07 November 2010
An Eventful Week
07/11/10 09:48
This has been a very eventful week.
Monday was the end of the World Series. San Francisco won, something we were very happy about. I'm not a fan of Texas. Not the team mind you. I don't care for the whole state. Their slogan is "Don't Mess with Texas". Mess with Texas? Personally, I try not to have anything to do with them at all if I can help it.
But I digress.
So San Francisco won the World Series. The next day the headline on the CBC was about the game. Now, I know this is Canada and in Canada things are a bit different. But really, the article about the final game started with a hockey reference.
"Texas Rangers co-owner Chuck Greenberg is no Mark Messier."
While true, the article even mentions he has more hair and likely he also has more of his original teeth than Messier as well. But seriously, that seemed a bit much even for Canada.
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/baseball/story/2010/11/01/sp-giants-rangers-game.html
In other silly bits in the news they are in the middle of replacing the roof at BC place. This is the big stadium in Vancouver where the BC Lions CFL team plays. It looks very much like the Minneapolis Metrodome: a concrete stadium with an inflatable roof. In a debate those of you in Minnesota will find very familiar they wanted to replace the roof with a retractible one. So on nice days they can play in the sun and then still be protected when it rains. All well and good. However it came out this week now that the roof is half done, that he roof can be left either open or closed. However it cannot be moved in the rain. The mechanism won't work when wet (or in winds). So if the game starts and it's a nice day but rain moves in everyone gets wet. Did they not understand this is British Columbia the land of unexpected showers?
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/11/01/bc-place-retractable-roof.html
There were whoops of joy here because of the US election on Tuesday. Most of it was irrelevant to the people here but there was one measure in California to legalize the growing of marijuana. For good or ill BC marijuana is a multi billion dollar business. If California had legalized pot then we would have been like the French Wine industry when Napa Valley started selling wine.. Sure the quality of BC Bud, as it's called, may have been better but they would have lost out to the cheap California weed. Even staid conservative economists in dark suits were very pleased when the bill was defeated.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/10/27/bc-california-proposition-marijuana.html
Of course we not only live in BC, which to much of the rest of Canada is still the western fringe, in more than a few ways. We live on an island off the coast of BC.This makes us particularly isolated from the centre of all things Canadian. This came into focus this week when our stove went out. Not the whole stove, just the oven. I took a look at it but it wasn't the element or something else simple. We called a repair person who determined that it was the main computer board. The board controls all of the oven functions (and oddly enough the clock). It was a custom part he was going to have to get from Whirlpool itself. I guess we got spoiled living in Minneapolis. Minneapolis is a hub. Even a special order part like this would arrive from anywhere in the US in just a day or two. For us on an island off the coast of the western frontier it will be two weeks. That's a long time to go without baking anything. Our stock of stuff in the freezer is going down fast.
But living here has its advantages. The British influence means we run into things we never heard of in Minnesota. This week I stopped by the Tea Shoppe. to replenish my stash. (Of tea that is, not BC Bud.) They have custom blended bulk teas and fine English china pots and tea sets. I mentioned that I was looking for something decaffeinated. She directed me to the Rooibos section. I'd never heard of Rooibos. It is from South Africa. It has a rich woody earthy flavour that is simply wonderful. They also do variations like a Rooibos Earl Grey and such. Best of all it's not really tea, so it is naturally caffeine free. It was a heck of a find.
Another nice thing about here is that the city of Nanaimo really seems to care about those of us that live here. A few weeks ago I mentioned the water leak in the neighbours front lawn. The city crew came out, dug it all up replaced the broken pipes, and then filled the hole with gravel. A month later they came back and fixed a second leak. Well it's been a couple more months with no further leaks. Then on Wednesday I looked out and the crew was back. At first I thought there must be another leak. It turned out that they were back to finish the job. They finished filling the hole with black dirt, sprinkled the top with grass seed,
then fertilizer, and finally raked the top and tamped it down to hide the seeds from any passing birds. By spring you won't be able to see where the hole was. I was impressed. I doubt that Shoreview or Maplewood city crews would have cleaned up after themselves like that. They'd have fixed the leak and filled the hole but the lawn would have been our problem.
This is a nice place to live.
Here is a link to a newspaper article about my brother and his family in Lake Benton. Rick was the brother who had the house fire while visiting us. Just scroll down for the article. It is a very nice piece.
http://www.thelakebentonnews.com/
We drove down to Piper's just to catch some fall pictures to share. Enjoy!
There were a couple of seals out playing. We tried to get pictures, but mostly we got their splash or their tails as they were diving back under water. This was the best one we got.
