The Squamidian Report – Jan. 31 / 04
Also in this issue:
A Note from Sheri about Bosnia
Grandaddy Warren’s Wildwood Excursions
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Sorry this issue is a bit late coming out but we went into Vancouver this morning to do some shopping and you know how that goes.
Looks like I snuck out of Ontario just in time, ahead of the storms. We had minus 25 and crystal clear sky’s as we headed for the airport last Sunday morning. True to form, AC made check in miserable, with long lineups and non-existent service. (And that was using Express Check-in, the normal way was even worse). However, they actually managed to get the flight off the ground almost on time. Visibility from the air was phenomenal. By the time we reached altitude, we could see Lake Ontario, Erie, Michigan and Huron all at the same time. There were some overcastted areas over the prairies and near the west coast. The rest was clear. And there is always something a bit neat about landing in Vancouver when YVR is your ‘home’ airport.
Sue was waiting when we got in so it was just a matter of getting the luggage and heading up the highway. Yogi was so excited to see me that he lifted his head and wagged his tail, at the same time. Wow.
Sue spent this week in Terrace, up in North Western BC. They had frigid, blizzard conditions the whole time. They weren’t even sure that they could get back out at week’s end. As it was, one of the teams had driven to Prince Rupert and they couldn’t get back to Terrace. They had to arrange a flight from there.
It’s been a wintry week all across the country. Most of the highways in the interior of BC have been or are shut down due to avalanche activity. There has been heavy snow all over the place. We got mostly rain in the coastal areas but where it was cold enough to snow it really snowed. Whistler had half a meter Thursday night. It was pretty well cut off for a while and their hydro was out. A lot of unhappy rich people for a while. That’s not supposed to happen to them.
This is really weird but I seem to have found myself inadvertently employed again. I had managed to get laid off for the winter, a situation that I’ve come to enjoy over the years. However, the company that I was working for last spring and into the summer got wind of the fact that I was ‘available’. He started to hound me about helping them out and I gave in and ran one of his machines for a couple of days. Then he began to pressure me to stay on. I’ve reluctantly agreed to stick around for a while but I’ve had to put my foot down. He believes in working 7 days a week, till dark each day. I have no interest in that at all. I did that for 20 years and all it got me was 20 years older. We’ll have to see how this plays out.
There is a lot of ecology and dyke repair work going on now, due to the flooding last October. One job I was on was placing rock along the base of an old section of dyke and repairing the wildlife habitat that we were wrecking as we moved the rocks. That meant cleaning up the gravel pad we had put down to work from as well as embedding old stumps into the base of the rock to both catch sediment and act as a place for critters to hide. The most interesting part of jobs like that is crawling back up the steep incline with the excavator. Those things can pull themselves up some interesting slopes if you can grab onto something solid with the bucket. Problem is, when you have pulled yourself to a point where the boom is fully retracted, you have to let go and reach out to take a new hold. That’s when you start to slide backward. Steel tracks have only so much hold on rocky mud. That’s also when you are glad it’s not your machine and you’re glad the seat belt is done up tight.
****
Sheri of Bosnia fame has sent this letter to Judy who was kind enough to pass it along to the group. Thanks Judy.
Hi Judy,
Well now that I'm home I can tell you a little more about life in Bosnia.
Our work week is Monday to Saturday from seven in the morning to five at night . We have PT four mornings a week which starts at six fourty five and last until eight o'clock. We usually run, the favorite route is seven kilometers but occasionally we run a twelve kilometer route, which I swear to you is up hill both ways! We don't run a horrible pace, it takes me 37 minutes to run seven kilometers. On days we don't run we play sports in the gym. The running routes are off camp and we have to stay on the hard surfaces all the time. The area is still very heavily mined; we pass mine signs all throughout the sides of the roads we run on. There is a very nice weight room in our camp, not that I've ever used it but I do use the cardio room every night. There are quite a few elliptical machines( my favorite), some stationary bikes, treadmills and rowing machines.
