High Crime Area - Not !

I was interested in reading the Saskatoon StarPhoenix and the article Rural Resurgence stating that small towns were seeing growth that hasn't happened for many years.

Our small town is no exception as there is very few (if any) lots for sale in the town at this point in time. There may be some lots coming on the market down the road, but for now it is fairly slim pickings.

Along with the influx of people to the towns, there is a note in the above story about the 'quality of life' that is present in small towns and alludes to whether this may stay the same in the future as more and more people move into the towns. This will be interesting to watch develop.

For my own part, I find the crime rate in the small town that I live to be almost nil. There is some crime for sure, but nothing like you get in the cities. A case in point was the Monday before Christmas I was delivering my newspapers at about 6:00 a.m. I got to one of the last streets in town which actually leads out of town and as I walked up the street, I just had to chuckle to myself. Now the house that was causing my mirth is a corner house and luck would have it, there is a street lamp on this corner. The owners of the house had turned on their outside porch lite to illuminate the front step. Same step is about 25 steps (my strides) from the street.

Now sitting right smack down in the middle of the step is a 26 oz bottle of Lamb's White Rum with some Christmas ribbon around the bottle's neck. This was a 'Thank You' gift from the owners of the residence to their local paper person, ie ME. A person would have to be darn right blind if they couldn't see this bottle of rum sitting on the step.

Now what struck me as so funny, is that this gift sat out on the step in full view of the street all night long. Most folks in the town usually are in their beds between 10 and 11 pm, so the bottle was sitting out there in full view for 7 to 8 hours with people walking by and cars/trucks driving by. As I thought about the idea of leaving a gift out like was done, I was not really surprised that in small town Saskatchewan you could/would do such a thing. I just know you would never do such a fool hardy stunt and try and do such a thing in any of the cities of our province and actually expect the gift to be there when the intended recipient came by.

As the StarPhoenix article alluded to, I just wonder if in a few years the small towns are going to be able to keep the 'safe communities' that we have now. I for one sure hope so. It was just for this reason why we picked a small town to retire too rather than the hustle and bustle (and crime) of the 'big' city.

For now I can log this in as a 'treasure' to my time in living in small town Saskatchewan.

Feelings Rush Back In

The other day I received an email from a long lost friend who I worked with in North Battleford at 'Telecomns' when I first joined the RCMP in 1975. I worked along side Scott for a couple of years when he decided that he wanted to become a Regular Member. A few months later he was off to the 'Swinging Arm Ranch' in Regina, Saskatchewan for his training.

After training, Scott was posted to a small Detachment in central Alberta. Then after a few more years and a few more transfers he resigned and went to work up in the Fort McMurray area. Long and short of it, he was doing a search for some of his co-workers from his North Battleford days and found my name and sent along an e-mail.

Of course he wanted to know what had transpired in the ensuing almost 30 years. I filled him in to the best of my knowledge of where the 'old crew' was living and what they were doing now. Scott was originally from the Prince Albert district, so of course he asked if I knew where some of the people from the Telecomns in PA ended up as well. Once again I wrote back with what I knew of the happenings to some of the operators from up XJA-91 country.

As I was thinking of the previous PA folks, I of course remembered Butch who made the transfer to Regina with the rest of us in 1996. He had been the Supervisor in PA and on his move to Regina eventually became the DOCC supervisor in Regina. His job certainly was not an enjoyable one in that he was trying to integrate 6 previous Telecomns centers and their staff along with a bunch of rookie operators into one amalgamated center. Some of his directions and thoughts were not well liked by the membership of C/Ms. Then some of his directives were not really liked by the R/Ms out in the field either. So in essence Butch was sitting out in the middle between the field units and the working staff in the OCC.

Butch felt that I had some excellent working traits and sort of took me under his wing in an attempt to guide me along as an upcoming supervisor. I would dare say he was my main mentor in where I was going and where I eventually ended up. That is not to say I agreed with everything he said or did. However, one difference from myself and a few of the other folks in the newly amalgamated center was I at least would tell Butch face to face on what I didn't agree with and how I felt we could achieve the same result in another way. Let me tell you there was a heap of 'back stabbing' that went on during those early years in the DOCC.

Butch guided us through some fairly hard times, and it appeared we were starting to get 'our act together' as a Unit. Sadly, Butch was still out on his own. Not really one of the C/Ms and not recognized as a Commander of a 50+ unit membership of the RCMP. I'm sure that weighed heavily on him and a bit later we all found out how much so.

I can still remember working day shift one weekend. We had a full staff complement along with about a dozen cadets in for their 'Orientation' into an OCC. This was where the cadets sat in and listened in with the Complaint Takers and then with the Dispatcher as they handled the traffic from the public and field units. Along about 2:00 pm I saw the Sgt from Regina Detachment entering the office. I remembered thinking it was strange to see the Sgt from the Detachment in the office on the day. He worked a Monday to Friday shift and it just seemed strange that he was in the office at the time. I checked with the Dispatch zone for Regina to see if anything was happening and found nothing out of the ordinary. Then the Sgt asked me to follow him to his office as he wanted to speak with me. Now I was really perplexed, but away I went.

The Sgt didn't beat around the bush at all. He point blank told me that Butch had taken his own life just shortly before and he was deceased. WHAT! was my first thought. I had handled and talked to many suicide subjects throughout my career as most OCC operators have. I'm happy to say that most subjects ended up getting help prior to their committing the final act. I do remember one fellow that talked to me for quite awhile (while I was getting help to his location) and then he just abruptly said goodbye. I next heard a loud gun shot in the phone. Sadly this young fellow just couldn't see his way through to get more help and committed the ultimate act.

But back to my story . . .

With a few more details, I was heading back to the DOCC to break it to my staff. Some of the people working on my Watch that day had worked with Butch for close to 20+ years, so I knew this wasn't going to be an easy task. On my arrival back I made a few calls to some of the other Supervisors to appraise them of what transpired and to come in and help. Then I advised all the Cadets that their training was over for the day and if they would kindly depart.

All the staff wondered what the hell was going on and figured something major was happening. When the cadets departed I explained the fact that our boss had committed suicide in the most delicate way I could. Remember these people are used to sudden deaths due to the nature of their occupations and many had handled suicides in their past, but this was hitting very close to home for them. There definitely were some tears and some hugs in the next few minutes.

The worst part was that there were no reliefs to come in and take over for these people. The only other people that could stand in for relief were also going to be grief stricken. The end result was that for the next 5 hours (give or take), the great operators of DOCC Saskatchewan went back to their work positions and answered the incoming 911 calls and other sundry calls from the general public and also answered the incoming radio calls from the members in the field with a professionalism that was second to none. The incoming Watch at 6:30 pm were briefed prior to their actual turnover and were faced with the same fate though they had 12 hours to sit and grieve before their shift was over.

Let me tell you, the suicide of our 'Boss' caused all of us to look at our lives a little closer and to also treat our fellow workers with a bit more humility and respect for the next while. We were acting like a cohesive unit finally. Everyone was trying to help the other and get our jobs done to the best of our abilities. Butch would have been pleased.

Sadly, after not quite a month, the back stabbing and other crap that was the norm prior to the death was back. In actuality it was probably worse because the incoming 'In Charge' was not quite the strong person that Butch was and allowed some of it to get out of hand in my estimation.

Anyhow, as I was recalling this information and relaying some of it to my long lost friend and former co-worker Scott, all the suppressed feelings came rushing back. Feelings that I thought I had gotten over many years ago sure floated to the forefront once again. Definitely not feelings I like to have during the Christmas season.

As I walk my paper route in the mornings I run scenarios through my mind and try to make some sense of it all. Sadly, just as when the suicide happened, I don't have any great insight in why or how come or what we (I) could have done to help our co-worker and friend get through his troubled times.

I guess I'll just have to remember my friend and what was and get on with life just like all in DOCC did when we lost our 'Leader' those few short years ago.

