Rain, plants and books

It's another nice Saturday morning in Timmins. The heat wave broke and we have had a bit of light rain for the past few days. That's nice. I think I might buy some flowers, or at least a flowering plant, for my balcony this week. There is a rule in Timmins -- Don't plant before the first moon in June. That will be next Saturday. But I think I might take a chance. The forest fire situation is very calm, thank goodness. As much as I like aircraft, I was getting annoyed by the constant noise of helicopters. My new entertainment/wall unit was delivered yesterday. It's bigger than I thought. It's huge. It takes up the whole wall. Oh well, at least now I can begin unpacking some of my books.

Bing Photo Contest - Mac in the fall

Bing Photo Contest - Mac in the fall
Go to the link and vote for my Photo! : )

My litte truck

I put my little Nitro to the test last week with some hill-climbing and narrow bush roads near Timmins while getting photos of a forest fire. The little Chevy Tracker I had before would go anywhere, rain, snow, mud, whatever. I am still not sure about the Nitro since it's a 1000 pounds heavier than the Tracker. It's built on a Jeep chassis with an excellent 4X4 package, but it doesn't seem as nimble. Although I was able to get over some big rocks without any trouble. Maybe I'm the one who is nervous, since the paint job is still so new eh.

Chatting with my brother

Had a great lonnnnnnng chat tonight with Ronald. It was good to hear his voice. He was a bit tired still from the jet lag from Afghanistan, but said he was glad to be home and relaxing. He is still active duty, but has built up some vacation time. We will be seeing each other in September and, for the record, he has a bottle of 12 year old Glenfiddich for me. That should be a good thing.

Oh Doctor, what's that smell?

Sometimes we will go to unusual lengths to get a photo of people doing their jobs. So that’s what happened Friday afternoon when I followed some forest fire fighters into the thick bush to snap a couple of photos of them at work on what they call hotspots. After the main forest fire is contained, there are always little pockets of fire. The problem is that the bush was black and charred from Wednesday’s fire. And the bush in Northern Ontario is thick like a jungle. Anyone knows, except me of course, that a charred branch is like a pencil and leaves a mark. These fellows were wearing dark pants, long sleeves and special boots. I had dress shoes and light khaki dress pants, with a short sleeved shirt. When we came out of the bush, my clothes and arms were criss-crossed with black stripes and scuff marks. It looked liked somebody with a black magic-marker attacked me. I even had char marks on my bare arms. That’s wasn’t the worse part. I had a four o’clock doctor’s appointment to pick up a prescription and no time to run home to change or shower. So I went and sat in the doctor’s waiting room and for several minutes endured the stares or ordinary people who must have wondered what I was up to. To make it worse, I was a bit sweaty and when that mixed with the smoky fragrance of a burnt forest, I must have been a delight for the senses. I just enjoyed the moment because I had several snappy answers in the back of my mind in case anyone asked … like, “Oh they’re shooting a Tide commercial next door, I just dropped in here for a break. - Or – Isn’t this the internet dating office? I’m hoping to meet the outdoors type!
Oh well, it’s now Saturday morning. May Run time in Timmins and the coffee smells great.

This is what it's all about in Timmins, Ontario

There was a big mining show in Timmins this week. One of the more popular exhibits was sitting right out in the open. Well to be fully truthful, there were two armed cops nearby. This is a brick of gold from one of the local Goldcorp mines in Timmins. When this photo was taken Wednesday morning it was worth roughly $880,000. Of course the price of gold has gone up a few points since then. The brick is a bit dark, because there were some 'impurities' in the gold... several ounces of pure silver. To give you an idea of the size of the brick, I took of photo of it with a couple of the mine managers.

Grrrreat news!

I was going through the e-mails this morning when I noticed there was a comment left on Wednesday's entry in this blog. The comment was from RAG ... that means it was from my brother Ronald, who has been with the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan for several months. He wrote " ...I am home. Safe and good to go."
Great news Bro! Welcome home!

A long, long news day

I wrote here a few weeks back that May is usually one of the busiest months for news. Oh yeahhhhh. Just got home after a lonnnnnng, lonnnng day. Timmins had not one, not two but THREE forest fires today. Big ones! I am tired also from the fact that at two oclock this morning, I was following the story of a young lady who took Timmins Police on a high speed pursuit, through town, out of town and then crashed her car on the highway and rolled it over. Luckily she is alive. She's in the hospital under police guard, but still alive.


So yep, a really busy news day and a long one. I am signing off now to have a frozen TV dinner from the microwave and a beer so cold it will make my teeth hurt.

It a good morning eh

Saturday morning and the coffee smells great today. I am drinking tea on the weekdays and coffee on the weekends now. Wow, I can understand why somebody wrote that phrase "Wake up and smell the coffee!" It's a good thing.
I covered the Ontario Mine Rescue dinner last night. It was nice to see the fellows from Goldcorp in Timmins win the competition for the second year in a row.
I was happy to see my brother in law Moe there. (click the photo at the right!) Moe is an outstanding mine rescue guy and I have to admit I felt some pride when it was announced he was one of a just a handful of guys who aced the written exam. Way to go Moe!
By the way, I think we're in for some interesting NHL hockey in the coming days. I notice there are a lot of fans out there for the Canadians ... there are still a few who are fans of the "Canadiens". Somebody the other day said, Jeez, there's a lot of Habs fans. I wouldn't call myself a Habs fan, but I do hope the Canadian team wins : )

Watch a wedding...

