The Squamidian Report – Oct. 20 / 07
Issue #282
Also in this issue:
Hi All,
Last ride of the season? I sure hope not but November weather settled in during the middle of September and my bike insurance runs out in about 2 weeks and the rain just won’t quite so those short toots into the city last weekend might have been it.
We went in on the Saturday and by the time we got to North Van we were both pretty chilly. It was supposed to warm up and turn sunny but someone forgot to tell the weather so it stayed overcast and cold. We pulled into the Yamaha dealer where we buy things like face shields and riding clothing, and purchased a heated vest for Sue. It plugs into the Harley’s electrical system. In fact, the plug sticks out from under the seat, so there was no installations or fuss at all. Sue plugged herself in and was toasty and warm all the way home. Then on Sunday my Harley riding neighbor and I took advantage of some unexpected sunshine and rode into Horseshoe Bay and West Van. From there we followed Marine Dr along the waterfront past some of the most expensive real estate in the country. At Capilano Rd we turned up hill and jumped back onto the highway for the ride home.
And that was it. We fuelled up the bikes incase that was the last ride and pulled into our garages. Considering the over abundance of rain and the absence of any real summer it was a pretty good first riding season for the Hog. I bought it in late May with zero kilometers on it, and when I shut it off last weekend it was showing 10,133 km. I didn’t really know how much riding I would be doing on the new bike but didn’t expect to reach the 10 thousand k mark. But riding the Hog is very comfortable and you just like to keep on going.
I probably washed and shined the Hog at least 10 times, so I’m averaging once every thousand clicks, but face it, you don’t want to be riding a dirty Harley. That just wouldn’t look good. We spent more on good riding apparel than I’d have liked to but what the heck, might as well be dressed properly for the sport. So we are ready to roll next season, and roll we will. It is our intention to ‘go somewhere’ every second weekend. By that I mean do overnighters to various destinations. See a lot of country and enjoy the open road. Who know how far we might wander in our travels.
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Been working on some on-going building projects down town again. There is a new condo going in on the corner of 3rd and Victoria and the developer is required to install new underground services. Problem here is that Hydro designs its layout and dictates its components, Telus, the phone company here does likewise. But they don’t necessarily communicate with each other all that well. Then of course, Shaw Cable needs to have its stuff installed as well. So we end up running massive duck banks and setting huge underground vaults all over the place. We keep running into existing water and sewer services that the design engineers didn’t take into account. Never ending run of surprises.
Then there is the water table here. Down town’s official elevation is just 2 meters above sea level. When high tide is in, the ditches back up. We had to install a large Telus vault under the edge of the street beside the new building. The required cut needed for the lid of the vault to match the street level was just over 3 meters, about 10 feet deep. At a depth of 2 meters we were still digging through the thick gooey silty stuff they call clay here. It is actually a silt or till type of material, not clay. This stuff would turn to powder if it were to dry out. Water is in it but can’t readily flow through it. At about 2.5 meters we were just above the bottom of this layer, and the water began to flow in from below. Not a seep or trickle, but it shot up like a fountain and continued until it found its pressure level.
It took 2 pumps, a 3-inch and a 2-inch to keep up with the flow. I needed to get the excavation down to the required depth but had to dig under water to do it. The pumps could keep up, but they couldn’t get ahead. We ended up setting the base half of the vault into the water and pressing it down into the soft goo with the excavator bucket until it was where we wanted it. The vault is so big and so heavy that it comes in 2 halves, top and bottom.
The layer under the silt is a sandy material that lets the water flow very freely. A couple of feet below that is more of the thick silty stuff. Interesting thing, at the bottom of the first silt layer was the remains of roots and grass, buried for who know how many centuries. The silt layer below the watery sand also had plant matter in it, meaning that it had been above sea level at one time, perhaps thousands of years ago when the ocean levels were much lower when massive amounts of water were locked up in the ice-age glaciers.