Rest in Peace Butch

I Saw The Lights

After my previous post I decided to check out exactly how many houses actually had lights on or motion lights when I did my morning deliveries. With a couple days of testing it looks like there are normally 14 to 16 lights when I deliver the papers in the morning. Seeing as I have only 37 papers to deliver that is just a bit under 50% which isn't that bad. There are a few houses that have street lamps right near the house and they do supply some light for me to see from as well. They are not the same as as an actual light on the house, but they certainly are better than nothing.

I sure do appreciate any of the folks that actually leave their lights on for me or even better for both of us is if they have a motion light. With the motion light, the home owner doesn't have their light on all night long yet supplies the needed light when I (or anyone else) decides to visit their house.

Thinking back a few weeks to when I first started delivering the papers, I remember when I sure wanted a bit more light. This would probably happened in about mid October. It was a very dark morning and I was out a bit earlier than normal. As I was walking down the street I could smell a very, very strong odour of a skunk(s) in the area. This was very strong so I knew the varmints were in the area or recently had been there. The problem was it was so dark I couldn't see a darn thing. I was walking along the sidewalk with hedges along the walk way so I decided I'd move out into the middle of the road. I figured I would have a better chance seeing the skunk if I was out in the open. Let me tell you my head was just swivelling back and forth from side to side looking for the 'smelly guys'. I meanwhile kept walking and delivering the papers, but had no luck spotting any skunks. Eventually I walked out of the smelly area and continued on my merry way.

Once I got out to the far side of town, where I heard the skunks liked to hang out, I got extra vigilant again. No smell was detected, but let me tell you I was walking very carefully and trying to see everything.

As I was walking up to one of the houses I detected something sitting on the door step of the house. The item certainly looked like a small skunk to me. It was black and had white markings. At this stage I still could not detect any odours. Mind you I was just entering the yard so was probably 30 feet away from the step. I normally carry a flashlight with me, but at this time it was in the back side of my paper bag. So I was frantically trying to swivel the bag around without choking myself with the bag. Meanwhile I continued to walk forward, however, at a bit slower rate. The darn thing on the steps wasn't moving, but it was now looking more and more like a skunk.

I was tempted to turn the other way and drop the paper off on my return trip hoping that the 'skunk' was gone by the time I returned. I then took another step and at this time I was probably 10 feet away from the step and the motion light came on. It illuminated the item on the step and yup it was a skunk. What really puzzled me was the the darn thing wasn't moving at all. Now I know that normally wild animals will take off much sooner than this so I was intrigued a bit. Still no smell at this time either...

I continued on walking to the step and got right up to the animal and could see it in better detail. This definitely was a skunk, but it was a skunk that was made into a boot scraper and it had bristles along the back to wipe your boots off. I had one of those nervous chuckles and then continued on my way. Every day when I walked up to this particular house I was startled to see the 'skunk' again, but then I did get used to the darn thing. It was when I came to this house every morning that I really, really appreciated lights or motion lights to help me seeing what I was walking into.

Then after the snow came, the 'skunk' disappeared from the door step. It would appear the home owner wanted to be able to shovel the step off and the boot cleaner would be in the way. I miss the little critter and will be looking for it being put back out next spring.

However, I still hope the home owner continues to have his motion light in working order next spring when he puts the 'skunk' back outside for the summer. :)

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Did Old Man Winter ever decide to visit us in a hurry. One day it was fairly nice out and the next day we went into the 'deep freeze'. Monday morning I was up and ready to go at 5:20 a.m. When I checked my weather gauge it was showing -38C with the wind chill so I dressed appropriately as I headed out to deliver the papers.

I have a 4 block walk that normally puts me facing right into the prevailing North West winds and this day was no exception. The wind was howling down from the arctic right into my face. Even though I had on a nice fur hat and had it wrapped around to cover most of my face, I still got quite cool. I certainly was happy to finally take a corner and get the wind in my back.

Tuesday morning wasn't much better but at least we didn't have as much wind.

This morning my paper delivery guy was a little bit late, but not overly. The weather gauge showed about the same for temperature as Monday (ie -38C), but I do believe the wind was a bit stronger. This time the wind was coming more from the East so I didn't have as long to walk into the wind. It still was chilly, but not overly.

The biggest problem is that we got a fair good dump of snow overnight and of course I was out before anyone had cleaned up their walks. It makes it so awkward walking in the deeper snow when it's dark and you can't really see the lay of the land. Of course very few people actually leave an outside light on at night. Even a measly 25 watt bulb would at least give me a clue what is in my way when I walk up to the mailbox. Oh well, in about 6 months I'll have daylight at my delivery times so no sense worrying about it now.

With plowing thru the snow this morning I took about an extra 10-15 minutes to do my route. The extra exertion plowing through the snow made it so I was almost at the point of sweating by the time I made it home even though the temperature was down in the -38 C area. I just loosened off my hat a bit and that cooled me down in a rush.

Hopefully by tomorrow everyone was out and got a bit of shovelling done. Mind you it has been blowing all day today, so even if they did shovel it is likely to have blown in again by morning. At least at the time I'm out (05:30 a.m. to 06:30 a.m.) there is very little traffic so I can walk down the middle of the road.

Visitors

With the weather we have been having for the last week or so being actually crappy in that it is so dull and grey all the time, it was so nice to receive a phone call this morning from Fred. Fred and mom decided they would be coming out to see us today as they needed to buy some bottled water at our local hardware store. Of course when mom comes to town she always wants to visit the local grocery store to see what is on sale this week.

Shortly after dinner I saw the blue bomb streaming by heading downtown. About 15-20 minutes later mom and Fred arrived. It was coffee time.

As we were sitting chatting away this van pulled up and parked in the front of the house. The van looked familiar yet I couldn't place who's it was. There was a woman reaching in the side door doing something. A few minutes later I saw what she was doing. She was putting a coat on a young child. The woman and child started walking up to our door and then I knew who it was.

Shar-Lee and her daughter were coming to visit. The family was on their way to Saskatoon from Weyburn and it was a washroom break for the young daughter. Shar-Lee's daughter headed for the washroom and Shar-Lee, Sandra, mom, Fred and I had a quick 3 minute visit after a quick introduction. Then they were off to the big city with all the lights and greater variety of stores to do some Christmas shopping in and watch the Grey Cup on a big screen TV. Even though it was such a short visit, it sure was nice to have Shar-Lee drop by.

Around 4:00 p.m. mom was getting antsy and I knew she was ready to hit the highway once again and head for home. Mom has this terrible fear of running into a deer along the highway so she always wants to depart in daylight hours. Actually I don't blame her with the amount of deer carcasses you see along the stretch of they highway into the city. It seems as if every time we go to the city and return you see 10-12 dead deer along this stretch. From what I saw last spring when the deer were yarding up, I know there are a lot of deer in this area. Of course at present time the deer are a bit stupid due to it being the rutting time for them. You never know when one is going to dart in front of your vehicle or into the side of your vehicle. Both normally cause a heck of a lot of damage to your vehicle.

By 4:15 p.m. mom and Fred had departed. It sure was nice to have the visitors drop by even it was only for a short time. It's always a welcome change in our 'so stressed out' lives :)

Something Is Just Not Right

In case anyone has not seen the video on Robert Dziekanski, here is the YouTube video of the poor man dying.

">

Lest We Forget

I haven't been real active in the blogging of late. It just seems like there is so much to do and not enought time to get it done. The least of my time has been tied up getting ready for the local Remembrance Day ceremonies. I'm not sure how I got rooked into doing what I get to do, but it looks like I got elected when I wasn't looking. Note to self: "No more pee breaks during Legion meetings"!

Of course the latest death of a very junior RCMP member in Nunavut also doesn't put me in a great mood especially as we near November 11th. I just don't know if I agree with sending such junior members to the North, but today is not the day to debate that one.

Today is a reminder to all about November 11th and what it entails. There are many, many books and internet sites out there letting us know about this important day and what it entails. However, I did come across a few links that put it all together (for me at least).

