Paul Alton MBA

Lifelong Learning, Living and Loving

Home

Dukan Diet

Ad Copy

Articles

Thinking Ahead

Decisions

LongestDay

A Day

Jail Mindset

Dan Alton's Memoirs

DR Mission Trip

David Allen

Automation

Two Businesses

Winter Vacation

Tales of Buddy

Pirogue 2014

Killer Grid Heater Bolt

Video Doorbell

Travel

Copper Canyon 2010

Ireland 2011

August 1_2011 Photos

August 2_2011 Photos

August 3_2011 Photos

August 4_2011 Photos

August 5_2011 Photos

August 6_2011 Photos

August 7_2011 Photos

August 8_2011 Photos

August 9_2011 Photos

August 10 _2011 Photos

Ometepe Monastery

Somoto Canyon 2014

Reports

Heat Duct

Books

Updates

April 2025

March 2025

February 2025

January 2025

December 2024

November 2024

October 2024

September 2024

August 2024

July 2024

June 2024

May 2024

April 2024

March 2024

February 2024

January 2024

December 2023

November 2023

October 2023

September 2023

August 2023

July 2023

June 2023

May 2023

April 2023

March 2023

February 2023

January 2023

December 2022

November 2022

October 2022

September 2022

August 2022

July 2022

May June 2022

April 2022

March 2022

February 2022

January 2022

2021Review

December 2021

November 2021

October 2021

September 2021

August 2021

July 2021

June 2021

May 2021

April 2021

March 2021

February 2021

January 2021

December 2020

November 2020

October 2020

September 2020

August 2020

July 2020

June 2020

May 2020

April 2020

Covid Spring

March 2020

February 2020

January 2020

December 2019

November 2019

October 2019

September 2019

August 2019

July 2019

June 2019

May 2019

April 2019

March 2019

February 2019

January 2019

December 2018

November 2018

October 2018

Peru Part 2

September 2018

SpringSummer2018

February 2018

January 2018

December 2017

November 2017

Fall 2017

August 2017

July 2017

June 2017

May 2017

April 2017

March 2017

February 2017

January 2017

December 2016

November 2016

October 2016

September 2016

August 2016

July 2016

June 2016

May 2016

March April 2016

February 2016

January 2016

D and E House 2015

December 2015

Fall 2015

Bill China

CarolynChina

September 2015

Summer 2015

April 2015

March 2015

February 2015

January 2015

December 2014

November 2014

Going South 2014

summer 2014

Spring 2014

March 2014

February 2014

January 2014

December 2013

November 2013

SeptemberOctober 2013

August 2013

July 2013

June 2013

May 2013

April 2013

March 2013

February 2013

January 2013

December 2012

November 2012

October 2012

September 2012

August 2012

July 2012

June 2012

May 2012

April 2012

March 2012

February 2012

January 2012

December 2011

November 2011

September - October 2011

July - August 2011

April - June 2011

March 2011

February 2011

January 2011

December 2010

November 2010

October 2010

September 2010

Shop/Studio 2010

August 2010

July 2010

June 2010

April - May 2010

March 2010

February 2010

January 2010

December 2009

November 2009

October 2009

Going South 2009

September 2009

Shop/Studio 2009

July - August 2009

June 2009

May 2009

April 2009

March 2009

February 2009

Nicaragua Trip

January 2009

Big Feed 2008

December 2008

November 2008

October 2008

Balloon Ride

August - September 2008

Studio / Shop 2008

June - July 2008

April - May 2008

March 2008

February 2008

Jan-Feb 08 Transition

January 2008

Big Feed 2007

December 2007

November 2007

Sept/Oct 2007

Summer 2007

Spring 2007

February 2007

January 2007

2006 Updates

CanMexCan V

CanMexCan_IV

CanMexCan_III

CanMexCan_II

CanMexCan_I

 
COVID Spring

Image: 

The best laid plans…

End of March: Return to Canada from Nicaragua

Early April: Attend booked training in Edmonton to bring safety certificates up to date

May onward: Work a turnaround near Redwater; House sit for our Edmonton family for three months while they go to Pittsburgh where our son-in law was working on a Shell petrochemical plant; Spend the time after the turnaround getting to know Edmonton better.

