver with VIA Tail’s flaky wifi.

But we got to Montreal–we’re pulling in right now–and will board shortly for the east.

It’s a rare chart that can stir emotions, but this chart has to be the saddest chart I’ve ever seen.

We needed to rent a car from the Kingston VIA Rail station today, to allow us to visit my in-laws in Napanee, and so I was pleased to read the following on the VIA website’s page for the Kingston station:

Discount Car Rental kiosk now available. Upon arrival at the station, you will be able to make a car rental reservation, pick-up the car from parking lot and drive to your destination.

VIA has a dedicated Discount Car Rental page with more information, including:

Each kiosk is equipped with a credit card reader and driver’s license scanner. Once customers initiate the vehicle rental process, they are quickly connected to a live Discount agent who is trained to guide them through a fast and easy rental process. The live interactive video link lets the customer and agent confirm the rental agreement details, mobilize the car using a smartphone and get customers on the road without delay. Once the rental is processed, customers quickly receive an email with instructions on how to access the rental vehicle from VIA Rail’s parking lot.

I was encouraged by the prospect of an easy-breezy automated process of picking up our car, and heading off to maximize grandparent time, so I reserved a car in advance, expecting that, on arrival, I’d simply scan my credit card and get the keys.

This is not exactly how it worked.

Entering the VIA station in Kingston we spotted the Discount “kiosk” in the corner near the exit. It resembles a private-label ATM, and has a handset on the side, a large touch screen on the front, and some scanners down below.

There was a big “Connect” button on the screen when we approached it, and so I tapped this and picked up the handset. I wasn’t “quickly connected” to an agent, I was connected after a delay of a couple of minutes. Once I was connected, though, this is what I saw on the screen:

The agent then led me through the labyrinthian process of renting the car.

First I had to confirm that I had a mobile phone with data plan in my possession; without this I wouldn’t be able to rent. This wasn’t a problem for me, but it also wasn’t disclosed when I made the original reservation, nor in the confirmation I received. Pity the poor mobile-data-less renter who shows up after dark hoping to pick up their car.

Next, I had to establish that I had collision damage waiver coverage otherwise for the rental. Car rental companies are infamous for the ways they try to trick you into this, and with Discount it wasn’t any different: when I told the agent that I didn’t need the $19.95 per day coverage, as I have CDW coverage on my credit card, she told me that she needed to have the policy number of this coverage, something that, in hundreds of car rentals, I’ve never been asked for before. But I wasn’t prepared to cede this point, so I put her on hold and Googled “canadian tire mastercard policy number,” and read her the number in the first search result, 960913-1. That was enough to allow us to proceed.

Next, I had to scan the barcode on my driver’s license using a scanner below the screen.

Except that this didn’t work, despite about a dozen tries during which the scanner would randomly turn off and on. Instructions from the agent to “hold the license steady, 4 to 6 inches from the scanner” contradicted the accompanying video on the screen that showed a license moving right up to the scanner and not being held steady.

Eventually the agent told me to just read her the information on my license: my birthday, the license expiration date, my address, my postal code, the license number.

Next, I had to insert my credit card into the machine to process (a) a $250 authorization on my card and (b) the $46 cost of the rental. The $250 authorization contradicted the email message I received when I made the reservation, which read:

All rentals are subject to a minimum $500 credit card preauthorization or total value of the rental upon arrival locations.

but at this point I just wanted to get in the car, so I didn’t quibble.

With all the paperwork and authorizations completed, a flurry of email messages arrived: first came a receipt for the $250 authorization, then a receipt for the $46.49 rental fee, and, finally, an email that looks like it should have been sent to me weeks ago that contained all the technical details of my rental:

Please find attached with this email a confirmation of your reservation.

