The
Squamidian Report – April 24 / 10
Issue #413
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
We popped into Horseshoe Bay the other afternoon on the bike for a hot chocolate. That’s a frequent destination for us. It’s an easy and scenic 50 kilometers each way. For most of the way the highway hugs the mountainsides along Howe Sound. The curves are tight and the hills are steep making for an ideal motorcycle ride. The highway has been totally rebuilt so traffic separation is much better than before and some of the dangerously tight curves have been softened up a bit. What most people don’t know and probably wouldn’t want to is that many of the now gentle curves along the cliff sides are actually sitting on cantilevered decks, hanging out over nothing, with nothing but open air between the road and the shoreline below.
The section that is not along the Sound is at the south end of Squamish where the highway passes by the base of the Chief, that tall shear granite monolith. Funny thing about that section, you must always be prepared for strong gusty unpredictable crosswinds. But that’s all part of the adventure. And of course the highway turns slightly inland at Horseshoe Bay in order to pass on by as it leads up over the Eagle Bluffs and into West Vancouver where it becomes the Upper Levels Highway. However, if the Bay is the destination you veer off the just before the new section and back onto the old highway that wound its way along, overlooking the village. A couple of tight right turns and you are down onto the ‘main drag’.
This is always a nice place to take visitors. The BC ferries are constantly pulling in and out. The waterfront is a park with benches and flowerbeds, and with sea gulls and geese pooping on everything. In fact, the first time I ever took ‘the wife’ to Horseshoe Bay many years ago as a tourist a gull dropped a surprisingly large loaf right smack dead centre on her head. The resultant laughter from both Ryan and I almost instigated a divorce. But I digress.
Right now the streets and sidewalks there are covered in pink blossoms. It should have been like that a month or more ago but we are very far behind this year spring-wise. But the tourists love it, blossoms all over the place. Looks like a pink snowstorm. So we sit on a park bench watching the boats and birds and pink snowstorm and drink our hot chocolate, and then after enjoying the location and the atmosphere we saddle back up and enjoy the ride back to home on Big Blue as her loud rumble echo’s off the rock faces and fills the air around us.
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It has taken a long time, but it’s done now. When you buy a new Harley, you have to take it back to the dealer at or just after 1600 kilometers for a very expensive oil change. Actually, it’s more than just an oil change. They supposedly go over the bike from one end to the other and make sure everything is the way it should be. It also includes having the engine oil and filter changed as well as the primary case oil and the transmission oil. It is a necessary servicing to keep the warrantee valid. So I got ‘Big Blue’ in to the dealer on Friday just as the odometer hit 1611 clicks.
One thing that some dealers will do, including this one is let the customer supply their own oils if they prefer something other than what Harley supplies. Harley’s various oils are about mid range quality wise but way over priced. There are much better fluids available for less money. To this end I brought along my own choice of transmission and primary gear oils. I ended up using their Syn 3 engine oil because I didn’t have any other engine oil on hand. I did however have Redline Shockproof transmission gear oil and Redline primary gear oil and that is what is now in the bike. I’ll dump the Syn 3 in a couple of thousand kilometers in favor of either Redline V-Twin synthetic engine oil or Mobil 1 V-Twin synthetic engine oil. Both are very good products. The V-Twin designation if very important. It denotes an oil that has been formulated to deal with the extreme temperature fluctuations that occur in large air-cooled engines. Bottom line is all my bike fluids are now synthetic and that’s the way I like it.