You are undoubtedly wondering how the foundation for a 4-story condo is built in material like this…. Well, most building down in the lowlands here don’t actually have foundations. They are built on floating pads. The goo is dug out down to the sand and trucked away, structural gravel is trucked in and packed into place making a big pad. Then a thick concrete slab is poured and the building is built on that. Taller building would require pile driving but Squamish doesn’t have any taller buildings, at least not yet.
doug
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Maybe someone who reads the Squamidian can answer this question............
"Is there a technical reason (that I could understand) why our speedometers register in the 200's (kph?)"
Wouldn't 140 be enough if you needed to get to a hospital in a hurry?
Brenda in
Kit
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The hot weather we had a couple of weeks ago made me think about my childhood and heading back to school in September. We would have fall fairs at the school, which included about 4 or 5 schools. They were like an agriculture type of fair with all kinds of vegetables, like carrots, beets etc. for judging. The vegetables would be in bunches of 4 or 5. They would have to be the same size with no blemishes and all washed and tied together. The tops also had to be washed with no insect bites, etc. I never entered those competitions because I hated cooked carrots and beets, cabbage and turnips. There was also baking items like muffins, fruit loaves and cookies.
Of course there were races like running, jumping (high jump & distance). I could do all right in them except it was always by grade and I was mostly 2 years younger than other racers in my class, but I still did all right. They also had competitions for things like public speaking and singing. My sister, Verlet, was good at public speaking. She won up to the county level so we were very proud of her. The schools marched also.
Our school had anywhere from 18-22 kids but some schools had quite a few less then that. That must seem pretty strange in today’s world. Imagine being a teacher in those days and having to teach every grade up to and including what is now grade 10. The work for the high school level was sent from Mount Forest High School, including the exams. I was lucky, I had a great teacher who really cared about us. Thank goodness for school buses now a days. When Verlet and Len moved back to the farm from Northern Ontario Sandra and Denise were able to go by school bus to Dundalk High School. It sure made a difference.
There is no way anyone could get me back on a farm after I came to Kitchener, despite my love of horses and dogs. I want to be where we can get to a doctor or hospital or grocery store – besides I still hate pigs! Living is so different now, thank goodness.
Vivyan
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http://www.thedougsite.net/Warren/quading2.htm
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Wed. Sept.26/07.
Weather's good. This time of year in Tofino B.C. you have to take the good days when you can get them. To-day we're off for another adventure on the quad. Clayoquat Arm. This is a freshwater inlet extending inland off of Vancouver Island’s largest lake. Kennedy Lake.
Again, we drove the 20 km of the West Main logging road as far as the Lower Kennedy River bridge where we off-loaded the quad. From here we followed the lakeshore east until we crossed a second, very derelict bridge over the mouth of Clayoquat Arm.
Once over this bridge the road narrows up considerably to a perfect quad width. Janice takes the wheel so I can take pictures. She is born to quad. Soon we reach a deep cross-ditch with very slippery logs in the bottom of it. I encourage her to cross while I take her picture assuring her the quad can clear the logs no problem with just a little momentum. I love the determined look on her face in this next photo. The ATV is equipped with a 2500 lb. towing capacity winch with remote control if we should need it. We are experienced off-roaders and do not get ourselves in chancey predicaments.
We stop for lunch at an old log bridge and
are captivated by the view downstream. A short walk takes us to a pebbly beach
where we find a vacant fishing camp. The clear water drops off immediately into
the black depths below.
About 14 km up the trail we have climbed our way high above the Arm. The trail here is beginning to get choked in alder. But we push on until suddenly I tap Janice on the shoulder from the passenger seat to stop her from running into a bear. She had been watching carefully to dodge rocks in the grassy trail and so didn't see the bear until we were almost on it. The bear was feeding on the grass and didn't appear to care about our presence. She flashed the lights and revved the engine to try and scoot it away but it just kept munching away. I then took over the controls and stood up on the quad to make us look as big as possible all the while hopping the quad in angry revs toward it. This would make him run a few feet farther but then he would go back to his grazing. We decided to let him have his space and so turned back.
