The Squamidian Report – April 19 / 14
 
Issue #621

Including:
The Ontarion

Hi All,

Now that the riding season is well underway, there is a fare amount of work to do getting the members of my riding club chapter back up to speed, so to speak. Several riders rode all winter, others, like me, parked our bikes for the winter. Either way, we are all a bit rusty at doing the tight group riding and other necessary skills needed for safe riding. We have several training events lined up for the near future including some slow-speed skill training and practice, group riding and parking practice and so on. However, there is more to riding than just riding. There are the group riding rules and procedures that all participants must know and in order for them to know the information, it must be taught to them, and refreshed for any who supposedly already know the stuff. So, to that end I lead a group ride from our meeting place in Horseshoe Bay up to my place here where we could use the quiet sunny deck to put on our group riding seminar. We simply sit around a table and I run everyone through the rules, and the procedures, and the 'why' for the procedures. We discuss emergency procedures, how to deal with various situation and so on. The ride up was great, a bit on the cool side because its basically shady all the way due to the high mountains along the Sound. We stopped at Porteau Cove where one of our riders had camped for the weekend. She is a Harley riding kindergarten teacher who loves motorcycle camping and never misses a chance to do so.

We rode in to Squamish, grabbed a bite of lunch and then climbed up to my place where we parked the row of bikes out on the street. Funny how everyone stops what they are doing and looks when a row of bikes come riding up to here. It attracts all the people who  wish they had bikes, be they kids or adults.

We did our seminar and discussed any peripheral topics and then mounted up and headed back to the city. I rode half way back with the group but turned around at the 'overpass to now where' (pre-arranged) simply because there was no point in riding to the city again and then having to brave the Sunday afternoon traffic all the way back to Squamish. But it was good. By then we has all shed a few layers of insulation and were enjoying riding in the warm sunshine. We still have a lot of training and practicing to do. Our road captains still need to re-qualify, which is my rule, not a club rule. Like I said, we all get rusty including me. Re-qualifying is easy, we simply get a minimum of 3 riders and choose a route that includes intersections, traffic, highway on and off ramps and so on. Each road captain must prove their proficiency at both the front (lead road captain) and rear (tail gunner). I still have to do the rear road captain position before I can declare myself proficient. Actually, although I have the authority, it is my other R/C's that must re-certify me. Its all good, and keeps us out of mischief. And face it, if you are not continually trying to improve, you are going backward.

Now a different topic, don't read this part unless you don't mind icky stuff... for decades now I've looked like I've been colonized by weird space aliens. Thats why you will never see me with my shirt off, its just too gross. Even my forehead seems to be over-run by these invaders. All of our generation that spent too much time in the sun over the years has been advised to keep an eye on our unwanted lumps, bumps and markings and watch for anything 'out of the ordinary'. I had one such small patch that seemed somehow different from the rest so I had the doctor check it out. He referred to it using a long name that I could not possibly remember and then proceeded to tell me that he had just had his numerous spots, warts and moles treated and that he does his parents every 6 months. He left the room for a minute and came back with a pressurized container of liquid nitrogen that squirts out a very fine focussed spray. I'd had liquid nitrogen applied to a few spots years ago using a big q-tip type swab but this thing was more accurate and faster. He treated almost every spot, patch and weird thing on my upper body and head. It stung as he was doing it and as I drove home the stinging all over was quite distracting but within an hour or so it went away. He had showed me the welts under his collar and had told me that I'd look like I'd fallen onto the BBQ for a few days. For the first hour I had felt like I was still on the BBQ but like I said, the stinging went away. Now I just have the big welts which I assume will disappear. Whether any of my ugly unwanted carbuncles were or could have become an issue I will never know and thats a good thing. The doctor has advised that I have this done every 6 months now and that seems like a good idea going forward. Some of these things have been with me all of my adult life and yet I don't feel any compassion or affection for them what-so-ever. No nostalgic parting of the way. No reminiscing about old times, just goodby and good riddance.

doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello everyone!

Whew, let’s hope that my speaking of spring finally being here doesn’t jinx us into another few of those quickie snowstorms! What a shocker the other day to wake up to another 2” of that white crap! Oh well, stuff happens when you live in the Great White North! The last of that accumulation melted on Thursday and now it’s onward and upward for our temps in the future, I’m sure this time! LOL! However, if I’m proven wrong in the near future, I won’t be as surprised as I was this past week!

I gotta tell you all about our dog Bailey’s disappearing act the other night. He had been licking the inside of his left back leg for most of the day and it was getting quite sore and raw. I decided to sleep with him in the spare bedroom so I could watch that he didn’t start gnawing at it during the night. I took him in on the bed around midnight and I climbed under the blankets for the night. About two hours after we hit the hay, I felt him move for the first time. The bed shook a little and I looked down towards the spot that he had been sleeping on. To my surprise, Bailey had disappeared! I called to him thinking he might have fallen off the bed. I got no answer and didn’t even hear him whimpering. Thinking that he had fallen off the bed I got up and turned the light on. I searched the entire bedroom, under the bed etc. Then I figured he’d found his way out of the room into one of the other three bedrooms on the floor. I checked all the rooms while calling his name franticly! I was beginning to think that maybe he’d fallen between the rungs of the banister and down to the main floor of the house. I quickly woke Carole up and asked her to help me search for the dog! She checked the upstairs once again and I went down to the main floor to look for his broken little body! To my relief, he was nowhere to be found on the main floor either. I called up to Carole and asked if she’d found him yet and she said “no, where the heck could he be?” I ran back up stairs to take another look and once again I entered the front bedroom where we had been sleeping for one more look, maybe under the covers of the bed! I glanced once more at the headboard of the bed, which is an arched white pipe with vertical smaller pipes supporting it like a “half moon” and “There He Was!” He had wandered up over the pillow on that side of the bed and stepped through a pair of the vertical rungs and was sandwiched between the headboard rungs and the wall! LOL! I screeched, “I found him Carole!!!!” She came bounding into the bedroom and was as shocked as I was to see the little fellow suspended between the headboard and the wall just looking at us in bewilderment!

I went to the side that Bailey was on and Carole took the other side of the bed and we gently pulled the bed away from the wall. I had my hand under his chest but he slipped out of my grasp and down onto the floor. He just sat there looking at Carole as if to say, “What the heck was that all about?” LOL! I picked him up off the floor and cuddled him to make sure he was ok and of course he was just fine. I think he was just in a little bit of shock. He’s blind; as you all know, so the whole episode must have been really strange to him! I doubt it was any more strange to him than it was to us but all he had to do was hang there and wait to be found however he must have really been wondering why it took us five minutes to find the little guy! Oh well, after making sure he was ok, we were able to laugh about it and of course it’s given me another story for this edition of The Ontarion Report. I’m sure if Bailey were still able to see, he’d have gotten a big laugh out of watching me crawl around the bed on the floor naked calling his name! Maybe he was afraid to say anything in reply to my calling his name because he wasn’t sure he wanted to be scooped up by a half crazy naked old man at 2am! LOL! I know if it were me, I’d have kept my mouth shut too in hopes that the nice lady in the nightgown would be the one to find and help me first! Hahahaha…! Sheesh, I sure am glad that Bailey didn’t have his cell phone camera with him or I’d likely be famous on U-tube right now! Can you imagine?????

That’s about 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>
Did you hear about the cross-eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn’t control her pupils?

PPS: Just want to wish all of our Squamidian members a very Happy Easter.
    
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Have a good one..
the doug
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