You are what you drive.

24 Feb 20

19:00 hrs.

      Today is the Oma-nator's birthday. A happy 87 years young she is. For supper at the Wayward Inn we had pork Schnitzel,  blau kraut, eggless noodles - just for the Onion, potato/cucumber salad ala Oma,  sauteed mushrooms and a Schnitzel dill sauce. The only thing that Chef Blaine did was prep the pork last night. The test was handled by Sous Irene and Prep Bowen. They did a bang up job too.

     The new dishwasher is now installed and tonight is the full load test. We are also monitoring for leakage. Keep your fingers crossed. 

     Last Saturday I was working at a static position and listening to the local rock station. The good one. Not the BeeGee/Criss Cross/soft pop rap crap station. In the afternoon one of the DJ's was on location at a local vehicle dealership professing the benefits of purchasing a new set of wheels. But you have to ask yourself what is the right set of wheels for me? Or why do I drive this type of vehicle? Or why do I prefer this manufacturer over others?

     I used to love my First on Race Day.  Growing up most of our vehicles were First on Race Day. My patrol vehicle was a First on Race Day.  But, the local dealership provided really shitty service so when it came time to get a new vehicle I went with the Ram. 

     Now, some people buy a vehicle as a physical projection of their persona. My Lobster calls it a Penis on Wheels. This could be a truck that is jacked up with lift kits and over-sized tires or it could be a sleek and polished muscle car that the owner parks sideways in a parking lot in order to protect it from scratches and door dings or it could be the rusted out POS with the bass thumping stereo driven by the neighbour's kid that shakes you out of bed at Oh-Dark-30. I'm sure you have all experienced this.

     Some vehicles just don't seem to fit the driver. Like they are showing the world what they think they are when they really are not. And some vehicles just shouldn't be driven at all due to their impractical design. Dodge came out with a low cut station wagon that is very difficult to get in or out of. The Cube has a rear window that has a massive blindspot covering 1/4 of the window.

25 Feb 20

05:30 hrs

     There is a new season of Alone that has come out. Alone: The Beast. Instead of having ten people with ten items try to survive as long as they possibly can the producers took three people with no items except for a 1,000 pound dead moose. And they have to last 30 days. I'm 20 minutes into the first episode. They're on Day 2. The moose is butchered and cleaned the shelter is started and one member of the party has developed a cough. The twist in the cutrent objective is better than the partnered season and will be far more entertaining than when they went to Patagonia. It's not a survival situation if the winner lasts 89 days in a three room house constructed out of bamboo. Overall, the series is pretty good. Three or four seasons were filmed in a desolate location On the Rock. It started in mid-September and progressed into the wet of winter. The winner of the first season lasted 56 days drinking rain water, eating grubs and slugs and sleeping inside a log. Now that's survival.

27 Feb 20

15:00 hrs

     The swans are still in the Valley. They should be starting their migration back north in a few weeks I would imagine. I saw a hummingbird today while working on a second ramp for the Oma-nator.  If this keeps up the Wayward Inn will look like a pinball palace with ramps and jumps and hidden targets.

Springing

18 Feb 20

15:00 hrs

     Yes, spring is coming fast to the Valley. The days are longer. I can tell because the solar rope lights on the gazebo covering the Flame Pit stay on longer in the evening. I noticed that the rope light wrapped around the palm tree at the front of the Wayward Inn is no longer functioning and it will have to be replaced. The amount of daily precipitation has dropped considerably in the last week or so which is making me happy. Rain is one thing deluge is another. Pretty soon I'll be cutting the lawn. My Lobster and I have done some pre-spring basics - deadheading some plants and pruning others. I have pruned the apple tree, the blueberry and Saskatoon berry bushes. My hope is that the Saskatoon berry bushes really start to produce this year. In my opinion Saskatoon berries are superior to blueberries. A friend of mine and former co-worker, Mean Jean, lives here in the Valley. She is from a small town on the Wide Open Prairie and knows the value of a Saskatoon berry and she has a number of Saskatoon berry trees in her yard. Lucky her.

     Some interesting movies on Netflix. Coach Carter, Red Sparrow, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. I watch them in the mornings before going to work because in the evenings its Spin the Wheel time. 

19 Feb 20

07:00 hrs

     It's another frosty morning here in the Valley. 

21:00 hrs

     It's pure torture. Please put me out of my misery. The Masked Singer? I swear it's just an excuse to bring the furry deviants to the forefront. 