Here are a few links that remind me what November 11th and Remembrance Day is all about:

Remembrance Day Letter - 2007

Canadian Forces Tribute Video

Watch or listen to the "Terry Kelly" Remembers song & video

Watch the "Peacekeeper's Letter Home" video

A List of Fallen Canadians since 2002

Canadian Forces Casualties in Afghanistan

Lest We Forget

Sad, sad, sad . . .
The other day I was reading the newspaper and read a letter to the editor about the paper publishing the names of children participating in sports. The writer felt that last names should never be used for children in the papers.

As I was out doing my morning walk, I was thinking about this article and remembering back to when I was a whole lot younger. If for some reason you were fortunate enough to be mentioned in a local newspaper, you wanted the whole world to know who you were. You were the local 'hero' at school for the next couple days or until another person bumped you off the list with their recognition in sporting news or other school endeavours. Everyone wanted a copy of the paper to take to their grandma and grandpa and other relatives to show them how their grandchild (niece/nephew) had won recognition by getting their name in the paper.

Of course now a days, young people have to content with bullies and others who would like nothing more than to be able to find out who you are so they can intimidate the child or do other dastardly deeds to the person. What a shame our society has evolved to what it is today where it is best that the last name of little Johnny (or Susie) who hit a home run or aced the spell-a-thon can't even be put in their local newspaper for fear of retaliation.

What a sad comment on how far our society has come in 2007 :(

Not Good For Tourists

After I heard the story of what happened to a lady passing through from Ontario the other day, I could just imagine the lady would have a very dim few of our town and our province...

The story goes that last Friday a person from Ontario was driving through our fair country and pulled into one of the local garages on the edge of town during the day. Now whether the woman was just getting coffee or coffee, gas and a stretch, I don't know. This person also had a smaller type dog (in the shitzu type of dog) with her. I take it they had been travelling for a bit and they wanted the dog to have a stretch and probably relief itself along with the owner. So the woman lets the dog out for a run on the edge of the parking lot of this garage.

Now you have to remember this garage is right at the edge of town and there is long grass and prairie at the edge of the garage's lot. It is only a short distance (less than a city block) to the highway. The dog was strolling along the grass with the woman watching and then quick as a blink a coyote jumped out of the long grass, grabbed the poor dog by it's throat and was gone back in the long grass and was high tailing it across the prairie. These are wild coyotes and as soon as the varmit grabbed the smaller dog, it was done for in one quick snap of the coyote's jaw.

Needless to the say the poor lady from Ontario was almost hysterical with the taking of her pet dog. Having owned dogs in the past I can only surmise the grief this poor lady went through. The shock of seeing her beloved pet killed and dragged off as a snack is something that no one ever wants/needs to see.

I don't imagine our fair province is going to be on the top of this poor lady's list for quite some time. I can certainly sympathize with her, but nature is nature. She could have kept her dog on a leash, but who would suspect a coyote would be that bold to be so close to a populated spot and in the middle of the day as well.

Strange, strange, strange.

Still Alive & Kicking

Boy it has been a long time since I last put up anything on the blog. There just has been a lot going on in my life of late. Not the least has been the darn trips back and forth to the city for physio. I do have a break from that for a little bit, but of course still have exercises to do at home. Some days the shoulder seems fine and other days it hurts as much (or more) than it used to. I'm just not sure what the answer is.

On October 1st I also became the newest Star Phoenix deliver person for half of the town. The young person doing the job just didn't want to do it any longer and there was not a lot of applicants for the position. I got to thinking, hey I'm out walking almost every evening for an hour or so, so why don't I give it a try. Of course the major stumbling block is that the papers have to be delivered by 7 am Monday to Saturday. Now for any that know me, you'll realize that I haven't gotten out of bed in the last 32 months or so prior to 9 am other than a handful of times. I like to stay up late and watch a movie or surf the net and then I get to sleep in. This new task would definitely impact my snoozing time.

On September 29th, I set my alarm and got up at 5:45 am and headed out with the previous delivery person to find out about any quirks in where people want their papers etc. There were a few houses that I would never have found where they wanted their papers delivered to on my own so I was glad I did go out with the previous person at least once. With my one day training, I figured I was ready for October 1st and my first day alone.

I got up at 5:45 am once again (it seems like a good time) and went and checked for my papers. They were not delivered to me yet. Great, now what do I do? I headed back in the house and sat for awhile hoping that the driver didn't forget there was a 'new kid' in town. Along about 6:10 am a van was driving slowly up the street and I had a hunch he was looking for my house. Sure enough it was the delivery person so I went out and introduced myself. He advised he was a bit later than normal because he also deliver the Sun on Mondays so it took a bit longer. He further advised that normally he would be dropping the papers off at about 5 am or shortly thereafter. With that I grabbed my stack of papers and went in the house to get them ready for delivery and then headed out by 6:20 or so. Shortly after 7 am I had dropped off my last paper and was heading for home.

I must admit it is a nice time for a walk other than it was a bit cool. Of course it is going to get a lot cooler in the weeks to come, but all in all it wasn't too bad. On arrival at home I decided to climb back under the covers and get a few more minutes of shut eye. It definitely was nice to climb into a nice warm bed after a cool walk. Shortly after 9 am I was up once again and my day went on as it normally did in the past.

Tuesday morning I once again rose at 5:45 am, went out and checked my paper box and found the bundle waiting for me. I quickly got everything organized and headed out for the morning deliveries. By 6:45 am I was back home and climbing into the rack once again.

Along comes Wednesday morning. I hopped out of bed as normal and went out and checked the paper box. Nope, no papers. So back in the house I went to wait and wait and wait. Finally the driver arrived explaining that the press in the city broke down and he was a couple hours behind schedule. I grabbed the papers and headed inside to get them sorted and found that I was going to be one paper short on top of being so late. No problem, I would just not get a paper this morning or I could pick one up at the store later in the day for my own use. Out I went, late, but better than nothing. Of course this lateness screwed up my whole day as for times, but I was hoping it was just a fluke.

Along comes Thursday and same thing, no papers, so I waited and waited. At about 6:30 the previous delivery person mother arrives in her car and hands me my bundle of papers. They were dropped off at her place rather mine. I assured her I would call in complain about this mixup and then headed out for my rounds. After I made my deliveries and had a short snooze, I did in fact call my delivery company and let them know there was a 'new kid' in town and to try and remember me tomorrow. Later in the afternoon the company called me back and advised that there was a sub driver on and the primary person didn't bring him up to snuff on the new address for a drop. She assured me it would be rectified and not happen again.

So Friday morning I up and at em and headed outside. Nope, no papers. Jeepers not again I thought. Of course I didn't want to phone over to the other person's house at this hour as she had other kids and I sure didn't want to wake them up. The other drop spot is about 4 1/2 blocks away so I wasn't keen on just going over there either. So I sat and stewed for a bit. At about 6:30 am I still hadn't heard anything from the previous delivery person, so I figured something else was amiss. About 10 minutes later an older van limped up to the house and the delivery person jumped out. I immediately went out to chat with him. I guess his primary vehicle was broke down and his secondary vehicle didn't make it out of the city before it broke down. So the fellow was on his third vehicle. I wasn't really sure if he would make it out of town let alone all the way back to Saskatoon, but away he went.

Saturday morning I'm waiting once again for the papers and they are late as they have been all week. Mind you I had spoken to a previous delivery person and she had advised that on Saturday it is always a guessing game as to when the driver was going to show up. Eventually the fellow showed up and handed me my bundle of papers. He still had his 3rd string vehicle. This vehicle is a mid 80's larger van with the sliding door on the passenger side of the vehicle. After handing me my bundle, the driver went to close the van door and the darn door fell off. The guy did some quick work and got the door back on it's track and closed and once again limped out of town. I'm not really sure if he made it back to the city or not. I guess I'll find out on Tuesday morning.

