Blog Entry: 6 New life and new friends
May-June 2021
In England I was a stickler for new things and specs, but as we are renting and we had made the decision to hold out with our flat sale hoping for top money, so my mind set for this ‘hopefully short’ period had changed. New rule: all furniture had to be sub $20! And so far my thrifty-as-fuck thunder buddy Jess was turning out to be MVP (most valuable procurer) when it came to this. To be honest, Jess loves old/second-hand shit so her success had not shocked me. I, however, was tasked with unpacking our (no lie), tons of stuff and all had gone fairly smooth. ……minus a small argument between my index finger and a Stanley knife, it will come as no shock my right index finger lost that battle like a paper bag in a hurricane. Luckily our downstairs renter had some Steri-strips and this suited me fine as I avoid hospitals where possible especially in the current climate! For any guys or girls who are like me you will understand, I was more pissed off at my now limited movement and cut finger that kept bleeding on every fucking thing I touched, than I was about the pain. New problem, so North America doesn’t just use a different plug, they run half the voltage that England does but worse, they run 10Hz more frequency.
For anyone not tech savvy lets rewind to 2002 to Helen Romanes School in Great Dunmow and Mr Hull’s science lesson. Now Mr Hull was actually quite good at science. Teaching on the otherhand and more specifically dealing with his newly maturing students, maybe not so good. This was proven only months later, after he had a full breakdown in the class. He had removed me from the class for being a distraction, no doubt my fault. Only to realise I was now using the large glass windows as a stage to be even more of a distracting prick, so I was once again brought into class to be punished further. He and all my teachers knew I had the reading ability of a intellectually challenged 3 year old, so he made me read the text book to the class figuring this would take every ounce of my retarded reading ability to do so, and thus stopping me being from being a distracting prick……. Well, I could see his logic, but unfortunately the first line read ‘the micro-organisms that keep balance’ now I did say reading was not my strength and I proceeded to totally and honesty read ‘the micro orgasm’s that keep balance’! Well, you can imagine this did not help the situation. Mr Hull, a short man with a bald head, a bald head that was now glowing cherry read lost his shit! And it was at that time while the class was in pure hysterics and I was getting yelled at I realised my error, but before I could do anything about it, we were all outside and the door had been locked. He had the curtains drawn like a fort and Mr Hull it’s ruler, a ruler that was now audibly crying. I did feel bad as the straw that had broken his very short back was an error and by total accidental, not that any staff member would believe me mind you. So, although unlikely he will ever read this. Here is the proof, I was listening in his lessons. He explains electricity perfectly. He said to think of it as trucks carrying bags of electricity, each truck is an electron carrying energy (voltage) and the flow of the trucks or electrons (current) more current, more trucks and more voltage, more stuff in each truck. So that said each truck in North America carries around half the energy (voltage) that a truck in England does. This is strange as Tesla (no not the multibillion-dollar company that Elon musk built) instead the incredible scientist that company took the namesake from, proved the most efficient power would have been 220v on a 60Hz system. So obviously Europe took the 220v, but only 50HZ and America took note of the 60Hz but Edison (who won the electric race) insisted on 110v as this had come from his DC voltage design. This is why most of our devices would not work without a step-up transformer (a device that converts from 110/120v to 220/240v). Now with most products the frequency (the speed in an AC alternating system) makes little difference to most devices, but there are exceptions to this. So feeling chuffed that I had realised this, and purchased very nice step up transformer’s so I could use my English devices, you can only imagine my face was a picture as I stood their wondering why Dr Dre sounded so high pitched and fast playing on my very high-end audio specific Rega record player. And to make it worse I had spent a good 2 hours balancing and setting it up (yes, I can be an absolute geek over somethings). This is because unlike most motorised players (hi-fi systems) that use a converter to power a DC internal motor making the frequency not an issue, for audio reasons Rega are old school and use an AC motor ………this fucked my plans totally as AC (alternating current) is what it says; it alternates and the frequency of that alternation is 60 times a second in North America but only 50 times a second in the UK. If you followed that you will now understand why Dr Dre was playing 1/6th faster that I was expecting, this was not as simple to solve as the voltage difference, but did give me a good reason to unpack some of the other stuff Jess rightfully pointed out was more important.
So, we had managed to get our first sofa (couch for the North Americans) although slightly over budget at $100 it was in good condition and that meant no more deck chairs! And as we were running out of time ahead of my start date at Dodge, I had to get tool boxes to work and that meant renting my first U-Haul which was massive as that was the only one with a ramp and, with a little help loading from my new neighbour, I was off to Calgary. I had hoped the guys at Dodge would help unload as although it had a ramp it was about 45 degrees and getting a fully loaded toolbox off could easily turn into a ½ tonne runaway train.
