The
Squamidian Report – March 12 / 11
Issue #459
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
I wish you could see the cornices along the high ridges and peaks around here. They are massive overhanging shelves of snow. Those high areas are jagged rugged rocky places when the rock is exposed but right now they are buried under an incredible amount of bright white snow that covers the rock. The snowfields cover the crags and outcrops with a smooth blanket. While we never get blowing and drifting down in the valleys, those high areas get blasted by hurricane strength winds, and the wind-blown snow builds into cornices. They are so large that they are easily seen from many miles away along the leeward sides of the mountains.
The same deep snow that has built up at the top of the mountains has also created a deep blanket across the forested high country and down onto the valleys that don’t directly open onto the ocean. That snow cover has created problems for the wildlife. While small critters are comfy and safe underneath the snow, the larger creatures that must feed or hunt on top are finding it very difficult. And to that end, we are starting to have cougar sightings here in the Highlands section of Squamish. They are coming down looking for food and the easy abundance of house pets is pretty enticing.
Now this has nothing to do with snow, but with a very disturbing violent crime that took place in the Lower Mainland last October or so. What happened was a young woman about 16 years old was brutally beat to death on a walkway through a park. At the time the police were unable to find any indication of who was responsible. The news media found out that the father had connections to the Hell’s Angels and tried very hard to insinuate some sort of rival gang implication. However, except for the fact that there was an Angel presence at the funeral, no other gang activity could be found that related to the murder.
While I was visiting Ontario and watching the Vancouver news on Lorne’s satellite TV, I heard that the police had found and charged an 18 year old punk who seems to have no connection to the victim, family or gang. The murder was random. The parents have expressed both gratitude and surprise that the police investigated long enough and hard enough to identify and arrest the accused. The troubling thing about the arrest is that the accused was ‘just 17’ when he committed the murder and will therefore be tried as a juvenile, not an adult. Implications are that he will not get much more than a slap on the wrist for what is one of the areas most brutal murders ever.
Now normally I would personally be incensed at the idea of this murderer being handed off to the bleeding heart young offenders system. But this time I’m not. Think about it. Where in all the world can the person who not just murdered, but brutally beyond imagination murdered the daughter of someone with connections to the Angels be ‘safe’. No where! The Hell’s Angels have connections everywhere. They have members behind the same bars this person will find himself behind. They have eyes and ears everywhere. It does not matter what official penalty the accused will face. He will ultimately receive the full weight of what he deserves, not at the hand of the law, but at the hands of the lawless. Just my opinion but I have full confidence that he will eventually get exactly what he deserves.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Well here we are deeper into March and still no Spring! Guess we’ll just have to be patient keep on shoveling!
With all the snow we’ve gotten here since we got home from Florida it seems like we were hardly away from it. On the other hand, the sand on the beach and in the beautiful dunes on Santa Rosa Island is so white that it was a constant reminder of our snow back home while basking in the Florida sun. Speaking of which, we were lucky this time down to have rented a condo on the fifth floor of the building. The fifth floor is the first one occupied by condos. The first four floors are parking garage in these buildings. The fifth floor is the only floor in each of five buildings that has condos with huge patios projecting out from what are just narrow balconies on all other floors. The only drawback is that the 18 floors above can drop whatever they wish down onto the patios below. Of course this is unpleasant if you happen to be sunning yourself on your patio. We were fortunate enough to have respectful occupants staying above us on all floors. The patio was wonderful because it allowed us to take advantage of the lovely sunshine even on breezy and cooler days. The patio is approximately 15’ x 45’ in size and protected by 3’ high walls on the front with 2’ of glass on top of the walls. This allows you to have a beautiful view as well as be protected from any winds blowing. The patio had 6 wrought iron chairs and a table on the upper level at the one end and 3 loungers, 2 tables and 3 high bar stools and a high table on the lower level. There was also a regular “balcony” that fronted the condo with two more sets of chairs and two tables on it if you didn’t want to venture out onto the patio.
What a set up this was! If you remember, I mentioned last year that these condos originally sold new back in 2004 for between $350,000.00 and one Million dollars each. They are now selling because of the recession for $200,000.00 to $450,000.00. If you could afford a winter get away in Florida, this would be a good investment! However the condo fees are not cheap and I imagine neither are the taxes, especially if you’re not a citizen of the USA. The condo fees are $1000.00 a month and up depending which condo you own. I imagine that most costly are the penthouse units!
Anyway, we did spend a good portion of our time lounging on the beach in the beautiful white sand. The water was sparkling blue and the Pelicans were amazing to watch as they dove into the surf after their lunch! We didn’t eat out much while there as the condo has a beautiful kitchen and an electric BBQ on the balcony. It was just nice to get away from all the wintery weather and the hassles of the phone ringing every 5 minutes at home. Spending a month without the usual annoyances sure is relaxing and we’ll likely do it again next winter. While there this time, we visited with friends that live there. He was a boyhood friend of mine whom I hadn’t seen for 50 years until last time down in 2010. Now we keep in touch and see them when we’re down that way. We also visited the Pensacola Naval Aviation Museum which is on the Navy Base twenty km from where we where staying. This place is amazing! Of course Pensacola is the home base for The Blue Angels, the Navy aerobatic team. You can see them out practicing over the Gulf every once in a while and ominous looking military aircraft are constantly flying along the beach in their normal daily flight patterns. Pensacola has a Navy air base as well as a US Air Force base on either end of the city. They are about 25 miles apart so they are vigilant about keeping within their own air space. In fact, the air force base is the largest in the US so it’s very busy. They have a combat practice range in the middle of the unpopulated area of the Florida “Panhandle” and if you drive over to the perimeter of the base you can watch and hear the jets on their practice bombing runs several days a week. They are impressive to say the least!
The Navy Air Museum has massive aircraft from the past on display and it’s incredible to visit this site. They even have four of the actual Blue Angels jets from the past suspended from cables in the rotunda of the building. They have everything from a mocked up aircraft carrier tower and gunnery station to tiny two place helicopters and WWII fighter planes on display. There is even an entire area with the cockpits of fighters cut from real jets on display and you can climb in to have your picture taken as if you’re in the real jet. We tried a few of them and they are very technical and very cramped! You can visit this museum on line if you like. They have an F4 Phantom fighter jet mounted on a pedestal out front of the main entrance. What an impressive machine that is! I sure wouldn’t want to see it bearing down on me in a combat situation! What an awesome sight!
Our drive down to Florida was in clear and dry weather and we watched the weather reports as we headed south. We were just ahead of the winter storms as they closed in behind us on our way down. We sure got lucky with the weather.
On the way home, we had the same thing, beautiful clear and sunny all the way to the border. We missed the cutoff for the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit because of a construction mess so we drove on to Port Huron/Sarnia crossing and made an easy crossing there. As we approached the crossing from the Port Huron side of the bridge, we could see clouds on the Canadian side even though it was clear, dry and sunny on the US side. It took us literally 2 minutes to get through the Canadian checkpoint and then as we drove onto the 402 it started to snow and the land all around us was covered in at least 2 feet of snow from past storms. Welcome Home the snow seemed to say! It was good to be home and even with some fresh falling white stuff the highway was clear but wet. After about 30km of snow it cleared up and the blue sky was overhead once again. It stayed that way until we pulled into our driveway. I managed to unload the Jeep before the snow came down once again. The next day I was out with the Snow Blower and back in the groove as an “Ontarion” once again! It was good to be home!
We’ll see what next year brings!
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>
The temperature on the surface of the Sun is 5,500 degrees C. Now that’s HOT! Good thing the sun’s rays have time to cool off during their 8-minute trip to Earth!
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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.