The Squamidian Report – July 31 / 04
For the ‘ON LINE’ version of this newsletter, go to:
http://www.members.shaw.ca/doug_b2/report.htm
Also in this issue:
Memories from Vivyan
South Etobicoke and Beyond
The Ontarion
Hi All,
This is the BC Days long weekend out here. It’s the weekend that you don’t really want to have to go anywhere. Even though the holiday is on Monday the ferries over to the island were already lined up Thursday evening and by Friday the waiting period to catch one was 4 to 6 hours. When that happens traffic for the Horseshoe Bay ferry will be backed up for miles on the Upper Levels Highway. Traffic is also very heavy heading north to Whistler with the usual mix of drivers that want to do about 130 and those that want to do about 60. That always creates bedlam at the few passing zones along the way.
This is also the Logger Sports Games competitions here in Squamish. That’s where they do the pole climbing, ax chopping, chainsaw cutting type of things. Haven’t decided yet whether we will go this year, we will make that decision on Sunday once we see how hot it will be. It’s been in the mid 30s for weeks around here and the last thing I want to do is sit out under the sun when I don’t have to.
Highway 99, also known as the Sea to Sky Highway, is supposed to have a major update completed before the 2010 Olympics. There is a test section ongoing just south of Lions Bay where they are testing some new engineering ideas such as cantilevering the road out over the side of the steep mountainsides. That should be interesting. Then of course there is the Checkamus Canyon section 20 clicks north of Squamish that has been under way for a year or so now. That project is starting to extend north up to Daisy Lake along the Checkamus River. They are starting to clear trees along the side of the existing roadway.
That section is narrow two lane highway that was lined with dense forest giving it an almost tunnel feel. As the trees are taken out the feel is much more ‘open’. There is a web page in Whistler Mountain’s web site that has two web cams. The first one is situated at the top of the lift area and aimed at the Roundhouse Restaurant. The second cam is operated by the BC ministry of transport and is situated 25 clicks south of Whistler, right in the section where the trees are coming out to make room for the highway upgrade. You can now watch the progress of the highway widening over the Internet by checking in on that web cam. At least until the pole it is mounted on has to come out. The cam is looking south, back toward the Checkamus.
http://www.whistler.com/webcam/
The forest fire hazard rating in southern BC is has been at the EXTREME setting for a while now. Anywhere that a fire breaks out the area is burned right down to bedrock, soil and all. What looks like topsoil here is actually a mix of roots, leaves, moss and debris. It burns like dry peat moss. For the past week all of the southern coastal area has been under a high white haze that is the smoke from the Tweedsmear fire. If you check the top cam picture at the web site above you can see the smoke haze hanging over Whistler. Or at least you could, the high level winds have shifted directions and the blanket of smoke has moved further inland.
So enjoy your long weekend if you get one and keep cool.
****
Memories
from Vivyan
I thought I would write
about a different era this time. We are
speaking about the fall of 1977 when Ewan wasn’t quite 4 years old. My mother liked to stay in her little house
in Cedarville for the summer although she was willing to come to Kitchener for
the winters. She had a doctor’s
appointment about every 3 weeks so I had to go and pick her up to take her to
Dundalk to Dr. Lindsay. My mother loved
her great-grandchildren and they thought she was wonderful too. With Beth & Jackie in school I usually
took Ewan with me. I’d try to leave
work about 1:30 and pick him up at his babysitters. I liked to take the expressway to Northfield Dr. and go to
Conestoga. It wasn’t built up then and
there where lovely hardwood bushes.
This particular time the fall colours were beautiful. Ewan was always great company because even
then he liked to talk. He was quiet for
a minute and then, in the most awe struck voice said “Grandma, I just saw God
and he has red hair.” Looking over the
field toward the bush there were clouds with the sun shining through the
coloured leaves and one cloud looked like a huge man’s head with a beard and
lots of hair and it looked like red hair.
For anyone that knows Ewan knows how huge his eyes got when he was
excited.
