This is so good!

The Portugese sure did a good thing a few hundred years back when they invented that fabulous fortified beverage known as Port. I have enjoyed several over the years and have always found them to be warm, comforting and delicious. National Geographic had an excellent article on the Duoro Valley a few years back. That’s where port is made.  So today when I was in the liquor store, I grabbed a couple of bottles of white wine and was looking at some reds as well. Nothing seemed to stand out for me and then I saw the Ports on a shelf. With winter coming, I had this urge to have something so sweet and smooth and warming. Usually, a good whiskey does the trick. But today I grabbed a bottle of Graham’s vintage LVBP. This is the talented little sister to the really expensive vintages that usually run about $100 a bottle.  I usually choose the tawny, medium sweet, but today I went traditional. Oh my. And it is just so fine. The critics love writing about this stuff and have mentioned that there are hints of chocolate, cranberry, blackberry, caramel and fruitcake! I honestly don’t know about that except that I love the taste and it makes me smile.

Tear the house down!

I was pleased to see so much good discussion about the future of 24 Sussex Drive, the prime minister’s residence. I have to say I am in with the group that believes it is time to tear that building down. The building is more than a century old, and filled with things like asbestos and bad wiring. If it was a school, a hospital or a day care, we wouldn’t give it a second thought. There is really no significant historical reason for keeping it. I think that tearing the old house down and creating a brand new official home is appropriate. It will indeed be interesting to see how this all unfolds in the coming weeks and months. 

Try it. You might like it.

Jennifer often jokes about my choice of beer. That’s because I am not really brand loyal. I drink whatever happens to be good, or new or different. She calls my choices “weird beer”. I have tried a new brand in the past few weeks and next time we meet, I will see if I can get Jenn to try it. It’s a very nice stout with a vanilla flavour. It also uses the same widget technology that Guinness uses, so you get that draught beer flavour with every can.
Jennifer is very brand loyal. I don’t think she will drink any take-out coffee but Timmies. I will not reveal her favourite beer, and let me tell you Bud, you won’t be any wiser. 
But she might be willing to try this brand, only because it tastes so nice. I will let you know.

Treat yourself!

Like a lot of Canadians, I was disappointed to see the Blue Jays lose to the Royals. But I did enjoy seeing some fabulous baseball being played this past month. It’s one of life’s guilty pleasures to sit down and watch a whole ball game. The game is so laid back and so enjoyable. I confess to watching the highlights more than anything. So here’s the thing. I like to go to YouTube to watch the highlights everyday, posted by MLB. It’s on the big screen smart TV, so it’s great to watch. That’s where I came across some of the documentaries created several years ago by PBS producer Ken Burns. This is amazing television. If you get a chance, sit down with a pot of tea, a bottle of wine or a few glasses of whiskey and treat yourself to some fabulous documentaries. If you can’t see it on the PBS online channel, go to YouTube. It’s there.

A bit too fussy maybe?

Standing in line at the grocery store this past week when a nice looking lady ahead of me glances up and gives me The Smile. I call it that, because it can translate into I-might-be interested-in-a-cup-of-coffee smile. I just smile and nod for the time being. She’s nicely dressed (as in no sweat pants or athletic wear). And no rings on the left hand. We’re both in the express line. Neither one of us is buying a cartload of groceries. Another good sign. (This means retired or semi-retired and there’s no crowd at home.) So maybe I will say hello. Just then, she says something to cashier. The cashier walks over to the shelf and comes back with cigarettes. Arrghh! Deal killer.
It happened again Saturday. Express line. I’ve got milk, juice and Danish. It’s all in one of those plastic grocery baskets. Lady ahead has a cart with a few things in it. Waiting patiently. She looks back casually, notices me, and yes, The Smile. Nice looking. My age or thereabouts. No rings. Looks good in jeans. So this is pleasant. Then she reaches into her cart and pulls out a very large item. So here’s my chance. Step forward and offer assistance. It’s a big, big pail. She struggles. OMG it’s a 25 kilogram pail of cat litter! Quickly, I step back. And the cart is loaded with several cans of cat food. Whew. That was close. A middle-aged cat lady. Deal killer.

Another perfect weekend in Westree ...