When I arrived, the manager said he would get a couple of guys to help, and as I was talking two guys came round from the other side of the workshop. One in a very northern English accent said “English, north or south?” to which no sooner had I started to say “yes, south” did he go “oh, a fucking southerner” and walked back round the corner. This was all good English banter of course and as quick as he had walked off in protest, he come back grinning. Him, and the angry German that accompanied him to help, would become my first and two of my best friends this side of the world, them and a few others would make working at Dodge actually worthwhile.
So, in England you; 1. don’t get paid that great to be a mechanic. But its simple, you turn up to work and you’re paid a fixed salary. And 2. some garages implementing bonus incentives which are obtainable by up-selling wipers, filters, and fuel additives (sometimes not always needed), that’s it. North America is very different, here your paid ‘flat rate’ I now despite this phrase. Basically, they give a time in which you should complete a job (specified by dodge or other independent bodies), they pay only this time regardless if you get it done quicker or longer, can you see where this is going…. so basically, this pitches tech on tech and creates a rift over who get jobs that are priced well opposed to ones that are not, and no surprise straight service jobs that are usually and easy life and desirable in the UK, pay terribly in North America as this is how they hook customers in. Within the first two weeks I realised, 1. I don’t like flat rate and 2. cars in North America have no safety checks so anything a little older can have very sketchy maintenance and some are just plain un-road worthy. I never thought I would miss MOT’s but there needs to be something! This is made worse by the fact there no service books or service records that travel with the vehicle and they don’t really go on a scheduled maintenance for many items, I already had doubts about me being at Dodge any length of time. But I had a red seal exam coming up soon and needed to learn as many differences as possible as the exam was based on North American Ford and GM products, as they had a major input to the exams.
This aside we were tight, we had to leave savings where they were. When it came down to enjoying why we came here, that would have to be on hold for a while. The flat was still costing, and we had paid out for visa’s, shipping, initial renting costs/first month’s rent and unnecessary hotel bills thanks to flu. That said we had our snow boards and the 23rd of May would be Banff’s Sunshine ski resort’s last day for the year, so we thought ‘fuck it’, lets at least do one day! This was awesome! Jess did half the day (which is reasonable for her) and I hit some jumps had a laugh with some other boarders, I also got to ski in warm conditions for the first time. This coupled with a little stop off in Banff on the way home was good and really brought home why we had moved. Earlier that week we had had found a study chair for $5 from Facebook Marketplace and the guy who sold it to us was the awesome, larger-than-life character also called Dan. As always, I had stood and chatted for a while about random stuff with him. As it turns out he is on Q107 (a Calgary radio station) DJ name Tarzan Dan and he seemed to know loads about the local area, he said if we were looking for a nice place to live, Ghost Lake is a good shout. So, we took this advice and after skiing on the Saturday went there on the Sunday. He was correct and this further confirmed what we want is nearby and gave us more options for when we do come to buying here.
While registering our car (which must be done in person) I had seen that, unlike the UK, you don’t have to pay an extortionate amount for a private number plate. It’s $250 and you can have as much or as little between one character or seven as long as it’s available. So, I got one. At least I can see my UK one now and best of all as we are planning to start a company soon, so I got that ‘DANF40’ that would have cost a damn sight more in the UK! On the whole, the week had been good. My plan had been to get a big toolbox for home as work was in Calgary and I couldn’t just go pick tools up, but as that was more money I had elected to get thrifty and had converted one of the shipping crates into a tool nook with hanging board. This along with trying to source new batteries for my vintage Snap-On gun, not to mention the realisation it would be cheaper to buy a new turntable motor as any other option would not guarantee a consistent speed. Most of my time was getting consumed and on top I was smashing through my Dodge level one online tech courses, this was a good way to prepare for my red seal exam.
By this time, Jess had managed to get some work with the school she was attending and was now juggling school and work. Between us we were just working, studying, or sleeping. That said, on one of our walks we had passed a neighbour’s garage and under the hood of what looked like a Japanese saloon car was what looked like a 2JZ with a big aftermarket turbo. That was it. I was straight over to make friends. As it happened one of the guys I recognised! So, a few nights earlier we had been sitting on our deck watching the sun going down and had seen a neighbour across from us doing the same. This was Joal. Joal is as Albertan as oil and gas and is now another one of our good friends over here. We had yelled back and forth for a little bit and had then invited him on to our deck as it was easier to chat. As English we did the typical, we offered him a cup of tea! He was deeply confused and said “like long island iced tea” we said “no, it’s hot tea? This confused him further and just further cemented that English tea is not a thing here, but once offered beer the confused look quickly passed! It would come to pass that walking over and chatting with these guys, in what we would learn was one of their mum garages was one of the best decisions we would make.
