The Squamidian Report – Sept. 8 / 18
Issue #850
Including:
From Lorne
From Russ
The Ontarion
Hi All,
We have a member of the bluebird family out here called a Stellar Jay.
They are pretty cool birds with big attitude and big
personalities. A few days ago, when I was sitting out on the back
deck I saw one take 'cool' to a whole new level. This guy saw me
sitting there and decided to check if I'd put some bird seed on the
deck rail, which I had. He or she, landed on the neighbor's roof which
is quite high, a good 20 ft higher than where I was on the deck. It is
certainly normal for birds to jump off of roofs but when they do it,
they do it head first, spreading their wings and that jump becomes a
flight. Well, this little guy had the 'jump off the roof' maneuver down
to a fine art. It looked at me, then at the food on the railing, then
just jumped off the roof, feet first. Most birds would have jumped head
first and gone directly into flight mode. It jumped feet first and
continued down to just a bit higher than the deck rail at which point
it then spread its wings and did a perfect flair that took it to a
perfect landing on the rail. It never had to do a single wing beat,
just the most cool maneuver ever. It looked at me as if to say, “well,
what did you think of that?” Needless to say, I was pretty impressed.
That was one cool Jay showing off its flight abilities.
Now, nothing to do with birds, I got a letter from Ford way back in
February telling me that there was a very urgent safety recall pending
for my little old 2004 Ford Ranger. Seems the airbags needed immediate
replacement (like so many other airbags in so many other vehicles these
days). This particular situation was apparently so critical that owners
of '04 through 06 model years were suppose to not even driver
their trucks but were supposed to have them towed to their nearest Ford
dealer for airbag replacement. At my convenience I dropped in at the
local dealer and asked about making an appointment. The guy behind the
service desk, with a blank look on his face, told me he knew nothing
about this particular recall and even if he did, Ford had not supplied
them with replacement airbags. He'd take my name and when said airbags
became available he'd call to set up an appointment. That told me he
did in fact know all about it but couldn't or wouldn't deal with it at
the time.
No problem, I'd just continue on, driving the truck as usual, which I
did, with no exploding bags to ruin my day. Last week the phone rang,
it was the Ford dealer letting me know they had the required airbags
and could do the recall anytime I wanted. We made the appointment, I
dropped the truck off, and 2 hr later it was done.
Sure glad I hadn't had it towed to the dealer as Ford had suggested,
and left it sit there for 6 months. That would have been down right
silly.
And nothing to do with birds or airbag recalls... 'The Wife' and I are
celebrating 90 years of marriage today. Yup, 45 each. Don't know how
its possible so much time has gone by so quickly but it has. Each year
has been faster than the one before. Astronomers like to use the speed
of light as a measurement, perhaps we should be using the speed of time
except that time seems to be rather variable, continuing to get faster
and faster. Just think how fast the next 45 years is going to pass by.
Wow.
And lastly, this is not mine but I'm passing it along anyway because it is so true...
Think about this:
"The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a
living are now outnumbered by those who vote for a living."
doug
****
From Lorne
Russel wrote about firearms in the last issue. Well, I owned a 12 gauge
shot gun way back when I was young and often went hunting both around
home, home still being in the Township, the Parry Sound area and
mostly in the upper Bruce just South of Tobermory. I gave up shooting
defenseless animals when having downed a fine young doe in the
bush just back of the house. When I approached it she blinked her
eyes and died. I said to myself, what have I done?, I've taken a
life! I put away the gun and never fired it again. When gun amnesty was
announced, I surrendered the weapon. Two police officers arrived.
I had already placed the gun on the ground and stood back 10 yards as
instructed. They, the police grilled me and seemed to treat me as a
possible criminal then wrapped a sheet around the gun, placed it in the
trunk of their cruiser and drove off. No thanks, no have a niece day,
no nothing. But at least they didn't put me in the car along with the
gun.