Every Sunday is Bingo night. I've only played a couple of times but I've won everytime but one. Not too much money, the most I've ever won was seventeen euro and it cost me ten to play. The best thing about Sunday is the ice cream bars go out at six thirty! On Saturday night we have a get together at our mess and they serve finger food as a late meal at eight O'clock. We play pool, as we do every night of the week and just hang out usually ending the night with movie.
On Sunday's when I 'm not on duty I volunteer my time to a project called CIMIC. It gets me off the camp, there is a "no walk out policy" in place( in other words I'm confined to the camp unless I go running and only then with a partner), and I get to interact with the local children. We are building a school from scratch. I've painted, stuccod?, done cement work, framed in windows and a whole lot of other stuff I had never done before. The kids for the most part have very bad manners, are vulgar and rude. Don't get me wrong some of them are great. I'm sure the bad manners come from never having had anything and continually having to fight for what they do have. They are from two years old to sixteen and there is never a parent to be found. It is usually the older sibling looking after the younger one, even if the older one is only nine.
My job as a Land Communications Information Systems Technician is to make sure all the tactical communication on the camp is working. In otherwords, I fix any problems with the comms forward to the battle group, our own internal camp comms and any army communication in all the vehicles. I also fix televisions, VCR's, DVD player's and personal computers.
I am the postman for my platoon. When the mail comes in I deliver it to the guys I work with. I think that's the best part of my job. Everyone loves getting mail!
Other than my job there are two, week long duties. One is the Security Force where we work the front gate and control who comes in and out of the camp. The other is the Quick Reaction Force. On this duty we have to be able to respond to anything being ready to leave the camp fully kitted in twenty minutes. Our gear is an extra seventy five pounds!
I've participated in sports days( played ball hockey of all things), casino nights, a polar bear dip on New Years Eve, Hallowe'en party and many other things to keep up the moral of the troops. It has been really fun.
The hardest thing about being there of course is missing the boys. I think of them all the time, especially when I see the children over there. We are really lucky to live in Canada and am I ever a huge flag waver now.
Jordy has done well with the boys and is in a great routine with them although the housework could use a little more attention. I find by the time I'm ready to go out he has them washed dressed and are all waiting for me. I am finding it difficult to get back into the swing of things. When I get back for good and have to start my five O'clock mornings and out the door by six fifteen with two kids its going to be hard. Something I'm looking forward to :)
Well that's all for now. If there is something in particular you want to know just email me and if I can tell you I will. I know most of what I told you seems very insignificant but we can't let the people over there know what our routine is. I wish sometimes that it was more exciting but then again I'm glad it's not!!
Take care,
****
Note:
This
article was written before I visited Ontario but did not get delivered until I
got back.
Also,
I do not edit or alter these articles in any way; I wouldn’t know where to start.
doug
WARREN’S
WILDWOOD EXURSIONS- part 3
Doug’s
been pressuring me to get another one off, so I’d better get cracking because
he’s on the big bird to Ontario & I’d like to email this to him for
tomorrow’s Squamidian Report. Oh yah, I might as well mention, Chelsea’s water
broke at 4:30 this morning, so my grandson will soon be born!
On with
the story. There’s no quicker way to beat up an old half ton than to go
wildwood harvesting in the south coast mountains of British Columbia.. Susie my
dedicated, whatever she may be doing sister might remember the time when we
went after a candelebra-topped red cedar up the Brohm Line. I consider myself a
capable faller but regardless, I parked the truck too close and let me tell
you, a tree of this nature is totally unpredictable. If I remember
correctly, we tied a line to the
branches and with Sus and Peter pulling
she fell a good 30degrees off my mark. The top leaders put a fair dent
in the roof of the truck. Thanks to the deep cross-ditches in these mountain
roads, we had no problem loading the wild top into the truck.(you figure it
out).
I
remember back in the old days, when I had my old 63 Chevy, 3 ton, steel-bedded
dump truck, I used to fall anything up to 14in. diameter (breast height) rock
maple trees right into the box so I wouldn’t have to lift the blocks in. Those
were the days of brawn; no brain!
