cyan's Journal: A Requiem for Grande Cache

Friday will be my final day in Grande Cache, Alberta, a town of 4,000 people and in the middle of nowhere. I've stayed here for exactly six months, and it's been like a gigantic breath of fresh air. The attitudes of the people here have been warm and friendly, and it's been interesting to live as an adult in a town that I grew up in as a kid. To be honest, I'll miss the town and all of its nuances.

Amateur radio station VA6RRX was shut down permanently today, put into boxes to await its arrival at a new QTH. Despite being in a basement suite, I hope that the station will be bigger and better than ever. The services offered will rival even the best repeaters: IRLP, APRS, a packet BBS, and an autopatch that links in with Asterisk. I've got a TNC-X on the way, which is sent all in parts much like an old Heathkit. The projects won't stop, to be sure.

I will be APRS beaconing as VA6WY-13 for my trip from Grande Cache to Edmonton. Since I'm departing at 3:00am MDT on Saturday, I doubt many people will be watching. But, if you'd like to watch my progress, you can do it here: http://aprs.fi/ Be sure to put in "VA6WY-13" for the callsign, and you can watch me traverse the Great Province of Alberta in realtime.

RoadRunner X will have a dialup number in Edmonton running at 33.6kbps: (780) 473-RRX0. It's going to feel great to have a dialup board again.

There's no question about my impact on the business here. Income is up in a big way since I've arrived, and it continues to grow. I've left behind some tools and business contacts that should help Stephen out in the long run. In the six months I've been here, I've had to yell at a customer exactly zero times. Yelling would be an almost monthly occurrence in Burnaby, but the attitude of people out here is noticeably different.

For example, if I sold a computer to a customer in Burnaby, and they had difficulty in getting the sound card to work, they would come back to the store and demand their money back, claiming it was my negligence. But people here simply call and say, "the sound card doesn't work", and that's it. No finger pointing, no attitude, nothing. We then fix the problem and the customer is grateful. Whether this is a "BC vs. Alberta" thing, or "City vs. Small Town" thing, I don't know. Since I won't be working retail in Edmonton, I don't know if I'll ever have it figured out. Most people have bets on it being a "City vs. Small Town" thing, but I think it may be more of a "BC vs. Alberta" thing than people may think.

A real pleasure has been the compliments I've received from customers. I got a few of these in BC, mostly in regards to the quality of my work. But here, in Grande Cache, the compliments have been about my customer service. A few people say that the way I talk makes it sound like I'm running some kind of Fortune 500 company, others have said that I'm just a pleasure to speak with. These customer compliments mean more to me than they may know, and I appreciate each one.

Yesterday, I was on the telephone with the owner of one of the local commercial radio repeater sites. A big client of ours has a big project in mind involving a lot of radio stuff, and it's a real shame that I won't be around to see it through. It will be a very involved, fascinating project, to be sure. Since I came up with the solution for the client, I passed on the information to Stephen so that he can implement it while I'm away. At any rate, I was explaining the implementation of the project to the site owner, and out of nowhere he asked: "You wouldn't happen to be looking for new employment, would you?"

I could only laugh. I explained my situation with Deloitte, and he responded, "Yeah, I guess you can't turn that one down, can you?" Never the less, it felt good to be someone whose skills are in demand.

Lastly, I went to visit Grande Cache Community High School, a school I hadn't set foot in for over ten years. Most importantly, I wanted to speak with Mr. Warenycia, my former computer teacher. To be honest, I always felt that we, as a group, always gave him a hard time. Especially when he went out of his way to create courses for us kids who were clearly over his head in the area of computer knowledge. Only as an adult can I now fully appreciate the efforts he went through to make these sorts of things happen, and I feel terrible that -- as a kid -- I gave him such a hard time.

His response blew me away. In response to my apology, he said that any hard time that I had given him was overshadowed by my positive impact in the community in regards to computers. I was a little confused by this at first, but he explained that I always seemed to have a knack for galvanizing people around me in the way of computers. He continued to say that I helped kids "think outside the box" and that he wished that someone like myself was in the school today, since today's kids have it too easy in the way of computers.

We spoke a bit more, about how various people were doing, including Thomas (who is now my new boss.) Before leaving, I gave him Thomas' business card.

On my way back home, it occurred to me that what he said is true. Grande Cache had no idea what IRC was before I introduced it. I ran one of the towns most successful bulletin board systems. Lastly, it is true that there was a pretty good core group of computer kids in the school; I just never had thought that I was the one responsible for that. For these sorts of compliments to come from a teacher is nothing short of extraordinary.

Let me tell you, it has been absolutely refreshing to be around so many positive people for a change. I've absolutely had it with the perpetually depressed, negative people who feel the need to bullshit or talk trash. From here it's onwards and upwards.

In closing I'd like to thank Stephen Joseph for being a great friend and giving me the opportunity to work for him and improve his business, Daryl Taitinger (VE6DJT) for being an outstanding amateur radio mentor in a community with only eight of us hams, and the folks at the Grandview for putting up with my unpleasant face every morning. Thanks also to Brian Houlihan for making me a welcome guest in his home, the great food and late-night rounds of Hearts, and of course to John Warenycia for his advice. You're all friends in my book, and all will be missed. Last, but not least, a big thanks to Thomas Matthews for giving me the unique opportunity to work for a great company. The work will be be fascinating, surely. I'm looking forward to the challenge.

That's all for now. See you all in Edmonton, City of Champions!