The Squamidian Report – Feb. 21 / 04
Also in this issue:
North Nova News
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Still spring time out here in lotus land. Wouldn’t want it any other way. On the sunny days at the construction site I’m on this week the workers are all wearing just T-shirts, no jackets or sweaters. I had the AC on in the machine I run at one point because I had all the windows closed to keep out the dust. For the flip side, read the Emails from Sus in her North Nova News column. Pretty wild.
Sue spent this week doing an audit in Edmonton. Alberta seems to be her home away from home these days. The flight in was a bit turbulent. She doesn’t like seeing the ground when looking straight out the window. She flew on into Toronto from Edmonton Friday evening. They have an audit conference or some such thing all next week. She will be visiting Kitchener both this weekend and next, I think.
Warren and I did a gig this Friday at the local Legion. They are in a bad financial state and are trying to boost their numbers so someone came up with the idea of having entertainment over the dinner hour. We were asked to be the ‘first’ of the weekly entertainers and were supposed to play from 6 to 7:30pm with a short break in the middle. We ended up playing till almost 9. The acoustics in there are terrible but that meant we could blame any mistakes on the fact that we couldn’t hear ourselves very well. It was kind of fun and there was a free meal waiting for us when we were done playing. The dinner wasn’t much to my liking, might have been better if we had eaten a few hours sooner. Poor Yogi had spent Friday evening all alone at home and was frantic to go out for a donut by the time I got home. Who can blame him? Life is hard when you are a housebound old dog.
I finally got around to ordering computer components so I can build my next system (read dream machine). My current ‘main’ system was once cutting edge with a screaming 600 mz cpu, 256 mg of ram etc. Except for my 19-inch monitor that was and still is a good one, she’s getting a little old now. In fact, some parts of my system don’t even qualify for XP so I’m still running 98SE. I won’t bore you with all the details about assembling the parts when they come in, and dealing with the BIOS etc, I’ll just touch on any main points. For now I’ll just tell you what I’m putting together. Once it’s up and running I’ll post an ‘on line’ supplement with all the details for you fellow geeks among us who are interested.
So for just a general idea of what the system will consist of, I’ve found a black Raidmax case with a side window (so you can look in and see all the neat stuff) and a pair of extra chassis fans. The power supply is 350 w. The CPU is a P4 2.8 gz with Hyper Threading. The motherboard is an Azus P4P800 with an 800 front side bus and an 400 south bridge. The mobo supports Serial ATA so I’m putting in a 120 GB SATA hard drive instead of an old style ATA drive. That way I use the new style serial data cables that have just 7 wires instead of the 80 wire ribbon cables we are used to. The serial cables are much easier to route, and they don’t restrict internal airflow. The mobo also supports dual channel ram so I’ll install twin 512 sticks of DDR400 PC3200 ram. The graphics card will have 128mb of video memory and there will be a DVD/CDRW drive as well. This thing should sizzle. I haven’t decided on a monitor yet but I’m leaning toward a 19-inch LCD. This could an expensive way to play Minesweeper.
I really don’t know how much money you save by building your own computer but I know it’s a fair bit. However, that is not the reason to do it. The reason is its fun and a challenge. And you end up with a ‘one of a kind’ that you can put your own name on. Anyone want to order a high end ‘Squamidian PC’? Or how about an entry level ‘the doug’?
Warren and I slipped into Vancouver this morning. I wanted to look at some monitors and he wanted to look at a mandolin that L&Q had brought in for him. I’m still looking, he brought home the mandolin. Beautiful day to take that dive up the highway, bright, sunny and warm but still too early for a lot of tourists.
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It's great to see the middle of February pass by and the days starting to get longer. We're into another deep freeze but it can't last. At least the sun shines bright and promising when the temperatures go so low. We did our walk this morning even though it was minus 25 C. But no wind thankgoodness. I enjoyed reading about Carol and Al's trip to Cuba. We are just a phone call away from going there, I just haven't made that final step yet. So many of our vacations have been to visit relatives, I almost feel like this is a waste of money since there will be no one there that we know. I'm such a family person and am always compelled to seek out relatives. Or maybe I'm just cheap (economical) and hate to pay for a bed. Anyway we are going!!
