The Squamidian Report – Feb. 12 / 05
Also in this issue:
A note from Jackie
The Ontarion
Hi All,
After getting home from my trip I needed to blow that Ontario smog out of my lungs. So Warren and I took a short toot up the Mamquam Main on our motorcycles. We had wanted to go over the Indian Arm Pass but that route is gated right now due to the road being covered by a slide. Because of logging activity the road we were on was pretty muddy for the first few clicks but then we got past that section and the riding was better. Turned up a spur we have been on before, one with some fun cross-ditches. Only took a few pictures, posted at http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b2/Pictures/landslide.htm. One shot shows a landslide on the far side of a valley. I’ve zoomed in as far as the camera can zoom. You can see the road totally gone. Should be fun to find that place come spring when it is warmer at those altitudes. I expect we will find many slide areas in the backcountry after that rain event a few weeks ago.
We turned back once we were into slippery riding. The gravel on the rough road we were on looked dry but there is a strange phenomenon that happens around here. The soil material will become saturated with water and then the water will freeze in vertical crystals that push up a small skim of soil. The resultant ice becomes upright needles, often many inches in height. Looks liked dry gravel but makes for rather tricky riding. That stuff is even weird to walk on. It can look dry and solid but your feet sink into the brittle porous structure. I’ve seen this kind of ice formation erupt like a big white flower out of the mud, only to shatter if you touch it.
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I am currently working on a walkway repair. Or perhaps that should say the company I currently work for is doing a walkway repair and I’m doing the machine work. Squamish has miles of trails and walkways; many sections of walkway were damaged during those past heavy rains. Anyway, the one we are doing now runs along the bottom of a steep ravine. Sections of the trail were completely eroded away. I’m using both a skid steer and a small excavator to rebuild the trail. Getting the machines down into the ravine was tricky but manageable, we dumped about 10 truck loads of gravel over the edge and then tobogganed down the pile. We are using the gravel to fill and grade with. Job won’t be finished until next week sometime. At that point we will have to figure out how to get the machines back up out of the ravine. Should be interesting. One other problem with working down in there, the sun never shines into the depth at this time of years so it is quite cold. People are walking around in short sleeve shirts up in the sunshine and I can see my breath all day long. Bummer.
By the way, here are some of the pictures taken while back home.
http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b/Pictures/feb05.htm
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A little bit of GeekSpeak, just for us propeller heads!
I have been getting increasingly frustrated with Symantec’s Norton products. Later versions of their Internet security software, i.e. Firewall and Anti-virus, are known to be intrusive system resource hogs as well as having confliction issues with Email and Internet programs, the very places they are needed the most. In most cases the work-around is painless and invisible but when you run a small network as well as do multiple address Emails; the problems start to get in the way. Overly long connect times seem to be the norm and way too often the security software would simply kick out the connection completely, requiring a re-boot of the modem and router to establish a new IP address. To make it worse, Symantec has made it expensive and all but impossible to renew your Anti-virus subscription account. They want you to purchase copies of their newest versions. That was the last straw.
I have been testing the free for home use versions of ZoneAlarm firewall and AVG Anti-virus on one of my other systems and have found no problems or conflicts with them. They have a small footprint and do not seem to intrude on system activity what so ever. Program and file access is faster and smoother. While functionality may be scaled back a bit from the paid-for versions, basic protection is still there and use of the computer is much nicer. My whole network is behind a hardware firewall so as long as we practice ‘safe computing’ I don’t expect any problems at all. So anyway, I’ve flushed the Norton products from my main system now and installed ZA and AVG. Setup was easy and everything seems to be working just fine.
I could have gone with XP’s built in firewall but even the new and improved SP2 version is still well behind the leading free-ware products available. If any of you are using the XP firewall, don’t worry, it works just fine for most users.
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A note from Jackie
Wow. Talk about a couple crazy weeks. I could write pages and pages, and probably will, so get comfy or move on. :) Jim and I spent our last night in our home in south Etobicoke on February 1st. We ended up getting only two and a half hours sleep as we were still in the throes of packing, with the movers due to arrive at 9:00 the next day. We vastly underestimated the amount of time it would take to pack. I can't believe how much stuff we accumulated in five and a half years. Before having a house, all my worldly goods managed to fit in the back of a pickup truck and a small open trailer. We had some friends come over to help pack and fit in a visit a few days before the move. They've been in their house ten years. Seeing the huge task we were facing, they decided they would NEVER move and put themselves through the same chaos. I know many of you Squids have been in your homes for many many many years and now I wonder if it's because you know better than to try to fit all your stuff into little boxes just to schlep it to a new location an unpack it all.
The loading of our stuff went as smoothly as could be expected. Because of the distance to the new place and a staggered closing date, we scheduled the moving truck to store our stuff for two nights, then to drive up and unload on February 4. The truck was very late, not arriving until 1:30 in the afternoon, leaving us less than four hours of daylight to get the whole thing unloaded. The guys didn't realize that there are no street lights, and not even much in the way of house lights because of the construction, so timing was important. Jim and I helped unload and we got it done in four hours. Because the construction is nowhere near complete, we couldn't move much stuff into the main house, and we certainly can't live there. Right now I'm writing this from The Loft guest room in the guest house. This serves as our bedroom, living room and office. The Granary room across the hall is our kitchen and dining room. I unpacked the toaster oven, microwave, kettle, some dishes, and we have a mini fridge in there. We do dishes in the bathroom sink. Cozy. So far we haven't killed each other but I've been in Toronto all week working. More on that later.