We continued to Cedarville to pick up my mother and her laundry then go to the doctor’s office. I would always try to get there by 4 as he would have her as his last patient and sometime he would have to wait for us. Can you imagine a doctor doing that now? Ewan found it quite interesting when we would go in with her and he would watch the doctor take her blood pressure and listen to her heart, etc. When we would leave the doctor’s office we would go back to the laundromat to put the clothes in the dryer; then of course, the drug store etc. with always a little treat. We finished off the day at the restaurant. Ewan was a fairly picky eater. He wanted a sandwich with just lettuce on it. The waitress said they don’t have lettuce sandwiches – did he want a salad? No. He said to her “do you make cheese sandwiches?” “Yes.” “Do you put lettuce on them?” “Yes.” “Then I want a cheese sandwich but hold the cheese.” So he got his lettuce sandwich and ate it all. By the time we finished laundry and any grocery shopping my mother needed it would be late enough that we wouldn’t waste any time getting mom and her supplies home. By the time I got Ewan back to Kitchener it would be well past his bedtime, although I never heard Gale complain. He made a good companion on many of my trips. Thanks Ewan.
****
South Etobicoke and Beyond
Whew. Talk about a busy couple of weeks. The saga
continues with our properties in Orillia. Jim and I have had the dubious
pleasure of dealing with contractors, electricians, prospective tenants, city
hall staff, and each other. I hear that many a good marriage has been put to
the test by home renovations so we're in good company, I'm sure. The good news
is we're nearly done the renovations and have our very first tenants officially
moved in as of Thursday evening! We'll be back up in Orillia this weekend to
look over things with our contractor and to show the house and the two bedroom
apartment to some more people. It's a lot of work with many frustrations but, I
gotta say, it's exhilarating!
This week saw another milestone event for us--we
received our first cheque from one of our website merchants! Split four ways
(between Jim, our two partners and I) we each get a whopping $2.05 with which
to celebrate. I know, I won't spend it all in one place. :) The
bright side is that it means we're getting traffic to our site. We also know by
checking our reports that we've generated more commissions with other merchants
but we haven't hit their minimums yet (many merchants require a minimum
commission amount of $25 or $50 before they'll send payment). Even if we never
make more than a trickle of income from the site, it's a great medium for me
and partner Laura to wax poetic (or not so poetic) on topics close to our
hearts. For instance, I have a new article up on homemade ice cream including a
book review of an ice cream cookbook. Not the kind of thing that will enthrall
the masses, but it will certainly appeal to the foodies out there. If you are
one of said foodies, check it out at the link below. I gave the webmaster a
couple of revisions that he has yet to make, but have a peek anyway.
http://www.shopping-eh.ca/think/icecream.php
With all this stuff going on, I've neglected my
garden. But like Greg said, Mother Nature is doing a fine job of watering it.
My plants are all so TALL this year. I have cosmos that are over 5' high! and I
have weeds in the back yard that are taller than me!! Everything's beautiful,
though. Thank you to Evelyn for giving me great advice on caring for my roses.
I had well over a hundred blooms on my climbing rose; and my Rose Over Pookie
has a huge, beautiful cream and pink flower right now. I planted gladiolas for
the first time. I love those. They make me think of Grandma. And there's a
gorgeous deep red flower--looks kind of like a gigantic dahlia--but I haven't a
clue what it is or where it came from. I almost pulled it out earlier this year
thinking it might be a weed. I'm glad I was too lazy or soft-hearted to give it
the heave ho. I'm still waiting for the green thumb gene to kick in but in the
mean time I'm getting by. Hope you're enjoying your own gardens and all the
pleasures of summer.
