A TORNADO WATCH SENDS ME HOME EARLY

It was a very foggy & early 7 a.m. start to the day as I headed north up into Bruce County with the mobility van this morning & by the look of my schedule I wasn't going to be getting back home until somewhere around 7 p.m. tonight. Not a lot of people to transport but a lot of waiting time to put in between trips. I'm starting this blog out this morning in the back corner of a Tim Horton's parking lot in Wingham, Ontario.

TOWN & COUNTRY SUPPORT SERVICES (who I drive for) HAS THEIR MAIN OFFICES IN WINGHAM....They refurbished the town's old train station.  I am standing where the train tracks would have been years ago.

 
TOWN & COUNTRY'S FLOWERBED

I have our new Toshiba laptop/Win 7 with me so again a bit of a challenge from our older & more familiar home XP programs. Also loaded up my cameras in hopes I might find something interesting.

 
ON THE GROUNDS OF THE BEN MILLER INN

 
It’s afternoon now on a hot muggy day but I have found a Cyber Cafe on Wingham’s main street by the name of ‘Coffee Culture.’ Great place & anytime in the future I am in this area I will definitely be hanging out in this quiet Cyber Cafe for sure.

 
THINK I JUST FOUND MY NEWEST FAVORITE PLACE IN WINGHAM

Jerry left me this comment on last night’s blog..... "Keep the bike, or we'll be subjected to dozens of posts about how you wish you hadn't sold it!” Well, at the risk of subjecting people to dozens of posts I guess the verdict is in & I had better hang onto the bike & quit going on about it!!  Good to have friends out there to keep me on the straight & narrow you know:))

I have now been sitting in this Cyber Café so long that the owner came over & offered me shares in the company. And speaking of companies, I forgot to mention in yesterday’s post that the company that owns the Ben Miller Inn & others has gone bankrupt & the Ben Miller Inn is now in receivership. Too bad.

 
JUST A FLEETING GLIMPSE OF SATURDAY'S BRIDE & ENTOURAGE

We have a very busy Monday coming up. We’ll leave early for Waterloo, pick up the ownership for the Jeep, & head to the license bureau to pick up the new tags. Then it’s a bee line back to Bayfield with the Jeep & Santa Fe with a quick stop in Mitchell to see my Uncle Harry. Kelly has to be back at Deerpark plus my Aunt Jean (Uncle Harry’s sister) from Sarasota flew into Detroit from Sarasota this morning & wants' to meet us at Harry’s new place late Monday afternoon. Going to be a busy day for sure. Still things to sort & move for Harry too.

Oh, Oh, I think the Café owner wants me out of here because I just saw members of the local swat team taking up positions outside in the shrubs close to the mobility van. Think I just heard a guy with a loud hailer say something like, “close up that laptop, move your hand away from that mouse & exit the building with your hands over your head holding only the power cord!!!!!!!!” Geeeezzzzzzz, & I’ve still got 2 hours to kill.

It is now after supper & I am back home.......after first explaining to the swat team commander that I'm just a lowly RV blogger type trying to get an early start on my daily blog!!   Shortly after leaving the Cafe this afternoon I heard the local radio station issue a Tornado watch with the threat of heavy rains.  Figured I'd better head over & see if the lady I had delivered to a friend's house earlier would consider heading back to the nursing home early just in case the weather turned really bad.  She did, & it was a good thing too because just as I was leaving the town of Wingham this afternoon the sky's opened up with a torrential downpour reassuring me I had done the right thing in interrupting the ladies visiting just half an hour before.  Some days just seem to be a bit better than others you know...................:))

GROANER’S CORNER:((  What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?
Frostbite!!   And what do you get when you cross an elephant and a skin doctor?
A pachydermatologist of course!!  And if you think those are bad, try this one..... What is a zebra?
26 sizes larger than an "A" bra:))

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Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
"UNTIL ONE HAS LOVED AN ANIMAL, PART OF THEIR SOUL REMAINS UNAWAKENED"

OUR BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/
OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/
AL'S SMUG MUG PHOTO GALLERY http://stargeezer.smugmug.com/ (a work in progress)

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.

ERROR '400'....I'VE HAD ENOUGH!!!!

Despite repeated attempts again tonight at publishing, republishing, & tweaking my blog, Error 400 shot me down in flames every time.  I can't handle this kind of frustration every night anymore.  As of right now I consider my Live Writer blogging days...........OVER!!   

