The Squamidian Report – Mar. 1 / 14
Issue #614
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
I tried to go for a walk last Wednesday but it was too cold where I was
which is where many of you are. Then, I climbed aboard an airliner at
the KW airport, and climbed back off in Vancouver. Got up Thursday
morning and ended up carrying my lite jacket because it felt too warm
to wear it. Sunny and +7 or +8 as a morning temp feels so much warmer
than -15 with a stiff wind.
I always get a kick out of my mother's dog Teddy. He wants in and out
and in and out and in and out constantly, through one of the doors in
their sun room. They have a door on each end of the room, one leading
to the front porch and the other leading onto the deck. Every once in a
while he will want in one door and head straight across the room and
want out the other door. No lollygagging, just heads right over to the
other door to be let back out. Somebody has everyone else very well
trained I think.
I know I complained about this a week ago but I'm doing it again. Why
oh why do airlines insist on making their customers as uncomfortable as
possible. The seats are now so close together that you simply can not
move. Cramped would be a luxury, heck, the little view screen on the
seat in front of you is too close to you to see. If you drop something
onto the floor you can't even bend over far enough to pick it back up.
There is no longer any need to have washrooms on board because no one
can get out of their seat in order to go to the washroom. There is no
longer any need for emergency exits because you could never get out of
the seat in the first place.
And then there is airport security which is not under the jurisdiction
of the airlines but is there to further frustrate and inconvenience the
paying customers. Its not there to catch 'the bad guys', it was never
intended to do that. Its there to control and intimidate the average
traveler. When I went through security at Waterloo airport, no alarms
went off, not beeps, nothing. My checked bag went through the machine
just fine. My carry-on bag and pocket contents and jacket etc went
through that machine just fine. I walked through the scanner in total
silence, no beeps, no buzzers. However, the security agent looked at me
and told me I must submit to a full body scan. I had a choice between
standing in a little clear chamber where some kind of scanning device
would check me from head to foot, or, I could have physical search done
the old fashion way, by hand. Obviously I chose the scanning chamber.
I'm not friendly enough to want it done by hand. Once the machine had
checked me out the agent motioned me out and told me we would now check
the results on the display screen. The screen obviously showed clear,
nothing, because there wouldn't be anything for it to find. At that
point I was sent over where my carry-on which had just passed through
the scanning machine was waiting. They wiped down all my belongings
inside, outside and around my bags, and then processed the material on
the end of the sensor. That reading came up clear, clean, nothing. At
that point I was free to proceed on my way. They of course didn't find
anything, and never would. On one level it doesn't really matter, its
kind of an adventure. But on another level it is frustrating and
intimidating. We are at their mercy, be it airport security, or border
security, or whatever. They control us because they need to be seen
'doing something' and we are easy to control.
And then there is that guitar I rented. Wow, was it ever nice. A Taylor
714ce with a list price of $3200. I could never afford a guitar like
that myself but it was sure a pleasure to play. It was crisp and clear
and clean and true and soft and mellow all at the same time. The
woodwork was beautiful, the detail was beautiful. I took it back two
days early. You might have thought I'd want to hold onto it as long as
possible. And thats the problem, I was starting to want to hold on to
it longer than possible. It would have been very easy to get to a frame
of mind where I'd be tempted to not take it back, just out and out
purchase it and then somehow slip it past 'the wife' when I got home.
But a guitar like that is way too much money to purchase on impulse. So
it was just easier to return it ahead of time than to get used to it.
Besides, I've always wanted a really nice, high end guitar and someday
I will have one but not today. For one thing, I'd never spend that kind
of money on a guitar without thoroughly checking out several
instruments in the same price range and category. You wouldn't buy the
first car you looked at, you'd check out several car makes and models.
