The Squamidian Report – Jan. 6 / 07
Issue # 241
Also in this issue:
A Note From Ewan
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Well, it’s been next year now for almost a week. Doesn’t feel all that different from last year, in fact, it isn’t any different. It’s still raining. But I’ve got a New Years Resolution for all of us. How about we all resolve to get a little bit involved in this newsletter and send in the occasional article. Face it, every one reading this thing has made a conscious decision to be here so lets carry that idea a bit further and make a conscious decision to be a bit more involved. Kind of like a community spirit thing.
And speaking of New Years, ours was pretty quiet, as usual. Sue and I went up to Whistler on New Years Eve day for lunch and then we walked around a bit in the village. There are so many international tourists there this time of year that its hard to tell what country you are in. Once we got bored with the whole Whistler scene we bought some chocolate covered blueberries and headed home. Then in the evening we went over to a friend’s place for some idle chatter and music. I think both Warren and I are probably in deep doggie doo-doo for strumming away on our instruments when we should have been wishing our wives a happy new year. Half an hour later we were home and asleep. But at least I was awake for this one, which is more than I can say for most of them over the years.
*
Tomorrow is eagle-counting day in the Squamish valley. Of course that assumes you are reading this today, ‘tomorrow’ being a relative term of reference. But if you are reading this tomorrow, then the count is today. The absolute reference would be ‘Sunday the 7th’. Anyway, each year a bunch of eagle enthusiasts get together and count all the eagles in the valley, right from way up the Upper Squamish all the way down to the Sound. They will probably count well into the thousands as the birds are all over the place. I happened to look up on Thursday afternoon as the sun shone on the mountains and saw countless hundreds of eagle soaring together very high on the thermals. They congregate on the rising air masses and just glide around in circles on huge outstretched wing. It’s quite something; I wish you could see it too.
*
Can’t
Resist Some Geek Speak!
Now you know I couldn’t possibly let this issue go by without a bit of preaching about data backups. I know most of you have done your year-end archives and / or backups, but for the one or two who haven’t yet, now is the time. Don’t put it off any longer. You have all those digital photos, recipes and correspondence documents that you’d hate to loose. Face it, they would be almost impossible to replace. Don’t worry as much about your O/S or your program files, they can be replaced. So burn a couple of permanent archives of your data onto CD or DVD and store one copy in your bank vault or some other off-site location. Keep the other copy somewhere handy. Now your 2006 data (and presumably earlier data as well) is safe, it can be retrieved. Then create a disposable backup of the same data, either using your optical drive again or better yet, that external USB hard drive you bought for yourself during the Boxing Day sales. Install a program like ‘Karin’s Replicator’ and then keeping that backup updated will be as simple as a few clicks.
Now this part is for everyone, lets take the whole data protection thing a step further and add a UPS to the system. You know, an Uninterrupted Power Supply. One of those things could save your butt! All it takes is for the electrical power in you house to flicker on and off a couple of times and your system could very well be fried. If your power goes off cleanly there probably wouldn’t be much damage but that flicker back and forth destroys electronics quite nicely. And those surge protector power strips can’t help you one little bit. A UPS is a battery pack that plugs into an outlet. You plug your computer into the UPS. It will make a better surge protector and filter than a power strip ever can and it will supply uninterrupted power to your computer giving you time to save any data and do a proper shut-down. Most UPSs even come with shut-down software you load onto your system that will perform a graceful save and shut-down for you if there is a power failure while you are away from your computer. How’s that for handy?
A couple of last few words about backups. There was a time when storage media was so expensive that backups were by necessity quite complicated. They involved backup software that would create a master set, and then could do incremental backups that only copied data that had been added or changed. You ended up with layers of backup data, all compressed to save space, that would have to be restored as layer over the master data. The only way the backed up data could be accessed was using the backup software that created it so you had to install or re-install that software program to get at your files. Now that optical media and external hard drives are so inexpensive, traditional backup methods are no longer needed unless you have incredible amounts of data. Most normal computer users don’t. Quarterly archiving and regular replication onto an external hard drive is all most of us need to be totally protected.
doug
****
A Note From Ewan
Hello
all, happy new year!
