Happy New Year!

01 Jan 21

18:00 hrs

     Happy New Year Dear Readers! And let's all say a silent or maybe not so silent prayer, wish, or demand that 2021 will be better than what we all went through on a global scale.

     We read in the Rock's Cage Liner, we recieve a copy daily for the Oma-nator, that there was a massive fire in a four floor rabbit hutch in a city south of Hub City. The fire was in a fourth floor corner unit and it was so intense that sone residents were leaping out of windows. When I saw the pictures on the news l thought it might be a friend of my Better Half. We called her and it turned out to be the building next to hers. Too close.

     One of the gifts i recieved was a dvd of Roger Waters Us+Them concert. It was recorded three or four years ago in Amsterdam. Seventy thousand people attended that one concert. Over two million attended the tour. My youngest Loin Fruit and I watched it yesterday. Great music.

02 Jan 2021

11:00 hrs

     Today is my Brother from Another Mother's birthday. Over breakfast I said to the Oma-nator that it was my brother's birthday. She replied, "I thought you didn't have a brother?" To which I said, "I don't." Well, that just confused the hell out of her. I then had to explain that this Brother was one of many that I had served with and as Service Brother there is a special bond that binds us all. I don't think she understood what I was trying to tell her but that's okay. I didn't think she would have understood. 

04 Jan 21

06:45 hrs

     Well Dear Readers,  yesterday the Tangerine Tyrant stepped into a shit pile once again by demanding that a state official "find votes" that would overturn the election outcome. That particular state has counted, recounted and audited the results which clearly and repeatedly show that the POTUS lost the election. And even if the results were overturned in this state it wouldn't give him enough electoral college votes to win so does this mean he is pressuring the other swing states to change their results as well?  I can't wait for the 20th and this circus will be over. Then the real show, the Tangerine Tyrant's court cases, will start and they WILL BE entertaining for sure.

     The Valley has had rain for pretty much two weeks straight and the forecast is calling for another 50 to 75 mm in just one day. The rivers are swollen and in some places flooding, some local parks are now lakes. But this is nothing compared to northern Samurai which has received about 245 cm of ocean effect snow in the past three days.

So, there you are...

23 Dec 2020

08:30 hrs

     Good morning Dear Readers! As you know I'm not a person who gives two shits about stars, starlets, media personalities, professional sports stars, politicians and the like especially when they are fawned upon and elevated on a pedestal because of their position. More like they should be hoisted on their own petard if you ask me. What does interest me is the connection between people, the back story as it were. And sometimes this back story may be insignificant but it is interesting nonetheless. 

      Seven years ago this Christmas season I was driving back to the Wayward Inn after shopping downtown. It was around noon and I was listening to the local FM station. The radio host was a bit of a card, as some of them could be. He said that after the break he would be speaking to the Premier (on air) and was going to ask her about her plans for the Holidays. Sounds innocent enough. Now, if you are not from the Left Coast you wouldn't know who the Premier was at that time. She was a single mom whose political stripe was in the centre of the spectrum and she was considered by many to be quite attractive despite some of her political decisions. 

     So, the DJ comes back on after the break. He plays a couple of songs and then announces that he has the Premiere on the line. He asks her if she has any holiday wishes that she would like to pass along and she does. Straight up, he asks if she would answer a few questions from some local listeners and she says she would be pleased to do so. 

     From Bill in the Valley, "What will your Christmas holidays will entail?" And she replied in general terms about how she and her son will spend their time.

     Next from Debbie in the Wild Wild West, "Is there going to be additional funding in next years budget to assist the local Residentially Challenged Persons?" And, Madame Premier jumped on this softball question like a fat kid on a Smartie saying that she was certainly looking forward to working with the Loyal Opposition to find such funds even if it means to curtail some other project but in the near future....blah, blah, blah.

     And lastly, from John out in Redneck Holler, "How does it feel to be considered to be a MILF?" To which there was a short pause before she laughingly said "Well I'd rather be a MILF than a cougar!"