Happy to say the Thanksgiving weekend was extra special, as it should be. Once again, I was pleased to be guest of the Alexander Family in Westree, where the food was fabulous and the hospitality was outstanding. Denise and Don were terrific hosts as usual. Being there with Jenn, Scott and the boys was excellent. Sitting around the fire Saturday night was so relaxing just to hear the wind blowing through the trees. A perfect way to relax after a perfect supper. I am surprised we were able to pull ourselves away from the fire to go watch the hockey game. No Leaf jokes please. Ha ha. The boys had fun when Scott took them out hunting for partridge early Saturday and Sunday. As Jennifer suggested, we spent Sunday morning fishing. I figured it would be a nice quiet couple of hours on the lake. Who knew? I got the first bite within minutes, landing a small Northern Pike, that we put back in the water.(Fishing in the North isn't fishing until somebody catches a pike!) After that, it amazing as the smallmouth bass were biting like crazy. We caught lots of fish, took a few fun photos and put them back in the lake. At one point, three of us were all reeling in a different fish at the same. At one point, Tyler caught a bass, but in the process he snagged a line. I thought it was a line from the bottom of the lake, so I grabbed a knife and sliced it. I didn’t know it was Jennifer’s fishing line! Yeah, so I am going to hear about that for awhile. Anyway, it was just the best time and I do have so much to be thankful for.

Thankful

I have to admit I was a bit skittish about a hospital test I took today. It was my first time ever for a colonoscopy. Given my age and family history, it was something that was overdue. So I think I acted cool and calm about it, but my blood pressure and heart rate were a bit higher than normal according to the nurse this morning. Yeah, I was nervous. Good news though. The doctor said no polyps, no tumours, nothing unusual at all. He said to come back in five years for another one. Woohoo!
I have also been getting used to a new set of specs this past week. My other ones were more than ten years old. So yes, it was time. Well, what a difference. My prescription changed quite a bit in the past ten years, so I can see much better now with my new glasses. Imagine my surprise when I picked out the "old man" style horn rims only to be advised they're back in style. The only wildcard is that my right eye is significantly weaker than my left eye for some reason. The eye doctor said he couldn't pin down the problem, but to go back in six to nine months for a check up. I was also using Visine everyday because my right eye would be bloodshot in the mornings. Doc told me to stop using it, and in a couple of days, it would clear up. He was right.

This is going to be a good weekend. I am heading out to Westree shortly to enjoy Thanksgiving with the Alexander family. It has been awhile since I enjoyed the amazing peace and quiet of a nice camp in Northern Ontario. Well, that's a relative thing. Moose season opened today, so it will be quite busy in the bush. Maybe a bit noisy.
I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving weekend.

Remembering tea with Grandma.

I guess I will have to find out for myself what the fuss is all about. I have read about it, and even watched a short National Film Board documentary about it, and now I will have to try it. King Cole Tea. The company’s roots are in Sussex, New Brunswick and many Atlantic Canadians are fiercely loyal to King Cole Tea. So I am having it for breakfast today. I am not sure what great tea tastes like.
Tea is part of my heritage. I grew up in a home where the tea pot was on the stove all day.

When I went down home to visit my relatives, they all drank tea. All the time. I remember summer afternoons in Mira in Grandma’s kitchen, having hot, sweet tea with fresh cow’s milk and cinnamon rolls. Other times, Grandma would make perfect tea biscuits topped with butter she made herself from the thick sweet butter cream. The seemed to make the chore of milking the cows every morning somehow worthwhile. At my Dad’s funeral, the reception was held at the Mira hall. I remember the ladies there serving tea with sandwiches. The milk was already added to the tea. They didn’t ask; that’s just the way they served it. I don’t know how good tea should be, but it should be reassuring; comforting.

Unbelievable!

Every now and then when I feel like some cooking inspiration, I go to YouTube and find a recipe. It can be amazing how well some people can cook. So today I picked up some pork chops. Then I checked out YouTube and found a guy pan frying pork chops.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr8MyKoNBYY
He seemed to know what he was doing, but I gotta tell ya, I was put off by his kitchen ... it was not the cleanest I have seen. I figured, OMG this guy is a slob. In the early part of the video, it looks like he hasn't cleaned his stove in a month! So he may know cooking, but I wouldn't eat in his kitchen! LOL

Holidays

One of the good things about having a few years of experience at work is that I have a tonne of holidays. And as they like to tell us at the office, if you don't use them, you lose them. So the boss sent me home early this week, to take Thursday and Friday off and make a long weekend. I still have about three weeks of holiday time left that has to be used up before the New Year. so I am here listening to some Motown favourites, reading, drinking tea and enjoying the day. I have to admit, I can only take so much of this before I get bored. I am too nosey. If there is something happening in town, I like to snoop around. Oh well, back to the book.