"exhume" (cont'd) KPD > our new shooting range
You may recall the “wild shots” in the Market Building where I was
first introduced to the .38 Cal. Police Revolver....then again, you may
not.
I’ve been digging-up stories of my police training from way back in the
mid 50’s, and for that time and in that place, let’s say,,, “we got by”.
While the Police Station was still located in the basement of the City
Hall, we didn’t have an indoor shooting range, and it wasn’t until we
moved into our new building at 134 Frederick Street, that we finally
acquired an “officially approved indoor practice range”. Until that
time, if we wanted to practice shooting our ‘side arm’, we had to drive
all the way to Bridgeport where we had access to an abandoned gravel
pit behind the Grand Hotel. We’d set our targets at the foot of an 8
foot embankment, and ‘pace back’ about 60 feet, load, and commence
firing. Bullets flew in all directions (some even hit our targets), and
a man who lived, and gardened just beyond our “backdrop”, would
periodically complain about the bullets that were landing on his
property! He never came to us with his complaints (maybe he “feared for
his life”), but would phone the Chief of Police, or the Mayor, and we
were “mildly chastised”, but kept on firing!
The “report” of a gun fired outdoors is loud, but when that same gun is
fired within an elongated, concrete bunker, it’s EXTRA loud, and
DANGEROUS! Our new shooting range may have been “officially approved”,
but because we cops never wore any form of ‘ear protection’ (earmuffs
were for sissies), the accumulated affect of the noise, which left my
ears “screaming” for hours after each “compulsory shooting
qualification”, has left me with a “moderate” hearing loss for a
lifetime!
What may have been even ‘more dangerous’ than failing to wear ear
protection, was the practice of shoving spent .38 bullet casings into
our innocent, vulnerable ears! It stopped the noise, but those bullet
casings were contaminated with tiny particles of lead....a substance
which can pass through skin, enter the bloodstream, and cause
“lead-poisoning”, and even brain damage.
But, we didn’t know anything about that stuff when we were young and impervious!
Because of my hearing loss, I made attempts to receive some form of
compensation for my “occupational hazard” handicap, but was told, “You
don’t qualify”.
Hearing aids are NEVER as good as the ‘real thing’, they’re
uncomfortable, ugly, and EXPENSIVE! My advice to anyone shooting, or
working with noisy equipment, or in a noisy environment is:
ALWAYS WEAR HEARING PROTECTION.
Have you heard the one about the good-looking deaf boy? Pardon?
Next week, I will answer the question I was often asked;
“How many ‘bad’ people have you shot?”
Your ‘hard-of-hearing’ Uncle Russ.
****
THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello Everyone!
Well, you’re lucky that I was able to write my Ontarion this week. When
I turned the computer on tonight, the wireless keyboard was not
connecting through blue tooth to the computer. I had to ask our
resident computer expert “Adam” to take a look at it and see if he
could get it working for me so I could write this week’s column. He did
his best to solve the problem and finally decided that the cordless
keyboard was no longer working. So to get me working tonight he loaned
me his corded keyboard for the evening. I guess I’ll be heading out to
the apple store tomorrow to either have them fix my cordless or buy a
new one for our home computer. A new one will likely cost me around a
hundred bucks. Guess nothing lasts forever! Every time I turn around
these days I’m spending money on something. If it’s not the MG, it’s
something else that needs repair or replacing! Oh well, that’s just the
way things go these days I guess.
