You Think!

A couple weeks ago I commented on the pervert that was fighting his conditions on viewing young gymnasts. The article Porn collector agrees to conditions shows this guy may have some sense after all.

He's still a pervert, but at least he is smart enough to know that he was not going to elude the conditions of not attending gymnastic competitions.

With all the publicity he has garnered, I would think the last place he would want to show his face is at some gym contest with some young people competing. He might have found out about some home grown retribution that some of the moms and dads might have dreamt up.

Let's hope that the courts also insist on this dude getting his name on the National Sex Offender's registry. It would also be real justice if the the Judge actually sentenced him to a period of incaration so that he could get a bit of help with his problems rather than just letting him off lightly with a conditional sentence.

Time will tell.

Typical Media Overstating a Story

I was reading a link today about a 'Peg man gets 16 months for stealing gas and thought wow are the courts getting tough on offenders.

Then I read the actual story and yup the guy got 16 months in the 'crowbar Hilton', but it wasn't just for stealing gas. After you read the headline that the fellow from Winnipeg got sentenced to 16 months in jail for stealing gas the story states 'oh yah, "he also had plead guilty to charges of possession of stolen property, theft and dangerous driving". "He had also avoided one spike belt and stopped the vehicle prior to running over a second as he was trying to outrun the police member trying to apprehend him".

The truth being known, about the time he took off from the RCMP member and the chase ensued, the least of his worries was the theft of a measly $34.00 of gas. The media seems to always try and grab your attention with a headline, even if the actual headline is quite a bit misleading. They are I would suppose technically correct in their headline, it is just that it is so misleading. I always view the various media's headlines with a grain of salt as I know how skewered they can actually make a story at times.

However, I guess they did their job in that they got me to read their story even if the headline wasn't totally correct. I do think they could have rewritten the actual headline to more accurately reflect the situation and people would still read it. Maybe not quite as many though as those that figure the courts are getting tough for the theft of a small amount such as $34.00. I guess that is the bottom line, more people read a headline, and the media outlet garners more dollars in revenue from ads, etc. Someday, maybe people will just ignore all the headlines though as the people find that most are a little bit skewered.

I wonder what the media is going to do then, tell the actual truth for once?

Satisfaction

I know that today summer has finally arrived. As I was sitting outside watching my BBQ supper sizzling away I saw a northern oriole come have a sip from my feeder. These birds are very skittish and the least little noise sets them off and away they go into the closest tree. I did manage to get a video albeit not much of one as I think I blinked too loudly... sheesh. They are normally the last birds to arrive in the spring and the first birds to depart in the fall.


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Another visitor to one of my feeders today was a male ruby-throated hummingbird. I have seen them flitting around the yard the last week or so, but none had sat down for a sip from the feeder until today.

My purple martin house has 3 pairs setting up house and getting the yard organized. Then I have one set of tree swallows nesting in one of my bird houses in the back. Of course I have lots of American goldfinches visiting the feeders everyday to get a snack or two. Today I also had a morning dove come by for a short visit and took a tour of the sunflower feeder. Of course there are a couple robins who have set up nests in the trees along the side of the house and are forever whizzing back and forth from the lawn to their nests. I also have had some chipping sparrows visiting the feeders and checking things out. And of course I do have a family of song sparrows that have set up a nest in one of my other bird houses. I've cleaned the house about 4 times already, but they are very determined and as soon as I climb down from the ladder the birds are hauling nesting material back into the house.

As well when I was sitting on the deck trying to get a picture of the oriole, a little house wren landed about a foot from my hand on the deck railing. It took a quick look at me and decided I was bigger than he/she was and decided to make tracks for the juniper bush along side the house.

For the amount of bird action, I finally know that summer has finally arrived.

About time!

Thanks To Ron and Others

As I was reading the Star Phoenix article about YourLink numbers up I got to thinking what this really means.

First off with the recent amalgamation of Sask Wheat Pool and Agricore, it means that the brothers-in-law Ron and James have a lot of work in their future for many years to come if they so wish. I also feel that YourLink was very fortunate in finding and hiring such a great person as the brother-in-law Ron. A lot of his expertise from years of working on towers has greatly assisted YourLink to get their numbers of subscribers up.

Now the only problem is that Ron was hoping to retire at some point in the future. That was one of the reasons that he sold YourLink all his tools, trailers, etc so he could shut down his own company. Ron is supposed to be the supervisor of the fellows working on the towers, but anyone who knows Ron knows he is also a very hands on type of person. Hopefully he will be able to gradually move over to the management side of the work and let the other guys do the actual grunt work.

Then maybe he is quite satisfied in what he is doing at present. In that case, at least it is his choice and as long as he enjoys the work, why retire or change. As long as he gets to enjoy what he is doing then good for him.

