The Squamidian Report – Aug. 12 / 17
Issue #794
Including:
Lorne
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Way back in 2009 we purchased a Mac Mini computer that 'The Wife' has
been using since I got my own Mac Mini. The Mac Mini is a great little
machine. Its basically a laptop without a keyboard or monitor or
anything else for that matter. You plug all your stiff into it. It
takes up very little desk space and just sits there nicely. At the time
we got her unit, we opted for a slightly larger capacity hard drive
than what was stock in those days. We splurged on a gigantic 160 gig
drive because face it, how could anyone generate enough data to fill
such a cavernous storage space, so storage space would certainly never
be an issue. Well, that was just before digital cameras started to turn
up in everything and everyone, well, almost everyone, started taking
pictures of everything and uploading them to their computers. So, 2
grandchildren later, her hard drive is full.
That means either upgrading her system with a bigger drive or replacing
said system. There is no need to replace her system so upgrading seems
the way to go. And if we are upgrading her drive, we may as well up her
memory chips as well. Those units have 4 gig of RAM made up of 2, 2 gig
sticks in 2 bays and that unit's RAM can be doubled, up to 8 gig, with
each stick being 4 gigs. So, I popped down to London Drugs (thats a
western based store that has branches all over the place, including
here in Squamish, and has a very good electronics department). The
logical drive update would be an SSD, solid state drive rather than the
mechanical type that is in her Mini so I picked up a 500 gig SSD but
had to order the RAM chips. Her system is sufficiently old now that the
DDR3, 1067 hz chips aren't stocked anymore. So the SSD drive is sitting
here and we are waiting on the memory chips. When Ryan gets the
opportunity we will replace the drive and clone the O/S and apps and
files over. If the RAM chips are here by then we will do them at the
same time. If not, I'll pop them in once they are here. Her mini is a
bit complicated to dig into but thats not a problem.
Of course, because upgrading her unit is in the works, I figured I may
as well upgrade my system's RAM as well. My hard drive is still the old
mechanical type but it has a full terabyte capacity and because I don't
have many photos on mine, I've only used about 20% of its capacity so
there is no need to muck around with putting a new drive into mine.
When picking up her SSD drive I also picked up 2, 8 gig RAM chips for
mine. My system is a 2012 and while it came with 4 gig of RAM, it can
handle 16, an 8 gig stick in each of the 2 bays. I brought my purchases
home and excitedly shut down my computer, disconnected everything,
which is easy because with the exception of the monitor, everything
plugged in is via USB, and the monitor is plugged in via a connection
that is just as easy. Unlike her unit that is a bit complicated inside
and to open, opening mine is a snap and the RAM chip bay is right
there. I removed the old, 2 gig chips and then did a final inspection
of the new chips. Bummer, one was the required DDR3, 1600 hz stick that
my system uses, but the other was a DDR3 L 1600 hz stick. Mismatched
and not usable. The standard DDR3 chips are 1.5 volts but the DDR3 L
chips are 1.3 volts, the 'L' standing for 'low voltage' which is used
in some laptops to help manage heat. Took the wrong chip back with no
problem but they had to order in the proper chip, which came about 3
days later. Once I had that chip home it took all of 5 minutes to swap
out the old chips and install the new ones. My computer now has 16 gig
of RAM instead of its old 4 gig. The first RAM upgrade I ever did was
on my first computer, a Windows 486 system that came with a whole
whopping 4 MEG of Ram. I got real brave and doubled that up to 8 MEG.
Running Windows 3.1 and DOS, that made that computer seem like it was
flying. Now a MEG of Ram wouldn't be able to handle the average picture
jpeg taken on an average cell phone. Cool.
