The Squamidian Report – Jan. 16 / 10
Issue #399
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
I know I’ve said this before, and I’m going to say it again. If the arrogant out-of-control politicians in your area ever start making noises about landing the Olympics, slam them down hard and fast. Take them out behind the barn and do whatever is necessary to convince them to abandon their evil ways. The closer we get to the 2010 Vancouver / Whistler extravaganza, the more heavy handed and dirty the organization becomes. The sad part is that us taxpayers, the very people who are neither invited nor welcome, are the ones who are footing the bill and will be trying to pay it off for the next 30 years.
The number of businesses that will be put out of business during the effected time period is staggering. That time period is a couple of months, not just the two and a half weeks. Many of those businesses will not survive. Streets are being shut down in Vancouver in the name of security and / or transportation requirements. Any business along one of those streets is pretty well shut down; no one can get to it to patronize it. Local (Vancouver) commuters are being warned that they cannot bring personal vehicles into the city and that they must use public transportation. However, they are also being warned to expect delays of hours waiting for busses and trains because priority is being given to more important peoples. Our local (Squamish) airport is being commandeered by the military and all the businesses and flying companies located there have been told that they are shut down until April. No compensation, no apologies, nothing. As far as the ‘officials’ are concerned, they can go squat in the snow somewhere.
We can still drive to Whistler for the time being but once there we can’t actually go anywhere. Everything is off limits. We can’t drive up into the Callaghan, it is off limits. And on and on and on. Any attempt to simply leave the area during Feb or March is out of the question. While it might be possible to get to the airport by taking some long frustrating route, getting through the airport would be an exercise in futility. And this is only mid January. Things are going to get rather interesting over the next few weeks.
It doesn’t happen very often but we were rained out at work for much of this week. Rain obviously happens a lot in coastal BC but to be rained out is rare. People around here work in the rain, walk in the rain and play in the rain. It is just part of life here during the rainy season. But when you need to do anything that requires excavating into the ground and it is raining half a foot per day and the pumps can’t keep up, that work becomes impossible because any and all materials turn to snott.
And guess what else turns to snott under warm wet conditions? Snow!! That’s right, the white stuff that had covered the North Shore Mountains and the Whistler Mountains so deeply. That same white stuff they want to hold those all so important Olympic events on. And it was and still is warm with temperatures way above freezing right up to and higher than the tops of those mountains. So the ‘powers-to-be’ have had to close the North Shore Mountains in order to try to save the quickly disappearing snow. So no more skiing and boarding for all those city residents who would have normally been using those hills. Gotta save whatever might be left for the important people. However, even if those slopes did stay open to the public, no one could use them because it is so foggy and sloppy up there that you’d get lost and soaked. According to the weather people, under warm wet conditions the snow disappears at a rate of 1cm per 2-hours. Doesn’t sound like much but that’s every 2-hours around the clock, for days or even weeks on end. And if there is a wind, the snow disappears even faster.
The ‘officials’ are getting pretty nervous and it looks good on them. Every newscast, every announcement, includes more draconian limitations and controls being imposed on the locals. Its like they wish they could magically banish every person that is not directly under their control from the whole west coast. Its like as if some self important big shot commandeered your house in order to throw a party, then demanded that you spend incredible amounts of money to renovate and add-on, demand you supply the food and entertainment and then only invited VIP’s types and then tell you that you are not actually welcome and to get lost and don’t come back until its time to clean up the mess.
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Just a reminder that the next Squamidian is the big #400. We are hoping that as many of you as possible will get involved and contribute to that issue. Don’t get us wrong, we are not trying to turn this into some silly touchy-feely thing. That’s not what this is about. We’d like to hear about what’s going on in your part of the world. My particular mandate is to share the adventure of living on the west coast from my personal perspective, as warped or biased as that may be. Everyone’s life adventure is unique to that person and is therefore interesting to someone else. So, lets have some fun and lets hear from you. Who knows, you might find that you enjoy the challenge of writing a few lines and give some thought to doing it again as we move into the future.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Just when we’re getting pumped about getting away to Florida for a nice long break the weather is turning into a nice mid winter thaw! Looks like we’ll be leaving a tropical depression behind as we head south! LOL! We’ve been getting things ready for the drive over the past couple of days. We’ve picked up our traveler’s cheques at the CAA, bought some US cash at the bank and started to pick out the clothes we’ll be taking along. My selection is easy, just as it would be for any other man about to travel on a vacation of restful purpose. Grab a few pair of blue jeans and enough underwear for a week and a dozen tee shirts and I’m set to go. Carole has to do the mix and match thing and the evening wear along with the dress or two to suit a few nights out to dinner as well as some slacks and a few dozen other items so she doesn’t have to wear the same thing twice and bring up 4 giant suit cases to carry it all and she’s good to go! LOL! I just grab one “carpet bag” and stuff my shit in it and I’m on my way. I guess it’s only right that the ladies take a little more care than the men in these situations. We are heading south for a whole month so I guess women need more variety than their men do to see them through that period of time. I look at it this way, we’re heading to a beach condo by the sea for a month of walking in the sand and sipping cheap beer or umbrella drinks by the pool to relax and get away from all the hustle and bustle so why would we care what we’re seen in? I think Jimmy Buffet would be proud of what I’ll be wearing on the beaches of Florida and the other snowbirds that’ll be in the Pensacola area will be looking pretty much the same as I will anyway so they won’t give a hoot what I look like either! Oh well, I guess if truth be known I don’t want to be seen with a dowdy looking frump of a woman so I’m actually happy that Carole takes pride in her appearance at any time and wants to look her best on our vacation too! I guess I’d better get some input from her as to what I should take along after all so I don’t look like a male dowdy frump beside her on the beaches of Florida and make her look like she’s got poor taste in men! LOL! Of course how do I know people don’t think that already and I’ll be wasting my time trying to upgrade my appearance anyway! Hahahahaha……..! Guess I’ll never know what people think until someone decides to tell me to my face! LOL! Oh well, I’ve got broad shoulders and besides, at my age they can say what they want. I’m not about to change at this late stage in the game anyway!