Today’s Chevy needs new u-joints at least
once a year, 12 ply side wall off road tires and shocks every other year and a
new change of motor oil every third year and that’s about it. Actually, one
year it needed a complete overhaul I mean tranny, clutch, chassis, box and
frame parts except for engine. About five grand later, I had a new truck!
Dennis thought I was nuts not to buy someone else’s problem instead.
She’s a smart looking truck now; Cumberland
green, CCC. medallion gold door decals and a wildwood rack all to make sure
everyone knows I’m # 1 in this racket.
With a soon to be re-vamped professional website, all I can say is ,
watch out , 2010 Olympics!!!!!!!!!!!!!
signing off,
Wildwood Granddaddy.
****
THE ONTARION REPORT
January
29, 2004
Hello fellow Squamidians! Hope you’re all doing well this week!
It’s been a cccccold and sssssnowy week for us here in Kitchener. I guess Toronto had their heaviest snowfall in 5 years this past weekend. My brother-in-law lives in the heart of TO and says that the view from his 18th floor balcony was non existent during the blizzard. He did say however that once the weather cleared everything down below looked so clean and white that Toronto looked new again. I guess it’s such an old dark city that a fresh coat of the white stuff would spruce it up. I like to visit Toronto once in a while but I sure wouldn’t want to live there. It’s just too big a city for my liking.
We here in Kitchener got quite a blast of snow as well. I cleared the driveway and walkways at least 4 times in 2 days. I have a 10 hp snow blower and it was bogging down at times trying to get through the snowplow buildup at the end of the driveway. Of course living on a corner doesn’t help. The city plows dump a huge load in my drive every time. I also have a 110’ long side walkway along the westerly side of our house. The city does come along and clear it with one of those mini plows but I usually don’t have the patience to wait for them to show up. I don’t like the thought of people plodding through all that snow, especially the little kids that have to trek to school past our house. The one thing that really does irk me is the people that figure it’s winter and they don’t have to pick up their dog’s droppings. I actually found 3 Oktoberfest Sausage sized dog logs on my driveway ramp the other day. I guess the owner figured it would make good lubrication for my snow blower auger! I’d like to catch the bugger just once! I’d pick it up and slap it on his back and say, “I believe this belongs to you”! Maybe I’d just follow him or her home and toss it on his porch. People that leave their dogs mess along the way are just plain ignorant! Our little Poodle Bailey drops such little turds that they’re hardly noticeable but I wouldn’t think of leaving them behind when we’re out for a walk. It’s just common decency to clean up after your pooch.
Our son Adam has a few weeks off till his next project gets under way. He’ll be doing the electrical work on a new building for a computer software company that is building in the northwest section of Water. There is a huge industrial park being built off of Columbia St W. It’s located behind the University of Waterloo’s Optometry Building. There are 18 companies related to computer work and development that are scheduled to build their new offices and plants in that location. I guess it’s convenient to be located close to the source of workers that are produced by the University computer school. This means loads of work for the trades in the area. There’s no stopping this computer craze I guess. While Adam and I were clearing up my basement workshop this afternoon we noticed a computer that is now sitting on the top shelf of that room collecting dust. About 12 years ago, I noticed a sign on the bulletin board at work. It read “Computer for Sale” I asked the guy that put the ad up what kind of computer he was selling. He told me that it was a Tandy Corporation top of the line home computer. He only wanted $750.00 for it and was only selling it because he was purchasing a newer one through a program offered by the city that would deduct small weekly payments from our paycheques over the span of a year. I thought, well, it’s close to Christmas and although we’ve already got lots of stuff for Adam a computer would be a nice bonus. So, I gave this fellow $750.00 and took the computer home. It was complete with monitor and printer. At that time, I didn’t know a computer from a doghouse but I figured this guy wouldn’t steer me wrong, after all, he was a brother firefighter. Man did I get a rude awakening! Adam opened the computer on Christmas morning and was beaming with excitement. He couldn’t wait to get it set up so he could work on it. He had a huge bedroom with a computer ready wall unit waiting for the big moment. We took it up to his room that day and he proceeded to hook it up. When he was finished with his supper, he headed up to use the “new” toy. We didn’t hear a word or a sound from him for a couple of hours. We decided to go up and see how he was making out. When we opened his door, he was sitting at the computer with a long face.