So after a week of delivering the papers I am getting into the swing of things. The morning walk is quite refreshing and it doesn't appear to be impacting my day too much. Hey on Saturday I didn't even go back to bed for a snooze. Mind you I did get a few minutes shut eye while I was watching the boob tube in the afternoon. The other thing that I find sort of neat is that I only had to wake up to the alarm clock once all week. The rest of the time I was up and at em without the clock waking up Sam as well.

Hopefully this coming week will get back to normal for the delivery driver and I can get my papers delivered prior to 7 am as I'm supposed to.

Time will tell.

New Taps

For awhile now I have been bothered by my tub taps leaking. At some point in the past someone attempted to remove the taps and did a horrible job. They used a wrench and just ripped the brass fittings. I tried just about everything I could think of and I couldn't get the faucets out to replace the 'O' rings, etc.

My sis-in-law suggested maybe I should just replace the whole tap assembly by going through the back wall. This got me to thinking that this may in fact be the easiest way to fix my leaking taps. The faucets are mounted on the wall that is in my computer room closet, so it would be an easy task to cut the gyproc out and unsolder the connection.

On my recent trip to the 'Big City' I stopped in at Centennial Plumbing and talked to one of the fellows in the store. He assured me that by using Sharkbite Accessories it would be an easy fix. Now these fittings are not cheap, but they certainly seemed easy to use so I purchased what I needed and headed for home.

I proceeded to clean out my closet of used hard drives, wires, etc to get to the back wall of the tub. With a gyproc saw I cut out a nice patch in the wall allowing me access to the copper plumbing. I then proceeded to cut the copper pipes out around the tap fittings and pulled the beast out of the wall.



Within 5 minutes I had slipped the 'Sharkbite' connectors onto the existing copper pipe hooked up to the 'Pex' tubing and fitted the new tap fixture back into the wall. I then tightened everything up and headed downstairs to turn on the main water line. Viola!, no leaks at all. What a simple way to connect you plumbing. The nice part is that there is no solder so there is no lead to leech into your water supplies.

I only had to replace the gyproc in the closet with a piece of painted plywood with 4 wood screws and I had an excellent patch as well as a very easy access if I ever need to get at the tap fixtures in the future.

The Sharkbites were a little more money than just using solder, but for a novice plumber working in a closed space like the wall, the connectors were definitely worth the extra money I had to pay.

The best part is that I don't stay awake at night listening to the drip, drip of the taps in the tub. You gotta luv that :)

Wonderful Weekend

Did we ever have some wonderful weather this last weekend. On Friday I had my doubts with the amount of frost we had Friday morning, but late Friday and into the weekend, the sun came out and it was just great. What made it even better was that both Sheila, Wendell & the girls and Craig decided that they would drop out for the weekend.

Seeing as Sheila and Wendell both have to work on Thanksgiving and who knows with Craig with some of the shifts that he is working, I decided that I'd cook up a small turkey. Of course the heat of the weekend didn't help, but at least I have the air conditioning so it was fine. Sheila helped out and made some pies and we had a very nice family meal on Saturday.

The grandkids also got a treat in that Tim, Kris and Presley were in town. The girls got to visit with their cousin Presley who they don't see that often. Along with the weather being so nice, Craig and James were able to get out on the golf course and from what I heard, Craig had a great game. James not so good.

Everyone headed home yesterday and like normal, the house feels like a tomb with the lack of noise. It only takes a day or so and we are back into the 'quiet' mode, so it is no big deal.

All in all, it was a great weather weekend and it was made extra special with the kids visiting...

Staying Busy

Sheesh it has been a fairly long time since I've sat behind the keyboard of late. There are actually a few reasons for this, one being the amount of travelling I've been doing (going to and from the city). The main reason for the travelling is that I've run into a sore shoulder in the rotator area. So when I was in at my annual medical I mentioned it to my doctor who decided I should see a physiotherapist. On my first appointment for the physio the guy wasn't too hard on the shoulder. He sent me home with some exercises to do to help with the rotator muscles.

Of course once you get into to see a therapist, they want you back fairly often so they can work on you and judge if you are gaining or loosing. That has meant 2 trips a week to the city for the therapy. Of course at home I'm doing the required exercises to help strengthen up the muscle and get the blood flowing in the area. The therapist feels I probably have a small tear (or more than one) in the rotator area and that I may need surgery. Still he wants to see if the physio will help prior to surgery. For the surgery you need to visit an orthopedic surgeon and they have a fairly long waiting list.

Some days the shoulder is fine and others it hurts like the daylights. Even on the fine days if I happen to stretch or reach the wrong way, the shoulder gives me quite a jolt of pain. I try and remember not to reach or stretch that way again as it hurts, but of course you forget in a day or so and you do it again.

I have another 2 appointments this week with the physio and then the therapist will decide if it warrants continued sessions or not. I do think it has helped to a certain degree, but it is a small degree in my view.

The other thing that has kept me going is working on a bunch of computers. Fall is coming and folks are wanting to get their computers tuned up for the upcoming winter months. Of course the computer needed help all summer long, but you never want to get work done before you actually need the computer. However, for the most part, I have had no problem keeping up with the demand. What is a little maddening is when I get the computer fined tuned and it is working top notch and then get it back to the customer and they do something and it crashes the whole thing again. Trying to figure out what happened and how to rectify it so that it doesn't happen again is a guessing game at times. One such computer is one that I'm working on from a person in the city. I got it all set up and it was purring. Got it back to the customer and she found a trouble spot so the next trip into the city I fixed that up. Now it seems her younger son felt the computer was locked up or something so he powered it off and now it won't restart. So tomorrow on my trip to the city, I'll be stopping by and see if it is a quick fix or a 'bring it home' job. Hopefully it is just glitch that I can fix up on site.

No one likes to be without their computers now a days...

Lots of Driving Lately

For the last week and a half I have been putting on more than normal amount of kilometers on the truck. This all started when Sam's warfarin levels decided to go wacky so we have had to make a trip into the city every couple days to get her levels checked.

Finally today we got word that the levels seem to be settled back down and we can go back to our previous routine of getting her checked once a month. I do believe the problem was some older meds (ie warfarin). When the doc was on holiday her replacement decided to drop the daily rate from 3 mg to 2.5 mg. Now it is darn difficult to cut up a 3 mg tab so I used a 1 mg tab and cut in half a 4 mg tab. After looking at the bottle closer, it could be that the 4 mg tabs were a bit old so they may not have had their full potency.

Then on the long weekend we decided to travel to Christopher and close up shop for another year. We have had a few nights where the temperatures have dropped fairly close to zero, so we decided it would be best if we drained the water lines etc at the cabin. It is a lot easier to drain the lines than trying to fix burst ones. As it had been a bit cool of late, we didn't know what we would face when we got up north so we weren't sure if we were going for the weekend or just a day or what.

Last Sunday we headed out in early in the morning and followed Craig back into the city. Sandra and I then continued on north. As we got closer to Christopher you could see where there had been a fair amount of rain of late. On arrival at the cabin the ground was still moist but of course this is forest country so it wasn't muddy or anything like that. When I opened up the door to the cabin I sure could feel the cool air rushing out. I then opened up the windows and within an hour or so it was fairly nice inside for Sam. I commenced to take down the lights, and started stowing away everything for the winter hibernation.

At noon I took a break and cooked us up some dinner. As we were sitting down eating, we were looking out the window and it sure was nice and peaceful. No wind at all and of course the leaves starting to change colour and fall to the ground. We were tempted to stay the night, but after a bit we decided that we should probably just close up shop and head south again.

After we washed up the dishes and got the fridge cleaned out, I headed outside and started on the water lines. Of course I had to empty the storage tank of water which I did with the pump. While the water was pouring out I was shaking my head on the wasted effort I had done to get the tank filled earlier in the summer. A lot of useless extra effort, but if I hadn't filled the tank we would have run short. So better to be prepared than having to play catch up.

