The Squamidian Report – June 13 / 15
Issue #681
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
OK, like I promises, or perhaps threatened would be more accurate,
here's a blow by blow description of hernia surgery from my
perspective. Here in BC there doesn't seem to be any private clinics
that do that sort of thing. To make it more frustrating, surgeons are
only aloud so many hours of surgery time in a given hospital. The
results of that is that operating rooms sit empty while patient waiting
lists get longer and longer. My surgery was going to be last February,
but as we neared that date it got postponed until next October, and
even that was just a tentative date. Then, just a couple of weeks ago
they called and said there was an opening available on June 5 and
wanted to know if I were interested and available. I'd have been stupid
to turn it down so it was a go, a go that they still could have
cancelled or postponed right up until surgery time. We were told to
check in at the admitting desk at 10:45am, which we did. We were then
told that if everything stayed on time, they would get to me around
1pm. I guess that’s normal, if not frustrating. At some point they made
me put on a drafty gown and then wait some more, then they hooked me up
to an IV and filled out more forms. Form filling seems to be their
biggest job. Finally the surgeon and the anesthesiologist talked to me
and then in I went.
The last thing I remember was the world getting muffled and dark. Then
I was in the recovery room. It's at this point that this experience
diverts drastically from the other time I went through hernia repair.
During the first time, at our small local hospital, the very second
that I started to wake up, they shoved me out the door. I didn't have
time to gather my scattered thoughts or assess my condition. It was
just get up, get dressed and get out. I was in incredible pain from the
hot fiery needles that seemed to be stabbing all over the surgery area
and beyond. I ended up leaving half my cloths off because I was simply
incapable of putting then on. The ride home was torture and getting out
of the car and into the house was almost more than I could take.
Needless to say I was not looking forward to going through the whole
thing again. However, this time it was done at Lions Gate and it was
handled completely differently, and was performed by a surgeon who
specialized in surgery. I slept it off in the recovery room and didn't
really feel anything. After a while they wheeled me into another room
where I was able to just lay there until I was 'ready' to think about
being discharged. The surgeon came in to check me over and make sure I
was ready to leave. He explained that because I had to ride home to
Squamish, he had frozen the area to make traveling more comfortable. I
certainly appreciated that. The ride home was OK and I didn't have any
problem getting into the house. The nurse at the hospital even helped
me get dressed. At the Squamish hospital they had just dumped my cloths
on the bed and told me to get ready to go.
Because the pain level has been so much less than expected, recovery is
coming along nicely. One weird thing I did notice, when prepping for
the surgery they shaved part of me, right down the middle, literally.
My right half looks like a low-life porn star, my left side looks like
an old farmer. I had been expecting a lot worse, they had told me that
a repair was quite a bit more involved than a normal surgery. Some
parts are, I'm black and blue in places no respecting man should be,
and there has been some swelling, and the incision is about twice as
long as the last time but other than that, things are pretty good. So
now its just take it easy and don't lift anything too heavy for a
while. I think I can do that.
*
And now for something thats not just cool, its very
cool. At least to me it is. I've always liked the sky, but especially
at night when you can see all the stuff there is to see. The sky is
full of celestial objects during the day as well but they are not
visible to our unaided eyes for rather obvious reasons. Well, that
changed a bit, thanks to the many 'astronomy apps' that are available
for smart phones etc. Using one of these apps you can see (on screen)
whats up there any time of day or night, as well as what would be
visible on the other side of the earth. Very similar to a good
astronomy program you'd have on your computer but much more mobile and
interactive. Many of you have probably had one of these apps for years,
I've only just discovered them because when I dumped my old cell
carrier, I had to abandon my trusty old phone and that meant moving up
to an iPhone. Bring on the cool apps!!
The one I'm using is called Skyview. If you've got one that might be
even better, let me know and I'll give it a try, I'm easy. Anyway, I've
found the key to using these kind of apps is to make sure its GPS
compass is calibrated. In the 'auto' mode they tend to drift quite far,
sometimes right on and then a few minutes later, way off. So to that
end I use the manual calibration function and it tends to stay fairly
close, for a while at least. Now where all of this is going is that
many of these astronomy apps not only track the stars and planets etc,
they also track satellites, including the International Space Station,
the ISS. You can set your display options to show elevation and azimuth
which provides a measurement in degrees around from North, and a
measurement in degrees above or below the horizon. These are not meant
to be professional level measurements, just basic anyone can do it type
things. Now here's how it works and how it becomes very cool....we've
been having spectacular late evening viewings of Venus and Jupiter low
in the west. The Skyview app located the ISS for me. The ISS orbits the
earth in an orbit that twist around something like winding string on a
ball so just because you see the ISS overhead during one orbit, it
won't be there during the next. On Wednesday evening, just as it was
getting dark, the ISS orbit would place it right over head when it got
here. It would top the horizon just a bit north of west, right where
the very bright Venus was sitting. Venus was about 12 degrees above a
'level' horizon. Our visual horizon from our deck is about 10 degrees
above the level horizon. I checked the progress of the ISS and when it
was about 8 degrees below the level horizon I knew that it would clear
the mountain in 4.5 minutes and that it would pass right by Venus
(visually, not literally) in 5 minutes. And it did, right on cue. Very
very cool.
