20 July 2014
More Random Bits
20/07/14 16:16
Oh My God, the Sailors are Drinking!
So this week there was a big scandal up here. The Canadian Navy recalled one if its ships after there was trouble during a port call in San Diego. Apparently a few of the sailors on leave drank too much and got in trouble, at least one was picked up by the police, there were also allegations of improper behaviour, public drunkenness, and possibly theft. The head of Canadian forces was shocked, shocked I tell you. How dare a bunch of our sailors drink and act like, well, a bunch of drunken sailors. I mean seriously, San Diego is a Navy town. It’s likely this didn’t even make page two of section B in the paper.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/07/15/canadian_navy_ship_ordered_home_after_sailors_unacceptable_actions.html
But it's a big deal up here.
The Long Hot Summer
This is shaping up to be a very dry summer. Last winter a lot of areas were quite short on rainfall. Yes I know those of you farther east got a lot of snow, but here in the west it was very dry. The whole state of California is under drought and even here in Lantzville we just went on Level 3 water restrictions. (I believe Level 3 means you can only water your cat, and the drinks but not the lawn.) Now that it’s been hot with little rain, wildfires are springing up all over. Some have gotten very large. The Mount McAllister fire is up to 16,000 hectares and growing. 16,000 hectares would be a square several furlongs over a fortnight, or in metric a circle ten kilocycles across and deep.
OK I actually have no idea what a hectare is.
The fire though threatened the town of Hudson’s Hope BC prompting an evacuation order. Most of the residents went to Ft. St. Johns but a day later they were allowed to return. As of this writing they are, however, on alert to leave on a moment’s notice.
http://globalnews.ca/news/1455071/evacuation-order-issued-for-hudsons-hope-as-mount-mcallister-fire-grows/
When I was flying back last week we flew over several large forest and range fires across Montana and Washington. There’s a huge fire burning in the Northwest Territories as well. The (only) road out of Yellowknife was blocked for several days. They even had to repair it in spots where the fire had burned the asphalt. The great worry was if the fire reached the Yellowknife city limits as there wasn’t really anywhere for the people to evacuate to. Yellowknife is kinda the end of the road, the main road at least. Fortunatly it looks like they will be able to keep the fire out of town.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/crews-repair-scorched-section-of-n-w-t-highway-3-1.2707223
CBC radio had a story about two motorcycle riders who got stuck in Yellowknife. They drove up and then the fire closed the road. One of the riders was a fan of the show Ice Pilots so he called Buffalo Airways, the company that stars in the show. They use antique planes to haul cargo all over the north. Buffalo Airways was happy to load the motorcycles onto a seventy something year old DC-3 and ferry them south so the riders could resume their journey. As one of the people at Buffalo said, “The DC-3 was made to fly Jeeps during World War Two. A couple of motorcycles is no problem.”
The CBC just came on the radio and said there were 160 fires burning in BC including one which has forced the evacuation of parts of the town of West Kelowna. The CBC went on to say that there were a total of 180 fires burning in The Northwest Territories most of which were in areas too remote and rugged to even try to control.
It’s going to be a long summer.
A Brilliant Idea
I may have mentioned that Marsha and I have a disagreement. No, not about that. EVERYONE knows that Lord of the Rings was far better than Harry Potter. No, the disagreement is about grills and grilling. Marsha has wanted to get a grill for the deck ever since we moved in. A nice gas grill to cook on in the summer. She's looking forward to having a bunch of people over for mouth watering grilled chicken or fish or vegetables on the deck. I however point out that on the deck is where bugs are. Plus we have a perfectly good kitchen in the house already. Most importantly I point out that if we bought a grill I wouldn’t have money to buy the video games I use to NOT see people.
My argument hasn’t won her over.
But a couple of weeks ago I came across something that might change the debate. My brother and I were walking through London Drugs looking for a cart. You see I had just picked up a printer for our computer and didn’t want to carry it around while we looked at the clothing and food. (OK yes London Drugs is a bit more than a drug store. Once we almost bought a refrigerator there.) Anyway we came across a stack of stone boxes that you put into your grill. Once they're hot you have an actual stone pizza oven. I haven’t bought a grill just yet but this is tipping the scales a bit. I’ll take pizza over burnt burgers any day.
