Slow Computer - Update

The slow computer that I was working on just prior to Christmas came back for another visit yesterday. When I had returned the computer to the owner, I explained that I wasn't happy with the computer speed although I had cleaned it to the best of my ability. My suggestion was for a bit more RAM as the computer only had 128 megs.

The owner called me and wanted to know if I would insert a new stick of RAM for him as he wasn't comfortable doing it himself. Some computers are a bear trying to get the RAM in, however, this E-Machine was great. Everything was out in the open and I had the new 512 meg stick of RAM in before the fellow backed out of the driveway.

While I had the computer opened, I noticed there was enough dust in there that I could probably knit a sweater or two. I thoroughly cleaned up the dust bunnies and made sure all the plugs were snug as bugs. I then fired the computer up with the new RAM installed and low and behold the beast zips right along.

From my view, it definitely was the RAM that was needed on this computer. The owner should be quite happy as it is peppy as all get out now that it has 640 megs of RAM.
Of course another 512 meg stick would do wonders for the computer. Mind you the computer will only accept two sticks of RAM, but 512 + 512 = 1 gig and that would definitely help XP, SP2 with all upgrades in place.

Customer is now satisfied which makes Dale satisfied.

Time Moving On

Looking at the calendar I see that we are past the shortest day of the year. This means that we should be seeing more daylight every day as we wind our way to the longest day of the year in June. From my readings on the 'net' I came upon a neat site that actually shows you how many minutes you are gaining (losing) every day/week, etc.

Click your mouse on Canada - Sunrise, Sunset, Dawn, Dusk Times and select the city near where you are located.

It is interesting to see how much more sunshine we are gaining every day.

New Version IE

After talking to various people about the new version of IE, some folks hate it and want to go back, and others love it. For myself I actually prefer the new version, but it did take me a while before I warmed to it. Some people like the idea of the new version (ie phishing, etc) and better security, but are not comfortable with the setup of the top of the page (the menus, etc).

When I found a neat workaround for the setup of IE7 to look like IE6, I was intrigued. It is a very easy method of having all the IE7 upgrades (phishing, etc), yet continue to use the IE6 menu lists, etc.

Using an XP system you need to 'Show Desktop Icons' and then right click in the middle of the screen and click on 'New" and then 'Shortcut'. You then type in 'c:\windows\ie7\iexplore.exe 'in the dialogue box, click on the 'Next' button and for a name type in something that makes sense to you the user (ie IE6, old IE, etc) and then click on 'Finish'. After a second or so you should get a new icon on your desktop that is familiar to you as the Internet Explorer.

Now for those that do not show their desktop icons, you only needed to drag the icon to your Quick Launch and place a copy there. For those that always show their icons, then you can place the icon anywhere on your desktop you like.

If you double click on the newly created icon, your Internet Explorer will open up with all of your 'Favourites', etc exactly as you had. The only thing is you now have the IE6 menu bars etc that you formerly had. If you check under 'Help', 'About Internet Explorer' you will see that you are indeed using Version 7 IE.

This work around works great with one caveat. If you click on a url link in a program, then the newer version of IE7 will open up. However, everytime you click on the new icon you created, you will open up the old version of IE6. You can keep both icons on your desktop (or Quick Launch) as well. The newer version of IE has the 'gold' coloured banner going around the blue 'e'.

To me it is the best of both worlds, you get the updated IE7 and it's benefits, but you have the menu bars that you have been familiar with for so long.

Wonderful Visit

It certainly has been a busy time of the year for us this year. It just seems like we are always doing something or other. Sandra and I were so pleased that Shar-Lee, Dana and the kids did stop in and visit us on their trek northbound. The interesting part was that they were going to stop in on their way through the area enroute to Saskatoon on Saturday. It sounds like someone was chomping at the bit and they actually travelled Friday night to Saskatoon and like normal folks, flew past on the freeway (er Highway 11).

But true to her word, Shar-Lee and crew drove the 60 kms back down Hwy 11 to pay us a visit on Saturday at her original time (ie 1300 hrs, whoops sorry, 1 p.m.). James was able to be around and so also got in a good visit with everyone. I was a bit disappointed that Sheila, Wendell and the girls were unable to make it, however, they were up in North Battleford on their Xmas trek.

At least the 4 (5) of us got to sit and chit chat and visit. The kids watched a movie for a bit and then did a bit of sitting and listening as well. They were certainly very well behaved and understanding that the old farts were visiting. Good upbringing there Shar-Lee and Dana! After so many years, it was just so easy to fly back and forth in time to special occasions at the lake or other remembrances from days gone by. We were able to catch up on family news and whatnot with individual families. Sadly, the time came too quickly for them to depart back into Saskatoon. At least with the this one trip they will be able to find our humble abode once again in the future. Of course I can supply directions once again if they are needed :)

It is interesting that after they departed back for Saskatoon, both Sandra and I were certainly taken with Finnigen. It was interesting to see Finnegen settle right in as if he had been here many times before. That is amazing for dogs as they usually want to investigate everything in sight. We of course have not replaced our dog after Elway passed on while we were in Regina. The thought was with the move and all it would be better to get settled in before we went looking. Then we felt that with a dog we would be tied down a bit. However, after the recent visit of Finnegen, both of us have definitely re-evaluated our position and will be seriously reviewing the pros and cons of a puppy in the future. We'll see.

The other super nice thing as far as I was concerned was that Shar-Lee and family were staying at her mom and dad's. That is such a huge step for Shar. There were second thoughts and all, but at least the first step were taken and seemed to be working out ok. Hoping everything works out for their whole visit.

Working For Nothing

I did manage to get both of the computers done up and returned to the owners. The one computer was easy as pie and I had it done in no time at all. The second one gave me all kinds of grief and I really never did get it to where I was happy.

I went through the darn thing with a fine toothed comb and know there were no nasties hidden away anywhere. It is just that it took so long to boot up. Once it was up and running it seemed to perform about as expected with a 2 gig CPU and 128 megs of RAM. It just took so long to boot. I checked and double checked for programs starting in the background as well as services that were started up on boot up. Nothing exciting whatsoever there. In fact it was a very slimmed down start menu.

I knew that the owner wanted the computer back for the holidays, so I worked on the darn thing as much as I could. I ran every cleaning, anti-spyware, etc program that I knew about and still no joy. This morning I did a final defrag and scan and packed up the computer and took it back to the owner. I explained that about the only thing I could think of was that it needed more RAM.

This fellow announced that he had the same computer at home and his was like lightening compared to this computer. When I queried him on the RAM he wasn't sure if they both had the same amount or not. I sure would be interested in finding out the comparisons as per RAM though. An extra 128 or 512 meg of RAM would most definitely help this computer out though. When it was new it had XP installed, but then SP1 and SP2 have been installed. Along with that all of the updates that Microsoft have put out lately and then top it off with Norton AntiVirus and you can appreciate the extra RAM would help.

I explained that I did as much as I could but I certainly wasn't happy with the outcome. Thinking back now, I probably sat in front of the darn computer for about 24 hours in total time running various programs and doing various scans. When the fellow asked what he owed me, I replied that $20.00 would be fine. That was mainly for doing an install of a firewall and configuring the antivirus, etc.

I guess I won't be getting rich working on computers at those rates though :( However, money is definitely not the reason why I do work on the computers. If the truth was known, I'd probably do it for nothing.

Maybe next time I'll do better.

Where O Where Is He?

The lonesome driver checked in again today with a comment that I hadn't put too much information on the blog about his whereabouts. Yah, like I was a bit tied up trying to get those 2 darn computers up and going so the folks could have them for the weekend. Of course if I'm working on other computers, then I don't have access to my own computer as I usually use my monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc to work on the computers. Both computers are done, but then that is a different story..

When James was speaking to me, he had just passed through Garner, Iowa and was enroute to Sioux Falls, South Dakota on a secondary highway (55 mph). He was going to overnite at Sioux Falls and then finish loading his trailer tomorrow morning and then north bound back to Canada.

Trusty 'Streets and Trips' shows that from Sioux Falls, SD to North Portal is about 970 kilometers. James can presently drive 11 hours when he is in the States (this goes into effect in Canada in January 2007), so he should have lots of time to load and still make it to the border. From there he only has a short 445 kilometers and he will be back at home.

Mind you, I believe he wants to drop the truck off in Saskatoon at the company yard so it is not sitting out on the street etc. Still there should be lots of time to do that and still be under his hours.

Of course on Friday night is the company supper. There is no Christmas party as such, the company is just taking the 'boys' out for supper. I enquired if that meant A & W or Burger King for the evening? Hopefully they will be going somewhere a bit better than that.

You don't want to spoil the 'boys' too much though or they might get to like it. :-)

The Trucker

James is back down south again picking up another new trailer. He believes he should be back near the weekend. At least he thinks so as the company has a Christmas party lined up. Funny thing though is that the boss hasn't mentioned anything to him about the party, however, the other drivers have enquired whether he was going or not.

Maybe James is in someones bad books :-)

On the way south, James tried to do some 4 wheeling in North Dakota. Seeing he was going south for a new trailer, he was bob tailing. Of course semis are not the nicest to drive when they don't have a trailer to add some weight in the back. James hit some ice and before he knew it he was in the ditch. Thank goodness the ditch was fairly level with little snow so he was able to continue on and then pulled up out of the ditch okay. At this time he wasn't really driving too fast which also probably helped.

