While we’re speaking about Blue Cross, here’s the quote I got for Travel Medical Insurance from them:

On the left if their quote for insurance for one 29-day trip. On the right is their quote for unlimited trips of 30 days or less in one year. Note how the annual plan is $46 cheaper than the one-time plan? I called Blue Cross to ask why this was and they seem surprised that anyone would find this surprising.

I’m not exactly sure why anyone would buy the package on the left when offered the package on the right. Maybe I’m missing something?

UPDATE: I decided to forge ahead, confusion be damned. I entered all of the information about our trip, all of the information about us, and here’s what I received in return:

Quick, name one Canadian provider of health insurance. If you’re like me, Blue Cross was a likely choice. Except Blue Cross has decided that, at least here in Eastern Canada, they need a new name. From their website:

Medavie is the new name adopted by Atlantic Blue Cross Care in March, 2005 as a result of our expansion into the Ontario and Quebec regions. We needed a name that would work in all three markets and in both official languages to position ourselves for continued growth. Medavie is a combination of the English and French words for ‘medical to life,’ and we think it’s a great representation of the products we sell. Rest assured, we’re still the same Blue Cross. And we’re always there for you.

In related news, the Charlottetown Sewer and Water Department is repositioning their brand too, and will henceforth be known as AquaPoo.

A couple of notes of specific interest to Charlottetown travelers:

• Coop Taxi has taken over the Charlottetown Airport franchise from Yellow Taxi. They’ve both lowered the fare (down to $10 from $13 from downtown) and commited to more reliable service (a minimum of four cars on site for every flight, for example). This is good news for anyone who likes supporting worker coops, and also for those who were tired of waiting for Yellow’s cabs to show up.
• The teller at Metro Credit Union told me today that the fee for using ATM machines outside of North America to withdraw money from my Metro account has gone up to $4.00, which gets piled on top of any fee the ATM itself charges. On a $100.00 withdrawl, that’s a 4% surcharge. Got to remember to take out more money less often.

Here are some of the more interesting Google Maps satellite images I’ve stumbled across:

• Denver Airport
• Parliament Hill in Ottawa
• Niagara Falls
• National Water Research Institute in Burlington (where Dad worked)
• CN Tower in Toronto
• Experience Music Project in Seattle
• St. Louis Arch
• Brackley Drive-in Theatre, PEI

In our family the surprise is everything. Take any momentous occasion — birthday, anniversary, retirement — and our family is sure to attempt to build a sneaky surprise event around it.

Like the time Dad brought us all home to Ontario — from two coasts — to surprise Mom on the day she retired. We all arrived on schedule, and hid down in the basement waiting for her arrival. We heard her car pull in, heard her walk up the steps, heard her come in the door. She obviously sensed that something was up because she yelled out an inquisitive “Hello?!”

My grandmother Nettie, unable to let a greeting go unacknowledged, let out a tentative “Hello!” from the basement, and the surprise was uncorked. I don’t think she saw it coming.

Mom returned the favour several years later when we all returned to Burlington for Dad’s retirement party. With military precision we decamped from brother Mike’s condo and headed to CCIW where we descended on Dad’s office. I don’t think he saw it coming either. And we all got the added bonus of being able to tuck in to a cake with a picture of Dad printed on it — where else can you eat your Dad’s beard without getting into trouble?

These two joined the “surprise trip to Greenland” and the “surprise balloon ride” in the Pantheon of Rukavina surprisery.

To this point my most successful surprise for Catherine — and this was admittedly minor league stuff — was the time I phoned her from the office and managed to do an accurate enough impression of her Grandma Kerr that she believe I was she. At least for 10 seconds. It was sweet. And preceded by about 50 earlier attempts, over 5 years, to pull it off. So perhaps not as much a surprise as a clever deception.

A couple of birthdays ago Catherine Hennessey whipped up a good surprise birthday party for me; I almost ruined it because I wasn’t feeling well, and thought I’d phone in my regrets for her “dinner invitation.” Fortunately Catherine [Miller] jumped in and “encouraged” me to go. Ah, the boiled icing — there’s nothing like it.

Last night, though, Catherine pulled off a “perfect surprise” for me — a surprise 39th birthday party that I didn’t see coming. At all. Despite the signs, the obvious signs.

She had the advantage, of course, that I was away for the week, so she could connive and conspire without need for cover. So much of the planning went off in advance.

Saturday morning I got up to the smell of cake baking in the kitchen. I ambled downstairs to inquire as to the reason for the baking and Catherine told me she was going to a “spinners and weavers meeting at the Notre Dame Convent” later in the day, and had to bring dessert. I should have sensed that something was up when my further questioning about the reasons for this meeting — why at the convent? why so much dessert? — had fuzzy answers. But I came away thinking she was simply distracted.