Word Crimes
Al Yankovik occasionally nails one. Oh mind you a lot of his stuff is pretty good but once in a while he comes up with a song that I dearly love. Such is the case with this cut from his current album. The song is called Word Crimes and is set to the music from Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke. OK, so some of his points are slightly nitpicky but overall I really like the work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc
Audition Time!
I don't know if I mentioned this but the acting thing is back on track. A couple of months ago I auditioned for a role in The Woman in Black, a gothic horror story. I really thought I had the part too, but in the end the director went with someone else. Well this coming week I have another audition. There are two possible roles in the play Ethan Claymore that I think would be fun. I'm busily studying the script and with luck I'll be on stage most of the month of December.
Marsha gets back this weekend.
It’ll be good to have her home. I don’t do well on my own.
While she was gone I did a "manly" thing. A very Canadian "manly" thing. I took that big old palm tree in front of the house out. When we moved in it came up to the bottom of the front window, but it's been growing like a weed and this year it was up against the soffits and front window. It was just too big and too close to the house. Marsha had suggested I get help with taking it out. My cousin Mike even offered to help. But, I did it the good,old red blooded male way; by myself when nobody else was around and for good measure I left the front door locked too so if something happened I'd have to rely on Geiger to call 911. I flailed away at it with our chainsaw and hoped for the best. In the end the tree was gone, the cats were traumatized by the noise, but no harm was done to me or the house or anything.
Except for the tree of course.
Thought for then week:
At work the AC works upstairs in the office and engineering departments but not downstairs in the machine shop, production area, and parts room. I work downstairs. I had just made a trip upstairs and noticed it was cool, cold even. People were in sweaters while downstairs we’re sweating like pigs. When I got back down I walked by a younger coworker and commented
“l want to start a revolution to overthrow the bourgeoisie and liberate their air conditioning in the name of the proletariat working class.”
She looked at me for a second and replied
“I have no idea what you just said. All I understood was air conditioning.”
Oh man do I feel old.
PIX: Before and after the tree came down. Note the before picture was in 2011. By this year the tree was much taller and wider. It completely covered the picture window and some fronds were extending above the gutter.
We had a fellow traveller in the yard. I think he is about a hectare long.
So this week there was a big scandal up here. The Canadian Navy recalled one if its ships after there was trouble during a port call in San Diego. Apparently a few of the sailors on leave drank too much and got in trouble, at least one was picked up by the police, there were also allegations of improper behaviour, public drunkenness, and possibly theft. The head of Canadian forces was shocked, shocked I tell you. How dare a bunch of our sailors drink and act like, well, a bunch of drunken sailors. I mean seriously, San Diego is a Navy town. It’s likely this didn’t even make page two of section B in the paper.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/07/15/canadian_navy_ship_ordered_home_after_sailors_unacceptable_actions.html
But it's a big deal up here.
The Long Hot Summer
This is shaping up to be a very dry summer. Last winter a lot of areas were quite short on rainfall. Yes I know those of you farther east got a lot of snow, but here in the west it was very dry. The whole state of California is under drought and even here in Lantzville we just went on Level 3 water restrictions. (I believe Level 3 means you can only water your cat, and the drinks but not the lawn.) Now that it’s been hot with little rain, wildfires are springing up all over. Some have gotten very large. The Mount McAllister fire is up to 16,000 hectares and growing. 16,000 hectares would be a square several furlongs over a fortnight, or in metric a circle ten kilocycles across and deep.
OK I actually have no idea what a hectare is.
The fire though threatened the town of Hudson’s Hope BC prompting an evacuation order. Most of the residents went to Ft. St. Johns but a day later they were allowed to return. As of this writing they are, however, on alert to leave on a moment’s notice.
http://globalnews.ca/news/1455071/evacuation-order-issued-for-hudsons-hope-as-mount-mcallister-fire-grows/
When I was flying back last week we flew over several large forest and range fires across Montana and Washington. There’s a huge fire burning in the Northwest Territories as well. The (only) road out of Yellowknife was blocked for several days. They even had to repair it in spots where the fire had burned the asphalt. The great worry was if the fire reached the Yellowknife city limits as there wasn’t really anywhere for the people to evacuate to. Yellowknife is kinda the end of the road, the main road at least. Fortunatly it looks like they will be able to keep the fire out of town.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/crews-repair-scorched-section-of-n-w-t-highway-3-1.2707223
CBC radio had a story about two motorcycle riders who got stuck in Yellowknife. They drove up and then the fire closed the road. One of the riders was a fan of the show Ice Pilots so he called Buffalo Airways, the company that stars in the show. They use antique planes to haul cargo all over the north. Buffalo Airways was happy to load the motorcycles onto a seventy something year old DC-3 and ferry them south so the riders could resume their journey. As one of the people at Buffalo said, “The DC-3 was made to fly Jeeps during World War Two. A couple of motorcycles is no problem.”