We spent this past weekend with Zane who is turning 14 and has been a part of our life for 4 years now. He has always made a point of staying overnight with us on his birthday since we met him on his 10th birthday. His big goal in life was to be taller than his late father, who was only 5 feet, so we have been constantly measuring him. First on the side of our fridge until he out grew it, then in a doorway. Now he has outgrown me (5' 5"). He is so proud. Another tradition of ours is to go to the Halifax Boat Show every February. No surprise there! Zane is becoming very boat orientated, probably from hanging around us sailors, and enjoys all there is to see at the show. One year they lost me. I went off to the washroom and they wandered off and that was the last I saw of them for awhile. I figured there was no use looking for them so I stood by the freezing entrance way knowing it was the only way out of the place. I was even toying with the idea of announcing over the P.A. system that anyone missing a middle age lady could find her at the main doors. Now I don't let them out of my sight!!
After the show we went to an indoor go cart track and had a ball. I haven't been on a go cart in years but that didn't stop me. I have always liked to drive. The carts are electric and go fast . They keep track of your time, laps and placing. The first few rounds I drove carefully getting to know the track and gradually speeded up each round. When the flag came up to announce one last time I gave it all I had. Well, all I had,was still last place amongst the six drivers. Peter and Zane had passed me at least three times and ended up in 2nd and 3rd places. Oh well next time I'll scrap being the courteous driver staying to the right to let others pass and take those corners tighter and faster.
Until next time
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Memories of a Snowbird
By Howard
Back around the mid 70’s my wife and I and our 16 year old daughter were enjoying a leisurely trip around the perimeter of the United States in a small recreation vehicle. We had started from our home in Nova Scotia and our purpose was to stick to roads as close to the oceans and borders as we could without getting lost too many times. Whenever possible we stayed away from the boredom of interstates and other important byways.
The trip had many interesting experiences but the one that grips my memory happened on the back roads of Southeastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana. Taking our eastern direction through that part of the adventure we pulled into a town in Texas where for the first time in my life I ran into a situation where bullet proof glass between customer and clerk was the norm everywhere money changed hands. The message was clear and it put me a little in awe.
We continued our trip exploring our way to New Orleans some 200 miles or to the northeast. At the start of this stretch we passed abandoned vehicles with the windshields smashed out. There was a feeling of paranoia coming over me…don’t run out of gas. When I first saw the car in the rearview mirror, I became mildly interested since there was no other traffic, but not alarmed. The road ran straight for some miles through small swamps and scrublands and very remote. It come on rather fast and then stayed about 200 feet behind for an uncomfortable length of time. Because we were the only vehicles on the road I continued to be aware of him and somewhat concerned. Suddenly the car accelerated and tailgated me long enough for me to study 3 black youths sitting in the front seat of powerful beat-up junker!
The road was totally clear to pass; I had not speeded up, yet
they stayed with me, not passing. Then
just as suddenly dropped back and assumed the distance they held before. I was hoping a town would show up! Many minutes went by as I watched them in my
mirror. They seemed to be up to
something. As I watched the image of
the car became rapidly larger and as it came along side I thought, this is
where it happens! And it did. I could see the window cranked down followed
by a black face with a flashing smile brandishing not a gun but a crudely made
sign that read “Hi Canada”
*
Some
letters from Sus about their blizzard.
Hi Doug,
We are in a major, Major,winter storm!!!! It has been snowing and blowing since the wee hours of this morning. At one point it was recorded snowing 7cm an hour. As of 6:00pm Halifax has accumulated 61 cm and Charlottetown 47cm. We are in between so you can see what we are experiencing. My car has disappeared in the driveway and the snow is half way up our windows. There was no point going to work this morning since they were calling for blizzard conditions all day so we stayed home. Luckily the power has stayed on so we were able to bake bread, cookies and pizza shells. I also made a stew this morning and put it in the crockpot so we would have hot food when the power left us. We are amazed that is hasn't gone out. We are warm and comfortable and actually enjoying the comforts of home and away from the daily demands of every day life. The province of Nova Scotia has declared a state of emergency and told everyone to stay home and off the roads. The plows have been pulled off because of poor visibility. It just blows in faster than they can plow. It should be interesting tomorrow to see how long it takes to get it all cleaned up. Every plow driver will be overworked all of a sudden. They have had the slackest year ever and now this. All the schools and every business was closed today except the radio stations, Tim Hortons and Walmart. At least that is what I heard on the radio, we can't see the road from our house so it's hard to say what is going on in the outside world. I expect not much. There have been few accidents since cars cannot go anywhere. There is a big fear of tidal surges now for anyone living near the water. I'll keep you informed about this intriging storm. I must rest up for tomorrow the shoveling begins!!!