I asked him how it was going and got a less than enthusiastic response. I said well, show me what these things can do and he replied that this particular one could do NOTHING! I said what do you mean by that? He then told me that to be worth having, a computer should have what is called a “Hard drive”. I asked what that was and after he told me, I was ready to explode. This 3-year-old Tandy Wonder had no hard drive. You had to have all the programs you wanted to work with on floppy disks. Of course the guy I bought it from had kept all the disks he had his programs on so he could install them in his new computer’s Hard Drive. I was ticked off to say the least. The next morning I had to work and this guy would be reporting to work for the day on my shift. I could hardly wait to see this fellow to have a talk with him. When I asked him about the computer the next morning he said, “Well, you should be an informed consumer” and walked away. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr… He told me later that he wouldn’t give me my money back because he had put it towards the cost of his new one from City Hall. I decided to take a side trip to Radio Shack before heading home that day after work. The Radio Shack fellow told me that it was a perfectly good computer and said he wished he had a dozen of them still in stock because they were so popular. He even told me that the one I had was worth at least $1000.00 and I had gotten a deal. I asked him if he’d like to buy it from me for what I had in it and he said “Heaven’s no, it’s used”! @#&%*(@@$#% There wasn’t much I could do about the situation so home I went to tell Adam that we were stuck with this boat anchor. Eventually he got hold of a few programs and worked with it a bit. He played games on it for a year or so and then it went in the box. That was in 1994 and it’s been in that box ever since. If any of you would like a classic Tandy computer, just let me know. Maybe Doug can make something out of it for a winter project! LOL! I’ll gladly send it to you Doug if you have any use for it. Hahahahahaa…..! Actually, we have a few computers on that shelf. Adam had purchased a couple of Atari computers for writing music and they worked just fine for that purpose but they have long since been replaced by much more sophisticated Apple equipment. He now has an Apple G4 unit with dual processors and Lord knows what all in it.
He said today, maybe we
could donate these computers to the Smithsonian as part of their “Abacus”
display! Hell, even a Chinese Abacus can do more sophisticated math than any 3
of these antiques. LOL! Oh well, one might say that my first encounter with a
computer taught me something after all and though I’m tempted to say that
lesson is “Never Trust a Co-worker” I’m afraid my co-worker was right. The
lesson is “always be an EDUCATED CONSUMER”! It’s all right; I eventually got a
tad of revenge on the fellow. He was desperate to get a transfer to a
particular shift and station and it just so happened that it was up to me to
allow or disallow this move. Guess what happened? LOL! The last laugh was on
him! Sometimes it pays to be patient. By the way, the computer he bought
through the city was a lemon and he had nothing but trouble with it from the
first day. He finally bought another one from Dell and had to junk the “City”
one. He was not a happy camper when he had to put hundreds of dollars into a
supposedly “top of the line” special from the city’s supplier just to get it
working half assed, only to wind up replacing it 2 years later with a Dell.
Like they say “ what goes around comes around” and it finally came around to
him. You know what? The Tandy Special wasn’t a complete washout after all, look
at the great story I’ve just been able to write because of it! In fact, after
re-discovering those old units today, I think I’ll put them in our Spring
Garage Sale and see if I can pass them off as antiques! LOL!
Guess I should go for now.
It’s been a slice again and thanks for tuning in! Talk to you all again next
time in “The Ontarion”.
Bye for now…GREG.
PS: Something to Think About>
If you let people do it for you, rest assured, they would also do it to
you!
****
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Have a good one..
the
doug
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