Medical research?

I have a bit of a cold today. It's annoying. I am going to blame the reporters from the other paper. On Monday I was at a city hall meeting and the reporter there had sniffles. On Tuesday I was at the press gallery in court and another reporter was there...and had sniffles. So last night, I was stuffed up and it continues today. I was reading recently that 16th century monks would deal with this by praying, singing and drinking copious amounts of wine. Sounds like good science to me!

Bad news: My glorious I-Mac G5 finally crapped out yesterday. The monitor is fried and because the monitor and computer is all-in-one, I can’t use it. So I called company I.T. department in London, ON. They don’t have a solution either. I cannot even download all the current files because it requires a special cable.
Better news: I will be doing all my work on the Mac G4 laptop. Interestingly, despite its age, it always ran better than the G5. I spent Friday evening setting it up for work and everything appears to be running fine.
Best news. It’s Saturday morning. I made a half-decent pot of coffee and I am enjoying that with chocolate cupcakes! Yum. Too bad the boys aren’t here.
I guess I shouldn’t complain. The world is not a perfect place. Some people are poor. Some people go hungry. Some people go to war. Some people are in bad relationships and some people, sigh; have to use a McIntosh computer.

Spring is on the way eh.

In just a few hours from now, it's gonna be spring again. It's always one of my favorite times of year. It'll be slushy and mucky for awhile, but then the trees will have new buds and the air will smell a bit fresher. Yep, it's gonna be nice. Of course, in Timmins we're always good for one major blizzard before spring really arrives. I hope it's not the long weekend in May!

Macs are so frustrating

Talk about embarrassing. A police officer showed up at the office today... they needed some of our news photos as evidence in a criminal case. So once we agreed on what photos we could share (just the one's we actually published) we were pleased to give him an electronic copy of the digital photos. So here's the problem... Macs only seem to work well one function at a time (they're just so useless!). So I wasn’t able to burn a copy on my Mac, which happens to be the newest one on the market. And the other Macs in the building were just as useless. The poor cop was as exasperated as I was… He has to keep a “chain of evidence” going from the point where he sees the photo to the point where he gets his own copy. This was important since each photo was stamped with the time and date and it establishes that certain persons were at a certain crime scene (I had no idea at the time who I was taking photos of!) Finally we found a computer in the classifieds office that was able to burn a fresh disc and get the photos handed over the policeman. If the bad guys get away, blame it on a Mac!

My cool new coffee machine.

It was several days ago I noticed my old coffee pot (Well, not THAT old -- maybe a year old) had a rust stain on the bottom. Then I noticed that the heating plate on the coffee maker was all rusty... and I clean the danged thing everyday! So I figured I would buy a new one. I was out at Wal Mart and was not impressed with the selection, or the prices. On Wednesday this past week, I checked out the Airmiles rewards page on the net... sure enough, there was a nice coffee pot for only 700 airmiles. Ooooh ... a Cuisinart with all the bells and whistles! So I ordered it. I got an e-mail back a minute later, saying that delivery would be about four weeks. No problem. Friday afternoon, I drove up the driveway and there sitting on my front step was a cardboard box with an Airmiles sticker on it. I was impressed. I had to read the instruction book because of all the stuff on it. There's even a charcoal filter to filter the tap water... for a better tasting cup of coffee. Oooooh, how cool is that?

My place on the planet

If you go to Google Earth and enter my address, this is what you find... my neighborhood. Actually I was cleaning out photo files today and I came across this one I shot last September. That is Blahey Court, in the north end of town, right beside the bush. I never thought we were so crowded! Maybe that's why the bears like to visit so much.

Anyone we know?

When you enjoy your morning tea and really read a newspaper through and through, you find all sorts of interesting things… such as a tiny personal classified ad from the New York Times. It seems there is an “alluring red head with model figure and beautiful legs” who is seeking an 80-year-old man. Hmmm… I think I have been around the mining business long enough to know a gold digger when I see one!

Grapefruit....Mmmmm. Yum.

I have to confess it’s a good thing no one sees me eating breakfast … I have been enjoying grapefruit this week. I think I am on a grapefruit binge. I picked up a couple last weekend and they were just so juicy and sweet I just inhaled them… slurping and slushing grapefruit juice all over my face. Well, not that bad… but close! I cut them into four pieces and eat ‘em like orange wedges. That way you get all the juice. I bought four more today and had one before supper. It’s like I can’t get enough, they’re just so tasty.
Oh well, I’ll be over it next week … back to Quaker oats.

All the news thats fit to print ... and then some.

Aline snuck off to New York City for a few days and brought me a couple of fabulous souvenirs. One is the Sunday copy of the veritable New York Times.  The other is the Saturday night copy of the notorious New York Post. Talk about opposites eh. One will be pretty serious reading; the other is a scandal sheet.  Which is which depends on your point of view!

