Fenelon Falls Ontario
Posted by kanderson on Apr 20, 2008
Well, we arrived in Fenelon Falls yesterday. It was a nice place. On the outskirts were some Mennonites who lived differently than the Steinbachians. They’re effectively Amish. No cars, no tech, etc. Interesting to see, I always thought of Amish as a US thing more than a Canada thing. I guess not…
Fenelon Falls is an interesting place. Population in winter is 1000. Population in summer is 10000. It’s hard to imagine. We drove over a bridge and to Sobey’s. From our friends house, the drive takes about 5 minutes. It would be about equally fast using a bike. In the summer, we’ve been told it becomes a 1.5 hour trek. You could walk it faster. This is literally about 3 blocks. But I can understand it though.
Fenelon Falls is a really nice little town. It’s not hard to imagine it bustling like any other holiday resort, but when we were there, it was just a really laid back place. It’s the kind of town that most of the theme parks try to emulate, so it’s also pretty easy to imagine it crowded. 
It was nice to visit with our friends from Florida. The kids played together and the adults just hung out and chatted. It’s interesting. Their house is different. I’m not sure I’ve seen one like it outside of a movie. I remember Darryl talking about the wide trim and moldings and stuff. He’d love this place. It’s around a hundred years old. So these don’t look like old fashioned, solid wood moldings that everyone reminiscences about, they ARE those real moldings. It was neat. Like the Jays game, we arrived home after midnight.
Anyway, the campground wasn’t great, so we left early in the morning, cursing no internet, no power, etc. That’s strange to see. I know it’s that season, and our campground is in the same boat, but I still feel frustrated when I’m left out.
One thing that has proven worth it’s weight, and DAD, you’ll do VERY well to have, is the Solar Panel. Ours is 90 watts (I think). Which means that it’s capable of a maximum output of about 6 amps to charge the battery. It’s rare to see it above 5.0, but it’s still neat. We went to bed with the furnace running, not plugged in, showing 12.0 volts. When I crawled out of bed, we were showing 12.6, and we were charging at 2.3 amps. So it’s just a good reassurance. I KNOW that I don’t have to worry about dead batteries when it’s in storage anymore. And that’s a good thing. It’s quieter than a generator, it needs zero maintenance, fuel, or other concerns. It’s just good. If you have an RV, I’d advise one.
Anyway, that’s about it.
Over and out.
Toronto (Blue Jays) Suck.
Posted by kanderson on Apr 20, 2008
Well, we went into the big happening Toronto a few days back. The plan was to take the kids to see the tower, and go to a Jays game.
Driving in was fine, there was a bit of a traffic jam, but nothing serious. We made it in about 20-30 mins behind schedule.
Even though the baseball game had started, Gina and Melanie went up to the top of the tower first. It sounds like thay had fun. Gina was afraid to stand on the glass floor, and that meant that her pictures of Melanie were less than perfect, but good enough. In the end, Gina did lay down on the floor, and while there, some guy came up and stomped on the floor beside her. Apparently Gina looked up and in a terrified voice said “PLEEZE!!!!!! Don’t do that….”. Nicole and I have both been up before, and at $30 a person, this seemed like a waste of our dwindling cash reserves, so we stayed down.
While they were at the top, Nicole and I did the math on the tower. $30 per person. 2 million visitors per year. Plus (rip off) coffee shops downstairs, plus (an even bigger rip off) souvenir shop too. The very back of the souvenir shop is where the elevator drops you off.
So while we were waiting, I was really thirsty. But the coffee shop was closed, and the souvenir shop doesn’t sell water. So I snooped (cause I like doing it anyway) and found a paper soup bowl, and a turned off Pop machine (That’s Soda machine for you USian readers…). The water flowed anyway though, (And since I don’t like Soda Pop (Hey!, everyone knows what I mean now…) anyway, that worked just fine for me.) So I had 3 or 4 bowls of water. Felt a bit guilty about stealing the bowl, but not really guilty, there should at least be a water fountain. I notice that as bottled water becomes more popular, water fountains have disappeared. My conspiracy theory bend would make me wonder if maybe there’s a correlation, but who knows. More about water in a later blog.