In getting prepared for this trip I always consider the condition of the vehicle we’ll be driving on the trip. We’ve still got the Jeep Liberty and it’s been a very good vehicle. We’ve had very good luck with this vehicle and very little has gone wrong with it over the almost 7 years we’ve owned it. The main concern I’ve had with it lately has been a minor oil leak. I’ve had drips on the driveway for few months and decided to get the leak fixed before the drive south. I took it to my mechanic and he really couldn’t trace the source of the leak. He put some die in the oil and told me to drive it for a few weeks so he could find the leak with special light and glasses he has that show up the die. It seems that the source of the leak is the oil pan gasket. I have to take the Jeep back to him next Monday to have the gasket replaced and I’ll be all set to go. I also noticed that my tires are dropping about 15 lbs pressure every week or two. I bought the tires new in August of 2005. They are BF Goodrich Long Trail all seasons and when I bought them I was told by the dealer on Belmont to make them last longer I should bring them in to him every 7 to 10 thousand kilometres and have them rotate my wheels from front to back and back to front. He said that the tires will wear more evenly and last about 50% longer than if I didn’t do this. I’ve been doing this rotation thing faithfully and I’ve put about 120,000 km on the tires in 4 ½ years. Today I took the Jeep into the dealer and asked if he could remove the tires from the rims and clean the rims and reseal the tires back on the rims to stop them from leaking. The air has been leaking out at a rate of about 15 lbs every two weeks or so and I have to keep topping them up. Luckily I have a good air compressor in my garage so it’s not big deal. However, I don’t want to be stopping every 500km or so on the drive to Florida to find an air pump to refill the tires, thus, the reason for asking him to reseal the beads. He told me that he’d do it for $100.00 for the four tires but then he proceeded to tell me that he could see cracks in the edge of the tread at the side walls and maybe it wouldn’t be worth spending the $100.00 if I’m going to replace them in a few months. I pointed out to him that there was plenty of tread on the tires and I wasn’t about to buy new ones for at least another year. He just stood there and kind of shook his head as if to say I didn’t know what I was talking about. I had asked him before we walked outside if he could please measure the tread depth for me to give me an accurate reading of how much life was still in the tires. I guess he couldn’t be bothered finding a depth guage and just eyeballed what was left. He said “You’ve probably got about 6 months of life left in these tires!” I decided to give up on this young guy and just head for home. I thanked him for taking a look and them and said I was going to leave them for now.
I drove across town to a new tire store that opened up at Westmount Rd and Fischer-Hallman Rd called Byma Tire Centre. It’s owned by John Byma an old neighbour of mine from 25 years ago. I walked in and he greeted me as if I had just seen him yesterday. I told John my situation and he immediately grabbed a tire depth guage and walked out to the Jeep. He checked each tire tread depth and said that they measured 5/32nds of an inch in depth. He told me that they were all worn to the same evenness and each had the exact same amount of tread depth left on them and I could count on at least another 30,000kms of driving before I’d have to replace them. He then said “I bet you’ve been rotating these wheels faithfully every 8 to 10 thousand kilometres haven’t you? I said that I had and he said he could tell because the tires were in great shape for being almost five years old. I asked him about the cracks the other fellow had been worried about and he said that the cracking was normal for four year old tires and it was minor and nothing to worry about. He told me that if I keep the proper pressure in the tires and rotate them as usual they should last at least another year or maybe two. He also told me that if I was worried about the rim leaks he’d reseal them for me for $80.00 for the four tires and I was to just drop in any time and he’d do them while I waited for about a half hour. I thanked him for his advice and told him that when I was ready to replace them I’d be back to see him. I think I’ll just leave the resealing go for now and keep an eye on the pressure during the drive south. I felt good about seeing someone that treated me like a valued possible future customer rather than a prospective mark that some young kid figured didn’t know beans about tires and could be talked into buying a new set out of fear! It ticks me off when I run into a sales person that doesn’t have the customer’s best interest at heart and tries to take advantage of them. I guess that with the world being driven by the almighty dollar I can’t expect much else from the retail world!
Oh well, at least I’ve taken the time to make sure the Jeep will be reliable for the trip to Florida and I won’t worry about my tires for the ride south. My mechanic will check all the belts and wires etc when he has the car in on Monday for the gasket change and that’ll take the concern out of the drive train parts breaking down. Should be a worry free drive!
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>
Another “Snow” fact: In 1999, from January 2nd to January 3rd, about 170 million tonnes of snow fell on Toronto. If that snow melted and the melt water were trapped, it would fill 100 (Rogers Centres) with a volume of 1.6 million cubic metres.
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Have a good one..
the doug
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