The Squamidian Report – Aug. 5 / 06
Issue #218
Also in this issue:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Look at that, summers half over already. Ever notice how much faster time passes as you get older? As a kid it seems to drag, then almost imperceptively it begins to gain speed. At first you hardly notice, and for a while you can shrug it off. But by mid life it can no long be ignored. It has become a train racing down hill with no brakes. Nothing short of a screeching grinding wreck at the bottom can stop it. Anyway, summers half over and we are into August. The days are getting shorter, the nights longer. The cycle continues.
I don’t recall what this long weekend was called back home but here it is the BC Days weekend. To celebrate locally, we have the Squamish Logger Sports activities, which include the ‘lumber jack’ events such as logrolling and pole climbing. It draws spectators from all over. Some come to watch the strength and skill sports, some come for the nitro burning chainsaws. Some spectators come because they have never seen it and don’t know what its all about. But is does seem to draw a pretty good crowd each year.
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Things got a little prickly on the Wal-Mart site a few days ago. That whole job is running several weeks behind schedule, mostly because the contractor putting in the footings is taking so long and is so inept. They just keep screwing things up. The footings should have been finished weeks ago. The company putting up the steel work and roofing have insisted on working to their schedule, which means there are steel beams standing over areas where the footings are not yet finished. One of our company’s tasks is to prepare the floor slab so the concrete floor can be poured. We are behind because we can’t do the slab prep until there is a footing wall to prep up to.
Under a deadline for the floor pour, we were finishing up the last of the slab prep, using the general contractors bobcat to carry and grade the gravel. Our own equipment is too large to work under the roof framework. (All the floor prep would have been finished before any of the steel went up if the footings had been in.) Because I owned a couple of bobcats at one time, I was elected to operate the thing. We were making good progress when the foreman from the footing company came along and commandeered the machine. Although we had been promised uninterrupted use of the bobcat, I didn’t have the authority to argue with the guy so I gave up the machine and then radioed our foreman. While he and the generals foreman were standing there discussing the problem, the footing foreman drove the bobcat with the bucket full of concrete over our freshly graded material, chewing it up as he went and then drove right over a series of plumbing pipes and an oil separator.
I have never quite heard as much profanity as what came from the general contractor as he tore a strip off the foreman in the bobcat. We were all working nearby and had to hide our chuckles and grins. The footing foreman has been a pain right from the beginning and everyone was enjoying his discomfort. But it again held up our floor prep as it took the plumber the rest of that day and all the next to repair the damage to the plumbing system. By the way, Wal-Mart had hoped to open in time to meet the back to school rush, then opening was pushed off to mid October. At current rate, they will be lucky to cash in on Christmas.
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And of course the breaking news as right now is the ecological disaster that is happening right here in Squamish. Yesterday (Friday) at about 2pm a cargo ship was docking at the industrial wharf and ran into the dock. This punctured the hull releasing 50 tonnes of bunker oil into the water. The wind pushed the oil into the estuary. The estuary is home to countless wild creatures and shallow water creatures. Just off the estuary is where the wind surfers surf. As of 6pm last evening the authorities and spill response people had not yet turned up. Could be a bad one!
doug
****
****
Hello
everyone!
Well, I
guess we finally got our share of summer rain. It’s been a nice mix of rain and
sunshine for about a week and a half now. The lawns are nice and green when
usually they’re crisp and brown by this time of year. It’s actually nice to see
the vegetation still in a healthy state. Carole decided to go up north for a
week with her friend Brenda. Brenda and her husband have a trailer on the Trent
Severn Waterway up near Gravenhurst. I have been batching it since last Sunday
and actually have made out OK. Sorry Carole! LOL! It seems that I was able to
do it without your guidance and so far have heard no complaints from Adam. Of
course the meals have been simple and plentiful. It’s not difficult to make egg
McMuffins with English Muffins and cheese and it’s even easier to make………….a
trip to the corner Magic Pizza outlet and slave over bringing home a couple of
“mediums”. The rest of the week will remain a mystery until a few moments
before the meal each evening. I’m sure we’ll do just fine. I have to make the
drive to Gravenhurst tomorrow afternoon to join Carole for a couple of days.
I’m looking forward to a couple of days away. We’ve been the guests of our
friends up there other years and it’s a very nice, relaxing spot. Being on the
waterway, I’ve taken our Kayaks up and enjoyed a paddle on the Trent/Severn
other years but will be leaving them at home this time. Carole called me early
in the week and asked me to come up on Friday instead of Thursday. She was
originally coming home Friday but now we are staying over and attending a
comedy show by Wayne Brady at the Rama Casino on Saturday. That should be a fun
evening! Wayne Brady is the comedian that is part of the “Who’s Line Is It
Anyway?” TV show starring Drew Carry. He’s supposed to be hilarious and I’m
looking forward to seeing a celebrity act. Not to mention the added advantage
of having the Casino right there for our relaxation after the show.
With any
luck Carole will be her usually lucky self and will pick up some gas money so
we can afford to drive home the next day! LOL!
Sheesh,
has anyone looked at the gas pumps lately? I guess the rest of the summer will
be an expensive one when it comes to filling our tanks. I for one can’t see why
the oil companies need 7.5 and 10 “Billion” dollar profits per 3 month period.
It sounds to me that these giants could easily reduce their profits by half and
give the consumer a break. But then again, if I had any shares in one of them,
I’d be rooting for them to keep gouging I guess and that’s probably the way
they look at it too. The world revolves around money and the making of it and I
guess that’ll never change.
Well,
that’s about it for this week. I’ll let you know how my weekend went next time
in The Ontarion Report. Thanks for tuning in!
Bye for now… GREG.
PS:
Something To Think About>
Half the
people you know are below average.
****
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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