The Squamidian Report – Oct. 4 / 14
Issue #645
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
A couple of time during the riding season we put on a BBQ for my
chapter members. I should clarify that, for my active members. The ones
who joined but have never been seen or heard from don't get invited, if
for no other reason, I don't want people I don't know in or at my
house. Anyway, we put on our 'nearly the end of the riding season'
BBQ last Saturday and had about a dozen bikes plus a van full of
people attend. Its always cool to have a bunch of motorcycles parked
along the street in front of the house. The neighbors that know us
don't have a problem with the bikes because they know we are not loud
or fast or out to bother anyone. And they know we won't be going late,
our parties tend to end early enough that the riders can get back to
the city before it gets too dark and too cold. Here in the mountains it
tends to get cold quickly once the sun goes down.
We all hooked up in Horseshoe Bay just after lunch and did a group ride
to 'here'. The BBQ was basically an afternoon affair. By 6:30pm
everyone was mounted back up and heading back to the city. At this time
of year and this latitude, its dark by 7:30 and down right chilly. No
need to be out on a bike later than that. Not much else to tell except
for the fact that 'the wife' always manages to come up with lots of
good stuff to eat, and everyone ends up well fed.
Willow likes a good party too. She tends to think everyone is there to
see and pay attention to her. And for the most part, pretty well
everyone was more that willing to give her lots of attention. So, she
had a great time making the rounds.
Then in mid-week we popped down to Ryan's to fix a problem with his
fence gate. When we built the fence a while ago, we were stuck with
using the existing posts, for several reasons that I won't bother going
in to. I had figured at the time that there may be an issue with one of
more posts shifting a bit and one did which caused a domino effect on
the adjacent posts. That post shifted a tiny bit but the result was
that the gate no longer shut smoothly. The old post at the end of the
yard is also up on an embankment and concreted in to tree roots and
underground power lines so like I said, we could not replace it. The
weight of the gate pulled on the panels which pulled on the posts. We
simply removed the last panel, the one that was angled up the slope,
and then ran some turn-buckles and wires from the top of the next post,
to the bottom of the last post, and pulled the rest of the fence back
to plumb. It has shifted, like a parallelogram, about 3/16 of an inch.
The turn-buckles will stay in place for any future adjustments. Then, I
pulled that last panel apart and made some adjustments including some
angle bracing and screwed it back into place. Everything I build is put
together with screws, not nails, making any future repairs or
adjustments fairly easy. Now, because of the way the last panel is
braced, and the way the turn-buckles hold the second post, the gate can
not pull the fence without pulling the last post upward which is pretty
well impossible. At least thats the theory. But like I said, any
necessary future adjustments to the gate fit can be done easily by just
tightening the turn-buckles.
While there 'The Wife' worked away in their back yard and Kyra happily
helped her. Amazing how much top soil that kid can get spread all over
her cloths and in her hair and everywhere. But she had fun and thats
what counts. Willow didn't have much fun, she was bored. In her
judgement we weren't doing anything fun or interesting at all.
Speaking of interesting, the province has just raised the speed limit
on the Sea to Sky highway. They raised the limits on most of the
provincial highways this summer but waited for a while to do this one.
I'm not sure I like the higher speeds. I like them when on the bike
when there is not too much other traffic around but when its busy its
not so fun. We get a mix of fast and slow drivers, and now the fast
drivers go even faster but the slow ones stay slow, creating a large
spread between the two, making for an unsafe situation. At the same
time they posted the new speeds, they put up winter driving restriction
signs indicating that winter tires are necessary on this highway from
Oct 1 to April 31, this being designated as a mountain highway. That
was always the case from Squamish on up to Whistler but now they have
include the section of the highway from Vancouver up to Squamish. Thats
a good thing, that section can get pretty dicy and when weather and
driving conditions warrant, vehicles should have to have the properly
rated winter tires. Large trucks must carry chains.
