Another Week Gone

16 Aug 19
15:15 hrs

     Yes, another week is gone leaving only a couple more before we haul the Jr. Loin Fruit south to Capital City. This was his last week at work which, from all indications, he did enjoy - especially the money.

     This past week your's truly was supposed to have a full week on a project. It wasn't. But, I'm on this whole weekend. My Lobster was off for a couple of days and that gave us time to get caught up on our cribbage games. We were both at home to observe work in the Wayward Inn by a Master Carpenter. By the end of yesterday we had a privacy door for the bonus room and our bank account was correspondingly lighter.

     The morons who operate and control the National Defense of the Great White North are in the process of rectifying a major faux pas. When our troops departed Afghanistan the cenotaph - built by soldiers to honour their fallen - that was in country was dismantled and brought back here. When NDHQ West was opened the cenotaph was rebuilt but none of the families of the fallen were even invited to view it. Not only that, it was assembled in a location where the families and the general public could not access it. Pure Bullshit. My question is this: who was the dickhead who made that decision and was he/she raked over the coals for being so stupid? Ultimately,  the Chief of Defence is responsible whether he had to sign off on it or not. What an asshat!

18:00 hrs

     We have not been to the new taphouse as of yet. I'd love to get to it soon. The two Couch Monkeys have asked if we could play Cards Against Humanity. It sounds like a drinking game so I'm up for it.

17 Aug 19
04:45 hrs

     Last night's card game was quite raucous. The funny part was the suggestion that we play this with Elric the Stalwart and his Lobster.  Uh, no. It would probably be the end of the friendship.

     For the past week my friend Kurtz has been Out in the Weeds with Father Guido Sarducci and the All-Star Choir. Last year Father Sarducci learned that Kurtz likes to chase after our 8 foot tall hairy friends and decided that he would like to perform a full blown mass ceremony Out in the Weeds. So, he hired Kurtz to take him and a part of the congregation for a week long outing. I don't know how much camping experience the Father or the congregation has but our base camp is pretty rustic. I expect to get a full debrief in a couple of days.

     With the Jr. Loin Fruit no longer working if I'm free on Monday maybe we can go out and drown some worms. It came to mind that, as a family, we have not done Weenies on the Beach at all this season. That being said, the season is just about over as the District only allows Beach fires from the May Two-Four Weekend to the September Long. That's it. That's all. After that if you want to enjoy a hotdog by the ocean you had Better bring a bbq. What a bunch of jerks.

Post Time

10 Aug 19
14:45 hrs

     A couple of shakeups this week, Dear Readers. First thing is that the Onion is no longer with us. No, she has not passed away. She is no longer residing at the Wayward Inn. Last Wednesday we loaded up the last of her stuff and transported it to her new digs. She is now in a shared three bedroom apartment and her new room is a wee bit smaller than the one she had here. Mind you she is paying less rent as well. It was an interesting experiment that we all experienced in a different manner. I think for my Lobster it was great to have another female in the house. I found her to be funny, helpful and more engaging than the Loin Fruits most of the time. And having to cook for one more vegetarian in the house was okay but the Onion did not eat eggs either so that added another layer of complexity to making meals.

     My Better Half and I will be going to watch the Crash Test Dummies tomorrow night. I've enjoyed their music for a lot of years so this will be a treat. Unfortunately,  the lead singer with the deep bass voice is no longer with the band. That's okay. The music will be just as enjoyable.

     The Jr. Loin Fruit has but one week of work left giving him about a week and a half to get his crap together for the trek south to higher education in Capital City. My Lobster and I will drag him and all of his stuff south with the Mobile Wayward Inn. This will provide us a base of operations and mobility.

     Have you seen the shot that happened in the Hugh-ess last week? Thirty plus people shot and killed at two different locations. The shooter in the Lone Star state opened up at a Walmart with an AK47. He was taken alive. He has admitted to the authorities that he was purposely targeting Latinos. The Dept of Justice will be seeking the death penalty.  In Oh-Hi-Oh the gunman was dispatched by a police officer thirty seconds after he started shooting at a nightclub. In those thirty seconds he killed nine and wounded more than a dozen. One of the victims was his own sister. This second shooting marks the 250th mass shooting in the Hugh-ess this year.