A driver behind James also hit the ditch but he wasn't as lucky as James as he ended up out in the farmer's field. Mind you he was pulling a trailer so couldn't turn quite as sharp as James could.

The nice part was that there was no damage done to James truck which is good. It is hard to make any money when you have to pay for damages...

Darn Curling

I was out at curling yesterday (Monday) for another session. Once again we came out on the loosing end of the broom, however, we did make it interesting at the end. If I recall correctly it was 7-0 after the 3rd end for the other team. We ended up 9-7 after the 8th end so we did come back some.

Of course it is all in fun, so it really doesn't matter the score or who wins or loses (at least to me). Some folks do get a bit more choked when they aren't doing so well.

Now during and after the game I felt fine. Nothing hurt as I didn't feel I had stretched too much or fallen or anything like that. Even as late as bed time last night around midnight I was fine. However, around 3 a.m. I woke up with one god awful pain in my left foot in the ankle area. For the rest of the night it got worse and worse. Finally this morning when I got up, the pain was so bad I could hardly walk or put any pressure on the foot at all.

I did ice the ankle area down and tryed to stay off of my feet, but the pain didn't want to diminish at all. I normally hate to take any medications, but the pain was definitely getting to me so I finally broke down and took some pain medication. After an hour or so the pain sort of dulled at least to allow me to get some movement out of my legs. I did have to take another pill near supper time as the pain was starting to return. At present the pain is still there, but at least it is liveable. I'll probably take one more pill prior to bed time and hope it clears up by the morning.

I have absolutely no idea why the foot started to hurt at 3 a.m. after it was fine all day. Maybe Sam used a baseball bat on the foot as it was on her side of the bed or something? She denies that of course.

Still Alive


I haven't had to much time to hit the blog of late. I have a couple computers to work on that I'd like to get back to the folks as soon as I can. One is for a Christmas present and the other is due to the darn computer running so slow.

The Christmas one was no problem as I just had to check it out and then install antivirus and a firewall. Easier said than done though as this beast is running Win ME (yuck). However it only has a 700 mg processor with 64 megs of RAM, so I think XP would grind it down to a stop. The ME works not too badly, it is just that I am aware how horrible a operating system it was. Then of course Microsoft has quit any more upgrades for the system. I did manage to get it all updated as far as Microsoft had released up until last August.

Now this other machine is perplexing. It was slower than a snail. The computer does have XP isntalled on a 2 mg processor with 128 megs of RAM. Not nearly enough, but it should still work okay. My immediate thought was spywares so I got all the normal programs to check for the nasties. I ran the software through the system and it did help some especially after the computer finally boots. The boot up is just so slow.

I checked the registry for startups and of course MSCONFIG and trimmed everything down. I continued on to do a good defrag and other sundry checks and still the boot up is not where I'd like it to be. Mind you 128 megs of RAM is mighty scanty for an XP system now a days. Just prior to bringing over the computer, the owner dropped in the newest Norton AntiVirus onto the system. I am not overly found of this software as it tends to be a hog. But the owner put it on, so it stays. The strange part is after the computer finally loads up everything zips right along. It is just the long, long boot up.

I've been working on the system since Sunday evening and will probably try a few more tweaks to see if anything helps. Then I'll get it back to the owner so they have it over the holidays.

The Singing Cowboy

Yesterday the local news was announcing all day long that there was some problems at the Police Service for the Rural Municipality of Corman Park. This RM surrounds the city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. As per normal, the radio/TV stations were only letting out bits and pieces with their announcements. Of course full details would be let out at the major news hour.

The first time I heard the announcement I heard it on Global Saskatoon. As I listened to the announcement I asked Sam if she wanted to bet this announcement had something to do with Wayne McGillivray (the Chief of Police) and Claudia Bryden (a Constable with the Service). Just the way the announcement was made me think of these two members of the service. A further link to the investigation can be found at Police Complaint.

I do remember the incident that supposedly started this all off, however, I'm not in a position to say who did what right or wrong. I'm sure this will be played out in the media over the next weeks or months.

As I was thinking of the two people involved, my thoughts flowed back to my North Battleford days. At one time Wayne McGillivray was a RCMP oficer and was the Corporal in charge of the Battleford Detachment. This is the old town of Battleford and not what they today call 'Battlefords Detachment' which now includes both the Town of Battleford and the City of North Battleford. Wayne was (and likely still is) noted for his singing of O Canada at Canada Day, hockey games, or just about any other time that our national anthem was sung. He of course did his singing in his red serge. To my view he certainly did a super job on the anthem anytime I heard him perform. His nickname of course was 'The Singing Cowboy' (among a few others he had).

Just the Corporal's name tweaked my memory to an incident that happened to a good friend of mine and causes me to chuckle to this day. This friend was living west of Battleford at the time. One night he was heading home after a short visit to the local Legion. At this point in time there was one member at the Battleford Detachment that would chop his mother (or so we thought). Nope it was not Cpl McGillivray. We'll just call him J. When J was working he kept the Communication Center busy running checks his whole shift long. There wasn't much he didn't stop for one reason or another.

As luck would have it J spotted the friend driving down Battleford Road, the road that runs along the edge of the town, and put on his lights to pull him over. The friend stopped and they had a chat with the Constable at the window and then the officer invited the friend to come up to the police car so they could check for warrants, driving status and registration. You have to remember this would be back in the late 70's/early 80's I believe so 'silent patrolmen' where just coming into vogue in Saskatchewan at the time. This is a shield between the front and back seat that offered some safety to the officers. They definitely were not as nice as the ones you see nowadays. They were a bit bulky and a little bit awkward to say the least.

The friend went up to the police car and opened up the front passenger door of the car and sat down. He was about filling his pants about this time due to J's reputation. J did a check for validation of the driver's licence and registration and then told the friend that there was nothing wrong and he was free to continue on his way.

As the friend was about to open up the door to exit the car he realized that in his haste to get into the police car he had inadvertently sat square in the middle of the Constable's forge cap. As he realized this he really had a sudden urge to fill his drawers. Quickly deciding that what was done was done, he opened up the door, said thanks and quickly closed the door and headed back to his own car post haste. He glanced up and saw that J was busy writing something or doing something that was occupying him in some manner. The friend started his car up and did all the right moves to get his vehicle in motion and got the hell out of there as quickly as he could. All the way home he was constantly watching his rear view mirror as he thought for sure that Cst J was going to haul him off to the 'Crowbar Hilton' for damaging crown property.

It must have been his lucky day though as there was no pursuit that night. I'll tell you though, he sure was careful when he drove home through Battleford for the next while. If truth be known he probably went home via Highway 16 to Delmas and then back across country to his residence a few times just so he didn't have to travel on the Battleford Road.

Every time I heard the friend retell the story I laughed so hard til my sides were hurting. I always wondered what poor Cst J thought when he went to put on his squished forge cap the next time.

Here He Comes


Well it looks like the plan came together for James today. He got his plate for his trailer and finally got fully loaded. So now he is enroute back to Canada.

I was speaking to him around 5 p.m. and he was northbound hoping to reach Minneapolis, Minnesota tonite. The I spoke to him at about 8:30 p.m. and he was making better time than he thought. He was planning on stopping overnite at Sauk Centre, Minnesota. Sauk Centre is about 90 minutes northwest of Minnepolis.

James is hoping that he will be somewhere in our neck of the woods sometime on Friday. Mind you there are quite a few miles between here and there so there may be the unexpected happening.

Let's hope not though. I think he has enough crap for one week.

In The Banana Belt

I haven't had too much to say about James of late. It is just that he isn't doing much other than sitting and waiting. The one nice thing is that he is presently in the southern part of Iowa and the weather is a bit nicer than we presently have in Saskatchewan. Not that our weather is too bad at present. Heck, compared to a couple weeks ago, this is balmy weather, however, James is presenlty able to go around in a tee shirt and a summer jacket. That is much better than what we had today here in the Hanley.

Of late James is doing that old military thing again. 'Hurray Up and Wait'. He had to tear down to St Joseph, Missouri to pick up a brand new trailer. Then he was off to Iowa to start to pick up his load. But then things started to go sour for him. First the trailer wasn't quite right and needed some fixing. As well on the way south the clutch started to act up again. Now is this a driver thing or the way the boss installed the clutch a month or so? I'm not sure. All I know is that James says it is not working properly once again.

So James managed to get the truck looked at this morning. To manage this, he had to wait overnite just outside Waterloo, Iowa so the mechanic could look at the truck first thing this morning. Once he got the truck out of the shop he found out that two of his loads won't be ready until tomorrow (Wednesday). I guess one of them needs a crane to lift the load onto the trailer and it was scheduled for Wednesday. From about noon onwards today he got to sit around and do nothing but sit. You sure don't make any money doing that.

As I was mentioning above, James picked up a brand new trailer. The only problem was that the boss didn't think to get a licence plate for the darn thing. So of course James is driving around without a plate on this unit. Once he starts north after he is loaded he will be going through scales. At the scales, they are certainly going to question why there is no plate on the trailer. If not the scales, then the at the border he is going to get questioned big time. So James called the boss who was going to courier a plate down to James where he is to load tomorrow morning.

Now the way James luck goes, the courier will miss him by a couple miles or be in the wrong state or some other stupid thing. James will end up sitting once again waiting to have the courier catch him or something like that so he can start northward once again.

You sit and you don't make any money as you get paid by the mile. Of course the bills don't give a hoot whether you make money or not, they still come pouring in!

The saga continues. . .

