::blinks:: It must be magic?
My internet connection has pretty much sucked for the last month; losing the connection after two minutes, multiple attempts to connect, all interspersed with random days without any problems, making it ridiculous to call tech support.
Until Wednesday, when my internet went down and stayed down. I called Thursday night, waited through the "high traffic volume, wait time estimated 35-40 minutes"... and then their system hung up on me. Three times. Finally the connection holds, though the hold music cuts in and out painfully (is that my cell phone, or does everybody in the world have painful hold music?) until Chris comes on the line and runs through the basic "turn everything off, turn it back on" - as if I haven't tried that 20 times. Finally he changes my password, but even that doesn't work, and I agree that I can be here between 9am and 12pm Saturday.
Last week I had a furnace inspection between 12pm and 4:30pm... the guy showed up at 4:35pm. So wasn't I surprised (and shocked awake, as I mis-set my alarm!) when I get a call at 9:20 asking my if the dsl light is green or red. It's green, always has been, and the guy says he'll be here in ten minutes.
I dash out of bed, throw on some clothes, and run downstairs to change my desktop wallpaper, and lo and behold my internet works!!! That's when he calls back and says he's downstairs.
So I open the front door. Nobody's there. How did you make my internet work, I ask? Where's downstairs, I ask? He didn't do anything but ring my buzzer, he says. In the lobby.
Um, I live in a house.
We manage to work out that, though he has my phone number, I'm not the person or the internet connection that he was attempting to fix. In fact, my house is *not* on his docket for 9am to 12pm at all! The person he is helping doesn't answer her door the entire time I'm talking with him, and presumably her internet still doesn't work.
But mine does, so thank you Frank for the random magic. :)
One tab that I've had open for over a week now is this Ontario court ruling allowing a dad and two moms. I so love my country.
Ontario court says boy can have dad, mom - and mom
Last Updated: Wednesday, January 3, 2007 | 10:55 AM ET
CBC News
A child can legally have three parents, Ontario's highest court ruled in a landmark decision Tuesday.
In the so-called "two-mother" ruling, the Ontario Court of Appeal said the biological mother of a five-year-old boy and her same-sex partner can both be legally recognized as mothers of the child. The boy's biological father is still recognized as his dad.
"It's not an academic issue; it's very much a practical issue," said the father's lawyer, Alf Mamo.
"If the biological parent is away, and the child gets sick and they have to go to the hospital, and the doctor wants the parent to sign a consent, there has to be the ability to do that," said Mamo.
Father would lose status if boy adopted
The boy's mother and her partner have been in a stable same-sex union since 1990. In 1999, they decided to begin a family with help from a friend, the court heard.
Both women were to be the child's primary caregivers, but believed it would be in the child's best interests for the biological father to be involved in his life.
The mother and her partner did not apply for an adoption order because, if they did so, the father would lose his status under the Child and Family Services Act, Ontario's legislation covering child protection and adoption, court heard.
"Perhaps one of the greatest fears faced by lesbian mothers is the death of the birth mother. Without a declaration of parentage or some other order, the surviving partner would be unable to make decisions for their minor child, such as critical decisions about health care."
'Gap' in laws revealed
The Appeal Court ruled that the provincial legislation dealing with issues of custody, the Children's Law Reform Act, no longer reflects current society.
"There is no doubt that the legislature did not foresee for the possibility of declarations of parentage for two women, but that is a product of the social conditions and medical knowledge at the time," they wrote.
The judges said a "gap in the legislation has been revealed," and the statute does not reflect the best interests of the child in this case.
"The act does not deal with, nor contemplate, the disadvantages that a child born into a relationship of two mothers, two fathers or as in this case two mothers and one father might suffer," the judges wrote.
The appellant's application to have the case heard was dismissed by a Superior Court justice in 2003 who said he didn't have jurisdiction to rule in the case.
The temperature yesterday morning was -48 degrees Celsius with the windchill. For those of you who only speak American, that's -54.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
I love my country.
Until Wednesday, when my internet went down and stayed down. I called Thursday night, waited through the "high traffic volume, wait time estimated 35-40 minutes"... and then their system hung up on me. Three times. Finally the connection holds, though the hold music cuts in and out painfully (is that my cell phone, or does everybody in the world have painful hold music?) until Chris comes on the line and runs through the basic "turn everything off, turn it back on" - as if I haven't tried that 20 times. Finally he changes my password, but even that doesn't work, and I agree that I can be here between 9am and 12pm Saturday.
Last week I had a furnace inspection between 12pm and 4:30pm... the guy showed up at 4:35pm. So wasn't I surprised (and shocked awake, as I mis-set my alarm!) when I get a call at 9:20 asking my if the dsl light is green or red. It's green, always has been, and the guy says he'll be here in ten minutes.
I dash out of bed, throw on some clothes, and run downstairs to change my desktop wallpaper, and lo and behold my internet works!!! That's when he calls back and says he's downstairs.
So I open the front door. Nobody's there. How did you make my internet work, I ask? Where's downstairs, I ask? He didn't do anything but ring my buzzer, he says. In the lobby.
Um, I live in a house.
We manage to work out that, though he has my phone number, I'm not the person or the internet connection that he was attempting to fix. In fact, my house is *not* on his docket for 9am to 12pm at all! The person he is helping doesn't answer her door the entire time I'm talking with him, and presumably her internet still doesn't work.
But mine does, so thank you Frank for the random magic. :)
One tab that I've had open for over a week now is this Ontario court ruling allowing a dad and two moms. I so love my country.
Ontario court says boy can have dad, mom - and mom
Last Updated: Wednesday, January 3, 2007 | 10:55 AM ET
CBC News
A child can legally have three parents, Ontario's highest court ruled in a landmark decision Tuesday.
In the so-called "two-mother" ruling, the Ontario Court of Appeal said the biological mother of a five-year-old boy and her same-sex partner can both be legally recognized as mothers of the child. The boy's biological father is still recognized as his dad.
"It's not an academic issue; it's very much a practical issue," said the father's lawyer, Alf Mamo.
"If the biological parent is away, and the child gets sick and they have to go to the hospital, and the doctor wants the parent to sign a consent, there has to be the ability to do that," said Mamo.
Father would lose status if boy adopted
The boy's mother and her partner have been in a stable same-sex union since 1990. In 1999, they decided to begin a family with help from a friend, the court heard.
Both women were to be the child's primary caregivers, but believed it would be in the child's best interests for the biological father to be involved in his life.
The mother and her partner did not apply for an adoption order because, if they did so, the father would lose his status under the Child and Family Services Act, Ontario's legislation covering child protection and adoption, court heard.
"Perhaps one of the greatest fears faced by lesbian mothers is the death of the birth mother. Without a declaration of parentage or some other order, the surviving partner would be unable to make decisions for their minor child, such as critical decisions about health care."
'Gap' in laws revealed
The Appeal Court ruled that the provincial legislation dealing with issues of custody, the Children's Law Reform Act, no longer reflects current society.
"There is no doubt that the legislature did not foresee for the possibility of declarations of parentage for two women, but that is a product of the social conditions and medical knowledge at the time," they wrote.
The judges said a "gap in the legislation has been revealed," and the statute does not reflect the best interests of the child in this case.
"The act does not deal with, nor contemplate, the disadvantages that a child born into a relationship of two mothers, two fathers or as in this case two mothers and one father might suffer," the judges wrote.
The appellant's application to have the case heard was dismissed by a Superior Court justice in 2003 who said he didn't have jurisdiction to rule in the case.
The temperature yesterday morning was -48 degrees Celsius with the windchill. For those of you who only speak American, that's -54.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
I love my country.