Once the tank was empty I got the pump disconnected and serviced and commenced to blow out the lines. After that it was just a matter of cleaning up and loading the truck and we were heading southwards once again. We did have one stop in the city on our way through as I had to pick up a hard drive for a computer I was working on. I made it to Office Depot with about 5 minutes to spare before their closing, picked up the drive and we headed for the home stretch. We pulled into the garage just prior to 6 pm. Both of us had sore butts from so much sitting, but at least we had the comfort to know the cabin was ready to face another Saskatchewan winter.

Next came more driving to the city as I had to go visit a physiotherapist for my shoulder that has been bothering me of late. I had the shoulder xrayed during my annual medical and there was no sign of arthritis, so the doc wanted to see what a therapist could do for it. So into the city again we went and the therapist pulled and pushed the shoulder until it really hurt. He gave me some exercises to do for the next while and told me to come back next Tuesday and Thursday for followups. So that means two more trips to the city next week.

On our initial trip to the therapist I also took in the computer I was working on. Once I was done with my pain class I headed over and setup the computer for the customer. I had to do an install on the printer, and a final virus scan, and then I was done. This trip only took about 45 minutes or so and then we headed for home once again.

I think all told in the last week and half I put on about 2,000 kms or so. Hopefully that is not going to be my future mileage counts. Let alone getting 'TB' out of the sitting, the cost of gas is certainly not going down any.

Hanley Ends Involvement With Vigor Biopharma

It would appear that the town has decided to end their involvement with Vigor Biopharma after a meeting last week as per the entry at Saskatoon Homepage.

That news is too bad as there certainly appears to be a current and a future demand for the product this company would have produced. Of course the company of this size moving into the community would have had a huge impact on the town as well.

Only time will let us know whether the town's councillors decision was the correct one or not. Sure hope so. I know there will be some folks that are happy with the decision and some people that are not happy with the decision. However, that is why we have elected officials to meet and decide what is best for all the residents of our community.

Good Deeds?

The bro-in-law dropped by on Wednesday just prior to departing town for work. He mentioned a vehicle parked down the street between his place and our house. Something didn't sit right with this vehicle so he asked if I'd take a look at it when I was out on 'walk about'. No problem.

Just after dinner I was going to go out and check the mail and also check the Legion Hut to ensure all was well there which I check every couple days. My travels took me past this vehicle (a van) that James was enquiring about. The Legion Hut was fine so onto the vehicle.

The vehicle was parked nice and legal on the far right hand side of the road, but it was in a location that I've never seen vehicles park before. The vehicle also is not one that I recognized from town. On closer look, the driver's window was open and you could see where the rain had gotten in. I then walked around to the passenger side and I could see that the ignition was pulled off and there was a drill bit sitting on the seat. My hunch was that this was a stolen vehicle, so I copied down the licence plate and headed for home.

I fired up my trusted computer and headed over to CPIC Search to see if I could ascertain anything on the plate as to whether it was stolen or not. Sure enough I got a positive hit on the licence plate and was advised to contact the local Police.

I then called the local RCMP Detachment for Hanley however, I was transferred into Saskatoon as the local office was unmanned. I explained to the receptionist who answered my call that I suspected a vehicle was stolen and that I had queried the internet and received a positive reply. Her reply was that she didn't think a private citizen could query CPIC for licence plates. I assured her we could and I had however I suggested she 'run' her own query through her official CPIC system.

In a second or so she came back on the line and advised that the plate was actually stolen a day or so ago from the city of Saskatoon. The gal then asked that I wait and she'd check with the members to see if they would attend the vehicle or not. Within a few seconds she advised they would and then took down my name and phone number and thanked me for the call.

About 3 to 3 1/2 hours later a police car showed up in town and attended to the vehicle. This unit was actually a Vonda Detachment car (about an hour away from town) which explains the lengthy time arriving on the scene. Mind you there was no urgency to the call as there was no one in the vehicle and it wasn't going anywhere. That is what you get when the RCMP went to the hub Detachment setup. When the local Detachment members are not on duty then one of the other Detachments in the hub get to take the calls. The units can be a lengthy distance away from one call to the next so it can take some time for the members to arrive on scene. At least the member did attend, called a tow truck and the vehicle was hauled back into the city for return to the owner.

I was talking to a couple local people a day or so later about the vehicle and was surprised that many people had seen this vehicle sitting on the side of the street. Originally the vehicle had it's lights on (with no one around) and was running. The vehicle sat on the street with the lights on for many hours until presumably the vehicle ran out of gas and shut down and eventually the battery ran down so the lights would not show up.

I find this odd that people actually saw this for a length of time and took no action. Or possibly they did call the local Detachment and were transferred through to Saskatoon after 5 rings as happened to me. Then if the Saskatoon office was busy, they could have conceiveably received a message manager after 5 more rings or been transferred to the DOCC Saskatchewan number. If it was DOCC, then due to the workload, it could be 2-3 or even 5 more rings before they could answer. You have to remember these are not 911 calls, but still they are police calls. Maybe folks just gave up and hung up in frustration? If the persons that found it odd that this vehicle was sitting with it's lights on and didn't do anything, then that is troubling. Some people just don't want to get involved or unsure of what to do.

As well it must have been our local Detachment members days off or something as you would think the members would find it odd that a vehicle sat on the side of the street for any length of time with it's lights on and no one around. They most certainly would query the vehicle thru the CPIC system. But as the locals were not on duty, the town must have been switched over to one of the other hub Detachments. Either these hub members were too busy to attend to patrol through the town or had other duties to keep them occupied.

That sure doesn't give you the warm and snugglies . . .

Some Work Getting Done

Even with all the rain the last week or so, there has been some progress on the new Seniors Housing project although it is a bit behind schedule. It seemed just as Jim and crew got a handle on one part of the project, a new wrinkle was thrown into the mess. Of course you can't really do anything with the building until you can get the darn thing set up on the lot. To do that you need footings and to get footings you new concrete. Of course you also need the concrete to setup and cure. As the pictures from last week show, the concrete was being poured for the footings and then left to sit and cure.





Once the footings are all in, then the first part of the building can be moved into place. The matching half of the building is sitting out in the field near Kenaston waiting to be moved into Hanley. I would imagine once the first half is moved in, then the movers will use the beams etc and truck the second part into town. These two halves make up the 12 apartment units of the complex.

The third part of the building will not be available until October or so. Once available it will also be moved into town and moved into position. This part of the building will be housing the common rooms (ie laundry, boiler, etc).

There are many people that are anxiously waiting this new complex to be completed so they can move into their new digs. The other benefit is that there should be a few openings for houses or other apartments in town for other people to rent. There is a huge amount of work that needs to be done before any occupants move in though. The insides have to be converted to the 2 bedroom apartments, electricity, water, blah blah, blah.

Still all and all it sure sounds like a win win situation though . . .

Air Show

After himing and hawing for the last week, we finally decided to go to the Canada Remembers Air Show on Sunday rather than the Saturday performance. As it turns out, this was not a good choice. Mind you on Saturday it was blowing and raining and not a real enjoyable air show, but at least the folks got to see some of the show.

After getting up early this morning, I headed off to the city to meet up with Craig and Fred for the air show. The plan was to hit the show at about 11:00 am which would give us plenty of time to view the static exhibits and then get ready for the opening ceremonies at 12:30 pm.

When we arrived I turned into the parking lot and there was no one manning the gate. Strange! But then I remembered last year we had to take a jog through a line of trees and the ticket booths. This time when I took the jog, there was still no one around and not another vehicle in the lot. The lot was a bit muddy and any of the low spots still had lots of water on the ground. It wouldn't be a real nice walk through this field I thought.

I did see a security fellow over nearer to the roadway so I headed over and asked him what was up. He then advised me that the show was cancelled for today due to the weather and the conditions of the parking. What can you do? Not a darn thing other than turn the truck around and go on home. You can't beat mother nature no matter how hard you try.

It is sad though as there will not be an air show next year in Saskatoon as the runaways are getting redone. So the earliest we will get to see another show will be the summer of 2009.

I dropped Fred off and headed for home and arrived just in time for lunch. Nice Sunday drive, but sure didn't accomplish anything...