Until next time,
Jackie
****
THE ONTARION REPORT
July
31, 2004
Hello Squamidians! Time once again for another exiting episode
of our weekly. I’ve had one heck of a busy week and it promises only to get
busier as the weekend nears. Last week I dropped in to a place in north
Waterloo called “The Re Store” it’s part of Habitat For Humanity. It’s a
business where they receive donated used and new building materials. They turn
around and sell these items and use the money to build houses for needy
families. It’s part of that Jimmy Carter charity program. They sometimes have
great deals in this place so I thought I’d just stop and nose around. I
happened across a couple of brand new metal doors for houses. They are the type
with fancy stained glass in them. They had one with a rectangular glass that
was done in gold separating the pieces of glass and one that was a vertical
oval shape with no coloured glass and pewter coloured metalwork separating the
glass sections. I noticed that they were marked $325.00 each. The packaging was
still on the doors from Home Depot and had a price of $799.00 each. I asked the
fellow behind the counter what the story was on them and he said that they had
been display doors at Home Depot and they had donated the doors to The Re
Store. I asked if he would be willing to reduce the price some and he said “Oh
sure, I’ll gladly knock $25.00 off whichever one you want”. I said “Thanks but no thanks”! When I got
home I told Carole about them and the next day we decided to take another look
to see if she’d like one for our house. When we got to the store again, they
had received about 10 more of the doors over night. Carole picked the only oval
shaped glassed door because she preferred that shape and no colour in the
glass.
She also liked the pewter coloured metal work in the glass. I noticed that the pain of glass was loose in the frame. I said I’d be smart this time and ask a different employee about the door and I’d make HIM an offer rather than ask if he’d drop the price. The guy that followed me back to the door section this time let me point out that the glass was loose and I said “will you take an offer on it”? He said “Sure what did you have in mind”? I said I’d be willing to take the door as is and fix it myself if he’d sell it to us for $200.00 and he said “OK”! I was shocked that he didn’t even bat an eye. We grabbed the door and paid him and loaded it in the Jeep. I stopped at Home Depot on the way home and saw the identical door for $597.00 + taxes. Boy did we get a deal! I bought some Glazing Tape that is used to seal this type of window into the frame and headed for home. The package cost us $205.44 all together. The next day, which was Friday I removed the glass and re-installed it with the new seal and it was just like new! I managed to get it hung by the end of the day and spent Saturday finishing the job. I was able to hang it on the old hinges but had to install a new doorjamb on the latch side so I could drill new latch and lock holes, as the new ones didn’t line up with the old. I used the old dead bolt and handle set and that saved us the cost of new ones of course. I then took the old metal door and placed it on the boulevard out front of the house leaning on a light standard. I taped a sign to it asking for $45.00 or best offer. I had 3 different people look at it and ask but they didn’t buy. On the Sunday following, I was out for an hour in the morning and when I got home, Carole had sold the old door for $45.00. Awesome, we were now down to $160.00 for the new door. By Tuesday, Carole had the new door painted and it looks like a million bucks!
On Sunday we had taken a run over to my aunt’s place and surprised her and washed all her windows while she was out for the day. She’s 79 years of age and you’d think she was 50! She’s a really good looking lady and is in great shape and does all the work around her house herself. She has her daughter living with her. She never married and never left home so she’s like a companion to her own mother. The daughter is 50 now and has a bad hip so she can’t do any work around the house other than helping maintain the inside. She also works full time.
Well, when they got home that afternoon, they immediately called to thank us for the nice cleaning job. They live on Ottawa St S directly across from the new Home Depot and Wal-Mart that is being built. Consequently the dust created by this makes quite a mess of their house. I’m sure we’ll be over again soon to do the windows before the summer is through. My aunt’s name is Leona and my cousin’s name is Becky. They showed up about 2 hrs later with a box of Tim Horton’s donuts to thank us. We sat and had a tea and before they left, I showed Aunt Leona our new door. When she heard the story, she asked if I would take her up to get one for her son Randy’s place. She wanted to give him the door for his Birthday gift. SO, back up I went to the Re Store the next day and helped her pick one out for Randy. We also got this one for $200.00. When we got home with it, I told her I’d hang it for her before Randy got home from a trip to Cedar Point Amusement Park later that night. That way it would be a real surprise for him to come home to. She was very pleased that I’d do that for her. I started on his door at noon and finished the installation at 7:30 pm that night. The next day, Tuesday, Randy called and insisted on taking me out for breakfast to thank me.