How did I know the timing you ask?? Well, the ISS takes 90 minutes to
orbit the earth. For our discussion, an orbit is a circle and therefore
360 degrees. Basic math says that every minute the ISS passes through 4
degrees. If its 18 degrees below where it will pop into sight, its 4.5
minutes away. I even talked 'The Wife' into coming out on the deck to
watch the show unfold. Very cool.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
With spring and summer weather finally here it’s been one heck of a
long wait hasn’t it! We’re also finally getting some rain here in KW
and it’s affecting the lawns in a positive way. I’ve been cutting the
lawn every three days most times and it’s looking like a plush green
carpet that resembles a kids brush cut from the 50’s. LOL! I must say
I’ve enjoyed several comments from people walking by about how lovely
and well groomed our house and property is looking. Makes all the
effort worthwhile! I’ve been looking at the back gardens and today I
realized that it’s almost time for a major trimming of the shrubs and
trees that make up the beauty of them as well. I think I’ll be able to
wait another few days before getting at that project. I’ve managed to
weed out a few giant thistles from the gardens out back but there are
now a few dozen other weeds that’ll have to be removed while doing the
upcoming trim job on the shrubs. As we all know, the job of maintaining
the looks and growth of one’s household surroundings is a never-ending
one indeed! It’s a matter of pride in one’s property and home that
drives ongoing effort to keep things in good shape both yard and house
wise. If you don’t want things to go to the dogs, you have to keep
working at their maintenance!
Last week I finally took a drive north of St Jacob’s and bought another
rain barrel from the farmer that sells them by the hundreds. I’ve
purchased a few of them over the years from this fellow and last winter
the one I had standing under the rain spout at the back corner of the
house split from the water within freezing over the winter. I usually
have them emptied for the winter but guess I goofed on that one last
winter. The bottom of it had split right across from the expansion of
the frozen water. I made good use of it though, I cute it in half
vertically and laid each half on it’s side. I filled them with black
soil and Carole planted little gardens in them. She’s got a few
vegetables in each and they are starting to grow. She’s hoping to have
some produce of her own to use in the kitchen this summer but so far
the growth is slow. I’m sure things will come along soon!
The city charges $100.00 per barrel when you purchase them from their
supply. They also reduce the charge of removing rainwater from your
property by a few dollars for every barrel you use to catch rainwater
and water your plants with. I guess they have to raise money to
maintain the city drainage system somehow. They’ve got other things to
spend our property taxes on so why would they use that cash to maintain
the city’s support structures? Won’t be long and they’ll be charging us
for breathing!
The cost of the barrel from St Jacob’s was only $20.00!
*
Things are changing every day in the downtown part of
Kitchener. I’m sure you’ve all heard about the demolition of the
Mayfair Hotel at the corner of King and Young St. It’s been standing
derelict for a number of years now and it’s about time the city had the
owner remove it. There were quite a few people who objected to its
demolition because they figured it was a “Heritage” building and should
have been preserved. Who are they kidding? Hell, back when I was just
out of my teens a friend and I went into the Mayfair just for the heck
of it to have a beer. We could hardly wait to gulp it down and get the
heck out of that dump! It was smoky, dirty dark and dingy and smelled
like stale beer had been soaked into the carpets. I guess it had been
but they never bothered to clean the place I’m sure of that! The
Mayfair was known for it’s drunks, cheap rooms and of course hookers
and even in it’s prime was no hell to look at! It was just a plain-Jane
square multi-story building put up for the purpose of selling beer and
giving people with no other place to sleep a cheap place to lay their
heads. I remember when I was a kid of 11 or 12 working up the street
from the Mayfair at Morris Custom Tailor Shop avoiding the drunks
sitting on the sidewalk in front of the Mayfair as I carried the
clothing back to the retail stores after Morris had altered them. I
would walk out at the edge of the curbed sidewalk so I wouldn’t trip
over their legs as they leaned against the front of the hotel.
So, just thinking back to those days tells me that way back then this
building was no raving beauty that would one day become a “Heritage”
site. I was actually totally shocked when we were watching the CTV news
one night a couple of weeks ago when they were doing a report on
the demolition of the Mayfair and a couple actually walked up to the
chain link fence protecting the pedestrians from falling debris and in
tears placed large expensive looking bouquets of flowers at the gate of
the fence. They stood there arm in arm and cried as they watched the
workers tare off the roof of the hotel. I’m sure these people could
have found a much better cause to spend their money on than flowers for
the demise of a decrepit rats nest that will soon be forgotten by the
patrons that have moved on to another den of iniquity somewhere further
up the street!
Having said that, I’m trying to think of another dumpy hotel that’s
still in existence here in downtown Kitchener but I’m not sure that
there are any of them left! The only one I can think of is at the
corner of King and Queen St’s called “The American Hotel” and I think
it’s been reduced to a one room drinking establishment that now has
it’s entrance off the side of that building on Queen St N and is no
longer called “The American Hotel”. Maybe Russ will remember the
downtown Kitchener drinking establishments better than I from his days
as a Kitchener Police Officer on foot patrol in the 50’s and 60’s. I’m
sure he’ll have some experiences to relate to that will bring back
scary memories of the old hotel days! I’m sure that losing those old
dingy hotels will be a positive change for downtown Kitchener! We are
seeing clubs of a different style popping up on our main street and
we’ll just have to wait and see if they turn seedy like the Mayfair,
The Grand Union, The American Hotel and one other I can’t remember the
name of that was a dump near the corner of King St E and Cedar St. If
you can remember the name of that one, please refresh my memory! I
think it might have been called “The Kitchener Hotel” but I’m not sure.
That’s about all for this week folks!
Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next time in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now … Greg
PS: Something To Think About>
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of government. But then I repeat myself.
(Mark Twain 1835-1910)
****
Have a good one..
the doug
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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