The
Squamidian Report – Oct. 5 / 13
Issue #593
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
I do a song called ‘November Rains’ that should perhaps be renamed to ‘September Rains’. The last weekend of September out here was a tad on the wet side. We got hit with a series of early winter storms. Normally, by mid November the storms line up out in the middle of the Pacific ocean and then hammering the coast, wave after wave of powerful storms pumping in huge amounts of rain. These were typical winter storms that included lots of high winds. BC Ferries had to shut down operations for a day. Downed trees knocked out power in many areas. Here in Squamish the storm clouds pilled up against the wall of the Coastal Mountains and dropped over 200 ml of rain in just 3 days. It was like being under a soaker hose, very wet. Along with the rain came the inevitable snow up in the high country. I had mentioned fresh snow up on Brohm. All the local mountains now are covered. I would guess the snow-line is at about the 3,000 ft level.
Sure hope it dries up and warms up a bit. I’ve just had the front tire on my motorcycle replaced and still have not had much of a chance to start wearing it out. The poor bike sits forlornly in my garage waiting for the next riding opportunity, dry, but forlornly.
Oh, by the way, we (Willow and I) picked ‘the wife’ up at the airport very late Wednesday night. Almost qualified as early Thursday morning. Once Willow figured out where we were going she became quiet excited. I hadn’t told her, she just put two and two together. She was beside herself when ‘the wife’ got to the car in the airport parking garage. That dumb Westjet’s flight schedules are getting worse all the time. Flights from KW now leave an hour later than they used to and therefore get to Calgary an hour later which means the connecting flight to Vancouver is the last one out and gets you to Vancouver just before midnight. Way past my bedtime. The up-side is that there are no traffic problems at all with the usual exception of the J-walkers in downtown Van that dress in black so they can’t be seen in the dark and then just walk out into traffic anywhere and any time they choose. They apparently feel ‘entitled’. Drivers must keep a very sharp eye open for them. However, once through the city we had the highway to ourselves and enjoyed a starlit drive up the Sound. The overcast of the last week or so had broken revealing a nice dark starry sky. Interestingly, a squall must have hit the east side of Howe Sound while I was picking up ‘the wife’ because there was snow on the trees for several kilometers starting where the highway climbs over Eagle Ridge above Horseshoe Bay. The road was dry but the white stuff had stuck to the branches. Our current temperatures have gone back to their normal, below normal, normals, and its become November, not late September / early October around here again.
Ok, here’s something kind of funny. We usually go out for a coffee in the morning after walking Willow. Its just something we do, a bit of quiet time together before we each get distracted by all the little things we end up doing each day. Our normal coffee outing destination is McDonalds. I don’t have much use for their clown food and mass production approach to running a restaurant but they make very good coffee and it’s very reasonably priced. We just go through the drive-through and then park where we can see the mountains and the world going by. The people who man the drive-though have gotten used to our normal order, 2 senior’s coffees and 1 muffin. The muffin is shared by both us and the dog. Anyway, when ‘the wife’ was in Ontario, I had a heck of a time convincing them that I only wanted 1 coffee because ‘the wife’ was not with me. You see, they know the sound of my voice and quite efficiently equate it with a specific order. Eventually they caught on and stopped accidently giving me the second, not needed, coffee. When ‘the wife’ got back, we were back to ‘normal’. As we pulled up to the pickup window, all the girls working inside called “welcome back” to ‘the wife’ and asked how her trip was etc. It just struck us as both funny and nice that in a place with a sterile and assembly line approach to dealing with food and customers that they do at times get to know some of their customers and are aware of those customers being there, or not being there. They will even on occasion ask when the baby will be with us again, as she is this weekend.
Another funny thing about being recognized by our specific order is that we can’t change it. We’ve tried. When ‘the wife’ was worried about her cholesterol, she started drinking her coffee with milk, not cream. She has long since switch back to cream everywhere except at the local McDonalds. We’ve tried, can’t be done. I can request both coffee’s with double cream but when we get to the pickup window, the person manning the window will have recognized it as our order and assumed that the person taking the order made a mistake as they punched it into the system. It gets corrected back to milk, every time. Just a funny little thing.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Looks like we’re in
for a few thunder storms over the weekend so I guess I’ll be mowing the lawn a
few more times before it’s all over for 2013! LOL! It’s a shame that the lawns
suffer over the main summer months and pick back up so nicely during the fall
months. Guess if I watered the grass a few times a week during July and August
I’d have less brown spots than I did this year and last. Usually though as you
know there are watering restrictions placed on us by the city during hot dry
spells so watering regularly is out of the question in these days of
“environmental consciousness” and conservation.
The other day we
were sitting enjoying an early morning cup of tea on the garden swing and we
were suddenly blasted out of our peaceful surroundings by the sound of a
massive tractor style lawn mower on the other side of our fence. It was the
city crew mowing the Hydro Right of Way at 8am! What the heck????? They don’t
have the time or money to maintain the right of way all summer in the heat but
now that they’re getting close to the end of the season and want to use up
their remaining cash in the budget so they don’t lose that extra percentage
next year, they jump on the chance to get mowing! This is the second time
they’ve cut the Right Of Way in the past 4 weeks and during the summer months
when it really could have used a good trimming, they cut it twice all flippin’ summer! Even then they were mowing it on weekends
so they could pick up some overtime! I often wonder where the hell the city
department manager’s heads are when this sort of shenanigans is going on! It
boils down to them not wanting to be given a smaller budget to work with next
year by not using up all of the present years budget! Please tell me what would
be wrong with saving the tax payers money by not abusing all of the money
budgeted for their current year? I’ve seen this happen first hand when on the
fire dept. Quite often word went out within the department to let the chief and
deputy chief know if there was any equipment needed at the end of the year so
they could use up the last of the money in the budget before going to council
at budget meeting time to ask for cash for the coming year! They seemed to
think that if they had a surplus of cash from the present year, that council
would lower the amount of money they’d allot to the Fire Dept for the coming
year! I guess it was true but have you ever known a city council to skimp on
spending where it actually did no good? I think not! We’ve all seen our city
council members and the mayor splurge on unnecessary crap by spending thousands
and thousands of dollars that just seemed to disappear! Where the dollars would do some good,
they balk at coming up with the money! I’m glad I’m not on council, I’d be
ready to jump off a bridge from all the BS they go through at the council
meetings. Nope, not for me! It aggravates me enough just listening to the news
reports about results of these meetings.
That’s enough soap
box yammering for this week!
Thanks for tuning in
and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next time in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now … Greg
PS: Something To
Think About>
He Said/She Said
He Said: “Shall we
try swapping positions tonight?”
She Said: “That’s a
good idea – you stand by the ironing board while I sit on the couch with
a beer and fart!”
OK, I’d like to know
how many of you ladies just laughed at my use of the word “fart” in the last
paragraph? I’d be willing to bet that most of you tittered at least a little
when you read it! We guys get maligned throughout our lives for thinking this
word is funny and yet we’ll never know whether or not you ladies laugh at least
inside when there’s no guy around to witness it!
C’mon…. at least be
man enough to say I’m right this time! LOL! Hope you at least cracked a smile!
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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.