Shopping

We had to hit the city on the weekend for some shopping as we had to renew our prescriptions. What a zoo! Sheesh. We arrived at Costco shortly after 11:00 a.m. and the parking lot was just jammed. The darn store only opens at 10:30 a.m. Once inside the store there were just hordes of folks hurrying every which way trying to fill up those darn big shopping carts.

We did manage to get what we needed and headed for the check out location without any major injuries. I assumed we would have a long wait getting thru the lines, however, once we hit the front of the store I was pleasantly surprised. Almost every till was open and working. I was able to move right into a till lineup and immediately started to unload the groceries onto the conveyor. Zing, zang, we were through the till and on our way out the store. Hats off to the Costco folks for having so many tills open. Normally you are lucky if you have 2 or 3 of the 10 or so tills open.

We were then off to the Preston Crossing Wal Mart to pick up our prescriptions. When we arrived at about 12:30 p.m., the lot was overflowing with vehicles. There even was an overflow lot opened up already. Sandra normally has a hard time navigating in this store because so many people are idiots. Nice little aisle ways and then they decide to stop and chat with a long lost friend/relative. Of course no one can get past them. With Sandra and her cart it just makes it twice as hard.

I found a parking stall right on the outside of the lot. We figured that Sandra would just stay in the truck and I'd go in by myself. I don't mind walking, so where I parked was just fine. I walked into the throngs and directly to the prescription pickup kiosk. I normally call in my prescriptions the day before I need them so the workers have a chance to get them put together for me. After walking up to enquire about my prescriptions, the young gal brought them right out and I paid for them and away I went. As I didn't need to do any other shopping in the store, I was able to head right out and was back in the truck heading out of the lot.

We then had to head downtown so we were able to use the Preston Avenue exit which allowed us to zip right along. We had one stop downtown and then we were heading north on 33rd Street to do a computer fixup trip. I had set up the appointment for 1:00 p.m. and we arrived at about 12:59 p.m. Good timing for sure.

I actually had two computer fixes to do in the same area. That was nice in that so I didn't have to drive far to the second appointment. All told I was done by about 6:00 p.m. and I then had to drop off a monitor for Craig to use. Thank goodness for Circle Drive even though it is so slow in comparison to Regina's Ring Road. I won't even go into the fact that on a freeway like Circle Drive the city of Saskatoon decided in their wisdom they'd put traffic signals on the road to slow the traffic down.

We made it to Craig's and got the monitor up and running and away we went once again. This time we are on our way home. We pulled into the garage at 7:00 p.m. safe and sound.

One nice thing was that Sheila, Wendell and girls were visiting us so Sheila had supper ready for us to sit down and have a nice roast with the trimmings.

Yum, Yum :)

Curling Starts Up

With a bit of trepidation I headed out to the curling rink this morning for the 10:00 a.m. draw. The senior curling season was about to start. I know the doctor said all seemed to be fine and that there 'should' be no problem resuming curling. But of course I still had the nagging thought in the back of the mind.

I certainly was a bit tentative at first when I was going up and down the sheets sweeping. However, as the game moved along, I did put more and more into the actual sweeping task at hand. There didn't seem to be any problem and it didn't feel like I was putting any extra stress on the pelvis area with the extra sweeping.

After and 8 end game I still felt the same. Now a couple hours later I'm still fine, however, the back is a bit stiff. That normally happens though as you are trying to walk on place where you are not supposed to be walking (ie ice surfaces). Of course the sweeping puts extra stress onto the back as well. I'm sure I'll be a bit stiff in the morning, but other than that all feels fine.

Oh by the way, we tried our hardest, but we came up short. The score was 7 to 5 for the other team on the last end. We had the hammer coming home with a nice clean draw to score 2 for the win. The dagnabit piece of granite just refused to move that extra 1.5 feet into scoring position even though we swept as hard as we could. We ended up winning the end, however, we only scored one point so the other team won the match 7 to 6.

It's all in fun anyway and of course I enjoyed just getting back out on the ice once more.

On The Road Again


The trucker is back on the road again as his trusty truck got discharged on Tuesday. As it turns out the problem was a faulty camshaft sensor. Go figure! The doctor's bill wasn't too bad (somewhere in the neighbourhood of $130.00). Mind you the tow bill to get the unit into Regina from Moosomin was around $650.00 or so.

James caught a ride down to Regina with one of the other drivers last night and picked up the truck. He then had to bob-tail back to Saskatoon and then out to Swanson to pick up a couple of tractors. I guess one of the other drivers picked up the trailer out in Moosomin and delivered the load to Edmonton. Gee I wonder if it was the guy from Regina who took out the alternator to James :) a couple days ago. Sure would be justice if you ask me.

So now James is heading south through Regina and onto the Port of Regway enroute to Circle, Montana. He should make it there about midnite or so and then gets to sit until the morning to get unloaded. From there he has to travel to Billings, Montana to pick up another load. We are not sure where this load will be heading. Guess we'll find out tomorrow.

At least the truck is back in operation and the fault certainly couldn't be placed as a driver's fault so it won't cost James any money. Other than he hasn't put any miles on in the last couple of days of course. Hopefully he can get in a few good mileage days in the next week or so, otherwise the mid month pay is going to be a bit low.

Keep on truckin' James . . .

Christmas Party

You know the year is getting near the end when the rounds of Christmas Parties start up. The Legion Auxiliary (of which Sam is a member) had their party on Sunday. A few of the auxiliary and Legion members did the setting up on Saturday morning and the party was to be held on Sunday evening. Sam and a couple other ladies filled up some goodie bags for the kids and I helped decorate the tree and setup the tables and chairs.

This year the Auxiliary was trying something a bit new as they opened up the party to the whole town (and surrounding area). With that in mind it was unknown how many kids they would end up having to sit on Santa's knee. The intent was to have the mom and dads come with their children but of course there would be some that just sent their kids on their own. At one point there was a thought to not allow parent-less children, but then you are penalizing the poor kids. After all what is the intent of a Christmas party but to get the kids psyched up for the upcoming Christmas season. So the more kids the better if you ask me.

Along with the Santa visit there was going to be a pot luck supper to cap off the affair. These suppers are usually just great, however, for any that know me, you'll know that I just detest going out to eat. Even restaurants give me the heebies for the most part. It is not that I'm a picky eater or anything, I just don't enjoy eating out. I do/will force myself for extra special times, but for the most part I would just as soon stay at home.

To top things off, as we were setting up I heard a few of the ladies chatting that the tables would not get to eat supper until they sang a Christmas carol. Right then I knew for sure that this cowboy would not be eating at the box lunch that day. There just is no way in hell that I would be singing any Christmas carols or any other type of singing for that matter. I do hope that the party went off without any hitches and everyone had a good time. It just was not for us on this day.

Yesterday was also one of my growlly type days as a few things were not going smoothly in our world. I just did not feel like mingling at what was supposed to be a happy, merry time. Of course I checked with Sam to see her wishes and thank goodness she was on the same page as me in that she just was not interested in attending the party.

In retrospect I guess this takes both Sandra and I back many years in that the Christmas season is not our favourite time of the year. It seems so rush, rush, rush and so very commercial that all the fun just is not there any longer. When the kids were younger it was great. Then when the grand kids came along it was enjoyable once again. After the kids got to be an age where it was all commercial and prior to the grand kids, it was just a major pain in the backside. Of course in my working life I seldom got to have the actual Christmas day off as I normally had to work at one time or other during the day. There is nothing like getting off work at 6:30 am or 7:30 am and opening up gifts and then dad has to go have a nap as he works again in the evening. We aren't even going to touch the workload that normally is prevalent during the festive seasons (ie drunks, fighting, accidents, blah blah blah)

Both Sandra and I still enjoy the season, however, we do take it at our own level and try and not get hyper with the whole commercial aspect of the season. To us the season is for the younger kids and we thoroughly enjoy how they get so hyped up. We normally do put up a tree and do a bit of the decorating thing (not lots though), but that is about it. As to gifts, we do try and get all the grand kids a small gift to put under the tree, however, that is about it as far as gift giving is concerned. As well we send out a few cards to our special friends and certainly don't go overboard sending out boxes of the darn things like some folks do.

As to eating and all that, well turkey is just not a favourite food of ours but once in a while we will partake in turkey and the trimmings. Neither one of us are big sweets eater type person, so we don't get overloaded with the sugar thing or anything like that. If it comes right down to it, we would just as soon have a nice juicy rib eye steak cooked to perfection on the bbq'd on New Year's eve to celebrate another new year coming in.

Broke Down Update

I just received quite a surprise. The phone rang and it was James and he was presently sitting in Hanley. He had called a relative who drove out to Moosomin and picked him up and brought him to Hanley arriving at about 7:30 this morning. It sounds like he got quite a chill from his ordeal working on the truck as he is still shivering.

Now the strange part of this whole deal is that his truck would not start so they had it towed to Regina to go to the doctor tomorrow. Who knows what will be the recovery time. That will be a fairly hefty tow bill I would say. The trailer is still sitting out in the boonies by Moosomin and of course the driver is 4 1/2 hours away from the trailer. The strangest part of this whole deal is that the driver that bob-tailed out to assist James wouldn't hook onto the trailer and pull it back into Regina even though that is where he resides (just outside Regina). At least then the tractor and trailer would be together and the driver would only be separated by a 2 hour drive.

This doesn't make any sense at all to me. I would say that the boss/owner of the company has some management decisions to make. Right now it sure sounds like a total cluster screw up and definitely no way to run a company and attempt to make any money from the operation.

