The Squamidian Report – Dec. 6 / 14
 
Online Version
Issue #654

Including:
The Ontarion

Hi All,

Hoe-key-toot, its December already, again. Good grief! I guess the up-side is that in another two weeks the days will stop getting shorter and start to get longer. And in just another three months biking season will get under way again. Thats always something to look forward to. In the mean time, our out door Christmas lights went up last weekend. With an almost 3-year old here there seems to be a lot of pressure to have a light display. So to that end we have one of those lit-up snowmen and two lit-up snow geese on the front lawn, and, an incredibly bright LED ribbon of lights draped across all three. I think the display could substitute as landing lights for night flying aircraft. There is also a couple of strings of multi colored lights around the porch to finish it off. I'm assuming we will have to find a small tree for in the house sometime in the next week or so, given the messages I'm getting from 'The Wife' and 'The Granddaughter'. I think they are in collusion together regarding these matters.

Interestingly, its currently more like October than December around here. After a couple of Arctic Outflow episodes where we had way below temps, high winds and clear sky’s, we again have warm wet weather, the stuff that comes up from the southern Pacific. Down-side of that is that it is melting the snow in the mountains. The stuff way up high is safe but the snow that had accumulated in the lower parts of the high country is gone. The Gondola desperately wants to have a winter wonderland happening but no such luck. Oh well, it will come. As for down at our elevation and further on down into the valley, we can wait.

And for those who expressed an interest in receiving a copy of the CD I've been working on throughout this year, the final mix is now finished. Its a good thing this is one of my most enjoyable hobbies because its an incredibly amount of work to write, arrange and record a given song. This years effort has yielded seven new numbers, totaling about 30 minutes of music. I've overcome most of the technical challenges I ran into after updating my computer software and actually ended up re-mixing the songs for this CD that were recorded using the earlier version of Garageband. The newer version can render the music at closer to CD quality resolution which is great, but I could then hear the difference between the first few numbers recorded on the old software and the later ones that had been done after the update. Keep in mind however, that I can not record at CD quality, I do not have a sound room or anything remotely close, just a noisy computer niche with lousy acoustics and lots of background household noises. I had test-listened to a test version of the CD through several sound systems and actually ended up re-mixing one of the numbers to get the balance a bit better and another number to remove as best I could some horrid overtones that were probably the result of the frequency of one guitar string interacting with my acoustically crappy facilities, and each number is now about as polished as I'm capable of polishing it. I don't have Ryan's skill or understanding of the technical aspect of recording and have only my own musical skill level to work with music-wise but thats the whole idea. These songs are truly me, reflective of who I am, where I am and what I can do. So, now I'm working on burning copies and running off CD covers. They will be in the mail soon.

Anyway, another short one on my part again this week. The little one keeps me pretty well exhausted making it hard to come up with much to write about. And speaking of the 'little one', Kyra has now been up the Gondola over 50 times. The ironic thing is, she just takes it for granted.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello Everyone!

Only 19 days till HO HO Time!
I sure hope people are getting into the spirit of Christmas this year. The other night Carole and I were out at the plaza at the corner of Ottawa and Fischer-Hallman doing some early shopping. Each year for the month of December the retailers or plaza owners hire the Waterloo Regional Police who are off duty to direct traffic at the main entrance to the parking lot of the plaza. Even though we didn’t have much snow that evening, it was still cold as a witch’s refrigerator outside. We were finished shopping for the evening and were on our way out of the lot when Carole suggested we buy the two police officers a Tim Horton’s coffee. I said, “That sounds like a nice idea!

So we drove across the street to the nearest Timmy’s and went through the drive through and picked up a couple of hot chocolate drinks not knowing if the two coppers drank coffee or if they did, what would they take in them. Hot Chocolate seemed like a good way to go. We drove back over to the plaza and stopped to offer the first officer his hot drink. He seemed very pleased that someone would think of him on such a cold night in a positive way. He thanked us very much and we moved on to the second officer about 200’ further down the driveway. We had to stop in the middle of the road to give him his Hot Chocolate and as he thanked Carole for the kind thought a woman that had been behind us in line passed by with her window open and yelled in a loud ignorant voice “THAT WAS SMART!” I guess she’s never witnessed an act of kindness to a police officer before! LOL! I said to Carole that I hoped the woman felt like the fool she was when she realized what we were doing for the officer that was helping people on a cold blustery evening! People like that just have no patience I guess. Anyone with half a brain could see what we were doing and I would have thought it might have given others the idea to do a kind deed themselves for someone that deserves it! Anyway, we felt good about it and like Carole said, the officers may not even drink the hot beverage not being sure if they could trust the contents of not but at least they can use the hot mugs to warm up their hands if nothing else!

Just thinking about what she said gave me a feeling of disgust that anyone would put something bad in the drink they offered the officers but then again, if they’ll put needles in Halloween candy they’re capable of anything!

I’ve never been too thrilled by the people that stand at the intersections begging for cash but then again, the weather is usually nice and warm when they’re out doing that. The other day I heard on the radio that a survey showed that we have 298 homeless people living on the streets of Kitchener/Waterloo and there’s a push on to fund a permanent residence for, to begin with, 40 of these unfortunate folks and if the people spearheading this project can accomplish that within the next year, they intend to repeat the project until they eradicate the homeless problem in our twin cities. I doubt they’ll ever solve the problem completely but it makes one think that there are people with a sense of decency among us!

It doesn’t take much to make someone’s day. Even if all you do is drop a loony into the hat of a homeless person sitting on a street corner you’re part of the solution rather than part of the problem. If you don’t think that donation of money would be put to the proper use, step into the nearest variety store and buy that person a sandwich or a hot drink so they at least have something in their stomach for the day. You might be surprised how good it’ll make you feel to have done a good deed as simple as that! Just doing that good deed for the officers on a cold night felt good and it made Carole and I think about doing more for the street people that don’t have a good job like the officers do or a family or warm bed to go home to after a day on the streets of KW.

The next person we do a good deed for will be someone that truly needs it in a more desperate way! I hope this week’s Ontarion will spur the Squamidian members that read it on to doing at least one good deed this Christmas Season! Just imagine the chain reaction that one good deed might possibly instigate and please give it a try next time you’re out and about!

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>
Doing a good deed for someone!
Doing a good deed is not for the recognition one might receive but if any of you happens to do something for a street person over the holidays it would be nice for the rest of us to hear about it! Don’t be afraid to drop us all a note about something you’ve witnessed or done yourself in the coming weeks. Let us all in on the good cheer of the season! Please!
Who knows, one kind deed may just urge you so repeat that feeling over and over! Just think how much we’d improve this world if everyone thought this way and not only at Christmas Time!
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Have a good one..
the doug
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