Oh my so many things going on. There was an earthquake in Ottawa. Actually it was centred across the border in Quebec but Ottawa was the first town that most people here cared about. In the closest town to the centre of the 'quake a hundred year old church lost its steeple and there was other damage but I don't believe anyone was hurt. Now, they don't get many earthquakes in that part of the world. Nobody seemed to know what to do. In Ottawa everyone ran out of their high rises and stood outside. It was sprinkling so most huddled near the giant glass walls of their buildings. Not the smartest thing they could do. Fortunately the quake wasn't severe enough to break much of the plate glass or there would have been a lot of people hurt. Here's an article on the quake. My favourite bit is the diagram at the bottom where they show the locations of the 10 biggest quakes in Canada. Roll over the dots at the bottom to see where each event was. Make a wild guess where most of them were.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2010/06/23/tor-earthquake.html

Early in the week Marsha got an e-mail from someone. She won tickets to something for later. Really it's not from Nigeria either. Chemainus Theatre Festival’s current production, Guys & Dolls! Doug had better be nice the rest of the week or it'll be me and Geiger going to the play. He thinks he's so funny sometimes. Marsh>

Locally we went to see Bobs and Lolo at the Mall on Wednesday. They are always fun to see. The show was in the Food Court of the mall so there weren't regular chairs in rows, more of a mob with people sitting and standing everywhere. Very quickly though it sorted itself out to youngsters near the stage, middle-ageddsters behind them, oldseters near the outside, and everyone enjoying the music. You don't see many concerts like that. Oh and for the fans out there we have second hand confirmation that they are working on another album. No release date yet though. By the way we just discovered Bobs and Lolo is on iTunes, so please check out their songs.  My favourite is I Like Bugs.

And finally, my cousin Mike is fixing up his boat for the summer. New motor, new seats, new fittings and wiring. He's also sanding the aluminum and repainting the exterior. The idea is that it will look really good when everyone comes to visit this summer. He's using a special maritime boat paint. It's rather expensive and prevents barnacles, seaweed, or any other creatures from clinging to and growing on the hull. This paint is bright blue, in contrast to the aluminum silver of the rest of the boat. It really looks good. So Mike was at Barbara's house, that's where his boat is setting on a trailer, painting. In order to do the hull he had to sand the rough spots and old paint off, we loaned him a sander. Then it's on the ground, often laying on his back with a brush in one hand and the paint tray setting next to him. Brush-brush-dip the brush-brush-brush-shift over a bit-brush-brush and on and on until the hull was painted. It took an hour per coat. Then once that had dried he had to shift the boat in the trailer enough so he could paint the spots where the hull had been in contact with the trailer. Painting took much of the afternoon.

Now, early on, during the first main coat I believe, he was laying on the ground painting away. He sat up, shifted over a bit and laid back down. Unfortunately, he set his head in the paint tray. Just then Barbara was coming up the stairs to check on him and she finds him cursing a blue-streak, literally. The back third of his head, hair and all was bright blue.

Now this is an oil based paint. It was not just going to wash out with soap and water. (Makes sense, after all it IS boat paint.) So Mike had Barbara run up to Slegg Hardware to get some thinner. (Mike sure as heck wasn't going to go all painted blue like that. People might mistake him for a Montreal Alouettes fan.) The nice people there helped her find what she needed. Unfortunately, they were out of the mild, no smell, stuff. She ended up with a gallon of old fashioned be-careful-that-it-doesn't-dissolve-the-brush paint thinner.

Ten minutes later out in the yard Barbara and Mike, well mostly Barbara, were using the thinner and a supply of paper towels and an old fine toothed comb to get the paint out of Mikes hair. Understand how this looked. Barbara is wearing an apron, glasses, and rubber gloves, while she pours the noxious liquid ON MIKES HEAD. It looked a bit odd to say the least. Finally though after much washing, and combing, and rinsing and combing, and scrubbing and combing all the blue was finally out. Mike is none the worse for wear. In fact he claims that his hear has never felt so soft.

I wonder what kind of shampoo he normally uses.

M&D