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 :-)