The
Squamidian Report – Oct. 9 / 10
Issue #437
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
We picked up ‘the kids’ the other morning just as it was becoming light out to drive them to the airport. They were heading to Mexico for a vacation but that’s not what I’m telling you about right now. They live in a townhouse complex in the Valleycliff section of Squamish, and as I pulled up in front of their carport I noticed a nice big black bear walk across in front of us over to the property fence. As I pointed it out to ‘the wife’, we saw another one already over by the fence. Then we saw two more sitting on top of the garbage bin, all within about 100ft of where we were now parked. We backed in under the carport so we could hopefully load the luggage without bothering the bears, or being bothered by them.
The reason the bears were there was because some moron had left the garbage bin lid open and that is a very big error around here. Bears here are like raccoons in most places. They are everywhere and they get into anything that is not covered or locked up. Squamish is one of only two places in all of BC that holds a ‘bear aware’ title. That means the community does all the right things to protect the bears as well as discourage them from coming into town. So, whoever left the garbage bin lid open did both the bears and the town a big disservice. Bears that find garbage become habituated to it and end up being destroyed. No one likes that. This time of year the bears are trying to build up as much fat as possible before they den up for the winter and garbage is an easy, fast food solution for them, but one that usually ends up badly.
*
Last Sunday was the Vancouver Motorcycle Toy Ride. They hold it every year at this time but this was the first time I’ve had an opportunity to ride in it. The ride staged at a large shopping mall that has a very large parking lot. It needs a large parking lot because there is usually about Ten Thousand bikes turn up and this year was no exception. There were so many bikes you could hardly move. When it came time to start out, the bikes left the parking lot 4 abreast and then spaced out to two abreast once on the street. There was a police escort as well as police traffic control so the whole procession was able to ride the full 30 kilometers to the destination without stopping. It took over half an hour to do the ride but it took almost an hour for all the bikes to depart from the shopping mall. We were about 10 minutes from the front and after parking at the PNE grounds we watched bikes come in for another half hour or so.
If you have never heard thousands of bikes running at the same time you don’t know what you are missing. It’s like being surrounded by a constant thunder that almost shakes the ground. If you have never ridden with thousands of bikes at the same time you won’t understand the feeling, you can’t help but grin from ear to ear. The sidewalks fill with people watching and waving. I didn’t take any pictures, how do you take shots of so many bikes, can’t be done. But I did have a great time and intend to do the ride again next year.
*
Now, if you remember last week I did not have much to write about because I did not get home from a 3-day road trip in time to put anything together. In a nutshell, we did a loop down through Washington State that put us into the Scablands(1), over the Cascade Mountains and out onto the Olympic Peninsula, then up onto Vancouver Island, across to the mainland and back home. I’ve put some pics and the story together on a couple of web pages and posted them at:
http://www.thedougsite.net/10-Rides/WashingtonRide.htm
(1) There is some incredibly interesting reading available about the formation and collapse of gigantic lakes at the end of the last ice age. These lakes formed over and over and lasted hundreds of years when ice dams blocked the melt water runoff of the glaciers. One lake, Lake Missoula formed multiple times and flooded parts of BC as well as Montana, Idaho and Washington States. Ice dams would form hundreds of feet high and miles wide. Then, in a cataclysmic event they would break and release an inconceivable amount of water in a torrent that would be equal to 10 times the flow of all the rivers in the world, a flow that would last about 2 weeks before the sea size lake would be emptied. That flow would devastate the land in its path and scour the bedrock all the way west to the Pacific. In many places the erosion cut hundreds of feet down into the bedrock leaving land looking scabbed and broken.