Broke Down

James was en route back to Saskatoon from Grand Forks, North Dakota today. He had left the south country bright and early in the morning. It appeared that a storm cell was travelling with him from the south though as he had high winds and snow all day.

Other than the winds and snow everything was fine until James just got into Saskatchewan. Just outside the town of Moosomin the truck just quit. There appeared to be lots of juice in the batteries, but the truck just would not restart. He called a tow truck and they tried to boost the truck for almost 90 minutes with no success.

After calling the boss it was decided that another truck out of Regina would be sent out with a new alternator (as that is what the boss thinks is the problem). At the very least the Regina truck will be able to hook onto the trailer that James was hauling and continue on with it. Of course they will try the new alternator to see if that does help. James doesn't really hold out much hope for this though as it sure doesn't sound like an alternator problem. The truck just had it's safety check a couple weeks ago, so it should have been in fairly decent shape. Mind you old mother nature can be so darn hard on vehicles especially with the temperatures and wind James had been facing today. Possibly something is just frozen up and needs thawing out. Finding that 'something' can be a problem though.

With the temperatures the way they are at present and with James being unable to start the truck for heat, James had no options other than to hitch a ride into Moosomin and get a hotel room for the night. If they can't get his truck restarted, they'll have to get a tow truck to pull it into town and to a garage. The only problem with this is like most typical small towns, garages don't normally open for mechanical work on the weekends.

That means James will likely be spending his time in Moosomin until Monday sometime. That doesn't please him one little bit as he was hoping to be back in Hanley tonight. However, that is one of the breaks of being a long haul truck diver. You never know when you are going to break down, get stuck waiting for a load or when you are going to be back home for certain. Trying to keep appointments is not the easiest thing to do at the best of times. The truck could have broken down out in the middle of nowhere, so it could have been a whole lot worse scenario than it is.

Some days you just have to 'go with the flow' and do what you can do.

Good Deeds Done

I wasn't going to do it, but after looking at the sidewalks and seeing they were all covered with snow again, I finally relented and started up 'Big Red'. Prior to going out I checked the weather and it was showing -29C, but no wind. I dressed appropriately and figured I'd see how much I could get done prior to getting cold. Well I never did get cold, however, I did end up sweating a bit. Either I had too many clothes on or my clothes were too heavy for the temps. Hey, I'll take too warm any day over too cold. At least I could unzip a bit and cool down a tad. If it was too cold then I'd have to come in to warm up a bit.

After an hour or so I had cleaned all the snow off of the sidewalks in the area and was satisfied that I had enough exercise for the day. I refueled 'Big Red' and put the beast away in the garage waiting for the next onslaught of the fluffy stuff.

Then I sat down on the computer to read a few emails and did a quick check of the weather forecast. Wouldn't you know it, they are calling for 2-4 cm of snow tomorrow morning or into the afternoon. Mind you it is only a 40% to 60% POP so maybe the white stuff will miss my driveway and settle in on someone else. But the way it has been going this year, every time it thinks it is going to snow it drops right onto my driveway/sidewalks.

Actually I don't mind as I had previously said. It does give me the opportunity to play with 'Big Red' and also get a bit of outdoor exercise. But as an after thought, tomorrow is a football day and I do enjoy sitting down for a good watch of a game or two of NFL football.

So the fingers are crossed that the snow will miss us this time. Or maybe I'll just not snow blow until Monday :-)

Still Alive

It has been a busy last week or so due to all of the snow we have been getting. Thank goodness for my snow blower. If I had to shovel by hand I think I would give up before I got started due to the amount of snow that needed to be moved around.

However, with the snow blower I am able to do my drive way, my neighbour's drive way behind me, the sidewalk for a block north, west and east of me and my next door neighbour's backyard and alleyway (so he can drive out of the alley). I decided to not do the sidewalk to the south of me as there are no houses on the block. All told it usually takes me about an hour (give or take) to get the blowing done.

The weather has been bitterly cold with the wind so strong, however, I bundle up and normally am sweating by the time I get back in the house. The snow blower does most of the work, however, I do have to try and steer the beast every now and then when it gets a mind of it's own. One thing though I do get lots of fresh air and a bit of exercise.

I do think that I may be jinxing things though with my snow blowing. It seems as soon as I get the darn walks cleared the wind picks up and blows them back in or the darn snow starts coming down once again. I have blown the snow around every day this week. I was out again today and the drifts were probably 24-30 inches across the walks again due to the wind.

We did make it into the city on Wednesday to enable Sam to get her INR work done, do a bit of grocery shopping and assist Connie with her a computer tuneup. The snow and wind were trying to stack the deck against us and keep us from not travelling. On the way into the city the road was snow covered in the passing lane and lots of ground drifting. When we headed home at about 5:30 pm I was a bit apprehensive of the way we'd find the highways, but it was all for naught. The highway was just excellent and we were able to zip right along.

We have no urgent trips planned for the near future so we can pick and choose when we next have to venture out highway. That sure is a lot better than 'having to' make a trip.

Finally Saskatchewan Catches Up

It was announced today on the local televison stations that Sask Justice has released a web site for the local citizens of the province (and all of the internet community) to be able to access 'High Risk Offenders' who are likely to re-offend. The link that takes you directly to the list of names is: High Risk Offenders.

My niece Shar-Lee put it bluntly and to the point Its about damn time that Saskatchewan put something out for the people to be able to view information on these offenders.

Everyone should read the preceeding pages that lead up to the direct list of the offenders as well. It advises visitors of why the site was created, who is included on the site and other worthwhile information. I don't feel you need to go through the whole gamut of clicking on 4 pages just to get a view of the offenders everytime you visit the site. To read the worthwhile information on the Sask Justice site on the High Risk Offenders you should start at Sask Justice High Risk Offender Program

I would hope that this is only the start of what should be published. Now that Sask Justice has started the ball rolling, maybe they can continue on and list bios and pics of the top 10 offenders from the major police services (ie Estevan, Moose Jaw, Prince, Albert, Regina, Saskatoon, and Weyburn) and the provincial list for the RCMP (if there was such a thing ?). Then Sask Justice should flog the heck out of the media with the internet link so people can easily access it without going through page after page of searching.

Why should the criminals get to be hidden away and yet the poor folks that are getting the brunt of their deeds are out in the open?

The Trucker's Travels

James headed out yesterday enroute to Lethbridge, Alberta. He was hoping that from there he would be able to head south to Kansas City. I talked to him this morning and sadly the trip south is not going to happen at this point in time. If he in fact headed south, he would end up sitting all weekend as this is the Thanksgiving weekend in the States. He might as well do some trucking in Canada and make a few miles rather than sitting idle doing nothing.

James arrived in Lethbridge last night and then had to sit over night to await to get unloaded. After unloading he had to continue to sit in Lethbridge for about another 3 hours waiting for the boss to find another load. He is now finally heading up to Vulcan, Alberta for another load. From there he is not sure which way he will be heading. There is a possibility that he may pick up a load of telephone poles in the Calgary area and then onto Regina, but at this point in time James just doesn't know.

Actually poor James is getting a bit frustrated with the current boss/company. Having to sit and wait in the middle of nowhere is not great at the best of times. Of course when you are sitting and parked, James makes no dollars as he get paid 'by the mile'. Then to have your pay cheque marked "NSF" is just about the end of the line for an employee. Hopefully, the company is just going through a phase and 'Roger' will get it together and get things back on track.

I'm sure James and the other drivers would definitely appreciate it.

Email Safety

I received the following email message about email safety and how to forward an email message correctly. I'm not sure who originated the message, but it definitely has some good ideas in the message. If we all followed the information, we sure could cut down on the SPAM we get everyday. Here is the message as I received it:

Quote:

A friend who is a computer expert received the following directly from a system administrator for a corporation. It is an excellent message that ABSOLUTELY applies to ALL of us who send e-mails. Please read the short letter below, even if you're sure you already follow proper procedure.

Do you really know how to forward e-mail?

50% of us do, 50% DO NOT.

Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do you hate it? Every time you forward an e-mail, there is information left over from the people who got the message before you--- their e-mail addresses and names. As the messages get forwarded along, the list builds and builds and builds, and all it takes is for some poor sap to get a virus and his or her computer can send that virus to every E-mail address that has come across his computer. Or, someone can take all of those addresses and sell them, or send junk mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and that person will make five cents for each hit.

How do you stop it? There are several easy steps:

1. When you forward an e-mail, DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message (at the top). That's right, DELETE them. Highlight them and delete them, backspace them, cut them, whatever it is you know how to do. It only takes a second. You MUST click the "Forward" button first and then you will have full editing capabilities against the body and headers of the message. If you don't click on "Forward" first, you won't be able to edit the message at all.

2. Whenever you send an e-mail to more than one person, do NOT use the "To" or "Cc" fields for adding e-mail addresses. Always use the "BCC" (blind carbon copy) field for listing the e-mail addresses. This way the people you send to will only see their own e-mail address. If you don't see your "BCC," option click on "To" and your address list will appear. Highlight the address and choose "BCC." It's that easy. When you send to "BCC" your message will automatically say "Undisclosed Recipients" in the "To" field of the ones who receive it.

3. Remove any "FW" in the subject line. You can re-name the subject or even fix spelling.

4. ALWAYS hit your "Forward" button from the actual e-mail you are reading, not from the one who sent it to you!! Ever get e-mails where you have to open ten pages first to read the one page with the wanted information on it? By Forwarding from the actual page you wish to be viewed, it eliminates extra e-mails people have to wade through.

