More Interesting Articles

There are lots of interesting stories that just seem to appear all of a sudden in my Blogsite. Not all of them are posted, but quite a few.

When one does Blogs as I do, then I assume that the Blogger has a whole bunch of articles that the person wants to make part of his/her new story. Accordingly, one tries to figure out exactly what one is going to say and then even starts doing so. Then, the "EXCITING" story appears on the scene. It changes everything. One may have to redo the started article entirely almost immediately and then post it instead of the one that was planned before. Naturally, that means that the older stories have to be reconsidered and may even be dropped because a bunch of even newer events require new stories to be set up.

I have to tell you that this happens to me on many occasions.  Every so often, I go back to my list of articles to see which ones I should post on a particular day. I am quite surprised that some of them are rather "old" and should have been posted before. Just for a few seconds, mind you, I try to figure out why I did not do so and usually I cannot remember the reason.

Oh well, here are some stories that I am posting now. Yes, they were considered some time ago too but only being posted today  <LOL>

HIGHER INTERNET COSTS

I have to admit that this is not too exciting:

"Two of Canada's biggest internet service providers are preparing to increase their monthly subscriber prices, a move they say is justified by the investments they're making in their networks.

Rogers Communications will raise prices for most of its internet plans by $8 a month, starting Monday.

For its lowest-price plan, there will be a smaller increase of $4 per month for a package that delivers speeds of less than 20 megabytes per second. 

On April 1, Bell Canada will increase its internet prices by $5 a month for Ontario customers and by $3 a month for its customers in Quebec."  (Canadian Press, March 9,  2018) 

It is getting quite expensive to use the Internet service.  I used to subscribe to the Bell service but  cancelled it. I now use MNSI to provide my high-speed service because their service is excellent and their price is lower than the big Phone Companies. Their technical service people are very helpful when I have a problem. Every so often I have something technically that seems strange to me so that my Internet service is not working properly. I immediately call their Tech Services department which knows how to fix problems, or, if it is that unusual, will stay online with me as long as it takes to repair.

I have to tell you that one of the issues that I must deal with eventually is whether I am going to go off of my DSL service and use their new, very high-speed service. There are several alternatives of those. Obviously, each of these new services will cost more money than what I am paying now. In addition, I am going to have to wait probably a long time before such new service is installed where I live.

I will have to do some really thoughtful thinking about whether I want to spend so much more money on the new service. The question I have to ask is whether I need to have such a high speed service with my use of the Internet as I do now. I have to admit that I do not know that answer today.

IS OUR UNIVERSITY THAT ATTRACTIVE 

I do not know if you read this story or not. Here is its headline in the Star article:

"U of Windsor campus ranked among the most beautiful"

That was the headline of the Windsor Star article by KellySteele on March 9, 2018. 

I thought that it must really good until I saw this line under the headline:

"The University of Windsor campus was ranked No. 22 among a list of 30 of the most beautiful campuses in Canada."

To be honest, I thought that being at almost the bottom of that list was not all that advantageous. Mind you, here are the number of universities in Canada so maybe it really is good:

"As of 2016 there are 96 universities in Canada." (Wikipedia) 

Moreover, if one goes to the Best Choice Schools website that listed the universities, one would see this remark:

"The 30 universities on this list are the most beautiful in all of Canada."

So there you are, it seems. Being so low on a list posted may not be so bad after all.

In case you want to know, the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia was #1.

SUCH OLDER BRIDGES

The Ambassador Bridge was opened in 1929. I thought that was interesting because of the comment that I saw in an article that was made by a representative from the Sault Ste. Marie Bridge Authority:

"A redecking project of the Peace Bridge, budgeted at $100 million US is underway. The bridge connects Buffalo, N.Y., and Fort Erie, Ont.

Peace Bridge is 90 years old. It's an accomplishment to get such longevity from their bridge deck,” said SSMBA general manager Peter Petainen in an email. “It validated our planning and belief that we could achieve that as well, with good asset management of the deck.” (Brian Kelly, Sault Star, March 10, 2018) 

Therefore, it is fine for an almost 90 year-old Ambassador Bridge to be fixed up and remain available for auto and truck usage.

One has to wonder even more now if building a Government bridge in the Windsor-Detroit area really needs to be done given what is going on in Buffalo and what the Ambassador Bridge Company wants to do here.  In fact, one may even wonder why we need to see a 2nd Ambassador Bridge being built.

However, I just have to assume that merely fixing up the Ambassador Bridge, which probably could be done at a much lower cost than building a new one, would not be advantageous for this area. That has to be why the Ambassador Bridge Company wants to build a 2nd, bigger bridge here and then fix up its older one.  

It seems to me therefore that this is also why building a Government Bridge in addition to a 2nd Ambassador Bridge at a cost of about $10 billion would be absurd!