The
Squamidian Report – Apr. 23/ 11
Issue #465
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Ever have one of those days where you feel like you are invisible? It happens to me quite regularly. No one seems to notice me as I drive along and that means I must be extra vigilant and careful. Motorists pull out of side streets right in front of me. They run through stop signs right in font of me. Then, standing in a line at a checkout I seem to be invisible again. Its like I’m not even there. The teller does not seem to notice me, other customers walk right by and into the line ahead of me. Very frustrating. Dogs notice me, cats notice me, heck, even birds notice me but there are days that people don’t. I even run into situations where I will be engaged in a conversation with someone, only to have someone else walk up and begin a conversation with the person I was talking to. Suddenly, I’m apparently not there anymore, invisible and forgotten about. Now don’t get me wrong, being unnoticed has its good points. I can go for days at a time without anyone bothering me. No need for conversations or pleasantries. So, when it comes right down to it, aside from the obvious safety issues, being invisible at times isn’t so bad after all.
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We were actually able to hold our CMC ride last Sunday. Not rained out, now that’s a unique situation worth getting used to. Mind you, it was a tad on the chilly side. Especially the initial ride in along Howe Sound. When we left here the rooftops were still while with frost. Couldn’t live without those heated vests. Because of the rather unseasonal cold temperatures all over the place, our turnout was lower than expected but the riders who did turn up were ready for riding. We had intended to keep the ride fairly short for several reasons, mostly because it was cold out and as a re-building chapter many or our riders are still inexperienced and/or have not done much group riding. However, the ones that did turn up were seasoned riders so we decided to ride up to Squamish for lunch. There is a nice restaurant there (here) that has good food and acceptable prices. Ryan and I were the only ones who knew where it is so he took the Road Captain position and I took Tail Gunner. We had a great ride. It had warmed up a tad and traffic was light. After lunch we headed back south and pulled into Porteau Cove to enjoy the views. We headed home from there and the rest of the pack continued on back to the city.
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Now this is cool. Both Ryan and I were given helmet cams for Christmas. Neither of us had much chance to try them out until lately. I had mounted mine on the dash board of my truck and recorded the drive up Warren’s road just to see if it worked and to give me a chance to figure out how to work it. The opportunity finally came along for us to experiment with helmet mounting. There are several options. Because Ryan uses a half helmet he mounted his on the top, after trying it on the front. The front created too much wind noise. The top mount position seems put his cam into cleaner air, less turbulence and therefore less noise picked up by the camera’s mic.
I have mine mounted on the left side of my helmet where I find it easier to reach the button controls. There is a button to turn it on and set various settings, and another button to start and stop recordings. Wind noise does not seem to be a problem with the side mount but it helps that there is a faring in front of me. It took us several runs trying various options before we found the right combination of placement and enclosures. What a hardship eh?.. having to go out on the bike to test a camera position or setting. These cameras come with both water proof and water resistant enclosure doors. We found that the water resistant door actually cut wind noise better than the solid door. Go figure. Anyway, we are now able to capture really cool video with accompanying sound as we ride along. That’s accompanying Harley Sound! This will make an interesting addition to the still shots we take when out and about on our big old Harleys.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello Everyone!
With a few sunny days last week I decided to dig out the summer furniture for the patio as well as bring out the cushions for the yard swing. We like to sit on the swing early in the morning and enjoy a morning tea while soaking up a few rays of sunshine. We managed to get out to do that two or three times this past few days. In fact, I was feeling so confident about the weather on Saturday that I almost got up the nerve to put the snow blower in the shed for the summer. I don’t really know why I didn’t but for some reason I resisted the urge to do so. I think I had one of those “What the heck, tomorrow will do!” moments so consequently the blower is still in the garage sitting at the “ready” position just in case! Then, I arose Sunday morning to find much of the lawns with a light dusting of snow on them. As most of you know Kitchener was subjected to snow all day long but thankfully the temperature was around the “0” mark all day so there was very little accumulation. In fact, by suppertime the lawns were back to green and most of the snow was gone. The amount of huge flakes falling at times during the day was surprising and I actually expected that I might have to fire up the blower one last time. Like Doug sometimes says of the snow accumulation out in BC, if you wait long enough it’ll melt and be gone within a day or so. I decided to wait to see just how much snow would actually stay on the ground and was happy to see that the melting process was outrunning the snowfall accumulation so the wait and see attitude was the right one to adopt! I think I’ll leave the blower in the garage for a few more days just in case!
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Does spring weather bring out the Cuckoo’s or what? I just heard a news report about a Waterloo woman in her 50’s who was driving erratically, down King St from Waterloo to Kitchener blowing her horn and crashing into other vehicles. The police finally stopped her at Victoria and King Sts and when they approached her vehicle to make the arrest they realized that she was “only partly clothed” and had a budgie bird flying loose in her vehicle. They had to smash the driver’s door window to get her out of the car because she refused to unlock the door. The report said that they transported her to Grand River Hospital for observation and charges were pending. Seems to me that she might have a budgie or two flying around loose in her head as well! LOL! I guess I shouldn’t prejudge this person because she obviously needs help but ya gotta admit, it was a very strange situation indeed! In case you’re wondering, the report did say that the budgie was taken into the care of the local Humane Society. I think that this is shaping up to be an interesting summer indeed!
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That’s it for this week folks!
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: Something To Think About>
Do any of you remember Gwen Jacobs? She was the young lady that was arrested about 10 years ago for walking the streets of Guelph topless! The courts decided that it was perfectly legal for a woman to go topless in Ontario as long as her toplessness was not for sexual purposes. In other words, if a woman just liked the healthy feel of the sun on her bare chest she had a legal right to go topless in public! Well, a news report this morning asked the question “Why aren’t the women of Ontario taking advantage of their right to walk around topless?” Since the Gwen Jacobs incident they said there have been no reports of any further topless women enjoying the sunshine on the streets of Ontario. Well, at the moment, I’d say the weather is just too damned cold to take advantage of this freedom!
Let’s hope the summer warms up and the women of Ontario were all listening when that report hit the air this morning! LOL!
Hey... maybe the lady in the car with the budgie this morning was Gwen Jacobs? LOL!
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Have a good one..
the doug
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