The ride down to Barne’s in Langley was quite refreshing. There was frost on the house roofs when I left here about 7am and I definitely needed my heated vest for the 110-click ride. The ride back was warmer until I hit Horseshoe Bay where it turned cold and then about Shannon Falls I ran into rain. Face it, we couldn’t buy 2 days of nice weather here this spring no matter how much money we had, and seeing how we don’t have any, we are just plain out of luck.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Well, we had two busy days yesterday and today. Yesterday we had Dan’s Windows come in to replace the front two bedroom windows with nice big “double hung” models and they are terrific. The old ones had lost their seal and were the crank open awning style units. The top pane of glass in both rooms was original so they were from 1976. When the installer tried to take them out it was as if they had been welded in to their frames. It took him about an hour and a half just to remove them from the goo that held them in place all these years. Of course the caulking was so hard that it might as well have been concrete! However, once he had them out the rest of the install went just fine. He told me that it would probably take around 5 hrs to do both windows. When all was said and done he had spent almost 9 hours on the entire job. He was pooped for sure from climbing up and down the stairs and ladder alternately for at least 100 times it seemed! LOL! Maybe not that many but I think my legs would have given out if I’d have been trying to keep up with him! Anyway, we can now clean both sides of the glass from inside the house so no more climbing on the roof any time of year to clean them! It was just hectic to have someone in your space all day even though all we had to do was be here. I’m sure you’ve all experienced this at one time or another over the years. You just feel that you’re in the way every time the guy walks in or out. I tried not to stand around and stare at him while he worked but my natural curiosity got the best of me and I just had to watch to see how he did the job. He said he didn’t mind a spectator but I know what it’s like to have someone watching your every move. You seem to get the work done in a more efficient manner if you don’t have an audience, I get it! Anyway, he did a fine job on the installation and we are happy with the results! The only thing left to do is put a little paint on the new piece of cove he put around the inside of the windows but that’s something Carole likes to do so I’ll leave that up to her expertise!
Today we had to be up and at it by 7am so we were ready to let the man in at 8am to vacuum out our ductwork. What a job that is! It’s one job that really “sucks” LOL! Pardon the pun! It was again an interesting procedure to watch. About 10 years ago we called Sears to have them come and give us a quote on doing the same job. The fellow at that time took about an hour to look into several of our ducts and quoted us over $600.00 to do the job. He put a camera into the return air ducts and tried to show me how dirty it was in there but as sure as I’m typing this report, I couldn’t see enough dust or dirt in there to warrant spending that kind of money. If I had known how much dirt there really was in the system I’d probably have paid the $600.00 and had it done. However I just figured it was too much for the little dirt that was in there to pay to have it done at that time. This time, knowing that I am about to install a new furnace in the coming weeks, I figured I’d better have them cleaned before hand. I called around to three different companies in the Yellow Pages and settled on one called Power Vac from Cambridge. They gave me a price over the phone of $279.00 plus GST at 5%. I was surprised at the Quote being so low after almost 10 years since the Sears quote. When the worker arrived this morning promptly at 8am we talked a bit about the procedure and how much dirt there was in the system. He told me that although you might not see much in the return air duct, collectively there would be huge amounts of dust etc in the whole system. Especially since from what he could tell, it had never been done before and the house is 34 years old. I mentioned about the quote from Sears and he said that they are still the most expensive company in the business. He said that because people can just put it on their Sears account Sears has no hesitation charging two to three times what other companies do. He said that people just go ahead with Sears because they don’t have to pay immediately after the job is completed. It’s a matter of convenience for the people that don’t like to or don’t have the money to pay in cash I guess! Anyway, it was an interesting process to watch and I couldn’t believe the crap that he did get out of the pipes. He cut holes in the plenum of the furnace and also in the larger ducts for the “return air” and let me take a look before and after with a light and a mirror at what was in there. When I looked in with the light I was surprised at how much more dust, dirt, paper, concrete chunks, pieces of wood, nails and cigarette buts I could see in that section of duct.
He said that everyone should have their ducts cleaned immediately upon taking possession of a new home because of the debris that falls down the registers during the building of the home. Not to mention the crap that the workers intentionally throw down the floor grates because they’re too lazy to toss it in the garbage while building the house. I guess that’s where the cigarette butts came from not to mention the beer bottle caps and Lord knows what else that machine sucked out of the pipes! It sounded like a continuous machine gun going off as the debris rattled it’s way along 10” diameter hard suction hose all the way out to the holding tank in the truck parked in the driveway. When he was done, he let me take another look in the same pipe and it looked like a brand new duct inside! I hope that after all his hard work the cleaner ducts will show their worth by eliminating or at least lessening the amount of dust that we’ve been having to clean up every week on the furniture! I’m sure it’ll have to make a difference with all the crap that he removed today. However, only time will tell wont’ it!
The Duct guy was here for two and a half hours and worked steady all that time. I figure we got our money’s worth and I feel better knowing we’re no longer breathing particles from what was in the pipes in this housed. It’s gotta be a health issue as well as a dust eliminator! Maybe the allergies won’t be near as bad if the air is cleaner now! We should notice a difference pretty much immediately!
That’s about the last item that needed attention in this house and at least for a while we can hang on to the rest of our hard earned money! LOL!
That’s it for this week!
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>
Your job won’t take care of you when you’re sick. Your friends and parents will! Stay in touch!
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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.