We spent last weekend enjoying our property. On Saturday, we tried the cross-country skis but the snow was too deep so we put on our snowshoes and went for a hike. We explored our trails for two hours, never leaving our own property--amazing! The weather was beautiful, the sun was shining all day. It was so lovely out, when we got back to the Coop (the ski shack) we brought out our beach chairs, set them up in the snow and enjoyed some hot tea while soaking up the sun. I'll try to send Doug some of the pictures to post on his site, in case you'd care to see.
At night, the sky was amazing. On our first night here we went out for a late dinner. When we got back home (still sounds weird to call this home), I looked up and literally stopped dead in my tracks. The sky was amazingly beautiful with a gazillion stars and other heavenly bodies. Lucky timing for us, there was no moon and not a single cloud in the sky. And we heard the wolves howl again. Or maybe they were coyotes. I'm not sure how to tell the difference.
Sunday I headed back to the city and a four-day work week. You should all be quite envious to know that I spent most of the week with our own dear Ewan. I must say, he is an excellent and gracious host. His apartment is very nicely decorated and showcases his personality and his many interests. Other than going out for dinner on Wednesday, we didn't see much of each other, as we both had busy evenings, but it was nice to unwind before turning in and chat about our days and anything else. I encourage all of you to find some reason to come to Toronto and have a good visit with Ewan. He is wonderful company. It's been many many years since I "slept over" at Ewan's (okay, Gale's) house. It was fun then...it's still fun!
I have two more weeks of working in the city and then I'm home for good! It's bittersweet to leave my friends in the city. And I'm sure I'll have culture shock without easy access to good sushi, dim sum, Thai and Indian food. But it's a small price to pay for the fresh air, open space and slower pace. Now I can't wait for the construction to be done so we can get moved into the house and really start with this new venture.
Take care, everyone,
The snow shoeing shots.
http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b/Pictures/jack.htm
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THE ONTARION REPORT
FEBRARY
12, 2005
Hello once again my fellow Squamidians!
Sheesh!!!!!! We just watched a Scary movie called The Grudge. It’s one of the scariest movies I’ve seen in quite a while. It’s based on a Japanese superstition that says when a violent incident occurs, a curse or “Ju-On” is formed and remains in the area in which the incident took place. This curse or evil spirit consumes or destroys anyone that inhabits the area in question. It does so by instilling extreme fear in the person or persons involved. Not unlike the North American “Boogie Man” that we all knew as kids. It seems that Hollywood is once again exploiting people’s fears of such superstitions with a new string of spooky movies. I for one remember vividly the nights I lay awake hiding under the covers after my mean uncaring older brother taunted me with stories of the “Boogie Man” hiding in our bedroom closet.
We lived in a story and a half house in the North Ward of Kitchener. This style house has a roof that is steeply pitched from the peak to the front and rear of the house. Its design is such that the two bedrooms on the upper floor have slanted ceilings on two sides of the room. Each slope of the ceiling leads down to approximately a three foot high wall that fronts a “crawl space” along the eves of the roof. There was a small door leading into one of the crawl spaces and on the opposite side of the room, the wall contained a set of three large drawers built into the crawl space. My folks used to store the Christmas ornaments in the one with the little door. We also had some of our toys stashed in the same area. The floor of the crawl space had some boards on it to allow the boxes to sit on a flat surface. However, not all of the floor was complete. About one half of the floor area was open to the spaces between the floor joists. One of the best hiding spots for the Boogie Man to inhabit was this space in the floor, my brother said so!
Whenever my brother saw me rooting through the crawl space, he’d remind me to be careful not to let my foot dangle into the joist spaces in the floor. He said that if the Boogie Man saw my foot hanging there he’d grab it and yank me into the floor and I would never be heard from again. Not even my dad would be able to pull me back out to safety and of course my dad was to me the worlds strongest man! What power must this evil Boogie Man have? I figured my brother was just a liar and was just trying to scare me and I used to pretend not to put any stock in what he said. However, I still made sure not to dangle a foot in the joist space, just in case. How mean are big brothers anyway? I know I’d never treat a little brother of mine that way if I had one, or maybe I would! After all, what’s the point in having a really good scary superstition if you’re not going to help perpetuate it for all future generations? Why should I be the last to fear the scary man in the closet? If I had to be subjected to such childhood shenanigans why not pass them on?
I only have one more question. Who told my brother about the “Boogie Man”? Sheesh, you don’t suppose he was telling the truth after all do you?
Time to call it a night and go to bed. I wonder if Carole is ready to go to bed as well. After all, if you think I’m getting into bed in that dark scary room alone tonight, you’re crazy! Caaaaaarrole……oh Caaaaarrole……do you mind if we sleep with the light on tonight? LOL!
Enough for this week my friends. Thanks for tuning in and be sure to sleep tight! I’ll talk to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report.
Bye for now…..GREG.
PS: Something to Think About>
Next time you’re lying in bed and it’s pitch black in the room, listen carefully and see if you can hear the “Boogie Man” breathing as he watches you through the crack of the closet door!
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The family site:
http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b/
The Squamidian Site:
http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b2/
Have a good one..
the
doug