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The Squamidian Report – May 12 / 18
Issue #833 Including: From Lauren From Russ The Ontarion Hi All, Last Saturday we held our annual spring 'skills practice' session. I am of course referring to motorcycle riding skills. Like so many things, the skills needed to safely ride a motorcycle become rusty during the off season and must be practiced in order to become un-rusty. I'm referring to riding at very slow speed, not scooting along at highway speed. At highway speed a big heavy bike stays up all on its own and while yes, there are some very important and basic skills needed to be both safe and in proper control of a bike while riding at speed, they are skills that evolve from the ones that are imperative for slow speed. Except for crashes that result from either loss of control or the involvement of other vehicles on the road, the most often occurring dumping of a bike happens on parking lots or at a stop or coming to a stop or trying to make a tight U-turn. So, to learn, improve, and practice, we put on our skills day each spring. There is a big parking lot up on Cypress Mnt, just below the main lot for the ski area that tends to be empty this time of year. Two weeks ago it was still covered in snow. A week ago it was raining but last weekend it was nice and clear and sunny and the snow was gone from the lot. Mind you, it was about 10 ft deep off to the sides and though the trees but that was ok. One of our riders has a lot of experience with training etc and is the one who designs and lays out the course using bight orange cones. We end up with a 'weave' section that simulates avoiding pot holes, obstacles and so on, sections for tight U-turns and spirals, sections that train for left and right turns from a stop light or sign, and so on. About 20 bikes or so turned up and we all worked hard, had a great time, and came away as better riders. Hopefully we will do it again in early or mid summer. And then there was Wednesday, May 9. A milestone for both me and the gondola. You see, Wednesday was my 1000th time up. Interestingly, the first day they were open to the public was May 9, 2014. (It fell a Friday that year). It was their 'soft opening' and their official opening would take place a week later on the 16th. So, from May 9/14 to May 9/18 I've racked up 1000 visits. Perhaps I need to get a life, or perhaps I'm living a life that others can only dream of, or perhaps something in between somewhere. By the way, Sue hit here 700th visit the day before, Tuesday the 8th. Just goes to show how much she is away baby or elderly sitting. On Wednesday morning we arrived as per usual at our normal time which is as soon as they start uploading customers because we like to do our thing and then get to heck out of there before it gets busy with tourist. It had been a rainy night and the morning was cool and dark from the lingering rain clouds. I was glad for the couple of days of wet because it had been quite warm and sunny and that brings out the tourist in droves. It was quiet at the base with very few around. We chatted with the lift attendant as we always do and then rode up to the top. It was quiet up there as well. We headed in to the lodge to have a nice quiet coffee. Inside the door is the retain section where they sell clothing and souvenirs etc. Out from behind the rows of stuff jumped a whole bunch of people to surprise us and congratulate me on number 1000. (No one else is even remotely close to that number, perhaps I should be embarrassed about it). We all chatted and they presented me with a gift bag containing a custom made T-shirt and some other items. Cool. After some picture taking and more talking and laughing we dumped out jackets out in the seating area and I went to the coffee counter to get us some coffees. The coffees were already waiting for us and when I inquired about a muffin or some such thing, I was told it would be taken care of. We sat and talked and then one of the young ladies that work in the food service section brought out a nice, just out of the oven, cinnamon bun. Now, this turned out to be a custom made bun because for some reason they don't and won't put raisins in their pastries and I've complained about that for years, but this bun had raisins in it. Again, cool. After enjoying our coffees and bun and chatting a bit more with various people up there (which we would do normally anyway), we headed out and did a nice quiet walk on the trail. There are grouse calling in the trees but we didn't spot them as they can be very hard to spot. Once back at the lodge we rode down and spent another half hour chatting with the people in the customer service office and in the base camp office, just like we do so often. Then we went home. It had been a nice morning. I think at some point in the near future I'm going to take a week off.  doug **** From Lauren We recently got back from a 7 day Caribbean cruise. Here is part 2. DAY 5: COZUMEL, MEXICO We sailed into Cozumel on day 5 & spent the day wandering around the town exploring for a bit before stopping for lunch at a local restaurant. The girls were quite thrilled with their strawberry daiquiris, & chips, but didn’t like the avocado guacamole which Ryan & I thoroughly enjoyed. While we were walking around, I noticed that Olivia felt quite hot, & that’s when I realized she actually had a fever. We returned to the ship shortly after & I gave her some medicine. She had also started coughing, so I knew then that she was getting sick. We went to dinner & returned to the cabin & I spent the night tending to a very unhappy Olivia. DAY 6: COSTA MAYA, MEXICO After a mostly sleepless night, we arrived in Costa Maya, which was our final port before returning to Miami. Unfortunately it wasn’t anything special, & unless you had booked an excursion, there was absolutely nothing to do other than walk around the man made Mexican village which was actually just a bunch of shops all selling the same touristy things. We