The Squamidian Report – Jan. 14 / 06
Also in this issue:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Did something a little different this past week. I demolished a house trailer, purposely. The homes in the trailer park at Britannia are house trailers, obviously. The people living in them own their trailers but leased the land they sit on. When the area came under development it included rebuilding the trailer park village. All the residents were offered the opportunity to purchase the lots their trailers sat on at a price well below market value. Not all of the residents could afford to purchase their lots and some simply did not want to. Most of these simply sold their trailers to the development and moved on. The development then either fixed up the trailer and lot for resale or if the trailer was in bad shape, demolished it so the empty lot could be sold.
One old guy was very delinquent with his lease payments and would have nothing to do with purchasing his lot. The development had no choice but to evict him. He simply left without a word, leaving a huge mess. The trailer (and these are big long trailers) was left full of garbage and junk. The area behind it was full of junk, as were several small sheds. So I was given the job of cleaning up the lot. From the seat of an excavator that can be kind of fun. You start at the front of the house trailer and work your way back taking big bites out of it with the bucket and thumb. You crunch everything up so it can be loaded onto trucks and hauled away. Roof, siding, walls, floors, plumbing, furniture, junk, all of it. Then you do the same with the sheds and junk out back. I even found two old dirt bike motorcycles out there that were beyond repair. I scooped them up and flattened them. Never did that before.
The lot is now clear and empty, ready to be sold and have a new house built on it. Any empty lots will have houses rather that trailers. It’s actually quite a nice lot now that it’s cleaned up. It has a nice view of the Sound and Bay, there is a mountain stream running behind it and it’s on a quiet street. It’s probably worth a small fortune now.
Then I finished out the week by doing a job that was not at Britannia. That made for a pleasant change of scenery and pace. A new office or something is being built out at the Brackendale airport and it needed a parking lot. So I built a parking lot out of about 15 loads of gravel once I’d loaded out the topsoil that I stripped from the site. Nice and quiet there. No one to bother you and yes, Brackendale does have an airport. It’s kind of hidden in the trees near the railway tracks back by the river.
*
Did you know that Vancouver and area are about to set a new record for consecutive days of rain? Yup, they are. The old record was set 54 years ago and is something like 28 days long. We will pass that on Monday. Now that doesn’t mean it rained steady for 24 hours a day every day, day after day. It means that each consecutive day has had a considerable amount of rain. Mostly at night and in the early mornings. The days often turned fairly nice and then the rain would move in by the evening. Day after day after day.
So the really big question is, if by some strange freak of nature we don’t get any rain on Monday, do we have to start all over again? Now that would be a bummer!
d
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Hello
everyone!
I don’t
know about anyone else but I’m enjoying this winter. The weather is mild and
wet but I’m at the point where although it’s kind of fun blowing the snow, it’s
even more fun not having to do so!
The phone
rang yesterday morning and on the other end was the voice of a friend of ours.
Paul and Barb are the friends that live in Saint John NB and they are at the
moment staying in their condo in Tarpon Springs Florida. Barb asked how our
holiday season had been and then asked when we were leaving for Vegas. When we
told her that we had cancelled the trip due to a dispute with America West
Airline she said “Good! Then you can hop a flight to Florida and visit with us
for a couple of weeks!” We chuckled about it for a minute and the more we
talked the more it sounded like a good idea. We still wanted to get away to somewhere
warm for a vacation and were talking about the Caribbean only the day before.
We decided then and there to take Paul and Barb up on their invitation. I said
we’d do so but we’d drive down rather than fly. It ended up with the decision
to leave Friday January 6th with an arrival date of Monday in the
am. That way we can take our time on the drive and not feel rushed. We’ve
decided to stay with them for a week at most and then spend a couple of weeks
on our own in Florida and checking points of interest on the trip home. We have
been to Florida a half dozen times when Adam was young and it was our family
vacation. This will be the first time that we won’t have Adam along. When you
have kids with you, you tend to do kids things so this trip will give us a
chance to change that. By the time you are reading this, we will have been in
Florida a week already. I’m not sure if I’ll have access to a computer so I’ve
decided to write the column in advance for a few weeks. I told Doug that if I
get near a computer that I’ll maybe write a progress report of the trip and
send it to him for publication whenever he can fit it in. Adam had an Apple
laptop that he no longer uses so maybe he will let me take it along on the
trip. I’m sure he will but he’ll have to give me a lesson or two on its
operation before hand. I’ve checked on the net and many of the hotels and
motels offer complimentary internet access so I should be able to find time to
dash off a quick line or two. I like to drive and I’m really looking forward to
this one. The I-75 is the most direct route but it’s a boring one for sure. I
suggested to Carole that we take time to stop at points of interest on the way
down as well. If we see something that looks interesting we’ll take time to
check it out. Although we’ve only planned on being on the road 3 days for the
trip down that can change when you’re retired as well. We told Barb that if we
get behind a little we’ll phone and let them know. It’s the courteous thing to
do when people are waiting for your arrival. We’ve spent many visits to Florida
with these friends and they always make us feel welcome. We’ve had them come to
Kitchener and stay with us and of course it’ll happen again with a welcome mat
out. It seems that true friendships are just like that, no questions asked and
no expectations or hard feelings. True friends may not see each other for
months on end but when they do get back in touch, it’s like they had seen each
other only yesterday. This is the relationship we have with Paul and Barb and
it’s terrific. Paul is quite an interesting guy! He’s a true entrepreneur and
has been for as long as we’ve known him. If I began to list all the businesses
he’s started and run over the past 30 years of our knowing him it would take
one whole issue of The Ontarion. I’ve only known him to be less than successful
in one venture he started. He’s one of these guys that has the Midas Touch. At
the moment he’s the owner of a Greco Pizza Franchise in Saint John NB and is
doing very well indeed. He spent 5 years working for the NB government as their
Small Business Loans manager and in conjunction with that job he taught a
course on how to start and run a small business. He certainly does know that
subject inside and out. He’s owned everything from a Ready Rad Shop to a Sea
Food restaurant to a Quickie Oil Change business and done well with all of
them. Over the years Carole and I have helped them with several of their
ventures. We came up with the name for their seafood restaurant in Stanley Park
area of Kitchener. Carole did the interior design and decorating and I did all
the carpentry. I built all the walls and cabinets etc and we had a ball doing
so. The place was called “The Boone Docks” a play on their last name “Boone”
and I had it wired for sound as well. We made up a tape of Paul’s favourite
music and every 5th song was “Down In The Boon Docks” by Billy Joe
Royal. He had that tape playing day in and day out. I’m sure people were sick
of it after a year. It was a cool place but Paul tired of it after only a year
and decided to sell it. At the time he owned two oil change shops that were
called “Lube It”. One was on Victoria St at Bruce St and the other was located
in Guelph. He’s been a busy guy and has finally settled in Saint John we think
for good this time. Anyway, with Paul, one never knows. He’s always thinking!
They are great people and wonderful friends and we hope that will continue for
many years to come. Good friendships are hard to earn and harder to keep. They
say if you have 4 tried and true friends at the end of your life then you are a
lucky person indeed! Friendship is a topic for another week in so I’ll stop
here for now.
Thank you
all for tuning in again and I look forward to talking to you next week in The
Ontarion Report.
Bye for now… Greg.
PS:
Something To Think About>
A dream
uninterpreted is like a letter unopened.
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The Family and the Squamidian sites:
http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b/ and http://www.thedougsite.ca
Have a good one..
the
doug
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