We have been running winter tires all year round on both our car and
truck, simply because there was no point switching back and forth given
the low miles we put on since we retired. However, by early last spring
the winter tires on the car had warn down to the point where they
needed to be replaced. We put the old, half warn out 'summer' tires
back on with the intention replacing them with good winter tires this
fall. To that end I've been giving a lot of thought to which winter
tires to go with. These new 'all weather' tires have caught my eye. The
concept is interesting. They are mountain and snow rated and carry that
mountain / snow fake icon and yet are supposed to give summer tire wear
and milage values. Any reviews I've found look good as well so thats
what we did. We had a set of 4 Nokian all weather tires mounted on the
car. They handle very well and the running noise is about the same as
normal radial tires. They meet or exceed the requirements for driving
on this highway during poor weather conditions. I just hope the police
enforce the tire restrictions because every winter we are plagued with
drivers from the city racing to Whistler in their SUV's running summer
tires and a high number of them end up in the ditch, usually
up-side-down, against the rocks. Should be interesting.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Well, Fall is here for sure and it’s starting to feel like it too! It’s
just getting to have that cooler feel to the air with the fresh smell
that comes with the turning of the leaves. It’s time to start clearing
the leaves off the lawn rather than just mulching the few that usually
fall sporadically on most days. I’m lucky to have a gas powered leaf
blower rather than just using a fan rake on the tons of leaves that
come off our trees. My aching hands wouldn’t take the motion of the
rake for very long I’m afraid! It seams that my arthritis likes to act
up this time of year and just to hold onto anything with a bit of a
tight grip is very painful these days. A raking motion is much more
difficult than just letting a blower hang in my hand so if I can pull
hard enough to start the little gas blower, it’ll be the better choice
for the task. I used to blow my leaves onto the street in front of our
house and across to the other side of the road to where there is a long
stretch of curb. They would sit there for a few days at most and then
the street sweeper from the city would come by and sweep them up. There
was never any problem over the past 16 years with my doing it this way.
Last year however the guy across the street that lives on the opposite
corner to us came running out of his house screaming at me not to blow
my “garbage” onto his property! I had a hand full of garbage that I had
sorted out from the leaves and had no intention to drop the garbage in
with the leaves. I couldn’t believe the garbage that came out of this
boor’s mouth. I was so taken aback that I couldn’t even think of a
reply to his shocking bellowing. I stood there on the road with this
huge gruff obnoxious figure leaning toward me from up on the curb still
screaming how he was sick of cleaning up my mess every year. I finally
gathered my senses and replied that he should calm down and stop
yelling at me and that I had no intention of blowing “my garbage” or
leaves onto his property. I guess he figured that the curb and
boulevard on that side of the street actually belongs to him! Before I
could say anything more, he called me an a_ _hole and told me once
again to keep my garbage on my own side of the street.
I asked who he thought he was talking to like that and told him once
again to calm down and not to call me that again. He just kept yelling
at me telling me again and again to keep my GD garbage off of his
property. I reminded him once more that the curb and roadway does not
belong to him in the first place and tried to remind him that the city
collects the leaves on a regular basis and in the 16 years I’ve lived
across the street from this Moron that I had not once seen him raking
or cleaning up the leaves that fell from the trees on his side of the
street. I was obviously wasting my breath because he just kept
screaming at the top of his lungs and calling me a few more filthy
names. I finally just turned my back on the jerk and walked away. To
avoid any further confrontation with this dough-head I’ve avoided
blowing any more leaves his way but whenever I think of that day, I
find it hard to resist loading up “his” side of the street when he’s
away at work with every leaf in the neighbourhood, including all the
trash that’s dropped by the passing litterers on a daily basis! I
haven’t been treated like that since my childhood schoolyard fights
with the bully of the day! Just where does an idiot like that get off
talking to a grown adult in such an insulting manner anyway? In my
teenage days, he’d have wound up with a bloody nose and possibly
missing a few teeth! The thing is he’s a very large (fat bellied) slob
with one of the loudest voices I’ve ever heard. I’m sure he has been an
obnoxious bully all his life and I can only imaging the terrible
atmosphere his wife and son have had to put up with, living with an ill
mannered pig for a husband and father! I guess it’s best that I just
ignore his presence and keep my leaves away from his precious curb!
This all happened a year ago and unfortunately there has been another
episode since. However I think I’ll save that one for another Ontarion.
One “ignorant Pig” story is enough for one weekend. I hope that none of
you will ever have to experience a neighbour such as this in your
lifetime! He’s unbelievable!
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>
Remember last week when I told you I worked in an orange juice factory
but got canned because I couldn’t concentrate? Well, as it turned out,
my next job was as a lumberjack, but I just couldn’t hack it, so they
gave me the axe!
I’ll tell you more about my employment history next week!
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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.
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