The Squamidian Report – April 11 / 09
Issue #359
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
We had been very slow at work this winter with a fair amount of time off for us grunts to enjoy. I had made it clear with the boss that whenever there was not enough work to go around, that they should give the work to the younger guys who need it. The ones who live from pay cheque to pay cheque and have house, car and kid payments to meet. However, I knew before the boss knew that things would pick up and get busy. You see, I like to keep an eye on the weather report and the forecast a week ago pointed to some very nice sunny warm days. The kind of days where I could have disappeared on the bike and done some serious riding. And that was my clue. There would simply be no way that fate would permit me to cash in on some pre-summer riding conditions and take off without a care in the world.
So all of a sudden we have to clean up a bunch of small, pain in the neck local projects in order to be ready to tackle the highway widening through Whistler. The company that had taken on that project started on it last summer but only got a small section done. There is still over 5 k of highway running through the resort town to do and it must be done by this coming fall. At the rate there were going, it would take them another 3 years to complete the job. We will be throwing all our equipment and resources at it. Our job will be to install all the underground duck banks for hydro and communications, all 5 k of them. We don’t expect to be done until mid to late summer so it looks like several months of traveling back and forth to Whistler. I don’t know what they will do about local Squamish projects that come along in the mean time as we will all be tired up doing the Whistler job, and as it looks like things are starting to pick up out here, those projects will come in.
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There are a couple of sure signs of spring happening out here. One is the return of the humming birds. At least one of the little guys has staked out our feeder. The other is the return of the stupid Flicker bird, a large member of the woodpecker family. We’ve had problems with the male Flickers before. They like to rap on hard surfaces with their woodpecker beak to make as loud a noise as possible in order to attract a female. Over the past few years they have damaged our siding and wood trim around the house. One house down the street has a hole right through its roof where one of these deranged critters has used its sharp little jackhammer head.
They have been back for several weeks now and are rapping louder than ever. But this time it is not our house that is the target of their fiendish behavior, it is our barbeque. The stupid guy stands on top of the BBQ lid and raps away so fast you can barley see his head. The sound he gets from the metal lid is something close to what a machinegun must sound like and he is happy as can be. As for us, we are happy because our house is not being damaged but the whole neighborhood has to put up with the noise, which starts promptly at daybreak each morning.
I have however, heard of a possible solution, a way of convincing the avian vandal to find a different location for his destructive courtship. I happened to catch a bit of a CBC radio program where they were taking calls about birds. One caller had come up with a way of chasing off the Flickers that seemed to work. You can’t scare them away and you can’t shoot them so anything else is worth a try. She seemed to think that if you went out and drummed on a metal surface, faster and louder than the culprit, it would think that a bigger, meaner male Flicker had taken over it’s spot and would move on and find a new spot. I’ll let you know how it works out.
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Back at Christmas time Ryan had given me a pair of tickets to a Gord Lightfoot concert. That concert was last evening in Vancouver. The tickets were actually for my birthday and as this weekend just happens to be Sue’s birthday, I decided to share MY two tickets with her and take her along with me. J
It’s been quite a while since we last attended a live concert. It would have been either Quartet at the Guelph River Run theatre or The Rankins at the KW Center In The Square. Anyway, this one was at the Center in downtown Vancouver. I wasn’t quite prepared for the deterioration in Lightfoot’s voice. His voice is scratchy and he simply can’t hit high notes any more. When he tried the results were tinny and even inaccurate at times but luckily he gave up trying and simply dropped an octave when necessary. However, the concert was great, it was nice to see him do his music. His band was incredibly tight and very good. The music was pure Lightfoot, the presentation was pure Lightfoot.
He did very little talking which was good because he has always tended to mumble and talk to quietly for most to catch what he is saying. For the most part he went from song to song with almost no pause in between. The audience sure didn’t hold his voice problem against him and was loud and enthusiastic in their appreciation of the veteran master performer. If his concert tour takes him to a theatre near you, treat yourself and go see him.
doug
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Hello
everyone!