I've always wanted either a Gibson or a Martin and I'd have to sit down
in the sound room of several music stores and play various instruments
that were tuned identically. The winner would have to sound right for
my ear, would have to 'feel' right for my hands and would have to
finger and play right for me. And just because an instrument might list
at $3200 or whatever does not mean another one for a thousand bucks
less would sound / feel inferior to me. Choosing a musical instrument
is very subjective, and very personal. I could very well end up with
something that no one else even liked when the time comes, if it were
to come. Anyway, I liked that guitar that I rented, I took it back and
all is well with the world, for now, as far as I know.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Holy cow, it’s March 1st! If this were March 1st 2008, I’d be looking
forward to picking up my new motorcycle in two weeks and riding it
home. However, it’s not and I’m more likely to be picking out a new
snow mobile if I were into that sport but I’m not, so I guess I’ll just
have to settle for making more wooden toys in a nice warm basement
woodshop and hope that mother nature turns up the heat real soon. We
were all hoping for a nice early spring when “Groundhog Day” came
around but that little rat let us down when he had the chance to make a
lot of friends. What can you expect when he’s a rat and we all know
what they are famous for! Anyway, I’m sure if we’re all patient we’ll
see some warmer temperatures in the not too distant future and we’ll
all forget about the cold snowy winter we’ve had this year. Besides,
it’ll make us all appreciate our warmer weather a lot more this summer.
When we’re puffing and panting in the 35c heat this summer, we’ll just
have to think back three or four months to when we had icicles hanging
from our mustaches and we’ll be quite happy to be baking in the summer
sunshine! The long range forecast that I just checked on the computer
says that we’re in for these very cold temps for at least another few
weeks so hang on to your winter woolies and your scarves until at least
the end of March this year. Let’s hope that when April comes around
we’ll see a sudden burst of beautiful spring weather and the water
that’s already stored up in the snow that’ll be melting or melted will
do the job that April showers usually do and we won’t have to put up
with a ton of them this year. Keep your fingers crossed that when
spring does spring, it’ll make us forget all about the heavy winter
we’ve just experienced. After all, we are living in “The Great White
North” and such is life in Canada!
At least we were able to give Doug a taste of what he’s missing by
living in that horribly wet rain forest he’s hibernating in out west!
He said he enjoyed seeing and experiencing the snow once again but he’s
glad to be back in balmy BC but secretly I think he was in his glory
slogging through the slush and snow here in beautiful Ontario!
I’m sure you’ve all heard or read about the California couple that
stumbled across the 8 cans of gold coins buried in their yard down in
northern California. Well, isn’t that a metal detectorist’s dream? They
didn’t even have to resort to using one to find their $10,000,000.00
almost buried treasure! It was sticking out of the ground at the base
of a big old tree on their property. I guess they figure that some old
gold prospector back in the 1800’s buried the cans in his back fourty
for safe keeping and then kicked the bucket without telling anyone
where he hid the stash! I’d be willing to bet that there are a lot of
people digging through their family history to see if their ancestors
ever owned property in the hills around San Francisco. Nobody knows the
location of the lucky couple but when they become known and trust me,
someday they will let it slip, someone will lay claim to the gold and
try to take it from them! Obviously someone owned that property before
the present owners and no doubt there is a record somewhere of previous
ownership and possibly a record of who those coins were given to in
exchange for his bag of gold. There won’t be any bank records of course
but someone in the San Francisco area had to buy that miner’s gold and
that means there should or could be a record of the transaction still
in existence. The finders are very wise to be making an attempt to keep
their good luck quiet but unfortunately someone will open their mouth
somewhere along the line and they’ll be running for their privacy once
again! It’s like winning the lottery and trying not to let anyone know,
you just can’t keep something like that under wraps for long. Oh well,
if nothing else, it inspires the rest of us to watch where we step and
actually see what we’re looking at when we do look down. Kinda makes me
want to get out with the metal detector as soon as the snow melts.
Unfortunately, there never was a gold rush here in Kitchener so no
sense digging in my back yard! Actually, the only metal I’d uncover if
I did dig in our back yard would be the crushed remains of the swimming
pool that the previous owners had buried before they put this place up
for sale when we bought it! I guess it was a cheaper way to get rid of
the pool than paying someone to haul it all away, but to my way of
thinking they were foolish to do it that way. Oh well, it’s been there
for 16 years now and I’m sure it’ll be there for many years to come.
Maybe the owners of this place 100 years from now will find it sticking
out of the ground some day, who knows?
Well, that’s about all for this week!
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>
Jokes about German sausage are the wurst!
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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.
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