The
Squamidian Report – Nov. 26 / 11
Issue #496
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Winter storms used to generally happen in the winter. Not so any more now that we are headed into the next ice age. Now they are pumping in ever second day, bringing high winds, cold rains and mountains of snow. During those few years, a few years ago when the climatic cycle was giving us those hot dry summers and mild winters, and the people who make incredible amounts of money by pushing the Global Warming scare tactics were trying to scare even more money out of us, the ‘winter line’ around here was just north of Alice Lake. The ‘winter line’ is where the change from rain to snow takes place. Keep in mind, this is 3 dimensional terrain here and you can see where the freezing level intersects the terrain. Below the ‘winter line’ it stays green and wet, above stays white and frozen. That line has been moving down hill for the last couple of years. This year it seems to have moved all the way down to sea level, and all the way out the Sound as far as Porteau Cove. That’s quite incredible.
The North Shore ski hills have been open for several weeks already. Even Vancouver itself has had accumulating snow. Squamish has had to dig out twice so far and the last one was almost a foot deep, depending on your elevation. The mountain passes have all been closed several times, often daily. And this is the first time in record keeping that avalanche alerts have needed to be issued in November. In fact, there have already been snowmobilers lost to avalanches, and The Duffy was closed because it got buried. And yes, my snow blower is now serviced and ready to go. That simple fact might help to ward off more wintery weather for a week or so.
In the past week, Whistler has received almost 6 ft of snow, depending on elevation. We have lost most of our snow here (probably because my snow blower is now serviced). The last couple of storms pumped heavy rain and slightly above freezing temperatures into the valleys so the snowline is now just above us again but that it won’t stay there for long. Most of November has seen temperatures that are ‘normal’ for January on the coast so unless we revert back to ‘seasonal’, we’ll be seeing a lot more snow in the near future.
On a totally different subject, it is no fun at all sitting in a dentist chair for two and a half hours, and it gets very boring after a while. It’s a bit hard on the jaw as well, as you lay there with multiple hands and numerous tools jammed into your mouth. It wouldn’t be so bad if there was something to do, but all you can do is endure. I suggested to the dentist that they stencil puzzles onto the ceiling because after counting backward from 100, by threes, it didn’t take long for a numeric pattern to appear and I then had to try a different increment. Once all the possible increments were used up, that got boring. I tried to let myself fall asleep but it takes a certain amount of awakeness to hold your mouth open. After a long while it occurred to me that I should have used the men’s room ahead of time, but that impending need at least presented a diversion for my brain to think about. Eventually the adventure ended and I was able to stagger to my feet and head home. I was however, still rather frozen on that side of my face as he had administered two needles worth of freezing between my teeth and my cheek, and another two up through the roof of my mouth. Don’t like those very much. Once home I laid down and slept it off, then awoke fine except for a sore head, but even that went away after a while.
On another totally different subject, we have a neighbour who has a pilot license. I’ve gone flying with him before. He now owns his own airplane, an old clunker of a Piper Cherokee that is assumable air worthy but half the instruments don’t work and there are a few dings and scratches on it. I should point out that the critical flight instruments work so the plane is still legal under VFR flight conditions. Oh, the heater doesn’t work either so when its cold out you bundle up. Anyway, as a way of substituting for the inoperative instruments, he purchased a flight GPS that can do some pretty incredible things. Gadgets like that simply did not exist 30 years ago when I used to fly. Heck, they hadn’t even been thought of yet back then. He wanted to try out his GPS under flight conditions and on Friday we finally had a nice clear sunny day so out to the little Squamish airport we went.