20 Feb 20

06:15 hrs

     Things are certainly coming to a head when it comes to budget restraints. In a small town in a small state in the Hugh-ess the town council voted to shutter the police department. There was only one police officer on the force and he had served the town for twenty years. The council ordered that the department be closed and that all materials belonging to or representing the department be returned immediately. The officer, who was sitting in the meeting, stood up and stripped to his underwear before walking out of the meeting. Why not? He was fired and with not other serving officers there was no one to arrest him for public indecency. 

     Do you think I would do any different?

     Rail blockades have been taking place across the Great White North over the construction of gas lines through First Nations land. Now the elected Band Councils had approved the construction but the Hereditary Chiefs said no way. Then the blockades went up and the cops were called and the protesters started marching and our PM was glad handing in The Desert.

Happy Lover's Day

14 Feb 20

06:30 hrs

     It is Valentine's Day 2020 and in Jolly Ole England some guy took the offensive by purchasing a billboard for £700 to look for a date. He had 2,400 applicants. Cool move. Here at the Wayward Inn Valentine's goodies were handed out last night. We gave the Oma-nator a Valentines card, chocolate and a society magazine. First time she had ever received anything in her 86 year existence. That's sad.

     The big news going on across the wires are the First Nations protests going on in the Great White North. Railways have been closed everywhere. So, no good are moving anywhere and a lot of goods move by rail bith raw materials and finished goods. The Feds had better get this shit settled. Our Jr. Loin Fruit went to protest in Capital City.  I have to admire him for his convictions but had better be careful or he will be convicted.

16:30 hrs

     The Oma-nator was watching the New Match Game hosted by the Sr. Baldwin. One of the celebrities was Mr Danke Shoen himself, Wayne Newton. Nice voice but the plastic surgery done on his physiognomy has turned into a human gecko and when I was watching I was waiting for his left eye to pop out when the skin was stretched too tight.

20:00 hrs

      The Oma-nator,  my Better Half and I are watching A Marriage Story. A pretty intense movie. I dare you to watch something else on Valentine's Day. 

Screeching Bubbleheads and New Toys

05 Feb 20

05:45 hrs

     Have you ever watched those stupid game shows or the day time mindless drivel talk shows where the attendees - who are mostly women - squeal and screech akin to the screaming slugs from Flushed Away and then hop about on their toes with thighs clenched in joyous an..tic....ipation of being selected be the next contestant in Try My Patience. Yes, Try My Patience,  the new exciting talking game show where your greed for the shit you don't need and yoir lack of common knowledge of the world around you should be most embarrassing to your relatives that you have named - "I wanna say hi to my folks at home in the Ozark Trailer Court. Peggy-Sue, Bobby-Sue, Lil Eddie-Sue, the Triplets and Boss Hogg".

08:30 hrs

      Isn't amazing how well people can operate a motor vehicle when the Constabulary is present and then drive like a complete douche the rest of the time?

06 Feb 20

04:30 hrs

     Yesterday was Hump Day. It's all downhill from here. This is also true in the Hugh-ess where the GOP Fartcatchers acquitted the Tangerine Tyrant of the impeachment charges laid against him by the House. This will certainly embolden the Orange Buffoon to fall off the rails even farther, if that is even possible. I'm just glad that it's their circus and not ours.  Since he doesn't even know his own country's geography I'm pretty sure we're going to be safe up here in the Great White North. 

     I built a new and improved anti-Bambi cage for my Better Half's flowers. I hope it works. Personally, I would like to plant a whole shit load of daffodils.  Deer hate daffodils. 

07 Feb 20

05:15 hrs

     My Lobster's birthday is fast approaching. I'm not going to inform the Loin Fruits. It's high time that they take ownership of missing important dates. 

     The Sr. Couch Monkey now has a new car. And he paid for it. He saved his monies and bought it. His insurance has gone up a bit but he'll manage.

08:30 hrs.

     A partially developed piece of land has been purchased and a re-zoning request has gone in to build a trio of three story mixed use apartment blocks. Some of the local rezidents are concerned about the lack of parking in the area. I can understand their point because just around the corner is the Rabbit Warren that has very limited parking so many of the residents park their second vehicle on the street in front of their neighbour's houses. If I were the house owners I'd be pissed too. 

Rain Rain Go Away

25 Jan 20

21:00 hrs

     Happy Robbie Burns Day! 

     And, with a wee dram of whiskey we toast the Haggis. 