Anyway, we arrived for the 4th inning of the Jays game, thinking, sheesh, we missed half the game already. It was approximately tied, I forget the exact score, but it was low scoring. Anyway, the Jays caught up in (i think) the 8th, and tied it. no runs in the ninth, or 10th, or 11th, or (it’s 11:00 here guys) 12th, or the (11:45) 13th. Finally in the 14th, Texas scored a couple of runs, and even with last bats, the Jays let them keep the bragging rights.
Eventually, at slightly after 1am, we got home. Tired.
It was disappointing to see them lose, but I have to say, at least 12 the people had left by then anyway, and to be honest, at that point, nobody cared who won, they just wanted the game over. I suspect that included the players too.
Highlights of the game would be in the 9th, when the jays had the bases loaded, 1 out, and…
The girls decided that would be a good time to go to the washroom. I think Nicole and I both were scratching our heads. Thankfully, they’re old enough to go together and provide mutual encouragement (or whatever strange thing women need each other in there for…). Anyways, all they missed were some outs, so whatever…
Other highlights, Nicole and I asked if they had video tapes a batter swinging yet. They said no, and pulled out their cameras. Sure enough, the batter swang, and missed, but the bat slipped out of his hands and went FLYING… WAY past 3rd base. It was funny. I’ve never seen it before, I have no idea how common it is, but what an amazing fluke that both girls caught it on their cameras here. I though it was neat, I still do.
Over and out.
Toronto…
Posted by kanderson on Apr 14, 2008
Well, we’re here.
Actually, we aren’t. We’re just outside Burlington. Which is interesting for me. Seminole had offices in Burlington/Oakville, and I feel some bitterness still over the way things ended at Seminole. This reminds me of all of that. Strange, I should be glad that I could just quit, and continue to go on this journey, but still, I know that I’d be lying if I didn’t say I detest my last manager.
Managers are a funny thing. Some are good, some are bad. I really struggle with how to manage people. I think I’m OK at it, but really, I know that the people working with me at Digital are all responsible adults, they require little supervision, and so as much as possible, I try to be as hands off as possible.
Strangely, my kids are another story. I guess this is the main area where we manage people. And that’s an ugly struggle. How much is being an overbearing dad, and how much is being apathetic. I don’t know. I clearly have a bend toward the controlling side. I think because I’ve made lots of mistakes and I don’t want to see the kids repeat them, but at the same time, I know that I’ve learned alot by making those mistakes.
Wow, I just deleted like 15 paragraphs…
Anyway, I’m tired, and I need ti finish fixing someone’s computer. So I’m calling it a night now.
Over and out.
Showers in Sherkston
Posted by kanderson on Apr 13, 2008
Well, we’re finally on the road again.
It’s interesting, basically since Florida, we’ve been in “visiting mode” rather than “touring mode”. That’s still partly the case. Melanie’s friend Matt lives in a little hamlet (or smaller) called Sherkston. So we’re living on their acreage for a couple of days.
It’s interesting. If I needed to choose a family to adopt me, this would be the one. Much like me, they’re water sports fanatics. Scuba, Sailing, Boating, Windsurfing, Wakeboarding, Windsurfing. They’ve added to that list with Kite Skiing. Which is awesome too. We saw that first in Oregon and California. Basically, it’s windsurfing but rather than a sail attached to the board, you strap yourself to a kite, and go from there. It’s pretty neat. People are flying all over the place. 30 foot jumps are common on a kiteboard. So it’s a neat sport, and I’d like to try it.
Hey! Looks like I’m back to the normal blog. Overusing the word “neat” again. Which I like. WooHoo!
Anyway, Sherkston is right beside Niagra Falls, so we toured that today. Nicole and I had been there before, and were suprised at how small they were compared to the pictures. I still feel that way.
