The Squamidian Report – Sept. 8 / 07
Issue #276
Also in this issue:
From The Shores Of Lake Huron
The Ontarion
Hi All,
We were out for a walk and came across some rather clueless kids. There were 4 of them, all probably about 16 years old, give or take a year or so. They were ‘Goth’, dressed in black with the appropriate piercing’s and strategic tears in their clothing. They looked a bit dirty and flustered. The 3 girls in the group were so tired that they had sat down in the middle of the road. We were on Glacier Drive at the time and the boy asked us if we knew if they were near the city. We didn’t know what they meant so we started asking them questions. Turned out they had somehow hitched a ride from Vancouver to Squamish so they could attend a ‘rave’, basically a bush party somewhere in the bush near the Chief. That was all the location information they had. But their ride had dropped them off up at Alice Lake Park and so they couldn’t find what they were looking for. They had then found the 6km backwoods trail that would take them back into Squamish.
Several hours on the trail finally brought them out onto Glacier, up here in the Highlands. They were completely lost, a couple of the girls were noticeably scared. They didn’t seem able to walk another couple of clicks down to ‘civilization’, so we headed home and came back with the car. We took them down to a small plaza that has a Starbucks and some other stores. By now it was getting dark. The boy borrowed my cell phone and tried to call some phone number contact he had but there was no answer. He and one of the girls were determined to get to the rave. The other 2 would have preferred finding a bus so they could head back to Vancouver. Had they all wanted to go back to the city we would have gladly taken them to the Greyhound station, but because the other 2 still wanted to get to the party, we left them to work things out for themselves.
*
Remember last Spring when we were involved in removing our old dilapidated garden shed and replacing a whole bunch of our fence? Well, the whole idea was that we wanted to replace that shed but the fence needed to be replaced before a new shed could be built. Once the fencing was finished I happily dropped the rest of the project from my mind. There were other more enjoyable things to do. Not so with ‘the wife’. She hadn’t forgotten that she wanted a new shed and had kept looking for one. As luck would have it, she noticed that Home Depot had a $150 rebate in place on all their Royal vinyl sheds, including the 8x10 size that would work for us. So we bought a shed. We would pick it up in a few days.
But of course that’s just the first step. You can’t put up a shed until you have somewhere to put it. So I had to buy the material needed to build a shed pad. Because our back yard is fairly inaccessible concrete was out of the question. I needed to build a wooden pad. A trip back to HD was in order and I came home with the pressure treated 2x10’s required. After deciding on where we wanted it I constructed the frame. Then back to HD for several sheets of treated plywood. Man, are those things ever heavy. Once the plywood floor was down it was just a matter of picking up the shed from HD where it was waiting for us. However, it was not quite that simple. Those vinyl sheds come in a big crate that would not fit into the back of my little truck. The old steel sheds used to come in boxes about 8-inches think because the sheets were very thin. The vinyl sheds have thick hollow sheets so they take up a lot more room. We had to make two trips just to get the contents of the crate home. The up side was that we were able to leave the crating materials at the store. Less mess for us.
The hardest part of erecting one of those vinyl sheds is getting the base channels laid out and fastened down accurately. After that it is just a matter of fitting the panels together and screwing the parts that need to be screwed. The actual sheds go up pretty nicely. That’s not counting hunting through the pile of pieces to find the ones you need. You must separate the components into logical sections but we had already shuffled the pile a couple of times getting the 2 loads home and unloaded into the garage, so I spent a fair amount of time hunting for the parts as I needed them. Then each piece had to be carried into the back yard. By the time I had the thing up I was too pooped to care.
But up it is. Now we just need to fill in a bit around the pad and we can start to fill the shed with all the stuff that is currently taking up space under the deck. Once it is full, we will start to pile stuff under the deck again and the cycle will start all over. Such is life.
*
Wow,
how can it possibly be 34 years! Where did the time go?
doug
****
Greetings all.
