February... just say it.

I think I put a note in here last year about one of my pet peeves. Tomorrow is February. Yep, it's pronounced FEB-roo-air-ee... not FEB-you-air-ee. I get tired of hearing so-called professional announcers on radio and television saying it incorrectly. It's just lazy. Or maybe they're just not clever enough to pronounce it right. Oh well, I am sure there will be more pressing things to worry about tomorrow.

Facebook

Well I did it. Some friends convinced me to get on FACEBOOK. So I did. But I confess I haven't quite figured out how it all works. Neil calls it the internet's version of crack. People keep sending messages and notes and suggestions on things to do... but I am not sure how to take it all. Oh well, I could always say, "oops my computer crashed!"
By the way, that's frost on the moustache. It was minus 43 on the MacLean Trail that day.

I have an Ear Worm!

I just found out on the weekend I have an Ear Worm! Oh don't worry, you won't have to send flowers. An ear worm is a good thing... well, maybe not a good thing, but it's not a bad thing. An ear worm is when you get a tune in your head that won't go away. It just stays there and you hear it ... whenever you have a free moment. So people who know me know that my tune is The Jeopardy Tune. Yep, I will be standing in line at Sears, or pumping gas or maybe waiting for something and without really being conscious of it, I begin humming the Jeopardy Tune... da da da da, da da da, da dee da da DAH da da da da.... sometimes people notice. If they do, I don't notice. It kinda like "did I just hum that out loud?" Sometimes it's really funny when I am in a bar and go to the washroom, all the guys standing at the urinals... and I'm there humming Jeopardy! So this has been my ear worm... oh for about ten years anyway. I haven't been watching TV for about six years. Maybe I should... and get a new tune eh.

Stinky again!

People noticed when I walked into a meeting room today... that certain fragrance that says... hmmm, house fire! I should remember to stand upwind from the smoke when taking photos eh. It was a busy morning. See the news blog here.

Feeling Guilty

So I started the day, with a cup of coffee... and a bowl of ice cream. Okay, I lied. I put Nestle's chocolate syrup on the ice cream. It was just a craving. So I was feeling guilty. Not the usual Catholic guilt. (That's where you feel guilty because you ARE Catholic... apparently we're God's Home Team y'know!) I kept looking at the treadmill. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. Then an emergency call came in. So I scooted out to the west end of town, just in time to see the cops and the rescue guys heading out into the bush... on foot! ... to the scene of a snowmobile crash. As I snapped a few photo's I felt even more guilty... so I grabbed my gear and followed them. On foot! It took a good 30 minutes of hiking to get to the scene. What a workout. My toque was soaked with sweat. No more guilt. Woohoo... i think I deserve cake and ice cream for supper now. Luckily for the rescue crews, a few snowmobilers caught up to them and rushed the paramedics in to the where the victims were. See the rescue info on my news blog here.

Gold gold gold

One day many years ago, I snapped a photo of an unusual event. Several of us were standing in a small room and the heat and the fire from the furnace got so bright and so unbearably hot, I had to shield my face and my eyes. The room was locked. A grim faced man with a loaded shotgun stood watching me. I was witnessing the pouring of several bars of pure gold at the McIntyre Mine. They poured three massive shiny ingots that day. I will never forget watching it. I am still looking for the photo… it was on a KODAK slide. When I find it, I will post it here. The reason I mention it is that Timmins is riding an economic high right now, with the price of gold breaking new records every day. Up until last Friday, the price record was previously set in January of 1980, back when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. It closed at US $850 an ounce then. On Friday it closed at $855. Just so you know, Timmins is the largest gold mining municipality in the world. The experts say gold could hit $900 an ounce by spring and $1,000 an ounce by the end of the year. It’s not all welcome news though. A local mining company has been drilling for more than a year right in the heart of town and they’ve identified a gold zone of approximately four million ounces!!! It could mean a new mine… right in the middle of the city. I just remembered that several years ago, when I was a hardrock miner, a fellow miner handed me a small chunk of pure gold one day. Back in those days, one didn’t want to get caught with a piece of gold … so I sent it to my Dad as a souvenir of Timmins. I wonder if it’s still somewhere in the house in Grand Mira?

Ice cream weather is here

Ice cream should be frozen. For some reason, when it's in MY freezer, it goes soft. Everything else freezes solid in there... but not the ice cream. I should add the only reason I have ice cream is because Ty and Nate came to visit at Christmas. But I hate soft ice cream. I believe ice cream is something that we shouldn't have to slurp once we pull it from the freezer. Two nights ago, as I was plugging in the truck, I noticed how crispy cold it was... so I ran to the freezer, grabbed the ice cream carton and put it outside on the porch wall. It works! It was frozen! - solid! Good thing the ravens didn't notice it eh.

Happy happy : )

Happy New Year morning to all. It’s a sunny pleasant day in Timmins … I think it’s a bit too bright right now. Once I have a soothing cup of tea, I am sure I will be a bit brighter myself. It’s almost 10 a.m. I was up at about 5:30 a.m. and drank two large tumblers of water for some reason. Then it was back to bed. I was out last night to help ring in the new year. I shot several photos. I don’t know what this one is, or how it got into my camera. Hmmmm.....I will try to figure that one out.