5. Have you ever gotten an e-mail that is a petition? It states a position, asks you to add your name and address and then requests that you forward it to ten or 15 people or your entire address book. As it is forwarded on and on it can collect thousands of names and e-mail addresses.

FACT: That petition is worth a couple of bucks to a professional spammer because of the wealth of valid names and e-mail addresses on it. If you want to support the intent of the petition, send it as your own personal letter to the most effective source. Your position may carry more weight as a personal letter than does a laundry list of names and e-mail address on a petition. And think about this---Who is supposed to actually send the petition in after the names are collected? And don't believe the ones that say that the e-mail is being traced. It just ain't so!

6. One of the emails I hate is the one that says something like, "Send this e-mail to ten people and you'll see something cute run across your screen," or most times they just tease you by saying something really good will happen soon. IT AIN'T GONNA!!!!! Trust me, some of the same ones went around ten years ago! I don't let the bad luck ones scare me either, they get trashed (could be why I haven't won the lottery??)

7. Before you forward an Amber Alert or a Virus Alert, or some of the other ones floating around nowadays, check them out before you forward them. Most of them are junk mail that have been circling the net for YEARS! Is it real or not? Almost everything that is questionable can easily be checked out at Snopes.com. Take that moment. If it's not real, don't pass it on.

Please, let's stop the junk mail and the viruses!

Now here's an idea!!! Let's send this to everyone we know, but strip my address off first, please. This is something that SHOULD be forwarded!

ADDED INFO: PLEASE go to Tools, Options, then Send tab, in the 'Mail sending Format section' click on plain Text Settings box and uncheck add > before each line of original text. Then you will not be adding >> as in the above message.

Unquote:

I think the above message says it all. I forward very few messages along mainly due to the SPAM factor. However, any email messages that I do forward has the email addresses deleted prior to the forward.

If we all did that, it would most definitely cut down on some of the SPAM we get in our Inbox folder daily.

Pleasant Surprise

What a nice surprise we had on Sunday. I was working away doing something or other and the next thing I know the door opened and Sheila, Wendall and the girls showed up. We had ordered some cookies from the girls school and the dough came in so they thought they would drive up and deliver it.

Of course another reason is that they are in the process of changing over from AccessComm internet/TV to SaskTel Max and the SaskTel will not be installed until December 5th. Their AccessComm has been removed so they have no tv or internet at all. After having tv/internet all the time, once you loose it you really notice the quietness in the house with the lack of the tv audio or the internet games, etc.

Still it was a darn nice surprise to have them come for a short visit anyway. As well the kids received their school photos and Sheila wanted to deliver them to us. I immediately got them put up on the wall to replace last years photos. I also did take the opportunity to grab a few pics of the kids on my camera so that I could upload them so Great Grandma & Grandpa can see how they have grown.

The Trucker

As I was typing the previous post I got a call from James. He is enroute to Manitoba, but wanted to stop by Hanley for some sustenance. He figured he should make it about supper time and wanted to make sure I would be cooking enough.

Hey, no problem there, I'll just throw another potato in the pot and we'll have lots for supper. Actually as it normally goes, we'll probably have lots for left-overs for tomorrow as well. The origial plan was to cook up some Drake sausage, scalloped potaotes, niblet corn and a few perogies. Now I'll just throw in a few more perogies and and an extra helping of sour scream and I know that the meal will stretch for the 3 (or 4) of us.

James is supposed to be in Macgregor, Manitoba by tomorrow morning. According to trusty old 'Streets and Trips' that is only a 650 km trip and should only take about 7 hours to get there. The roads in the south should be good shape. It was so warm today I thought I saw Shar-Lee out sunbathing in her backyard today on 'Google Earth'. At least the pic on her blog today showed just a lovely day in the south country. Of course James won't be travelling into the 'banana belt' of Weyburn, but the weather report for the south part of the province did sound darn nice for November 16th.

Speaking of the date, of course it is Shar-Lee's birthday today - 'Happy Birthday Shar-Lee !!!'. Now she probably can't remember back that many years (early ahlzheimer's setting in you know), but in 1974 the temperatures in Saskatoon were very similar to what we had today. There was only a skif of snow around and rather nice temperatures. So in reality, this is about normal temperatures for this time of the year.

Now I'd better 'publish' this and get out to the kitchen and rattle the pots and pans or we'll have an unhappy trucker coming by.

Just A Thought

As I was reading some news from the North Country the article on the chain IKEA struck me as a little bit odd. Now I've never been to an IKEA store, however, I did travel past one when I was in Edmonton once on a course. Quite a few of the people on the course just 'had to' go shopping at the IKEA as it was just "THE" store to shop at. Of course there is no such store as IKEA in Saskatchewan.

As the conversation continued on I wondered aloud why we didn't have an IKEA in Saskatoon or Regina. The answer short and sweet was the cities in Saskatchewan and the trading areas just were not big enough to sustain a quality store such as IKEA. Now if any of you have ever shopped in some of the larger stores in Saskatoon or Regina, you will surely know that there definitely is money to be spent by the customers and the better stores always seem to be packed with people.

So getting back to the article from 'Circumpolar Newsings', what the article is saying is that there just was a grand opening of an IKEA in Haparanda, Finland. Nothing new there for sure as they are a growing company. But I thought I'd just take a peak and see a little about this town with the new store. A trusty search through Wikipedia and a little information on Haparanda comes to light. What struck me immediately was the population of the place. Wikipedia states it is a center of 4700 people. Huh? That is less people than we have in Humboldt, Saskatchewan.

The end result is that I figure that the people in Finland must have a wheel barrow full of money to be able to keep the IKEA store going. Or maybe IKEA just charges so much more money when they move the store over to Canada and it takes so many more people to keep it afloat.

Interesting :)

There He Was - Gone !!

James was able to have quite a break in the last while as his truck got serviced and re-safety'd. The boss wanted him in the city yesterday to head out to Calgary so he would be in position to deliver the load first thing today.

The old saying of 'best laid plans' went up in smoke though. At 3:45 p.m. today, James was just leaving the city and heading to Alberta with his load. The truck safety was not finished and so there was more work to be done. The end result was that James had to sit and bide his time in the city since yesterday. Of course he was not a happy camper.

Now that he is heading out the weather is not the best. It does seem that most of the poorer weather (ie snow, etc) is to the north, so I'm hoping the highways are not too bad for him. Mind you he is heavily loaded, so he does have lots of weight. But then you always have to watch out for the other idiots out on the highways and the byways.

Lest We Forget

Wonderful

I decided to check and see how the 'Tribute to the Canadian Forces' was doing so I re-checked the website for the video posted on Tuesday. It is interesting to see that when I first put up the link on my blog the web counter was at 416. On my most recent check the counter was showing 9108. That is quite an impressive jump in a day and a half for a 17+ mb download.

This jump is by no means because of the link I put in my blog. There are numerous emails floating around the system pointing to the video. I also just checked the UseNet and in the group on Canadian Military I also saw a few links to the video.

On my recent visit to the video site I see the creator of the video was also finding the increase in site visits to be causing some problems. Some folks are having a hard time downloading the video or the quality is poorer than it should normally be. This fellow has also created a higher quality copy of the video and placed a link on the site for downloading. I did download the file and found it to be zipped up. Unzipping the file it runs around 21 mb, so yes indeed it is a bit larger than the original.

Seeing as we are fast approaching the 11th day of the 11th month and on to the 11th hour, I find the video is so appropriate. However, as the site gets more and more hits, I'm sure you may find more problems downloading the video. If for any reason you can't view the video and want to view it, just send me an email and I will most definitely send a copy your way.

In case anyone wants the link again, it is at

Lest We Forget

Doctor's Report

Well I did make it to my appointment with the orthopedic surgeon on Monday the 6th. I got to take a few more xrays of my pelvis area. As if I haven't had enough pictures taken of this particular part of my body lately. As a matter of fact I think I should start wearing a radometer to ensure I'm not getting over my limit of radiation. I'm going to have Sam check to see if I glow in the dark yet.

The doctor went through some twisting and pulling on my legs to see if he could pinpoint the pain area. For the most part he was unsuccessful, however, he was able to find a fairly tender spot at least once. Then another doctor and this fellow came in and double teamed me to see how they could do. The end result was that the doctor did not feel I had anything to worry about.

I enquired about the so called break and about the only thing he could say was that if it was a fracture, then it was a healed fracture at this point in time. For the first time, I did finally get to see the actual xray that supposedly shows the fracture and it doesn't look too broken/fractured to me. But then I'm not a doctor.

After conferring a bit more, the good doctors felt they'd send me back across the hall for some more xrays. This time it was more on my thigh and knee area. I guess when I got nuclear xrayed, there was a bit of something in my knee area.

So I trotted off and got more radiation put through my body once again. On my return, the good doctors looked at the newest pictures and felt there was no problem whatsoever. The end result is that they will schedule me for a follow up in 6 months to see how I'm progressing. Just prior to seeing them the next time they will also get me another visit with the nuclear medicine people to get a whole body scan. My bladder can hardly wait :)

When I visited my family doctor today, I advised him what transpired. He looked at me with a thoughtful look. My question right back to him was if my pelvis/hip area is so fine, then why in heck to I have so much pain in the area. He advised that was his exact question too. He said, well I guess we have to be looking at getting you some pain medication for the area. I advised him that I was not ready for that at this particular point in time. The pain comes and goes and so far I'm not needing pain killers. Just sitting with some heat or cold relieves the soreness so far.

