Friday, March 2, 2007

Okay, I confess--I'm a weather maniac. I'm obsessive-compulsive. It's not healthy. But it feels so good.

Anyway. They've updated the forecast for this weekend. Still optimistic at 15, 16, and 13 degress (Saturday-Monday), but not as optimistic as before. By the time we actually get to Saturday, it'll probably be 5 degrees. But they tried, didn't they?

As for today, well, nothing nice at all. Snow. Lots of it. And it just kept coming all day. It wasn't particularly cold, just snowy. It never stopped.

The snow was weird, too. It looked like movie snow. You know, the small flakes of reflective material they liberally blow out of cannons to feign the appearance of white stuff? Yeah, that. It looked just like it. It was the strangest thing I've ever seen. At least it stopped accumulating after about 1:00. The "warm" temperature of -4 must have been enough to keep it from sticking. Good enough for me.

It was nice that it wasn't as cold, though, because I inadvertently had to take quite a walk. The other day, Steph was driving our trusty ol' Protege, and heard a sickening "crack" from the direction of the windshield wipers. Sure enough, the right one suddenly went flaccid and stubbornly refused to cooperate with the efforts of the left one. Fortunately, its position over the passenger side of the car meant that it wasn't an immediate concern.

Over the past few days, though, it's been getting more and more strange. Sometimes, it'll work fine, others it won't do anything. My favourite is when it comes up only halfway, and then falls back down again, as if the effort it exerted in lifting itself up halfway made it too weak to carry on. I knew it wasn't totally busted or it wouldn't work at all, but the actual problem mystified me.

So, after my morning meeting, I decided on a whim to head off to Kal-Tire (yes, we have one of those here in Three Hills). Being from a larger city, I'm used to having to wait several hours, if not days, to get one's car looked at. Not here. "Can you leave it with us for a bit while we check it out?"

Dubious, I was. "Uh, how long exactly is 'a little while'?" You can see my big-city cynicism in that comment, eh?

"Oh, give us an hour. We'll clear a bay for you and get it looked at."

Enthused, I set off to walk back home, not realizing that I had left my hat and gloves at home that morning, thinking that I'd have a car to convey me from point to point. It's a good thing it was only -8 and I am nearly acclimatized to this weather. I was wearing a short-sleeved polo shirt, and only my small winter jacket, yet I was fine walking home. Sure, my face was a little chilly when I walked in the door, but that was it. Brilliant.

Here's the conclusion to the car story, too. I called back shortly after and asked if they'd had a chance to look at it (this was 11:45; I had dropped the car off at 10:45). Yes, they had fixed it; the issue was just a nut that had come loose and needed tightening. And yes, I could come by and pick it up.

We walked back in the afternoon, the three of us, choosing to make a little adventure out of it. When we got there, the guy told us that since they just had to tighten a nut, there would be no charge for their efforts. WHA?! No charge?! But, what about your time? No, don't worry about it, I was told.

And now I'll do what the brilliant marketing people predicted I'd do in a customer service situation like that: recommend them to everyone. I'm not sure if all Kal-Tire locations are like this one, but I've honestly never heard a bad story about Kal-Tire in my life. So the next time you need something done, check them out first. I will, that's for sure.

On the flip side of the customer service experience, after we picked up the car, we had some errands to run, one of which was at Fields here in town. Oh boy. Take everything I just said about KT and reverse it. That's Fields.

I went in to pick up some binders in the great get-myself-organized project of 2007 (I just declared it so today). I also picked up a broom to replace the one I broke the other day after it became encased in ice and I broke the handle off. It's a long story. Actually, it's not a long story; that about summed it up--broom froze, I broke the handle off.

Anyway. When I got to the register, there were four people ahead of me, which spells a long wait on a good day. Alas, this was not a good day. The lady at the front of the line had, I think, half the store in her cart. The grand total for her purchases was $157, which is pretty impressive considering the bargain-store nature of Fields. Regardless of how much stuff she had, it took an inordinate amount of time to ring through and bag. Plus, there was a trainee at the cash register, and the manager was taking the opportunity to train her at this moment. I don't know about you, but if I'm that manager, I'm taking over to keep things moving.

Finally, the biggest transaction of the year was completed. The lady went to the door, and the manager behind the counter excused herself and walked away. Surely the new girl would take over. No. She just stood there, looking awkward. And so the three of us in line sat there, just staring at our shoes, waiting for something to happen. Customer service-related anger was building inside me, but then I remembered that swearing at the clerk would probably get me expelled, and three binders and a broom just aren't worth it.

Finally, the manager returned. Apparently, she'd been helping the previous lady to her car (spending $157 gets you personal valet service, evidently). Hooray, the lineup was moving again! Oh joy; oh rapture! Finally, after 10 minutes of standing in line (recall that there were four people in that line), I was free. And then I forgot my broom. Luckily, someone noticed and came out with it after me. Nice.

But for the love of anything special, All I wanted were some binders. Sheesh.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I found out a disturbing detail in one of my classes on Wednesday. One of my courses (the interesting one, for those keeping score) has a take-home exam as its final project. Now, usually I don't know what to think about take-home exams. Personally, I think profs want an excuse to make you sweat, so they give you a very difficult test under the guise of a take-home exam, and you agonize over it more. If you're in class and facing a time limit, there's only so much you can do. At home, you can write and re-write for hours, and you always question whether or not what you wrote is right.

This one is even worse. The prof told us Wednesday that our take-home exam this semester will be comprised entirely of questions we make up and then answer. Three questions; one from each section of the course. 35% of the grade is formulating the question; only 65% goes to your answer. And the kicker? Someone asked how long he wanted our final submission to be. His answer: "As long as it takes to answer the questions you formulate."

Man, do I ever hate that. Perhaps I'm so thoroughly modern that I need rigid structure in my life, but to me, this whole thing seems like a massive cop-out on the part of the prof. Now there's no need to even make a test--we're doing all the work, and he gets to rip us apart. Yay! I put some thought into it tonight, and I think I've come up with some preliminaries, but honestly, who knows what he even wants? I'll either spend a lot of time on it and find out that he didn't expect that much and I could have gotten the same grade with half the work, or I'll find out that his expectations were enormous and I've missed them completely. Either way, it's something I'm going to be stressing out about for the remainder of the semester. Nice.

On that lovely note, I think I'll take my leave. Happy weekend to everyone. Back here on Monday with stories of a trip to Superstore (in Airdrie this time, just for something different) and a pool party that we're going to on Saturday. Oh, and happy vacation, mom and dad (there goes half my audience again). Think of me in my three feet of snow when you're cruising through the Panama Canal. I'll see the rest of you on Monday.