Visit Is Over

The household seems to be overly quiet tonite even with the Saskatchewan Roughriders playing on TV. However, it is just getting back to a normal level as the grandkids went home this evening.

We had a great visit with the kids even though the weather didn't totally co-operate with us. We were able to get out and visit the community on our walk abouts though and generally had an enjoyable week. The kids were just great throughout the whole week and were on their best behaviour.

I did manage to grab a picture of the darlings before they departed for home this evening. We'll definitely miss them until their next visit.



Sheila and Wendell took them into the city today and they purchased their supplies for school which starts in a week and half. That will put them on cloud 9 for a day or so just looking at all the new supplies to be used this year. I'm sure they are anxious to get back to school and see their friends and get into the swing of the school year once again in their new grades.

I hope they enjoy their time as looking back on it now, it just goes by a way to fast.

Fall Is Coming

If the movement of the purple martins is any indication, then fall is on it's way. As of Thursday August 16th all the martins in town have departed town and are presumably heading southwards. This is about normal for the martins as they normally depart about the 15th of the month. This year I think the martins took a bunch of their friends with them as the bird population is almost nil right now. I haven't seen any gold finch, purple finch or just normal finches, or even robins for that case, around in the last couple of days. Heck even the sparrows are in hiding.

Now we'll have to wait until the fall and winter guests show up to entertain at the feeders.

Bone Scan

Boy times flies. It seemed like just the other day that I had to visit the RUH and get a bone scan for a possible broken bone in my pelvis area. That was September 2006. The doctor that interpreted the scan felt that I was good to go and had no problem at the time, but he wanted to do a follow up a year later. So on Friday I went to the RUH for another test.

Last year the scan was just gruelling with having to drink so much water and getting pictures taken of my whole body for almost an hour. So of course I wasn't looking forward to the retest this year. At least I was familiar with what was going to transpire, so I attended the hospital a lot better prepared. First off I knew that I had lots of time to waste so I stopped by the library on Thursday and picked up a pocket novel to read. Then I filled up some water containers and got them chilled in the fridge.

On Friday I headed into the city a bit early as I had to report to admitting at 12:45 pm which would be the hospital lunch hour. I felt maybe the admitting office would be short staffed during this time and I was correct. Even so, it didn't take me long to get admitted for the day and told where to attend next, ie Nuclear Medicine. I checked and the office was still in the same place that it was last year, so I was good to go. I found a comfy (isn't that an oxymoron with hospital equipment) chair to sit down and commenced my novel.

Just prior to my scheduled time, I made my way over to Nuclear Medicine and reported in at 1:05 pm. I was about 10 minutes early, but I had my book so I didn't really mind. Lo and behold I was called in right away. This part of the test is where they inject a radioactive isotope into my arm to allow the cameras to get better pictures. This went off very well and then I was free until 3:30 pm. The gal giving me the needle advised that I should try and drink about 3 or 4 glasses of water. I queried her on the 3 or 4 glasses thing as last year I had to drink 8 litres of liquid. She assured me that 3 or 4 would be fine but about 5 glasses would be better.

I departed the lab and headed out to the parking lot to have a sit down for a couple hours. I had my cooler of water (way too much now) and got comfy with the book once again and drank my water leisurely. Last year I had to chug down the water to try and get it all down in the allotted 2 hours. Five glasses is nothing.

I did make a trip into the hospital to use the facilities and then back out to the truck to continue to wait. As the time approached 3:15 pm, I headed back into the hospital to use the facilities once again. After drinking the water, you want to ensure your bladder is empty prior to the tests.

Once again I reported in at about 3:25 pm and within a couple minutes I was taken in for the tests. The young gal set me up on the track and I got settled in as best I could. Remember this track is about the size of a 2 X 10 piece of board and feels about the same. There is almost nil padding on the track but I did get a pillow for my head and for my knees. The operator set up my feet in the proper position and taped them together so they couldn't move during the test.

She said that the test would only be about 15 1/2 minutes long which really surprised me after last years hour test. Once she got the camera set up about an inch from my nose we were off to the races. True to form, within 15 minutes I could tell the camera as just about finished doing it's thing as it was just over my feet. When the timer went off to signal the test was over, the operator headed out to check with the doctor to interpret the pictures. She was back in a couple minutes stating that we were all done and I was free to go.

This was great news as far as I was concerned so I got off the track and immediately felt that my back was hurting big time. Even the short stay that I was perched on the 2 X 10 and now I had pains in my lower back. Of course it didn't help that I was very tense with the camera thing just an inch from my nose. But I managed to walk out okay and headed for my truck and then home.

I'll find out in a couple days from my doctor what the scan found and see where we go from there. The interesting thing is that prior to this test I have been feeling great. NO pains anywhere on me and especially none in the pelvis area where the broken bone was supposed to be. Now 2 days later, my lower back is still hurting and I have pains in my hip area (both sides). I'm hoping it is just the way I was perched on the 2 X 10 in a tense position and that things get back to normal soon.

Time will tell.

Good Friends, Good Food, Good Times

For the long weekend we decided to head up to the lake to have a semi family get together. Sandra and I made it to the lake just prior to noon and got the area set up with water etc for the arrival of the rest of the crew. Rob and Elyssa next arrived about 9:15 pm followed closely by Pat & Ron and Bob and Belle in Pat and Ron's 5th wheel. James and Johanna arrived late Saturday evening.

Throughout the weekend we did almost all of the cooking outside on the BBQs and ate all of our meals outside. We did get a bit of rain a couple times, however, it came down during the night or early in the morning so it really didn't effect us at all. There certainly was more than enough food and everyone probably gained 5 pounds at least.

Originally the plan was for the crew all to leave on Monday after brunch (noonish) with Sandra and I staying at the lake until Tuesday. Rob and Elyssa had to depart Sunday evening due to work commitments on Monday. However, when everyone was pulling out at 12:30 pm, it just was so quiet that Sam and I figured we'd pack up and head south ourselves. We had to be in Saskatoon on Tuesday for a medical test, so we felt it would be nice to get home on Monday and then head back to the city for the test. So within 2 hours, the truck was loaded and we headed for home departing at 2:30 pm.

We ran into some very heavy rain on the way home, however, even though I was pulling Ron's boat, we were still able to make fairly good time and pulled into town about 5 pm.

We did manage to get the 8 of us to stand still long enough to take a group photo.



The weather wasn't too warm/cool and we did have a bit of wind at times, but for the most part, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and had a very enjoyable long weekend at a super location.

Feeling Sorry For The Grandkids

At 4:00 pm I walked downtown to check the mail. My oh my is it toasty outside. Walking down the street it felt like the very air you breathed was on fire. Thankfully there was a bit of a breeze to help cool me a bit. I didn't waste any time getting back home and into the house and the air conditioned air. I then felt so sorry for my grandkids in Regina knowing that they have no air conditioning at home. I also remembered my niece in Weyburn with no air conditioning as well and certainly felt for her and her family as well.

Then I thought I'd compare a few of the weather stats for Hanley, Regina, Weyburn and for a comparison (for me), Hamilton Bermuda. It certainly is warm in all places. Regina does come out on top of the heap, but not by a lot.

Let's see:

Bermuda's temp is 27 with the humidity of 79% it feels like 38
Hanley's temp is 35 with the humidity of 30% it feels like 39
Weyburn's temp is 38 with the humidity of 20% it feels like 40
Regina's temp is 34 with the humidity of 47% it feels like 43

Believe you me, the humidity of 79% in Bermuda would be a killer for most of us 'flatlanders'. Actually a 79% is fairly low for the island country. When I lived there (1972-74) it was not uncommon to have a humidity level near the 95-98% level daily. Mind you the temps didn't waiver too much from around the 25-28 degree mark. Still all in all, the humidity just saps you. Even with a breeze it doesn't cool you down like it does when you have a lower humidity.