Well,
it’s that time of year again, you know, the “renovation” time of year?!!
Whether or not you want to do these modifications to your home, you don’t have
a choice! On the other hand maybe you do have a choice but the alternative
leads to deterioration of your investment in the long run. Home owners have to
keep the largest investment in their lives in good condition if they hope to
realize any appreciable profit when they sell it off or leave it to their kids.
I know that over time, real estate automatically increases in value but to
maximize that increase it’s necessary to look after the upkeep of whatever you
own. This is in fact true with most possessions in one’s life! Even your car
holds its value better if you maintain it properly while it’s in your
ownership. Rarely if ever do you MAKE money on the sale of a vehicle but you
are more likely to keep its resale value maximized if you keep it running and
looking good. I say these things because we just finished going through one of
those updatings in our house. We decided to remove the wall to wall carpeting
in three of the four bedrooms of our upper floor. The fourth already had
“Barwood” flooring in it and the other three needed a change. The carpeting as
I said a few weeks ago in the Ontarion was about 12 years old and a very dark
green colour. We were tired of looking at it as well as vacuuming it every week
and made the decision to install hardwood in the three bedrooms, the hallway as
well as down the staircase to the main floor of the house. Well, after a 6 week
wait since we made the deal with the flooring company the installer finally
showed up to do the job on Monday past. This guy worked alone and did a very
lovely and efficient job of the installation. The three bedrooms and the
hallway were completed by Wednesday evening. He informed us that he had to make
a quick run to Hamilton to complete an emergency job on Thursday so would we
please allow him to come back Friday to complete our job. We agreed to let the
guy go for the day and return Friday. He brought a helper along on Wednesday
and again Friday to finish our steps. They spent 11 hours here Friday and
indeed did finish the staircase. They did a beautiful job on the stairs. Carole
had painted the entire upstairs rooms while we waited the 6 weeks. She decided
to leave the painting of the main floor hallway until the flooring and stairs
were finished. As I told you guys in columns past, Adam and I ripped out all
the old flooring and prepared the sub floors for the new hardwood. This made the
installer’s job a lot easier and he thanked us for doing all that prep work for
him. It was very gratifying to see the finished floors and stairs once the job
was complete Friday evening and we said goodbye to this flooring whiz.
Now all
we have to do is a little clean up and a little painting and we’ll be back to
normal. I know that there is little sense in rushing any job but to have waited
6 weeks to have this job finished was just a tad more than we would wish on
anyone. Our lives have been disrupted for that long and it just seemed to drag
on and on and on! So, rushing has it’s drawbacks as does taking too long to
complete a project. Now that it’s finished, it’s just a big sigh of relief and
the arduous dragged out weeks of it will soon be forgotten and it’ll all seem
like a dream. No matter how we felt during the wait for and the installation
week we’ll always be happy we did make the change. Maybe now we’ll have less
dust around the house and of course every Thursday when I used to vacuum all
that carpeting I’ll be smiling and happy instead of thinking “Oh damn! I’ve got
to vacuum today!” I am actually looking forward to being able to run a mop over
the hardwood and know that there aren’t any creepy crawlies embedded in the
underlay! With the carpet gone it was the last bit of the old place left to
redo. The house is renewed from top to bottom and from here on in it’s a matter
of weekly maintenance and enjoying the results! Of course we’ll do what may be
needed from time to time but at this point, I can’t think of any more major
jobs left to do. We have a couple of windows that will be replaced over the
summer and maybe we’ll change the furnace to a more efficient one but those are
not that big a deal. Besides the windows are still windowing ok and the furnace
is still furnacing ok. Updating either of these two items is a matter of choice
not necessity at this point and so, we can coast for the foreseeable future
when it comes to renovations. It looks like we’ll have a good summer knowing
that this big project is finished.
That’s it
for this week!
Thanks
for tuning in and I look forward to talking to you all again next week in The
Ontarion Report!
Bye for now.. Greg
PS:
Something To Think About>
Everyone
has a photographic memory. Some just don’t have any film!
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Have a good one..
the doug
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