Somebody's Always "Gotta" Be The Bad Guy

      Somebody's always gotta be the bad guy. Somebody's always gotta rain on your party. Somebody's always gotta bring you the bad news. So here it is. I still have lots of snow! I was trying not to tell anybody as I thought it would go away. However, my snow is still here. So for all those people with flowers that are blooming and all those people who have green grass I hate to disappoint you with my news. For all the southerners who are experiencing hot weather I apologize. For my Australian readers who don't know snow, I'm sorry I have to tell you about snow.

My front yard

You've seen this before. My ski trail was here.

More of my ski trail.

    Now on a brighter note I saw a robin yesterday. This morning while I was doing snow pictures a robin gave it's warning. It was in a Mountain Ash right above my head. So you say "What are robins doing there with all that snow?" Robins are smarter than you think. They go on the ground and eat Mountain Ash berries that have fallen off the tree. 


     We had 12 hours and 47 minutes of sunlight today. With the coming of long days things develop very quickly here. We may have a late start but we catch up to everybody.

Hiawatha Ground

       I went to a one room country school for nine years and left it in June of 1954. The next year in June of 1955 the school was closed. In 2006 a marker was placed on the original site of the school and a celebration was held. I was not able to attend the ceremony so I wrote a poem. This poem has been sitting around for six years as I was trying to find a picture of the building. 

This picture was taken in 1948 and shows an interior view of the school.  I am in the second row from the back , third from the left!

This shows a little bit of the weather beaten building and the class from 1947-48


HIAWATHA GROUND

Quiet earth lay covered by prairie grass and buckbrush ,

Meadowlarks,crows and hunting coyotes occasionally passed by,
Briefly visited by many spring blooms ,
And ancient quiet people who scanned the willows for big brown bulks ,
Of many life sustaining energies.

Dustyhorn, Bitternose, Whitefeather, Asqpace...

Suddenly, settlers appear to till the land
And put down roots of settlement
Which spawned wire fences , trails ,roads
And dwellings to house their families
And patient beasts of burden.
King, Clark, Minnings, Paul...


Then their children required an education
So a school house was  patiently planned
By careful applications to the powers of the land
Who controlled the many details of
Official school district formation.
Hawes, Weurfel, Winks, Rathwell...


So with patient effort acceptance was gained
To build a school with gifted labor
Borrowed money and volunteers who
Undertook the time consuming supervision
Which produced a shining building for the children.
Ingelton, Bushell, Taylor, Wildeman...


Years of care to run the school
Find and pay a teacher
Repair the roof and walls
Fill out the required forms and reports
For the privilege of keeping kids in school.
Barber, Johnson, Langille, Stevenson...


Quiet Christians gathered there
In the name of the Lord to sing
And pray and study God's word
Which supported their souls
And daily trials and tribulations.
Mehaffey, Ronald , Kline, Muir...


Years ground by with depression
Drought ,war and changes slowly
Came to settlers and their way of life
As some moved on to other grounds
To find an easier success.
Manke, Brust, Kabernick, Leggott...


The silent end quickly appeared
When only six lonely scholars filled the desks
And sad decisions were made
To close the Hiawatha learning center
Which had faithfully served quiet locals
Epp, Kreiger, Enns, Freisen...


Now, the ground sleeps deeply once again
Visited by passing hawks and goldfinch
Covered by annual snows
While the joyous shouts of children
And devoted settlers are no longer heard .

Red tailed hawks, ground squirrels, butterflies...

Ten former students and three former teachers.

The marker set up on the school site.

My Do It Your Selfer Mentor.

     My daughter is a confirmed do it your selfer. I was surprised to find out that she was a do it your selfer as I hadn't included her with much of what I did in the home. I did show her how to take the wheel off her car in case she ever had a flat tire. I don't think I ever had her cut the grass.

    So how did she become such an avid do it your selfer? Before she bought her first condo she had been watching home improvement shows on HGTV. As soon as she got into the condo, the first thing she did was to paint the thing from top to bottom. Now she had been fairly artistic, so she could pick super colors. She lived in another city, so Dad couldn't just drop over to help or give advice.


    She moved again and bought a townhouse which was only 3 kms from me. According to her, the "Pepto Bismol" pink carpet had to go, along with the matching pink walls and counter tops. The carpet and other items were the popular rose color from the late eighties. Before she moved into the townhouse she pulled out the main floor carpet and painted the place from top to bottom. Again she had super taste when it came to color. She painted the plywood sub floor and kitchen vinyl floor because she didn't have enough money to cover it with anything. All of this she did on her own.


