The
Squamidian Report – July 3 / 10
Issue
#423
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
One downside to the timing of our trip in relation to our spring out
here being a month late is that it clashes with my blueberries being a
month late. Looks like they will be ripening at the very time we are
gone. The worst part given the fact that I love blueberries and will
miss most of them is that this is going to be a banner year. My berry
plants are loaded like I’ve never seen before. Here's a pic of one of
my plants in my berry patch.
Trip, what trip? Oh, didn’t I mention it before… I guess not. The wife
and I are heading out on our annual motorcycle road trip on Monday
(July 5). Current plans have us riding east through Canada. We might
have considered dropping down into the States and taking #2 across but
Ryan is riding with us for the first day. He will then drop out and do
a swing down through the Kootenay / Columbia areas of eastern BC on his
way back to the coast so he can ready for his South Africa gig. We will
continue on at a leisurely pace out onto the prairies and end up in
Winnipeg where we’ll drop in on Tim and at the same time hook up with
Gary who will have ridden west from Ontario. Then we well continue east
over the top of the Lakes and on down into the KW area. From there our
plans get a bit vague but the most likely scenario is that Paul &
Sherry will join the group and we well head down into the States. Don’t
know how far south we will go before we head west and they head where
ever. That’s too far out to be planned for yet.
I do know that once we head west we well probably jump onto I90 at some
point and do a stop in Sturgis again. From there we can choose to go up
through Yellowstone or over it or take whatever route we want on our
way home. We will be on the road for at least 2-weeks and perhaps as
long as 3-weeks. One of the big unanswerable questions is the weather.
Bikes don’t have roofs and doors and windshield wipers, all of which
could prove very useful throughout most of the country this summer.
Bikes also don’t have heaters and as of yet it has not warmed up at all
in coastal BC. With severe thunderstorms and hail out on the parries
and in Ontario we may find ourselves unable to go in the direction we
had planned on. If we can’t go east we won’t. It’s that simple, but we
won’t know until we head out. Just have to wait and see.
*
Way back on the 17th of April we had bought a Magellan GPS, the kind
you see in people’s cars. Not specifically for the bike trip because
its quite easy to find your way around the country or continent for
that matter but more for finding locations within the Vancouver area.
However, if we were to have one anyway it could be carried in a pocket
and used for finding motels or specific addresses. The one we bought
was on sale at a pretty good price or we would not have bothered. So
anyway, we purchased a Magellan 1424 GPS and had some fun using it.
However, 31 days later I realized that it was not working correctly and
Canadian Tire has a 30-day return window. The GPS would not hold a
charge and was shutting off when plugged in to a 12-V outlet in the
vehicle. So it was now 1-day past the return window but I took it back
into CTC on the off chance they would bend the rule a tad. They would
not do that but they did offer to send it back for us. The instructions
say in bold print to not take a unit back to the retail outlet but
phone for over-the-phone troubleshooting. We were not having trouble
using the unit, the unit simply stopped working. So I had no problem
letting CTC send it back. They said they’d call as soon as it was
retuned to the store.
A month later I went in and inquired. They explained that it had not
come back yet and that Magellan was ticked at us for not phoning for a
return order authorization. However, they also said that Magellan said
that it was OK for them to have sent it back. Only thing was, they
didn’t have a return order number and therefore they had no way to
track it and therefore could not find it. This went on for a couple of
weeks, with me going in every few days to check. Then about a week ago
CTC told me that their corporate office had been credited for the cost
of the unit but that until they (the local store) could find and claim
that credit that we were stuck in limbo. This went from day to day with
each different person at the service counter claiming they would look
into it and call me at home. Finally I ran into a service counter girl
who actually was doing stuff and she said she’d talk to the boss and
find a solution for us. She informed me that the boss would be in the
next morning so I came in and sure enough she has worked out a
solution. The boss had agreed with her that the customer should not
have to wait while CTC worked out its internal paperwork and they
handed us a new unit. Just that easy, should and could have been done
weeks ago.
