The Squamidian Report – May 29 / 04
For the ‘ON LINE’ version of this newsletter, go to:
http://www.members.shaw.ca/doug_b2/report.htm
Also in this issue:
Lorne Reminisces
The Ontarion
Hi All,
No warm sunny long weekend would have been complete without a hike up onto the Chief so that’s what Warren and I did last Sunday. It took me a bit longer than usual to get my second wind and the trail was quite busy with other climbers so we took about 4 hours rather than the usual 3 to do the hike. Nothing can compare to munching on a peanut butter sandwich as you sit up there looking around with a good pair of binoculars. You can look down on wind surfers and para-surfers in the Sound. You can look down on Shannon Falls.
We watched a dozen Harleys rumble up the main street of Squamish two thousand feet below us. We checked out numerous un-named waterfalls over on Mammoth Creak across the valley. We looked at the ice fields up on Garibaldi. I always hate carrying the extra weight of the binoculars on the way up but it’s always worth it once you are there. And besides, Warren carried them for me so problem solved.
I’m always a bit stiff and sore afterwards but I’m usually pretty well recovered by the next day. However, it would take me a week or so before I could do it again. We ended the day with BBQ’ed salmon steaks up at Warren’s. Just one downer there. As I reached down to pat their dog Bella while I was getting out of the car, a static electricity charge jumped from my fingertip to her nose. It was big enough to hear the snap and hurt my finger. The poor dog jumped back about 3 ft and wouldn’t let me near her after that.
On the holiday Monday Sue and I decided to take a run into Vancouver on the motorcycle. The sun was warm, the air was very clear with unlimited visibility and there were just enough cumulus clouds to give the sky some interesting definition.
The waters at the top end of Howe Sound were glacial green from the outflow of the Squamish River. Fresh and salt water do not mix well at all. The fresh water is also lighter so it tends to flow over top of the salt water, forming a coloured top layer. We were down to Lions Bay before the water in the Sound was showing ocean blue.
We explored a bit in Fury Creak. There are million dollar homes in there around the golf course. A landscaper I know was doing some finishing touches on a spec home so we toured the yards with their high stone retaining walls and sloping rock formations. The view from the front porch is over the Sound, unobstructed and awesome. Even with its driveway that was so steep we could hardly walk up it Sue figured she could live there if she happened to have a few million to spare.
There were glimpses of the high snow covered mountains of central Vancouver Island peaking between the Sound’s outer islands and the Sunshine Coast Mountains. Must have been hundreds of sailboats out on the water as well as powerboats and the BC ferries. The Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal services Nanaimo over on Van Island as well as Bowen Island and Langdale over near Gibson’s on the Sunshine Coast.
We pulled into Horseshoe Bay in West Van so we could relieve our butt aches. Neither of us is used to spending much time on the rather cramped bike seat. That place (Horseshoe Bay, not the bike seat), is always crowded with tourists as well as the people who live and work there. But it’s a neat place to stop in at. Once we were ready we headed north back up the highway to Squamish. By this time the weekend traffic was starting to build. No problem. Slow moving traffic gives us more time to enjoy the passing scenery. You can see a lot more when on a bike than when in a car. There are no doorposts, roofs or sheet metal panels to obstruct you vision.
Pretty well every little ravine along the highway has a white water stream with cool mist flowing through it. Every towering cliff casts a shadow that causes the temperature to drop. You feel the scenery as well as see it. Gotta do this more often.
*
Computer Stuff, The Lowly Floppy.
Yes I know, here we go again with stuff that is boring. But you never know, there may be a convert or two out there. Anyway, I had mentioned in the article I posted to my web sites back in March outlining the assembly process of my P4 computer system that several computer manufacturers no longer consider the lowly floppy necessary. And yes, pretty well anything that you can do with a floppy can be done using CDs. It is simply easier to use a floppy for certain things. One of those things is a way of creating a full system backup image. (A system backup image is used to restore your complete system, OS, settings, programs, everything all in one easy operation.)
There are lots of software programs available for creating an image. Most of them take up a lot of room on your hard drive and still end up re-booting to some form of DOS in order to do the actual imaging. They have to; you cannot copy a system file that is open. Now here is where the floppy comes in. This is kind of cool. I have Norton Ghost 2003 installed on my K7 system and like most imaging programs it lets you create a boot floppy with the Ghost restoration program on it. This is necessary for restoring from a CD image that is not bootable for whatever reason. Now here is the neat part. This same boot disk also has the image creation program on it as well as the drivers for writing to CDR, CDRW, and DVDR etc.