Reality as we know it:

We get news that travel insurance is cancelled due to Covid. There is a general outcry from those affected around the world and the forthcoming revision of you’ve got ten days to get back to Canada.

We try phoning Flight Hub but they are swamped and so just go ahead and rebook our flights home on line and pay the change fees with the assurance we will be re-imbursed. That got sorted out in a couple of months. We had planned to fly out of Managua early one morning at the end of the month and stay in Managua the night before in the Best Western across from the airport. Our reservation was non-cancellable, but they graciously waived that and refunded under Covid. Our new departure date was in the afternoon of March 15th. We had paid the Hotel Jerico ahead as well and they very graciously refunded our money, which they really didn’t have to do especially when they were already suffering with the drop in tourist traffic due to the troubles a few years ago. Shortly after we left they shuttered the place for the foreseeable future.

On March 15th, Abdulah Tours picked us up at the Hotel Jerico and drove us to the Managua airport for our flight to Houston, Texas.

We had bought hand sanitizer, surgical and dust masks at a few pharmacies and hardware stores in Esteli and Granada. Shortly after our purchases the Nicaraguan government clamped down and banned the pharmacies from selling hand sanitizer and masks and, if I understood the pharmacists correctly, commandeered their supplies.

We were among the minority wearing masks. Few people in the Managua airport were wearing masks. Only a few people other than us on our flight were wearing masks.

When we arrived in Houston the airport was close to empty compared to normal.

In Houston there were some issues with the Air Canada flight to Canada. The AC app would not issue us boarding passes. The Air Canada gate people within the secure area jerked us around when we tried to sort out the problems with the boarding passes to our next flight. Then they left the area once the flight left for Toronto. In typical Aeroflot Canada fashion they tried to send us to an AC office outside the secure area but a) it was probably closed for the day and b) without boarding passes we would be unable to get back into the secured area. We hung out overnight trying to sleep sitting up in chairs designed to make that as uncomfortable as possible. The airport emptied out to just the cleaning staff and the occasional clump of people passing through from their arriving flights. Hardly any masks.

When the nearby food court started making noises it was going to open up for the breakfast crowd we went and found ourselves a bathroom and then a table. Other than a few Asians passing by we were the only people (passengers or workers) wearing face masks. Got some funny looks, but nobody harassed us. There.

After breakfast we went to the purported departure gate and hung out there. We were early enough that we had the place mostly to ourselves. There was one toddler that wandered in on the way to his gate followed by a parent who then failed to convince him to carry on to the right gate. He liked this one better. The kid then dominated his parents. Who am I to judge? But I did.

Every once in a while I would go check a monitor to make sure they didn’t make a gate switch on us. They do that.

When the Aeroflot Canada gate people showed up we got boarding passes and settled in to wait for the boarding mess. It went as well as it usually does and we settled in for the flight to Calgary. We flew out of Canada from Edmonton, but the government of Canada had restricted entry airports and Calgary was ours on the way home. I guessed it was so people could be quickly trained and brought up to speed to efficiently handle this potential public health crisis.

It is to laugh.

I was shocked when we moved to Saskatchewan and people would automatically say “the government should do something about that”. That was never my first response to any problem. I never thought government was generally efficient or the first choice for any solution. If there is one thing I have learned from 2020 it is that government is even more bumbling and incompetent than I ever considered possible. This has been a Pandemic Severity Index 2 (PS2) which is a relatively mild event. If it had been a PS5 like the Spanish Flu in 1918 we’d all be dead. The only thing that has helped Canada at all is population density is so low.

Enough ranting. Back to the flight. We were just about the only people wearing masks, lowering them briefly to eat or drink. One stewardess loudly proclaimed to the people across the aisle that she thought masks were stupid as she glanced in our direction. She is young enough not to be at particular risk other than BMI but I wonder if she still holds that view.

Arriving in Calgary we are prepared for temperature checks and detailed health questionnaires for Covid risk and detailed quarantine instructions. Nope.

“Feeling okay?”

“Yup”

“Okay. Here’s a photocopy. Have a nice day.”

