The Postmaster

Well, we've reached the one time of year that people might actually use the post office. Packages have been trickling in to my place fairly steadily for the last few weeks (3 avid ebayers, one who also is seemingly addicted to Amazon/Chapters). However, even though I'm not all that old, I can see how the role of the local post office and mail carrier has changed.

When I first move into my house I had the same guy bring the fast food advertising mail at the same time every day but it seems as though as of the last year or so there has been a rotating cast that delivers. I never did get to find out if my guy was this guy, but I don't think he was. I also don't think they try very hard to deliver parcels that require a signature - I always seem to end up with the little notice that tells me to pick it up tomorrow at my local postal outlet. Although as I discovered the other day, they are not a "real" post office because I couldn't do anything regarding my claim for damages to the contents of my package there. I also get a kick out of how you MUST produce ID - when I used to live at my dad's place in the country, and the Post Mistress knew exactly who I was, she wouldn't release things without ID. Or the time when my dad was out of the country and having his mail forwarded to my house in the city and they weren't going to let me pick up a piece of mail with his name on it at the post office, even though clearly he was fine with having all of his mail go to my house and my ID has my address on it.

Enter the new Postmaster, the border-town entrepreneur. Anyone who has ever ordered anything from the States online has dealt with this problem:

Image from here

 

But once you read the fine print, that only applies for shipping within the US. If, and why on earth would you, you would like that package shipped to the country that sees something like 90% of their population live within an hour of the border, then you can expect to pay through the nose and then customs and brokerage fees on top of that. I remember one time where shipping would be free to the US but $69 to Canada! Never mind the fact that it seems to take about 3 weeks on average for a parcel to reach Winnipeg.

Just in Pembina, ND alone there are at least three places that will accept a parcel for you for a fee (generally $5 for smaller packages). I have been using Pembina Parcel Service for years (Mike's Parcel Pickup and Corner Bar Parcel Pickup are some of the newer players in the game). Hetty, who, bless her, seems like she should probably be living in a lovely sunny retirement community somewhere rather than running what is arguably a very flourishing business (they've just expanded). Since I've been using Hetty from back in the day when you used to pick up your parcel using the honour system - you opened the garage, took your parcel and put your $5 in the honour box! - I feel a sense of loyalty to her. Plus, she always seems to at least vaguely remember me which is a nice touch in a society where we're all just numbers. I've been tempted to use Menke's Parcel in nearby Neche, ND as his prices are better, especially for smaller packages but his hours are pretty limited.

A small drawback to these types of services is that they charge per package so if (and this seems to happen frequently with places like Amazon.com) the merchant decides to ship as product is available rather than all at once you might get dinged with multiple $5 fees. A couple of things that I have learned about online shopping that I feel worthy to pass on, as I have so little advice to bestow upon the world:

• Always google the company and "promo code" or "coupon code". Often if they are not already offering free shipping or sale prices you can cut your cost quite a bit. I saved $50 on a pair of boots by doing this. No, I won't tell you how much the boots cost in the first place to be able to save that much; let's just say I think they're made from happy cows and sewn by virgin peasants or something, or at least they'd better be. Ultimately, in that case, as much as I would have liked to shop local, I saved over $110 by doing it my way vs. shopping at The Shoe Doctor.
• If they will only allow you to pay with a credit card with a US address, change a less used card that you might have to online only statements and change your address to Pembina Parcel Service. I have a Visa that I only rarely use and almost always for that purpose. www.half.ebay.com is a great site for used books and music that only accepts US address - although beware of the "shipped from ML" as this means it may not all come in one shipment
• Before you shop ANY online retailer see if they participate in either airmilesshops.ca or the aeroplan estore (as a bonus, I believe all of those stores listed ship to Canada, but I can't speak to the shipping differences that may exist). I've found that the ebay store will default to ebay Canada, so an item you were looking at may not show up in the search, simply save it in you watch list on ebay.com and then find it again when you sign in to ebay.ca via airmiles/aeroplan.

Some of you may think it's nuts to go all the way to the border just to pick up a package, but that really depends. First, no one said you had to make a special trip, work it into a weekend away and then, even better, you can make the purchases part of your duty free allowance. Second, in the case of the company trying to charge me $69 for shipping it was technically cheaper for me to take time off work and spend the gas money to go and get it, plus it meant getting it much faster (I didn't actually have to take time off, I just did it when I would have been doing some other random thing with my time).

Oh, and on the off chance you do have a regular mail carrier or newspaper carrier, don't forget that a card with a Timmies gift card or something is much appreciated.

A little ashamed to be a Winnipegger

I'm back, I know you have all been missing me! It's a total cliche but, how about this weather we've been having?? This Winnipeg Girl is in her absolute glory - it's like summer in the "olden days" (you know, when I was a teenager). I just can't get enough of this hot, sunny weather and I have been doing my best to get out and enjoy every minute of it, either in a park or just puttering in the yard. Which reminds me - the Wolseley Project suffered a few minor setbacks lately; one day I came out to find most of the heads popped off my orange marigolds and a few plants trampled on - so I replanted what I could with some replacements, including a new centerpiece giant white marigold. Well, I returned from the long weekend to find that someone has plucked the marigold and absconded with it, which is a bit of a shame. I hope they replanted it in their yard and didn't just toss it on the street somewhere.