The quest for gold...

The annual prospector’s convention has just wrapped up in Toronto, and even though mining companies around the world are hurting, everyone is still talking about Timmins. That’s because the price of gold is as strong as ever. What’s even more interesting is that there are nearly 100 mining exploration companies active around Timmins… they’re the people looking for new gold mines. That makes Timmins the mining exploration capital of Canada… if not the world. No one seems to be able to name anyplace else where there is such a hunt for new gold. I know a few prospectors. They’re interesting people. One thing they keep saying is absolutely stunning… they say there’s been lots of gold mines in Timmins, but every one of them is convinced that the big one, the motherlode, has not yet been found. I can’t imagine how big a find that will be … I hope it happens in my lifetime.

Cold weather and cobwebs

Well I have to write something of interest here … so today it’s cobwebs and cold weather. So I noticed a cobweb in the upper corner of the hallway downstairs. So where did that come from? I keep a clean house. I really do. Some of my friends think I am a clean freak. Anyway, I went on the attack with the vacuum cleaner and found five or six friggin cobwebs! Actually they’re not really cobwebs… because those are made by spiders. I don’t have spiders. What I have is dustwebs… very annoying. But now they’re gone. But from what I’ve read… they’ll be back.
And now cold weather. Okay I like winter. I do. But here in Timmins we’ve had quite the cold snap… and snow, more snow last month than we’ve had in years. For some reason today, I was daydreaming of nice sunny skies, warm temperatures and summer breezes. Oh well, two more months and spring will be here.

It always happens.

An interesting story Saturday took me out to a remote bush area north of Timmins where Cree Indians- Canadian Rangers - were teaching bush skills to Canadian Forces infantry guys. Some of the fellows were reservists with the Algonquin Regiment. Sure enough one of the fellows asked me about my name and about a certain Sgt. Ronald Gillis. It always happens when I meet older Canadian Forces guys. Sgt. Rob Bartlett, the guy on the left, was based with Ron at Petawawa back in the days of 2-Commando of the Canadian Airborne Regiment. They also served together on a peacekeeping mission in Cyprus. So Ron, if you see this, Rob says hi.

Celebrating flight

I was hoping that the 100th anniversary of Canadian aviation, which was yesterday, would be noticed in some special way across the country. There was a commemorative flight of the Silver Dart which took place in Cape Breton. But not much more than that. I remember several years ago, when TCA (Trans-Canada Airlines) celebrated its 50th anniversary with a cross-Canada flight of a rebuilt Lockheed Electra. It was a cool thing. In 1984, Austin Airways of Timmins celebrated its 50th anniversary with a display at the Timmins Airport. That cute kid there in front of the DC-3 is my son Neil Gillis. He was all of four years old back then. Toward the end of the day, Austin had a routine flight to Iroquois Falls and back. Knowing that it would be likely be last time Neil would ever have a chance to fly aboard such a legendary aircraft, we climbed in and took the flight. Neil got a kick out of the fact that passengers got on the plane from a door at the rear and then had to “walk uphill” to get to their seat. It was a good day.

One of my favourite moments in aviation was not in actually flying, but visiting the Canadian Aviation Museum in Ottawa a few years back. Just as you go through the main doors, there is a full-sized Fairey Swordfish biplane. It was just right there, a big jumble of wooden struts, canvas and steel wire. I remember being amazed that this was the airplane that dropped the torpedo that crippled the Bismarck of the German navy in May 1941, which at the time was the largest, fastest, deadliest battleship in the world. I remember standing there being amazed at the guts it took to fly this flimsy piece of flying-machine into the face of no less than 60 anti-aircraft guns to drop a torpedo. Amazing.

I need inspiration.

I have been reading today all about the Oscar celebrations and the Academy Awards. For some reason it seems people are more interested in what the stars are wearing as opposed to whether a film has been or good not. I’m sorry; all this Oscar stuff is such crap. I haven’t seen any good movies in awhile. I certainly have seen anything to inspire me. Movies just don’t do that anymore. It’s not enough to be entertained. I think a good movie should leave you feeling overwhelmed and exhilarated. Books do that. The good ones sure do. When I think about all this talk about economic recession and a possible depression, I think about John Steinbeck’s great novel, The Grapes of Wrath. It won Steinbeck the Nobel Prize for literature. If you haven’t read it, put it on your bucket list. I have to read that again this year. The book was written in 1939 and the movie followed in 1940. Both became classics. I think I will read the book and see the movie again. I need inspiration.
The movie, which is about an American farm family struggling in the Great Depression, has a wonderful scene at the end, where Tom Joad’s Ma, played by Jane Darwell, gives her famous speech about the suffering, endurance and survival of ordinary people: “I ain't never gonna be scared no more. I was though. For a while it looked like we was beat. Good and beat. Looked like we didn't have nobody in the whole wide world but enemies. Like nobody was friendly no more. Made me feel kinda bad and scared too, like we was lost and nobody cared.... Rich fellas come up -- and they die, and their kids ain't no good -- and they die out, but we keep on coming. We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out, they can't lick us. We'll go on forever Pa, ‘cause we're the people…”

Another good week zips by...

