The
Squamidian Report – Aug. 31 / 13
Issue #588
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
I slacked off a bit last week. We were a bit busy and pressed for time. So, now I have a chance to elaborate a bit. As stated, we had a whole bunch of visitors drop in, two car loads. Made for a full house. One car load headed on over to Vancouver Island the next day, and Carol and Al stayed till this past Tuesday. Always good to have them here although I’d never openly admit that. They were able to kick back and relax. We took them to some of the usual local places like Porteau Cove, Whistler for breakfast, Brandywine Falls, Shannon Falls and so on. Brandywine is kind of interesting, it’s a half kilometer walk in from the highway just north of Daisy Lake, south of Whistler. The falls is 40 ft higher than Niagara but its on a fairly small river. At some point in the past it punched through a layer of lava as it fell toward Daisy Lake, and has slowly cut its canyon up stream. Shannon Falls is an 11,000 ft high cascade type falls, but you can only actually see the bottom third, the rest is high up over the lower lip of the hanging valley and hidden by trees. After being at the bottom of the falls, I took them out past the Squamish water front where the full scope of the falls can be appreciated.
If memory serves, I also mentioned having to deal with a wasp nest. It was somewhere behind the grill of their car. There were wasps all over the front, buzzing around. Carol and An had noticed this on their way across the country and had though it was the smashed bugs all over the front that were attracting them. However, when we hosed off the front, the wasps were still there, and they were slightly different from the local west coast ones, bigger and rounder. And, if you put your ear close to the grill, you could hear a constant, loud buzz, almost a drone. I couldn’t see the nest anywhere but figured it was up under something or inside something or other. They had been there all along. When ever the travelers stopped some where, they had probably left a few behind. So, I picked up some wasp spray and shot it in to every nook and cranny and all over an behind the grill. After letting is sit for a while, we hosed everything off and that seemed to do the trick. No more wasps, no more loud buzz. Problem solved.
Now here’s a problem that shouldn’t be in the first place and I sure wish was solved. The pink salmon are running now and there large schools of them working their way up the Squamish and Mamquam rivers. We went down to the river to look at the fish. That’s not the problem, the problem is that for reasons completely beyond me, people are aloud to fish for the salmon, catch and release style. Cruel at the best of times. But, what they are doing is casting across the schools and then dragging the hooks over the fish as they reeled the line back in. Practically every cast was resulting in a hooked fish, the poor fish being hooked in the back or stomach. Every fish hooked was being dragged sideways through the water and out onto the river bank. They are snagging the fish. Snagging is illegal. The snagged fish will never live long enough to spawn, they will die from injuries and stress. This method is not even remotely sporting, its disturbing and troubling. There were dozens of ‘fishermen’ snagging the poor creatures, and not a conservation officer in sight. We didn’t stay at the river very long, it was not at all nice to watch.
Oh, by the way, our drought is over. We had some Pacific storms move in that brought wave after wave of heavy, soaking rain. And when I say heavy, I mean ‘west coast’ type heavy rain. So, the trees and grass and everything else that was getting desperate for water is now happy, and the risk of forest fires is pretty well over, and the jerks snagging the salmon have left the riverbank in search of dryer entertainement. Now we just need the sun to come back out again, I’d hate for this to be the beginning of November type weather where the rains just never stop. It sure felt like that Thursday night. We don’t get thunderstorms here very often, but we got hammered big time. The lightning was endless and the thunder was deafening. We are used to rain coming down hard and heavy but I’ve never before seen rain the way it was raining, anywhere. It wasn’t sheets of rain, it was one gigantic endless all encompassing sheet. Like I said, the drought is over.
And now, here’s my public service announcement…I had not hear from these slime balls for a while but they are calling again, the ones who claim to be from the ‘office of windows’, or some such ridiculous place claiming to inform you of a problem with your computer. It is a scam, and they are criminal scammers. Your computer ‘maker’ (Windows is the operating system), will NEVER call you, or Email you for that matter. When the scammers try to tell you there is a problem with your computer, they are hoping to get information from you, and perhaps take remote control of your computer. Best thing you can do is hang up. Telling them to not call will not stop them because they are not a legitimate company and therefore could care less about what you want. It can be fun to use every bad word you can think of first, or lead them on for a while, but in the end, NEVER, give them any info. Just hang up.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
We came across a
situation this past week that I thought you all might not be aware of! We were
out to dinner at the Mongolian Grill, a place that we’ve enjoyed many times in
the past. If you’ve never been there it is an interesting place to dine. The
format is one that’s unusual for sure. It’s one where you serve yourself
smorgasbord style and take your choices back to your table. They have a section
of the restaurant that contains two identical rows of different meats and
vegetables and sauces and you are given a bowl about the size of a soup bowl.