• You are subject to the terms and conditions of the rental agreement from the time you begin the rental using the link below.
• Before beginning your rental using the link below, please ensure you are at the vehicle parking location and next to the chosen vehicle.
• The Begin Rental link will become active within 1 hour of your reservation date and time.
• If you are delayed please speak with a Kiosk Rental agent for assistance or call 1-855-233-1408.
• Billing will begin from the date and time you activate the rental.
• The rental vehicle keys can be found inside the glove box.
• Once your rental has been activated you will receive an email with your rental agreement attached.
• The rental agreement email will contain a link to use once you have finished enjoying your rental.
• If you have any issues with the activation process please speak with an agent at the rental kiosk or call 1-855-233-1408.
• If you cannot gain access to the vehicle please speak with the rental agent at the rental kiosk or call 1-855-233-1408.

To begin your rental tap, the begin rental link below and follow the on screen instructions. Please give access to “use your current location” if prompted.

BEGIN RENTAL

The “BEGIN RENTAL” in the email was a link that took me to a page on a third-party Rentcentric website with a link to unlock the car from the phone:

At this point we signed off the video chat with the agent and headed to the parking lot. When we found the Mazda 3 in the lot, I clicked the “Unlock & Start Rental” link and then waited about 90 seconds for the car to unlock.

The car itself has been well used over its 65,000 km on the road: it has a lot of scratches and dings, the driver’s side window won’t roll down, and it wasn’t particularly well-cleaned after the last rental.

But it drives like a top, it paired with my phone, and it got me to Napanee. So that part’s good.

All told, the experience was one of the worst attempts at automation I’ve ever experienced: the technology was slow and only partially-working, the technology didn’t remove the opportunity for the insidious CDW upsell (and is there really any other reason we so eagerly seek automation of this process?), and what could have been a 30 second snap-crackle-pop took 15 minutes of awkward talking to an (admittedly friendly) agent while standing in a train station lobby.

I will not do this again.

Meanwhile, the three-bean salad at supper at Nana and Poppa’s was fantastic and served with love.

Bonus “Car Return” Update: Remember that part of the Discount email that read “The rental agreement email will contain a link to use once you have finished enjoying your rental.” Well, I didn’t receive it.

So this morning I phoned Discount, and was told that I needed to call back once I was ready to drop the car off, and only then would I be told how to return the car.

So this afternoon, 30 minutes before drop-off, I called. And waited on hold for a few minutes, And then got connected to someone. And then got put on hold. And then got connected to someone else. And then, finally, after 8 minutes and 39 seconds on the phone, was told that I would shortly receive the email with the drop-off instructions. Which I did.

In the email was a link to lock the car and end the rental, but also a link that led to a page which required me to take 6 photos of the car and upload them to Discount. I did this, then made sure the car was empty, put the keys in the glove box as instructed, and clicked on the “Lock and End Rental” link. And then waited 2 minutes for the car to lock.

So, remember that part about “I will no do this again” from yesterday. I will really not do this again: it was time-consuming, anxiety-inducing, and not the way that technology should be applied to car rentals.

For future reference, there’s an Enterprise Car Rental outlet just around the corner from VIA in Kingston, staffed by real people, not kiosks.

As I write, I’m on board VIA Rail train 644 from Toronto to Kingston. I have, somehow, come across this useful train status page from VIA that provides real time updates on train location and scheduled and estimated arrival times and upcoming stations. As near as I can tell, VIA doesn’t link to this page from its website, which is odd given how useful it is.

If you open up the hood of this web app, you’ll find this handy resource: status information for all the trains in the Québec City to Windsor corridor as JSON. Here’s our train:

 "644": {
    "lat": 44.10003,
    "lng": -77.615228,
    "speed": 114,
    "departed": true,
    "times": [
      {
        "station": "OTTAWA",
        "estimated": "2017-06-24T21:57:31Z",
        "scheduled": "2017-06-24T21:50:00Z",
        "eta": "3h01",
        "diff": "med",
        "diffMin": 7
      },
      {
        "station": "FALLOWFIELD",
        "estimated": "2017-06-24T21:31:31Z",
        "scheduled": "2017-06-24T21:24:00Z",
        "eta": "2h35",
        "diff": "med",
        "diffMin": 7
      },
      {
        "station": "BELLEVILLE",
        "estimated": "2017-06-24T19:09:31Z",
        "scheduled": "2017-06-24T19:02:00Z",
        "eta": "13 mins",
        "diff": "med",
        "diffMin": 7
      },
      {
        "station": "KINGSTON",
        "estimated": "2017-06-24T19:47:31Z",
        "scheduled": "2017-06-24T19:40:00Z",
        "eta": "51 mins",
        "diff": "med",
        "diffMin": 7
      }
    ]
  }

Our diffMin is currently 7 minutes, meaning we’ll be 7 minutes late getting in to Kingston; the values for diff, which I assume is a rating for the degree of lateness, seem to be goo for good, med for medium, and bad for, well, bad. Right now, of the 46 trains currently in transit, there are 13 trains showing goo, 24 trains showing med, and 9 showing bad.