walked around there for about an hour, & then headed back to the ship to have lunch & swim. After dinner, we went back to the cabin for another sleepless night with a sick Olivia. She was still very unhappy & proceeded to throw up all over Ryan during the night. DAY 7: AT SEA We spent our final day at sea relaxing & at the pool, followed by lunch, dinner & wandering around some more before heading back to our cabin. Olivia was still quite sick, & we had to get up early the next morning in order to get to the airport for our noon flight. Unfortunately, this was by far the worst night we had with her, & we hardly got any sleep that night. We were definitely not looking forward to our trip home the following day. DAY 8: MIAMI TO VANCOUVER After another sleepless night, we got up early & headed down to the debarkation level. When we got there, we encountered an extremely long lineup. This was because the express debarkation line was being abused by locals who had parked at the port of Miami & although they really had no reason or need to get off early, selfishly decided to anyway. Being a new cruise line in Miami, they haven’t quite gotten their act together yet, but would definitely benefit from having an express debarkation line only for passengers who need to get to the airport & a separate line for people who don’t have to go to the airport but wish to debark early instead of waiting to be called according to luggage tag colours (which is the traditional way of debarking a ship). This would simplify the entire process, it’s a pity they haven’t figured this out yet, or perhaps they just don’t care, either way it was quite frustrating. It was a good choice for us to debark early, because if we had in fact waited until our luggage tag colour was called, we would have most likely missed our flight. We finally got off of the ship & onto a shuttle bus headed for the airport. We got there with plenty of time to spare & checked in & went to the lounge. Our flight was slightly delayed, which we assumed was because of the recent winter weather conditions in southern Ontario, but we eventually took off. The last 30 minutes of the flight were quite turbulent, causing Olivia to throw up. We had also been circling in the air for quite a while because the runway had been shut down in order to de-ice it, so our previous cushion of time that would have given us about 2 hours between flights, was slowly dwindling. Once we landed, we rushed through the airport to go through Canadian immigration (which was very unorganized, it seemed nobody who worked at the airport actually knew what they were doing & sent us in many wrong directions). We finally cleared immigration & the immigration officer told us that we probably wouldn’t make our next flight (which at this stage, didn’t sound like the worst idea because of Olivia being sick). We got to the gate just in the nick of time & proceeded to board right away (thanks to Ryan’s priority status). We were one of the lucky flights, because many that day & subsequent days were cancelled due to the weather. After sitting on the plane for about 1.5 hours for de-icing, we finally took off & headed for home. We arrived in Vancouver quite a bit later than anticipated & the adventure was over! We all had a great time, but we will probably wait a few years before going on a cruise again!  Lauren **** From Russ Sounds That Hurt – Part Two And then, there’s the sound of slamming doors.....Either she’s leaving me, or I’m walking out on her......It’s called a “domestic dispute” in police lingo. Sometimes walking away is the best choice; no blows = nobody hurt, right? Wrong. We’ve all learned the childhood rhyme; “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me”...Wrong again....Angry words once spoken cannot be “deleted”. “Name-calling” is the cruelest form of bullying.....The sound of the slamming door may fade from your memory, but the angry words will hurt for a long, long time. Do I speak from experience? On a lighter note; the sound of silence is usually welcoming, but, (and this is for men only) when standing at a urinal in a public washroom, and you’ve ‘started the stream’, but you don’t hear your ‘waterfall’.....looking down at your pant legs to see if you’re favouring the left or right....you are now embarrassed, as ‘your’ pants are dry....but the guy standing next to you hollers, “HEY!”. Do I speak from experience? Sometimes the ‘sound of silence’ is MOST APPROPRIATE. You’re arguing with the ‘misses’ and you’d like to have ‘the last word’......if you insist, the next sound you might hear is an ambulance! We all wish you a “speedy recovery!” I don’t know about you, but the sound of an ambulance siren always sends chills down my back. Let’s hope it’s (just) an expectant mother....But if I’m the expectant father, the chills are warranted! Then there are the sounds that ‘hurt’ which can/will do “permanent damage” to your hearing; such as, when operating some of those extra noisy devices.....chain saws, power mowers, leaf blowers, various pieces of farm/construction equipment, hunting rifles and shotguns, just to name a few. Please forgive me, but again I speak from experience, as I suffer with “moderate-permanent-hearing loss”, caused from the “accumulated affect of years of neglecting to wear hearing protection when operating noisy devices!”. From an ‘old fogey’ to you ‘young pups’....ALWAYS WEAR HEARING PROTECTION WHEN OPERATING NOISY STUFF! “Oh, I’ll just keep on going “ear-free’ until I’m old....then I can always go to hearing aids” Guess what? You may not have to ‘wait long’....we all know of some needing aids in their 30’s. Hearing aids will help you to hear, but they’re not perfect, like your “God-given” ones were; they’re a nuisance to wear (frequently falling off), they’re unsightly (‘you’ may not be able to see them, but ‘others’ will), they’re extremely costly (thousands $$$), they don’t help in ‘discerning’ spoken words (not for me anyway).....and they are NOT COOL! Uncle Russ.