I know
I'm a little late on that, but that's no reason not to wish everyone a happy
new year. I'm actually writing this back in 2006, shortly after having read the
Squamidian. I wanted to send a message after Christmas, but I was reading
the last Squamidian of 2006 before I had time. It's been handy to be able to
read it on my Blackberry each Saturday, but I really have to use my imagination
when the battery runs out.
It's
just as well, my Mom told my story from her point of view anyway. If I had told
it would have been nine paragraphs long, and by the end no one would understand
it anyway! Christmas came and went very well. Five days of family, food, fun,
music, birthdays and a few drinks too. There were many small differences this
year. The fundamental things were the same, and none of the differences were
bad. There are always some things the same, and always a few changes, but it's
funny how some years Christmas goes by tradition very strongly, while other
years many aspects are different or new.
There
were lots of new faces on the Cameron side. I brought UU, and my cousin
Elizabeth brought Ian back from Alberta with her. They announced as quietly as
possible that they plan to be married the summer of 2007. My cousin Melanie and
her husband Mark adopted two children recently, a brother and sister named
Brandon and Brittany (9 and almost 11). My cousin Scot's boy Owen is getting
bigger too. My aunt Maaecka is also a grandparent, and Sophia is starting to
walk already. So where there was only one very small child last year, there
seemed to be quite a few this year.
Christmas
Eve at my grandparent's home was the best, as always. I'm never ready to leave
though. I mean that both figurate and literally. I love being there and always
want to stay longer that is practical. I also always seem to leave something
behind and delay everyone leaving. Next year I may go to church afterwards,
just to keep it going a little longer. I guess it's a good idea to actually
plan what I'll do! I tend to revert to a childish mentality at that time of
year, and generally let everyone else figure out where I'll be and when, and
just go with the flow.
On
that note, although it's a little late, I would like to thank all the women for
their efforts through the holidays. True, the men step up now and then and help
out in token ways here and there. But for the most part the work falls to the
women and I want to thank them for it. I had five wonderful dinners in as many
days, and each of them required a great deal of work. The decorations were all
festive and tasteful, the food was great, and the whole season was the best in
my view, from top to bottom. Thank you.
I've
also been enjoying the lights more than ever. I'm shocked at how little I miss
the cold weather and snow, even at Christmas! My attitude seems unfestive,
unsentimental and downright unCanadian! But I don't care. I know winter will be
back. It always comes back. It's claws will pierce my coat and my sweater. I
enjoyed Christmas without snow well enough, global warming or no global
warming!
I
enjoyed seeing many of you over the holidays, and I hope to see the others
soon. I also want to be the first one to wish Tara a happy birthday this year!
Where Christmas was about family for me, new year's eve will be about friends.
All the best for the new year to all of you.
Ewan
****
Hello
everyone!
Here we
are reading the first edition of the Squamidian for 2007. I don’t know about
the rest of you but I’m feeling a lot less depressed this year with the weather
being as beautiful as it is. It’s the first time I can remember the weather
being this nice in January without a foot or two of snow on the ground. The
local news tonight stated that we aren’t likely to see any snow for another
week or two and that’s ok with me. If this keeps up Carole and I may be able to
celebrate our 34th anniversary in a snow free environment on the 19th
of January. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for that as well.
*
I was
mentioning my having done some duck hunting at the pond that used to be where
the parking lot of Canadian Tire is now at Ottawa and Fischer-Hallman in
Kitchener. It made me think of the days I’d spent with my dad and many times
with my cousin Randy trudging through the fields of Waterloo County. In the
summer it was groundhog and duck hunting and in the winter the prey was
rabbits. I must be totally truthful at this point. Of all the days I spent
hunting from when I was too young to carry a gun with my dad to the age of 16
and wielding my own rifle I can honestly say I managed to kill exactly Zero
prey. I really liked hunting and shooting but when it wasn’t a paper or tin can
target I was shooting at I couldn’t hit (as my dad used to say) “a cow’s ass
with a banjo”! The animals used to titter among themselves when they would see
me trudging across the fields and just continue to play right out in the open.
