The Squamidian Report – March 16 / 13

 

Issue #564

 

Including:

The Ontarion

 

Hi All,

 

As mentioned last week, we had our BC, CMC Officer’s meeting in Nanaimo last Sunday. It was fun. It was an outing and an adventure, because when every you get to go somewhere, it’s a fun adventure. There were 9 of us from the Lower Mainland. My chapter had 5, and the new Fraser Valley chapter that we spun off last summer was able to send all 4 of their officers. All of the 5 Vancouver Island chapters were represented although the Lower Mainland had the best showing per chapter. We all took the ferry as walk-on passengers to keep the cost down as much as possible. That’s actually a much more relaxed way to take the ferry. It keeps you out of the vehicle lineup that you would need to be in well ahead of time, and it keeps you out of the mad dash to get on-board. It keeps you out of the mad dash to find your vehicle when the ship is approaching the destination, and it keeps you out of the mad dash to drive off the ferry and out into the heavy traffic. One of the things that I find silly is the tendency for the walk-on passengers to stand in line, waiting to board. Do they think that by getting on first means they get across faster? Why not just sit and relax and then leisurely stroll on. Same with getting back off, nothing is accomplished by standing in line to get off the ferry. However, people are people and silliness seems to come naturally.

 

An interesting thing about 3 of the 5 Island chapters….they have their club meeting places in funeral homes. Funeral homes seem to have nice big meeting rooms and for some reason they don’t seem to have an issue with those rooms being used for non-funeral purposes. Nanaimo is one of them. So that’s where the officer’s meeting was held. It worked out quite well, the room had lots of tables, a podium and big windows that looked out over the harbor. There was the usual discussion about club bylaws and amendments, chapter growth and direction, chapter web sites, and chapter issues. Our com system presentation went well, there is a lot of interest in a system that will work properly for group rides and we ended up fielding a lot of questions. The biggest reason for the meeting is actually to keep the inter-chapter relationships strong, members end up knowing other members from other chapters. So, it was also a big fun get-together.

 

The meeting was terminated in time to let us get back on the ferry, in this case the 3pm ferry so we could all get home at a decent time. That’s where being a walk-on really pays off, the Sunday afternoon sailings can be very busy because even though the ferries are not very popular these days and often sail less than half full, when the weekend is over there can be a big rush to get back over. As walk-on passengers we know there will never be an issue of not being able to get the sailing we wanted. So, we were all on board and enjoyed the trip back.

 

By the way, we are well into the ‘Pineapple Express’ season out here. That’s where very, very wet tropical weather systems set up over Hawaii and the jet stream aims them directly at the BC coast. The rain pumps in likes it was being sprayed from some gigantic high pressure fire hose. These systems line up one after the other and just keep on coming. It is quite common for the coastal areas to get anywhere from 2 to 6 inches of rain, per day, day after day. The 6 inch rainfalls tend to be on the outer coast of Vancouver Island and in some of the fiords like Howe Sound where the systems get squeezed as they bump up against the mountains. Up-side is that everything is well rinsed off right now.

 

OH, I’d like to say “good luck” to Greg, he is having his other hand operated on this coming week, on Thursday. It’s a ‘payne’ to go through I would think (pardon the pun), but well worth it once everything is healed up.

 

doug

****

 

 

THE ONTARION REPORT

 

Hello everyone!

 

I was watching the house of my neighbour who just happens to be of the Catholic faith the other day and all of a sudden there was a large cloud of white smoke emitting from his chimney! The next thing I knew, his dog “Frankie” came meandering out the front door and deposited a  “POOP” on their front lawn! I thought to myself, “What an amazing coincidence!” we have our own Vatican right here in Forest Heights area of Kitchener! How cool is that? LOL!

However in stead of having a Pope Francis, we have a Frankie “Poop”! I wish I had taken a video of it! Oh well, I’m sure that won’t be the last time I’ll see Poop from Frankie in person!

*

We seem to be finally getting out of the heavy snow weather and the sun is actually melting some of the accumulation we’ve had for months now. We actually have a green spot on our front lawn and the next week is supposed to be above 0c on several of its days. I’m hoping  for warmer days, weeks and months ahead soon! I’m heading in to the hospital next Thursday to have my left hand done so I’ll have a few weeks of light duties after that experience as well! The right hand is coming along but my palm is still sore at the wrist. Oh well, a small price to pay for increased mobility and a lot less pain.

 

St Patrick’s Day is coming Sunday so I’d like to wish any and all of the Irish Brubachers a Happy St Patrick’s Day!

 

Back in January for our 40th anniversary, Carole gave me a ticket for the Heart & Stroke Lottery. We’ve had a couple of tickets on various charitable draws over the years but never seem to get lucky on them. Way back in the mid 90’s when we lived in Linwood I bought a ticket on the Princess Margaret Cancer draw and won a VCR valued at about twice the cost of the ticket so that was the last lucky draw for me. This time Carole gave me the ticket on the H & S Lottery hoping to do some good with her donation as well as give me a chance to maybe win something for her effort and investment. Well, darned if I didn’t get a letter today telling me that I won a prize in the lottery. They drew my number and I won a pair of good quality 10 x 30 x 50 ZOOM binoculars valued at close to $100.00. That just made my day to be a tad luckier than I have been in draws for quite a while! I’m hoping that this trend continues into the group tickets that Doug and I and 8 other friends have been investing in for the past many years. It would sure be nice to have to take Doug to Toronto while he’s visiting Kitchener to pick up our shares of $10 million dollars or so before he flies home to BC! I’ll be trying like HELL to pick a winner for the group in the next two weeks so this fantasy won’t be a fantasy any more! LOL! We’ll all have to keep our fingers crossed for a big win!

 

I’m going to make sure to purchase our tickets on St Patrick’s Day to try to take advantage of the “Luck O’ The Irish” as they say. I may just ask Carole to purchase the tickets on St Patrick’s Day for us so her Irish heritage will bring “real” Irish luck our way! Being born in Belfast NI brought her the incredible Good Luck of meeting and marrying me so why won’t it work for the Lottery on St Paddy’s Day? I’m sure she’ll have better luck than I have at buying winning tickets, especially on St Paddy’s Day!

*

 Well, 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>

What does a clock do when it’s hungry? It goes back four seconds! Hahahahaaaa……

 

****

 

Have a good one..

the doug

http://www.thedougsite.net

The Fine Print!

The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.