     Wow! I almost ditched the truck when I heard that over the radio. As far as I knew this wasn't pre-recorded and had gone out live. Supposedly, the questions had been sent in and the DJ had just picked three at random. I thought the whole thing was funny as hell. Unfortunately,  the station manager, and quite possibly the owners of a very huge network did not. Especially, when the very derogatory term of MILF was spoken over the airwaves. The very next day there was an announcement from the station that DJ had been removed from the lineup, that the entire line of questions was made up by him, that he has apologized to the listeners and to the Premier. 

      And with that the DJ disappeared. He was no longer at this station and I'm sure that was truly sorry for his little stunt. On her part the Premiere was not happy that she was scammed but was actually tickled that she was considered to be a MILF. Okay, then.

     So here I am, seven years after this incident, listening to a rock radio station from the big city on the mainland and this DJ's voice and handle - many radio personalities do not use their real name on air - sounds distantly familiar. I do a little bit of research and sure enough I was correct. The DJ known as Drex on 96.9 Jack FM Vancouver is the same guy who was working at the local Corus Network station. According to the bio after his big faux pas the network moved him to another network station - the Corus entertainment network has 39 stations in eight of the top ten markets - and held him in late night purgatory until now. What choice did he have? Stay with this network and accept his punishment or look for work outside his chosen field because nobody else in the industry was going to touch him with a ten foot pole.

     Well Kidlettes,  I would, on behalf of all of us at the Wayward Inn, like to will wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Please be safe. Remember that the Beer Flu is real, even in the Redneck province next door,  so pay attention to the guidelines and do your part. Eventually,  we as a nation will get through this and if you have any doubts about it just take a look at the Hugh-ess. They are losing over 3,300 people per day. That's the same as one 9/11 tragedy ever 24 hours. And it could have been curtailed if only they had the political leadership and honesty right from the start!

Switching Channels

15 Dec 20

17:30 hrs

     Hello Dear Readers,  

     Today is the Sage's 58th Anniversary.           So, here's to them! Congrats. On another note...

     I don't know if you put much stock in your local radio station especially with the advent of all the radio stations being available on your cable subscriber and an app for your phone. Here in the Valley we have two radio stations plus a repeater up on the mountain that relays the national station. The national station is great for the news (and some other programming) and in my opinion only one of the two local stations is worth tuning into. This particular station has flipped its call sign several times in the last dozen years while the other simply plods along. Now, if your vehicle has a half decent antenna you can pull in stations from River City, Hub City and The Pearl of the Left Coast. And these are the ones I can get from here in the Valley with the Ram. My Better Half's car, mmmm not so much. Maybe because its lower to the ground it doesn't catch all that many boomatrons. 

     Like anyone who is my age I have my favourite stations programmed on my vehicle's radio. Buttons one through six. (Take note that I will be referring to the music that I like and so please do not be offended if it is not your kind of music.) In fact, this has nothing really to do with music. It has more to do with what is annoying and how to easily remove the annoyance. So, buttons one through six. Button one is set for the national channel for news at the top of the hour. Button two is for the better of the two (in my opinion) local stations - the one with a dominant presence, a healthy drive crew and a good mix of music. Buttons three through six are similar to Button two but are set for other reception areas that are increasingly farther away from the Valley. This gives me the ability to readily change stations and still listen to what I like while cutting out what i don't like. I, like everyone of you my Dear Readers, enjoy some musical groups and loathe others. Their names are not important but what is important is the flexibility that we, as operators, to remove the annoyance that can impede the pleasure of commanding our motor vehicles. This is the truth, is it not? Imagine you are driving down the highway humming along to one of your faves blaring out of the speakers when the next song is from a band whose rhythm method sends your heart into an immediaye arrhythmia. The specific part could be the lead singers voice, the twanging of the guitar, the fact that it is a shitty cover of an original or the beat has been stolen and recorded. It could be the entire genre or the fact that the artist/band/group does not actually play any actual instruments - heat box techno-crap really turns me off. What ever the causation it's great to know that with the simple push of a button you can easily continue to listen to what pleases you.

     

Are they gone?

09 Dec 20

20:45 hrs

     We've sent ours out have you?

