The Squamidian Report – Nov. 19 / 11

 

Issue #495

 

Including:

The Ontarion

 

Hi All,

 

For reasons that are totally beyond me, every once in a while ‘The Wife’ decides to clean some random article or item somewhere in the house. This strange behavior apparently extends to the light fixture cover that encloses our kitchen ceiling light. Its one of those translucent white plastic things that look like a big salad bowl, covers the bulb and defuses the glare, and is held up by three tiny screws that are very hard to get your fingers on in order to tighten or loosen. Anyway, several days ago she took it upon herself to take it down and wash it. She then put it back up. That night, in the middle of the night, we were awoken by a loud crash and discovered that the light shade had fallen. It had not been reattached properly. Being plastic it did not shatter but it did crack and that was all the excuse she needed to go shopping for a replacement light, fixture and all.

 

So, once she found one she liked, I removed the old fixture and installed the new one. Now we had a perfectly good kitchen light with a slightly cracked cover to dispose of. You may remember back to last summer when I was doing some work in our rock room and had mentioned I wanted to install some lighting in there. Here was the perfect opportunity. A florescent kitchen type light would work very well because they don’t hurt your eyes if you look at them like a bare bulb does and because of the restricted space in there, a bare bulb hanging from the rafters would always be in your eyes. I installed the ‘used’ light and even managed to get the damaged cover back on. Now we have good lighting in there.

 

You may also remember that her dog Willow had scrambled up onto the rock when I was renovating in there and I had to lift her down, all 100 pounds of her. Well, she can’t resist seeing what I am doing and scrambled back up onto the rock. Once up there she spent some time checking everything out and then wanted back down. She expected me to lift her again but there is not way I was going to try that again. She’s too heavy. So, I indicated where she would have to walk by taping on the flooring to the top of the little ladder I had built and then taping on the rungs she would have to step on. I did this a couple of times and then she caught on and followed my instructions. That got her down quite easily. Once down, the turned around and climbed back up delightfully, then climbed back down. She did it several times while I was doing my wiring. I no longer need to worry about lifting her down and she can come and go to her heart’s content. Problem solved.

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Due to our early onset of wintery weather, I had parked the bike at the beginning of the month. My riding season is over. But I had not ‘officially’ put it away. That still needed to be done but I had wanted to deal with a small repair first. There are a couple of support brackets inside the batwing fairing that are poorly designed and have a tendency to break due to vibration. Both brackets inside my fairing had broken right near the end of the riding season. Its remarkably easy to remove the outer fairing and the brackets, so I did, but I needed replacements for them. The bike is still under warrantee but it won’t be by the time next season gets here. The dealer had no problem with me doing the repair myself and supplying the new brackets as long as I turned in the broken ones. Heck, they will  put it through as a full repair and get paid for doing the job. And I prefer to do it myself as I find most dealers to do sloppy, careless work.

 

I handed in the broken brackets and installed the new ones which do look a bit stronger and will hopefully last longer. The fairing is now back on and the bike is covered up, tucked in and put away for the winter, waiting for the first rideable days of next spring which could be mid February out here but by the way our climate has been getting progressively colder, could just as well be July.

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How does that song go?... “Sleigh Bells Ring, Are You Listening …” well, we’ve now had two winter storms so far and its only mid November. But I guess that’s to be expected seeing as how it has been consistently way below ‘normal’ for almost two years now out here. I had not intended to get the snow blower out for another month yet, and then I’d do a good once-over and tune up on it just like Greg did to his a while back. However, on Wednesday the snow started falling and by early afternoon there was four or five inches of the stuff on my driveway and the district snow plow had done its first pass on our street. I tried to hand shovel but it was very heavy and it didn’t take long for me to realize that hand shoveling was rather futile. So, I dug the blower out of the back shed, gave the pull cord a couple of pulls and away it went. I had to wrestle it up a flight of back yard steps, and down our front steps through an ever increasing depth of slippery snow but it was worth it. It made short work of the driveway. However, a couple hours later I had to do the driveway again, and the district plow went by again leaving another bank of snow across the front. Sure was glad for the blower, and yes, I will get around to doing it’s tune up one of these days.