The long weekend is actually where my story starts... I went down to the States for the long weekend, including a stop in Fargo on Friday and Saturday (beautiful downtown in Fargo if you've never been) and then back up to Grand Forks to spend Saturday and Sunday nights. The reason for Grand Forks vs. Fargo on the Saturday night, even though hotels in Fargo seem to be cheaper was that we wanted to head to Red Lake Falls on Sunday morning for a day of tubing down the river.

Downtown Fargo

If you have never been before, let me tell you, it is one heck of a good time. You could basically look up "quintessential perfect summer day" in the dictionary and get a picture of Voyageur's View in Red Lake Falls, MN. You rent tubes for people ($12 each) and for your cooler ($8) and then take one of their converted school buses up the road about 5 minutes where they drop you off at a riverside landing. Before you hit the water you lash yourselves together with the provided twine so that you can float en masse down the river. They are no slouches when it comes to trying to make sure that tubers don't use the river as their own personal garbage dump - drink containers are counted when you start the day and then again at the end when you return your tubes. You also can't bring any styrofoam or glass on the river - this includes styrofoam coolers - handy heads up, if you were as ill-prepared in the cooler department as we were, they rent coolers (we bought a styrofoam one on the way to the town, not knowing the rule) for $5. Also, if you plan to imbibe in adult beverages while floating down the river, note that Minnesota does not seem to sell liquor on Sunday so if you are heading from N. Dakota stock up there, although you will have to wait until noon for the liquor stores to open.

Ah, alcohol, this is where the situation get embarrassing for Winnipeg.

After speaking with two of the three siblings that now run Voyageur's View, I was told that the August long weekend is by far their busiest and rowdiest weekend. With all of the insanity and mayhem that was around, I give extreme kudos to them for being quite so gracious with regards to the hundreds of young Winnipeggers that were going out of their way to seemingly damage as much as possible while breaking every rule that was out there. Taking a walk through the campground you could be forgiven for thinking you were somewhere in Manitoba - probably 95% of the cars sported Manitoba plates.

I don't know if I can paint the picture accurately enough, but I'll try.  For those of you around my age (30's) who remember the sh*t-show that Oktoberfest turned into - the extreme drunkeness, the fights the everything - it's like that but half or more naked and involving a potentially dangerous body of water.  I would peg most of the campers to be middle class, university students, so certainly not a hopeless uneducated bunch in the ways of social norms, yet there they were, drunk and belligerent (and that was at lunch-time) swearing and throwing things.

Now, I am not at all against the idea of a few cold adult beverages, especially on a nice summer day, but I like to think that getting drunk while floating down a river, a river, not a swimming pool with a lifeguard that can save your sorry ass (not that that is the best idea either), is not the best plan of action. The level of drunkeness is by no means accidental, these kids (dear lord, I'm getting old) binge drink like they're seasoned alcoholics told that today is the last day that booze will ever exist. Basically, most of them seem to have crossed the line from having a good time over to the dark side.

Now, back to the two owners that I met (and before I realized they were the owners) - while in line for our first float down the river, the brother that I met took the time to ask our group if we had been down before, and since I suppose it was obvious that we weren't part of "that crowd" he even apologized for their behaviour.  His sister was our bus driver for our second departure of the day, and again, she took the time to ask us if we were familiar with the process. Voyageur's View had dozens of staff on, including security staff with a no-nonsense behaviour and yet these horrible over-privileged young adults from Winnipeg were doing everything they could to make their lives difficult. The end of the run down the river is at a landing just under a bridge that is next to the campground, and the bridge itself has more than your usual guardrail - it actually has about an 8ft. fence to keep stupid people from jumping off the bridge into the river below, yet while we were there, we witnessed one guy climb OVER the fence so he could possibly break his neck jumping into the shallow river.

Basically, the whole thing makes me so mad I can barely get my words to make sense. These stupid kids are who ruin things for the rest of society. People have been floating down that river for years and years (Voyageur's View has been around for 27 years) and most people are smart enough to remember that they are in a river, that has currents and rocks and whatever else might be unknown and they take appropriate precautions and follow the rules that have been outlined for their safety however I have a sneaky suspicion that drunk twenty-somethings are going to get this sort of idyllic summer activity outlawed. Apparently last year two friends drowned (drunk, of course) and the families have their knickers in a twist because they think Voyageur's View should be held responsible.  What ever happened to personal responsibility? It reminds me of the knee-jerk reaction of creating minimum pricing for liquor in Manitoba because some idiot drank too much and wandered into the river.

Ok, rant mostly over. So, I'm not sure how many of you are parents of people who went down to Red Lake Falls on the long weekend, and even though they are very likely an adult, in theory capable of making their own decisions, it might be a good idea to have a chat about what constitutes acceptable adult behaviour.  And if you haven't been to Red Lake Falls - go! It's such a great way to spend a day, and with this awesome summer we've been having it's pretty much a must-do.