     Christmas cards. Have you sent yours out? Do you send any out? I remember when just after I got hitched to my Better Half we were sending out eighty or ninety cards. As time went on we both realized that we had lost contact with some individuals and so the list was shortened. It leveled off at about sixty cards for a dozen years or so but in the past three years it has dropped to about thirty cards as people have known have passed away. Another set of people were dropped of the card list when we noticed that we had sent cards to them and had no returns in the past couple of years. Gone!

      For four years I had given my co-worker a card and a pony sized bottle of some traditional Christmas coffee fixings. Not even a card with a coffee house gift card in return. He's off the list, too.

12 Dec 20

07:45 hrs

     We went out looking at lights last night. A gentle drive through some of the more festive neighborhoods. There is a local Facebook page that identifies where the best lit streets are. I think I the next time we go out to one of these places I will stop and take some pictures to show you what they are like. Some of them are nearing Griswold in their brilliance.

     Last week we were on a mission of mercy to River City.  One of our friends was confined to her workplace due to the Beer Flu. We drove up and took her a care package. On the way up I noticed that the work on roadway in front of where my Lobster's Travelling Relatives used to live is almost completed. The work includes widening the road bed, putting in safe crossings for pedestrians and more importantly a decorative divided roadway.. this work had started about five klicks back. Now it's up to the Big Boulder. There are more giant rabbit hutches going in too. I would almost hazard a guess that River City is growing faster than the Valley. 

13:00 hrs

     Chef Blaine has tried his hand at baking some homemade butter tarts. The pastry turned out fine as did the batter. But there was more tarts than batter so he made some in lieu batter and spooned it on top of some of the shallow tarts. Not smart. I think it may have burned. At any rate, it will be a bitch to clean off. For supper he has some strip loin steaks marinating in a Korean type sauce. Except for the Oma-nators steak. It is seasoned with a little pepper, paprika and cumin. Sous Irene is making potatoes au gratin. Or, as the majority of the Great White North calls it: scalloped potatoes. Chef Blaine will make a spiralized butternut squash as well. Loin Fruit Number Two will have to look for his own protein source.

     I saw in one of the scandal rags that the sniper troops of the Great White North are going to get some new rifles. Designated the C20 and chambered for 7.62 mm some 280 rifles (and spare parts) for 8 million and change. It works out to about 31K per rifle, which is insane. Of course the Feds had to pay for the research and development.

17:00 hrs

     The Tangerine Tyrant has been voted out. The Electoral College votes on Monday to confirm what everyone already knows, in that the Orange Shit Gibbon lost big time and yet he continues spend millions of dollars pursuing these insane lawsuits in some attempt to have the legal voting results overturned. In the meantime the number of people out of work in the Hugh-ess due to the Beer Flu is increasing daily to the point that food banks around their country are seeing a 10x or 20x increase. Just think about that as Christmas approaches.

     The nights are still getting longer. The 21st of the month mark's the shortest day and longest night. Occasionally on the Left Coast we have some days that are sunny enough to recharge the solar lights strung on the gazebo over the Flame Pit. When we do have a day clear of heavy clouds we can see the accumulation of snow on the Beauforts. It looks great on the mountains but not on the Valley floor.

     

Too much & Too soon

22 Nov 20

17:38 hrs

     Hello Dear Readers, 

I need to express an opinion and I would really like an answer. Here goes... Do you think that there is too much holiday creep happening? Holiday creep is when the stores, especially the big box stores, have the Valentine's stuff out for sale two days after New Years and the Easter specific items out for sale on February 17th, the new school supplies are available by the Nation's birthday and by the time the Yard Apes are back in school the Halloween crap is out which means the Christmas ads will be aired before Remembrance Day. 

     Here at the Wayward Inn we don't start putting up the Christmas lights until after Remembrance Day and the tree doesn't go up until the beginning of December with all of it coming down around the first weekend in January. If these actions take place outside of this time frame the Holiday Creep will have invaded our home.  And where would it stop? Leave the tree up so the Easter Bunny can hid his chocolate eggs under it? 

