The Squamidian Report – Feb. 21 / 15
 
Issue #665

Including:
The Ontarion

Hi All,

For those of you who ride, have ridden, or wish you could ride, well, its spring here and I've been out riding. There just didn't seem to be any reason not to put the insurance back on the bike and put the bike back on the road. After all, except for some very cold weather way back in November and one single dump of snow in early January, winter never bothered to come here. Its been basically a very wet spring all along. But, when the sun comes out, wow. Gotta love those +12 temps on a sunny west coast day. So, like I just said, the bike is back on the road and the riding is great. My CMC chapter meets every Sunday morning for coffee at the Horseshoe Bay Starbucks. I rode in last Sunday morning, its about 50k each way so just a nice little toot. There were 8 bikes from my chapter there and 6 more rolled in from the 091, the Maple Ridge chapter. I think the tourists thought that there was something up but it was just us, getting together over a coffee, talking bikes and rides, that kind of thing. It sure looked nice, all 14 bikes lined up in a row along the curb, and a few other bikes as well. There are always none-members who come out too.

The ride in was admittedly a bit on the cool side, being just 9 o'clock in the morning. The section of highway 99 (Sea to Sky Highway) from Squamish to the Bay is in shade almost all the way because it runs along the east side of Howe Sound, chiseled into the side of the vertical mountains. But, like many riders these days, I have some very nice heated riding gear. My jacket liner is heated and my riding glove inserts are heated. Both are controlled by rheostat type switches so they can be set as warm as needed, or just warm enough to keep from getting cold. Generally, if needed at all, its just the barely warm setting that works best, you don't get hot and you don't get cold. Perfect. The heated gear is powered from the bike's 12 volt electrical system. Very convenient, just plug in and once the engine is running, you can turn it on and have whatever degree of warmth is required. Don't turn the stuff on before starting the engine due to the drain on the battery. One woman who rides with us didn't understand that concept and drained her battery one evening a while ago. She had used her heated vest, plugged into her rather small bike, to warm herself up and then couldn't understand why her battery was too low to start her bike. We push-started her bike and explained how charging systems work. She's been doing just fine ever since. Bottom line is, heated gear is good, but it must be used correctly.

I also rode in to my weekly Tuesday evening meet after 'The Wife' and I had ridden down to Porteau Cove in the afternoon. That meant a nice sunny ride south and then a ride home in the dark a couple of hours later with the temperature dropping all the way down to a bone chilling +5. But what a clear, starry night. Jupiter bright in the east, Venus bright in the west. It was a great little ride.

Ironically, while we have basically missed winter all along the west coast of the continent, the central and eastern parts have been setting new cold and snow records, again. I can't speak for most of the country but I do think I know why southern Ontario is having those very cold spells. You see, everywhere my youngest brother moves to becomes the coldest spot in the world. He had moved to Alberta for a year or so and they had to endure record breaking cold winters.  Then he moved to Winnipeg and as used to cold winters as that area is, they found themselves shivering through incredible cold, cold beyond even what that area was prepared for. So, he moved back to southern Ontario and wham, record breaking, bone shattering, cold again. Now I can say this safely because he does not get the Squamidian and therefore can not read this, we are very grateful that he never moved to the west coast because we don't want it to be -40 around here. We like our wimpy little winters and year-round green grass. We like riding motorcycles in February and hardly ever needing warm coats or boots. So, stay where you are little brother, we don't want the deep-freeze cold that seems to follow you around. We took a vote, you can't come here. So there!

And now something to ponder. We are all familiar with the basic laws of motion. An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an  external force. Seems pretty simple. Now lets play with this a bit in our minds. We have an object in motion, it does not matter what that object is so lets just say its some sort of particle. It is in motion and its not being acted upon or effected by any external forces so that motion is unchanging and constant. Now lets take away everything except our object and I mean everything. The whole universe. Gone. There is just our object and there is nothing left to influence it at all, not even time. Is it still in motion? We can't know because there is nothing to measure its possible motion against. The object just is. So at this point, can motion even exist? Now, lets put back the universe. Nothing has changed about the object but now we can measure motion again. But when the universe was gone, there could be no measurable motion. So here's my question, assuming motions exists, is the motion in the object or in the universe, given what we were just thinking about. Which one is actually moving? If you add relativity to the thought process, the object would be moving in relation to the universe if viewed one way, OR, the universe would be moving in relation to the object if viewed from that perspective. In our situation, which one is actually moving? Neat, eh? And yes, someone is going to point out that for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction, and therefor the object and the universe are moving opposite and equally to each other in relation to their masses, but that does not apply here in our theoretical mental exercise.

