No, we’re not in trouble. This weekend marks four years since our arrival in Canada. A lot has passed and much has changed since we left Minnesota, but we’re doing well. Steady jobs, a house, a couple of cats. Deer in the yard and a tray of tomato sprouts struggling to survive in the windowsill. Less money, but also less stress, less snow, less worry, less crime, less commuting, and more time for what we want to do. It’s been a good change. We went to lunch with Barbara on Saturday to celebrate our anniversary and then I worked in the yard prepping the planters for the peppers and tomatoes, digging up the bed where the potatoes will go, and otherwise prepping the yard for gardening. We got two more barrel planters this year. Whiskey Barrels rather than wine, they work just as well even if they don't smell as good.

In other news the biggest scandal up here recently involves the hot springs at Banff. Apparently they have started running dry late in the season and nobody is quite sure why. So starting a decade or so ago when you go for a soak in the natural hot springs it’s often city water from big gas water heaters. You could get the same thing soaking in the tub at the hotel. The question is not WHY they’re doing this.  The big question is how did they think they could do this and nobody would find out. 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/04/18/calgary-banff-hot-springs-water.html

And don’t say you weren’t warned. I mean I did a whole letter about this. A few weeks back Marsha signed up with MLB.COM to get Minnesota Twins broadcasts over the Web. Ever since then they’ve lost. The Twins now have the worst record in baseball. They played Tampa Bay and got swept for a combined score of 6-29. This was after losing to the Royals 2-11, to the Orioles 0-11, and the Blue Jays 3-13. 

All because Marsha is following the team. I told you so.

I did notice a few strange things this week. One day at work I noticed the Musac was playing the song Hotel California. This struck me as somehow inappropriate to play this  at a Resort. Nobody else seemed to notice though.

And then there was the case east of here. Seems like some guy got mad at his buddy and stabbed him. That’s bad enough, not out of character in some circles but definitely not good.  The big issue was that the guy was a passenger in a car being driven by his buddy. Now, I don’t care what somebody may have said. Stabbing someone when they are the driver in a moving car strikes me as a really bad idea. But the driver was able to stop the car and the other guy jumped out and ran away. The driver called for help and the RCMP got there in about an hour and he’s doing OK. The reason it took so long was that they were 50 miles from town. This leads  to the other lessen from this. If you ARE going to stab the driver and then run away, do it where there’s somewhere to run too. The incident happened in the highway in the Rockies, in the middle of nowhere. They found the stabber a few hundred yards off the road hiding in the bushes wondering what the heck he was going to do. 

Not the brightest bulb on the string.

Have a good week. I know we will.

Dou3g & Marsja (We're playing with more exotic spelling. Like It?)

PIX: Dawn Moon. Love this camera!!



This is on full telephoto. the island is many miles south of Nanaimo and the Ferry looked like a white dot at the mouth of the harbour.




In the Nanaimo Daily News they have a column called Beefs & Bouquets where readers write in and either complain about something they encountered (bad driver, terrible service, etc) or to thank someone for something (good service, act of kindness, etc.) They draw the name of one submitter each week and they win a bouquet. Marsha sent in a Bouquet this week and her name was drawn so she won this bouquet. (I don't know if they draw a complaint if you win beef.)