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The Squamidian Report – Nov. 9 / 13
http://www.thedougsite.net/Squamidian/2013/nov09.htm Issue #598 Including: A Story From Lorne The Ontarion Hi All, Here's a bit of a followup to that logging truck problem I talked about a little while ago....There was a story in our local weekly newspaper about how irate and inconvenienced the local logging truck drivers and the local sorting yards were because the ministry of transport set up road side checks and pulled most of the logging trucks over to be checked. One of the yards was expecting 12 loads of logs that day, only 4 got through the check point. The mill was livid, the truck drivers who were pulled over were livid. As far as they were concerned, the ministry was over-stepping its authority by checking logging trucks. The fact that 8 out of 12 trucks were pulled off the road didn't seem to clue them in to the fact that there was and is a problem. They complained that the issues the inspectors were finding were 'maintenance' issues, not 'safety' issues. ???? Aren't all maintenance issues also safety issues? As far as the truckers were concerned, things like brake problems and other mechanical deficiencies were none of the inspectors business. WRONG. Maintenance issues can very quickly lead to safety issues as soon as something fails. Apparently, safety issues are things like running red lights and stop signs, speeding and that kind of thing. Well, a road side check is not going to catch those kinds of bad driving habits, but it will find the things that take bad driving over the line and turn it into a disaster. Road side checks don't even begin to address logging truck driving hours. In most of the trucking industry, drivers must log all their time behind the wheel and are forced to take uninterrupted rest break after so many hours of driving. Logging truck drivers need only log the time they are on public roads. At least thats my understanding of how it works. That means they could work a 16 hr shift and yet log only the few hours that spend screaming down the highway to get their load to the yards. The logging mills and yards want the biggest loads possible. The drivers are paid for the volume of wood they deliver, so they are encouraged to load their trucks as full as they can and then get those loads to destination as fast as possible. If you've ever seen one of these loads careening around one of the tight blind curves on a mountain highway, you'll understand why I said to keep as far away as possible. *
And now here's another bit of a follow-up … both Mac
computers have been up and running now since mid last week and we've
worked out pretty well all the little things that needed to be
resolved. The biggest little thing was and still will be for a while,
'The Wife' transitioning over to the Mac O/S. Once she is used to using
the Mac versions of the programs she had been using, all will be well.
Some things are just done differently. Mac has a backup strategy called
Time Line for backing up a given computer. It them does incremental
backups as things change or are added or removed, and builds a backup
that includes past snapshots of the system. That way, you could go back
a week and find something that had been deleted, or restore the whole
system to the way it was yesterday, or last week, or last month
depending on how far back your Time Line goes. Time Line will only work
on an external drive, you can't back up your internal hard drive onto
your internal hard drive. Obvious if you think about it. On my old
setup I had used a 1 terabyte external drive. I'm now using it for this
new machine. I had wanted to also use a partition on it for her Mac
Mini and it should be possible to set up and configure that way of
doing it. However, I have not been able to get that to work, and
for what its worth, that idea is not how Mac wants it done so perhaps
thats why it won't work. Easy solution is to simply set up her own
external driver for her computer so thats what I'll do at some point in
the near future. Pretty well everything else is worked out and it
should be smooth, trouble free computing from here on in, or out, or
however that saying goes.doug
**** A Story From Lorne For some reason, unknown to me and everyone else at yesterday's church session meeting, and not on the agenda, the discussion lent itself to stray topics. My contribution related back to the old Freeport United Church. Maintenance and cleaning was the responsibility of members. The Elders, and elder they were both in age and as board members, expressed concern of what may be over our heads. This time even more than money, bats! Yes, bats in the attic. My brother Howard volunteered him and me to climb a ladder and crawl through a hole in the ceiling, about 14 feet above the floor, to find what is up there and clean if necessary. Well, the real reason Howard volunteered was because he had read somewhere that bat dung or guano as it is refereed to commercially, commands a high price as fertilizer. Low and behold, directly above the pulpit was a pyramid of the stuff about 3 feet high dropped there by unseen overhead poopers. To this day I don't think they had it in for the minister, I think more likely they hung from a roof beam placed there by well meaning church builders of another era. We scooped up what we could, lowered it in buckets to the official board below and I have no idea how this story ends. Lorne
**** THE ONTARION REPORT Hello everyone! I’ve been following the story from Ottawa concerning Senators Mike Duffy, Patrick Brazeau and Pamela Wallen and it galls me to no end to see the news reports of their excuses for over charging the taxpayers of Canada. With the RCMP involved and investigating each of them it’s stacking up to what will most likely be criminal charges for fraud against the three of them! If this is the case the crown had better get on with the prosecution of these three crooks! Had this set of crimes been perpetrated by a normal citizen rather than a government official, they’d be up on charges already and either be sitting in a jail cell or be out on substantial bail by now! The very thought of each of these three crooks being allowed to keep and draw their over stuffed pensions after completing only six years of service to the senate will be a crime in itself. Especially since two of the years accumulated by each one of them to help them reach their minimum employment required to qualify for said pension will have been served while under suspension for fraudulent activities against the tax payers of Canada! Now, I understand that here in Canada one is innocent until proven guilty so I guess we must assume that these three people will qualify for their pensions up until the crown brings charges against each of them and also is successful in proving their guilt with regards to said charges. Unless I misunderstood the facts I heard on 570 Talk Radio in Kitchener the other day when they were discussing this situation, the pension each senator will qualify for after only 6 years of senatorial service will amount to approximately $24,000.00 per year! However, they must be making normal contributions to the pension plan in order for each year to be applied to the six-year minimum. This means that although each of the three senators under investigation have already put in four years as a senator, they will not be allowed to use the two years of suspended time to add to their employment record to total the six year minimum. Since they won’t be drawing a pay cheque during the next two years they also won’t be making contributions to their pensions. Therefore, each of them must work for and make contributions to their plan until the end of the year 2017 in order to qualify to collect their pensions. IF they are found not guilty of any charges that may arise from this situation they will be allowed to return to work in the senate as soon as the “not guilty” verdict is registered which may be in less than the two-year suspension. If there is a point where one or all of them face charges and are found guilty of fraud or whatever the charges are, then they will be ousted from their senatorial jobs and will be out of luck as far as collecting their pensions goes! Let’s hope that they will all face proper due process of the law just as a common citizen would in this situation. If all is fair and just, they’ll be treated just as any other law breaking citizen would and have to face the music! It seems to me that it’s highly unlikely that any one of these people didn’t know they were stretching the facts when they made their expense claims in the first place. They’re just ticked off that they got caught! Now let’s watch them squirm as they try to lie their way out of a criminal situation! Should be interesting to watch the process and hear the results of the RCMP investigation! Stay tuned! 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> *Commitment: (ko-mit-ment) Female: A desire to get married and raise a family. Male: Trying not to hit on other women while out with this one. ****
Have a good one.. the doug http://www.thedougsite.net The Fine Print! The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such. |