The Squamidian Report - Dec. 28/02

Hi All,

Welcome Michelle to my weekly letter. You are my first west coast reader.

Well, our first Christmas way out here on the wet coast was very pleasant. Because Ryan was with us we felt 'complete'. It was relaxed and nicely quiet. Having Warren and Janice up the road was great as well. We spent Christmas Eve there and they were here on the 25th for my birthday supper. You guys were all invited as usual but none of you turned up.

Our Xmas snow turned to rain, lots of it but that means snow in the higher elevations. There is snow on the Chief now, where Ryan and I had climbed to on Tuesday.

Ryan gave me a 256 ram chip so we had the enjoyment of installing it. My motherboard only recognizes up to 384mg and I already had 256 so we removed one 128 chip and paired the other with the 256. I'm maxed out now on this 'old by today's standards' machine. I keep the software pretty clean so it runs well. I must admit running anti-virus and a firewall gives a bit of a performance hit.

And talking about software, Sue gave me a GPS with the included computer software for my birthday. Wow. Now I've got all sorts of neat stuff to learn again. The mapping software is the best map program I've seen. The GPS has a 16mg flash card and you can upload info from the PC using a serial cable, as well as download info you input while out in the field.

Did you know its 1.6 miles (as the crow flies) from our house to the local Tim Hortons. Its only 29 miles (as the crow flies) from the shopping mall in West Van to the house, but you can't drive anywhere in a straight line out here.

Today is Ryan's last day here, he flies back Sunday. His time here sure went fast. He recorded a jam session for Warren and I but didn't get around to editing it down to a CD. He will finish it back on his own computer and I'll pick it up when I visit back home. By the way, that may be around the last week of January. Because of our two old dogs we have to time it for when Sue is in the office so she can be home every evening.

I will keep this issue short. Don't want to bore anyone.

Catch you later,

the doug