I will do something this week I've never done before. I will be watching friends get married. But I will be watching it online because they're in Las Vegas and I'm not. Oh how the world in changing. It's still kind of neat though. Jenn and Scott's sister (in law), Christine is marrying Demetrios on Wednesday at The Little Chapel, Chapel of the Flowers. You can go on the Internet Wednesday and peek in. (7:00 p.m. Eastern Time, 4:00 p.m. in Las Vegas) Here is the Link: https://plan.littlechapel.com/Guests/Default.aspx?PlanID=551850.
I hope to be right here by my computer. I have a handful of rice and a box of kleenex! Woohoo.

Changing reality

Going through some old photos, I have decided I want to make a few nice prints to get them framed. But I am struggling with the colour on my computer. I am trying to get the old "1950s postcard" look, with the moody washed out colours. I am not sure if I can do it, but I will keep trying. The first photo with the fall colours is the original. The second photo is the one where I am experimenting with the colour.


As always, click on the pics to see them larger.

An interesting day . .

It has been an interesting morning. I have been covering a visit by Governor General Michaelle Jean who visited the Goldcorp's Dome gold mine in Timmins, the longest running gold mine in Canada. I think even her security people were impressed with the level of security at a gold mine. I have seen tougher security in only one other place, the De Beers diamond mine.

It's May eh.

Saturday morning on the first day of May. The coffee is good. The sky is overcast. We had a bit of rain and it's about 10 degrees. That's not bad compared to this day last year, when we had SNOW! It's true, I checked the blog from last year. I am looking forward to this month. For some reason, May is one of the busiest news months of the year. On Monday and Tuesday, I will be covering Michaelle Jean, our governor general. That should be interesting.
Photo Credit:Patrick Boyle. CP

Happy Day Bud!

It's Friday afternoon in Timmins and we're finnaly getting a bit of rain. Nicely refreshing. It was at about this time of day 30 years ago that my favourite son was born. There was a bit of rain that day too. But it has been sunshine most of the time since then. Lucky me,eh! : )

Do I worry too much?

So a new credit card arrived in the mail today. After following the instructions, I activated the new card and then got the scissors to cut up the old card. But I worry about this thing about identify theft. So I cut the card into four pieces. I put one piece the kitchen garbage, another piece in the bathroom garbage and I will take the other two pieces to work and dispose them there. Do I worry too much?

Guilt tripping

It's that time of year. Girl Guides are selling their cookies. One of the moms at work managed to sell me three boxes of cookies for her daughter. I feel guilty. Between Friday and Saturday, I ate a whole box. I guess it was wrong to leave the box sitting out open on the kitchen counter.
Spring has finally arrived in Timmins. (Knock on wood!) I don't think and certainly don't hope we will get anymore snow. But we've had snow in July here, so I am never surprised after living in Northern Ontario all these years.
Now that I have booked my holidays, it seems that's all I can think about. It has been too many years since I first visited the west coast. When I was a high school student in North Bay, I remember when the summer of 1971 arrived. It was another boring Friday afternoon and I didn't have a summer job yet. North Bay is the crossroads for the two major highways in Northern Ontario, Highway 11 and Highway 17. A friend and I had seen dozens of other young people out on the highways. They were hitchhiking. That's when we decided we would do that too. It was a different time then and fun to be 17. I went home and told Mom and Dad I was going to Vancouver. So I packed some clothes and a sleeping bag and grabbed about $40 in cash and by midnight we were in Sault Ste. Marie. Six days later, and after riding a freight train through the Rockies, we made it to Vancouver.

Go west old man... : )

Wow, a whole week has gone by. Lots has happened. Jennifer and the family are doing fine. I have chatted with her about four times this past week. And I spoke with Neil too. I am planning a holiday. Neil has been living west of the Rockies for a few years now, so I figure it's time to visit his neck of the woods. Can't wait to show up at his place in Vancouver and have him buy the beer. It will be a few months yet, but I think it will be nice to get out of Timmins for awhile. Vancouver will be nice, and we'll also get a chance to drop over to Victoria. I might even get a chance to get to the airbase at Comox to see if any family members are home from Afghanistan. If I get time I plan to zip down to Seattle to see the aviation museum at the Boeing plant. It's considered one of the best in the world. Besides, I checked online for some hotels in Seattle and was very pleased to discover that persons over age 50 get a seniors discount! As I look at the sun shining out the window, I am hoping spring has arrived in Timmins. We had snow on Friday, and it didn't stay long, but it was annoying for mid-April. It has been a mild winter, but I think Mother Nature is playing tricks on us.

Pictures, pictures, pictures ...

I've been slowly converting old photos to a digital format. The way its going right now, I think it will take years. I have more than 10,000 slides and negatives to go through! Here are a few just for fun...

Happy Easter

Just got back into town after spending time with Jenn & Scott and the boys. What a treat it was to see them all again. It was a nice weekend even if we did have to watch the Leafs lose to the Bruins. Jenn continues to improve and looks great. I was super impressed to see the renovations that Scott and Don did to the house. I never realized how much work it took to install marble flooring, but it looks fabulous. I had fun with the boys and enjoyed spoiling them Saturday when we went out to lunch and had chocolate fundge sundaes as appetizers! It's fun to get silly every now and then.

Good Friday, busy Friday

It's good Friday morning, and I thought I wouldn't be busy, but I am. Already made two trips to Tim Hortons. News happens, even on holidays. (see my NEWS website on the right)
Well, I did get a note from little brother Ronald after all. He left a comment on the blog after I mentioned last week that I had a cold. His comments: "A cold, that is what happens when you get old. Happy Birthday Leonard. It is March 31 over here so this counts. Say Hi to Jennifer for me. Tell her "next year", us Leaf fans must stick together. RAG"
Just so you know, RAG is Ron's sign off - Ronald Adrian Gillis.