11 Aug 19
11:15 hrs

     I have mentioned it before and I'll say it again - do yourself a favour and read a newspaper!

     Print media is important as it forces you to slow down and ruminate on the written word. Too many people in our society rely on the thirty second sound bite or the two hundred and forty or so character tweet to provide them with the news of the day. Unfortunately, these snippets of information are quite often intentionally wrong causing the reader react or view the subject matter as the writer directs. This is how the Tangerine Tyrant has kept his base from straying. This is how Russia has manipulated election in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Yes, print media can also be used to misdirect the facts but it is harder to do so, in my opinion.  I feel that real journalists have quite a bit more integrity that the tweeters. Just think the Hugh-ess CIC has 63 million Twitter followers. That's a lot of people who could be considered as sheep or as having blinders on.

     My Better Half picked up a National Post for me yesterday. I like the paper and used to have a subscription for it when we lived in the middle of the country. In the paper there is a one and one half page article on how the pharmaceutical industry has discovered a means of curing - or at least alleviating - the feelings of loneliness. Can you imagine that? It seems there is s natural chemical that the human body produces when you are engaging with someone. Pharma can reproduce this chemical and if taken you lose the feelings associated with loneliness.

     Just great! Another wonder drug to make a person feel something when they don't feel something or when they want to feel something different. How about skipping the meds, putting down the hand-held device, turn off the frickin computer, grab a book, walk to a park where you can lay on the grass and turn some pages. You never know, you might just meet someone and you won't be lonely anymore.

18:15 hrs

     My Lobster and I have just finished dining at a Corner restaurant.  Nice place for people watching but the food was overpriced. In an hour or so we'll be watching the Dummies! Can't wait!

21:30 hrs

     The show was excellent. Brad hit all the right notes. Of course, the Superman song is a huge fave of mine.

    

Disturbing Revelations

01 Aug 19
07:45 hrs

     Good Morning Dear Readers! Happy August. August is the eighth month in the Julian calendar and is named after Caesar Augustus and I have no clue as to what he did to deserve having an entire month named after him. Think about it. Hannukah is only eight days long, Easter has two days (Good Friday and Easter Sunday) and Christmas is just one day. So whatever he did it must have been big. The only thing that comes close is Ramadan which also a month.

     I am about to tell you something that has been bugging me of late. There will be those who may be upset with what I have to say but it can't be helped so here goes. In a discussion at the Wayward Inn I learned that a friend of the Onion cheated in college. That's right. She submitted work in her name that had been completed by another person. Not by another student but by a family member who is a professional in the subject matter. Can you believe this?

     I asked the Onion about it and she said :what's the big deal" and that "everyone does it back home." Well, Girly Girl - NOT IN THIS COUNTRY!!!

     It is totally unethical to cheat and plagiarism is the worst in academia. Imagine that you are in a hospital and the attending medical staff had plagiarized their work in school. Would you want this individual working on you knowing that he or she did not learn the knowledge needed to cure your ills? Or, how about the engineer who is now certifying a highway overpass and his only knowledge of structural loads comes from playing with Tinker Toys, Lego and Jenga. Pretty freaking scary. Unfortunately,  I have no direct evidence that can be taken to the college board. It can all be and would be denied by the parties involved. If I had such evidence you can bet your bottom that I would be beating down the doors to ferret out the cheats.

     Let's put it this way - my distaste for cheats ranks right up there with my hate for thieves. As the saying goes - Once a thief always a thief and it's the same for cheats. In their minuscule mental capacity they feel that they haven't harmed anyone. Well, maybe not when the crime was committed but eventually someone will be hurt.

14:00 hrs

     A couple of days ago an 89 year old man was sitting his car waiting for the newspapers to be delivered. Like a lot of seniors here in the Valley he earns extra monies by delivering the local cage liner. While he waited in his car a sketchy 20 something male asked him if he had a cigarette that he could spare. The old guy says he doesn't smoke so Sketchy attacks him with a machete. With lacerations to his face the old guy drives to the local Constabulary and files a report. The perp is still on the lam.