Wow... what a book!

If I haven’t been in here writing, it’s because I have become a couch potato with my new book! It seems Jenn and Scott were chatting with Santa because on Christmas morning I received a beautiful copy of Vincent Bugliosi’s new book Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It’s more than 1500 pages and is just packed with more than 20 years worth of research and interviews. Bugliosi’s whole purpose is to prove there was no conspiracy to kill the president. I haven’t made up my mind yet, but wow, this guy sure knows how to research. It took two days just to read through the introduction. And then the narrative begins with all the things that happened on Nov. 22, 1963… not just minute to minute, but in some cases, second by second. I am a bit sore today because I read for nearly five hours last night, hardly moving from the chair… but I did down a pot of coffee and half a bottle of Baileys! So when I finish the book, don’t even ask to borrow it! This one’s a keeper. It stays on the bookshelf.

It's ALL good.

What a great Christmas. I think the best part was convincing Ty to have some chocolate cake, actually a Joe Louis, for breakfast. He didn't need much convincing. Nate got a kick out of eating Froot Loops, right out of the box after we poured the milk in it. Jenn and Scott got a kick out of drinking coffee with no milk or sugar... just Bailey's, Bailey's and more Bailey's. They sure drank a lot of coffee for some reason. Of course Santa arrived and the boys must have been very good this year because they were overwhelmed with gifts, -- but seemed to get the most fun out of playing with their Slinkys. When the boys didn't have food in their hands, it seemed they had their Slinky. It was also nice that Neil called from beautiful downtown Vancouver where he was finishing up work at the restaurant called Steamworks. Poor guy ... some friends had family members arriving from Mexico with six litres of premium agave tequila. I hope they can remember Christmas ;) We also did some visiting, which is always nice. I am still enjoying all the Christmas cards I got .... from Nova Scotia all the way to Vancouver Island. Lucky me, eh.

Christmas morning

It’s Christmas morning… the calm before the storm. The boys (and their mom and dad) came storming through the front door yesterday, all smiles and giggles. The boys are still in bed now … tucked into their new sleeping bags, - they are “camping” in the rec room. I expect they will be awake shortly. I am enjoying a quiet Christmas coffee, sweetened with Bailey’s and whiskey. It’s almost 8:00 a.m. The boys were up till around ten last night. Jenn and Scott were out visiting. We had some popcorn, watched a movie and then went online to track Santa’s flight through NORAD. The boys got pretty excited about that. Then we went outside to look at the stars and see if we could see Rudolph. I think we did. It was an exciting night. Things will get more exciting in a short while I think.

Christmas Eve

What a day so far! I was up just before six, peeked out the window and sure enough the city snowplow took all the slush from yesterday's rain and piled it in front of my driveway :( I put on the coffee, called the guys at CBC for a Merry Christmas chat and went out and fired up the snowblower. The slush was quickly turning to ice, and that's all it took to snap a shear pin on the snowblower :( Luckily I had a few heavy bolts in the house and fixed the problem in about five minutes. Then the machine ran out of gas! So I went to the shed. Sure enough, my gas can was empty. Luckily my good neighbor Ed was out clearing his driveway... so he helped clear mine and gave me some gas :) So, to pay it forward, I cleared my neighbor Dave's driveway. Then I went to gas up the truck and the gas can! By then it was eight oclock and time for coffee.
Company is arriving today. So I have to tidy up, do the floors, do the bathrooms and have a drink! Wooohoo!

Looks a bit better now eh?

So here is the tree, looking a bit better. Although it "drinks" about a litre of water every day! And it sure smells nice. I've put lots of candy on the tree so I can spoil the boys when they arrive. Christmas sure is fun.

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree..

It doesn’t look like much right now, because it’s still ‘thawing out’ in the corner in the front hallway, but this is my new Christmas tree. I already have a small artificial tree, but with Jenn and boys coming north for Christmas, I figured I should go out and get a real one. I was outside this morning and thought I should go to the shed, grab the bucksaw and pick out a nice spruce or pine on the edge of town… when the kids were small, that’s what we did each year.
But I was lazy and figured, ah what the heck I’ll just buy one. So there I was at Canadian Tire just after lunch and the United Way people have set up a tree lot. So I walked over and snooped around and said okay, let’s do it. So I grabbed this balsam fir, wrapped in a plastic net, and threw it on the canoe rack on the truck. Then I walked over the lady at the table. She said $50 please.
“Fifty bucks!” I screamed inside my head. “I am living amidst the great Northern Boreal Forest… the largest forest on planet Earth and these people want fifty dollars from me for their friggin tree!” I continued to shout inside my head. Trouble is, these people all know me and I can’t just walk over to the truck and throw their stupid $50 tree on the ground. So I smiled and pulled out my wallet, which is now $50 lighter. And the United Way is $50 richer. So I guess its all good. Besides it smells nice. I figure in January I will put in on Ebay… no doubt there is some tree hugger in Toronto will give me $60 for this unique specimen of a 3000 year old tree rescued from the Hudson Bay tundra… yeah, that’s the story… somebody will buy it.