He had not flown his plane in several weeks because of the weather, and we had to move it into the sunshine so the ice would melt off. By the time we had it fuelled up and had gotten the engine to finally start, the surface ice was gone. Our intention was to fly north over Whistler and Pemberton and then follow the Hurley Pass to Gun Lake and then backtrack back south to Squamish. This would give his GPS a good workout. The Squamish airport is an uncontrolled airport, meaning, Unicom rather a control tower, and there is just one short runway with no taxiways, you taxi down the side of the runway when its clear to do so. Take off and climb out were uneventful, but as we climbed through about 3,000 ft his control wheel began to stick. In and out (elevators) was fine but clockwise and counter clockwise (ailerons) was sticking. It broke free but kept re-sticking whenever there was no movement from the wheel. Our assumption was that there was condensation inside the wings, on the rods that move the ailerons and that we had climbed into air that was below freezing. The outside air gauge verified that we were indeed in freezing air. So, the first thing to do was keep moving the wheel, rocking the plane back and forth so the controls would stay free. By now we were over Whistler and the logical thing to do was turn back toward Squamish where we could drop back down to warmer air, so we did. Once we were over terrain that permitted us to drop down into air that was warmer than the freezing point, the controls stopped freezing and became smooth again. We flew back to the Squamish field and landed with no other problems. It will be interesting to come up with a way of drying the condensation from the insides of the wings but once we do, the sky’s the limit.
I should mention that the scenery was spectacular. The mountains are very snow-covered so the snow glistened white in the sunshine. The Table Top loomed above us as did The Tusk, and Daisy Lake as well as the smaller lakes along the way below us shown like jewels. I did have my camera with me but we were a tad busy for picture taking. Oh well, next time.
And for anyone who might care, I’ve uploaded another couple or my home recorded songs to my web site. Face it, I have to do something to keep me out of mischief when its cold and wet and miserable out. Not that I would ever get into any mischief but you never know.
http://www.thedougsite.net/Songs/songs.htm
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Well, the Christmas tree is up and I’m happy to say that we still call it a Christmas tree! The city of Waterloo last week was in the news over a controversy that started when some citizens on the street were asked by the local CTV station if they were offended by the city staff calling the Uptown Waterloo decorative tree a “Holiday Tree”! From all the responses I witnessed on the six o’clock news, there wasn’t one interviewee that sided with calling the tree a “Holiday Tree”. I watched this spot on the news with interest and frankly, I’m surprised this is even an issue! The reporter asked if people thought that we should be calling the Jewish faith’s Menorah a “Christmas Candle Stick” because of the time of year it is in the spotlight and of course they responded with a resounding “No”!
What the hell is this world coming to anyway? Of course the Menorah shouldn’t be called anything but a “Menorah”! It’s a symbol of the Jewish religious faith and celebration of “Hanukkah” just as the “Christmas Tree” is a symbol of the Christian religions celebration of the birth of Christ! In the first place, this was an idiotic comparison by the reporter or whoever wrote this news piece! It’s not the Jews that are saying they’re offended by our use of the term “Christmas Tree” it’s the Muslim world for the most part that is making a big stink over the public use of this label for the tree that’s prominent in this yearly Christian celebration of faith. On the other hand when it comes right down to it, the problem here is being perpetuated by the “Politically Correct” chicken-shits that listen to the whining by non-Christians about the name of the tree! In other words, it’s the politicians trying to please all faiths in our diverse society so they don’t cost themselves votes by siding with the Christian faith! This country was founded by Christians and developed by using the Christian faith to make it a law abiding, fair, honest and decent society and anyone with half an eye can see how God has played a key role in Canada’s and the USA’s past and hopefully future!
Here in Canada we welcome all faiths and all races without prejudice and all we ask in return is that when immigrants choose to come here to live that they adapt to our ways, live by our laws and learn our way of life without prejudice! When “Ramadan” is being celebrated by the Muslim faith I don’t expect them to rename it with some “Christian” name because it offends me that I’m not included in their celebrations! Why then are they offended by the name given to a symbol of my Christian faith when at this time of year we Christians are celebrating an occasion of our faith that has nothing to do with the Muslim population of our society? This is what “Freedom Of Religion” is all about and it’s part of the constitution and laws of Canada and if new members of our society can’t accept and support this way of life, I say they should go back to their country of origin and forget about living here in our Great “Free” Country of CANADA!
God Bless the law abiding and freedom loving individual citizens of CANADA and “MERRY CHRISTMAS “ to all!
That’s all 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>
Only 30 days till Christmas! Do you have your “Christmas Tree” up yet? Cheers!
PPS: The tree in question is a symbol of a Christian Celebration, not a symbol of this time of year being a “Holiday”! That’s why it’s called a “Christmas Tree”!
PPPS: One more quick question: Are the politicians and “politically correct” people not afraid of offending the Christains of Canada? And if not, why not?
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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.