     Speaking about being on the lam...the search for two fugitives from Over the Hump has been scaled back until Better leads are developed. These two clowns are wanted as suspects in the murder of three individuals on the Northern Left Coast. The last known sighting was near the town of Gillam, MB. That's along way from home. A full blown Queen's Cowboy Posse complete with some military air support has been scouring the swampy bug infested northland for over a week with no results. The police may be scaling the search back but rest assured the police are just laying in wait for these two desperados to screw up and then they'll nab them.

19:15 hrs

     The new brew pub on the Wayward  Inn side of the estuary is soon to be opened. I haven't heard the exact date but the last time I drove by I was very impressed with the Left Coast design that has been incorporated. There is a bakery right next door and if the pub owners are smart they will source out all their bread requirements from their neighbours.

02 Aug 19
06:00 hrs

     Happy Friday!
     Only nine days until we see the Crash Test Dummies!

And then there's...

27 Jul 18
06:45 hrs

     And the there's the guy who is so OCD/Anal-Retentive that if one little something is out of alignment it will drive him absolutely crazy until the issue is corrected.

     Dear Reader, you will recall that a neighbour to the Wayward Inn and myself rebuilt a portion of our shared fence line. When it was completed one post was still a bit wobbly and we had identified another post that would have to be replaced sometime in the future. Personally, I was happy with the fence the way it was because if the damn thing blew down again I was going to contract a masonry company to build a six foot cinder brick wall. I wouldn't even care if the two bordering neighbours pitched in on the cost.

17:30 hrs

     The Jr. Loin Fruit and I helped out Sensei with hauling a load of large rocks for his serenity garden. After returning to the Wayward Inn we (my Better Half, the Onion, the Jr. Loin Fruit and myself) all went on an adventure taking in the Goats on the Roof, Riptide Minigolf and the Sand Sculpture competition. On our return I saw that the OCD neighbour has topped the fence posts he planted yesterday to the precise height as all the rest. The trimmed portion from the first post is laying on our back lawn. I guess he figures that I need it as it came off of the post I paid for. The entire second post is laying on top of our planter bed. He returned it after ripping it out of the ground and replacing it with the new one.

21:00 hrs

     There was one more function to attend on this day. A bbq. That's right. For supper, my Lobster and I attended a bbq for the volunteers for a cat rescue society. Burgers, hot dogs, salmon, side salads, beer. It was all good.

     Hey, have you heard of Dennis Oland? He's the heir to the Oland breweries located on the Right Coast of the Great White North. Four years ago someone bludgeoned Mr. Oland Sr. inflicting forty-five sharp and blunt force defensive wounds. The most likely weapon was a roofers hammer with a hatchet end. When arrested Dennis Oland did have blood droplets on his pants that were genetically matched to his father's DNA and he could not accurately account for the time when the attack occurred. Oland Jr. was convicted at his first trial but the judgement was overturned on appeal. The second trial was by judge alone. He acquitted Oland Jr. on the grounds that the preponderance of the evidence was circumstantial in nature. Oland is a lucky man because the judge is obviously blind.

29 Jul 19
05:00 hrs

     The weekend was busy at the Wayward Inn. Our chest freezer was pushing 30+ years old and the door seal crapped out. We purchased a new one from Costco and the old one was hauled away. We took in a walk in the alpine meadows which put us in touch with nature.

     Yesterday I saw the new Regional District office that is being built. It's a pretty nice building but with all new office buildings once everyone moves in they'll say that there isn't enough room. Years ago, about 1985, the new Air Command building was built.  Four stories up of glass and steel (rumour has it there are four stories underground too) and there isn't enough space.

23:25 hrs

     We are cat sitting for a friend. Not my call. We went to the local legion with Elric the Stalwart. We three had no luck. My Better Half came close to winning and I refilled my membership application. Its about time.
.

New words

17 Jul 19
17:45 hrs

     Often when you meet someone from a different culture there are a lot of words that get lost in translation from one side to the other. This cultural difference may be between two different countries or even from opposite sides of the same country for example think of the differences between opposite ends of the Great White North.