So someone can use this bootable floppy, created on a system that has Ghost 2003 installed, to boot to DOS and into the bare bones Ghost program on any computer. And this version supports NFTS as well as FAT so most systems are covered. As long as you have a CD or DVD burner you can create a full backup image. The image can span multiple disks if necessary, such as when using CDRs. The Ghost boot floppy will inform you that the hard drive is different than the one from the system it was created on but you just click OK and its smooth sailing from there. I use this method to make system images of my now main computer, the P4.
So bottom line, with the help of the lowly floppy I can use the functionality of a rather useful program that isn’t even installed on this PC.
For the full version of this computer stuff story and the gory details, go to: http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b2/imaging.htm
****
Lorne Reminisces
Some family members have
been pressuring me to write about experiences I have had (or imagined) so I’ll
begin my reminiscing at a very early time of my life. My parents seemed to move frequently when I was very young (I
think the reason being that they were always behind in the rent). So we’ll start in Bridgeport, being the
first of my recollections. We first
lived at a house that we referred to as the “Yeck’s house” after the name of
the people who owned it. I remember
standing in the kitchen looking out at a thunderstorm through the screen door
one summer evening (about 4 years old) & saying to myself, approvingly “I
now eat peas” (very proud of myself as I wouldn’t eat them before).
We next moved to a small house referred to as “up the highway” – the highway being the road to Bloomingdale as you leave Bridgeport. My parents grew a lot of produce because of the large acreage there and sold vegetables and such. They also kept a flock of laying hens. My younger brother Russell decided to stand against the wire mesh fence and pee through into the pen, where upon a hen spied this unusual morsel and he came away partially circumcised. My parent’s garden extended to the top of the bank of the Grand River. Squatters built shacks down over the bank along the river. To get to their shacks they would drive their cars alone the top of the bank and through the back of the garden. This angered my dad & I followed rapidly behind him as he set out to stop an intruder. The man said “I didn’t realize this was a garden”. My dad replied “Absolutely!” I came away from that having learned the word “absolutely”. Incidentally my uncle-to-be, Harry Elsley was one of the shack builders back of our place. It was a common thing to do back then.
It seemed that my mother was frequently ill and her mother would come to help take care of us. She would have to arrive by taking first the Kitchener King St. street car, then transfer to the Bridgeport street car and traveling to the end of the line between the hotel and the black smith shop which were located at the west end of the bridge across the Grand River. She then walked over a mile to where we lived. One time upon her arrival she decided my most recent sibling needed a new soother. She sent me to the village store across from the black smith shop to buy one. I got to the bridge (the old iron one) and started across & looking ahead I could see some animals being herded towards me. At my young age I had no idea what they were (I was told later that they were sheep). Instead of turning around and walking off the bridge to let them pass I crawled down through the iron grating & hung on looking up as each one in turn looked down at me. Once the animals had passed I climbed back up to the roadway part of the bridge and continued on to the store. I stood for what seemed like the longest time looking up at the big, huge, burly clerk who was looking down at me and saying “WELL?” At that age I couldn’t pronounce “soother” (still can’t) so after his third “well” I replied, “well it’s not a nipple.” Next time I will move on to our third place in Bridgeport, the “long house”.
****
THE ONTARION REPORT
MAY 29TH 2004
Hi everyone!
Just a couple of thoughts going through my head at the moment.
1/ Does your garbage pickup crew drop a portion of your garbage on the road in front of your house and drive away leaving it there?
2/ Why is it that we get busier once we’ve retired than we ever seemed to be when we were working full time?
3/ Do “bug deflectors” really deflect bugs?
4/ Is Doug and Sue’s old house really being demolished in the name of progress?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
1/ It sometimes seems that this garbage thing is done just to show
that the guys doing the job are in control, not the homeowner/tax payer. I was
standing in the doorway of our garage last week when the truck with the
squealing annoying brakes came lumbering down the street. I watched as they
stopped at a couple of neighbour’s places before they reached mine. In the four
stops previous to our driveway, the fellow on the back, I call him the hopper, dropped
stuff on the road at two of them. He didn’t even look to see what he’d dropped
let alone make an effort to pick it up. I was determined to be visible to him
when they stopped at our place. I walked out a few feet onto the drive as they
pulled up.
The truck stopped and the “Hopper” hopped off the back of the truck, grabbed a bag of garbage and tossed it in. He then proceeded to take one of the plastic pails and empty it into the truck. Excuse me…….did I say “Into the truck” I meant to say onto the truck’s rear bumper. About 90% went in and 10% landed on the road. He then grabbed the second pail and hit the mark with that one. As he reached for the grab bar on the rear corner of the truck I cleared my throat nice and loud so he’d finally acknowledge my presence.
