The Squamidian Report – Aug. 8 / 15
Issue #689
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Last Friday night I wasn't taking a shower that ended up with a call to
a plumber. I was sitting out on the back deck. Sitting there way later
than I would normally be due to the fact that it was still hot in the
house. It had been another in a long line of very very hot days with
the temps well up into the mid 30's and while the outside air had
cooled off fairly well, the house was still uncomfortably hot. Our
house stays nice and cool most of the day if we can get it cooled off
at night, which we usually manage to do. Then, all is well until about
mid afternoon when the sun starts to drop in the western sky. At that
point it shines in all the sky lights and heats the whole deck side of
the house. The inside temp starts to climb, often up in to the high
20's. It will be 6 or 8 degrees less hot inside but its still hot.
Anyway, last Friday night was also the full moon. It was also the Delta
Aquarid meteor shower, well, one of the nights of the shower. But like
I said, it was a full moon and those things tend to wash out the whole
sky with light. I sat there strumming my Martin, singing away to the
moon lit surroundings, lost in my own little weird world and quite
enjoying whole experience. Now, when I'm doing that kind of thing I
tend to keep things nice and soft and quiet so there was no complaints
from any neighbors although I've often wondered what they might be
thinking, if anything. Then, to my delight, several very bright meteors
streaked across the sky. Given the ambient background light from the
moon, they had to be bright in order to stand out. Very cool.
The next meteor showers, the Perseid, will be in mid August, and there
will not be any moon at all to interfere so that should be well worth
sitting out late to watch. Even if it means subjecting the neighborhood
to more soft quiet music.
*
As most of you know, I don't hold most members of the
general population in very high esteem. And I never seem to run out of
reasons to back my opinion. So hows this for more fuel for my
distain.... BC is burning. Forest fires are all over the place and more
starting daily. Most of them have been started by stupid humans. They
just don't get the message. Now because of how dangerously dry the
forests are, there has been a total ban on all open fires. This
includes camp fires in and out of the campgrounds and sites. The
ministry has had to patrol the campgrounds and camping areas to stop
campers from lighting fires, they just don't and won't adhere to the
rules. There has been instances where the campers have seen the officer
coming and tried to put out their fire and then claim they never had
one. There have even been campers who have become belligerent toward
the officers, claiming their 'right' to a camp fire should over ride
the need to protect the forests. There has even been campers who have
threatened the patrolling officers with shot guns. Thats criminally
stupid. I hope those creeps get the book thrown at them and then get
sent out to the front line of some fire thats totally out of control.
Yes, we sure have some dumb examples of humans wandering in our midsts.
And it doesn't end there. A major, totally out of control fire broke
out at Harrison Lake, a popular camping area in the Lower Mainland.
Campgrounds had to be evacuated. Campers complained about being
evacuated because they had come 'all that way' only to be told to
leave. How inconvenient of the fire and the officials to interrupt a
camper's right to camp.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
It seems that there’s a lot of shooting going on in Toronto these days,
not to mention a couple of police involved shootings right here in
Waterloo Region! The night club shootings of the other night on the
grounds of the CNE were quite a shocker, especially when there were a
dozen armed “paid duty” Toronto police officers working security that
night along with twenty some odd professional security people present
as well. After frisking and doing a metal detection job on everyone
that entered the club someone still managed to sneak weapons past the
entry point! I sure hope the Toronto police manage to find out who
these killers are and are able to arrest them before they kill again. I
think the shootings have to do with gangs in Toronto but even the
police have not yet said they suspect that’s the case. I guess being
Toronto is a very large city has a lot to do with it and it can only
get worse.
I’m sure you’ve all read about the death of Toronto TV celebrity Chris
Hyndman of the daytime duo Steven and Chris. They are or were married
to each other and were well-respected television personalities in their
own right! Carole and I watched their talk show and enjoyed the content
of their show including the many guests that made their hour on CBC TV
quite interesting and usually entertaining. The authorities haven’t
stated that there was anything suspicious surrounding Chris’ death but
being he was found late at night in an alley off Young St in downtown
Toronto makes me think there might have been some foul play involved.
I’m sure if there had been any shady circumstances it would have been
mentioned in the news by now. I hope for his husband’s and their
family’s sake he died of natural causes. Sad to hear of any loss of
life at any time but it’s particularly shocking when it happens to a
well-known television personality. RIP Chris!
*
As we all know, not a day goes by that there
isn’t something that needs our attention especially when we are home
owners and like to tend to the upkeep of our homes / major investment!
