It's been a rather odd week here in the wilderness. I planned on making one trip to the Nanaimo office and working at home the rest but ended up spending three days at the Nanaimo Office. Here's a quick tip: When IT says "We need three to five days to get a new user and workstation set up" don't tell us about it the day he starts and then pull an old system out of the closet and assume it will work. There was probably a reason it wasn't being used. This causes problems. In other news it was predicted to rain 'tomorrow' every day this week, but so far not a drop has fallen. On Friday the Nanaimo watering restrictions I mentioned last week were announced. Also, the neighbour building the house behind our place finally  got his first load of lumber delivered. None of it's been put up but he finally has boards on site which is a step forward. Most of the week he was using a bobcat and a backhoe to cleanup the landscape, bury piping, and fill holes from ripped out tree sumps. A bunch of the neighbours and I were talking and we agreed that he won the biggest-garden-tractor-in-the-neighborhood contest. 

Even in BC, things were a bit odd. First it was announced that a BC marine Biologist had named a newly discovered seaweed after director Tim Burton.
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2010/05/12/nb-tim-burton-seaweed-unb-608.html
As you can see from the photo's with the article there is a bit of resemblance.

Later in the week there was a report of a man injured at a railroad crossing. Apparently the train was moving very slowly and he thought it would be cool to stick his face in between two of the cars as it crept by. He missed, and was treated for cuts, bruises and a broken nose. From the story (OK lets'a all say it together) Police suspect alcohol was involved in the incident.

Also there was the revelation that many major local retailers were apparently unclear on what was exempt from Provincial Sales Tax.
http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2010/05/14/bc-superstore-pst-exempt.html
It started with the discovery that Home Depot was taxing everything. Later on it was revealed that Zellers and Superstore were applying tax to items that should have been exempt. The confusion was not apparently over what classes of items should be taxed. The problem was that they weren't getting put in the computer properly. The stores didn't pocket the proceeds, that all gets sent to the BC Ministry of Finance (I just love the names up here) automatically. I guess this means that it was an honest mistake, but really, THREE major retailers doing the same thing is a bit much.

I'm sure all of you have been following the disaster off the coast of Louisiana with the collapses oil platform and the ongoing discharge of thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf. That problem won't be finally solved until they drill a relief well, which will take weeks, and then either divert the oil or pump in enough concrete to plug up the hole. This whole fiasco took an interesting turn this week. In Ottawa BP executives were speaking before a parliamentary committee regarding their operations in the Arctic. BP is seeking a permit to drill wells off of the coast in the far north. Apparently one of the biggest problems is to the severe weather, even with climate change it still gets cold dark and stormy in the winter. They have to suspend operations for a major part of each year. Because of this, as part of their permit to drill in the arctic, BP was asking for a waiver so they can wait as long as a year to cap a blowout well. When the MPs (Members of Parliament) asked how they would control a runaway such as happened in the gulf until the relief well was drilled BP executives answered 'we don't know'. Considering what is on the TV news every day this may not have been a good strategy to win over an already sceptical Parliament and Canadian public. 

But the strangeness was not limited to Canada. A blind girl flying on United Airlines from BC (she's from Courtney here on the Island) to meet her fiance' in Florida ran into a bit of trouble. She had to change planes in Chicago and being blind she had arranged for some assistance deplaning and getting to her connecting flight. As usual the cabin crew had her wait until everyone else had left before escorting her off. Well, they forgot. Everyone left, and the plane was locked up. When found a bit later by a maintenance crew she was understandably quite frightened. 
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/05/13/bc-blind-woman-plane-cabot.html
To make up for it United offered her a $250 credit on her next flight. Like there will ever be a next flight. I suppose she's lucky. She could have had a guitar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo&feature

That's about it from here in the far north. This week the flowers really took off and here are some pictures from our yard.

Doug & Marsha