09 May 2010
A Busy Week, WWII, and Canada
09/05/10 06:05
Have you ever had one of those weeks that are short and long at the same time? The kind where the days go fast and you never have enough time for everything and yet you look around and say "I can't believe it's only Wednesday."? That was us this week. After two false starts we finally got the windows installed in the living room. Most of them anyway. It turned out that one of the windows had been backordered. They hadn't told us this but that's just one of the reasons we're less than impressed with this company. Oh they do good enough work. It just seems the office side is run by Lucy and Ethyl. They will have to come back for the half round window but all the regular ones are in so we could paint and start putting the living room back together. It's mostly done now. My office has been moved (again) and the main part of the room has been arranged. The only thing left is flooring to replace the ancient mangey carpet. Leaving the carpet to last had one huge advantage: we didn't have to put down a tarp when we painted. Why worry about a carpet that couldn't possibly look any worse. The prepping and painting of the room was a lot of work but it did allow me to tell Marsha "Girls will talk smack-le about guys who can't spackle". Oddly enough she was not as impressed as I expected by this brilliant insight.
It's been an eventful week for BC as well. First a whale decided to explore the waterways of Vancouver.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/05/05/bc-whale-vancouver-false-creek.html
After a couple of days they were able to shoo it back out to sea. It was funny to see the traffic helicopters on TV circling around to try and spot it, rather than talking about the stall here or the lane closure there.
This week they issued a drought warning for the BC interior.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/05/07/bc-summer-drought-warning.html
I may only be May but the snow pack on the mainland is so low, this morning we heard 65% of normal, that they are needing to conserve water now or they could be in serious trouble in August and September. Here on the island we're in better shape. They haven't issued any warnings, nor have they started watering restrictions yet. But they've let us know that they might be put on at any time. We're being careful for now and conserving. I told Marsha that was the reason I wasn't watering or mowing. It's better to let the grass go dormant and taller grass is more resilient to drought. Oddly enough she was not impressed by this brilliant insight either.
The neighbour behind us is building a house on his property. Years ago he owned this whole block. He then sold lots around the edge and the houses along Rutherford and Hammond Bay were built, including our little nest. He still owns the big space in the middle and now he's decided to build a house on it as rental property. We've been watching the place go up for a couple of months now. Work has been excruciatingly slow. I think he got held up with inspections and permits. But even then it really seems slower than it should. I mean three months to go from a hole in the ground to poured concrete is a lot. The week before last he finally got the forms up and poured the basement walls and footings. Now he's started backfilling. He'd push some dirt in in one area. Then the next day he'd dump some gravel around drain tiles. Then the next day he'd backfill some more and compact the soil. We've been joking that it'll be 6 months from groundbreaking before they put in the first piece of actual wood.
This week we heard a great song called Northwest Passage by a guy named Stan Rogers. If you thought that Gordon Lightfoot, Celine Dion, Paul Anka, Michael Buble, Leonard Cohen, Percy Faith, Glenn Gould, K.D.Lang, Loreena McKennitt, Anne Murray, Paul Shaffer, Hank Snow, Shania Twain, Gino Vannelli, Rufus Wainright, and Neil Young were the only Canadians with musical talent this will change your mind.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=TVY8LoM47xI
I really like it, plus it's a nice bit of Canadian history.
Speaking of Canadian History, this weekend marks the 65th anniversary of VE day when WWII in Europe was ended. One part of the story that I hadn't known was that it was Canadian soldiers that were sent to liberate the Netherlands. In classic Canadian fashion even as they were fighting their way across the country they were quietly negotiating with the Germans behind the scenes to get the starving Dutch people fed. There was a big event this week to commemorate the surrender of the German forces in The Netherlands:
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/05/05/netherlands-liberation-canadians.html
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/04/30/f-netherlands-second-world-war.html
and as most of the Veterans are in their 80's and 90's it'll likely be the last big gathering to mark the event.
However my favourite song of the week is The Space Robot Spiritual by the group Secondhand Pants
http://web.me.com/geoduck/ShiShi/Space_Robot_Spiritual.html
It's a riot.
D&M
Pix: We went up to Vancouver Island University (previously known as Malaspina College) overlooking Nanaimo and took some shots of thunderstorms on the mainland.
It's been an eventful week for BC as well. First a whale decided to explore the waterways of Vancouver.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/05/05/bc-whale-vancouver-false-creek.html
After a couple of days they were able to shoo it back out to sea. It was funny to see the traffic helicopters on TV circling around to try and spot it, rather than talking about the stall here or the lane closure there.
This week they issued a drought warning for the BC interior.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/05/07/bc-summer-drought-warning.html
I may only be May but the snow pack on the mainland is so low, this morning we heard 65% of normal, that they are needing to conserve water now or they could be in serious trouble in August and September. Here on the island we're in better shape. They haven't issued any warnings, nor have they started watering restrictions yet. But they've let us know that they might be put on at any time. We're being careful for now and conserving. I told Marsha that was the reason I wasn't watering or mowing. It's better to let the grass go dormant and taller grass is more resilient to drought. Oddly enough she was not impressed by this brilliant insight either.
The neighbour behind us is building a house on his property. Years ago he owned this whole block. He then sold lots around the edge and the houses along Rutherford and Hammond Bay were built, including our little nest. He still owns the big space in the middle and now he's decided to build a house on it as rental property. We've been watching the place go up for a couple of months now. Work has been excruciatingly slow. I think he got held up with inspections and permits. But even then it really seems slower than it should. I mean three months to go from a hole in the ground to poured concrete is a lot. The week before last he finally got the forms up and poured the basement walls and footings. Now he's started backfilling. He'd push some dirt in in one area. Then the next day he'd dump some gravel around drain tiles. Then the next day he'd backfill some more and compact the soil. We've been joking that it'll be 6 months from groundbreaking before they put in the first piece of actual wood.
This week we heard a great song called Northwest Passage by a guy named Stan Rogers. If you thought that Gordon Lightfoot, Celine Dion, Paul Anka, Michael Buble, Leonard Cohen, Percy Faith, Glenn Gould, K.D.Lang, Loreena McKennitt, Anne Murray, Paul Shaffer, Hank Snow, Shania Twain, Gino Vannelli, Rufus Wainright, and Neil Young were the only Canadians with musical talent this will change your mind.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=TVY8LoM47xI
I really like it, plus it's a nice bit of Canadian history.
Speaking of Canadian History, this weekend marks the 65th anniversary of VE day when WWII in Europe was ended. One part of the story that I hadn't known was that it was Canadian soldiers that were sent to liberate the Netherlands. In classic Canadian fashion even as they were fighting their way across the country they were quietly negotiating with the Germans behind the scenes to get the starving Dutch people fed. There was a big event this week to commemorate the surrender of the German forces in The Netherlands:
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/05/05/netherlands-liberation-canadians.html
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/04/30/f-netherlands-second-world-war.html
and as most of the Veterans are in their 80's and 90's it'll likely be the last big gathering to mark the event.
However my favourite song of the week is The Space Robot Spiritual by the group Secondhand Pants
http://web.me.com/geoduck/ShiShi/Space_Robot_Spiritual.html
It's a riot.
D&M
Pix: We went up to Vancouver Island University (previously known as Malaspina College) overlooking Nanaimo and took some shots of thunderstorms on the mainland.