25 Nov 20

04:30 hrs

     It's a month to Christmas and the Left Coast government has imposed more Beer Flu restrictions on the province.  Here at the Wayward we have always taken this shit pretty seriously but as we went about our daily business you could see many who just didn't get it...until they got it.  Some individual who are just tired of the whole mask thing and in fact one grocery store in the southern interior has had to hire a security officer for the first time in nearly half a century. Not for the shoplifters but to ensure the idiots wear their masks when they come into the store.

     I'm sure, Dear Readers, that you are aware that the Tangerine Tyrant is on his way out and a Breath of Fresh Air is on his way in. Of course the outgoing POTUS is beginning a scorched earth policy of destroying anything he can think of to make life even more difficult for the incoming POTUS and for the Hugh-ess citizens who didn't vote for him but more importantly who voted against him. Some cartoonist did a great piece displaying the Tangerine Tyrant as an infant throwing a tantrum, which wasn't too difficult to imagine, and with the president elect putting him over his knee, which would be wishful thinking.

     Did you know that you can actually use liquid dish detergent to was your clothes? It turns out the chemical make up of laundry soap and dish soap are pretty much the same except for the foaming agent in dish detergent, which is probably added to show that there is soap in the water. One teaspoon for a small load, two for a medium and three for a large. 

21:00 hrs

     I just realized that there is another Holiday Creep item that is rearing its ugly head and that is the constant ad nauseam stream of Holiday Baking/Cake Decorating/Cookie Pressing/Gingerbread House building that is sprouting on the food specialty networks. Couple that with the sickenly sappy sweet plotless Hallmark Holiday movies and you have a perfect means of torture those who cannot change the channel. Too much Holiday Magic Too Soon could just about drive a person to drink!

     Speaking of drinking ... I give you

     The Velvet Hammer

     in a large brandy snifter on ice mix

     1 1/2 oz vodka 

     1 1/2 oz Irish cream

     1 oz kahlua 

     3 oz milk

     A dear friend of ours who resides in Hub City has been fighting the Big C for a number of years now and it is doubtful that she will make it beyond The Holidays. Her husband used to work with my Better Half in The Peg. Their kids are living and working in the Hugh-ess so coming up here would mean isolating for two weeks on this side of the border. Due to the enhanced Beer Flu restrictions that the government has put in place it will be very unlikely that we will be able to attend her funeral, when and if it happens, and we would be unable to comfort and assist her surviving spouse until the infection rate drops significantly. 

     I have heard through the grapevine that the new Rabbit Warren being built is supposed to have 175 units. That's a crazy amount. Some of the established neighbours have already checked out the building plans that were filed with the town and they are pretty pissed because the identification does not provide for enough parking. This means any second vehicle would probably have to park elsewhere 

     There's another hutch going up by the Big Giant Box Store and another down near the Queens Cowboys office. Of course they will be four stories and no more since the planners in City Hall are afraid overly tall buildings will blot out the sun and tip over as the earth tilts on its axis. But at least there is some new housing going in. No word on how many will be priced for lower income, ie students looking for their first apartment. My Lobster thinks there will be eight units which isn't even ten percent.

     

Winter is Coming!

16 Nov 20

06:00 hrs

     The weather has certainly turned here on the Left Coast. The temperature has dropped, the winds have picked up and the volume of precipitation has increased ad well. Most of the decidous trees have lost their leaves,  of course the non-native trees that the developer had planted throughout the neighborhood are still clinging to their foliage. This particular species of tree buds out it leaves in late spring and discards them in late fall early winter. It's not a big deal really except that we can get an early snowfall, which is usually wet and heavy and any tree that is still hang in on to its leaves could soon be losing limbs.

18:00 hrs

     We have snow! 

     Wet slushy snow! In fact, by the time morning rolls around it will be plus 9C and the rain will have washed the snow away.

18  Nov 20

14:45 hrs

     As I had predicted by the time my Lobster and I had departed for the Salt Mines the snow was pretty much gone. But this didn't mean the weather was any better. The rain continued to fall and the winds increased. At times it was gusting to 75 knots. It didn't take long before the contractors decided to pull the pin. I was at work for almost three hours. Got paid for four. 