You take this bowl and help yourself to whatever selection of items you desire
and then you stand in a circle at a bar with a funnel shaped hot grill in the
middle about 8’ in diameter. There are three or four guys between you and the
grill that take your bowl of food and they dump it on the grill and place two
3’ long sticks one on either side of your food. They use the sticks to move
your food around in that space while it cooks and it takes about 5 minutes or
so to cook to the ready! Then they take a fresh platter and scrape your food
onto the platter and you then take it back to your table.
The “server” and I
use that term loosely, brings you whatever beverage you request, usually ice
water for most customers as well as a bowl of steamed rice and a small round
flat bowl of 6” Tortilla shells. You then proceed to place small amounts of
your cooked mixture on a tortilla along with some rice if you wish and some
condiment of your choice such as hot sauce or whatever. It’s quite easy to
consume several of these tortillas per person. Then you have to catch the
“server” if you can find her and ask for more tortillas and rice. It took us
over 20 minutes to catch the server’s eye and then another 5 minutes or so to
catch her again to ask when she’d be bringing our requested portions. Once she
finally brought more tortillas (5) and a bit more rice and I do mean a “bit”
more rice, we found our remaining cooked food was cold to eat. We got up and
once more went through the experience of going for more cooked food to bring
back to complete our eating experience. This is all part of eating at this
establishment and we understood this from past experience. However, it would be
nice if the “service” were to be more expedient. Being patrons are mostly
looking after themselves I guess the service part of the meal isn’t the
establishment’s priority! If this is the case, they should have a third food
section where the customers pick up their own rice as well as their own
“tortilla” flat breads. This way there would be no waiting for them to be
brought to your table and you could pick up as many of these accessory foods as
you will need right from the start! Thus, no waiting for them while your cooked
food gets cold!
My point here
actually comes from the end of the meal where we were finally presented with
the bill after waiting 20 minutes from our request for it until it’s arrival at
the table. Sheesh, what a frustrating situation! When Carole looked at the
bill, she commented on the total and I was surprised it was so much. I asked
why it wasn’t the usual amount and then she looked again at the bill and
noticed an item not previously noticed on other visits. It was an extra $8.75
and it was listed beside the heading “Auto Grat”. This was an amount added to
the usual $40.68 incl tax. Bringing the total to $49.43. Now we don’t mind
tipping when the service at a restaurant is good and the better the service,
the higher the tip. However, when there is very little service and poor at
that, we resent being told that the tip is included in the bill and we are
expected to pay it without our knowledge (unless we read the details of the
bill) and catch on that’s it’s an automatic percentage added without informing
us! This ticked me off to say the least! Especially since we had each put a
$5.00 bill in the tip jar for the guys that prepared our food. That was already
a total of $10.00 we had tipped the guys that were doing the work to prepare
our food. Tipping at that point in the experience was our choice and we felt
they earned our tips! But being forced into tipping for something that was
almost non-existent infuriates both of us and we both resented this action on
the part of the management of this establishment! I would have asked to speak
to the manager to explain our resentment but that would have taken another half
hour to find the person and we had already been kept waiting far too long to
end the visit! Carole had asked to pay via debit and we waited while the
“server” went to find a portable debit machine to bring back to the table so we
could pay our bill. While she was gone is when we discovered to our dismay the
“Auto Grat” or Auto Gratuity. SO, rather than wait any longer and prolong the
agony, we put the amount of the bill minus the “Auto Grat” in cash on the table
with the bill and left the restaurant. We have never noticed this addition to
our bill at the Mongolian Grill before and it may well be a new thing they are
doing but we don’t feel it’s a fair way to tip the staff. If we appreciate the
service we tip accordingly and have at this establishment each time we’ve eaten
there in the past. My point for
this account of our dining experience is that no doubt many establishments are
starting to add the “Auto Gratuity” to their bills. I don’t happen to agree
with this method and will therefore be aware of checking it out before tipping
in the future! If I have been well served, I will tip well, but tipping or not
tipping is the right of choice of the patron and it’s a bad move on the part of
any service industry to force this action on their customers! Having tipped the
cooks who worked hard for their money was a pleasure but being forced to tip
the floor staff for piss poor service is wrong!
I know that the tips
like in most restaurants are likely shared among all of the staff but we felt
we had to make our point by disagreeing with the “Auto Gratuity” approach! I
hope whoever picked up the money and bill we left on the table passed on the
result to their manager. Maybe management will get the point and change their
strategy!
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>
Check your bill next
time you’re out for dinner!
PPS: Of course if
you don’t agree with me and you have more money than you know what to do with,
ignore what I’ve just written and let yourself be taken advantage of!
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Have a good one..
the doug
The Fine Print!
The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.