Monday was the end of the World Series. San Francisco won, something we were very happy about. I'm not a fan of Texas. Not the team mind you. I don't care for the whole state. Their slogan is "Don't Mess with Texas". Mess with Texas? Personally, I try not to have anything to do with them at all if I can help it.
But I digress.
So San Francisco won the World Series. The next day the headline on the CBC was about the game. Now, I know this is Canada and in Canada things are a bit different. But really, the article about the final game started with a hockey reference.
"Texas Rangers co-owner Chuck Greenberg is no Mark Messier."
While true, the article even mentions he has more hair and likely he also has more of his original teeth than Messier as well. But seriously, that seemed a bit much even for Canada.
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/baseball/story/2010/11/01/sp-giants-rangers-game.html
In other silly bits in the news they are in the middle of replacing the roof at BC place. This is the big stadium in Vancouver where the BC Lions CFL team plays. It looks very much like the Minneapolis Metrodome: a concrete stadium with an inflatable roof. In a debate those of you in Minnesota will find very familiar they wanted to replace the roof with a retractible one. So on nice days they can play in the sun and then still be protected when it rains. All well and good. However it came out this week now that the roof is half done, that he roof can be left either open or closed. However it cannot be moved in the rain. The mechanism won't work when wet (or in winds). So if the game starts and it's a nice day but rain moves in everyone gets wet. Did they not understand this is British Columbia the land of unexpected showers?
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/11/01/bc-place-retractable-roof.html
There were whoops of joy here because of the US election on Tuesday. Most of it was irrelevant to the people here but there was one measure in California to legalize the growing of marijuana. For good or ill BC marijuana is a multi billion dollar business. If California had legalized pot then we would have been like the French Wine industry when Napa Valley started selling wine.. Sure the quality of BC Bud, as it's called, may have been better but they would have lost out to the cheap California weed. Even staid conservative economists in dark suits were very pleased when the bill was defeated.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/10/27/bc-california-proposition-marijuana.html
Of course we not only live in BC, which to much of the rest of Canada is still the western fringe, in more than a few ways. We live on an island off the coast of BC.This makes us particularly isolated from the centre of all things Canadian. This came into focus this week when our stove went out. Not the whole stove, just the oven. I took a look at it but it wasn't the element or something else simple. We called a repair person who determined that it was the main computer board. The board controls all of the oven functions (and oddly enough the clock). It was a custom part he was going to have to get from Whirlpool itself. I guess we got spoiled living in Minneapolis. Minneapolis is a hub. Even a special order part like this would arrive from anywhere in the US in just a day or two. For us on an island off the coast of the western frontier it will be two weeks. That's a long time to go without baking anything. Our stock of stuff in the freezer is going down fast.
But living here has its advantages. The British influence means we run into things we never heard of in Minnesota. This week I stopped by the Tea Shoppe. to replenish my stash. (Of tea that is, not BC Bud.) They have custom blended bulk teas and fine English china pots and tea sets. I mentioned that I was looking for something decaffeinated. She directed me to the Rooibos section. I'd never heard of Rooibos. It is from South Africa. It has a rich woody earthy flavour that is simply wonderful. They also do variations like a Rooibos Earl Grey and such. Best of all it's not really tea, so it is naturally caffeine free. It was a heck of a find.
Another nice thing about here is that the city of Nanaimo really seems to care about those of us that live here. A few weeks ago I mentioned the water leak in the neighbours front lawn. The city crew came out, dug it all up replaced the broken pipes, and then filled the hole with gravel. A month later they came back and fixed a second leak. Well it's been a couple more months with no further leaks. Then on Wednesday I looked out and the crew was back. At first I thought there must be another leak. It turned out that they were back to finish the job. They finished filling the hole with black dirt, sprinkled the top with grass seed,
then fertilizer, and finally raked the top and tamped it down to hide the seeds from any passing birds. By spring you won't be able to see where the hole was. I was impressed. I doubt that Shoreview or Maplewood city crews would have cleaned up after themselves like that. They'd have fixed the leak and filled the hole but the lawn would have been our problem.
This is a nice place to live.
Here is a link to a newspaper article about my brother and his family in Lake Benton. Rick was the brother who had the house fire while visiting us. Just scroll down for the article. It is a very nice piece.
http://www.thelakebentonnews.com/
We drove down to Piper's just to catch some fall pictures to share. Enjoy!
There were a couple of seals out playing. We tried to get pictures, but mostly we got their splash or their tails as they were diving back under water. This was the best one we got.