We just seem to be getting a handle on completing the list of “things
to do” around the house when something else pops up. Carole and I have
pretty well caught up with the regular maintenance at our house and
have been enjoying a few days of leisure. A few weeks ago Adam’s friend
from high school called him and offered him ownership of a small
utility trailer. His friend had inherited it from his father and he had
loaned it to Adam and I a few times when we needed to haul something to
the dump or from one house to the other. It was definitely handy and I
even gave thought to looking at purchasing one for just such times as
the ones that caused us to borrow Adam’s friend’s trailer. I decided
that I really didn’t have room in our small yard to park a trailer when
not in use. Adam’s friend’s offer happened to come at a time when Adam
was thinking of one we could jointly purchase and share the use of. He
also has lots of room in his large back yard to accommodate the storage
of a trailer. So the answer to his buddy was YES with THANKS he’d be
very happy to take it off his hands. His friend had been given a larger
trailer by his aunt and no longer had a use for the smaller one. The
trailer he gave Adam is only 70” by 42” in size but it has heavy-duty
springs and shocks and 14” wheels with new tires on it. So, it is able
to carry a hefty load. He said that before we could take it on the road
we’d have to check the wiring because there was one taillight that
wasn’t working and he suspected there was a bad ground in the wiring.
No Problem when the new owner is an electrician by trade! LOL! The
wiring of a utility trailer is a very simple system so we figured it
would only take a short while to repair.
Well, last weekend Adam had some time off finally so we decided to pull
the trailer into his garage and fix the wiring. The first thing we did
was look over the wires to see if there were any breaks or weak points
or joints. We found the ground wire right at the front of the tongue
was just hanging on by one thin strand. Adam removed the screw holding
the strand and installed a new connector on the end of the wire and
then screwed it back in place after grinding off the rust so the
contact would be well established. Well, we plugged it into my Jeep
hitch and one light came on! What the heck? Adam removed the lens of
the other light and fiddled with the bulb and the light came on, voila!
Fixed! Not so fast ol’ buddy! The signal wouldn’t work on either side
and the brake lights wouldn’t come on either. OK, now what’s wrong?
Knowing that the wiring was old, we decided to replace the entire
wiring harness from the plug right through the tongue of the trailer to
the rear lights. No big deal, just some wire, solder and a little bit
of effort to fish the wires through the tongue and out to the tail
lights and reconnect! We spent another hour pulling the new wires into
their place and soldering them to the lights and the front hitch plug.
Time to try the lights once again! OOPS, no more lights than we had the
first time so what the Hell’s going on now? Adam figured maybe we
should run a separate ground wire to each tail light just for good
contact sake so before doing that we used a test length of wire and
held it in place by hand before fishing it through and soldering it in
place. Well, we got each light to come on but the signals still would
not flash. Adam pulled the lens off the light that would not light the
first time we tried the lighting and found that the contact in the base
of the bulb socket was all corroded and the spring under the base was
rusted off, thus it wouldn’t push the contacts against the base of the
bulb.
So, off we went to Princess Auto to pick up a new taillight. Luckily
they are not expensive so $5.00 later we were on the way home! We got
home and re-soldered the new light wires in place. Time for another
test run! By this time we’d been at this project for about 4 hours and
were getting a tad frustrated! We tried plugging the trailer into
Adam’s Ram truck this time just for a change and to our surprise, got
the same poor results, no signals or brake lights! Now, back when
Carole and I purchased our new Jeep in April of 2014, I discovered the
new vehicle didn’t have the conventional flat 4 pinned trailer plug so
I purchased a round 7 pin plug that would mate to the Jeep hitch and
had a flat 4 pinned male connector on the opposite end. This would
allow the flat plug on the trailer to plug into the new Jeep’s system!
This conversion plug was also needed on the system on Adam’s Ram truck.
Knowing that the new round connector hadn’t been used before this
weekend, Adam decided to use his electrical tester to make sure there
was continuity from one end of the new converter to the other. He found
that there was continuity through the plug but once it was plugged into
the fitting on the truck or the Jeep, there was no power on the one
contact pin that matched up with the signal wire! After we both cursed
out the “New” conversion plug, he used a screwdriver and bent the
contact strait in the new fitting and BINGO, we had power and every
function of the trailer lighting worked! Had we checked the “New” plug
before starting the wiring project, it would have eliminated a lot of
grumping and head scratching and of course several hours of valuable
time wasted! I said I’d like to take the “New” plug back to where I
purchased it and plug it somewhere nasty into the guy that sold it to
me! LOL!
Of course that would just be another waste of time and I’d probably
embarrass myself to boot! So, it’s fixed now and like Adam said,
“Lesson Learned”!
The trailer and it’s lights are working well and I’m sure it’ll last us
a good few years even though it’s already about 30 years old! Next
thing will be a good cleaning up and some new paint! That however is a
job for another weekend!
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>
If God wanted me to touch my toes, he’d have put them on my knees!
****
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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