We’re starting our slow journey east today: Burlington to Toronto on the GO Train, then Toronto to Kingston on VIA Rail. We overnight in Napanee, then back on VIA for Kingston to Montreal and then Montreal to Sackville.

Ethan has his own ticket for every leg of the journey.

On Sunday afternoon, just after 1:00 p.m., Oliver and Ethan and I piled into the car and headed toward Sackville, New Brunswick to catch the train. Despite our travel plans coinciding with the morning closure of the Confederation Bridge for a fundraising run, the crossing was clear by the time we arrived in Borden, and it was smooth traveling all the way across. We arrived in Sackville just after 3:00 p.m. and in plenty of time to grab lunch at the Black Duck Café before the 4:25 p.m. departure of VIA Train № 15.

It was at this point that the first spanner entered the works: I’d made arrangements with the ever-helpful Rod Allen Company to leave our car on their lot (VIA not offering long-term parking in Sackville, and none being available from the town itself).

The problem was that the place we’d planned to park was dug up for sewer construction, and there wasn’t an obvious alternative. Modelling the “for every problem, there’s a solution” mantra for Oliver’s benefit, I decided to simply park in the short-term VIA lot with a note in the window, and so made preparations in that direction. I also sent an email to Rod Allen’s asking for advice, not expecting a reply given that it was Sunday. But, as we prepared the note, for the window, a reply came in with a mobile number to call, and after a brief consultation I was given a place to park that wasn’t under risk of interfering with the sewer system.

This delay and relocation meant we had to hoof it back to the VIA station quickly, right through the aforementioned sewer construction.

We made it with 15 minutes to spare.

Parking aside, Sackville is the ideal place to catch a train, no matter whether you’re heading east or west: you avoid Moncton traffic, save 30 minutes of driving in both directions, and, as the Sackville railway station isn’t staffed, any anxiety-inducing station formalities are completely dispensed with: it was just me and Oliver and Ethan and one other passenger boarding.

When the train arrived–on schedule at 4:25 p.m.–we were greeted by name by our porter Annette and shown immediately to our room (car 30, room 9).

As arranged previously, this was the accessible room–a standard room ganged together with an accessible washroom and some mobility-focused aids–the larger size of which was a big help both for claustrophobia mitigation and for giving us enough room for Ethan. It was everything we needed: two beds, a toilet, sink, and an electrical outlet (just before we left home Oliver found a helpful YouTube video that recommended bringing a power bar, so he did; this was a big help for our multi-device-charging lifestyle).

Here’s the view from the seats (the heavy curtain separates the “room” from the “washroom,” and affords basic privacy only):

And here’s Ethan enjoying a rest on the floor:

Just as we were getting settled, there was a knock at the door: it was the train’s Service Manager, Zach Wells, who also happens to be the son of the late Andy Wells and Lynne Douglas, and a great Canadian poet to boot. I’d never met Zach before, but he knew of me because of my interview with his father late in his life, and it was incredibly nice of him to seek us out an introduce himself (you can purchase Zach’s books from his mother’s booth, Sheep’s Clothing, at the Charlottetown Farmer’s Market).

Once we’d established ourselves in our room, we trekked 8 cars back to the Park Car (№ 8711, The Revelstoke) to enjoy the view from the dome car, along with a cup of tea and cookies and some Maritime trivia. I tried my hand at sketching the dome car, but failed abjectly, both because of the jiggling train and because the dome car is mostly challenging curves that were hard to wrap my head around.