My new teapot!

So the day started with my decision to buy a tea ball. I get tired of tea bags that break open in boiling water sending tea leaves everywhere in the teapot. And then there's loose tea in my cup. I figured a tea ball would do the trick. You know, you've seen them. They're made of metal, about the size of a big egg. They have many tiny little holes to let the boiling water in. You place tea inside, the snap the ball shut and put in the boiling water in a tea kettle. Well, that was the plan. So I went to the tea shop at the mall. Figured that would be a good start. The sales clerk said yes, and proceeded to show me the tiniest little metal ball you can imagine. It was smaller than a golf ball. She said it was good for one cup of tea. I smiled, thanked her and shook my head, no thanks. After checking Sears and Stokes, I had no luck. Next stop was Winners, which always seems to have a good selection of kitchen thingies.
Well that's where I found my new tea kettle, all shiny and fancy. And right next to the kettle was a perfect tiny little tea strainer. Now that's something my Mom used. Mom and Dad used to boil their Red Rose by toss a big handful of loose tea into the teapot and then use the fine mesh strainer to catch the leaves as they poured their tea.
I bought the teapot for $16 and the strainer for $5. I rushed home and made a fresh pot of tea this afternoon. Here's the good part. I checked the price of the teapot on eBay. It was $41. Okay, I know I didn't really need this, but I am glad I bought it. And now that I know the price, I feel so much better.

Phones are necessary, but annoying ...

Well I survived my first week with my newest cellular phone, a BlackBerry Classic. There were some glitches and I have spent part of my Saturday morning working out the bugs. One of the problems is that many of the apps (applications in real English) keep running in the background. Of course that made my data usage go way up, and that means more dollars for the phone company. So this morning I went through the phone and deleted several of the apps… things like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, FourSquare, and a bunch of others. I use my phone for talking, sending texts and checking e-mail. There was even an app for writing stories. Jeez, these people must think we’re all 11 years old. And music! Hell, I hardly listen to the car radio anymore. As if I am going to stick little plugs in my ears to listen to music. I can listen to stereo music at home. I almost expected to see a toilet paper app spitting out little squares of paper. The one thing I do like is that I can log in to my computer and activate the phone ringer. That will help when I lose the phone under a pile of newspapers on the dining room table.

Neil would like this ...

I think Neil would be impressed. I have been enjoying many non-Corporate beers this summer. This English Bay pale ale is a Vancouver product, from a city where people seem to take craft beer pretty seriously. I know Neil does. He likes pale ales. He also told me that craft beer is more about the recipe and freshness than about the corporate beers, which he says all seem to taste the same. Imagine that. A son teaching his dad about beer! Anyway, I had this beer with supper tonight and it was pretty fresh and crisp and enjoyable with mashed potatoes, beef and gravy. Doesn’t get much better than that eh?

So, it's September ...

Hard to believe September is already here. Although I do like it. With the start of the new school year, it seems like everyone has the idea of a fresh start on their minds. People seem energized and ready for whatever comes next. A good attitude with fall and winter on the way. I was pleased to spend some time last weekend with Jennifer and her family in Val Caron. It was a great visit because I needed some peace and quiet. A really nice thing is that Jennifer has become so talented in the kitchen. She amazes me with her cooking skills. It was nice to see the boys again too, even though they were here in Timmins for the last week of August, for the Kayak Festival. I got a kick out of bringing the boys around town. They seemed to enjoy meeting some new people.

The boys met our local mayor, they met some friends from the TV station and they even met the moose outside the hunting store.
I am pleased to see such a change in the boys in the sense that they like to have fun, like any teenagers, but they also have a definite serious side. They're bright guys and I just hope I can live up to whatever their expectations are for a grandfather. This is new stuff for me. They don't fall for the old "pull my finger" joke anymore.
Anyway, I am looking forward to fall. If only for the milder weather. Our summer has had a lot of rain, and according to a lot of people, it has been gloriously hot, hot, hot. Whew, I tell ya, some of those hot days were scorchers. I would hide out in my apartment. This was not whiskey drinking weather. I even went to the liquor store and bought some pre-mixed margarita drinks. How's that for a manly beverage? Yeah, I know it's a girly drink but they're cold and sure quench your thirst. I have also been drinking quite a few craft beers this summer. Some are pretty good. I got so tired of the same old, same old taste of the corporate beer so now I experiment.