Somehow they seemed to know they were safe as long as it was me aiming at them
through the sites of my 22 rifle or 12 guage shotgun. I remember watching the
cloud of dust rise a foot away from the groundhog I was wanting to KILL as he
smiled through his buck teeth and dared me to try again. It’s just as well I
really didn’t like it when my fellow hunters hit their target. It was more fun
just to be out doors and enjoying the nice weather than wondering what to do
with whatever animal it was that met its demise. You’d swear that the animals
and birds of Waterloo County were made with holes right through them just so my
bullet would have something to pass through without causing any harm. Many
times I could have sworn I hit the mark when all I could hear was quack quack
as my Malard winged friend made another pass over our hiding place at the edge
of the pond just to mock me. I guess I just wasn’t supposed to be a hunter. By
the time I was 16 I’d had enough hunting to last me a life time. I just lost
interest and my shotgun spent the next 36 years in the closet. My cousin Randy
still hunts and has graduated to bigger game than we used to stalk. He is an
avid deer hunter as well as pheasant and of all things Caribou in northern
Quebec. The reason I’m on about this is because around Christmas he handed me a
package containing a good sized summer
sausage. I’ve always loved summer sausage and he knows that. He then told me
that what I was holding was actually Venison Summer Sausage made by a Mennonite
farmer in the Stratford area. The deer was one of 10 that Randy and a group of
his fellow hunters bagged in the Stratford farm country. They have a Mennonite
friend that processes and butchers the deer for them and turns some of the meat
into Summer Sausage. I opened the sausage tonight and made myself a summer
sausage sandwich for supper. I wasn’t feeling like a big meal so figured the
sandwich would fill the gap just right. The sausage tastes like any other
summer sausage and I was happy to see that. I’ve had venison before but don’t
really like the wild taste of the meat. The guys at the fire hall used to bring
in roasts and other cuts of meat they shot and we’d have feasts. I found that
the best tasting wild meat they introduced me to was moose. I could eat moose
year round without knowing it wasn’t just very lean beef. However, venison is a
different tasting meat. Last year we were gifted a roast of Caribou, 6 Caribou
steaks and about 10 lbs of Caribou burger meat. We ate all of it over a few
months and really enjoyed it but I think it was a once in a lifetime
experience. Carole tried the meat and said it was “alright” but she was a
little squeamish with the thought of what she was actually eating. The more we
talked about it the less I liked the idea of what we were eating as well.
Somehow, the summer sausage is perfectly fine and I’ll continue to eat it
whenever I can. I don’t think I’ll take advantage of any further offers of
roasts or steaks etc. I just don’t like the thought of wild meat anymore. Even
my cousin can’t eat the meat he brings home from his trips. He spends loads of
money on these trips and pays to have the meat processed and then gives it all
away. He says he would never waste the animals he hunts but also has no stomach
for the meat they provide. Since the only things I ever shot while hunting were
trees, sand, snow and air I never had to decide if I’d eat what I killed. After
a taste of wild game I think the summer sausage is my favorite and the rest
I’ll let go to someone that appreciates it more than I would. I’ve been tempted
to ask if I could accompany Randy on one of his trips only I’d take my camera
along to do my shooting with. I may just do that sometime in the next year and
along with the experience bag myself some good pictures and a few days in the
fresh air. I don’t know if any of our Squamidian members are hunters or if you
like wild game but somewhere out there, maybe in Vivyan’s youth there’s a story
or two of such adventures.
That’s it
for this week and I hope you can still eat meat after reading the Ontarion.
Thanks
for tuning in and I look forward to talking to you all again next time in
The
Ontarion Report.
Bye for now…. Greg.
PS:
Something To Think About>
What kind
of imagination does it take to think up such sayings as “You couldn’t hit a
cow’s ass with a banjo!” LOL! Hmmmm…a
waste of a good instrument for sure! LOL!
****
The Family and the Squamidian sites:
http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b/ and http://www.thedougsite.ca
Have a good one..
the
doug
The Fine Print!
The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.