Or here's another one, distance.... distance is measured by either how far it is from point A to point B, or, how long it takes to travel from point A to point B. But all our distance measurements are 'relative'. We can only measure a distance by internal observations. There is no external frame of reference. Therefore, if we were to somehow make everything in the universe twice as 'big' as it is now, right down to the sub atomic particle objects, it would still be the same size because our method of measurement would double, and our measurement of time would adjust accordingly. There would be no difference. You would measure a distance that is twice as lone using a measuring stick that is twice as long. Same thing if everything were to shrink. It would still measure the same. So we can't really even tell if our universe is big or little. The speed of light is meaningless without an external reference. The distance from here to the moon is meaningless without an external reference. And yes, you are probably thinking I've got way too much time on my hands if this is the kind of thing I think about, but firstly, 'time' is relative, and secondly, I think about this kind of 'stuff' when I'm doing other 'stuff'.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello everyone!

We were watching TV on Saturday evening February 14 and came across the weekend version of Chopped Canada. It’s a cooking show that pits four chefs of different skill levels against each other. They must cook three different meals for a panel of judges who are professional chefs. The contestants must cook breakfast, entre` and desert and present them one at a time to the judges who then judge them on taste, creativity and presentation. With each presentation one of the chefs competing is eliminated. The final two prepare desert and the judges then pick the best desert and the winner of the remaining two wins $10,000.00 as a reward. We were surprised to see that Patrick Mathieu a Waterloo Fire Fighter who worked on my platoon as a rookie before I retired was one of the competing chefs. When he first started on WFD he was a young feisty lad who had a great sense of humor and road a Harley to work. He wasn’t actually on my shift but worked for me during a personnel shortage as well as when he would trade shifts with one of my regular fire fighters when one of them requested he trade them a day off. Patrick was always interested in cooking his lunch or supper on shift rather than bringing a bagged or canned lunch to work. I guess as it turned out he realized he had a talent for cooking and on his own platoon he became what he now calls their “resident chef”. This is not a noted position of rank on WFD but his platoon is one out of four that now is lucky enough to have someone that will and does cook for them every day or night they work.

Anyway, Patrick was chosen to appear on Chopped Canada and it just so happened we lucked out seeing the show as he competed that evening. I’m sure it was prerecorded but we felt we were watching it live due to the fact that it was the first broadcast of his episode. Not being a trained chef, Patrick has developed his skills through practice on shift. His lack of professional training was obvious to the judges as they noted that he was more of a chopper while dissecting the items in his “basket” of supplies into portions as he prepared each presentation. The contestants each have the same items in their basket and must create something with these food items to show their talent. Patrick as it turned out would present some very creative plates but the judges commented that the food items were a tad “chunky” rather than finely sliced. That didn’t seem to matter to the judges as they had positive comments on all three of Patrick’s meals. He made it through breakfast, entre` and on into the final desert round. He was one of the two final chefs in the competition and worked very hard to present the judges with a tasty and interesting desert. In the end, Patrick was eliminated and lost out on the $10,000.00 cheque. However, he did his place in the competition well and represented his position on WFD with pride and I’m sure his fellow platoon mates were proud of him! I know that I felt proud of having been associated with Patrick even though it was many years ago. He was and still is a very nice young man and I know that he was at the time developing into a very dedicated Fire Fighter. He was one of the young new members of our staff that took the job seriously and never took exception to following orders. He performed his duties well and was grateful for the career he was enjoying when I retired. I still see him at the springtime retirement banquets and can hardly wait to see him this April so I can congratulate him on the fine job he did on Chopped Canada. He may not have picked up the winning cheque but I’m sure he picked up some new admirers that would like to taste his cooking!

PS: Patrick has turned his talent for cooking into a part time job. He is now the proud owner of a catering business in Waterloo and likes to test out his new food creations on his fellow platoon members at work.

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>
Now that I’m older: My “Wild Oats” are mostly enjoyed with prunes and all-bran.
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Have a good one..
the doug
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