He looked me square in the eye and continued to hop on board. I said “Pardon me, aren’t you forgetting something” and he said “If it’s not contained in a proper garbage bag, I don’t have to pick up the spillage”! “It’s up to the home owner to make sure the refuse is properly packaged”! Away went the truck with my jaw touching the driveway! I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard! My gut reaction was to yell some obscenity at the guy but I figured if I wanted to have my garbage picked up in a trouble free environment in the future I’d better just bight my tongue. After they were out of sight, I grabbed a shovel and a broom and swept up the spillage myself. If we as homeowner’s have to place all garbage in a plastic bag before putting it in a garbage pail for pick up, why bother with the pails at all? I figure it’s just as easy to hit the gaping hole in the back of a garbage truck with the opening of a plastic pail as it is with a black plastic garbage bag! I guess it boils down to who’s in control and it obviously isn’t the taxpayer as usual! I could go on and on about these guys but I think I’ve said enough on this subject for one week.
2/ The subject of being busier once retired than when working is another kettle of fish. It puzzles both Carole and I that we are going from morning till night on most days. We don’t seem to have time to sit on the front porch and watch the world go by as we did once in a while when I was working. Although, we have no more kids, no bigger house or property, no more visitors and certainly more hours at home than we ever have, we seem to be on our feet working at something all day long. How in the world did we ever get all this work done when I was away 42 hrs a week for 32 years? It’s amazing how the days are filled. Maybe Lorne can tell me the answer to this puzzle. A lot of people joke about the “Honey Do List” that appears once a guy’s retired but truth be known, that list has always been present. It’s a fact of life once you get married and become responsible homeowners. Whether or not you call it a “Honey Do List” there is always a list of things that need doing. What it boils down to is a list of actions that are necessary as a matter of routine to maintain one’s residence and way of life. We all have these responsibilities and unless you’re just plain lazy there’s no way around them. I guess I should be thankful that we’re healthy enough to be able to do all that’s required to maintain a clean and livable home. I’d probably be bitching about the boredom if I didn’t have something to keep me going so I guess I’ll just keep smilin’ and keep busy!
3/ Do bug deflector’s really
deflect bugs?
I recently installed a bug deflector on the nose of our Jeep Liberty. It not only looks cool, it really does seem to do the job it’s intended to do. When I purchased it at Wendell’s Chrysler on Fairway Rd last week, I asked the fellow at the parts counter if there was any practical reason to have one of these devices on one’s vehicle, other than decoration. He said with a serious look “Of course, why do you think they’re called a Bug Deflector”? He then went on to describe how the airflow is directed upward when it strikes the “Bug Deflector” thus carrying any bugs in that airflow up and over the windshield. Since I hate having to scrub my fingers to the bone trying to remove bug guts from my windshield I decided to purchase one whether or not it was practical. I had initially wanted one just because I thought the custom deflector that they make for Jeep Liberty’s looks cool. However once I talked to this knowledgeable fellow I had even more reason to want one. I installed it on the following Saturday. We took a family trip to Toronto to the Royal Ontarion Museum on Sunday. It was a muggy humid day and there were lots of bugs in the air. This provided a perfect chance to test the new Bug Deflector on the 401. After the trip was over, I checked out the results once we were back home. To my amazement I found that there were no bugs splattered on my windshield and only a couple of them spread eagle on the leading edge of the Bug Deflector. I guess the guy at the dealership knew what he was talking about after all.
4/ I was talking to a friend of mine last week. He told me that his
brother in law and sister in law had just moved into their new home. Apparently
they had purchased an acre of land on Doug and Sue’s old street near the banks
of the Grand River. I believe they are situated somewhere close to the former
Brubacher Estate. I told my friend Chris about Doug having lived up that way
and described the location to him. He said without missing a beat, “Oh yah I
know the one you’re talking about, that’s the one the Ministry has purchased
and is tearing down”! I was surprised to hear that and asked if he knew why. He
said all he heard was that they are going to reshape the approach to the Grand
River bridge on Highway #8 and they will be tearing down a couple of houses
close to the edge of the cliff overlooking the Grand. That’s about all he could
tell me so if anyone in the Squamidian Group can shed more light on the
subject, please do! I’m sure Doug and Sue will be surprised to hear this bit of
news. I can’t for the life of me picture any need to pear that cliff back to
accommodate a widening of Hwy#8 but as we all know, there’s no figuring the
Ontario Government!
Better go for this week!
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>
Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
But he with a chuckle replied,
That maybe it couldn’t,
But he wouldn’t say so till he tried.
So, he buckled right in with
A trace of a grin on his face.
If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as
He tackled the thing that
Couldn’t be done
And he did it!
****
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Have a good one..
the
doug
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