The Squamidian Report – May 22 / 04
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Also in this issue:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Isn’t it weird how the brain works! I was having a usual long busy day running the rather large excavator that I run and I got to thinking about hydraulic lines. Don’t know why. I thought back to a backhoe attachment that I used years ago and to how it blew more lines than I could keep stocked. I hated that machine.
Then I thought back to the little Kubota excavator that I used until I sold my stuff so we could move. It had never blown a single line in all the years I ran it. Very dependable. That got me thinking about the big Hitachi I was running and how hard it would be to replace a line on it. The lines are big and some of them would be quite hard to get at. Especially the ones way up on the boom. And then right before my eyes one of the lines right up at the elbow blew. Oil shot all over the place until I could get the engine shut down. The machine has a positive charged system so even when the levers are at neutral there is several thousand pounds per inch of hydraulic pressure in each line.
A quick call to the company’s mechanic got a repair under way but it was sure weird. What I’d really like to know is, did thinking about blowing lines cause the rupture or did the impending rupture cause me to start thinking about blowing a line? Either way the subconscious part of our brains seem to be tuned into things we are otherwise unaware of. I guess I’d be more comfortable with having my subconscious pick up on a failing component than having it cause the situation. That could get a bit scary, at least until I could control how it works.
There are lots of examples of similar occurrences. You think about the dentist and then chip a tooth. You think about someone you haven’t talked to in ages and then get a call or message from them. You think about the weeds in the back yard and then the wife decides it’s time to mow.
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Finally got around to putting the motorcycle back on the road. With our short mild winters you could probably ride a bike most of the year here but there never seems to be time to enjoy it so there is not much point. However it’s kind of nice to go out for a short toot on a nice weekend afternoon. This will be our third summer and I’m still not used to biking here. The feel is still new so to speak. And speaking of new, I had to order two new tires for it. Tires on a motorcycle are something you don’t want to take for granted and on these steep windy highways you realize just how important they are.
The old tires were worn to the point where the bike didn’t feel all that solid on the road anymore. That’s not good. The new ones restore proper handling characteristics and control. At some point in the future I just might retire the old highway bike and put it into storage. I’ll replace it with a dual-purpose bike, street legal but built for the back roads and trial. There are thousands of miles of rugged, abandoned logging roads around here. You could spend a lot of time exploring them, rather than playing in the traffic that speeds between Vancouver and Whistler.
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I’ve got a few days off on my hands now. We had worked at a ridiculous pace on the job site and now have run out of things to do until the engineering layout is done so we can start the contour and service work. The site prep we were doing could have been metered out at a much better pace. That would have made life easier for everyone including the surrounding neighborhood. One problem with this time on my hands is that I sleep in, have a relaxed breakfast, take Yogi out for that donut he expects, come back home, go out for a leisurely walk and when I get back home its still not yet 8 o’clock in the morning.
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For anyone who is interested and has a high speed Internet connection, there is a web site that shows the cruise ships docked at Canada Place in Vancouver. The camera is located over in North Van and updates every 20 seconds so you can see ships moving around etc. Low speed connections work too, just not as smoothly. There is a schedule on the page below the picture so you can tell what ships are in. (And yes, I know I mentioned this last year)!
http://www.northvancouver.com/webcams/cruisecam/index.html
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space available
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THE ONTARION REPORT
MAY 22, 2004
Hi there all Squamidians!
It’s a
beautiful day here in Kitchener and I finally rounded up enough time to work on
The Ontarion. We finally had our Garage Sale this past Saturday and what a day
it was! I had spent about 4 full days gathering up what I thought would make a
decent stock for a sale. I got up at 6am on Saturday and began the assembly of
a large table on which to display the smaller items. It consisted of two Black
and Decker Workmate stands with 2 large sheets of particle board lagged to the
tops of the units. This alone took a major acrobatic feat to accomplish. Once I
had the table made I spent another hour placing all the items we had dug up in
three attractive rows on the table and driveway. I did this so people could
walk up and down the rows to choose their purchase. By this time Adam and
Carole were up and had placed a couple of chairs in the garage to enable us to
sit during the sale. I took off in the Jeep and posted 4 “Garage Sale” signs on
hydro poles around the neighbourhood. I had purchased these signs from Canadian
Tire the night before for the sum of $8.50. Once I got that done, the people
started to arrive.