As our 6:30 p.m. dinner reservation neared, we trekked back to our room, and then showed up in the dining car at the appointed hour.

We started out dining by ourselves, and were joined later by a young couple and some good conversation (she works for Statistics Canada, he for TripAdvisor). The food, which VIA calls “catered,” to make it clear that there are no longer chefs on board, was actually quite good: Oliver had the pork loin and I the quinoa, and we both had the maple cake for dessert.

After supper we adjourned to the snack bar car, which also serves as the “wifi lounge,” and Oliver made his rounds of the social media and I took another try at train-sketching.

We returned to our room around 9:30 p.m. to find the seats transformed into beds as previously arranged with Annette, and, after sorting out the bunk beds (Oliver opted to take the bottom, which implied Ethan would be sleeping on top of him; I got the upper), I got Oliver into bed, and figured out a way of beaming his podcasts from his phone as per usual bedtime protocols. I stayed up to allow me to take Ethan out to pee at the scheduled 15 minute stop at Campbellton, NB (not an easy feat given the exotic smells and sounds). And then I headed to bed myself.

It turns out that I can’t really sleep on trains: the sound and the motion were just slightly too much to handle, and while I managed to drift off a couple of times, I did not sleep soundly, and so I was ready to give up completely by the time my alarm went off at 7:00 a.m.

Oliver, on the other hand, despite having a 65 pound dog sharing his bed with him, slept like a log.

Breakfast on the train is first-come, first-served, but there was no wait when we showed up around 8:00 a.m. The breakfast was great: Oliver had a scramble of sausage and eggs, I had the continental with oatmeal. Between the fresh fruit and the toast and the yogurt we were well-fed, and the coffee was hot and strong.

By the time breakfast was finished and we got our suitcases re-packed, we were getting very close to Montreal; we sipped a little more wifi, had a brief chat with Zach, and then, before we knew it, we were pulling into Central Station in Montreal and plunged into urban life.

Our nominal reason for traveling by train was that Oliver, for the time being, prefers to avoid airport security and its attendant anxieties (we’re working on this, but we need time); it turns out that train travel is actually rather pleasant (lack of sleep aside), and I may opt for the train in the future even if flying isn’t difficult.

A few final notes about the experience:

• I traveled for free as Oliver’s “support person.” VIA was excellent about this, and the arrangements were easy to make. Similarly, arrangements for Ethan were painless. Kudos to VIA for this.
• The Town of Sackville should really figure out a solution for long-term parking for train passengers: we had lunch in Sackville, we’ll gas up the car in Sackville and likely have lunch again. We’d happily pay for long-term parking. Sackville is an ideal gateway for Islanders going to Montreal or Halifax by train, and Sackville should make it easier to do this.
• Meals are now included as part of every sleeper fare on the train to Montreal; that made a lot of things simpler, and ensured we were well-fed.
• The wifi in the snack bar was relatively stable. There’s not a lot of bandwidth to go around, and the throughput varies greatly over the journey. But it was enough to stay in touch. There appeared to be a mobile signal on my phone through most of my waking hours just in case.
• The train staff were universally friendly and helpful; I cannot imagine a better crew.

I went into this trip thinking that it would be a long, boring slog; I packed my bag with half a dozen unread issues of The New Yorker, thinking I’d have endless hours to fill. But time passed quickly, what with the eating and sleeping and dome car visiting and podcast wrangling. And so it all breezed by before I noticed it.

We had supper with the young nephews V. and E. (and their parents) in Montreal on Monday night.

I showed my sketchbook to V., and he asked if we could paint together. Of course I said yes (thus saving us both the indignity of standard-issue “so, what’s you favourite subject at school” uncle-nephew dialog).

V. suggested we draw some flowers and paint them with my watercolours.

We started simple, with a green flower and a yellow flower and a red flower.

But then V., lacking the inhibitions and hangups of adulthood, proposed mixing the colours.

I clearly wasn’t ready for this: the inexactness, the messiness, the chance of colour disaster.

But V. was an effective advocate for mixing, no matter the risks.

So colours got mixed and mashed and jiggled and splashed.

And this is what resulted.

I think it’s lovely. And me and V. made it together.