Interesting fact. The first person to go over the falls was a 43 year old School Teacher. She survived pretty much unscathed. She faired drastically better than the guy who followed her shortly afterwards. He was in hospital for a long time with broken knee caps, and a fairly busted up face.
Today we also went to some tourist traps (Ripley’s Believe it or not, and some hokey roller-coaster simulator). The Sim was a bit of a let down after all the ones in Orlando. That place pretty much wreaks you for rides anywhere else. Stall on bringing kids there for as long as possible.
What else.
Driving here from Manitoba was good. Both Leo and my Dad (the truckers know where everything cool is) recommended that we go over the Macinaw Bridge. It was ok, but maybe the funniest part was that Leo said to be careful because if it’s windy, cars can get blown off of it. I assured him that it was best that Nicole not know that, but since she was sitting next to me, she immediately wanted to know what I was keeping from her, even if it was for her own good. So I told her. (Cause I’m a good hubby).
Naturally, when we arrived at the falls, there was a wind warning in effect, repeating every minute, warning that “especially trucks pulling trailers” etc, were to observe a 20 mph speed limit, and drive with hazard lights on. So Nicole freaked out when I completely ignored the 20 mph speed limit. And since she was worried, the girls were almost crying they were so fearful. And I laughed. (cause, you know, I’m a good hubby). I eventually slowed to 30 or 35mph, but it clearly wasn’t necessary, and everyone mellowed out when a semi went WHIPPING past us doing at least 60.
Obviously, there were no issues. Just useless fear.
We eventually arrived, and we took the RV to Titanium for service. This went pretty smooth, they needed us to wait for an extra day before we brought it in, but Nick and Tony did a fantastic job of looking after us. Well, almost fantastic. They had replaced a water inlet for us, and it leaked. Badly. But we didn’t find that out until we had left, and we were an hour up the road. So we brought it back again the next day. Still though, they did fix far more than what we had asked them to do.
Mostly we were concerned about the hitch. It seemed that there was FAR more movement up and down in the hitch pin than there should have been. Our fears were well founded, and they ended up needing to replace the entire assembly as ours was moving several inches when the real tolerance was half of an inch. In the process, they also replaced the front of the trailer, fixed up some cosmetic issues inside, did a MUCH better job than our dealer of cleaning and vacuuming the unit, and generally just impressed us with everything that was done.
I think we were a bit of an issue when we showed up the next day with the water leak, but they managed to sneak us in and fix it up. It did make delivery of someone elses unit late, so we were quite thankful.
While the rig was at Titanium, we spent the day at the library doing homework and stuff. I think I made a few enemies there. The truck was just too big, and to try to hog less space, I backed it in. That meant that most of the sidewalk was covered, and when I needed to run the generator to keep the laptop charged (I grabbed internet from someone in the area, and then retransmitted it into the library) I took up the whole sidewalk, and blew exhaust at the passers by. There weren’t many, but there was a lady with a stroller, and the look she gave as she offroaded wih her stroller was not one of annoyance, but rather of simple disgust. That rock beating inside of me felt pretty bad, and I moved around a lot, trying to find somewhere better, but there really wasn’t anywhere that I wasn’t in someone’s way. Stupid truck. I did decide though that I’d nose in. I was WAY more in the car’s way, but it’s easier for a car to dodge me than to send people 4×4ing with their strollers. Oh well. If it was a baby boy, he probably thought it was cool…
So that’s about it. Tomorrow we head for Toronto. (Yes, Matt, I know. “Toronto, it smells like poo everywhere that you go…” Melanie would agree with that assessment, btw).
Over and out.
Facing the Giants.
Posted by kanderson on Mar 14, 2008
The time is coming for us to leave and head East. I don’t really want to leave. We’re heading back to Winnipeg. The draw of family juxtaposed against the freezing cold. I hate that. It’s hard to be excited about continuing, listening to the forecasts. I love the exploring, but I hate the cold. That’s for Al. He’s a winter guy. I’m a summer guy.