Sus
Hi Doug,
We are now up to 90 cm. of snow and it's Friday morning. They are still calling for blizzard conditions until noon and recommending everyone stay off the roads. We went out and shoveled around the car. We now have a wall of snow over 3 feet high with drifts well over six feet in some areas. We can only see out of the upper half of our windows. You could make a good igloo with this snow. We are going to put on the skiis and take a look around, you couldn't walk out of here if you tried, maybe crawl. The wind seems to have subsided enough at least in our sheltered neck of the woods. We will take some pictures for you. Just in case you miss the snow that much you want to see it. I know Warren always says he misses the good snow storms in Nova Scotia. It will be great skiing. I called Dad yesterday just ot see how he was doing. He was thankful the power had stayed on and said Ward and Mae had skiid over for a visit. I was amazed but knowing Ward a little snow storm would not stop him. Besides it was time to bottle his beer! He makes it at Dad's place because the rooms have even temperature, not like his house. They would have come through the woods where it was more sheltered. The snowmobilers will be in their glory too. They won't have to go to New Brunswick for the rest of the winter. I'm not sure if I am working today or not. It depends when our plow driver gets to us. He will be busy!!!! Talk to you later, Sus
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THE ONTARION REPORT
February
21, 2004
Hello everyone! How’s life
treating you? I certainly hope you’re all doing well. If I’m not mistaking,
we’re experiencing a whiff of spring here in KW. Today was the second day in a
row that we’ve had above 0c temperatures. It’s actually been raining since
early afternoon. I guess that’s a good thing at this time of year. It’ll at
least help to get rid of some of the snow. I can remember saying to Carole in
early December that I was a little concerned about the lack of snow to that
point. As you know, we need the snow buildup over the winter to supply us with
our spring thaw which in turn provides our summer water. I’d rather have a
snowy winter than a drought filled spring, summer and fall. A shortage of water
causes all kinds of problems. Not only are we rationed as to the amount we can
water our lawns and gardens, the farmers are also in trouble with their crops.
If they can’t get anything to grow, we in turn must pay much higher prices for
the foodstuffs in the grocery stores. Not a nice situation all the way around!
Hmmmm let’s see………what does this time of year bring?
How ‘bout income tax calculations, Spring, dirty puddles on the roads, potholes, slushy sidewalks, dog dodo starting to show through the melting snow and oh yes, maybe some daydreams of childhood activities in the spring. This time of year makes me think of walking to and from school in the slush. Usually coming home with a soaker in one of my leaky boots and feet so cold and pruned up from the wet that I could hardly feel them in my boots.
Once in the house, I’d take the boots off and stand by the warm air register cringing from the tingly feeling in my toes. I’d heard of people losing a toe or two from frostbite and I remember thinking that maybe just maybe this would be the time I’d look down to see a couple of them missing. Luckily they were all there each time I looked. I remember my mother telling me that I had to wear my boots otherwise I’d get frostbite and lose my toes. As much as I hated to admit it, she put the fear of frosty in me and I really did think I was destined to lose a digit one winter day if I didn’t wear them. Fortunately I think she was just trying to keep me from ruining my shoes in the wet.
Another fun activity of early spring was floating Popsicle sticks along the curb gutters. Maybe this is what led to my thing for Kayaks as an adult! We used to race the Popsicle sticks to see who got to the manhole first. Of course we’d be kicking up slush and water as we ran along side the “boats”. Never seemed to be a dry day in the winter or early spring. I know my mum looked forward to the summer when she could stick us in a pair of shorts and turn us loose on the neighbourhood. What a relief not to have to put on 4 layers of clothing before being allowed outside! Aaaaaaaah summertime!
I know I’m looking forward to summer this year. I can hardly wait to get back to warm sunshine and gentle breezes. I’m sure you’re all agreeing with me as you read this so let’s keep our fingers crossed for an early spring and a warm summer.
Thanks for tuning in again
this week. I know this is about the shortest winded I’ve been in a long time
but I think the thoughts of the previous paragraph will leave us all with a
smile of anticipation on our faces and it’s a good time to stop.
Talk to you all again next week. Until then, stay safe and warm!
Sincerely
GREG.
PS: Carole and I have been invited over to Vivian and Lorne’s home for supper Saturday so we can finally meet Sue who is visiting from BC. We’re looking forward to this long awaited event. I’m sure it’ll be an enjoyable evening and I’ll tell you all about it next week. Maybe!!!
PPS: Something to Think About>
Wisdom! Some are wise and some are otherwise.
****
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the
doug
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