The end result was that I asked both the surgeon and the family doctor about curling and they both gave me the go ahead. Of course they said to be careful, but there was nothing medically they could see that would prevent me from curling. That news was great to hear as I do enjoy the curling and mingling with the other folks in town.

I'm just a bit leery about re-injuring or further aggravating the hip if in fact I do curl. I'll probably give it a try and if it does seem to aggravate it, then I can always 'retire' from curling as well.

So for now the news is somewhat good, but in other ways it isn't so good because I really don't know what went wrong. Or the $100 question of where my fractured pelvis actually came from?

Tense Driving

I just had to pick the worst day of the year (so far) to go to the city. Of course I didn't know it was going to be such a horrible day when I set up the appointments a week and a half ago.

My first appointment was set for 9:40 am. When we got up the weather was not great at all as it was starting to snow. Along about 2:30 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. the previous night I woke up to the sound of rain pelting down on the roof. It really rained there for awhile. So I just knew that the roads were going to be sheer ice. Top that with a nice dusting of 1-2 cm of fresh snow and it made for some tense moments on the road to the city.

We departed at 8:30 a.m. and I made it to my doctor's appointment at 9:38 a.m. The trip normally takes about 30 minutes of easy driving. Let me tell you, today was not easy driving. It was white knuckle driving at it's finest. As we got closer to the city, the snow got heavier and heavier. We were about 8 miles out of the city and the snow seemed to be a little thicker than it was a few minutes earlier. At this point I was traveling at about 55-60 kph. I let up on the gas a bit and got a view of what looked like something denser than snow. As I got a bit closer to the dense wall I found it was definitely a enclosed van semi trailer unit and the rear lights were totally encased in snow.

The semi was throwing up snow and it was very hard to see with the blowing as well as the freshly falling snow. However, the passing lane was very heavy with snow at this particular time as well. I matched the semi's speed at about 45-50 kph and just stayed in behind him for the last 8 miles into the city. Of course there was one idiot that just had to pass me and also the semi. He got by me okay, but the driver almost lost it going by the semi. I just shook my head.

About a 1/2 mile further down the road we came upon another semi that lost the road and was parked half in the ditch and half on the road. Thank goodness he didn't go in further and roll. We just kept puttering along and made it to the city in time for the appointment.

Once we were in the city the roads were just horrible. Heavy snow every which way you looked. The intersections were just a mass of ice and everyone was slip sliding away. After the doc's appointment I had set up another appointment to have the truck in for servicing at 10:30 a.m. Of course this was right across the city. We did make it to Wheaton's prior to the allotted time and got the truck serviced. Then we were onto Costco to pick up a few groceries, back to Wal Mart to get the prescriptions refilled and finally home.

The trip home was faster, but not by a whole lot as the road is just a mass of ice and the edges are heavy with snow.

Today I definitely was thankful for 'all wheel' drive on the Trailblazer.

What A Tribute


I received a link to a Windows Media Player file that was sent to me recently via an email. I found the video to be a very powerful (for me at least) and certainly a timely video for this time of the year.

Seeing as some folks still have 'dial up' connections, I will only place a link here so that you can click on the link to go to the site. The video file is approximately 17 mb and for any people that are on high speed it should only take 30-40 seconds to load. For those of you on dialup it will most definitely take quite a bit longer. Mind you I do feel it is probably one of the best videos I have seen as it relates to Canada's participation in Afghanistan.

The video was put together by a current member of the Canadian Armed Forces in memory of a hometown hero of Cpl David Braun of Raymore, Saskatchewan who lost his life in Afghanistan on 22 August 2006.

The video can be found by clicking on the words Lest We Forget and reading to the bottom of the page to the actual link for the video.

Time Flying

For some reason there doesn't appear to be enough hours in the day of late. It seems that I'm going here there and everywhere and really haven't had a lot of time to sit down at the keyboard to play for what seems like ages.

It is a busy time of the season for Hanley folks in that it is coming up Remembrance Day time. The local Auxillary, of which Sandra is a member, has a Poppy Tea today, so I'll also be making an appearance to show the Legion colours. The ladies make up dainties and you can have tea, coffee or juice to go along with the dainty. My contribution was to make minature cheesecakes along with the sis-in-law. They are not a lot of work as the machines that the sis-in-law has does most of the hard work of stirring, etc. It was just a matter of filling up the cup cake trays with the mixture and cooking and cooling.

As well the yearly Hanley Supper Theatre is in production starting Nov 15 to 19th so many of the local folks are getting ready for that. There is the play itself but also the folks that cook the meal, set up the hall, etc. I did get a phone call yesterday looking for a donation for the meal. Local people are called and they have the option to donate a few items for the meals. My contribution this year will be cool-whip and a couple of packages of strawberries. It doesn't cost a lot and with more people contributing, the costs are spread around even more.

In the spirit of the season, I sat at the local hall yesterday to sell poppies. There was 60th wedding anniversary going on and a few folks had not gotten their poppies yet. Or more likely with the straight pins on poppies, they lost a poppy or two. However, the monies do definitely go to a great cause and for the most part is recycled back into the local community.

I also have a computer I'm working on as the fellow had some problems with spyware or whatnot. I put in about 4 hours at his residence the other day and the computer definitely needed some more work so I brought it home. The computer certainly was acting as if there was a virus on board, so I got a anti-virus program installed and did a scan. I have never seen a computer with as many problems as this one. It had over 300,000 files that were infected by approximately 70 different virus problems. Then there is the normal everyday spyware type problems to deal with. I worked on this computer for about 8 hours yesterday and I am definitely making progress and hope to get the computer all cleaned up by tomorrow or Tuesday.

On Monday I finally have my appointment with the orthopedic surgeon in Saskatoon. There is some anxiety in the appointment, but hopefully it will go fine. The doc has been scheduled for a 2 1/2 hour appointment, so I'm hoping he can figure out what the deal is with the broken pelvis. As of today there is not alot of pain or anything, unless I move in the wrong way of course. I should know more tomorrow for sure.

I also have a lady in the city who wants me to take a look at her computer as she is having some problems. This person is a brand new computer person who is getting up there in age. I originally set up her system for her and when I sat her down and told her to click the red X to close a screen, she lifted the mouse up and placed it against the monitor to try and click it close. I knew my work was cut out for me. Surprising enough though I have been able to help her mainly through email messages and a few phone calls. That being said, I'm a little worried to sit down behind her keyboard and see exactly what shape the computer is actually in. I'm sure that it will be a long frustrating day with spyware etc. I originally had set up an anti-virus and firewall for her, so hopefully that helped in alleviating some of the problems. If all goes according to plan, I'm hoping to get to her about mid week when I have have to go back into the city to see my doctor.

I just finished up doing a anti-virus scan on the computer I'm fixing and "TaDa", no virus were found. You gotta love that :-) Sam says to hurry up and turn it off and take it back to the owner.

Craig and Julia Came for a Visit

This past weekend Sandra and I headed to Regina to do a bit of shopping. Just prior to departing for home we picked up Julia to take her back to Hanley with us. One nice thing about Julia is that you never hear a peep from her in the vehicle, or maybe we have been just lucky in the two times we drove her anywhere.

We no sooner arrived home in Hanley and got into the garage when Craig drove up. Excellent timing for sure. Julia took one look out of the garage window and she was on her way to see her dad who she hadn't seen for quite awhile.



Seeing how Craig was visiting, on Saturday night we decided to bbq a lake trout from East Trout Lake that my dad had given us a while back. With Craig, James and I huddled up we were able to get it dressed up for cooking and then wrapped in tinfoil.

After an hour or so we had a wonderfully looking fish for supper.

Now all who know me are aware that I'm just not a great 'fish bone' type of guy. If I get one bone it just turns my whole meal off. However, when we peeled the tinfoil back, most of the fish skin came off stuck to the foil. I was able to grab the main backbone and lift out the whole skeletal of the fish. We all thought we were good to go as far as bones were concerned.

But according to hoyle, I would be the person to find a bone. Actually I found quite a few of the critters. Funny but hardly anyone else found bones, just me. Now I'm not sure if they just were being polite and didn't want to say anything or they really didn't find any. Let me tell you, I did find a few. Mind you these were floating type bones and did not appear to bones that would have been hooked to the back bone so it is darn hard to remove them all.

I managed to get supper down and it definitely was a nice tasting fish. I just wish there weren't so darn many bones to contend with. It would make it a much better supper in my estimation.

Oh yah, for supper Sunday night we had a nice juicy bbq'd rib eye steak done to perfection. No bones to worry about in there for sure.

Sorry Craig, you left too early :-)

Trucker Gets A Holiday

We had James home for the weekend once again this last weekend. It was even better in that Johanna had made up a large batch of cabbage rolls and brought them over for our Friday supper. They were just delicious. But then I normally like the 'rolls' no matter who makes em.

Today James did head back out to Saskatoon to pick up his truck. He was going to get a load into Alberta (not sure whether it was Edmonton or Calgary) and then return on Tuesday.

The bad news is effective midnight Tuesday, the truck is off the road as it has some repairs that need to be fixed before James can take it out once again. When he brought the truck back at the end of last week, it had to go in for it's safety check. At this point in time there is no estimated time that it will get fixed. I would hope that the boss would like to get the truck fixed up so he can get it back out on the road though. When the truck is sitting idle there is no money coming in. However, I'm thinking James wouldn't mind a week or so off though so he can assist Johanna getting moved into her new quarters.

