Wednesday, June 23, 2010

A HELPING DAY IN MITCHELL

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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

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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.

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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.

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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!!

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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!!"

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<<<< 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:))

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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.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

A LITTLE BIT OF RAIN & A LITTLE BIT OF SUN

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IT'S HARD TO THINK OF THIS VESSEL AS A 'LIFEBOAT'

I have decided to put Sunday's tour of the Coast Guard vessel into a Picasa photo album instead of the blog.  You can access that album here....CAPE DISCOVERY  & my post for that tour is here....VERY LARGE LIFEBOAT

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HE HAS THE WIND IN HIS SAILS & FOR THE REST OF THE SAILING PICS CLICK...SAIL & CANVAS

With only minutes to spare after the first clap of thunder this morning I was able to zip outside in my PJ's, get the cover on the motorcycle & the motorhome door closed.  The rains were quickly upon us just as I slipped back inside the patio door.  By the looks of the weather map, we could be in for a very wet day.  But, that is OK because rainy days are good for getting caught up on inside stuff without feeling guilty about not being outside in the nice weather.

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HEADING OUT INTO LAKE HURON

Not being a big city feller I'm not used to those taller buildings where you vertically travel up & down from one floor to the other in those small fancy moving rooms.  On Monday we moved my Uncle Harry out of his assisted living quarters on the 4th floor of a building in Woodstock Ontario.  That meant a lot of trips up & down in an elevator for me.  Three times with loads of stuff under my arms I stepped off the elevator when the doors opened only to realize I was on the wrong floor.  I would then quickly make a lunge for the button before the doors closed & the elevator sped off to who knows where for another bunch of minutes.  But, it was when I got on the elevator sometimes deep in thought about the move, & stood there for 30 seconds or so before realizing the elevator wasn't moving that bugged me the most.  Press the button dummy!!  Darned fangled contraptions anyway!!

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KID'S AT PLAY ALONGSIDE BAYFIELD'S PIER

My Uncle is on the ground floor of the new facility he is in so luckily for me I did not have to try jockeying any elevators from floor to floor when we got there.  Elevator stress can be rather bad news for a small town boondocker oriented older feller if you know what I mean!!

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BOAT FOLKS

And just a note about home care facilities.  It has been my experience over the last number of years either because of family members or with my part time mobility van job, to be in & out of many various care giving places.  Without exception I am always impressed with the staff & how much care & concern goes into looking after all the folks in their care.  When my Dad was dying of cancer at home many years ago I saw first hand how the ladies coming in from the Victorian Order of Nurses went all out to make his final months & days as comfortable as possible.  I will never forget that.

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WATERY REFLECTIONS

Compared to our move on Monday this day turned out to be a very quiet Tuesday.  A little bit here  & a little bit there with not much of this & not much of that thrown in for good measure.  Some members of Kelly's family were up to Bayfield this past week end staying in a couple of the Deerpark cottages.  I slipped over Saturday night to do a bit of socializing with the folks but of course I was careful not to overdo it.  Wouldn't want people thinking I am some kind of a wild party animal.  Took me a lot of years of hard work to live that reputation down you know.....:))

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SABRA, ONE OF KELLY'S TWIN DAUGHTERS HOLDS ONE OF HER 2 BOYS

And this is my second attempt at posting this blog tonight.  Error 400 sank my first effort again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GROANER'S CORNER:((  You know your getting over the hill when your idea of weight lifting is standing up or it takes longer to rest than it did to get tired.  Maybe our memory is shorter and your complaining lasts longer too.  How about when your sitting in a rocking chair and can't get it going.  And here's the one that really hurts....It takes twice as long to look half as good these days!!

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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.

Monday, June 21, 2010

IT WAS A LOOOOONG MOVING DAY

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BAYFIELD'S SUNDAY REGATTA JUST OFF SHORE

Today was the day we moved my Uncle Harry from his assisted living place in Woodstock Ontario to a nursing home in Mitchell.  It was a very looooong 10 hour day but everything went better than expected & Harry was a true trooper as his whole world changed around him in just a matter of hours. I am soooooo totally tired tonight that I'm going to make this a short blog.  I will post some comments about today's activities in a later blog.  But first, a couple of things. 

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HARRY'S LAST 3 GAMES OF POOL AT PARK PLACE WITH A STAFF MEMBER THIS MORNING....& HE WON ALL 3:))

I had hoped to post a second blog tonight with the photos from my time aboard the Coast Guard vessel on Sunday but that is going to have to wait until tomorrow now.   I also have to get to the bottom of my blog publishing problems!!

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RESCUE SPECIALIST JAMIE OAKLEY POINTS OUT SOME ELECTRONIC GEAR ON THE UPPER DECK OF, 'CAPE DISCOVERY.'

For all you Live Writer users out there, be sure to read RICK'S blog today.  He clears up some questions people have had & explains in easy terms the workings of Live Writer.  In fact, Rick is probably going to do a second follow up blog because of additional questions coming in.  I am hoping WAYNE & ROBERTA are reading this because they had emailed me about a week ago with the very same question Rick has answered so well in today's blog about photo sizing.  I've been feeling bad that I hadn't got back to them:((  Rick for sure is the 'Go To' guy for anyone out there with Live Writer questions.  And I am for sure the 'Go To' guy if you need to know how to build yourself a great soy shake for breakfast in the morning:))  Of course there might be those of you who would disagree with that I'm sure..:((

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THE LITTLE MOTORMOUSE GETS HERE NAILS TRIMMED

Ok, gotta go rest my weary bones.  Hopefully I can get caught up on my blog reading tomorrow as well.............Oooooga Booooga:))

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THIS IS LANGDON, ONE OF KELLY'S COOL & GROOVY 'GRANDS:))'

GROANER'S CORNER:((  Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if
green vegetables smelled as good as bacon & did you know a raisin is nothing more than a grape with a sunburn!! 
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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.