The Squamidian Report – July 10 / 04
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The Ontarion
Hi All,
As some of you know, Squamish does not have a movie theatre. It was supposed to have one open over a year ago but everything out here seems to take a lot longer than planned to get finished. The theatre is currently being build down by the CTC store and should be finished this fall some time. Until then anyone from here that wants to go to a movie must travel to either Whistler or Vancouver. Warren, Janice, Sue and I decided it was time we went out for an evening so we headed up to Whistler for supper and a movie. Whistler is crawling with summer tourists now so getting into a restaurant was just about impossible. Especially when there are grumpy, impatient old farts like me along. I hate standing in line for who knows how long just to get seated. Then there would be a long wait to get served. Not my thing.
There is a little pizza outlet there called Glacier Pizza that sells ‘a slice and a coke’ type of thing. They have great pizza. So we bought slices and sat on a bench watching the tourists go by while we ate. There are people from all over the world milling around in the Whistler Village. Every shape size and colour. Very rich yuppies and dirt-poor kids that have hitch hiked in to be part of the scene. The mountain bike course is open so you see people walking by wearing so much padded protection that they look like gladiators in armor.
The theatre is one of those 8-plexes with fairly small screens and viewing rooms. We’d have to go into the city if we wanted a Silver City style place. Watched the movie ‘Terminal’ with Tom Hanks. Very good movie. In fact none of us fell asleep during it so it must have been good.
Heading south out of town on our way home I was passed, on the right, by a big tour bus. Now I’m quite used to sifting right along on that highway but there was no way I could keep up with the bus. Don’t know why he was in such a hurry but he was taking curves at speeds that must have been peeling the rubber right off his tires. The only thing that seemed to slow him at all was when he’d catch up to the next vehicles in front of him. Then he was stuck at their speed until the next passing area at which time he was gone again like a shot. It would have been a wild ride to be a passenger in that thing.
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Well, I thought I was done working in Whistler. No such luck. I got called back to there but at least I had a relaxed long weekend while I was under the impression it was over. This work is still in that development for the rich and famous. There is one mansion going in where the access road, lane, driveway or whatever you want to call it runs beside a very deep and steep ravine. All that’s holding up the road is a high rock wall. The owners have decided to have the section on the road that you would drive on moved over a bit and the wall raised a bit higher to act as a barrier. Don’t want anyone driving over the edge. That meant removing several beautiful, large mountain hemlock trees. The way you do it out here is you put the excavator bucket against them and simply smash them down and chew them into small enough pieces that they will fit into the back of the off road truck. They come apart quite easily.
Ran into one small problem. The people working on this mansion all park along the road. As well as remove some trees we also needed to move the road itself so they had been told several times to move their vehicles. Some moved them out, some moved them about 3 car lengths and had to be told again. One guy with a beat up old rust bucket figured he could save a few feet of walking by hiding his car behind the big roll-off garbage bin. Several small limbs broke off one of the trees I was removing and fell around the bin. When I cleaned them up I noticed pine needles and twigs all over this junker of car that I hadn’t even know was there. I didn’t think anything more of it that day, Tuesday.
I had Wednesday off as my machine would have to crawl down a cliff and do some rock work. I simple do not have the required skills or nerve for that kind of thing so the boss said he would do it. His machine is broken at the moment. Bright and early Wednesday morning Yogi and I went down to Horton’s for a coffee where we ran into the owner of a company I’ve worked for in the past out here, CastleRock Construction. I ended up working the day for him. However, during the morning my cell phone rang and it was my ‘other’ boss up in Whistler in a bit of a furry demanding to know why I hadn’t informed him that I’d damaged a car. I hadn’t known that the car was supposedly damaged therefore I couldn’t very well have informed him. I hadn’t thought it was an issue. I think the owner is looking for some free repairs.
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Sue had a different week. She went to Edmonton for lunch on Tuesday. They had stayed in the office on Monday, as one of the team couldn’t leave town that day. They flew to Edmonton on Tuesday morning and walked into the branch they were to audit only to find that everyone in charge was either away or off sick. They had no choice but to have lunch and catch a plane back to Vancouver.
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This spot is empty!
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THE ONTARION REPORT
JULY 10, 2004
Hi everybody!
It’s 7:00 am and I’m just starting to slow down a tad. I got up at 6:00 am to throw a pot of tea on and get Adam up for work. Doing this gets my lazy behind out of the sack before mid morning. It’s a useful way of starting the day early and not wasting the first couple of hours sleeping in. I’ve had a busy week so far anyway and things will continue to be that way at least until Saturday when we make one more trip to Toronto. I’ve been down to Toronto twice in the first two days of this week and will do it one more time this weekend. A friend is moving back to Kitchener and we promised to help with the move. The big move is on Saturday but I’ve borrowed a 4x8 trailer early in the week and made a couple of trips with it so as to lessen the load this weekend. I must say the Jeep does a great job of hauling a trailer. I know it’s no mobile home I’ve been pulling but with at least a 1000 lbs plus the trailer weight behind the Liberty, I could hardly tell there was anything there. This Saturday should be an interesting one. I’ve rented a 6’ x 12’ enclosed U-Haul trailer to finish the move with. I’ll have a chance to see what it’s like to pull this bigger unit empty on the trip down to TO and then full returning to KW. The amount we are bringing back isn’t worth renting a big moving truck for so we figured the trailer is a good choice. I couldn’t believe the cost of a cube van style truck. It would have been over $200.00 for a single day for the cube van. This trailer is costing only $29.00 for a 24 hr period and will hold almost as much as the cube would.
