The Squamidian Report – July 23 / 05
Also in this issue:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Back to Britannia. Yup, I’m working over in Britannia Beach again. So the hours are long and tiring. What a bummer way to spend the summer. We are currently running underground services throughout the old subdivision that is a combination trailer park and small house arraignment. There are several barriers to working in an area like that. For starters, no one knows what is underground or where it might be. And keep in mind, this is the place that has the old wooden water mains with no bedding sand around them for protection. Then there is all the stuff overhead. The old hydro, phone lines and cable lines are all strung overhead and quite low. Way lower than what is comfortable working under in an excavator. Some lines are so low you can barley walk the machine under let along do any work.
The ground is so bony that half the fill you remove is boulders. The rest is a mix of gravel, sand and organics, and everything is rock hard. And that makes it very hard to dig around the old water and sewer lines. It takes a lot of patience and care not to break something. But sometimes things are just out of your hands. We had needed to run a new hydro and phone duct bank under an old water main. We successfully found the main by carefully slicing down an inch at a time. We spent hours carefully cleaning out around and under it. To make it worse, the line made a zigzag using 2 forty-fives and a short section to line up with a valve. Because of the complexity of the conduit layout and excavation, the hole had to say open over night and the water line unsupported. That would not normally be a problem but because of the 2 joints, the line could move. And it did. Late that evening one of the joints blew.
The water had to go somewhere so it ran into the hydro ducks and vaults. It filled everything all the way down into the valley and shot out of the lowest hydro vault. Luckily the wires have not been pulled yet and there was no structural damage, just a big mess. The repair crew had a busy night.
On another note, there is a guy about my age working on the site running a tractor backhoe. He has his little tiny white fur ball of a dog with him each day. It sits on a cushion inside the machine looking out the back window the whole day. Peanut, his dog, is about the size of Greg’s little Bailey. She seems to not mind the noise, heat, bouncing and dust. Whenever he is out of the machine the dog climbs out and runs around inspecting everything in sight.
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I was out for a walk one evening this week, on our normal route down around Glacier Dr. Myself and another person walking his dog took advantage of a hedge in front of a house to stand behind while we waited for a huge jet black bear to slowly saunter down the driveway of a luxury condo and out onto the street in front of us. It looked around a bit and then climbed up between the condo and a house into the wooded area that leads up to Thunderbird. Once it was gone I continued on toward home only to have it come out of the trees just ahead of me and stand in the middle of Thunderbird right where our street branches off.
It looked at me, at the car going by and at the people on Tobermory before deciding to head back into the trees. There are walking trails in that area that people and dogs are always using. I think I’ll stick to the road for a while.
I’ve seen lots of bear while driving and dirt biking. This was the first one that stood in the middle of the road and looked at me as I looked at it, all the while only being about 2 houses away, and very large in size. Kind of gets the old adrenaline going.
d
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This link is from Clyde. It is humorous. Don’t knock it unless you at least read it first!
http://www.netflash.net/earplug/cows/
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Hello
everyone!
Well, how
are all of you enjoying, no, enduring this hot summer? We’re grateful for our
central air conditioning but are having pangs of guilt over using it because of
the hydro drain. They say our government is spending up to five million dollars
a day to purchase power from other states and provinces, just to handle the use
of cooling devices during this hot spell. Now they’re telling us that although
the hydro costs the government (with OUR money of course) 7.9 cents / kw/hr
they are only charging us 6.5 cents / kw/hr to replace that money in their
coffers. I think we tend not to look at Government spending as the dispersal of
OUR money. Unfortunately, the Government seems also to be blind to the fact
that this money comes from our pockets. I know they have a responsibility to
provide such services and Lord help them if they fail us in this endeavor.
However, I think they should be looking at expanding our power generating
capabilities rather than depending on our neighbours to sell us their excess at
times of heavy load. When I was driving new cars from dealer to dealer I worked
with a young man that was in his last year of University. He was at the point
where he had to decide what to do with his education. He told me that he wanted
to be the owner of Canada’s largest Porsche Dealership. This young man had the
drive and smarts to achieve such a goal I’m sure! He was working as a fill in
for vacationing sales reps for the Nissan Dealer in Waterloo but had an eye on
much bigger things. On one of our trips to Toronto to pick up a new car, he
began to tell me about his family. He said that he has an older brother that is
in the alternative energy field. He has formed a company that is currently
negotiating with the provincial government and land owners to erect power
generating wind mills on the shores of Lake Erie. The more we talked about such
a project the more he began to talk about joining his brother in this venture.
His brother had offered him a position in the company and had encouraged him to
get involved in a business that would improve our environment rather than
contribute to the pollution problem. In this day and age of money, money, money
he has the right to make the choice that could lead to a lifetime of wealth. He
also has the chance to make the other choice and possibly improve the
environment for all of us in the future. Whichever one he chooses, I wish him
success but when I see a young man with such obvious intelligence faced with
the opportunity to do great things for mankind, I sincerely hope he chooses the
environmental route. After all, there’s nothing saying he can’t do the world a
favour as well as make a good buck for himself while doing it! With Adam being
in the electrical business, I talked at length with him about windmill
technology. He had taken classes on this in college when he was studying for
his electrician’s license and found it very interesting. In fact, he and I took
a day and drove to the Bruce nuclear generating station to have a look at a
windmill farm they have set up as an experiment. There is a large sign
explaining the operation of these devices. The windmills that they have erected
have the ability to each generate enough electricity to power up 800 homes.
This is one heck of a lot of relief for the conventional fossil fuel burning
generating stations. There are many countries in the world that are making
extensive use of these windmill farms and there’s no reason we can’t do it here
in Canada. I don’t know how many windmill generators five million dollars would
build but I’d be willing to bet it’s a pretty significant number. The shores of
our Great Lakes are indeed very windy places and are perfect locations for such
generators. The mills that Ontario Hydro has erected on the shore of Lake Huron
are of moderate size for experimental purposes and are proving very successful.
They actually build these windmills large enough that they have helicopter pads
mounted on them and have self contained living quarters inside the generator
room at the top. This allows a crew to land on units erected off shore and
spend a day or two or whatever is necessary to service them when needed. They
are amazing structures and totally environmentally friendly. I sincerely hope
that our government puts more thought and effort into erecting windmill farms
rather than nuclear generating units. I can see no reason to choose the latter
over the windmills. If you find this interesting, take a minute and look
Windmills up on the internet. I’m sure you’ll be surprised at the number of
sites there are supporting this form of energy. In fact, you can even have a
system of this type erected on your own property. There’s a farm on the
northern edge of Waterloo that has quite a large windmill to operate all of the
electrical needs for their property. I hope more and more of these are soon
seen on the horizon. Every little bit helps us all!
Better go for this week.
Bye for now…GREG.
Thanks
for tuning in and I look forward to talking to you all again next time in
The
Ontarion Report.
PS:
Something To Think About>
Little
things affect little minds.
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The Family and the Squamidian sites:
http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b/ and http://www.thedougsite.ca
Have a good one..
the
doug
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