Happy day Jenn!

So I called Jennifer to wish her a happy birthday. Scott answered and we chatted and he told me Jenn was still at work. I said "why on earth would she want to work on her birthday?"
Scott chuckled a bit and said "I don't think she wants anyone to know its her birthday."
I guess that happens to some women when they reach a certain age.
But being a nosey sort I had to pursue this, so I called Jenn at work. A co-worker answered the phone. I said "it's her Dad calling long distance from Timmins... It's urgent ... I have to wish her Happy Birthday!"
The co-worker said "I didn't know it was her birthday!"
I said "well now you do, go tell everyone."
A short while later my fave daughter got on the line and we had a laugh... but I am sure she'll get me back at some point.
Happy Day Jenn!

Wreath on the Mac

The wreath on the famous McIntyre headframe in Timmins is a sure sign that Christmas is near. I could have walked closer but I wasn't sure that the ice on Pearl Lake was frozen enough... and I didn't have snowshoes in the truck. They are still in the house. By the way, it's easy to see why mineshaft headframes are called the 'cathedrals of the north' because they just dominate our landscape. The old Mac is about 18 storeys tall. That wreath is more than 25 feet across.

Madonna's Mattress? : )

I guess the Parliament Hill media have nothing better to do than listen to a foreigner charged with fraud trying to get a free ride to stay in Canada. This Karlheinz Schreiber thing is such a pain in the you-know-what. This guy changes his story more than Madonna changes mattresses. The more that Schreiber makes up new charges, the more that MPs on the Commons Ethics committee want to hear. I can't believe our politicians are putting any credence in what this guy has to say. But then again, they are politicians. Schreiber is charged with fraud and corruption in his own country. In Canada he says the RCMP, the justice deparment, the former Liberals and the current conservatives are against him. He is pointing fingers at Mulroney and has already admitted he gave money to Mulroney after Mulroney left office. The money was to help Schreiber set up business for armoured vehicles. The deal didn't work out so Schreiber blames Mulroney. As for Harper agreeing to a public inquiry at the behest of the Liberals, I can't believe the Liberals are letting themselves get sucked in. Oh well, that's my rant for Saturday morning.

My new computer

This post comes to you from my newest computer. My "old" computer was only two years old and was beginning show its age... since I am a video gamer, my memory was filling up fast. It doesn't help that I shoot and store about 200 Megabytes of photos each week. That wasn't the problem. It happened that I somehow "fried" a USB port. I couldn't figure it out, so I pulled the hard drive and installed an older one... ( I think I surprised myself that I was able to open the computer and dismantle it). So the old computer worked, but only with an ancient hard drive. I spent a few days using my laptop as the home computer. Then while I was out shopping last week, I checked computer prices and was amazed to find a new terminal about six times more powerful than my last one. The price, with all taxes, was less than $400! (Yes, it was on sale with an instant rebate) So here I am with a dual-core Pentium, 1000 megs of RAM and a 320 gig hard drive. This one terminal has more computing power than the entire NASA computer complex that sent Apollo 11 to the moon and back.

Happy Day Gary

Today is Gary's birthday.
He is my big brother. I was on the phone with him yesterday.
Gary does good phone calls...
How ya doing Gary?
Okay.
Everything good?
Yep.
Anything new?
Nope.
So is winter there yet?
Yeah, a little bit...
Gary doesn't waste too many words.
That's a good thing.
Happy Birthday Gary.

Good Things

This has been a good week. It's nice to think about good things that happen.
GOOD - I have been trying to find time for an oil change on the truck for about two weeks. I have been too busy lately. Today I finally decided to give up some time and get it done. I figured I'd be waiting in the shop for at least an hour. On the way to Canadian Tire, I spotted Just Lubes on Algonquin East. I pulled up and before I turned off the truck, the kid in the coveralls was opening the bay door and waving me forward. I drove in, they changed the oil, topped up all the fluids. I was back out on the street in about 12 minutes. When things are that good, you gotta tell people.
BETTER - Two summers back I was putting the canoe in the river, when i slipped in the mud and right into the water. That wasn't so bad, except my nice little Sony digital camera got soaked and stopped working right there. So i put the camera away, figuring I could at least use the memory card someday. This week i was cleaning out my office, saw the camera and got ready to toss it in the garbage. For some reason I put a couple of fresh batteries in it... and there ya go, It works! I could hardly believe it. But yep, I did some test shots and it's just fine.
BEST - Jenn called up this week to tell me that she and the boys (yes, that includes her darling hubby Scott) are coming to Timmins for Christmas! Woohoo. Things don't get much better eh.
I also got a call from Neil this week. Actually i called him after he left a message saying "hey old man, call me". I haven't stopped laughing about that one... who the hell does he think he is, calling me an old man...? : )

And I saw something nice today... it's on my News Blog. I was at a house fire and snapped a nice photo of a dog that got rescued. Take a look here.