    The next summer she bought laminate flooring and Dad helped her install it. She had the mitre saw and Dad held the boards. This project worked out quite well. She then got the idea to cover up the pink marble on the fireplace, so framed it over with MDF and painted it. She replaced toilets. Then I accidentally showed her how to take out a light fixture and wire it back in. That sent her on a trip to Ikea where she bought new light fixtures and installed them herself. After that she had some rotten parts on the deck, so she bought the lumber and enlisted Dad to tear the deck apart and haul it to the dump. Then the new deck was put together.


    My daughter likes renovations and redecorating. She used to have a small business on the side where she consulted, giving people plans to redecorate a room, or a whole house. Sometimes she did part of the work. She liked it when people came to her house and complimented her on how nice it looked.


    When she bought her first detached house (this time with her husband) she again started up with the renovations, but contracted some of the major things out. Her mother warned the new husband that "Oh, it never ends!" when it comes to his bride's desire for fix-it and improvement projects, big or small.

Still creative with Lego!

    Now when I look back, the only sign of her being a DIY type was her continuously playing with Lego. I always thought Lego was more for boys, but my daughter certainly spent much of her play time with it. And ya, she still has Lego - her husband got her a set for Christmas!

Psst: You Can Speed in Alberta

    What's that you say? You can speed in Alberta? But you say,"You''ll get caught." You might get caught. But if you get a ticket, depending on how busy a road you're on, 200 or 1000 speeders go by while your ticket is being written. That's not very efficient policing. .5%  or .01 %. The Alberta government is so obsessed with not raising taxes that the number of policemen has declined while the population has increased. Very little traffic patrolling is done.


     So you say, "If you get caught you'll have to pay a fine." Never mind. Don't pay it. July first of every year a statistic is released. Last year on July first there was $110 000 000.00 in outstanding traffic fines! Very few people are paying traffic fines. Some how the government is unable or unwilling to collect traffic fines.


    So you say, " If I don't pay my traffic fine I'll lose my license." Not to worry. A large percentage of Albertans drive without a valid driver's license. 


    So you say, "If I don't have a license I won't be allowed to buy car insurance." Not to worry . A large percentage of Albertans drive without insurance.


    So I rest my case. You can speed in Alberta. 


    One of my extremely nice little old granny friends got a speeding ticket when she was less than 500 meters from a seniors picnic she was going to. Shirley was very upset. I told her she didn't have to pay the ticket. But I know that she was one of the few people who pay tickets here.


   A few years ago I met a young Nova Scotian who had come to Alberta to make his fortune in the oil patch. Sergio was a very nice twenty year old. Two weeks after he got here he got a speeding ticket. He didn't know he got a ticket because it was photo radar. The ticket was sent to his Mom in Nova Scotia. Since there were demerit points it put him in the situation where he lost his driver's license. I told him not to drive. I asked him what his mother told him. He said, "Mom told me not to drive." Two days later he accidentally told me he was driving. I'd done all I could. So the next thing I know he's got an impaired charge. He got more that an impaired because he didn't have a license or car insurance. On top of that they tried to play games with the police and he got an obstruction charge. He went to the first court date and it was put over. The second date he missed. The third date I dropped him off but didn't go in with him. He told me it was delayed again. A few weeks after that he came to the house and I knew he was saying good bye. So he left the area without notice. His charges were not settled and I'm sure the justice system would not find him. During a three month period he made $10 000.00 and was always broke.


    So I guess the moral of my story is that the justice system is so understaffed and weak that it can not enforce anything and if you want to be a scofflaw you can get away with almost anything.


    Now would I pay my fine? You bet I would.

Bumbling Blogger? That's Me!

    When I started blogging I thought I had something important to say. I also thought that anything I put out on the Internet would be automatically seen and read by millions. Well, I was much more than naive. After a few months I discovered that few or none were reading my blog. What should I do?


     So I got the "Blogging for Dummies book."  That would do the trick. First , I got the impression that  I had to be on search engine lists, I tried to put my blog on search engines and couldn't tell whether I got my blog on search engines or not. Anyway there wasn't any noticeable increase in hits.


    So what's next? I discovered that I had to follow some blogs. How do you do that? After awhile I got the hang of it and was following half a dozen blogs. I also found out that I had to have followers so I told my friends and got a half dozen followers. However , my friends didn't have blogs so that wasn't going to go very far. Still no more traffic. Finally, an honest to goodness blogger showed up to follow me and even left comments. Until  that time I didn't have any comments. Of course, I hadn't left any comments. So Red, get busy and make comments on other blog posts. 


