Wireless Internet Sticks

If you are looking at getting the Rogers RocketStick or Bell/Telus versions of the same thing(Wireless Internet) here is some helpfull stuff I have found...

1. Rogers is by far fastest. I tested Bell and Telus sticks(latest) against Rogers HSPA(7.1mb) from the same computer in the same house using several web based speed testers. Rogers was consistently 10+ times faster then Bell and at least 8 times faster than Telus. Rogers has since gotten even faster with HSPA+(21mb)

2. DON'T GET YOUR STICK FROM ROGERS! If you go to Futureshop right now you can get a free netbook($299) if you sign up with the 2 year plan.

3. Make sure you get the HSPA+ stick even if service is not available in your area yet. It s a better quality stick. Model MF668... I think the old one is MF638.

4.If you don't watch video on the web you probably can get away with 500mb plan. You can always upgrade later without problem but you are penalized if you downgrade. You can get a real idea of your usage in first 2 months when downloads are "free"... Be careful, that is not quite true... They don't tell you that they will charge you if you go over 5gb(so I heard).

I got my HSPA+ stick from Rogers on Sunday only to find the deal at Futureshop on Tuesday. Deal only on for short time so if your interested go now. This might get more convoluted when I take the stick I bought on Sunday back to rogers today. Update you if there are any issues.

Avening Cleanup 2010

After picking up 2 full bags of garbage at Glencarin I went to Avening park on Thursday  to check it out and found it to be very nice and exceptionally well maintained. I could see that at least a few people take care of it already but it looked like a spring cleaning had not been done so I decided to do a cleanup. This park is much larger than Glencairn with a lot more public area. It even has a covered pick nick area.

In a few hours I covered most common areas of the park. What a difference between this and Glencairn park. There was only one tire found throughout the park and NONE in the water. The only "wierd" thing was the truck seat(pic below) but it looked like it was used at one time. Virtually no cigarette butts or beer caps. Most garbage is cans, bottles, plastic, paper and cloth. Not the funky stuff encountered at Glencairn. However, since this is the first time cleaning Avening it is possible I may find funky stuff in future visits.

In total there was approximately 5 bags of garbage, one tire, one plastic bucket, one rust metal piece, and one truck seat. I consider that extremely clean for a first cleaning. Especially considering the size of the park. Glencairn has more garbage than this every month. What a surprising pleasure Avening park was.
 
If you are passing through Avening I recommend you check out this park(just north of bridge on west side). Avening is located on Airport Road 2-3k south of CR#9.    
Below are pics of the park and garbage collected at Avening...

Sign with park name out front

This was all the garbage I picked up. Relatively nothing.

Here is the truck seat found in the woods

Dirt road into the park

Covered pick-nick area and my bike ;)

Park area

River looking north

River looking south

Park area

Nice large tree just starting to bud.

More park

There is much more park here than the pics show.The only way to know is to check it out yourself.