So far this one seems to be working just fine. Now we just need ‘The
Wife’ to learn to use it while sitting on the back of the bike and we
should be able to find every Point Of Interest from here to Timbuktu.
*
We will be ‘on the road’ for a couple of Saturdays so I won’t be able
to send out the Squamidian as usual. However, Greg might be able to get
something out in my place. I intend to send him some updates along the
way so if he does, great, if not, well, you get what you pay for.
doug
****
ONTARION
REPORT
Hello everyone!
Happy belated Canada Day to all! I guess they had quite a splash up
there in Ottawa with the queen and all present for what is probably her
last visit to Canada. My mother had a picture of the queen and prince
Phillip on the back of a train that she took in 1954 I believe it was,
at the Kitchener train station. With an Irish/English parentage my
mother and her mother and father were quite the Royal fans. I remember
my mother’s parents having a large picture of the queen on their living
room wall. I don’t have a clue where that pic is today but it was one
of those mounted behind glass with sculpted edges and a backing behind
the picture held together like a sandwich by four bolts through the
glass. It reminded me of the pictures of the Queen that we had in our
school classrooms back in the 50s and 60s. It would actually be kind of
cool to have now as an antique keepsake right now. I wonder if the
public school board has a room full of them in some storage building
somewhere.
With the queen visiting Waterloo on Monday it should be quite the busy
day for local police and RCMP. They’re allowing anyone that wants to
see the queen to park in the field to the north of the Waterloo
International Airport in Breslau and then they can line the roadway
into the airport parking area. The people are allowed to line that road
and fill the parking area at the airport itself but nobody will be
allowed into the terminal or onto the tarmac inside the fenced off
area. They will have to be satisfied with taking pictures of the
motorcade as it exits the airport. The queen is visiting Waterloo to
take a tour of the RIM manufacturing plant to see how her own personal
Blackberry was built. In fact I’m sure Mike Lazaridis and Jim Ballsilli
will present her with a new Blackberry to commemorate her visit. That’s
cool eh, two billionaires presenting another billionaire with something
for free! LOL! I guess all this press is good for business and after
all what’s one freebee if it gets them worldwide advertising for their
product! Who else can claim that the queen uses their product every
day? LOL! She probably needs it to summon Phillip to scrub her back in
the royal tub each morning! Now that I think of it, if all of the royal
families’ staff each carried a Blackberry, that would put another
million or two in Mike Lazaridis’ pocket so maybe giving her one free
one is a good idea after all.
Are any of you going anywhere to see the queen while she’s here in
Canada? I guess it would be cool to see her in person before she’s
gone. She is a remarkable woman and the longest reigning monarch in
history I think. We might just head up to Phillip St to see if we can
watch her pass as her limo enters RIM’s parking lot. I’m sure that
street will be jam packed full of Royal watchers too so it might just
be a waste of time. I’ll have to give it some thought before Monday
morning. It would be cool to take her picture here in KW. I doubt
she’ll be back this way again. I think this will be her last visit to
Canada let alone KW. Who knows, she may just last as long as her mum
did so that would give her another 20 years I think. I’m not sure how
old she is now but I think she’s at least 80. I’m sure that Phil will
bite the dust before she does. He’s looking more fragile every time I
see him. I think he’s a couple of years her junior too!
It’s hard to say which one will go first but it’s usually the guy that
leads the way! We’ll just have to wait and see what happens there.
Speaking of Royalty, I gave the gardens a royal trimming yesterday and
they are looking perkier than ever. The last time I did them was about
a month and a half ago so they needed it for sure. It’s hard to believe
how huge some of the thistly weeds were that I found among the legit
plants. Some of them were three feet high and a foot across and thorny
beyond belief! I had to wear thick leather gloves to keep from being
stuck by their hefty thorns. After all was said and done, I had two of
those huge heavy paper yard waste bags stuffed full of clippings. I
hope the garbage people are still picking up yard waste through the
summer months.
That’s it for this week folks!
Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again
next week in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now….. GREG.
PS: Something To Think About?
Take a deep breath, it calms the mind!
****
Have a good one..
the doug
http://www.thedougsite.net
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