RAINY AFTERNOON FOR A RITZY WEDDING

PART OF THE BEN MILLER INN COMPLEX ABOUT 20 MINUTES FROM OUR PLACE & ABOUT 20 MINUTES BEFORE THE RAINS CAME TODAY!!...Supposedly a 'movie stars' retreat.  Rumor has it that Bert Reynolds & long lost love Lonni Anderson were here years ago.

 

Worked today & my mobility van travels took me to a wedding!!  Picked up wheelchair lady in a neighboring small town & took her to a well known place for rich folks called the Ben Miller Inn.  The outdoor wedding took place outside the main building around 4 & just beat the rain by about 20 minutes.  All of today's photos are from the grounds of the Ben Miller Inn while I had a 2 hour wait before returning the lady to the little town of Brussels.

THAT RED DOOR LEADS TO THE FRONT DESK, ACCOMMODATIONS, & $FINE DINING$

Thursday's trip over to Waterloo Ontario quickly brought back the harsh reality of why we do not live in a city.  Mass suburbia!!  I lived in the Kitchener-Waterloo back in the late 60's & the area around Erbsville where we went Thursday was familiar to me.  It is not familiar any longer!!  We might just as well have been transported to some far off planet from the future.  Miles upon miles & rows upon rows of crowded houses interspersed with the ever present acres of shopping malls, twisting streets, traffic lights, & the ever present metal monsters all racing & competing for space to get to whatever seems so important for them all to get to.  The shopping malls I suspect!!  Kids on the sidewalks, kids on the roads, & kids on the lawns of well manicured houses all squished together.  All perfectly fine & normal for the people living there but what a contrast it is to our lifestyle. I think that is why big city living just jumps right out at us every time & bops us on the nose whenever we see that sort of thing.  It's always a good reminder for me of why I totally avoid all cities wherever possible!!  We are sooooooooo fortunate to live where we do both here in the summer & in the southwest during the winter.    And, whenever I start my blustery complaining stuff about being home I should just be put in the car, driven to the nearest city & forced to spend half an hour in the madness.  Instant cure for AL!!!!

Finally got my pocket voice recorder to a practical level of understanding I can use.  I am now well on my way to recording miles & miles of mindless drivel to annoy myself with on miserable rainy days.  The instruction manual goes on in detail how to use the device for a multitude of operations, & I expect, had I read the manual to the end, I would have found on the last page how to directly plug the USB cord into the operational flight deck system of a 747 Jumbo Jet & program the recorder to not only fly the jet but land it as well on obscure runways somewhere in southern Zimbabwe.  However, I just took it to a level where when RVing down the road I can easily record trivia like what State lines are being crossed & when.  Maybe comment on a traffic incident like a passing car exploding in a ball of flames or a dozen alien space craft blocking traffic on I-10 west of Tucson.  Stuff I would normally forget about by the time it came to write the blog at the end of the day. 

For any RV'ers traveling in risky weather areas where there may be severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, etc., be sure to read LAURIE'S weather experienced post  today on how they prepare themselves for any worst case scenarios.  And it sounds like RV'ers JOHN & JUDY'S have themselves pretty well surrounded by all the G8 & G20 stuff going on up around Huntsville & Gravenhurst Ontario, Canada.  Military aircraft, limousine convoys, army maneuvers, & RCMP everywhere.  They are currently in a KOA campground right beside an airport being used as a command center.  A couple of days ago John found himself inadvertently at the head of an RCMP 3 limo motorcade......on his motorcycle!! (check back a day or two in his blog when you get there)

   

I am still waffling badly on the decision to sell the motorcycle.  It is a classic heart & head battle going on within.  My head tells me that selling the bike is the right thing to do both from a financial & simply logical point of view but my heart is on the opposite side of the fence saying, 'nooooooooooo, do not sell the bike dummy!!'  So, it is quite a tussle I am having with myself here for sure.

GROANER'S CORNER:(  And here's what some of those computer terms mean to our local farmers....

1. Log on: when you want to make the house warmer.

2. Log off: Timberrrrrrrrrrrr.

3. Mega Hertz: when your not careful getting the firewood.

4. Lap top: where the cat sleeps.

5. Hard drive: maneuvering through those rocky fields on the northern range when there is snow on the ground.

6. Windows: what to shut when it's cold outside.

7. Byte: what mosquitoes do.

8. Modem: what I did to the hay fields last week.

9. Keyboard: where the keys hang.

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Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.

"UNTIL ONE HAS LOVED AN ANIMAL, PART OF THEIR SOUL REMAINS UNAWAKENED"

OUR BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

AL'S SMUG MUG PHOTO GALLERY http://stargeezer.smugmug.com/ (a work in progress)

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.