It was another great week in the Port Elgin area, very warm temperatures, and lots of humidity. We haven't that much rain and it's desperately needed. I had to go out to Burgoyne on Wed. evening to dig in a waterline for a friend of mine at his new shop. There is a lot of clay in that area and the top two feet of ground was like concrete it sure made the old skid steer backhoe attachment work hard but we managed to excavate for him. I also managed to find time this week to layout for the deck on the rear of the house. I am renting an auger attachment to auger the 16 holes required for sonotube posts. I will get the set on Sat and pour them Monday late in the day. My deck material will be arriving from Fairway Lumber in St. Jacobs by Tues. of next week and then I can possibly finish the deck by next weekend. After that I want to do a paving stone sidewalk and front steps and that will be it until spring when I can landscape everything. Just thought that means I will have to cut grass next year. More work!
Well it's almost time to think about collecting salmon eggs again to start the fall and winter hatchery going again. I really enjoy that as it makes the long winter weeks go fast. Port Elgin is almost back to normal with a lot of the tourists not around the streets have about 1/2 the traffic on them again. Listen to me, up until a year ago I was one of them TOURISTS. HA!
I guess the next big attraction is Pumpkinfest. It brings in about 60,000 people over two days, anywhere from 800 to a 1000 old cars which line the main street and a lot of the side streets. They also have some antique bikes show up and a show and shine for the newer bikes. The main attraction are the HUGE pumpkins weighing anywhere from 800 to 1200 pounds. There are also many other humongous vegetables and fruits. Nice to see but I don't imagine good to eat. I will keep you posted as far as events go on the Oct. 6,7 weekend. Well I must sign off for another week, so everyone have a safe and happy week.
Brian
****
Hello
Everyone!
I was
very sad to hear of the death of the world’s greatest tenor this morning.
Luciano
Pavarotti died Wednesday night of pancreatic cancer at his home. He was 71
years of age and had been ill for the past year with this terrible disease.
I was
fortunate enough to have heard Pavarotti sing in person as a member of The
Three Tenors. Adam gave me a pair of tickets for my 50th birthday
back in 1999. Carole and I attended The Three Tenors concert at the Sky Dome in
Toronto. There was no doubt that Pavarotti had the superior voice of the three,
Jose` Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti. They were an amazing
trio of talent for sure. Whether or not you like opera, you had to admit that
these guys were incredibly talented singers. The world will be a much less
beautiful place without Pavarotti’s great voice in it!
My
interest in Italian opera specifically the tenor voice began back in the early
60’s when I bought a Mario Lanza record album for my father for his birthday.
He had urged me to listen to Mario sing whenever he would find one of his
recordings being played on the radio. I broke down and bought the album for my
dad when looking through the selection at The Colonial Record Shop in the
Arcade building in down town Kitchener. I wasn’t sure it wasn’t a waste of
money but once he opened the gift it seemed Mario was singing in our house at
least a couple of times a week. I had to admit that the man’s voice was one of
the clearest I’d every heard. I’ve always been one who could appreciate any
type of singing or music as long as it was well done. In those days my
favourite singer was Roy Orbison who also had an incredibly clear voice with a
4 octave range. My appreciation for the tenor voice remained with me and in the
mid 80’s I bought my first Pavarotti tape. I wore that thing out after several
hundred plays in the car and in the home stereo. Over the years I accumulated
many more CD’s of Pavarotti’s music and I still play them often. I will miss
seeing and hearing this great singer on special occasions on TV such as
Christmas and whenever the three tenors would perform before huge crowds of
fans. Pavarotti was known as the man who brought opera to the masses. He knew
that there were thousands of fans that could not afford the cost of tickets to
the opera so he arranged to perform before huge crowds in outdoor venues that
would enable promoters to sell tickets at much reduced prices. The Three Tenors
was an ingenious way of delivering classical music to millions of fans
throughout the world and has also spawned other “Tenor” groups and individual
singers to step onto the world stage. Pavarotti was not only a huge talent, he
was a promotional genius and his legacy will live on for many years to come.
*
I know
this is a short report this week but I feel it’s fitting to have written this
personal tribute to a great artist and not clutter his memory with other
material.
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>
Enrico
Caruso once said “Opera is the rich man’s vaudeville!”
**
(PART TWO)
I just
wanted to point out that we here in KW have two of the best fire departments in
Canada.