Later in the morning, Oliver tried to tell me something was up: “birthday surprise cake” he insisted. I insisted back that my birthday — last Tuesday — was over now and did my best to explain that we all only get one birthday, and I would have to wait next year to have a birthday again.

For lunch Oliver and I went to the Formosa Tea House. I should have known something was up when they wished me a Happy Birthday, and insisted that Catherine had told them that my birthday was that night. I chocked the confusion up to language and didn’t think anything more of it.

My instructions from Catherine were to meet her at the house at 7:00 p.m. — after the big spinning dessert shindig — when we would go on our weekly Saturday night dinner and movie outing. I showed up a little late, with movie picked out and car at the ready in the driveway.

Catherine came out of the kitchen with a big grin on her face. Then Johnny and Jodi jumped out from somewhere. And then I noticed that the dining room table was festooned with all manner of desserts — everything from pumpkin pie to cheesecake to chocolate chip cookies.

It was only then that Catherine let the plan spill: this was my surprise birthday party. She was, I think, absolutely convinced that I had figured things out and knew exactly what was going on.

I didn’t.

I was completely surprised.

Catherine has now raised the family surprise bar to a new level.

Twenty minutes later the guests started arriving and soon thereafter our house was as full as it has ever been. Much dessert was consumed. Cynthia Dunsford and I got mildly toasted on a mysterious currant-based alcohol concocted by a hypnotist from Argyle Shore. My friends from the Formosa arrived with apologies for almost ruining it all (if only they knew the depths of my haze!). A good time was had by all.

Thanks to all who came, and all who sent wishes. And thanks to Catherine for pulling off the perfect surprise. I love you.

When our family moved to the small village of Carlisle in 1972, it still deserved the description “small village” as it was a sleepy residential farming community of 450 people, 30 minutes from Hamilton. In the intervening 30 years Carlisle has been heavily developed, with several large subdivisions of former farmland into modern residential developments.

Mom and Dad’s house — the house I called home intil 1985 — was built in the middle of the last century. It’s a modest single family home on a 2 acre plot of land. Throughout much of my childhood the family project was the planting of trees on the back portion of the land; the healthy forest that sits where a once was only a field is a testament to our labours.

When I was home last week with Oliver I had my first opportunity to walk around the new neighbourhoods that have grown up around Mom and Dad, filling in what once were farm fields. It struck me that their property, sandwiched between the road and the creek as it is, was a sort of “firewall” against further residential development. I didn’t know how right I was; here’s a screen shot, from Google Maps. I’ve marked out Mom and Dad’s property in red.

Go down and to the left and you see mostly new development in the last 10 or 15 years; up and to the right is still field, forest, and older houses. In a very real and physical sense, all those trees we planted as kids are now a sort of “last line of defense.”

In Air Canada’s new “e-zine” there’s an “article” titled “aircanada.com has your extra Miles” that explains how Aeroplan miles are awarded for various fare classes. It says, in part (emphasis mine):

• 1 Aeroplan Mile for every $3 spent on Tango fares
• 1 Aeroplan Mile for every $2 spent on Tango Plus fares (formerly Fun)
• 1 Aeroplan Mile for every $1 spent on Latitude, Latitude Plus (formerly Freedom) and Executive Class fares

It’s bad enough that Air Canada has a weird multi-level fare structure with weird nonsensical names. And that they then change these names. But surely someone there must realize that when you used to have a fare class named “Fun” you’re going to run into double entendre problems in future.

And so I begin the last year of my 30s:

Thanks to all for the kind wishes, especially to my “arch nemesis” R. for a generous and unexpected gift, to the brothers and parents and inlaws for all making contact, and to KD and Oliver for sticking with me even as I slide into old age.

I’ve learned some more about the Rogers Wireless “Pay As You Go” service:

• They don’t support roaming to the U.S. at all. There’s no way to request this, no way to turn it on. My phone here in New Hampshire currently shows T-Mobile and AT&T GSM networks, but I can’t join them.
• Similarly, you can’t roam on a Pay As You Go plan anywhere else outside of Canada. This in contrast to my experiences with the Croatian VIPme service that I was able to use in Slovenia, Italy and the U.K. with no problem.
• Calls are billed by the minute not by the second. In other words, a 3:04 call costs $1.32 (4 x $0.33) not $1.01.

Here is a satellite photo of Charlottetown showing my house. Today is the first time I’ve ever notice any service by Google actually being slow — I presume this is because everyone else in the world is doing what I just did. Very cool.