The
Squamidian Report – March 3 / 12
Issue #510
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
I guess I should pick up where I left off last week… there was a birthday party for Vivyan and that meant the usual house full of people. That old house has sure seen it’s share of family gatherings. It has watched 3 or 4 generations of people grow up and move on, only to keep coming back for the various events. There always seems to be an abundance of young, very loud children running and screaming around the living room, bumping into adults and furniture. There are always the groups of adults engaged in conversation, and those conversations seem to get louder as each group competes to be heard over the other groups. But, as usual and as always, it was a very good party.
The day started off on a bit of a shaky leg. Firstly, there was the snowstorm that had caused half the area to shut down and then didn’t bother to happen, but during the Friday night, squalls deposited about 4 inches of snow over everything including the streets. Saturday morning found the streets packed into a slippery white ice. Driving was a challenge. I watched numerous vehicles slide through intersections and into curbs as I headed over to the Homestead to drive Lorne out to get some medications. However, the unexpected snow gave me a chance to play with his tractor and blower. Go figure, the forecast storm didn’t happen but the un-forecast snow did. Must be embarrassing to be a meteorologist. By the time the party was starting to happen, much of the snow had melted and life was back to normal.
My visit was over on Monday and Carol braved the dreaded 401 and dropped me off at the Toronto airport. I had chosen to get there with lots of time to spare so she would not get stuck in the building afternoon traffic. As it was, I had way more time than expected. Stupid Air Canada had a fully booked regular flight, but no crew. How an airline can neglect to schedule pilots and cabin crew for a regular flight is beyond me or anyone else that was there. After an hour they managed to pull crew members in from somewhere and we finally got out of there. There were a lot of passengers who had connecting flights that would not be connected with. Next time, if I must fly, I’ll fly Westjet regardless of the cost. ‘The Wife’ and Willow picked me up at YVR and now I’m home. I had informed her that we were being delayed and she had kept an eye on it on the AC web site so she had avoided sitting waiting for who knows how long.
And, I got home in time for some west coast winter. On Tuesday Vancouver was put under a snowfall warning and believe it or not, some parts of the city got a dusting. Squamish was not included in the warning, but was forecast to get about 10 centimeters. We actually got twice that, about 20. Down in the valley it was perhaps 5, up here 20. Nice heavy wet stuff. Brushed the cob webs off of the blower and cleared mine and several other driveways. Wow, second time this winter. Maybe spring will come now. Or maybe not, we might have jinxed it for a while. You see, the day after the snow it was warm and sunny here and we couldn’t stand it any longer. So, we pulled the covers off the bikes and fired them up. Oh, such sweat music to these old biker ears, that Harley deep loud rumble. However, they are not currently insured and the local roads are deeply covered with salt and sand so they stayed confined to the garage. But it was nice, and a promise of things to come.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Well, it’s March and it came in like a lamb, if you don’t count the last three days of February as the lead up to it! That means that we’ll be in for a shitty ending to this month and the preamble into Spring of 2012. I guess no matter how Spring comes in this year we shouldn’t complain after the gentle Winter we’ve had! I’m hoping for a nice warm if not hot Summer starting about mid April and ending somewhere around early November and then a repeat of this past Winter would be nice indeed! We’ll just have to wait and see what Mother Nature brings us.
I’ve just been sitting here thinking of how with the advent of the computer, the world has gotten smaller! I have made contact with several people via computer that I never would have been reintroduced to in the remainder of my life had it not been for the computer age. It’s recommended that when you forward a message sent to you by another computer contact that you send that e-mail on to whomever only after you’ve deleted all the names and contact addresses from previous senders and recipients. Its computer etiquette to only pass on e-mail addresses when given permission by the owners of said addresses. In fact, when you forward an e-mail to more than one person you should do so by listing all but the first address under the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) heading so when each of those people receives your message, they don’t receive copies of all the other contacts addresses that were included by you in the mailing! This is in fact how I’ve reconnected with a few old friends and acquaintances myself. I’ve spotted the name of an old friend or two in a group of addresses that were not deleted by the person that included me in that mailing. I took the liberty of contacting the person that sent it to me and asked them to contact the person I thought I recognized in their list to ask that persons permission to allow me to have their e-mail address. It’s worked fine for me that way and I most certainly would have appreciated that discretionary effort on my behalf if someone possibly unknown to me were to want to contact me! That way, you aren’t sending unwanted mail to someone that may not want to be contacted!
I have reconnected with an old friend from KCI who now lives in Nova Scotia and we’ve actually met in person when he was visiting his father here in Kitchener. It was great and nostalgic to spend a couple of days with him and visit old haunts and rekindle old memories. This would never have happened had we not both been users of these new fangled things called computers! The second person was a childhood friend of mine who had moved to California with his family in 1959 and we reconnected via computer in 1998. In fact, we had seen each other in 1967 but then had not even been in touch via regular mail since then. He was here on business back in 1998 and phoned me one morning just before hopping a flight back to Texas where he was then living. We didn’t have time to meet up on that day but vowed to connect via computer when I had completed moving to a new house here in Kitchener later that year. We talked via computer for another few years and when he informed me that he and his wife had moved to Florida Carole and I met up with them while vacationing within 20 miles of their home back in 2010. It was very cool to rekindle that friendship after more than 50 years and believe it or not, we both swear we would have recognized each other had we not pre arranged the meeting! To think that neither of us had changed enough that the other would still recognize him is amazing! I guess you don’t lose some of your youthful features when you age but what those features are beats the hell out of me! LOL! They’re likely different features on each person. I only know that I did see features in my old friend that told me he was the same kid at heart that he was back in 1959 and he said the same to me!
I had one more recent computer happening that brought another old friend back in touch. I read an obituary of a childhood friend whom I hadn’t seen in 14 years. Before that time, it had been 25 years since we had been together. It was a sad occasion to read of my old friends passing and he had requested no service of visitation on his behalf. His family honoured that request and friends were asked to make a donation to the Canadian Cancer Society as expressions of sympathy for his passing. I noticed that there was a website provided by the funeral home where one could write a note to his family to extend condolences. I took a few minutes and expressed my sorrow at his passing. It had been three weeks since he died and I didn’t expect to hear any reply to my note of condolence. After all, I hadn’t seen or heard from his family in 40 years so I didn’t think they’d even respond. I was pleasantly surprised to receive an e-mail a few days ago from my deceased friend Dave’s brother Rob. I had thought that Rob had passed away many years ago so it was a double shock to find out that he’s still alive and living in BC. He thanked me for the kind words I’d expressed in my note to Dave’s family and said a few words of remembrance of the fun times we had together in our youth in the North Ward of Kitchener. This note opened the door to a computerized reacquaintance with another old friend and we have started rehashing old memories. I think this computer age is indeed a wonderful way to keep in touch with relatives and friends both new and old. To think of all the friends we might have lost, never to contact or hear from again if we didn’t have the computer age! God bless Steve Jobs and all the other computer inventors!
That’s all for this week folks!
Thank you all for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontario Report!
Bye for now… Greg
PS: Something To Think About>
Who from your past would you like to hear from again?
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Have a good one..
the doug
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