Photocopy has a number to call if you feel sick. We move along to the gate for our flight to Edmonton. There is an earlier flight available and we make the changes. The gate agent is an Air Canada rep who is friendly, helpful and cheerful. You do run across them. They must feel so alone.

We get front row seats on the plane. Passing children ask their parents why those people are wearing masks.

Arriving in Edmonton we deplane and get a cab. The cabbie says he doesn’t know what he should be doing about Covid. At our daughter’s house the garage door opens when we arrive. Our car is in the garage in the spot normally occupied by our son-in-law’s car. He is in Pittsburgh working on construction of a Shell petrochemical plant. Within a week or two they will shut down the project “for two weeks”. He drives to Ontario and flies back to Edmonton. It is months before they recall any workers and in the mean time they cancel the work visas for the Canadians. During the summer he will fly back to Ontario to pick up his car.

All the stuff we had left in the closet of the spare room has been moved to the car. Our winter coats are on the backseat. We put them on and stand behind the car and talk to our daughter and grandkids as they shiver in the doorway between the house and the garage. Then we leave in our car with the snacks and bottled water she has supplied. We stop once at Tim Horton’s in Vermillion to use the bathroom and buy some coffee. They still have a few customers inside and Plexiglas shields for the cashier. There are no straws, napkins or stir sticks at the order pickup counter. This is a change from last fall. I ask why. They’ve moved them away from public touching. Makes sense. I ask for a couple of straws for our coffee (try it!) and we’re back on the road.

We had booked a Choice hotel in Lloydminster because we didn’t know how tired we’d be and what the roads would be like but all was good. I pulled over as we crossed into Saskatchewan and called and cancelled the reservation. They graciously cancelled and refunded our points because Covid.

We drive down the driveway cleared by Willy McAmmond, leap across the snow bank to get to our porch, go in and turn up the electric heat and start the woodstove. Water can wait until tomorrow. We unload the car, turn down the electric heat and not long after go to bed. The memory foam remembers the cold for a while then it adapts to our bodies and we sleep. Our Meadow Lake daughter brings us groceries for the next two weeks. We wipe them down with the Lysol wipes our Edmonton daughter put in our car (she has five kids and buys in bulk) before bringing them inside.

I check about the safety courses. They’re still on but even though we are out of quarantine the day before the first course starts the standard to attend is not having been out of the country for four weeks. Cancel the courses. Later in the month the safety certificate expiry dates get extended to September because of Covid so I could work if there was work. The May turnaround I had been talking about with a potential employer gets cancelled.

I had not been planning to work again for pay when I retired in 2005 but stumbled into short-term turnaround and construction work in 2007 and really liked it. It turned out that 2020 was the first year I didn’t work since 2007. Maybe I’m really retired. Or maybe it is just a Covid gap year. My university “gap year” lasted from 1968 to 1998 when I started on my MBA.

I had worked enough in 2019 to qualify for what the rest of the civilized world calls unemployment insurance. Canada being ahead on the Orwellian curve calls it employment insurance. As we left the country I phoned and advised them I would be out of the country until the end of March. They said fine we’ll mark your account that way and when you get back just go on line and restart your claim. Hah! If I had it to do over again I would have just kept filing the on-line bi-weekly reports and said I was out of the country for the last two weeks, don’t pay me.

My online dashboard now showed my claim as permanently closed. Two or three hours a day of being on hold and being dropped off resulted in getting through to real people three times in six weeks. The first two didn’t know what they were talking about if they believed what they told me. The situation was fluid. Recorded instructions were ambiguous and a lot of people were manning phone lines who were ill informed. Normally you would go to the local Service Canada Centre and see somebody. However, they were all worried about Covid so they shut down the Centres and paid the agents not to be there. If there was justice, they would have to apply for benefits through the system everybody else uses. It might improve.

So that’s what happened to the plans. We’ll talk about the rest of 2020 another day.


<< Previous   Next >>

Copyright Paul W. Alton 2006 through 2025 All Rights Reserved
Pages on this site contain Amazon affiliate links
Amazon sells everything from soup to drones.
   Amazon Link 
As an Amazon Associate i earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.