The downside of course is that no miles, no payment of wages for James. So I don't imagine he'll want to sit idle for too long.

Municipal Elections Are Over

The municipal elections are over for another 3 years. At least the main newspapers in the province (Leader Post/StarPhoenix) will be able to go onto covering something other than who is going to win the mayor's job in Saskatoon or Regina. But then I suppose they'll have to rehash why and how come so and so didn't win or why the incumbents actually came through again for at least another week or so.

Not that there was a terrific amount of campaigning in Hanley. Actually it was almost nil, but then again, maybe because I wasn't around the coffee crowd I didn't hear too much. Suits me fine as I have never been a political person. I do vote in all elections (big or small), but I mainly go my own way.

The folks who voted in the Town of Hanley kept 3 people from the previous council and elected 3 new people. According to the Government Relations site on Municipality Details, the 3 returning to council were Linda De Regt, Dwight Thall and Daryl Grindheim. The 3 new people will be Diane Ballard, Donald Measor and Clint Sira. The mayor, Don Lynn was re-elected by acclamation.

I wish them all the best and hope they all are able to provide the citizens of Hanley excellent service during their tour on the town council.

IE7 Menu

If anyone has downloaded and installed the new IE7, one of the first things you will probably notice is that the menu bar is not at the top of the page where it normally resides. There is a quick and easy method to put it back up on top where it belongs, however, you need to create a 'reg' (registery) file and do some playing in the registry to accomplish it.

If you are using Windows XP, then select all the text between the cut lines below but not the actual cut line by using your mouse to select all the text. Then by either using the keyboard (ie Control Key & letter 'C") or the menu Edit/Copy, you copy place the selected text into your clipboard memory.

- - - - - - - Cut Line - - - - - - -


Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\WebBrowser]
"ITBar7Position"=dword:00000001

- - - - - - - Cut Line - - - - - - -

Then open up the program 'Notepad' which for XP systems is normally found in All Programs/Accessories.

Paste the information from your clipboard to the open Notepad screen by using the mouse and Edit/Paste or the keyboard (Control Key & letter 'V'). Save the page where you can find it and name it as:

IE7 Menu Top.reg

or any other name you like as long as the ending is '.reg'.

Now make sure your browser (IE7) is closed down.

For the next bit, you will be in your computer's registry and you do not want to be playing around unless you know what you are doing. However for what you are doing is not really difficult and you are only adding a line to the registry. As long as you are careful, there should be no problem. Of course I play in the registry all the time, so it is easy for me to say :-) However, it is always best to make a copy of your registry.

Click on your 'Start Button' and click on 'Run' and then type in the 'Open' dialogue box the word regedit and click on OK. This then opens up your registry. Click on 'File' and then 'Export' to save a copy of your registry to a location on your computer. Name it with something that you will remember and note where the file is stored (something like Reg Backup 20061025 or similiar). After creating the backup, click on 'File' once again and choose 'Import' this time. A dialogue box will come up allowing you to open the file and it states where the default 'Look In:' location. Use the arrows to find where your file is located on your computer and then click on the reg file to select it and then click on 'open'.

You should get a dialogue box come up stating that the 'Information in the IE7 Menu Top.reg file has been successfully entered in the registry'.

Close out of the registry by either clicking on the red X in the top right corner or by using the menu of 'File/Exit'.

When you reopen up the browser (IE7) you may not have any menu but don't be alarmed. Find an open space to the left of your little house (home page) and right click in the grey area with the mouse and you should get a menu. Left click on the top entry in the menu box (ie Menu Bar) and your menu should miraculously appear at the top of your page. It will remain there for the next time and subsequent times you open up the browser.

Remember, if you are not sure of what you are doing, then don't do it. Ask for help from someone who knows. You are in the heart of your computer and major damage can be done in there if you don't know what you are doing.

You have been warned!

Where's James?

I spoke to James at 1:30 pm today and he was traveling in Iowa. He had made a pickup in Minnesota and was now traveling to Swea City, Iowa to pick up the rest of his load. At the time of his call he was only about 30 minutes out of Swea City. After loading he was going to head for Sioux Falls, South Dakota to spend the nite.

It is interesting to note, that if James does keep on the current highway he is traveling on (Hwy 9), which he should, he'll go right through the Spirit Lake and Okobiji area of Iowa. My old friend Jonnie, that used to live in Norway, is now living right in that area. When she moved out of Norway, she headed back to her home country/state which was Iowa and settled up in the Okobiji area. Jonnie has been restoring a Volkswagen convertible beetle for the last year or so. She took the car totally apart right down to the frame and has been rebuilding it piece by piece. She has sent pics every now and then of her progress and it is just amazing in what she is doing. I'm certain the 'Bug' will be a way better than when it originally came off the assembly line.

James, if you see the best looking restored Volkswagen convertible you have ever seen, toot the horn and say hello to Jonnie.

Jonnie, if you see a red tractor unit with 'Wind River' on the doors pulling an extra wide load, get out of the way as it James the crazy Canuk heading for home in Saskatchewan.




After James overnites in Sioux City, he should be traveling back north and expects to arrive back in Hanley probably on Friday. There is a big wedding in town and he doesn't want to miss the due. A local gal that grew up and joined the RCMP is back home this weekend getting hitched up.

Should be a rockin' town in Hanley this weekend.

Gotta Love This Weather

Sam and I headed off to Saskatoon early this morning with deep frost around on every vehicle window and on the ground. The sun gained strength and dryed everything up and the day turned into just a gorgeous one.

I was doing a bit of work at my mom's house and had to go out to the truck to get some tools. I was able to go out and back 3-4 times and didn't need a jacket. There was no wind to speak of and the sun was shining. I paused and just took a look around and enjoyed the time. Any day in latter October that we can get like today is just a huge plus in my view.

I also had a very nice surprise when I opened my email and found I had received an email from a former co-worker who I had lost touch with the last few years. Definitely brought back memories from the good old days in North Battleford. Mind you a few of the less than good memories so to speak from the move to Regina also surfaced.

Not that everything in Regina was so horrible. There were a lot of good people involved in the amalgamation of the RCMP communication centers who gave (and still are giving) their utmost to the citizens of the Province in a very trying time. However, for a lot of the folks that had to move it was a fairly upsetting transfer that we were not prepared for. In some aspects it is still debatable whether the RCMP made the correct move when they closed all of the Centers down in the Province. Of course if you speak with any of the people that were involved in the decision to amalgamate, they would never recant as that would mean they came to the wrong conclusion 10 years ago.

So be it, nothing I can do about it anyway at this late stage and it really doesn't mean a darn to me now a days. It happened in Saskatchewan and every other Province in Canada. As a matter of fact, I read more and more on the net that many States in the US are also going the route of amalgamation of dispatch centers. The folks involved do have my sympathy as I know they will be going through some trying times.

Life does go on though.

IE7 Problems Already

It would appear that the new verion IE7 already has a security flaw as written up by Infopackets Windows Newsletter.

According to security gurus from Secunia, the final version of Internet Explorer 7 has been released with an information disclosure flaw. Now this is not a major problem as there definitely are some problems if anyone wanted to prey on this flaw. By reading the writeup at Microsoft Watch you will get an idea of how hard it would be to actual take advantage of the flaw.

The site states: quote

"While it is nearly impossible to exploit this flaw to launch a spoofing or phishing attack, as an attacker would first have to lure an IE user to a fake Web site and know for sure which other secure site might be open in an IE tab in the same browser session, it is strange that Redmond allowed this to slip through."

unquote

The flaw can be tested in your copy of the browser at Secunia Test.

It is worth noting that this same flaw was in the IE6 version of the browser and Microsoft didn't fix it for the new version. One method to fix the flax is to turn off 'active scripting' through Internet Options on the Tools menu. However, by doing that you are not able to use a lot of internet sites as scripting is used in many sites nowadays. I would hope that Microsoft brings out a security update for this problem asap. Especially with all the press the flaw has been getting already.

For now, prudent surfing would be in order. If you are using your banking site, ensure you only have 1 tab open in the current browser session.

Where's The Trucker?

I did hear from James today around 3:30 p.m. He had dropped his load off in Iowa and was just approaching Rockford, Illinois to get another load. I guess he did get held up at the border at Pembina yesterday for a couple hours. At the time he had no idea what was happening, but the border even had dogs out snooping around.

Of course today we know 'what' with the news of the idiots and their web site speaking of blowing up NFL stadiums. Gosh you sure hope they find out who these people are and 'throw the book' at them!

James has about 3 pickups to load and then should be heading back north. He is likely going to head back up towards Winnipeg to unload. From there he just isn't sure. Apparently part of the load is for western Canada, so maybe he'll be back through this way on the weekend.

It is interesting that last night when James was parked for the night, he could actually pick up 6-7 TV channels. As he says "None were French either" !! Hey, that is just like cable and sure a lot better than the 'farmer vision' he normal gets.

Keep on truckin' James :-)

Final Lawn Trim

It wasn't the warmest day of the year today, however, at least it hasn't rained or snowed for the last couple of days. I figured I'd better take what I can as there won't be too many more nicer type days. I didn't have to wear a togue, so it wasn't bad.

So out came the lawn mower and I went over the yard a couple times to ensure I got an even cut. Of course I also was able to 'suck' up the leaves that have fallen (blown in), etc. I still can't believe that the grass is so green and lush looking yet. The lawn hasn't gone dormant at all yet even with the cold weather we have had the last couple weeks.