So now I do feel badly for the poor grandkids in Regina and only hope Wendell decided he needed to check out the mall or something to give them a break. Same same for Shar-Lee and family. A nice long stroll through the mall would probably be about right for today.

The forecast doesn't appear to have much relief for the next 5 days though.

Just think though, less than 5 months and it will be Christmas :) and hopefully we'll have some nice cool white snow.

Too Hot Outside


Seeing as it is just a way too warm outside, I've been couped up in the house all day. When that happens, my fingers always want to play on the keyboard. Some days are good and then some days are not so good.

As you can tell already, I've been playing with the templates on the Blogger Blog. The old template just wasn't doing it for me of late, so I figured I'd try something new. Now whether I'll keep the current template or move to something else, I'm just not sure.

Depends on how warm it gets outside in the next day or so as to whether I get to play on the keys :)

The House Is Quiet Once Again

We had a nice visit with grand daughter Julia and her dad Craig for the last week. As a 3 1/2 year old, Julia is like the energizer bunny, just goes and goes and goes and goes . . .

On Friday we made the trip to Regina in one of the hotter days of late (aren't they all lately). We had to go right into the heart of the city in the downtown core business area so Craig could take care of some business. The temp in the truck showed it was 33 C outside and where we were parked there was no breeze. I turned the truck off after I parked, but within about 20 seconds I restarted it so we would have some air conditioning.

After 15 minutes I had to get out and replug the parking meter. I tried to convince Sandra it was her turn, but she wasn't having any of that. Julia just looked at me as if I was daft when I suggested she do it. Her poor little arms wouldn't even reach the meter let alone be able to plug the thing. But give me A for effort as I tried. With no takers I climbed out and was hit by the blast furnace. Sheesh was that warm.

With Craig's business taken care of, we travelled to the north end of Regina to meet with Nicole and do the exchange of Julia. Believe me when I say we didn't dawdle outside the truck too long.

I did manage to get Julia and Craig to pose for a pic or two, but I was having a hard time getting them in sync. One would look away just as I took the pic or the other one would close their eyes just as the flash went off. With a little effort I was able to finally get one shot that I figure I could use on the blog.

Here's Julia and her dad Craig:



I'll have to try and get a pic of the other 3 scallywag grand daughters the next time they are up visiting. Trying to get those 3 dynamos to sit still for a pic can be quite hard at times, but we'll definitely make the effort.

Warm Day for a Road Trip


I normally am not an early morning person, however, today I did make the exception and got out of the sack earlier than normal. My mother (who is 76) wanted some help in cleaning up her mother's grave and wanted some assistance. How in the heck are you supposed to say 'no' to your 76 year old mother? Why even try and why should you. I was absent enough years throughout my working career that I most definitely would not be denying mom's request.

Last week when I was in the city I had purchased some supplies and in the last week I readied the very basic supplies for my grandmother's grave (ie painting, cutting, etc).

Early this morning we headed for the city and met mom and headed westbound to the what used to be called the town of Kelfield. The town (village or hamlet) doesn't officially exist anymore as everyone has essentially moved away or passed on save for a few folks that live in the area. There is no more the thriving town of 1950's vintage. Just a few empty buildings and a couple of families that live in the former town confines.

On arrival we found that the local graveyard had been recently mowed and to my eye it looked very well kept. Kudos to folks that look after this cemetery. It is a great job that you do.

My grandmothers grave is a very simple site with a headstone. My older brother Richard, who was raised by our grandmother, had built the form to mark the grave back in about 1992. The weather had taken it's toll over the years on the lumber and the form was literally turning to sawdust. So we created a new form to replace the previous form, painted it up and placed it around the grave site.



While I was busy putting the forms together, Rick cleaned the weeds from the grave with help from my son Craig. Once put in place, it definitely seemed to spruce up the final resting place of a great lady and a grandpa that I barely knew.

I hope that both Grandma and Grandpa Penley rest a bit easier knowing that someone still cares for them even after all these years...




Rest In Peace . . .

Something Smells

The more I read regarding the recently announced plan from Vigoro, the more I find that twitches my nose to this situation. It just 'stinks'.

If you look at a news announcement from 2006, you see that a Mr. Summers is the Chairman and CEO of VIGOR BIOTICS, INC. from Kenora, Ontario.

If you look a little further back, you see in July 2005 that Mr. Summers was in trouble with the law regarding a new biotechnology plant.

Skipping forward I find the article from North Bay Nugget stating that Mr. Summers is not always a truthful person.

From what I read, I personally won't be having any dealings with this man or his company, but that is my right as an individual.

I'm hoping the Town Council gets to the bottom of this fellow and the company and makes the right decision.

Trouble With The Deal

It would appear that the recently announced new company that is planning on setting up shop in Hanley may not be all that they say. This morning, the Saskatoon Star Phoenix had a headline Questions Surround Hanley Plant which certainly brings some credibility problems to the Vigor BioPharma and it's frontman, Gordon Summers. Mr. Summers appears to be quite familiar with fraud and forgery. He actually has served time in jail for a conviction of forgery and attempted fraud from Ontario.

A company representative states that the company still plans to go ahead in Hanley, however, there does need quite a few questions answered before the plan goes forward any further.

At least the Town and people around have been forewarned about this company and what they have for a track record in the past. People are going to want to get a lot of questions answered before they will put their trust in a company with Vigor BioPharma's record.

Thank goodness it was brought to light at this early stage of the game. Thank you to the Saskatoon Star Phoenix for doing a bit of digging. I don't think anyone wants to see a building built in town to just sit there empty in a few years.

Blogger and Blogs

I have been using Internet Explorer 7 to type up and view my blog entries since August 2006. This has been working fine as Blogger does have some neat stuff that you can use. Then I opened up my blog (and a few others) in Firefox. The blog definitely needs some work as the type face are different etc. The formatting in Firefox is the same as IE, but there are other subtle problems with viewing in Firefox.

With that in mind, I thought I'd state that as well as using Blogger to publish my blog I have also being using another blogging program, WordPress. I actually started my blogging life off with WordPress and then converted over to Blogger, however, I have kept up both blogs. They have for the most part identical content, however, there has been the odd thing that I haven't been able to convert over directly. I'm working on these small glitches to see if I can figure them out.

One thing I like about the WordPress blog, is that the actual blog seems to be a more clean type looking blog. That being said, I do like Blogger for what can be done with it.

So for any of you that have trouble reading the posts in Blogger, may I suggest you try my WordPress blog. It can be found at:

Old Red Jacket Talker

The Town is Booming



With the assistance of a local real estate firm, the Town of Hanley has attracted a couple companies to set up shop in our small town.



The major company is ViGor Biopharma which is a research development and pharmaceutical manufacturer of medicinal treatment for breast and ovarian cancer as well as having medicine for side affects of chemotherapy.



The other part of the business venture is Aurum Biotech which essentially is a nursery that develops Yew tree seedlings for farmers.



Good things are certainly coming to Saskatchewan in the last while and more importantly to small town Saskatchewan. This recent development is probably the largest development that Hanley has seen for many, many years (if not decades).

I can only say, "I am so happy that I bought my home when I did". The prices are definitely on the up swing for the town at present.

New Housing For Hanley

The official sod turning for the new Hanley Seniors' Housing Project being built under the Centenary Affordable Housing Program took place in town today at 11:30 a.m.




The Government of Canada was represented by our MP for Blackstrap, Lynn Yelich. The Province of Saskatchewan was represented by Kevin Yates and the Town of Hanley was represented by Mayor Don Lynn and Deputy Mayor Daryl Grindheim.

The Seniors Housing Project is comprised of 11 - 2 bedroom units and 1 - 1 bedroom unit. The federal government assisted with a $324,000. grant with the Province also supplying funding. The Town of Hanley and the citizens of the town will be supplying their labour to convert the following unit into these apartments. The total amounts supplied (including the Town's) is approximately $800,000 plus. In this day and age there are bound to be over runs, so I would presume we are looking at probably 1 to 1.5 million before it is all said and done.