Carole and I took the MG out for a spin in the country yesterday and
even with the top down the weather was almost unbearable! The
temperature hit a tad over 32c and the sun was incredibly intense. As
long as we were moving the breeze managed to keep us from frying in the
car. Thank goodness for sunscreen and hats with large brims! With that
combination we managed to avoid bad sunburn on the arms and face and
other exposed parts of our being! That’s the only drawback to riding in
a convertible I guess, that and some of the foul smells of the farms
around the area. We traveled through Bridgeport and northeast to the
little burg of Maryhill and toured that area to look at some of the
very large homes that are now part of that small village. Being worth
more than a million dollars each they sure have crammed them onto small
lots and placed them quite close to each other. I think for that kind
of money I’d want a much larger lot and more space from my neighbour
than what they’ve managed in Maryhill. For the money, I’d rather find a
lot of an acre or two and place my home somewhere in the middle of that
plot, just so we’d have some breathing room. Oh well, I doubt I’ll ever
have to worry about that from this stage in my life! LOL! The
countryside was lovely this time of year and we wound up arriving in
Elora as our turn around point for the afternoon. Upon our arrival in
Elora I realized that we needed gas in the MG so I filled up at an Esso
station on the edge of town. From there we headed home through Salem
and directly down Northfield Drive into Waterloo. One pretty straight
run for the “B” and a nice drive.
One thing I did discover after figuring out my Miles Per Gallon on the
MG was that my gas gauge is on the blink. It takes a long time to move
from the Full mark to the half tank mark and then from there it drops
off very quickly to the “E” for empty point. When I filled it up in
Elora the tank took only 31 liters to fill. I figured that it was quite
a small tank but the MPG worked out to be slightly over 31 Miles Per
Gallon. I’m happy with that result but decided to look up the capacity
of a fuel tank on a ’79 MGB. Once I located it on the Internet, I found
out that my Little British Car actually has a capacity of 13 imperial
gallons of fuel or 59 Liters. This tells me that either my fuel gauge
is on the blink or the sending unit that reads the fuel level in the
tank needs replacing. I took time to look up the problem on u tube and
from what I can tell; it’s the sending unit that’s the problem. So time
to spend more money on the MG I guess. Before I replace that unit I’m
going to drive the MG until I’m out of fuel and see just how many
gallons or liters it takes to fill it up from that point. I’ll just
have to carry a small gas container in the trunk so I can reach a gas
station once I run out! From what I can tell, I should get about 600 or
more kms out of a full tank of gas. With the gauge misreading I’ve been
filling it up when the gauge has been reading E and it’s actually only
been half empty. It’ll cost me more to fill the tank from empty but I
should be happy I guess that I’ll be able to get at least twice the
distance on a full tank than I’ve been getting! I guess that’s a bonus!
Speaking of spending money, I had the seats of the MG shampooed today
after realizing that there was dusty residue on them from it’s stay in
the body shop during the repainting process of a month or more ago. I
guess they didn’t clean the interior as well as they did the outside of
the MG once they were finished with the work. I should send the body
shop the bill for cleaning the seats! It cost me another $56.00 to have
them shampooed to remove their dirt! Of course how do I prove it was
dirt from the body shop at this point? Guess I’ll just have to eat the
cost of the cleaning.
Man it’s been hot around here this past couple of weeks! We actually
set a record yesterday according to CTV weather. We hit a record 32.4c
yesterday and the record was 32.2c set about 20 years ago. Things are
slowly getting warmer I guess! I could tell it was getting warmer than
usual the other day when I was mowing the lawn in the dead heat of the
day. Too bad it can’t be done at night when the sun has gone down! LOL!
*
Well,
you sure can tell the kids are back to school this week. I’m back to
picking up the litter along the walkways they travel when going to and
from school. I think it’s time the schools form student “chain gangs”
to patrol the streets within a few blocks of the schools in every
direction and have them picking up after themselves at least once a
week! Might teach these kids to show some respect for the environment,
not to mention other people’s property! They just like to drop their
garbage at their heels and keep on walking! Just another pet peeve of
mine so I thought I’d mention it one more time. I guess it comes up at
the start of every school year. Things never seem to change with these
kids. Of course it’s not all of the kids, it’s likely just the old
adage of a few bad apples spoiling things for the whole darned bunch!
Oh well, I guess I could have a lot more to complain about than a few
pieces of litter! Things could always be worse!
That’s about all 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>
He who would honestly and fairly weigh his own deeds would find little cause to judge harshly of others.
In other words, “People who live in glass houses……”
****
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.
|