Good Choice

Earlier in the week we had made up our minds that we wouldn't be heading out to the lake this long weekend. The weather conditions just didn't look to be promising in the long run. We felt there would be lots of other days we could travel north, so why freeze our butts off.

With the super nice weather yesterday, I was thinking that maybe we made the wrong decision. However, as I headed for the horizontal position around midnight I sure noted the coolness in the air. While I was searching the news on the net today I came across this article May Snow Takes Some By Surprise and knew that we had made the correct decision to stay home.

Who needs to play in 2-4 cm of snow and freeze your butt off when you can be home snug as a bug in their own bed :)

You Have Got To Be Kidding

As I was reading the Star Phoenix this morning, the story of a Man guilty of child porn possession fighting to still attend pre-teen gymnastics events caught my eye. Reading further into the story, I find this 40 year old man who has plead guilty to possession of child pornography wants to quote "is fighting in court for the freedom to continue attending gymnastics competitions for preteen girls" unquote.

Among his video collection located by police quote "were home movies the 40-year-old University of Saskatchewan employee made of himself masturbating in the back yard and his parents' bedroom while dressed in a pink girl's gymnastics uniform" unquote.

This man doesn't see anything wrong with attending to gyms and as he stated to a psychologist quote "He claimed his collection of pictures and videos stems from a "fascination" with the physiological development of young girls, particularly their breasts, buttocks and pelvic region" unquote.

Pardon me, but if that was my daughter that this dude was watching, I most definitely would be 'fascinated' in rearranging this fellows anatomy. It is plain and simple wrong.

I can only hope our court system does not find some twisted way for this criminal to continue on with his fetish of watching pre-teen gymnastic girls (or anyone else) during their competitions. If this fellow does succeed in getting his conditions changed or revoked, I would think that any sane thinking parent would be withdrawing their daughters from all gym competitions immediately as a response.

This is just not right and if our courts allow this fellow to continue on, then we are in a heap of trouble as a society.

Disgusting !

Wonderful

My morning snooze was interrupted by the Town Administrator this morning when he phoned bright and early. He wanted to know if the bro-in-law's vehicles were drivable and could be moved. I enquired if there was some problem with them being on the street as both vehicles were currently licenced. Tony replied, "That there was no problem, but we were getting the street swept this morning". He was wondering if I had the keys and could move them off to a side street until the sweeper went through. I tentatively replied yes (not knowing whether the beasts would start or not). I immediately got up and dressed and was fortunate to start both vehicles and moved both of them to the back alley. When you get the street swept in front of the house, you want the sweeper to to get it as clean as possible and cover all the street.



As I was watching the sweeper doing it's thing, I contemplated that this was the second time we have had our street cleaned in the two years (3rd summer) we have lived in Hanley. Thinking back I can only remember my street in Regina being swept once in 9 years. Don't even get me started on the winter grading that took place (not) in Regina!

It sure is nice to see my tax dollars in small town Saskatchewan are hard at work though.

Nice Drive

With nothing better to do today we decided to take a drive over to Outlook as a change of pace. The sun was shining but it really wasn't overly warm, but still it was nice to get out and see the country side. There seems to be a fair amount of water left in the fields in some spots, but for the most part, it looks like the fields have dried up quite nicely.

While we were over that way we stopped off at Barich's and got a box of potatoes. Believe me these are nice potatoes and at $10.00 for a 50 pound box you don't find a much better deal. As we were driving into Barich's I noticed all the old potatoes out in the field ready to be tilled under. These would be potatoes that spoiled or were soft, etc. That was a sure sign that planting was just about ready to start. I enquired with the young fellow serving me if they were getting near the end of last year's harvest. He affirmed they were getting low on stock so it won't be much longer and we'll have to put up with the inferior potatoes you normally get at Safeway or Extra Foods, Superstore, etc.

For now we're good to go for the next month or so with good spuds. Bring on the bbq.

What A Slow Drive

We headed to Regina this morning to pick up Julia. The trip is not the most scenic at the best of times and can get down right boring. Today was even worse than normal as of course we were driving a brand new vehicle.

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of a brand new vehicle, the operator's manual states you should not drive above 90 kmph for the first 800-900 kilometres. Yup you read that right. I got to drive to Regina and back at a top speed of 90 kmph. I did cheat once when we went down the Lumsden hill, but otherwise it was on cruise at 90. Of course everyone whizzed by us, but we just plodded along at 90.

The only nice thing is that the odometer is sitting around 700 kms at present, so only one more trip south and I can then 'pedal it to the metal' and get the speedo up to 110 (or so). However, one nice thing about the slower speed is that it appears the gas mileage does improve a bit. Now I'm not sure if that is just the speed I'm going or the newer engine (with new oil, etc). Time will tell on that one.

For now all I can say is "Darn that is one long trip".