The third and final installment of Quading in Tofino will follow in next week’s addition.
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Greetings everyone
Well another great week has gone by without the real fall type weather, as a matter of fact Sat and Sunday are supposed to reach highs of the low 20's. Around the area most of the trees have their fall colours and a few have lost their leaves entirely.
This week I managed to get the paving stone front walk and stairs done so the only thing left to do is some rough grading around the sidewalk, add a bit of granular A gravel at the end of the walk at the driveway and complete the deck stairs and that’s it for this year. In the spring I will have to get topsoil and grade it and then plant grass thus creating more work and less time but that’s life isn’t it?
The newspaper gave out some figures on the attendance for pumpkinfest. They said 60,000 people attended but I am not sure that included the people wandering around looking at the cars and the bike show and shine that didn't make it up to the high school where you had to pay before you got in to spend more money and it wouldn’t take long to use up a $100.00 up there. As most of those types of event the food and drink is over priced and undersized.
The fishing club tried again at the Saugeen River to get some more salmon eggs for the hatchery but we were unsuccessful as far as the fish being there. It has many of us scratching our heads wondering where the fall run of salmon are. Mind you guys like myself have to be careful as to not scratch anymore hair off than is already gone. We will attempt once more on Monday next figuring we would get an abundance of rain Thursday and Friday, which again didn't happen so I doubt we will get any on Monday but stranger things have happened.
Last Sunday the Huron shores ATV club went on about a 65 mile tour through some pretty muddy areas so I didn't have time last week to clean up my machine so that’s on the agenda for this weekend. Most of the mud was of a topsoil-based material so it should come off pretty easy with the power washer. It was a good time and at one point we ended up by the lake and about eight guys were splashing around in the water like little kids with the atv's. One guy hit a deeper area and we thought we would maybe have to retrieve his machine but he got it stopped before he got in to deep and managed to back out. Well it's 12:51 so I am going to sign off for now and everyone have a safe and happy week.
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Hello
everyone!
It’s
another one of those “BC”-like fall days here in Ontario. We’re expecting rain
and thunderstorms off and on today. That’s ok, we’ve had sunshine for about 80%
or more of our days since last April and it’s been wonderful. No matter what
kind of weather we have, people will always have something to complain about
when it comes to our climate. Instigating a conversation about weather is like
talking about politics or religion. It seems everyone is an expert and everyone
has an opinion. As it turns out, most commentary on these subjects is sheer
guesswork on the part of the person with the open mouth. I realize that this
applies to yours truly as well and I’m not disputing that at all. Here in
Canada we are all entitled to voice our opinions and we also have the right to
take or leave those opinions as fact, fiction or personal guesswork. The
accuracy of such opinions is usually based on the last TV weather report the
individual has heard and is simply regurgitating what they remember hearing. It
all boils down to letting it go in one ear and out the other. If you want to
know if it’s going to rain, look up!
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Well,
Oktoberfest is over for another year and they say the city made more money on
this year’s celebrations than any other year since it began. That’s a positive
note and so is the outcome of the RIDE program that the regional police ran
during the festivities. The number of impaired drivers and charges laid was
down this year from other years and the Regional Police are quite pleased about
that fact.
They
won’t be totally happy until they eliminate drinking and driving altogether but
unfortunately that will never happen. As long as they keep making a dent in the
total of impaired drivers they’ll keep up the program. It’s unfortunate that
the very festival that is a source of income for the city and its retailers is
also the source of the overindulgence that causes the drunk drivers to be out
and about. Guess there’s no way of preventing the drinking when the festival is
a beer oriented festival so the Regional Police are our best hope for keeping
the streets safe both during Oktoberfest and of course the rest of the year.
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I haven’t
been to Oktoberfest since the first year it started and that was the last urge
I’ve had to attend the drunken bash that it is. It’s just not my cup of tea or
should I say stein of beer!
Gotta go
for now.
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>
Only 9
more weeks till Christmas!
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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
The Fine Print!
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