I haven’t been here for a week, but that only means I have been busier than usual. The weekend was good. I didn’t realize that last Saturday was Valentine’s Day… don’t ever try to go out to dinner on February 14, with someone you’re not romantically involved with… it just sends all the wrong messages. LOL. And you’ll never get a reservation. So we stayed at home and had lasagne, salad and loads fresh garlic bread. Then we went to the Zoo in South End to take in the lip-sync singing contests… which were hilarious. The fireworks show on Sunday was also worth the trip. I also enjoyed a drive across Porcupine Lake, which surprised a couple of snowmobile drivers as I booted past them. The ice was solid and safe at 30 inches of thickness. It was a busy news week, so it zipped by in a blur of stories and photos… but I did enjoy a chat with a fellow named Ray McLean. He is a former pilot with Austin Airways and had loads of great stories from working there for nearly 50 years! I did the story with Ray since Monday is the 100th anniversary of Canadian aviation, and Ray was a true northern bush pilot. It was also a good news week for the Timmins call centre workers. A Charlottetown firm, On Line Support, chose Timmins over 26 other Canadian communities, as the location of their newest call centre. I noticed among friends on facebook there is a trend now to list several things about yourself that others don’t know… it’s quite interesting, I don’t know where to start, but I might mention I was at the controls of an airplane flying through the Eastern Arctic one night with five tons of frozen halibut from Greenland. The real pilot was asleep. Hmmm…. That was an interesting time.

And now ... some more signs!

Winter carnival weekend is here... well almost! Here a couple of signs I will likely check out Saturday night! : )

Just in passing...

I mentioned in the blog last week that I was at an industrial fire. As you can see in pics a bit further below, the fire was not that big when we got there... unfortunately, it was a stubborn fire, and it got out of control later in the evening, as you can see in the nighttime photo above. The building was destroyed.

Nice weekend

It was another beautiful winter weekend in Timmins. We had plenty of snow Saturday when the Ontario Provincial Police commemorative patrol arrived in town. The patrol is to re-create the early days of the OPP which began in Northern Ontario in 1909. They’re traveling 1000 kilometres through the wilderness in three weeks. Of course, they had to stop in at Timmins which was one of the first detachments for the OPP back in the wilder days of the gold rush. It was sure cool to see the sled dogs. I was amazed at how small they are. And despite the temperatures of minus 35, they curl up and sleep in the snow. But when the time comes to hitch up to sled, they sure look happy. The two OPP officers on the patrol are also having an adventure, despite the fact they have to wear the old fashioned wool tunics and itchy-woolly long-johns.

What a day eh...

It was a busy darn day, but overall a good one. I caught a bit of hell from a police officer for driving too quickly while on the way to an explosion and fire at an industrial building in the west end. I was very apologetic, of course. But at the same time, I was a bit pleased that I got there before the cops closed the highway. The other newspaper in town was stuck behind the roadblock while I was at the scene, shooting pictures. By the way, here is a photo of a fire truck arriving at the scene. The good thing today was that I got a chance to drop into a book store where I found a used copy of The Source by James Michener. It was written in 1965. My Dad had a copy and he got me to read it around 1970.
I didn’t absorb it all back then, but it was great reading. I can’t wait to dig into it again. Interestingly, on page 16 on the book I found a bookmark… It was a boarding pass for a Canadian Airlines flight in economy class to Toronto, seat no. 7A, held by a person named L. McKay. It must have been quite a while ago… it was a no-smoking seat.

A good send-off for Mike Campbell

It was a bittersweet thing this weekend when the family got together for Mike’s funeral. It was great to see everyone again, just like on New Year’s Eve. The terrible sadness of course was that Mike’s great smile, laughter and silly jokes were not there. The funeral service was okay, as such things go, and it was good that so very many people showed up. People came from as far away as Manitoba and New Brunswick. There was a nice reception and lunch at the Miron Wilson hall afterwards. Then the family migrated back to Sue’s place where beer and whiskey flowed and then came the stories, tears and laughter as everyone remembered Mike the husband, Mike the brother, Mike the uncle, Mike the dad and granddad and, of course, Mike the crazy character who mooned his guests from the head table at his own wedding reception. Thank goodness for Harley Davidson underwear. It was also a chance to snap a photo of the Maltais brothers and sisters and some of the cousins.