There are actually 3 of the units as above and they will be put together in a 'T' formation to enable the 12 units along the long section of the complex and the 3rd unit in the middle of the project. This 3rd unit will hold the laundry room, communal room, heating plant etc. In the future it is also hoped to build in a kitchen facility to enable home delivery of meals to the units.

The complex is already fully booked with residents waiting to move into their unit when the complex is completed. However, there is quite a bit of work to be done before I envision anyone actually moving into their unit. There needs to be a huge amount of work to clean out the inside of the buildings as they now exist and convert to individual living units. There are going to be many, many hours of voluntary labour to enable this complex to get fully developed. The citizens of Hanley (as most small towns) are noted for their volunteerism to their community. This project will certainly task us all to do our part to help.

I of course have signed up to do what I can when I can. We all need to help as best we can.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

We have had quite the weather in the last couple of days. The rain and hail that went through the area the other day missed us here in Hanley, but did quite a bit of damage just north of here in Dundurn and Allan.

A fellow in Dundurn (10 minutes north of here) retrieved hail stones that were the size of baseballs. Just imagine a baseball dropping from the height of the clouds and you can picture what kind of damage they could and did do. The hail smashed windows on vehicles and houses and caused a great deal of damage to everything else in its path. It doesn't take much to believe the damage that a hail stone could do to a little blade of wheat or canola. As stated, we did get a bit of wind, but no hail right here in town. I haven't heard how close it did get to us, but even 10 minutes away is a too darn close.

For most of today we had a 'tornado watch' from Environment Canada going on. I really can't remember ever seeing or hearing of such a thing as a 'tornado watch' before here in Saskatchewan. Indeed there was a spout spotted up in the Dundurn area today, however, it doesn't look like it came down and caused any problem what so ever. For us here in Hanley, we got about 14 millimeters of rain this morning and then another 14 millimeters this afternoon for a total of 28 millimeters for the day. So that is just over an inch of rain. When it was raining, it was coming down in huge sheets of water.

Needless to say my yard is soaked with all the rain today and the previous dumping on the weekend. I was going to cut my grass today and possibly try and get into the garden to try and pull some of the weed growth out, but that just was not to be. I'll be lucky if I can get out in the garden in a couple days (if we get some sun). With no more rain tomorrow, I should be able to mow the lawn though. But with all the moisture, the weeds certainly are growing leaps and bounds. I know I planted some vegetables in the garden, but you would be hard pressed to find them now with the weeds the way they are. Just leaving for 5 little days and the garden seems to have been overtaken.

However, at least there were no tornados touching down around Hanley. We certainly can be thankful for that at least.

Lucky Day or Full House ?

I have been listening to all the hype about the luck of getting married on July 7, 2007 (ie 7 - 7 - 07) etc. Of course this is 3 sevens which is supposed to give you luck whether it is getting married, gambling (same thing as getting married now a days, isn't it?), or lotteries.

I got to thinking of my wedding anniversary which is July 17, 1971 and as far as I can see, we did a lot better than the 7-7-07. If you look at it as 17 - 7 - 71 you can see we have 3 sevens and a pair of aces (ie a full house).

A full house always beats three of a kind to my thinking :)

Seeing as we are coming up on number 36 wedding anniversary, maybe there is something to the luck of the sevens or in our case the full house.

A Picture to Remember the Past

I uploaded the bad pictures about the cabin, but then I figured I should also upload a few of the better sides of the place. The cabin holds so many memories to so many people....




Then the final shot is of the entrance to the two places. To those that haven't been up in the area for awhile, you can see that the trees definitely have grown up since 1990 or so...



It still is one of my favourite places in the province . . .

What A Shame

We managed to spend 5 days up at Christopher Lake over the July 1st long weekend. Seeing as we were at the lake, we just had to have one good dumping of rain. This occurred on Friday night, June 29th and did it ever rain. But as normally happens at the lake, within a day you didn't know it had rained.

Of course there are pools of water laying in the bush which we all know are great breeding grounds for mosquitoes. There certainly were lots of the little blood suckers around, but after I got a smudge going in the chiminea they left me alone for the most part.

One interesting thing that occurred was when we first drove into the property I noticed a power line was down between my place and the neighbours (former Mayers cabin). I of course stopped the truck and got out to take a peak. I ascertained that it was the phone line and not power, so I moved the line out of the way and continued into our spot and got the truck/trailer unloaded. As the neighbours seldom show up at their cabin, I wasn't in any hurry to report the downed line and besides I was aware the neighbours did not have their phone hooked up. Once I did get my place straightened away I did call into SaskTel and reported the downed line and I would imagine eventually they'll send out a crew to fix it up.

It was interesting though on Friday afternoon when a Sask Power truck showed up. I thought someone may have gotten their wires crossed but on speaking to the fellow he advised he was there to disconnect the power to the neighbours cabin. It was then that I noticed that the neighbours sign with their names on it was taken down. Hummmm. But then I got busy doing something else and didn't think anything more about it. Oh yah, the Sask Power guy didn't disconnect their power as he saw that they were using electricity and he didn't want to shut down their freezer. So he just left.

Then on Saturday an truck pulled up and the fellow asked if the cabin was the Hesje's cabin. When I advised him that it was, three fellows got out and started looking around. I of course asked what was happening and they proceeded to explain that the owner wanted them to fix up the foundation of the cabin. I then walked around the neighbour's cabin with the workers and saw what they meant.

For any of you who had occasion to visit the Mayers cabin in the past, you know that it was a yearly task to level the cabin and ensure that it didn't slip further back into the swamp. That meant jacking it up and shimming the beams etc. Well the new owners didn't figure he needed to do any levelling and the end result are shown in the following pictures:






On further talking to the workers, they advised that the plumbing underneath the cabin is all torn up and broken as well. That makes sense as it was plastic and it doesn't give much at all. The cabin has probably fallen backwards close to 2 feet in the last year alone. While we were talking the Sask Power fellow came back and commenced to disconnect the power to the cabin. It was either that or the line was going to be pulled down from the weight of the cabin slipping further backwards.

Just remembering all the good times that occurred at the cabin makes you want to shake your head at the waste that it has become. But there is nothing we the family can do about that now. It was sold (or should I say given away) and that is that.

Still it is a shame :(

I Thought I Was On A Holiday !

Here I am retired (supposedly); so I go away for a long weekend (ie June 28th to July 3rd) to the great north country of pines and water. My life is slow paced compared to what it was a few years ago when I was in DOCC Saskatchewan so I figured my email box would be fairly skimpy on my return to the 'connected world'.

I open up my email and lo and behold I have 545 email messages waiting for me. What the heck ! I've only been gone for not quite 5 days and I have that many messages waiting for my peepers to take a look at them. There must be a lot of crap in there I figure. So I got down to the task of rooting out the spam that I know must be there.

Gosh I tried and tried and I think I removed about 5 messages from my que. That still leaves about 540 messages that I have to look through as bonafide email messages. That is a way toooooo many I think, but then I remember just a few years ago when I was working that number would most likely have been a few higher than that.

I decided to check and lo and behold, when working I probably would have received about 1500+ messages when I was gone on such as short time frame (ie 5 days). I know I don't have to reply to about 1/3 of the email's I receive, but then if I didn't reply to 1/2 of the 1/3, then maybe my inbox would shrink even further. Maybe I would be able to actually reply to all that sent me a message while I was away that actually deserve a reply.

As I contemplated all of the above, I figured, if I decided to not reply I would likely not deserve to receive the messages from people that felt it was important enough to send me the message in the first place. Eventually my Inbox would dry up and I would not have the privilege of conversing with prior workers, friends, new acquaintances, etc, and I my Inbox would be empty.

That doesn't sound like much fun at all.

Keep those emails coming, I thoroughly enjoy each and every one.... It may take me a while to get back to you individually, but eventually I will.

I read them all and definitely thank all the folks that take the time to send me a message. If you think it is important to send it, I think it is important enough to read it.

Keep 'em coming....