MAKING ROOM IN THE DRIVEWAY FOR OUR NEW ADDITION

OUR 3 LITTLE FUZZY BABY ROBBINS ARE GROWING QUICKLY

Like a lot of folks over the past bunch of years we have slowly moved away from the paper society & now do all our banking, utility bills, & correspondence over the internet.  It's rare to even write a check anymore but we do have check books here for different types of accounts at various banks.  Three days ago we decided to write a check for something so went to the drawer where all that sort of stuff is kept.  But, all our check books were gone!!  Not just one or two, but all of them.  This was a mystery & of course a little alarming.  Nothing else missing in the house & we knew nobody could come in without us here or the dogs would attack & eat them!!  We spent 3 days looking & looking.  Even turned the Motor Home upside down in case we had put them in there.  Could aliens have beamed down from a spaceship in the night to snaffoo our check books.  Maybe a raccoon came through an open door & absconded with them.  What a mystery this was!!

                    

WE SURE HAD OUR VEHICLES LOADED FOR UNCLE HARRY'S MOVE LAST MONDAY

This morning while pondering the missing check dilemma again, Kelly happened to see the corner of a white shopping bag sticking out from under a piece of corner furniture in a hard to see & forgotten corner.  She walked over, bent down & pulled out the bag.......and there were all our check books inside.  RIGHT WHERE AL HAD HIDDEN THEM LAST OCTOBER BEFORE WE HEADED SOUTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A PAIR OF HOUSE SPARROWS

With the newest addition to our little gasoline family arriving Monday we will temporarily have 20 tires on the ground here & a total of 26 hungry cylinders to feed.  Had to do a little shuffling around in the driveway today in preparation for the Jeep coming home Monday so for sure we have to get our 99 Dodge Caravan sold post haste.  That little mini-van has been an amazingly good vehicle for us but there was always one thing I hated about it right from the day we bought it back in 05.  The doinky blue color....YUK!!   In contrast to that, we both loved the color of the Jeep as soon as we saw it.  A few other things the Jeep has that I forgot to mention yesterday are a trailer hitch & a rear view mirror with digital thermometer & directional compass built in.  I just love all that colored light stuff at night.  The radio/CD player is also an upgrade & includes a subwoofer.  I love all that subwoofer stuff too because I like to hear lots of big booming bass in my music.  I took along a ZZ Top CD Thursday to try out the Jeeps sound system but could tell right away I'm going to have to tweak the sound a bit if I'm going to get that subwoofer shaking my brains out real good.  The Jeep also has nice Alloy wheels. (whatever alloy wheels are)

Gordon, from GOLDEN WOLFORD PHOTOGRAPHY left me a comment on last night's blog straightening me out a bit in regards to Panasonic's Lumix camera line.  I do need a little straightening out from time to time you know.  Gordon said, "Just to make it clear, Al, Lumix is Panasonic's brand of digital cameras. There are many of them, ranging from pocket point-and-shoot models to digital SLRs.  The one I just bought is their compact P&S ZS7 model, which is basically the same as their less expensive ZS5, but has GPS tagging. So if tagging one's images with GPS data isn't important, the ZS5 is more cost effective."

Busy working week-end coming up & I will be on the road both days with the mobility van.  Hardest part is putting in time between the runs because I will be too far away to return home.  Better take the cameras, a laptop, soft pillow & maybe something to read...........with big print.

Although the above photograph has the Bayfield Bunch watermark on it I did not take this photo.  I think because I ran it through our Picasa Photo program the water mark was automatically added.  Credit for the photo goes to STAN SWITALSKI PHOTOGRAPHY.  It shows Kelly's daughter Sabra, oldest boy Keenan, husband Derek, & youngest son Langdon.  I did take the photos of Langdon below though.................

   

Finally got the date into the 'Recorder' but that's as far as I got so far.  Can't ask Kelly for help because I haven't told her I bought it yet.

ANCHORED OFFSHORE AT DEER PARK LODGE.................BAYFIELD, ONTARIO

GROANER'S CORNER:((  "After having dug to a depth of 10 meters last year, Scottish scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the Scots, in the weeks that followed, British scientists dug to a depth of 20 meters, and shortly after,  headlines in the UK newspapers read: "British archaeologists have found traces of 200 year old copper wire and have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundred years earlier than the Scots."

One week later, "The Daily Squidjigger," a Newfoundland newspaper, reported the following  "After digging as deep as 30 meters near Cornerbrook, Wilf Johnson, a self taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Wilf has therefore concluded that 300 years ago Newfoundland had already gone wireless."

