The Squamidian Report – Nov. 21 / 09

 

Issue # 391

 

Including:

The Ontarion

 

Hi All,

 

London Drugs is open. Squamish now has a London Drugs store. We are in the big-time now. We actually went through the store and it is great, at least as far as stores go. The electronics section is every bit as big and well stocked as any LD store I’ve been through and the rest of the store has a full selection of all sorts of stuff. This gives the Valley one more shopping option and that is a good thing. It forces the other places to ramp up their customer service and to keep their pricing competitive. It further reduces the need to travel down the highway into Vancouver to find items that were not available here in the past.

 

When we went through the parking lot was full and the store was crowded. Half the town was in there I think. Not my idea of a good time so I’ll go back and have a good look at the stuff in the computer section when the shine wears off a bit.

 

And speaking of customer related things, you may recall that I’ve expressed some fairly strong disapproval as to how the local Tim Horton’s was being run. Well, would you believe that my complaining via Email to head office as well as all the other complaints that they must have gotten have paid off? The old owner of that franchise has been booted out and Horton’s has handed it over to a new owner. This one has a couple of outlets in Whitehorse and is moving here to run our local store. They claim in an article in our local newspaper that they will clean up the place and get customer service etc back up to where it should be. Only thing is, I don’t know if this is actually happening because I have not been in there for a couple of months now. I had gotten so frustrated and ticked off that I simple stopped going there. And had I not stopped going there I probably would have eventually been kicked out and banned for my vocal disapproval of their service level and how the store was being run.

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My old base guitar is back. Ryan had taken it into the city to an instrument technician to have the electronics rebuilt. The poor old guitar must be close to 35 years old and had never enjoyed any real maintenance attention. The pickups were shot and noisy. The repair place replace the electronics as best they could. The guitar is so old that the repairman had to improvise when replacing the pickups but he found some good ones that worked. He also set up the instrument and adjusted the string height and intonation. It feels good and sounds good again.

 

I’ve always liked my base because it has a very slim neck that is a breeze to finger. The guitar itself is a ¾ size and that makes it fairly small. Some bases are so big I can barley lift them let alone reach all the way out to the end of the neck. I had played the old girl way back in the late 70’s and early 80’s when I was in those bands, then after that I simply put her away and forgot about her. Funny how the years go by but all of a sudden it was 20 years later and the base was still in the closet collecting dust. Then when I dislocated my shoulder a few of years ago I discovered I could no longer get my arm over the guitar I was playing when Warren and I would get together to jam. That’s when I remembered the base. It is a solid body and only about an inch and a half thick. So out came the base and we have been using it in our music ever since. I was pretty rusty on it for the first little while but it all came back.

 

I can’t remember what I paid for it when I bought it, but I do remember where I bought it. Gary Holms Music in Brantford Ont. He had been Trev Bennett’s sales manager in Kitchener and then left to open his own store in Brantford. He had always given me good deals and so that’s where I did my music related purchases for several years. Don’t know what ever became of Gary or his store but that old base is now rebuilt good as new and fits right in to our ‘Coastal Mountain Music’.

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Read this section only if you like weather related stuff. Otherwise, ignore it.

 

I know I’ve mentioned our November rains many times before but this week’s weather is worth another splash-in-the-puddle. It is quite normal for this area to be under a heavy rainfall warning with forecast amounts of 50 to 70 or so millimeters and then get 100 or 150 or even more from a given storm. That’s how weather works in the mountains and that’s how the forecasts work here because I don’t think either Environment Canada or The Weather Network have any idea as to where Squamish even is. Anyway, by last Sunday we were again under a rainfall warning but this time the forecast amounts for ‘here’ were 400 millimeters. Yup, that’s right, FOUR HUNDRED millimeters. That’s wet.

 

The Squamish area’s average rainfall for November is about 450 mil (18 inches). This particular Pineapple Express storm dumped that much rain on us in just a couple of days. So we are now way over our usual allotment of wet. Many low and coastal areas were also under flood watches. Even though the local rivers and streams in the Squamish Valley ran and are running extremely high we had only minor flooding. Over on Vancouver Island there was major flooding in the city of Courtenay. The big difference was that the freezing level did not climb as high on the mainland and therefore the snowpack that had formed did not melt to the extent that was predicted. On the Island the snowpack did melt which added to the deluge of rain runoff.

 

That snowpack in the mountains around Whistler that did not melt is now somewhere over 15 ft deep.

 

doug

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THE ONTARION REPORT

 

Hello everyone!

 

We’re still enjoying reasonable weather for this time of year here in Ontario and that’s a good thing for sure! It’s not often we have sunny dry days one after the other here in these parts. It means I’ve been able to get out for a few extra rides on the motorcycle in the past week and it’s been fun. The only hazard when riding at this time of year is the leaves that are strewn on the roads or piled at the curbsides. They tend to be very slippery if you have to turn or suddenly stop. It just takes staying alert to avoid any problems caused by them. I’m thinking we’re coming to an end with this ridable weather though. It’s getting colder and supposed to be getting wetter soon as well. Guess all good things must end sometime! I think there’s a song in there somewhere!!!??