Of
course we had the usual “drive by’s” at first. They’re the people that slow
down and look from their cars and vans and act like they’re not really slowing
for that purpose. Once in a while one would spot something worth getting out of
their vehicle for and they’d park. The sales were slow at first and then began
to pick up around 8am. Carole and Adam of course were “armchair quarterbacks”
calling the plays from the garage. If I sold something too cheap or gave a
“freebee” they’d voice their opinion from the darkness and relative safety of
their positions. I told them a couple of times, if they didn’t like what I was
doing, get the heck out front and do some selling too! The sale progressed and
people were walking away with the bargains that they usually expect from a
garage sale. I had one fellow that seemingly couldn’t speak English but managed
to communicate in a thick Indian dialect that he wanted the computer speakers
he was holding for 25c rather that the tag price of 50c. I gave him one of my
“Why you cheap bastard” looks and relented. He had won out and bagged himself a
deal! I had a couple of old furnace thermostats on the sidewalk end of the
table that I had tagged as “Free”.
The thermostats were kind of like one of
those “Lost Leaders” that the grocery stores advertise to get people in to buy
other more expensive items. Well, the guy that had just beaten me down by 50%
on the computer speakers started to walk toward his Mercedes SUV as I turned my
back. I caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye sneaking back and
grabbing one of the “Free” thermostats and actually jogging to his vehicle. The
three of us laughed our buns off at his antics! How cheap can one get? On the
other hand, that’s probably why he can afford to drive an $80,000.00 SUV!
Hahahahaaaaaaaaa……! Oh well, that’s the sort of thing that makes the garage
sale fun! The whole point of a garage sale is to get rid of one’s junk and maybe
make a few bucks in the process. Speaking of which, I spent the better part of
a bitter cold day conducting this sale and managed to eke out a whopping $91.25
before deducting my costs. After deducting the $8.50 I spent on signs, I came
out with a profit of $82.75 for 5 days work! I was shocked at the piddly amount
I’d managed to collect. Heck, I figured I’d at least make a couple of hundred!
Oh well, as they say, live and learn.
I had a
Tandy 1000 computer complete with monitor, printer and full box of paper from
1991 that was marked $19.00. I also had another one that had no monitor but
came complete with a load of 5” floppy’s full of games from the mid 80’s. I
could go on and on about the leftovers but I’m sure you get the picture. I was
at a loss as to what to do with the remaining stuff. I called Good Will and
they suggested that I drop it all at their box around the corner from my house.
I also had seats, a carburetor and various other parts from my MGB that I no
longer needed and they told me to keep those! I loaded everything but the car
parts into the Jeep and took it all to the corner Good Will box. I even had a
weight bench in perfect shape that went as well. I then placed the car seats
and parts on the boulevard for garbage pick up on Monday. What else is a guy to
do? I’ll tell you what else a guy’s to do, “Make the trip to the Good Will Box
before going to all that trouble the next time”! I told Carole that if I ever
get another urge to have a “Garage Sale” she’s to give me a smack upside the head!
I’ll never waste another 4 days like that again. $91.25 is still $91.25 but
there are definitely easier ways to make it. Oh well, such is life I guess!
We decided to take the $82.75 net and go out
with Carole’s brother and his wife for dinner. We wound up at the Mohawk Casino
and had a nice meal there. Of course we had the dinner for free on the points
Carole had accumulated by playing the slots and using her “Winner’s Circle”
card. This left us with $82.75 to play the slots with after dinner. I took
$40.00 and Carole kept the rest. We headed to the casino floor and began to
play. After only about ½ hr I had managed to increase my net worth to $140.00.
Not a bad haul for ½ hrs work. One heckuva better profit than the previous
venture for sure. I walked around until I found Carole and she showed me a mitt
full of $100.00 bills. She had won $750.00 with her first $20.00 of garage sale
money. Needless to say, the evening ended on a happy note with the meager sales
profits being the base for the final total. It made the whole 4 days hard work
seem not so futile after all.
That’s about it for this week’s edition. Thanks for tuning in and I’ll see you all again in 7 days.
Bye for now…..GREG.
PS: Something to Think About>
“Time is a great teacher but unfortunately it kills it’s pupils”!
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the
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