|
The
Squamidian Report – Oct. 12 / 24
Online
Versions
Of This And Past Issues Issue
#1168 The
Ontarion ****
The Ontarion
Hello again everyone! This week’s is another adventure of mine from my days and years at KCI in the 60s! I had a good friend by the name of Joe Doczi! Joe and I were pool hall partners! This means we would hook off school every week or two for an afternoon of fun at Ontario Billiards in Hall’s Lane of downtown Kitchener. In those days you could sign out of school by telling the school secretary you weren’t feeing well and have a day off! You just had to hope they wouldn’t phone to check up on your condition! Both of my parents worked so if the school did phone, there was nobody home to answer the call! I’d just say I was in bed sleeping to feel better! Problem solved! One day Joe and I didn’t feel like school so we decided to take the afternoon off! The problem was, we were already about to start music class with Art Freund on the second floor of the front of the school! So we looked at each other and decided to make a break for it! We climbed out the large windows and hung by our fingers from the ledges and dropped to the ground below! The only problem was, as we dropped to the grass, someone in the first floor saw us flash by that classroom below the music room! We only found this out when attending class the next day! We did however enjoy that afternoon in the pool hall before the shit hit the fan the following day! LOL! Once again, it meant a visit to see THE BROW that morning first thing! After thinking he was going to suspend us again so we could stay home for a few days, he spoiled everything and assigned us a week’s time in the detention room after classes each day! Drats! Foiled again! Oh well all that did was delay our next pool hall excursion another week! Needless to say, Joe and I were more careful after that about how we left the school! I must say though that I did have to repeat my school year because of all the classes I’d missed while hooking off! Oh well, it was a hard lesson to learn but learn I did! The following years I turned into an almost model student! I spent 5 years in a 4 year course! However, I did make many good friends in that time! In the final 4 years at KCI had switched courses from General to the commercial course! This turned out to be a good move since they taught me how to type which was a useful skill in my working years! I made good use of my typing skills when it came to writing fire reports as an officer on Waterloo Fire! It also allowed me to make good use of our computers at home once home computers became popular! So, my years at KCI weren’t wasted after all as THE BROW had predicted! LOL! Hope you enjoyed this latest high school adventure of mine! I know that I have many good memories from those days not to mention many fun stories to tell about them! Take care everyone and thanks for tuning in this week! Bye for now…..Greg! ****
From Wayne Hi from colourful New Brunswick. Fall in the Maritimes is always beautiful and this year (so far) is keeping true to tradition. My nephew Ward and his son Ben were here last weekend and my son David and his partner Michele will be here next weekend. Hopefully the leaves will still be on the trees. No frost so far but overnight temps are predicted to be +3C so that will finish off the garden. It is Moose hunting season and they are everywhere as pictured below.
Deer season is next. Last night a young doe was browsing in the hay field about 400 feet from the house. I noticed (son-in-law) Kenny remotely measuring it to see if it will fit in his freezer.
Everyone except Sylvia's late mother (who died) has fully recovered from pneumonia just in time for the next plandemic.
Happy Thanksgiving Wayne & Sylvia ****
From Russ Some bad - some good. Got some bad news from my 'new' optometrist today. No, it certainly is not as serious as your surgery, Judy nor your need to self dialysies, Greg but it kind of shocked me when she said I had some bleeding in the back of my right eye. Since I had my annual eye examination on September 18th, my right eye has been 'useless' to me - everything I try to see from it is covered with a brown 'blob'. "I will have to examine both your eyes again today to make a comparison" said Dr. Sarah Zammit. (can't help but notice Zammit has a nice bum, dammit!) Because I had an appointment with my family doctor right after this eye appointment, she said I will write a note which you can give him today. Arriving for my family doctor appointment, his nurse said, "The system is down, and I have no idea when it will be back up again, so we'll call you to set up a new appointment" I didn't leave the optom's note with her (as she'd likely misplace it) and it's lying in front of me while I type. It reads in part; There is a central retinal vein occlusation in the right eye, macular edema noted clinically, VA reduced to 20/400. I will write a referral to opthalmology in Owen Sound for monitoring of his condition including watching for any ocular comorbidities. This could be related to Russell's longstanding T2DM, he reports his sugars can run higher than target. Please also assess Russell's other atherosclerotic/vasculopathic risk factors. Good thing this note is going from one doctor to another, as us 'mere mortals' have no idea what they're taking about! Pretty, little Sarah Zammit (vital statistics; 5ft 5in, slim, with all the necessary lumps in the right places, black hair, dark eyes, soft, appealing, if not sexy voice) said she was pleased to meet me, and the feeling was mutual. And that's the 'good news'!
Russ. ****
From Nova Scotia Sus
This morning while driving around looking for meadow mushrooms to pick off people's lawns we discovered a whole bunch of sheep that had escaped from their fenced in field. Some of the sheep farmers around here use vacant fields to mow down their grass. They put up movable fences to keep the sheep from roaming. Well this should be interesting and hopefully the sheep don't find the vegetable farm just down the road. They have big portable greenhouses that would be easily invaded. We don't know who to call to report this event happening in our neighborhood. I'm sure someone would have done that by now. We are busy building our own greenhouse with our sawmilled logs. Everything takes longer but it is so rewarding and there is no shortage of logs. We feel for those people in Florida.