     Have you ever had haggis? The traditional haggis is a sheep's stomach stuffed with a mixture of ground oats, barley, onions and meat that is boiled or steamed. It's not bad. Kinda bland actually. I think it's the sheep's stomach that puts everyone off. I've had it made in a very large sausage casing and it was well seasoned. The flavours were good and the texture was very peasant, if peasant can be a descriptor, and I think it can

26 Jan 20

7:45 hrs

     Yes,the Valley is in the depths of winter with never ending bands of rain sweeping across the Island and the Left Coast. As I had mentioned before, if the temp is 7°C or cooler all that rain will be snow up on the Beauforts and that, if there is a slow melt will keep the reservoirs full and the forest damp reducing the chance of a forest fire. 

     My early rising allows me to get in some Netflix time which is good because Vanna is not on Netflix. I watched Marshall, the story of Justice Thurgood Marshall. A good movie. Well worth the watch. Now, I'm on to The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. It's a view from the other side of the fence, so to speak. I have to stop watching it now as i hear the Oma-nator getting up. Such shows are very disturbing for her.

09:30 hrs

     I am currently attending the annual CVWS conference. Two days of workshops for authors and would be writers, poets, playwrights and the like. My class today is a Point of View workshop. It might come in handy for the rewrite of Who Let the Goats Out?  The class today is all about the POV. First, second d and third person. This whole thing reminds me of Stuart McLean's Vinyl Cafe episode Morely's Book Club wherein Morely,  Dave's Lobster, has decided to join a ladies book club where she finds some of the members to be snobbishly high fallutin as they discuss the attributes of books such as Fromage au Guerre - the Napoleonic War as viewed by a piece of ripe camembert cheese. Today had too much Louise May Alcott and far too much Margaret Atwood where we looked at the POV of the play Penelopiade.

27 Jan 20

13:30 hrs

     This morning, early this morning, my Sr. Couch Monkey called me on his cell. He had just ditched his car on his way to work. My Better Half sent me off to see if he was okay. He was. Nothing was leaking from him. The car was a write off. The police attended for traffic control. The wrecker arrived to yank the vehicular carcass out of the ditch. The one thing that pissed me off is I had deployed two emergency strobe lights to warn the approaching traffic of the accident and I'm pretty sure some driver coming to the scene stole one of them. Can't trust anybody!

Just another day

17 Jan 20

21:30 hrs

     It would seem that the amount of white shit that fell from the sky and covered vast portions of The Rock was more than enough to close the schools, choke roads and paralyze most motorists because their vehicles do not have winter tires. Dolts!

     Our Jr. Loin Fruit has made a daring sojourn to our closest neighbouring state. He and the Improv team have gone to do some training south of the border. He got hit by the snow too and all he has is runners. He took no boots to school. In fact, I don't know if he even owns boots anymore. Well, he's an adult with more money in the bank than I have so if he needs or wants books he can buy them.

     Elric the Stalwart and his Lobster are joining us for supper tomorrow. Chef Blaine had me drag the smoker out of the shop as he's making two smoked road killed chickens. One spicy and one not. The not spicy one is primarily for the Oma-nator whose seasoning preference includes salt, paprika and.... That's about it. In her lifetime she has tried very little  and she has an extremely small comfort zone. Chef Blaine is planning on making a meatless chili. It's made with mostly mushrooms and some beans.  But she doesn't eat beans and the Sr. Couch Monkey gags at the thought of eating fungi. I think that he'll probably make his own growlies and if she doesn't like beans there's not much Chef Blaine can't do about it. One thing that is certain is 80% of the menu at the Wayward Inn has been relegated to the dust bin. I don't know when the change will happen but it will be soon. Now, Chef Blaine will not make just one dish or not offer an option to the main but the plan is to bring healthy exciting zesty food to the table while allowing the Oma-nator to enjoy her bland repetitive dishes. I'm sorry but there it is. I know she won't eat a lot of things and I'm not going to force her but I'm not going to suffer because of it.

18 Jan 20

08:00 hrs

     It's warm and raining turning the streets into a sea of slush. On the East Coast of the Great White North close to a metre of snow fell with level 2 hurricane force winds created a state of emergency. But, like true East Coasters they partied through it.

19 Jan 20

08:30 hrs

     Supper last night was enjoyable. The two smoked chickens we devoured. The potato casserole was filling. The tea smoked devilled eggs were a surprise hit. The happy tomatoes were refreshing. After the meal Elric and his Lobster and my Better Half and I played a rousing game of Double Series that ended in a tie.

     The weather has changed. Rain and warm winds have melted most of the snow in the residential areas of the Valley, which is good as many residents still do not know how to drive in the snow.