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Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.

"UNTIL ONE HAS LOVED AN ANIMAL, PART OF THEIR SOUL REMAINS UNAWAKENED"

OUR BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

AL'S SMUG MUG PHOTO GALLERY http://stargeezer.smugmug.com/ (a work in progress)

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.

AN UNEXPECTED TRIP OVER TO WATERLOO, ONTARIO

DID WE FINALLY FIND OURSELVES A JEEP?

Had my eye appointment today at noon & the eye guy said although I have slow growing cataracts in both eyes I am not there yet for cataract surgery.  Scheduled me for a full eye exam in the spring, wrote me out a new eye glasses prescription & sent me on my way.  Said reading in low light types of situations will continue be be more difficult as time goes on but that's the way it will be until I walk over the edge of a an Arizona cliff because I didn't see where it was in the dim early morning light:))

WE HAVE A NEW BATCH OF BABY ROBBINS IN ONE OF OUR JUNIPER TREES

I did pick myself up a Sony ICD-Px820 digital audio recorder this morning so now I've got another contraption to figure out.  Only took me about 3 years to finally make the 'recorder' decision.  First thing I'll do is record some info about myself in case I get lost in the woods & can't remember who I am.

THESE BAYFIELD BASED FISHING BOATS BRING IN A FRESH CATCH EVERY DAY DURING THE SEASON....If your in the area check out Scott Austin's Bayfield Fish & Seafood store on the north side of the river beside the fishing boats.

NOT EVERYONE CAN AFFORD A FANCY BOAT

Noticed Gordon over at NIGHTLY NEWS picked himself up a nice compact Panasonic Lumix digital camera.  Jerry coincidentally mentioned in an email today that he just bought himself a new camera too.....yep, a Panasonic Lumix & after Retired Rod read about Gordon buying the Lumix.....yep, he ordered himself a Panasonic Lumix as well.  Looks like it was a good week for Panasonic.  GORDON is a professional photographer & if he feels the Panasonic Lumix is a quality camera........you can take that to the bank:))  If I didn't have my little Canon.....yep, I'd be gettin me a Panasonic Lumix alright:))

 

IT'S A PICTURESQUE & QUIET HARBOR HERE IN BAYFIELD

Kelly spotted a Jeep for sale on the internet this morning over in Waterloo Ontario.  After a series of emails back & forth to the Jeep owner we decided to slip over this afternoon & have a look at it.  2006 Jeep Wrangler TJ  Sport with a 6 cylinder engine.  4x4 with a 6 speed manual transmission.  Both a hard & soft tops, tinted glass, fog lights, & a few extra goodies inside.  110,000 kms or about 70,000 miles.  Jeep was clean as a whip, one owner, never driven off road, not worn, & mechanically maintained.  New tires & brakes, E tested & safety checked just yesterday.  No fancy power windows & locks stuff on this little Jeepster but that's OK because we don't consider ourselves fancy power folks anyway.  It was a private sale & I was satisfied the lady we talked to today was honest & above board with us.

So, after a long consultation with ourselves........we bought it:))  We will return to Waterloo (2 hour drive one way) Monday morning to do all the paper work & licensing.  With any luck we'll be back in Bayfield by mid afternoon.  Kelly will drive the Santa Fe back & I will bring the Jeep.  Might take me a tad longer though, cutting through farmer's fields, across creeks, over bumpy hills & dales & all the swampy forests along the way I can find.........:))

             

GROANER'S CORNER.....but tonight this one isn't a groaner!! 

A Canadian Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the Canadian, U.S. , English, Australian and French Navys. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of officers that included personnel from
from most of those countries.

Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, North Americans generally learn only English.' He then asked, 'Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?'

Without hesitating, the  Admiral replied 'Maybe it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German.'

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Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.

"UNTIL ONE HAS LOVED AN ANIMAL, PART OF THEIR SOUL REMAINS UNAWAKENED"

OUR BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

AL'S SMUG MUG PHOTO GALLERY http://stargeezer.smugmug.com/ (a work in progress)

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.

A HELPING DAY IN MITCHELL

DEER PARK LODGE BEACH...All of today's photos were taken by Kelly this past weekend when members of her family were here.  That's Kelly's 2 'Grands' above, on the left.  Kelly's camera is a Canon Powershot A430

Cloudy gray day with increasing humidity creeping into the air.  Kelly & I headed off to Mitchell this morning to visit my Uncle Harry & see how his first full day went in the nursing home yesterday.  Happy to report that he is taking the adjustment extremely well so far.  We were able to help with a few more things & get his snowy television picture cleared up.  Kelly has handled all the paper work & arranged for his new phone & cable hook up's etc.  All that organizational stuff requires mountains of time & patience but she just seems to be a natural at that sort of thing.  I seem to be more natural at grumping & stewing about stuff.