 

Oh well, with the motorcycling at an end for this year I’ve picked up a new hobby to keep me busy. Although this new hobby isn’t one that is enjoyable in the winter months either, it’s an interesting and intriguing one to say the least. I’ve always thought of it as something that old fuddy duddies do and never figured I’d be one of them but attitudes like that too must someday come to an end. LOL! I’ve invested in a Metal Detector! That’s right, a wander the beaches and parks listening to the sounds made by items that lie under the surface of the ground, dig for treasure Metal Detector!

 

About three months ago I read in the Regional Record that a fellow in England had discovered what turned out to be the most valuable Roman Treasure in a farmer’s field in southern England with the use of a metal detector. The “treasure” he found is literally Priceless! The Royal British Museum has purchased it and for his efforts the detectorist and the farm owner have each received one and a quarter million pounds as a finder’s fee. In England the government owns the rights to any treasure found and sells whatever it is to the highest bidding Museum with a finder’s fee going to the “finder”. I found this article interesting. I’ve always been the kind of kid that likes stories about Pirate Treasure and lost gold etc. We just happen to live in the wrong country to have such treasures buried beneath our soil. Canada is too young for such history. However we do have millions of items underneath our soil to be found by the use of metal detectors. People have for a couple of hundred years hidden or lost items of value in parks, on beaches and other public lands. People during and after the great Depression didn’t trust banks and used to burry their money and other valuables on their own land. There are still jars and cans of money etc to be found if you search in the right spots.

 

I’ve been searching on line and reading about the booty that detectorists have found all over the world with their detectors and some have found pretty good amounts of money and other valuables. They like to search properties that had homes and other buildings on them many years ago. Old mansion sites that now contain modern homes or are now parks. Also old farm house sites and old school yards are good places to ply this hobby. Most of the finds on line seem to be coins that people have dropped over the years. This hobby is not necessarily one of profitability but one to satisfy the curiosity of the person using the detector. Carole and I are spending the month of February in Florida this winter and I’m taking the detector along so I have something interesting to do on the beaches in the area we’ll be staying at. The north coast of the Gulf of Mexico is the area we’ll be staying in. This coast is not very busy in the winter months especially the beaches themselves. However, the weather is still warm enough to allow one to roam the sands of the beach if not warm enough to swim. Of course we northerners are a hardy bunch and you never know when a dip in the Gulf might just be the activity of the day.

 

I figure while Carole is relaxing on the white sands of the Florida Panhandle I’ll wander the seashore with my detector and see what turns up. If nothing else, I may just turn up someone’s lost ROLEX or diamond ring. We have friends that live about 25 miles east of the place we’re staying at and they live in another beach town. They have sent us pictures of the stretch of land between our condo and their town. There are no buildings or homes of any kind for 25 miles from our condo building to their town line. It’s a state park and there is only one two lane road from one end to the other with a ¼ mile of sand on either side of it and water to the north and south of this strip of sand along the Gulf. It’s basically a “sand bar” that is a couple miles off shore of the panhandle and it runs parallel to the mainland. It’s for lack of a better term, an island! There are three causeways that connect it to the mainland Florida, one at either end and one in the middle. SO with sandy beaches on both sides of the roadway and nothing but beach parking lots dotting the edge of this road every mile or two there should be loads of places where summer sun lovers have dropped their money and jewelry while enjoying a day at the beach.

 

I’ll be sifting through the sand for as many miles as I can cover for the month we’ll be down there and hopefully I’ll come home with some worth while treasure of my own! In fact, mentioning treasure, I’ve read in many spots on the net that the north coast of the Gulf of Mexico is an ideal spot to “Treasure Hunt” since the hurricanes of time have deposited many a treasure in the sands of the Florida Panhandle for hundreds of years since back in the Pirate’s of the Caribbean days!

 

SO, wish me luck! You never know when a detectorist just might turn up a Gold Dubloon or two! LOL!

 

Gotta go for now!

 

Thanks for tuning in and I look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!

 

Bye for now.. Greg.

 

PS: I’ve had a chance to test run my detector in an old park/playground in the North Ward of Kitchener and turned up some interesting finds, nothing worth any money but some nice old items. I found an antique square head square shank nail, some old bottle caps, a quarter, a penny and a nickel. An old dinky car body from the 60’s and a 1/2” diameter ball bearing that I like to think of it as a Musket Ball! LOL! You never know just when some old mountain man might have been hunting bear in Breithaupt Park! LOL! Hahahaha… ! or maybe it was a battle ground from the civil war! Tee hee!

 

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Have a good one..

the doug

http://www.thedougsite.net

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