That evening, I had received a note from Clyde asking me when would be a good time to help him install a new storm door on the rear kitchen doorway of his house. I had offered to help him whenever he got around to purchasing the door. He wrote to me and told me that Barbara was away at the cottage for 2 weeks and that this would be a great time to get the job done to surprise her when she gets home. I wrote back and suggested we do it on Wednesday since this had been a “door hanging” week so far anyway. I figured I might as well do one more door while I was on a roll! LOL! Clyde agreed and I went to his place around 10am Wednesday. We took some quick measurements and headed to Home Depot in Waterloo. Once there it only took us MEN 5 minutes to locate, choose a style and pay for a new storm door. He told me that he and Barbara had been there twice last week and she couldn’t make up her mind for sure which one she liked. I say, leave this stuff up to a MAN and it’ll get done a lot more efficiently! Hahahahahaaaa….! Within 5 minutes of arriving back at his house, we had all the tools and the new door set up for the installation. It always makes more sense to read the instructions only IF you need to! We figured that this universal (Left Hinge/Right Hinge/handle on either side) door would be a snap to figure out. We were right, once we started to read the instructions that is! LOL! First thing to do was remove and reinstall the two windows and the screen. They had the screen at the bottom of the door. Who the heck ever heard of having the screen at the bottom? Once that was completed we installed the frame for the door. No big deal there either! We now had the door hanging in the frame and had only to install the power closer and the latch and handle sets. About 1½ hrs start to finish and we were sitting down for a “Barley Sandwich” to take the edge off!
One sip and we realized that we still had to fit a couple of pieces into the door assembly that happened to be lying on the deck outside. There were 3 items left over and do you think we could figure out the position for these parts? “What the hell are they for”??????? Finally I figured that they must be seals or something because there was a gap at the top of the screen and the divider between the upper screen and lower window was loose to the touch. About 9 looks at the instructions later and we finally found a tiny picture of the rubber seal for the divider. Plunk! That one was in place! Then we had 2 parts left that somehow looked like they should snap in at the top of the screen to fill that gap I mentioned. I was right, one of the pieces snapped in just dandy but, what the hell was the other one for. Everything seemed to be in place! Clyde said “Screw it, we’ll just leave that piece out of the puzzle, who’s ever going to know”? I said “We’ll know and it’ll bug the shit out of us if we don’t find out what it’s for”! He agreed and we took another pull at our “Barley Sandwiches”. After removing and reinstalling the top screen filler piece about 4 times and trying to figure out how both pieces went into that top space, I said “Hey, maybe one of these things fits in the top of the door and the other in the same place at the bottom”! However, they were not identical pieces and wouldn’t you think they would be if they did the same job at either end? Well, we wouldn’t know if we didn’t try, so, down on my knees once more and low and behold, SNAP, in it went!!! FINALLY, success! DAMN, as my old buddy “Hannable” on The A Team used to say “I love it when a plan comes together”!
Well, I guess Barbara’s in for a nice surprise when she gets home from the beach. That is if Clyde manages to paint over the mess he made me make with that damn caulking gun!!
Why, if he hadn’t bumped my elbow in mid-bead it would have been a professional looking job for sure! Then to top it all off, he wanted me to spit on my finger before running it down the bead of caulking. He said that there is something in spit that makes for a perfect smoothing agent for just this purpose. I say there’s something in spit that makes me puke at the thought of doing such a gross thing!!!!! YUCK! How disgusting is that??? I wouldn’t even spit on the valve of my bicycle tube when I was a kid to check for leaks, what would ever possess me to spit on my finger and stick it in a perfectly good bead of caulk! Next he’ll be telling me to pick my nose and wipe the results on the dash of my car! Sheeeeeeeeesh, what a guy! LOL! Hahahaaaaaaaaaa…….! Just kidding Clyde, we make a great door installation team but, the next time we do one, YOU get to do the caulking! Bye the way, I’ve never seen anyone open an EX as well as you my friend! Maybe that’s what you should stick to next time we get together for a construction project! Good idea?
Well, I’ve rambled on enough for this week. I’ll be looking forward to hearing any correspondence any of you may have this weekend. Don’t be shy, let’s hear from you guys.
Al, how’s the negotiation’s coming along? Hang in there buddy!
Thanks for tuning in and I’ll talk to you all again next time in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now…….GREG.
PS: Something to Think About>
Conceit is God’s gift to little men!
****
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Have a good one..
the
doug