Sus ****
From Doug
How’s it going…..eh? Back in the May 11th issue of the Squid I wrote about getting a flight simulator. Flight simulators are not games, you can’t simply set difficulty levels etc to make it easier. The flight experience is as real as can be, short of being in a commercial training simulator or a real airplane. Simulator flying happens in real time. Therefore a flight that would take an hour to do in a real plane takes an hour to do in a sim. The simulator airplane must be flown, based on its flight charalistics. It will stall if air speed is not monitored, it will crash if control is lost. You must be able to take off properly and land properly. In fact, you can’t fly the simulated airplane until you learn to take off, and if you don’t master landings, well, you crash. It is very realistic and challenging. With all that in mind, I’ve spent some very enjoyable time over the last few months flying my simulator. As my old, forgotten flight skills slowly came back, my flight adventures have broadened. I’ve done some rather epic cross-country flights and I’ve re-learned night flying. (Disclaimer: None of this means that for one second I’d think I could climb into a real airplane and fly it safely). Cross-country flights entail navigation. You must figure out and plot a course that will take you to your intended destination. That means working out a heading based on the magnetic compass which differs from the geographic compass. Our declination here is close to 20 degrees E where as at Waterloo airport as an example its just under 10 W. Airport elevation must be taken into consideration as well as the terrain on route. On some ‘flights’ through the local mountains it has proven easier and more scenic to follow river valleys rather than taking a direct route by climbing up and over a mountain range. Airports must be researched so you have the runway info etc. In some cases, VOR radio navigation is the preferred method for getting to the destination. All very enjoyable. I did a flight from good old WW airport back in Kitchener all the way out to the west coast, one hop at a time, so it actually took me several days, on and off, to fit all those hops in. I’ve flown down the west coast all the way to California, enjoying the coastal scenery, flown out of many of the far north strips and so on. Hopping from airport to airport has it’s own challenges as every airport is different and some are quite hard to land on given their length, width, and surrounding terrain. As for night flying, that was always my favorite type of flying way back when I did it ‘for real’. The little local airport in Squamish is VFR, daytime only so I use the rather nice airport in Pitt Meadows for practicing. Night flying requires a lot of attention to the instruments and requires total attention to flying the plane. Once I had become comfortable with night flying, I worked it into many of my cross-country flights by timing my departures for just as the sun was setting and therefore running out of daylight on route. That meant finishing the route in the dark, finding the destination strip in the dark, and of course, landing the plane in the dark. Runway lights don’t actually light up a runway, they just outline where it is. Something cool the sim can do is capture screen shots. That means I can basically take a picture of what is on the screen. So, here are some shots from some of my adventures. This shot is of flying along the Athabasca River into the Jasper Alberta area. The display shown is called a HUD (heads up display). It shows that I’m at 5180 ft asl with an airspeed of 116 knots, and the Jasper local grass field (CYJA at 3350 ft asl) is in the lower left of the pic. It also shows my magnetic heading is 146 degrees and that at that moment I’m in level flight.
This screen shot is of ‘my’ Cessna now parked on the grass strip. This is obviously an external view with the local scenery in the background and the shadow of the plane cast by the low afternoon sun, This ‘flight’ ended one of my many cross-country hops and I chose to ‘overnight’ here and resume on to my ‘destination’ the next time I could find time to fly.
Pitt Meadows night flying…. While you can’t see scenery at night the way you do in the daylight, night flying is still very scenic. This shot is taken on the ‘mid downwind’ leg of a night circuit for runway 26. I’m at 1100 ft asl, on an East heading, over the Fraser River. That line of lights ahead is the Golden Ears Bridge over the river. That line of bright lights at the right hand side of the frame is Highway 1 in the Fraser Valley. Maple Ridge is the lights in mid left screen.
I really like the detail in this shot. I’m on short final for 26, at 400 ft asl with an airspeed of about 65 knots, with perhaps 15 degrees of flaps set. The field sits at about 20 ft asl. The last of the setting sun glow is ahead in the west, and the bright glow of lights is the Port Mann Bridge and Highway 1. The Coquiplan area is depicted in the middle right up against the mountains. I’m lined up with the runway and the glide slope lights indicate I’m right on my descent, with a descent rate of about 600 ft per minute. My wings are almost level as I work the approach. Cool.
This shot is from the next trip around the circuit, all daylight has been lost and now we are flying in total darkness. I’m again on short final for 26, at about 300 ft and descending at just under 500 ft per minute as I’m now flying at 60 knots airspeed with full flaps. My left wing is low as I compensate for some drift to the right. And yes, I’m on the proper glide slope.
I’m well aware generally speaking that this stuff is probably more likely of interest to the guys out there than to the galls but having said that, I know a couple of granddaughters who quite enjoy flying my sim. It’s the kind of hobby that makes you think and learn.
Doug ****
Have
a
Good One ****
|