     With the Onion being from the sub-continent there are a great number of words and colloquial phrases that she has no clue as to their meaning. It's not that we are trying confuse her or belittle her lack of the English taxonomy it's more about speaking words that are fun to say even if you are a grownup.

     Here's part of the list: shenanigans, fuddle duddle, bamboozled, flabbergasted, discombobulated, cattywompus, lollygag, malarkey, hooey, owley, brouhaha, nincompoop.

20 Jul 19
06:45 hrs

     Yesterday I went fishing with my friend from Over the Hump. We headed out to the bug lake in the Valley. If you enjoy fishing, you'll be happy to learn that the gear restrictions on this lake have been removed. The only restriction left is that all wild rainbow trout over 50 cm in length must be released. So, if you catch a large trout and the adipose fin is still intact you must let it go.

     "Send them/her home!"
     These are the new words coming out of the Tangerine Tyrant's base. These highly ignorant people are unwittingly marching themselves to repeating the fascist history of WWII. Heaven help the Hugh-ess citizens. By the time they realize what they have done it will be too late to turn back. Then again, years after the end of the Second World War, there are still people who believe that the Nazi Final Solution never took place and there are also people who believe the Final Solution did not go far enough. Both of these groups, the Holocaust deniers and proponents, are publicly active in the Hugh-ess. What's the saying? Those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat it.

21 Jul 19
20:45 hrs

     Today we celebrated the Onion's birthday. It's not until next week but the timing was right. My Lobster and I made numerous dishes that covered the Veggie Only people and those with other dietary concerns. Elric the Stalwart and his Lobster as well as The Sensei and his Better Half came over to celebrate. It was a great time. Dinner, drinks, card games and a bunch of laughs amongst friends.

     I also completed the rebuild of "Book Town". While I was on my road trip some little shit pushed the old book house over onto the lawn. The new one is constructed of 4x4 posts in a log cabin style. Each layer of the base is glued with construction adhesive and lag bolted to the layer below. The posts are held in place with steel post holders that are bolted to the platform with two keys screws added on each post. While working on the project a dozen neighbours stopped on their walks an comment on how much they missed it. Well now there are two book houses on the same mount. Enjoy.

Its Musicfest Time!

12 Jul 19
1015 hrs.

     Yes, it is Musicfest Time and the lineup includes Colin James and Tom Cochrane. Should be a real blast. Music, festival food and lots of people. My Better Half volunteers with the Vendor Crew that is headed up by Miss Gail. It's a lot of work but it's worth it.

     The MND, Harjit Sajan, was in the Valley for graduation of the latest batch of Cheezies and for the formation of the new 418 OTU Squadron. This will be the unit operating the new FWSAR unit. I wonder if Harjit read my book. After all, I did send him an autographed copy. He may have, being he's ex-military and it's a military book.

23:30 hrs

     We are several bags of mini donuts into Musicfest and there are two days left. There are other foods as well. A smoked meat and rib truck, dragon bowls for you veggie fanatics, burgers,  hot dogs, north american asian fusion complete with fries. There is even a Mac & Cheese truck. I tried it and gave my Lobster a bite too.

13 Jul 19
00:45 hrs.

     We are done for the day. Colin James is still belting out the hits. In fact, right now we can still hear him playing at the fair grounds as we are standing in the driveway at the Wayward Inn. As the crow flys, that's a distance of over several klicks.

06:30 hrs

     Oh, glorious coffee! You are my  morning ambrosia.

     We will be headed down to face the throngs of displaced musician wannabes all of whom will be tapping their feet to a mis-stepped beat and air-strumming their invisible Stratocasters with their Better Half saying, "You know you can't play guitar? Why do take a lesson or too before you think you're playing like Lifeson!" To which you reply...  silence. You're in the groove, enjoying the moment and looking like one of four or five or six hundred other idiots all tapping and strumming in synch with their cerebral tempo. "Honey, you want some mini donuts?"

14:45 hrs

     I'm sure you've seen these mindless twits. You know, the ones who are constantly squinting their eyes because the sun is blinding them. A problem that is easily remedied if they would only turn their damn hat around so the brim is shielding their eyes.