On another topic, we had ridden down to Horseshoe Bay on the bike this
past Tuesday for our usual meet-up with the group. The ride along the
Sound was so smoky we could barely see the water let alone any of the
Islands or the mountains on the other side. Down right spooky. The ride
back was more interesting in that the cherry red sun, as seen through
all that smoke, was sinking lower in the west and was casting a red
light on the barely visible water. There was no horizon, just the light
grey smoke, the red sun and the light grey water with a red shimmer. As
we approached the gondola on our way back into Squamish, we decided to
go up for a coffee. They are currently open till 9pm in an attempt to
attract more customers but thats not working out very well because of
all the forest fire smoke. However, up we headed and by the way, that
was my 801th time up as that morning had been my 800th. Anyway, down at
the base level the sun had set behind the invisible mountains to the
west so twilight had set in. As we rode up, and from our viewing
perspective and angle, the sun rose from behind those invisible
mountains and continued to rise until we reached the top where from
that perspective the sun had not yet set. So, basically, we got to
watch the sun rise, in the evening, in the west, shinning bright red
through the smoke. Again, cool.
doug
****
Well, this is next time.
While up at the top end of the Northern Peninsula, we dinned at a nice
restaurant just South of or was it just East of St.Anthony. (Carol will
set me straight on that) right on and looking out across the Atlantic.
Returning that evening to Rosie's then down to ST. Barbe to board the
ferry Apollo crossing the Strait of Belle Isle to Blanc Sablon in the
most Eastern part of Quebec. Turning left off the boat we pass through
4 small towns ending at Vieux - Fort, the end of the road, completely
isolated by hundreds of miles from the rest of the province. And
scenery along the way was fantastic. However, we did not take that side
trip until our return to the port. Instead, we turned North into
Labrador. Again, amazing topography. Two nights at a very nice B
&B A at L'Anse -au-Loup from there we explored the area ending at
Red Bay. (not the one up in the Bruce)
The claim to fame for these parts began about 1500 AD and continued for
about 100 years until the Strait of Belle Isle began to run out of
whales. Brave souls sailed from Spain, France and Portugal to
harvest whale oil, a valuable commodity in Europe at the time. Blubber
was valued as well. Beautiful country, not easy to find appropriate
words. We watched whales, sea birds, iceberg, ya, just the one because
the times we were in iceberg ally, it was too foggy. And the 2nd
tallest lighthouse tower anywhere. The wall is 8 feet thick tapering to
4 feet at the top. Will conclude next issue.
Lorne
****
THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Yup, it’s that time once again and I hope you still have a few moments
to spare on this lovely Saturday to spend with the Ontarion and
Squamidian Weekly!
As I’m sure you can all imagine it’s not the easiest thing to do to
come up with a topic to write about every week that might interest
one’s readers. I’m sure you all will appreciate what it takes if you’d
only take an hour some week and try writing a composition to send in to
Doug to be included in that week’s Squamidian. It may not seem like it
but Doug and I spend the better part of two to three hours every week
composing what he sends out to all of our members. At times it’s a tad
frustrating but for the most part it is very rewarding. It’s not very
often that we hear back from our readers but there are a few of you who
let us know that we’ve gotten through to our audience and that makes it
all worthwhile! It’s hard to believe it’s been 15 or more years that
we’ve been doing this every week but once it gets into your bloodstream
one can understand how a reporter can become addicted to writing their
column for a news paper for years. I don’t know if most of you remember
an advice column that was written by a woman named Ann Landers that
appeared in our local Record paper and in hundreds of daily papers
across North America for, who knows, I’d guess it was likely more than
40 years. When I think of her and others like her I am amazed that they
kept up their contributions for an entire career and some for their
entire lifetime! Oh well, I know that Doug and I have nowhere near the
readership that such a career inspires but it’s heart warming knowing
that in our small circle of Squid members there are those that still
appreciate something to look forward to reading every Saturday and that
inspires both of us to hang in there and keep doing what we would be
lost without! Thank you all for continuing to read our blurbs every
week and I hope you will hang in with us for as long as we’re around to
pound the keyboard!
PS: I might be off on the number of years we’ve been writing our
columns but I’m getting older and it’s not always easy to keep these
figures in the old noggin!
I was thinking the other day about how music and lyrics have affected
many of us and our lives and how today’s music is so different than the
tunes of yesteryear. I’m not up on the different styles of music these
days but I just know that when I take a spin through the dial of my car
radio it’s difficult to find a genre of music that I care to listen to!
