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The Squamidian Report – Jan. 20 / 18
A bit late but thats ok! Issue #817 Including: From Karl From Lorne North Nova News The Ontarion Hi All, I'm quite thankful that we have an article from Karl, Lorne, and Nova Scotia Sus as well as Greg because I'm putting this together on Tuesday evening shortly after arriving home from the airport which was after flying out form YYZ, which was after getting to YYZ through all that horrid Ontario / Toronto traffic. I'm a bit weary right now so my section will be short. So for starters, I'll mention the Red Car airport service out of Guelph. They gave us great service both ways and managed to get me back to the Toronto airport early Tuesday morning when the good old 401 was basically a parking lot. The drive managed to find back roads that no one knew existed in order to get around mess after mess and get me and the other passengers there on time. Because we had flown in to Toronto instead of Kitchener, and were headed to 'The Wife's' sister's place near Mary Hill, we had to use the Guelph service rather than the KW airporter service. It worked out well and they were great. So, I'm home now and 'The Wife' will be staying to help out her mother for another 3 weeks. I'll mention one other thing then call it quits for now. I can babble on for a much longer extent in this weekends Squid.... I tend to rent a guitar when 'in town' in order to jam with a few people there. Its just easier and way safer to rent than chance bringing my own instrument on an airplane. The airlines seem to take great enjoyment in abusing instruments. So, to that end I dropped in at the Waterloo Long & Mcquade to rent a guitar. They only had cheap instruments available again, everything 'good' was already out. Last time (3 years ago) all they had was cheap units. Last time I ended up driving down to Cambridge in order to get a nice guitar from the L & M there. This time I didn't want to bother so I took out a cheap one. It looked nice but to my spoiled ears it sounded like a cardboard box. It would have to do. Then, when Ryan got into town we decided to drop back in. (He and the manager are long time friends). The manager wasn't there at the time but Ryan also knew the guy dealing with us and some how, he managed to find a nice Gibson that was apparently hiding out somewhere in the back. I switched the cheap cardboard unit for the nice Gibson and had a great jam session on the Saturday evening. When I brought the Gibson back on Monday, the manager was in and gave me a nice discount on the rental rate just to make up for having to be exposed to the cheap guitar in the first place. I guess it helps to know someone who knows someone. And thats it for now. doug
**** From Karl HI Everyone from Melbourne,Again I would like to thank you for a great Contribution to the Squamidian,I thought I would not like to Write BUT I don’t mind as long as there is something to write about ,Greg you will love taking photos with that new camera ,By the way ,You said something about the Old City Hall ,Well I have some 8mm movies of when it was being DEMOLISHED ,that was a beautiful building ,there must be a place that would want my short 8mm film ?,Karin and myself will be coming for a visit in the Summer this year ,so I will bring it along ,As you can see my topic is photography ,I will try to mix it up a little with some Street shots of Melbourne or Landscapes ,I will add a couple of photos again,STAY WARM Squamidians ..   Karl. **** From Lorne This past weekend, son Gary while in town for a family event, happened to notice a gas smell coming from the meter. I had noticed it other times but thought nothing of it having had oil up until more recently. Oil smells, gas smells too. He said call the utilities. I did. They said we will send someone shortly. Within an hour a repairman arrived and fixed the leak. Apparently they take no chances and address the problem immediately. Throughout the summer we barbecue. That cooker sits beside the gas meter. We could have had a disaster. Reporting that at the moment the wayward clock is running forward albeit 12 and a half days behind. Lorne
**** North Nova News Hi there everyone the last time I wrote in we were expecting what the weather people called a weather bomb meaning tons of snow. As it turned out it fizzled, so it wasn't much to write about. Yesterday morning it started snowing and wouldn't stop. It was nice and pretty and very consistent. This morning we woke up to a good foot and a half of the white stuff. Dave headed out with his John Deer tractor, Zane in his plow truck and me with my trusty Toro, we managed to have it all cleared up in a short time. We have a fairly long lane with 3 houses and driveways, then there is Dave's son, John, who has a km long lane and an elderly neighbour just up the road to take care of. I do the walkways around the house, clean off the cars and move them. And now its time to go to work! Something Uncle Russell talked about in one of his write ups concerning what to do with greeting cards. I had an idea last year and it worked quite well. A neighbour of mine gave us all his cards that were sent to him through the Wild Life Association he donated to yearly. They were piling up so he decided to start giving them away. Well I wasn't going through them very quickly either so I decided to take them to work, put a sign on them saying," Take a card and make a donation to the food bank". It worked very well, people were very generous and when they were all gone, I went shopping at Sobeys with the money and then