     So the "Blogging for Dummies " book was consulted many times. I then knew that I had to follow more blogs and make more comments before I would be noticed. Slowly this process has been succeeding.


     Now the seed for this post started in another place. In writing courses you are told to consider your audience. In other words who are you writing to. Obviously the audience thing didn't sink in. I did not have it in my head who my audience would be.


    It would go like this. I might want to write about music so my audience would be musicians  and  music listeners. I might expand this to the arts in general and I could include acting, dancing, writing and visual arts. I had no idea who I would write to.


     Gradually I gained some readers and followers. These people don't really know what to expect on my blog. I bounce around on a wide variety of topics. Lately, since I have regular followers , I'm influenced by  readers. Comments give me ideas for posts. Other bloggers give me good ideas for posts from what they write. I write mostly about experiences I have had. 


      So after three and a half years of bumbling around there are some things that are making sense and bringing about more blogging success. When I look back some of these things should have made sense a long time ago. A focus of my writing may have made it easier for readers to follow me. I'm sure people drop by my blog and wonder ,  "What's this guy all about?"


     So I am extremely happy with the people who have chosen to visit me on a regular basis and that you can put up with someone who bumbles from topic to topic.

The Ultimate Insult to a Snorer

     Now I admit that I am a fairly capable competent snorer. I can raise quite few decibels.


     Am I concerned about snoring? Well, no. About 99% of adults snore. We all do it. So not to worry. Snoring is like respiration circulation...it's automatic. 


    In 2007 my wife and I went on a trip with our daughter and we had arranged for one room. The first morning my daughter said, "I didn't sleep all night. One of you snores and the other one chokes." So the only thing you can say is sorry. She did get used to the noise after several days. On the other hand I had to get used to a schnauzer. Unfortunately my daughter was given a mat to sleep on rather than a cot. Shortly after turning out the lights I heard the dog quietly walking around the bed. Suddenly the dog jumped up on the bed. She stealthily made her way up the bed and then gently eased her way under the covers between my wife and I. What spoiled brat!

The spoiled schnauzer!

    We have a local writer who has a humor column in the Saturday paper. Today he was describing a similar situation as I had gone through. They went on a trip and parents and daughter shared the same room. Guess what? Dad snored and daughter objected. In this case daughter grabbed her cell phone and made a video of her dad snoring...not once but three times! Now that's a tremendous insult. You're not only harassed about your snoring but you are confronted with cold hard evidence.


     Now I'm lucky that my experience was before fancy cell phones were invented.

     It's almost enough to make a guy quite snoring but as I said before there is a certain amount of automation to snoring. So good luck!

Walking With Walter

      I have an  81 year old neighbor who is a retired college psychology instructor. Walter is very active and one thing he does a lot of in the winter is walking. Walter firmly believes that physical activity is very good for you. He always walked with his wife but this winter she said it was too icy so Walter walks by himself.


     I was out walking a few days ago and met Walter. Walter just said, "Come walk with me." Now you can't turn Walter down. He said, "We'll just go as far as the mall." Well, we got to the mall and Walter just continued walking. I didn't say anything because Walter is and interesting guy to listen to.


     Now Walter is a fairly passionate person. First, on his list are his wife and children. After that it's psychology, gardening and bees. Walter reads two newspapers a day and probably watches several news casts so he is intensely interested and knowledgeable about current affairs. Walter trims trees and shrubs. He knows how to trim and when and why. He trimmed his honey suckle hedge in January because that was the proper time to trim . So there he was in the deep snow and below zero temperatures of January. He has about 20 beehives and is a walking encyclopedia on bees. Walter spends a good part of the summer looking after bees. Walter has a large vegetable garden which is very successful. Walter is a thinking man. He thinks about how bees behave and how plants grow and why. 


     I've known Walter for a long time. So the other day when we walked we covered a wide range of topics. When Walter really gets interested in something, he stops walking. So the walk is not only long in distance but also in time. So we talked about Walter's walking, icy conditions, conditions in Greece, my children, gay and lesbian people and probably as many topics again that I have forgotten. On most things Walter and I are on the same page but he's very knowledgeable so I learn a lot by listening to him. The only things we disagree on is capital punishment and sentencing  for crime. Walter would execute all murderers and put people in jail and throw away the keys.


     So the moral of my story is that when you walk with an eighty one year old it is enjoyable and enlightening. Now I'm kind of advertising for myself because I'm coming up on the 81 sooner than I think. So in  a few years I will be a good person to walk with.