Most of the music I’ve always loved has been of the ballad style in
nature. I usually sway back to the music of the 60’s when I think of
any that has influenced my life. Without a doubt, my favourite musician
has always been Roy Orbison, a crooner from the very early days of Rock
N Roll. He wrote the majority of his own songs along with some help
from a co writer by the name of Bill Dees. Together they wrote such
amazing hit records as “In Dreams, Blue Bayou, Crying, Only The Lonely,
Ride Away and literally hundreds of other great ballads that Roy sang
on the millions of albums his fans collected over the length of his
career. He sang and recorded hit records from the early 50’s right up
until his death in 1988.
There was one of his hits that was stuck in my mind this past week and
it’s one of those if you ever heard it it’s hard to stop humming it
over and over. It’s called “Penny Arcade” and whenever I think of it,
it takes me back to when I was a young boy in the late 50’s.
Roy Orbison – Penny Arcade Lyrics
A light shown in the night some way ahead, blue turned into green then it was red
And stirring the night love music played the light I saw in the night was a penny arcade
Hey step up and play each machine seemed to say, as I walked round and round the penny arcade
Just ring the bell on the big bagatelle and you'll make all those colored lights cascade
And music played at the penny arcade, yes it played and it played, played all the time
Roll up and spend your last dime
At first I thought it a dream that I was in, lost, lost in a sea of glass and tin
But no, so dipping my hand in the back of my jeans I grabbed a handful of coins to feed the machine
Hey step up and play each machine seemed to say, as I walked round and round the penny arcade
Just ring the bell on the big bagatelle and you'll make all those colored lights cascade
And music played at the penny arcade, yes it played and it played, played all the time
Roll up and spend your last dime
Oh! step up and play each machine seemed to say, as I walked round and round the penny arcade
Just ring the bell on the big bagatelle and you'll make all those colored lights cascade
And music played at the penny arcade, yes it played and it played, played all the time
Roll up and spend your last dime
Roll up and spend your last, roll up and spend your last, roll up and spend your last dime!
Songwriters: KING, SAMMY
Penny Arcade lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
PS: This is one Song recorded by Roy Orbison that Roy did not write. However, he did make it a HIT Record.
When I was a young lad of the age of 11, my parents took us to a
friend’s cottage for a two-week vacation. The cottage was in a Lake
Erie beach town called Long Point Beach. It’s on a small spit of land
that juts out into Lake Erie from the north shore beside a town called
Port Rowan Ontario. The town is small and is made up of mostly
cottages. There was one small village store and a little restaurant and
of course a “Penny Arcade” at the midway point in the town. This Arcade
of course comes to mind whenever Roy’s song pops into my head. The
lyrics from the song describe perfectly the entire experience of
approaching, entering and enjoying the arcade at Long Point Beach. We
used to visit this beach most summers but most times we were only
guests of my parents friends for a day or two. However, we were there
long enough to hit the Penny Arcade at least for a couple of hours. Of
course the main attraction of Long Point was the lovely sandy beach and
the warm water of Lake Erie. However, the Arcade had everything that
Roy describes in his song, right down to reaching into “the back of my
jeans to grab a handful of coins to feed the machines”! What an
experience it was to watch the flashing lights change colour and listen
to the music that today rings loudly in my memory whenever Long Point
comes to mind. If you were ever a kid that experienced an afternoon at
the Arcade you’ll know exactly what Roy and I are telling you about!
If you’ve never heard “Penny Arcade” by Roy Orbison, you can access it
on line and I’m sure it’ll transport you directly into a Penny Arcade
of your own! It was always a wonderful place to spend a couple of hours
and a Dollar or two would last you through the entire time. If you’ve
never been to an arcade I’m sure Roy’s song will make the experience
almost real for you when you listen to it! Go ahead, give it a listen
and you’ll see exactly what I mean!
I hope that this column has made you think back and associate memories
of your own with the music you’ve enjoyed in the past. Most of us I’m
sure will be able to think of specific songs that have affected our
lives. So, if you’re in need of a memory jog sometime when you’re just
drifting back through your thoughts on a relaxing weekend afternoon, go
ahead and break out those old records and give them a listen! You will
find that they’ll help you enjoy a lovely walk down Memory Lane!
That’s about 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>
What was the most memorable Song in your past?
Think about that and maybe write a short essay of your own to send to Doug for next weeks Squid.
I think it would be FUN to hear from a few of you about how music has affected your life!
****
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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