Summer is here and I am Happy

Sure, summer has it's downside like bugs and shit but they are just doing the evolutionary duty you know, keeping us humans in check by occasionally killing us with diseases like encephalitis and all that. Anyway, I live in a temperate climate where the winters are long and cold so I love summer - especially the warm days and the cool nights. I love being outside on my deck and looking at the sun set without getting frostbite. I love being able to go fishing or for a hike in the woods. I love being able to take photos of nature and its wonders.

Summer is good - don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

When is Spring Coming?

Up here in the Northwest region of the Province of Ontario, winter is a part of life but given it is almost mid-March, it is depressing to see very little indication that the first day of Spring is 5 days away. There is still almost 4 feet of snow on the ground and the temp overnight dropped to -18C - not much melting occurs under those conditions.

For all those who may read this who live in a climate where it is warm or starting to get warm, please send some of those weather patterns this way please...I would be eternally grateful.

Buying a New Truck

Well the transmission is going on my 1998 GMC Sierra and the brake release button just broke on Monday. It also needs new brakes and the gas gauge doesn't work. The windshield has a two foot long crack in it and my inside door handle on the driver side door has been broken for over a year. This means I have to roll down the window to open the door with the outside handle. After a whole Canadian winter doing this, I have finally had it!

The transmission issue is forcing my hand. So I decided to buy a new truck, and yes I mean a new 2011. I have decided on a 2011 Dodge Ram 1500 Quad Cab SLT with the "Outdoorsman Package". That means it has a few extras. The thing I like about this truck are all the extras including the 5.7L Hemi V8 engine and the running boards, spray on bed liner, bed cover, power rear slider, all terrain tires etc, etc.

Looking forward to owning my first new vehicle. My wife thinks we can't afford it. I guess she'll have to cut back on them shoe purchases lol!

Bedtime Story

BEDTIME STORY

Once upon a time, a guy asked a beautiful woman, "Will you marry me?"

The woman said “NO.”

....And the guy lived happily ever after and rode motorcycles and fucked skinny big-titted broads and hunted and raced cars and went to naked bars and dated women half his age and drank whiskey, beer and Captain Morgan and never heard bitching and never paid child support or alimony and ate pussies and ass-fucked cheerleaders and kept his house and guns and never got cheated-on while he was at work and all his friends and family thought he was fuckin’ cool as hell and he had tons of money in the bank and left the toilet seat up.

My Antique Shoppe

After a few years thinking about it, I finally took the plunge last November and started my own business, an Antique Shoppe. Some call it a Junk Shop others a Second Hand store, whatever you call it, I did it for fun. It has been fun but disappointing at times. Sales have been slow except for just before Christmas - but we were expecting that. Although, maybe not expecting it to be as slow as it has been in Jan. Feb. and March. Oh what the hell it is only money!

Anyway, we are also on-line with our own antiques and collectables website.

It's too early for this shit!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow........


...yeah right, to hell with that!

After the crappy summer we had, Mother Nature appears to be ready to stick it to us again with one of the earliest ever significant snowfalls that I have seen in Kenora. Usually Halloween is the demarker of snow in these parts and sometimes we even make it into the middle of November before we see the white stuff.

Not this year.

On Saturday October 9th it began to snow and it didn't stop until about 20 centimeters or so fell on this fair city. As you can see in the photo below, even the damn halloween ghosts are wondering what is going on. It's hard to look scary when you're freezing our ass off!

Yes snow is pretty and all that but when you think that if the snow that fell a few days ago stays, we won't see grass again until late April - almost 7 months away! You know all the BS you may have heard that Canadians are "hardy" when it comes to climate, the cold and wintry weather?

Well for the most part that's all bullshit! Only a complete moron would want to see snow this early in the year let alone having it stay on the ground. The kids are happy - as you can see from the picture below - it was the "first" snow of course - but even they were kinda grumbling about being cold and wet. My 12 year old son Matthew is seen here about to whip a snowball at his Dad's head - he just missed....


The dogs don't seem to mind too much though as you can see from the pic below, my Golden retriever is in heat and seemed more interested in answering Mother Nature's reproductive call than playing in the snow.


When I think of the months to come, I dread those continuous -30 days for weeks on end that are sure to come and all the shovelling, car problems and related headaches that winter is sure to bring.

In the end I only have one thing to say about it all:

FUCKOFF WINTER!

D-Day Anniversary a Reminder to Everybody

The 65th Anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion to liberate Europe from the Nazis came and went this past Saturday. I was watching a number of documentaries, read some news articles and thought lots about the men who lost their lives on those beaches so long ago. I think war can be over glorified at times and sometimes, this is done for the wrong reasons but D-Day is not that at all. It is a focal point in the history of mankind, an event of such monumental scale and sacrifice that what happened there should and must be remembered. If only for the reason something like it doesn't have to happen again.

Unfortunately, mankind is always the agent of his own demise. As a species we just can't get along and history clearly shows that because of either politics, nationalism - and in the case of Hitler - genocide, ours is the most violent and uncontrollable species on the planet. Thankfully, like on D-Day, there are enough humans out there across the globe to do something about it.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s and it seems we are getting further away from the goal those soldiers died for at Normandy. I mean we still can't get along. The Middle East has been a disaster for the entire globe and American Foreign Policy has also created problems where none existed before. Take a look at the news and there are still a variety of wars going on at any one time,

I wasn't there but if I had to guess the men that fought and died on the beaches on June 6th, 1944 would say that we should remember why they did what they did and don't forget the fundamental values they fought and died for. What was at stake that day were the fundamental under-pinnings of modern societies - democracy, rule of law, human rights and freedom of speech. As we march on as a species, I hope we continue to remember what those guys died for.

We can't afford not to......