Speaking of Al…
My buddy Al is a firefighter. He loves his job. He has a business on the side installing appliances. The combination keeps him really busy. But he was hit by a truck last year after he ran out from behind a bus. He might word that a bit more in his favor, but that’s what happened. I think most people were shocked that he was alive. The truck hit him square on and threw him distantly down the road. When we saw him in the hospital, much of the skin on his face was roadrashed off, and he was heavily sedated. (I don’t like the drugs, but the drugs like me…) Anyway, after he was released from the hospital, he was more or less OK, but his shoulder was a bit banged up. So he’s still in physio therapy. Unfortunately, one of the people working on his shoulder found that it actually needed surgery.
So the surgery is a bit of a problem. Al misses his job. He’s been off now for about a year, I don’t know the exact date. But it’s been pretty close. And he misses it. Alot. The wait list for surgery here is close to a year, and recovery is almost another year. So Al was dealt quite a blow when he found out that it would be close to 2 years before he could be back at the fire department. A bit of personal research however, showed that there was a private clinic that could fix him up almost immediately. The issue is one of cost. Speeding the surgery up by a year means a cost of about $10000. It’s a bit questionable if the insurance company would go for it. One basically said no flatly. The other said it had never been done, but the case worker assigned to him was really good, and he felt confident. Until the worker was moved off the case.
Tonight, as a family, we watched Facing the Giants. It’s a pretty good movie. Needs more guns and car chases (Nicole feels otherwise, but she’s a girl, whaddaya expect?) If I knew anything about football, it might be better for me too. Nicole knows football better than I do. It was never my sport. So whatever. I don’t care.
Al loved football when he was younger. He’s a bit old now, I’d say he’s getting soft, but that’s more me than him. Somehow being paid to work out keeps you in better shape than punching keys on a keyboard. Who’d have guessed? Anyway, the movie made me think of him, and Brett, another friend in Winnipeg.
The movie is about the coach, mainly. His wife is about perfect. Stands by her man, empathetic, just good in every way. And it’s hard to miss the value of her to the coach. Even though her dreams are not going to happen, (She wants a baby, and he’s got no pucks to shoot on net, so to speak…) she loves him unconditionally. And that’s good. Their house roof leaks, it smells for some reason that isn’t immediately clear, their car is a piece of junk like the ones I had when I was first dating Nicole. They are barely making ends meet financially, and the football team is not winning. If the team isn’t winning, generally people start demanding a new coach. This town is no exception, and there are a few secret meetings held where some of the townsfolk try to drum up support from the other coaches to start a mutiny.
But he believes that God can do whatever he wants. And he decides to put it into action. So he tells the team to get onside. They’ll live their whole life for God, on and off the field. Win or lose. And they do. The kids start showing respect for teachers and parents. Even for each other. And they also start winning. Through it all, the focus of the movie is to point out that God can do things that seem impossible to man.
So it’s a feel good movie, and you leave thinking “wow, this is cool”. You, (or at least I) make snide comments about the lack of shootouts, swords, and car chases. And the cynic starts to fade in. It’s a feel good movie, and we’ve all seen them before. The idea is to get the ra, ra message and be all excited that God can do anything in OUR lives, just like on the screen. And I believe that. Heck, I’m living proof of it. But sometimes it seems a bit far away, if you know what I mean. I know he can do it, and I know he has, even with me personally. But when it doesn’t happen every day, it’s easy to forget that it’s true. It’s easy to say “yeah, whatever, it’s just a movie with mediocre acting.”
But then the phone rings. 10:00 at night. It’s Al. He’s approved for his surgery, and the insurance company will pick up the tab.
God works in our lives. He does it every day. Sometimes with credit, usually without. Sometimes when we deserve it, usually when we don’t.
It’s good to be reminded of that sometimes.
Over and out.