doug
****
****
THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
I was sitting at the computer and just decided to let my mind wander. I usually have a plan but sometimes it’s just best to say you’ve drawn a blank when you’ve drawn a blank! Drawing a blank is different than shooting blanks. Shooting blanks produces very little whereas drawing a blank can still be productive. You can go to the trouble of aiming at a target and squeezing the trigger, which results in a big fat zero if you’re shooting blanks. However, if you’re drawing blanks when it comes to thinking of something to write about, you can still count on producing something in the process. You may not come up with anything interesting to tell your readers but, even if it’s boring as hell you still have something to say to them. For instance, did you know that a pig’s ass is pork? I bet if most of you thought of pork in that vane you’d hesitate to eat it the next time sat down to a “Ham and scalloped potatoes” dinner! Or what about thinking of that juicy prime rib slab of beef as a slice of dead steer? Would you listen for the loud Moooooo as you stuck your fork in it? Probably not but I just wanted to give you some “Food” for thought! Other than turning vegetarian you could drive yourself into a vomiting rage if you gave serious thought to what you’re eating when you sit down to any “meat” dinner.
It doesn’t bother me but I’ve known many people in my life that are very squeamish when it comes to dinner table topics. For instance east coasters are very voracious Lobster eaters and there’s nothing about that practice that is delicate and appetizing if you ask me! In the first place you take a crustacean that’s lived among the slime and muck on the bottom of the sea bed for up to 50 years and the first thing you do is drop it into a large pot of boiling water, live! This act produces a loud hissing sound that is interpreted as a “scream” although it’s just the pressure building inside the animal when the liquid within reaches 212 degrees f, turns to steam and finds an orifice from which to escape. What a way to go eh? Then, you remove the prospective dinner from the pot once it’s turned a nice crimson red and plunk it onto your oversized platter. The platter itself is situated on a table usually covered with old newspaper to collect the splashing and splattering that goes on while dissecting ones chosen beast/feast. Next, the bibs go on each guest at the table to protect their tee shirts etc from the same mess created when the lobster is consumed.
The act of “Cracking” the claws is another joyous event. Huge nut crackers are used to squeeze the claw until it fractures into tiny pieces to allow access to the meat within or…… one can use the metal hammer provided by some hosts for this purpose. This is a tad messier than the “Cracker” device, thus the newspaper surroundings! Once the large appendages are reduced to rubble, there’s the ripping out of the tail from the armored body section of the animal. This produces another unique experience the east coasters like to call the dipping of the paste. The lobster is inverted and the table guest sticks his or her finger into the body cavity in a scooping motion to retrieve the kaki green substance known as lobster paste mmm- mmm! It’s actually as far as I know (and I could be wrong but it looks like it to me) lobster “SHIT” that just hadn’t been passed by the creature yet when it was trapped and boiled live for human consumption! The piece de resistance of the whole meal is the presentation of the tail section. This is the only appetizing section of a lobster if you ask me. The tail is split down the underside, right between the rows of centipede looking legs that seem to scratch at you while you’re cutting away and spread open to reveal delicate white flakey meat that is rather appetizing when dipped in melted butter. The tail meat is lifted out of the shell structure with a fork and saturated with melted butter then eaten as the butter runs down the consumer’s chin and onto the bib below. Mmmmmmm….. if you can keep your mind from realizing what you’re actually eating during the first 75% of this meal, the tail meat makes it all worthwhile. I think this is why most non-east coasters prefer to order and eat only “Lobster Tails” when dining at a classy restaurant such as oh say.. “Red Lobster”! That way they don’t have to face all that unpleasantness associated with accessing and eating the front 75% of a Lobster. East coasters would think we “Upper Canadians” are snooty and sissified I’m sure if they ever saw us attempting to eat a proper lobster dinner. Guess they may be right but I think I’ve just talked myself out of ever eating Lobster again!
Actually, I may have just made a good case for becoming a Vegetarian after all! Think about the gory details of meat sources the next time you sit down to a steak dinner and let me know if you were able to finish it let alone enjoy it! LOL!
That’s it for this week folks!
Thanks for tuning in and I look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now……Yum Yum… GREG.
PS: Something To Think About>
Eat at MacDonalds, you may not be eating meat anyway!
****
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.