This
weekend in Halifax there was a competition held between firefighters from all
over the world. There were competitors from as far away as Australia, New
Zealand, Britain and many countries that believed they were the most physically
fit and highly skilled firefighters in the world.
A good
friend of mine by the name of Don Barron from Waterloo FD won the Gold in the
over 50 category in what is called “The Firefighter’s Combat Challenge”. His co
worker Dwayne Drover won third in his category (he’s 31) worldwide and 2nd
in Canada. Waterloo also had Dan McNamara entered in the competition and
Kitchener FD’s Patrick O’Halloran was competing as well. This competition is
called the “Toughest Two Minutes” of a firefighter’s life.
This
competition consists of firefighters wearing full gear including breathing
apparatus and performing physical tasks as quickly as they can. The champions
perform the entire course in less than 2 minutes. In fact to be in the top
scorers they finish in the one minute and twenty second range.
The competition
involves a grueling obstacle course.
Firefighters,
dressed in their uniforms, complete with helmets and oxygen tanks, drag about
20 kilograms of hose up more than six flights of stairs.
They haul another
19 kilograms of hose up by rope and then must run down the stairs without
missing a step.
They tackle a
"forcible entry machine," where competitors must move a 63-kg
pressurized device 1.5 metres by hitting it with a rubber sledgehammer.
Firefighters drag
a 153-kg running hose 22.5 metres and then hit a target before navigating a
series of pylons.
Then there's
Rescue Randy, the 79-kg dummy that competitors drag backward 30 metres.
They are timed during this performance and the winner is of course the competitor with the shortest time to complete the event.
We had
this tower (60’) set up in the rear lot of Waterloo head quarters and our team
was using it to practice for an upcoming competition. This was back in 1997
when I was still a Captain at HQ. My crew members were on duty and wanted to
give the course a try. Our Platoon Chief gave the OK and we took turns giving
it a go. A couple of my crew members urged me to give it a try. Insinuating
that I may have been too old to complete such a grueling task they managed to
goad me into going for it. I donned my gear and the whistle blew. Off I went
just screaming up the 6 flights of the tower with the 20 kg of hose on my right
shoulder. I dropped the hose at the top and immediately hauled the 20 kg of
hose bundle up to the top of the tower hand over hand. What a chore that was!
The next task is to run down the stairs making sure to touch every step. Once
at the bottom, I had to walk as quickly as I could through a serpentine course
of pylons to the forcible entry machine and pound it a distance of 1.5m with
the rubber sledge. From there and being already out of breath I picked up the
fully charged 45mm hose line and dragged it the marked distance of 22.5m,
opening the nozzle at the end and hitting a target with the water stream. At
that point I had to pick up “Rescue Randy” at 79kg from behind and under his
arms. With my hands clasped across his chest I had to drag him walking
backwards a distance of 30m to the finish line. I must admit that at about the
half way point in the dummy drag I had to stop and make an attempt to catch my
breath. After about 20 seconds I decided to just go for it or die trying. I
managed to finish the course in a respectable 3min 45 seconds. I was breathing
as hard and as fast as I possibly could and was not recovering very well. One
of my crewmen asked if I wanted to have a shot of oxygen. I gasped that I
thought I was OK but deep down I really thought I was about to die! I was
heaving for breath for a good 10 minutes after I finished and I could see the
concern on my crew members faces. I was truly lucky to have survived this event
without causing myself any permanent damage. I honestly believe that this test
was the most difficult physical thing I have ever done and would not attempt it
again for all the tea in China! Once was definitely enough!
The men
and women that compete in this event are truly very well fit and deserve credit
for their dedication to the job and to their desire to stay healthy and fit
enough to do their jobs well.
If you
ever get the chance to go and see The Firefighter’s Combat Challenge in your
area, be sure to do so. You will be amazed at the hard work these people do in
under 2 minutes. Just one more reason to be proud of and to support our fire
fighting men and women.
I
congratulate Don Barron and the other members of the Waterloo and Kitchener
Departments combat challenge teams.
Gotta go
for now. Talk to you again next week.
Greg.
****
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.