     Last night our Sr. Loin Fruit made a parsnip and mustard soup. The recipe came from the Souplology cookbook we gave him for his birthday. He followed the recipe and it turned out pretty good. I liked it, my Better Half tried it (which saying something) and the Oma-nator wanted to try it but couldn't as she was suspicious of the ingredients - there could have been an onion in it.

     The election in the Hugh-ess carried out two weeks ago today and eventhough the number clearly show that the former VP won both the popular vote and the electoral college the Tangerine Tyrant has refused to concede. Instead Putin's Norte Americano representative is carrying out his own scorched earth policy by firing all dissenters and creating as much chaos for the incoming administration. Never fear, as entertaining as the election was the troubles facing the Tangerine Tyrant after he has been escorted out of the White House will be the icing on the cake. I can't wait.

     I just caught something on the box that Chef Blaine will have to try to duplicate. Banana Habanero sauce. The ultimate heat and sweet. Maybe on chicken wings?

     I am hoping that the weather this weekend is going to be half decent. I have asked my Friend From Over the Hump to accompany me to retrieve the trail cameras we put out a month ago. It will be interesting to see how long the batteries lasted and if anything interesting was caught on the camera. There is also an extra area that I would like to check out. Of course this is all subject to the road conditions. The area is at a higher elevation and if there is too much snow we'll turn around and come home. Wish us luck.

It's Finally OVER!...sort of

07 Nov 20

08:45 hrs 

     Well, it's all over but the crying. Its been four days since the general election in the Hugh-ess and finally, after doing a whole shitload of higher math number crunching one of the major news outlets determined that there is not enough votes for the Tangerine Tyrant to catch and surpass the former VP. As such, the former VP is going to be the 46th President Elect. And now for the crying.... The first person that I saw crying over this was an African American political commentator who was so overjoyed that a rational person of truth and decency has been elected to replace the vindictive poisonous self serving puss bag who has occupied the WH for the past four years. Oh, there will be a large number of blind bars who will believe the false rhetoric pushed forward by the Tangerine Tyrant and his Sycophants. My only concern is that in the days to come these Right Wing Radicals will unload their weapons and leave them at home. For some reason I think the new Prez had better get a handle on things pretty quick because the Tangerine Tyrant's has been pushing the notion that his loss would indicate that the election was rigged and stolen out from under him. For the RW militia groups this is like a call to arms! I do know of some individuals in the Hugh-ess and in the Great White North who, for some unknown reason, fervently suppory the Tangerine Tyrant. From what I have learned the Tangerine Tyrant is currently playing Whackdammit! Go figure.

08 Nov 20

08:00 hrs

     It hasn't even been twenty-four hours and already the new President Elect, who hasn't even been sworn into office, is putting together a group of scientists and medical professionals to formulate a series of directives that will lead the Hugh-ess out of the Beer Flu. Good on him!

13:45 hrs

     If you have check any Hugh-ess national news outlets they have reported that countries around the world have stated that the removal of the Tangerine Tyrant is akin to an awakening from a four year coma and people from India to Europe to Africa to the Great White North are rejoicing over the election results. Only in the Hugh-ess are there individuals who are angry about the loss. Well, that's enough of that shit.

     My Lobster baked some cheddar and jalapeno scones, I baked some peanut butter cereal cookies and together we reboxed the Halloween decorations. Over by our local grocery store there has been a partially developed lot that has sat partially developed for the past eight years. It was supposed to be more housing - patio homes or something  - but finally construction has finally restarted. I believe it will be a multi-storey mixed purpose - commercial and residential  - kind of set up. All I know is things will be a lot busier at the grocery store. 

     The weather here in the Valley has been cold and windy for most of the past week with the wind blowing out of the north making it quite nippy out. Not anywhere near as nippy as it got out on the tarmac in Winterpeg where it often dropped to below -40°C. When I hear people griping about the cold here on the Left Coast I smile and remember how cold I would get loxing a couple of aircraft in the middle of a prairie winter.

     One last note. The host of the Hugh-ess tv game show Jeopardy has passed away from the Big C. He had hosted the show since 1984 and was a originally from the Great White North.