The Jeep is surprisingly heavy for a vehicle it’s size. The weight of the Liberty is 4,200 lbs and it has a towing capacity of 5,400 lbs. It should be an interesting trip to say the least. I guess people haul their live-in style trailers with these vehicles with no problems so why would a 6x12 be any different. It’s probably just that I’m new at the towing thing and I’m not sure what to expect. By the time you’re all reading this it’ll be too late for me to ask any advice on towing so I’ll just ask you to wish me luck on this project. Hopefully there won’t be anything overly exciting to report to you on the subject next week. LOL! Most moves are a boring experience and people are usually happy when they’re all done.
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I had a pleasant experience last Saturday. When we moved into this house in Forest Heights we had a “man” door on the side of the garage that led out onto a concrete walkway. The walkway is a nice stamped design the same as that of the driveway and front porch. It runs all the way from front to back at the side of the house. Approximately 4’ back from that door is another one that leads into the laundry room and hallway of the house. We discovered early that this was not a pleasant way to move from the garage to the house when the weather was wet or snowy. My first project that spring was to build what we now call a “breezeway” structure over these two doors. It’s basically a 4’ x 14’ room on the side of the house covering both doorways. This now allows us to move from the garage to the house and vise versa in inclement weather without dragging a mess inside on our boots. It also allows a quick dash to the garage without having to put on a coat if only for a minute or so.
I installed a steel door on either end of the “breezeway” so we could pass right through without having to enter the garage. It works very well indeed! However, in order to affect ventilation for the laundry room we have been leaving the rear breezeway door open so as to get some air movement through the screen window in the laundry room door. This of course allows any and all bugs and flying insects to enter and nest in the breezeway. So (getting back to the pleasant experience) Carole suggested that I look into installing a screen door on the rear of the breezeway. I of course said it might be a tad expensive to do. She said she was sure she had seen screen doors on sale somewhere for $50.00. I said if we could do it for that I’d be very surprised but agreed that we should definitely do it. I set out to phone a few places for prices before venturing out to buy a door. I called Fierling’s Home Centre in Wellesley first. They had always had the best prices for odd items that I’ve needed over the years. They had been the suppliers of most of the building materials when we built our home in Linwood back in 1990. I phoned and talked to the fellow that usually helps me out with some real good pricing. He spent a few minutes looking around their stock for a bargain and came back with a “one of a kind, left over type deal” in the form of a door that I’d have to assemble myself for only “$199.00”. WOW, what a bargain………..I think not! I thanked him for his time but told him about Carole’s recollection of a $50.00 bargain somewhere. He laughed and said if I could find a door for that price to grab it! I had explained to him that I didn’t want a storm door, just a plain old fashioned wooden framed screen door to keep the bugs out. He said he still couldn’t see finding one for less than a couple of hundred.
I decided to give Home Depot a call. The fellow that answered my call said he was looking at a display of screen doors as we talked and they were on sale for $35.00. WOW, now this was the “deal of the century”! I figured at that price it was worth a look. Adam and I jumped in the Liberty and headed for HD. It didn’t take long to find the doors the fellow was talking about and he was right, they were $35.00! We grabbed one and as we walked toward the front checkout, I spotted a package deal on spring loaded hinges, a hook and eye latch and a brass door handle for my screen door. That was only $7.99 for the set. I grabbed that as well. Home we went and I spent the next 4 hrs or so routing the face of the door to make it look finished and mounting it in place on the breezeway. We now have a bug proof way of getting air into the house. I love it when I find a bargain, don’t you? This door is the type that we had on our house when we were kids. It’s just a thin, all screen, push open and let ‘er fly type door that has that familiar bang to it when it closes. There is an Ann Murray song that has that screen door memory to it. She says “Hello my old friend, gee it sure is good to see you again. It doesn’t really matter how long it’s been. Just open up the screen door and c’mon in”! In these days of steel doors that most people keep closed and locked all year round it’s nice to think that we’ve gotten a bit of the “good old days” open door concept back with the addition of this screen door. I’m not so sure I’d install one on the front door of the house but it’ll do nicely where we’ve got it for now.
Better say goodbye for now. Hope you all have a great week and write if you get a chance. It’s nice to hear from any and all of you in the Squamidian.
Until next time…….GREG.
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze solid.
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