     Old blues, Woodstock rock are the hit of the day. Tonight is Tom Cochrane with Red Rider. It will be good.

     The food vendors are doing a bang up job. Well most of them are like the regulars - the mini donut guy, the wood fired pizzas, the Greek truck. That Mac & Cheese truck is not so hot. The Jr. Couch Monkey could turn out a better product.

     In other news...Hurricane Barry is taking out Louisiana and the lowlands, some moron decided to throw incendary devices at a Hugh-ess ICE facility and was shot (and killed) by ICE agents, we have no mosquitoes harassing us at Musicfest but when it comes to wildlife we have plenty of loons.

     Right now, I am up at the Grassy Knoll stage listening to a harpist while drinking a cold beer. Time for an $8 hotdog.

14 Jul 19
07:55 hrs

     Last night, my Lobster and I survived watching Tom Cochrane in the rain. Initially it had started to rain during the preceding band. The clouds had been building for quite some time and when the down pour hit the less sturdy souls cut and ran. We stayed.

15:00 hrs

     My Lobster and I went to the Barn Stage to watch an interpretation performance artist do a bit called the Moaning Yoni. It was about a young girl discovering her sexuality from the point of view of her lady parts. Yes, you read that right. It was presented with humour but at the same time it was kind of weird. Oh well, different strokes for different folks.

19:30 hrs

     Musicfest is over for another year. The show was still going on but for us it's over for another year. It was enjoyable and I highly recommend it for anyone who hasn't seen it.
    

Common Dog!

03 Jul 19
11:30 hrs

     Some people just dont have the common sense of a dog!

     So, I'm on the jobsite and I had to provide access to a secured area to a couple of worker bees. Behind the locked doors were these other workers hanging wall board high up - 20 feet up - on the walls. Like a lot of other trade persons these two had their own bluetooth/jump drive music box playing nearby. However, the noise coming out of the unit was far from being music. I can only describe it as Thashing Death Metal Rap. All of which sounded like CRAP!

     How can anyone listen to something that entices you to bang your head against a brick wall with lyrics professing the enjoyment of shooting blacks and sexually assaulting underage children?

     It is definitely not my cup of tea.

03 Jul 19
17:45 hrs

     We have had our concerns about the health of the Oma-nator. After landing back in the Nation's Capital she showed no real improvement and with no one there to care for her on a daily basis we thought it was best that she voluntarily place herself into a care facility. When she is healthy enough to be on her own she can move back to her residence. From all indications this may have a positive effect.

     If you happen to be driving in the Valley on the road from Home Despot towards the Co-op gas bar you will see an entire new warren of townhouses being erected on less than an acre of land. I doubt if it's even half an acre. This build site isn't just about densification. It's about corporate greed. How many units can the developer squeeze into this tiny plot of land? There will be twenty-four townhouses. Some will be two bedroom and the rest will be three bedroom units which are starting at $369,000. The city will reap the benefit of a tax windfall of about $3K per unit or $72,000 each and every year.

     Speaking of tax dollars, the largest city in the Valley has put forward a motion to spend monies for the maintenance on one of the Valley's bridges. The city's fathers also decided to borrow some extra dough to expand the work a little bit more. This is all well and good but they, and the other town councils, had better pull their digits out of their orifices and start planning on a third bridge. Even if they started the process now it'll take ten years or more to complete which means they should have started ten years ago. In another ten years the traffic will be grid locked. The smart thing to do would be for all the towns in the Valley to start putting an equal percentage of the taxes brought in and dump it into a fund to build a new bridge. Further to that point, common dog says that the towns in the Valley must amalgamate, eventually. Just think about all the duplication in services that can be eliminated which would save monies. The citizens of the Valley have discussed this but the biggest stumbling block that I've heard of is what would the new town be called?

07 Jul 19
07:00 hrs

     The new neighbours to the Wayward  Inn have not moved in as of yet. My Better Half believes that it will be next week. We'll probably miss it because we will be enjoying the sounds of Tom Cochrane and Colin James at MusicFest. Hope to see you there.