 

That storm dumped enough snow on the mountain highways that pretty well all the main routes and passes were closed. Our local Sea to Sky was littered with car in the ditch. The cops were stopping drives at Alice Lake and checking for winter tires, which are required by law during winter conditions but most of the problems were south of that, not north. One of the real problems, not counting the simple fact that most drivers are simply in too much of a hurry, is these modern SUV’s with their computer controlled traction and anti-skid and so on. Drives no longer ‘feel’ the road conditions, and end up over-driving the ability of the vehicle’s computer to deal with the slippery conditions. And because they think their all-season tires are good enough, they step on the gas and away they go, right into the ditch. And of course, most drivers are just plain stupid so it looks good on all of them.

 

doug

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THE ONTARION REPORT

 

Hello everyone!

 

Well, I got my lawnmower back from Erin and it looks like brand new! I guess I should be ashamed of myself for not keeping it up as well as I thought! I can’t believe the difference that little girl made in my cherished SNAPPER mower! I’ve learned a lesson that I won’t soon forget! Her dad told us that they’ve got a full line up of mowers to do and it should keep Erin busy for a few weeks yet! She’s on the way to making some serious money for her cause The Cancer Research Fund of Waterloo!

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Well, it looks like we’re in for a little bit colder weather for the next couple of days. The computer says that it’ll be sunny with cloudy periods for a week to come but the temps will be in the lower single digits above 0 in the day and a few digits below at night! Guess it’s time to watch for black ice when we’re driving these days!

 

Time for most people to don their snow tires but since I just finished putting nice new “All Seasons” on the Jeep, I’m not going to be too concerned with the oncoming winter! I’m sure they’ll handle the snow just fine!

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Last week, I was out running errands and my mind started to wander to the subject of new vehicles after I noticed that my beloved Jeep now has 243,000+ km on it! Like I’ve said before, I’ve decided to hang on to the Jeep for a few more years and see what kind of mileage I can put on it before it’s time to trade! However, that doesn’t mean I can’t dream a little does it? I was up in the north end of Waterloo and happened to be passing a Ford dealer. Adam had mentioned a really “Rugged” looking Ford pick up truck that was sitting on display out front of this dealer so I decided to drop in and take a look at it! I thought, “What the heck, ya never know, maybe I can be tricked into buying a new vehicle after all!” I’m not really a Ford man but I’ve seen some nice F150’s around this summer. I pulled into the dealers yard and there she was, truly a “Rugged” looking machine as Adam had said. WOW! Was it a mean looking machine! It was an F150  alright but it was a special edition that FORD started producing last year called “The Raptor”! This one was black in colour with a beautiful dark grey leather interior! This baby was loaded to the teeth with some options I’d never heard of before! When I began to read the dealers list of options and their prices on the passenger window I just about fainted! The list price on the base vehicle was $53,480.00 and with all the extras added on it topped out at $59,899.00 + PDI and taxes! That would put the final price at around $67,685.00.

 

WOW! I was in shock for sure! This truck is an incredible machine but there’s no way I’d pay anywhere near that for a vehicle, especially a pick up truck! When I got home, I looked this model up on the net and found out that it is a totally different truck than the common F150! It’s got special one of a kind suspension that will allow the owner to take it through any kind of terrain from desert sand to rock crawling to highway driving! The list of features on the Raptor is too long to remember and I am impressed with all the engineering that FORD put into this truck but let’s face it, who needs a $68,000.00 truck?

 

I guess I’ll just keep the Jeep and leave the outrageously priced pick-ups to my flights of fancy! I’ve never seen one of FORD’s  “Raptors” on the road so It’s no wonder they’re only producing a limited number of these beauties! Maybe I’ll change my mind after Doug and I win the big Lotto with our group but then again, maybe not even then! I’d need a Lotto win not only to purchase this monster but to feed the fuel to its 6.2 litre V8 beast of an engine! Time to stop dreamin’ and stay real!

 

That’s it for this week folks!

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

Bye for now… GREG

PS: Something To Think About>

Christmas is only 36 days away! Get shoppin’!

 

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Have a good one..

the doug

http://www.thedougsite.net

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