 

IN ANOTHER 12 YEARS OR SO LANGDON'S EYES WOULD BE FOCUSED THE OTHER WAY & NOT AT THE CAMERA......IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN:))

I've had an idea kicking around in the back of my head for the past few years & after reading GYPSY'S BLOG Tuesday I see she has the same idea.  It has to do with one of those mobile audio recorders you can carry in your pocket.  Have often thought how handy that would be when I'm out taking photos.  I've tried carrying a notepad to write things down about thoughts & technical info regarding a photo or a place but it just doesn't work for me.  A recorder would have been of particular value when I was aboard that Coast Guard vessel this past Sunday & members of the crew were pointing out & telling me things of particular interest.  Also easier to keep people's names & job descriptions straight.  As usual, by the end of the day I'm lucky if I even remember my own name some days let along somebody else's!!  Well, not that bad but you get the picture.

 

BAYFIELD'S NORTH PIER CAN BE SEEN AT THE DISTANT LEFT WHERE SKY, WATER & BEACH, ALL MEET

Another good use for me having a recorder would be remembering things for the blog.  Often, during the day I will think of something that might make an interesting blog topic or maybe a couple of good lines in the post but for sure these thoughts are long gone by the time I reach the computer at day's end.  Thanks to Gypsy's post I am going to get off my duff & look up some info on recorders......if I don't forget!!

 

I'M NEVER TOO FAR AWAY FROM MY CAMERAS

RETIRED ROD'S post this morning also got me to thinking.  He has been trying to track down a capacitor (an electronic gizmo) for repairing a ceiling fan.  Like myself & many other bloggers, Rod comes from a totally different era than we all live in these days.  We remember when things were repaired & not thrown into land fill sites.   My Uncle Fred had a part time business on the side repairing small appliances & electronic things like toasters, tea kettles, radios, etc.  I remember a large work bench with lots of plugs & really neat looking things like radio tubes & testers.  Fuses, 'capacitors,' resistors, plugs, cords, boxes of parts, old radio dials, bicycle parts, & just about whatever else would fascinate a small boy like myself.  It was all back in the 1950's when we were in the final days of a salvageable world.  Folks out here my age & older will understand the different world back then but people of today will not.  I too love all the great new technologies we have now & all the wondrous new developments that surround us making our lives more cushy & comfortable.  But I also feel our brave new  techno wondrous world is a house of cards built way too quickly & carelessly on a bed of quicksand, on a fault line, in a shaky earthquake zone.  It's like we have all been gleefully riding along on the deck of the Titanic for these past bunch of years having enjoyed reveling in the charade of our fast paced & dazzling surroundings.  Problem is, the ice berg has already been struck, & we are now in the very real stages of waking from our bunks saying, "what was that......did you feel a bump!!"

<<<< BROTHERS:))

Photo Tip!! 

Photo at left is an example of looking for a photo within a photo.  Before you delete a shot you don't like, take a second look at it & see if you can pull something out of it.  I was looking for a picture showing the brother's Keenan & Langdon together & found it in the photo below.  Using the 'Crop' tool in Picasa I simply cropped out everything around the boys & used my 'Medium' setting here in Live Writer for the photo size.  It is easily done & with just a little bit of finiggling using the 'Crop' tool, anyone out there can do the same thing.  And another tip....Notice how I left a little more room on the right side & bottom of the photo for Keenan to walk into.  Oh, & I also used the 'Sharpen' tool to give the photo a bit of crispness as well.  Try it....you can do it:))

GROANER'S CORNER:((  After 50 years of marriage the couple was sitting at the dinner table and the wife said to her husband: "After all these years of marriage I know that you are Tried and True."
He replied, "What did you say?"
She said in a louder voice: "After all these years of marriage I have learned that you are Tried and True."
He said: "Speak louder!"
She said, in a louder voice: "After all these years of marriage I have learned that you are Tried and True."
He replied loudly: "Well, I'm tired of you too!!"

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Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.

"UNTIL ONE HAS LOVED AN ANIMAL, PART OF THEIR SOUL REMAINS UNAWAKENED"

OUR BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

AL'S SMUG MUG PHOTO GALLERY http://stargeezer.smugmug.com/ (a work in progress)

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.