The CBC just came on the radio and said there were 160 fires burning in BC including one which has forced the evacuation of parts of the town of West Kelowna. The CBC went on to say that there were a total of 180 fires burning in The Northwest Territories most of which were in areas too remote and rugged to even try to control.
It’s going to be a long summer.
A Brilliant Idea
I may have mentioned that Marsha and I have a disagreement. No, not about that. EVERYONE knows that Lord of the Rings was far better than Harry Potter. No, the disagreement is about grills and grilling. Marsha has wanted to get a grill for the deck ever since we moved in. A nice gas grill to cook on in the summer. She's looking forward to having a bunch of people over for mouth watering grilled chicken or fish or vegetables on the deck. I however point out that on the deck is where bugs are. Plus we have a perfectly good kitchen in the house already. Most importantly I point out that if we bought a grill I wouldn’t have money to buy the video games I use to NOT see people.
My argument hasn’t won her over.
But a couple of weeks ago I came across something that might change the debate. My brother and I were walking through London Drugs looking for a cart. You see I had just picked up a printer for our computer and didn’t want to carry it around while we looked at the clothing and food. (OK yes London Drugs is a bit more than a drug store. Once we almost bought a refrigerator there.) Anyway we came across a stack of stone boxes that you put into your grill. Once they're hot you have an actual stone pizza oven. I haven’t bought a grill just yet but this is tipping the scales a bit. I’ll take pizza over burnt burgers any day.
Word Crimes
Al Yankovik occasionally nails one. Oh mind you a lot of his stuff is pretty good but once in a while he comes up with a song that I dearly love. Such is the case with this cut from his current album. The song is called Word Crimes and is set to the music from Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke. OK, so some of his points are slightly nitpicky but overall I really like the work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc
Audition Time!
I don't know if I mentioned this but the acting thing is back on track. A couple of months ago I auditioned for a role in The Woman in Black, a gothic horror story. I really thought I had the part too, but in the end the director went with someone else. Well this coming week I have another audition. There are two possible roles in the play Ethan Claymore that I think would be fun. I'm busily studying the script and with luck I'll be on stage most of the month of December.
Marsha gets back this weekend.
It’ll be good to have her home. I don’t do well on my own.
While she was gone I did a "manly" thing. A very Canadian "manly" thing. I took that big old palm tree in front of the house out. When we moved in it came up to the bottom of the front window, but it's been growing like a weed and this year it was up against the soffits and front window. It was just too big and too close to the house. Marsha had suggested I get help with taking it out. My cousin Mike even offered to help. But, I did it the good,old red blooded male way; by myself when nobody else was around and for good measure I left the front door locked too so if something happened I'd have to rely on Geiger to call 911. I flailed away at it with our chainsaw and hoped for the best. In the end the tree was gone, the cats were traumatized by the noise, but no harm was done to me or the house or anything.
Except for the tree of course.
Thought for then week:
At work the AC works upstairs in the office and engineering departments but not downstairs in the machine shop, production area, and parts room. I work downstairs. I had just made a trip upstairs and noticed it was cool, cold even. People were in sweaters while downstairs we’re sweating like pigs. When I got back down I walked by a younger coworker and commented
“l want to start a revolution to overthrow the bourgeoisie and liberate their air conditioning in the name of the proletariat working class.”
She looked at me for a second and replied
“I have no idea what you just said. All I understood was air conditioning.”
Oh man do I feel old.
PIX: Before and after the tree came down. Note the before picture was in 2011. By this year the tree was much taller and wider. It completely covered the picture window and some fronds were extending above the gutter.
We had a fellow traveller in the yard. I think he is about a hectare long.