Once I got the lawn cut, I then fertilized with the 'winter' fertilizer. This stuff is for late in the fall and I do believe today would definitely qualify. I then trimmed the rose bushes down, and did a little other cleaning in the garden, etc. The only thing I haven't be able to do is to root-till the garden and the flower beds. This isn't a huge problem as I'll have to do it again in the spring anyhow. The ground is just too wet to be able to till up with any great success at this point in time.

All told, it took me about 3-3 1/2 hours to get it all done. I do have some more work to do outside, but that is for another day. I had enough for today.

IE7 Final

For those of you who have been using the new IE 7 RC1, the final version of Internet Explorer 7 was released late Wednesday night. Just click on the link and it will take you to Microsoft's site for the download. I always like to 'save' the file for later downloading. That way if for some reason I uninstall or whatever, I can just 'run' the file again.

CTV had a fairly decent writeup on the new IE Web Browser. This gives you an idea of what the new browser is all about.

A lot of what is in the new browser is to play catch up with Firefox and others. Of course it has the 'tabbed' browsing that Firefox and Opera are noted for. However, it also has improved security to help users surf safer.

I have been running the IE 7 Release Candidate 1, and prior to the that the Beta, for the last couple months. As the program progressed from the beta stage to the release candidate stage, I noted that the browser got better and better. Now I've only had the final version installed and running since yesterday, but I do see that it is a bit quicker loading then the RC1 version.

Anyone who is running Windows with automatic updates will be receiving notification of a 'security update' in the next month or so. The users will get the opportunity to elect to upgrade or not. Of course you will need to let Microsoft ensure you do not have a pirated version of their operating system before you can get the new version of IE. This new IE7 is the browser that will be part of Microsoft's new Vista operating system scheduled for release this January.

If you choose to go with the new version of the IE 7, then you will first of all need to download the file which can be found at New Internet Explorer 7. I would suggest to 'save' the file to a location that you can find after the download finishes (Desktop, Download folder, etc). Once you have the file downloaded, you then need to double click on the downloaded file to commence the install.

The first thing you will notice is that you need to 'Agree to the Install' and a 'validation' of your computer. Once that is done, you continue through the dialogue boxes which ultimately end in a 'restart' of your system.

Once your computer restarts, you should notice a dialogue box in the top left of your screen. This dialogue box shows that the system is automatically importing your settings from your previous browser (IE6). This would be your 'Favourites', 'Home Page', etc.

You'll notice that the icon for the IE is changed a bit, but it is still evident that it is for IE. The first time you open up your browser, you will be taken to Microsoft 'Run Once' site. The screen should give you an option of your settings. The first setting is for your 'Default Search Engine'. For those of you who use 'Google' or 'Yahoo' or whatever as your search engine, then you want to click in the 'Keep Default Search Engine'. The other option is to choose form a list.

Then going down the page, you have 'Optional Settings'. Place a check mark in the 'Use ClearType' selection.

Next is to 'Customize your Webpages'. You should click the selection to 'Use current settings English (United States). Of course if you wish, you can click on the other selection and choose your own language.

With that all done, you then click on 'Save Settings'.

A new dialogue box should pop up giving you the option to take a 'tour of the new IE7', 'customize with add-ons', or go to your 'Home Page'. If you select to go to your 'Home Page' you will be transferred to your old home page that you had in your previous version on IE. However, just as the page is coming up, you should be shown a dialogue box to 'Turn on Phishing Filter'. I suggest you select this and then continue on with 'OK'. You will then be taken to your normal home page.

Of course if you elect to take a tour of your IE7, you will be able to see some of the new things about the browser.

If you select to 'customize with add-ons', you will be able to choose a variety of add-ons for your browser. Some of these add-ons are probably going to be needed as your surf, whereas, some are just sort of nice to have. If you elect not to view the add-ons at this point in time, you can always go to IE Add-Ons at a later time and choose some of the programs.

Seeing as this is a new program from Microsoft, I'm sure there will be some updates in the immediate future to ensure that the browser should work as it was meant to.

So far, so good though.

The Truck Driver's Schedule

As I said earlier, the roads in Saskatchewan were not really great yesterday. James had to head up to Vonda to pick up a load and then headed to Winnipeg. He took the route of traveling back down Hwy 41 to the edge of Saskatoon and then east on Hwy 5 to Hwy 2 and then south to Hwy 16. That little jaunt took him just over 2 hours. Believe me, he was not looking forward the rest of the trip.

James did call tonite and he made it to Winnipeg with no problems. He is now sitting in Morris, Manitoba for the nite. Tomorrow he'll head down to Crystal City for a load of hay and then he is off to Nashua, Iowa.

After he unloads his hay in Iowa, he has no idea where he'll be going. One of the other drivers that is traveling the same direction as James thought James would likely be heading to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. If not, then James figures he should be back in Canada sometime Friday night.

One good thing is that James does have new rubber on his tractor unit. Interesting though is that the tires are a bit smaller than the previous tires. While driving today, he figures his speedometer is out 5-6 kms. He was going to mention that to the boss in case someone else drives the truck. I advised him that with smaller tires, they would go around quicker, so in essence he would be shown as driving more miles than he actually did.

Miles are dollars :-)

Short A Pint

I was sweating it a bit with the way the roads were yesterday, however, today on the way into the city, the roads were just fine. I made it to my doc's appointment which lasted all of 40 seconds. He just did a quick review of what was happening and retold me that the original orthopedic surgeon he had sent my file to felt I should see Dr. Woo. Apparently Dr. Woo has more expertise in the pelvis area.

My doc said about all he knew was that Dr Woo would likely be seeing me in 2-3 weeks from the day his office called my doctor's office. That was Oct 12th so early November is looking good.

The good doctor handed me a lab slip and said go give a pint or so for some tests. So I headed over to the lab at the Co-op mall and gave a couple vials of the good red stuff. We also did a quick bit of shopping and then headed for home.

Funny though, after supper tonite I was sitting watching TV and zongo I was sleeping in an instant. I didn't get up extra early or anything special, so I put it down to being down a few ounces. After a couple winks I was back to normal.

Now it is just waiting for Dr Woo.

Police Radios In Saskatchewan

I received an email from one of the groups I belong to. This particular email was about the new statewide radio system that Florida was going to install. The fellow that originally sent the email is the founding member of the Yahoo Group 911Lifeline and currently works for New York Police Department.

A litle history is in order. Back in 1996 the RCMP were in the process of installing a new radio system for the Province of Saskatchewan. This system was originally put together by a company called Ericsson from the USA. SaskTel bought the system from Ericcson and installed it into Saskatchewan as FleetNet.

Of course the RCMP communication center in Regina had this new fleetnet system installed and piggy backed it onto their VHF radio system. The new system was going to be the best radio system ever and the best thing since sliced bread. While we in the RCMP were getting used to the system, we had a couple technicians from the head office of Ericsson in our office instructing the dispatchers on how to use the system.

The one fellow I was talking to had just finished up installing the Ericsson system in Dade County, Florida prior to coming to Regina. Now for those that don't know or don't watch CSI Miami, this is the county around the city of Miami, Florida. The technician advised me that the dispatchers in Miami really liked the new system. I enquired as to how many patrol units each Dade County dispatcher would look after at one time. He replied about 20, but it could slip up to about 25 units for a tremendously busy zone.

I showed him one of RCMP zones and advised him that this particular zone had about 150 patrol units to look after. The Province of Saskatchewan at the time was divided into 4 radio zones (5 when there was manpower available to man the position). The technician could not believe that we would handle that many patrol units with one dispatcher. So we counted them up on the screen and we were showing about 145 at the time, but more to come on duty for the evening. This fellow just about fell out of his chair and was just blown away. He just had to get his camera and take a picture of this as the folks back home in the States and the dispatchers in Dade County would never believe him if he had no proof. By the way, this was the Zone 2 area of Saskatchewan which encompasses the Craig through Saskatoon to North Battleford and Lloydminster corridor.

To make a long story short, this SaskTel Fleetnet system just never flew with the RCMP so the RCMP decided to go with another company. This system is currently being installed in Saskatchewan at present by the new company M/A-Comm. I really haven't heard how they are making out, but it does seem to be slow going so far.

Now here is a copy of the email I received (note the company that is supplying the new statewide system): Quote:

--- In 911Lifeline@yahoogroups.com, Michael Wallach
wrote:

Recently, Florida Governor Bush touted the new state-wide
communications system. He was particularly proud of its
interoperability capabilities, saying that it is a "model
system." The governor does have much to be proud of for sure. And
it is true that the interoperability of the system is very
impressive. But apparently Florida intends to secede from the Union.
Why do I say that? Because the state choose to implement a M/A-Com
system.

M/A-Com uses a proprietary protocol that is not compatible with APCO
P-25, or for that matter, any other system or scanner. Therefore,
despite all of their capability, they still have no interoperability
with the Federal government or any other state that they may need to
call upon for mutual aid.

Originally this was supposed to be a Motorola system, and had
actually gone to contract and started development. For many reasons
in a long and sordid story, Motorola was replaced by M/A-Com.

It makes you wonder why it is still so difficult to make
comprehensive decisions that consider all the details. Did I say
details? I meant important considerations. Hans Christian Anderson
would understand.

Unquote:

Gee you wonder if lightening would strike twice for a radio system for the Province of Saskatchewan. It appears that this new M/A-Comm system being installed in Florida is not compatible with anything else in the USA at present.

Any bets it will be any different in Canada?