PS. Some advice for you “available” ladies out there.....although I’m also “available”, please don’t try to whisper “sweet nothings” in my ear because I won’t be able to make out the words you whisper....just your ‘warm wind’. ****
THE ONTARION REPORT Hello everyone! What’s this world coming to when a business flatly turns away business? I finally got a visit from the insurance adjuster to assess the damage on the MGB. The fellow from Cambridge visited me last Monday and spent a good half hour looking over the damage on the MG. He didn’t write up an estimate of the value of the damage but decided to wait until I visited the body shop of my choice. He wanted whom ever I took the car to to give him a call after seeing what all had to be done. I mentioned to the adjuster that I would like to have the few rust marks and spots on the car repaired while it was being fixed from the accident and figured I’d have the whole vehicle painted while the repairs from the crash were being done. I said, “Why not do the whole vehicle over if they were already doing the back end of the car. He said as long as I was willing to pay the difference he couldn’t see why not indeed. In fact, he is also an appraiser and said the MG would increase in value by about 5 to 6 thousand dollars if I were willing to spend about $3,000.00 to do the whole car over. I figured that this was a good idea and set out to get a price on doing just that! I asked a friend of mine who was in his own body shop business for many years but is now retired just where to take the MG for a good job at a reasonable price. He recommended a place at Bridgeport Rd and Lancaster St called ACME Auto Body. He said the guy was an old friend and that he did great work. He was sure that this fellow “Bob” by name would be willing to do the Insurance co repairs as well as repaint the rest of the car for a reasonable price, especially if I would pay the difference in cash! SO, Off I went to ACME to have a chat with Bob and see what he would do for me. I stopped into his office and he was quite congenial. He came out and looked the MG over and I told him what I was thinking of having him do. He said, “No problem, I’ll do the insurance repairs for you!” I said what about fixing the couple of rust spots and painting the rest of the car. I pointed out that the car was painted three different shades of green by the previous owner and that I’d like it all one colour, namely Dark British Racing Green. He looked at me and said, “ NO, I don’t do restoration work!” I was shocked at his response! He flat out said “NO!” What the hell is he in the bodywork business for if he isn’t willing to do body repairs? I even offered to pay him in cash for the difference. It was easy money in my eyes but I guess he’s just too stuck on the easy money from Insurance claims when all he has to do is replace the dented panels and not do a bit of dirty work on any rust spots! Oh well, I told him I’d get back to him on it and left it at that. I should have said, “If you don’t want the whole job then you don’t get any of it!” Screw YOU! So, home I went completely ticked off at his attitude! When I got home Carole and I talked about it and both agreed that it would be senseless to have the back end done by him and then take the car to a second shop to do the rest when they’d have to redo what he’d already done. So off I went to find another shop willing to do the work. What I found was a half dozen more body shops that either were off in left field price-wise or said the same thing that they didn’t want to do anything but insurance work! I called my old buddy that had sent me to ACME in the first place and he was shocked at the guys’ attitude too! He suggested I check out some small one-man shops in small towns around KW and they would be more willing to do repairs on the rust bits. I said that I had just done that and got shitty responses from all of them as well. In fact the one guy just west of New Hamburg on Hwy 7 who is supposed to have a great reputation told me with a smile on his face that he’d do the work but was known for only top-notch jobs. He said that if I wanted him to do the job on my MG it would take at least two years and $20,000.00 to complete! Who the Hell does he think he’s dealing with Donald Trump? Nobody in his or her right mind would spend that much to repaint a car valued at $8,500.00 by an appraiser? I almost clocked the guy one right there on the spot! I actually laughed in his face and said, “That’s ridiculous!” He said that he was doing a 1957 Ford Fairlane over for his brother and he’d been at it for 4 years already and his brother had already spent $60,000.00 to do what he’d done so far to restore the car. I almost said, “Well, you’re brother’s a fool and you’re a bloody crook!” Instead I just said thanks for your time and got in the MG and left. Can you imagine? The MG would have to be gold plated when he was finished with it for me to pay him that kind of money for bodywork! He’s definitely a dreamer! Anyway, after all the disappointments of that afternoon I went home and called the adjuster at his home around 5pm. He said to leave it with him and he’d find me a body shop that was willing to do the job for a reasonable price. He called me the next morning with the name and phone number of a body shop in Blair Ontario. He said the guy was a friend of his and that he’d talked to him after I called last night. The name of the shop is Cochran Auto Body and the owner is Matt Cochran. I called him and took the MG over for him to have a look at it. When I got there, Matt greeted me with a smile and told me that he owed the adjuster a few favours and would be glad to repair both my collision damage and the few rust spots on the car as well as repaint the MG for me in the colour of my choice. He was very friendly and very thorough with his inspection of the car. He said that it would likely cost me between two and three thousand on top of the insurance work to have the MG done the way I wanted. He’s going to call me by Monday of next week to book a date to do the work and said he’s sure I’ll be happy with the job they’ll do on the car. I can’t wait to get it done and see the MG in its original British Racing Green colour. The outside of the vehicle will finally match the colour that is inside the trunk and under the hood! I figured that if the other guys could afford to turn down business like they did, then they don’t need my cash. I’ll be sure to recommend Cochran Auto Body if and when they are finished with the MG and have done a good job of it! Fingers crossed, I am waiting to see the results! It’ll be nice to finally have the finishing touches on the MGB after working on the mechanicals and interior over the past 29 years. Our baby will finally be complete and I can’t wait to show it off at a few cruise nights around KW. It’s such a pleasure to drive on a nice sunny day and should bring us a lot of joy over the summer. There are still a few minor things I’d like to do to it once it’s painted but they can wait. For the most part the MG will be completely done once I get it back from the shop. It’s for sure that ACME Auto Body will never see the glow of R WEE B’s headlights on their lot again! *
I
mowed the lawn for the third time the other day and after a few days
with the spring fertilizer on it it’s thicker than a plush carpet and
as green as the fields of Northern Ireland! I even had several people
walking by compliment me on how nice the lawn looks this year. We’ve
always had a nice lawn but we put a lot of effort into making it so. I
figure there’s no sense in letting it go to weed or growing wild when
it’s the first thing that people see while looking at our house. There
is definitely a bonus in showing pride of ownership in one’s house.
Keeping your home clean and well kept is only common sense and will pay
off if you ever decide to sell your home. Fertilizing at least three
times a year helps keep the lawn looking good and healthy and makes it
easier to maintain. I enjoy mowing the lawn and am just happy to be
able to do it myself after all we’ve been through this past eight
months. I’m taking it easy while doing the lawn and other tasks around
the house as per the Doctor’s orders and it’s paying off. I am feeling
better and better each day and hopefully will be pretty well back to
normal soon. Like the doctor said it’s necessary to slowly get back
into doing the things I’ve always done but I must do them in moderation
until I build up my stamina once again. With the guidance of both
Carole and Adam I’m not overdoing anything, at least not most times!
There is sometimes that I don’t realize that I’m pushing things a
little too fast or far and I need to be reminded to slow down and take
it easier. It’s hard to take things more slowly when you’re used to
working full tilt around the house. Anyway, things are coming along
well and I’ll just have to pace myself until I can work without feeling
any ill effects. Another couple of months of recuperation and I’m sure
all will be back to normal.That’s about 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> It pays to do and take everything in moderation! Pace yourself in all that you do and you’ll live longer! ****
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. |