     An interesting movie on Netflix...The American Hangman, starring Donald Sutherland. I'm halfway through it. Love his acting.

     Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that on Friday I had replaced the forced air fan on the fireplace in the Wayward Inn. The bearings had been going and last year we had adjusted the rotational speed of the fan to a point where it did not make any noise. However, this year it started to get worse. I found the part number and sourced it at a local company. They said that their supplier wanted $450 for the part. Excuse me? Asshole sez what? I'm not buying an entire new fireplace. I looked up the same part from the Prime online supplier and it cost $75 delivered to my door. The installation was pretty straight forward for an ex-aircraft technician and that included transferring the control wiring and the mounting from from the old fan to the new one. Total time was about 2.5 hours including a quick run to the local HomeDespot to pick up some spongy double sided tape for mounting purposes. While working on the problem Mr. Teddy Buttnuggets lay down beside me on the carpet to assist me.

15:45 hrs

     My Better Half just returned from treating the Oma-nator to a symphony performance of waltzes at The Sid. She said there was a lot of Bugs Bunny music.

      The Regional District is now in their new digs. The new building is big enough to bring departments that had been previously relegated in outlying structures all under one roof. From my experience new buildings are never big enough when all the parts are brought together. Take the Billy Bishop building for example. A seven story building - three of which are underground - was to be big enough to house all the command components of the RCAF. It's a beautiful glass and steel structure but as it began to fill in offices and even cubicles had to be shared to squash all the functionary fart catchers into place.

The warnings were clear.

09 Jan 20

21:21 hrs

     Unless you've been under a rock for the past couple of days you will know by now that dispute between Persia and the You-Alls has come to a head. The Tangerine Tyrant ordered a well known high ranking Persian general given an early retirement by means of several Hellfire missiles. In retaliation, Persia announced that the will no longer adhere to the nuclear production agreement and then launched a dozen long range missiles at the You-All military bases in the country next door. Reports from the field indicate the missiles were targeted to hit nothing of value and merely killed a couple of chickens and scared a goat. However, as Persia was on a full alert status it appears that a Russian built SA-15 anti-aircraft missile battery may have been set to automatic as a Ukrainian owned 737-800 was hit by two missiles as it lifted off. It was struck at 8000 feet agl and quickly descended where it impacted with the ground. All passengers and crew were lost, one third of which were from the Great White North and two thirds of which were bound for the Great White North. In my opinion, the loss of life rests squarely on the shoulders of the Tangerine Tyrant because of his bullshit rhetoric and base driven bravado. Of course he would never admit that he had erred. To never apologize is his mantra. He's such a dick.

10 Jan 20

05:45 hrs

     The Valley is in the process of being drenched. We're expecting 40mm of precipitation. My Friends Over the Hump are probably getting snow and will likely experience a power outage. It's par for the course. The Wild Wild West will get snow too as they are just that much higher in elevation than we are.

13:00 hrs and change

     My Lobster sent me a text with a link from CBC news. It has been reported that Neil Peart - the percussionist from Rush - had passed away on Tuesday after a three and a half year fight with brain cancer. It was likely the same strain as what took Gord Downey from us. This would mean his diagnoses may have known at the time of the R40 tour, the bands final concert. Canada and the world has lost a true artist and humanitarian.

11 Jan 20

21:00 hrs

     Today was the anniversary of my Lobster's father's passing. I'm sure the Oma-nator and my Better Half shed a few tears. 

     The Onion came for supper and to play some games. She is still struggling with her studies and trying to find steady meaningful work where the managers do not take advantage of her. She is such a trusting soul that her bosses soon learn that she will take on any task, any shift at any time. Assholes!

12 Jan 20

06:55 hrs

     The weather here in the Valley is going to get cold this week. Not cold like the Keystone province but cold enough that our Residentially Challenged persons will be having a tough good it. If you haven't donated to helping these people a package of new wool socks goes a long way. When the Couch Monkeys were members of the Scouting movement they had conducted several clothing and blanket drives. They had gathered a dozen or more industrial garbage bags of winter clothing, wet weather clothing, blankets and hats. It was given to one of the Valley's organizations that aids our Residentially Challenged persons on a daily basis. 

     Travel plans have been made for March. My Lobster and the Oma-nator will go back to the Nation's Capital to close out her condo. I'll meet up with them for a week to assist then return back to the Valley. Shortly thereafter I'll have to head down Island to retrieve the Jr. Loin Fruit. Busy times. Plus I have to finish writing Who let the goats out?