A bit shocking for some ...

Folks who have not been in Timmins for awhile might wonder how things are changing with the new Hollinger open pit mine. I snapped this shot this morning in the parking lot by Feldman's and Shopper's Drug Mart. It shows that the berm surrounding the mine pit is closer that some people might imagine. It is a bit shocking to some people right now, but in 10 or 15 years from now, the berm will be completely covered by grasses, shrubs and trees. It is going to interesting to watch the change.

Trump in the dump...

Well I spent part of the morning drinking coffee and reading the New York Times, among other things. Of course, I got caught up on the antics of Mr. Trump at the debate in Cleveland. I am amazed that Americans, who are so aware of common sense, would put up with Mr. Trump who does not seem to have much respect for the U.S. political system. Canadians have much to be thankful for. Our political leaders do not always inspire us, but they're usually a pretty common sensical, and bright, group of people. I am confident Canadians would not put up with the likes of Mr. Trump as a political leader. Yeah yeah, he can be okay to watch on a TV show, but really, you don't let someone like that in government. In my fantasy political debate, I can imagine Mr. Trump going up against Stephen Lewis, Pierre Trudeau, Robert Stanfield or even John Deifenbaker. They would leave Trump, in the dump, on his rump! LOL

The dollar

I know I should be happy that the Canadian dollar is down. It's good for exports. I am not any sort of economics person, but I am aware that a low dollar is good for our natural resources; things like lumber and mining products. That said, I am not pleased since I am a person who likes to buy stuff online. And the United States has the best selection with online stores such as L.L.Bean. But with our dollar at 74-cents compared to the U.S. dollar, I am out of luck. L.L.Bean has been sending me all sorts of urgent e-mails, inviting me to enjoy up to 10 per cent off. Still not good enough. Oh poor me, eh!

Story gave me goosebumps ...

We were talking in the newsroom this week about famous journalists we had met over the years. One of the guys had met Bob Woodward of the Washington Post. I was impressed. I have to say the most famous for me was a fellow who anchored at CNN in the 1990s and was very highly regarded by his peers. His name was Bernie Shaw of CNN and many other well known new agencies. I met him at a broadcast convention in Toronto in the late 1998 or 99. When I say I met him, I mean it was a social gathering and there were five or six of us standing together, making small talk. We shook hands, said hello and chatted. I told Mr. Shaw I admired his work. I asked what his most memorable story was. I expected him to tell us about the night he was hunkered down on a 9th-floor hotel room in Baghdad at the very moment the Gulf War was breaking out in 1991. He gave a live account as the bombs and missiles were falling. As incredibly exciting as that was, it was not his big story as far as he was concerned. Shaw said the big story was when he was in Memphis in 1968, the evening that Martin Luther King was shot to death. As he continued speaking, he told us the most amazing story. It was sometime after the shooting that Shaw told us he was approached by King's widow, Coretta King who asked Shaw to stay with her husband's body while arrangements were being finalized. King's wife did not trust the FBI with the body of Martin Luther King. What an incredible story. We stood there, utterly silent. I was amazed to hear this man recount this bit of modern history, right in front of me, from his own personal experience. I had goosebumps.

Things sure change eh?

What a change eh? This is the area of Vipond Road in Timmins, the one that separates Schumacher and the old town of Timmins. With the new mine in place, Goldcorp has installed a massive berm, about 25 metres high to surround the entire open pit. This week, they began a hydro-seeding project to add grasses and vegetation to the berm. This is going to become a permanent part of the new landscape of Timmins. On the other side, once the mining is done, there will be a new lake.

A moment of appreciation ...

I rushed into my apartment this afternoon for a quick sandwich and a coffee before heading out to a meeting at city hall. I stopped dead thinking I was in the wrong place. The breakfast dishes were done. The bed was made. The cupboards were closed. The place looked really, really tidy. I had a sudden moment of appreciation. Yup, daughter Jennifer dropped into for a visit this weekend. It was so nice having company. Thanks Jenn!