dropped it off at the Food bank. I couldn't believe how much food I could buy with it especially when you are not shopping for yourself. I tried to think healthy but bought everything that was on sale. It felt really good and was fun too. Sus
**** THE ONTARION REPORT Hello everyone! Well, Doug and family made it safely to Onterrible as he would call it. We got together Thursday morning and had a breakfast at The Country Boy Restaurant. We have been frequenting that place for years now since before the Brubacher clan or part of it moved west. It’s always been a decent place to eat breakfast but over the past year they’ve increased their cost per breakfast and decreased the amount on the plate. When we ordered our breakfast that morning things just seemed different. I can no longer eat the greasy breakfasts so I ordered scrambled eggs and brown toast. My plate came with what looked like one egg sort of scrambled and the “Order” of toast was two small slices. I had also ordered a tea that they couldn’t screw up or change and as usual the tea was quite enjoyable. They bring the tea to you in it’s own carafe so you have about 4 good cups to see you through the meal. That part was ok but as Doug pointed out when the bill came, the scrambled egg and two slices of toast came to more than a normal loaded breakfast. I might as well have ordered a full breakfast and just left the part I can no longer eat on the plate. At least I’d have gotten my money’s worth! Actually, Doug’s money’s worth since he was kind enough to pay for my breakfast as a birthday gift! LOL! I was actually in shock at the meager amount of food on my plate costing more than $2.00 over the charge of their regular breakfast! I think it’s about time to find a new restaurant to frequent when we do go out for this sort of breaky. I’m sure there are places that offer a good breakfast for less money somewhere in the Waterloo Region. Anyway, a change of scenery might also be a welcome site from the drab interior of The Country Boy. It is getting a tad stale and shabby looking inside. Does anyone know of a clean place to switch to for breakfast at a decent price? I figure I should be able to find someplace that would supply an order of such a simple amount at a more reasonable price than $8 and change! Not that I’m a cheapskate but let’s get real and stop gouging the public. Especially when you brag in your advertising that you’ve served over a million meals since opening your establishment 20 years ago. I’m sure they’ve served more than that amount since that statement was made about 5 years ago for the first time! Oh well, I guess that everything is going up in price and the restaurant business is no different! One would think that The Country Boy would at least offer a “senior’s” discount to old cronies like Doug and me! LOL! On the other hand maybe we don’t look our ages! I did notice that Doug is sporting a new haircut and beard trim this time round. I of course still have the same hairstyle I’ve had for the past 40 years and have the right to comment on someone else’s noticeable haircut since I’m never sporting what I call the “Shaggy Look”! Anyway, it’s been good to see Doug once again even under unfortunate circumstances. We usually try to get out for a gab and breakfast or at least a coffee and muffin a time or two whenever he and Sue are in town. At least by now after all I’ve been through health wise, I’m in stable enough condition to get out for a couple of hours to visit with my old friend and that’s what I look forward to most when on the occasion he should be visiting the area. We do stay in touch via the Internet at least a couple of times a week as well as during our Squamidian effort each weekend. This new fangled computer stuff is OK and it’s kinda fun too! Like I’ve said before I’m glad I paid attention in typing class at KCI way back when those new fangled “Selectric” typewriters came into being! LOL! Maybe some of you will remember the typewriters with the “Ball” of letters that did the printing on the sheets of paper fed in one at a time! It’s fun to think back on the changes in technology over the past 50 years. Heck, when most of us over 50’s were in high school we weren’t even allowed to use a slide rule let alone a calculator to during our classes. In fact you may remember that we were required to be able to prove our process to arrive at the answers to our homework assignments if asked by the teacher. If you couldn’t show each step you made in solving a math problem you were accused of cheating and using a calculator was considered cheating back in those days! Oh well, things have sure changed for the kids in school these days. There was an article on the NEWS last night showing how 98% of the schools in Ontario now have a computer for every student and information on paper is almost non-existent these days. In fact, the teaching is done through the Internet rather than textbooks. Reading a book to learn is very rare and Heaven forbid the students take notes with pen and paper! Wow, what a change and not necessarily for the better! Oh well, that’s about enough for this week since it’s going to be a short week for the Squid! Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again in a couple of days! Bye for now… Greg
PS: Something To Think About> Are the days of department stores soon to be history? With the closure of “Sears Stores” will “The Bay” be next? I guess this happening is a direct result of the computer age as well since more than half of all shopping is now done on line! ****
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. |