Checkered Lounge Pants

Remember remember the month of November, and the Gunpowder Treason and Plot..or at least the last week. Man it h as been hairy out there in newsland. Tiger holes himself up at home after wiping out at fire hydrant and hitting a wood (uh-hum) hazard and "because of his silence, Tiger will become a laughing stock in the eyes of his audience, and so will the products he endorses". Latest report from US Senate claims Osama Bin Laden was found a month after 9/11 in Afghanistan and lost to Pakistan while US is going to send in more troops. CN checkmated the Teamsters into a strike so the Canadian government will do their bargaining and become the latest enabler allowing CN's chronic predatory employee abuse to continue. OMG..Saskatchewan gave away the Grey Cup. University of Calgary gave away the Vanier Cup. Four cops gunned down in Washington state. Serena Williams, Iran nuclear capabilities, health care, jobs, China, blood gold in Africa, Walmart..whew. I am glad the month is...

Hey there!! Its been a while since we chatted on the blog. I just have not felt the urge to blog for almost a month. I hedge posted earlier in the month with a pasted November 11 memorial service out of the Winnipeg Free Press, but whenever I started to sign in to CLP site, I just lost the blogitis that usually settles over me, until I shake it off doing the last spell check while the jpegs files are downloading. Is that blogger block?? The news hasn't changed outside of the evolution of the issues that have been front and centre for about a year. My curiosity was spiked today when I read an article that elevated ( http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/bureau-blog/dions-wife-goes-rogue/article1372858/ ) Canadian politics to the heightened drama of US sensationalist politics. The article, called "Dion's wife going rogue?", relayed the story about a politicians better half getting tagged as a rogue when she critiqued her hubby's short lived career after a coup d'...

Winnipeg Rifles Regiment member Cpl. Dave Anderson on the honour guard to remember the fallen on Remembrance Day at Vimy Ridge Park in Winnipeg, Manitoba this morning. I'll be in touch.

It's closing in on midnite and I just dont seem to be bed-ready. My beloved Val called it a night sometime ago but I was watching the Monday Night football game because I have a pool with my son in Boston, and, we are down to a tie-breaker on tonight's game, to decide the weekly winner. My Sweet Pea and I threw our passports in the glovebox and a few gauchies in a bag and headed to the outpatients to get my shoulder stitches removed, early last week. We agreed to an impulsive trip and left a "journeys beginning" decided by the post-op outcome. The diagnosis was good so we made a run for the border. We took a ride to St Louis and had a great time. I cant drive with my arm all slinged up so Val did all the driving and we stopped whenever she felt tired. Speaking of tired, did you hear about the plane that over shot Minneapolis. Northwest Flight 188 from San Diego to Minneapolis overflew the airport by more than 150 miles, out of radio contact with air traffic controller...

So like I was sitting here in the porch surfing the web when my beloved Val said "Is the dog home alone???" You see, the neighbour folks asked us to dog-care whenever they are gone if we deem the need. She deducted somehow, that their vehicle had left sometime the day before and never came home. "I don't know, go see!" I answered. I'm just chillaxn since I finished my latest medical procedure from the injuries I sustained in my accident. My shoulder had been plated last week and I have some 30+ stitches holding all the pieces together around surgical steel, so my mobility is highly restricted for the next several months or a year (or maybe more depending on the insurance coverages..but that's another story). I have endured hours and hours of physicians, surgeons, occupational therapists, physio-therapists, rehabilitation therapists, xray technicians, nurses, lawyers, police, reports, exams, hospitals, clinics, therapies, complications, medications, appar...

Micheal Moore originally wrote on October 09, 2009 that Obama had to "earn" his Nobel. After composing and publishing the letter, his wife persuaded him to reflect on his knee-jerk response. The following is Mr. Moore's follow-up letter to his initial reaction on Obama winning the Nobel Peace prize. The original letter appears below that: Saturday, October 10th, 2009 Friends, Last night my wife asked me if I thought I was a little too hard on Obama in my letter yesterday congratulating him on his Nobel Prize. "No, I don't think so," I replied. I thought it was important to remind him he's now conducting the two wars he's inherited. "Yeah," she said, "but to tell him, 'Now earn it!'? Give the guy a break -- this is a great day for him and for all of us."I went back and re-read what I had written. And I listened for far too long yesterday to the right-wing hate machine who did what they could to crap all over Barack's bi...

What brought troops to Afghanistan? How did armed coalition forces get to here from 9/11? http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/obamaswar/ I'll be in touch. ps. Happy birthday to Gerry in Coquitlam, B.C.

Hmmm, where did the summer go?? She just flew by eh? I will tag this my "healing summer" or my "crash summer" or just "summertimmmme and the living is easyyyyy" LOL. My folks dropped in for a visit and, leave for home today. That, along with Da Gar visiting on his Hawg, and my run to Boston to see the new grand kid made for a sweet summer..hey, that's it! Why commemorate the summer to tumbling on my Hawg when I can commiserate a closure with a "Sweet Summer"? O yaaa! Global climatic gaffes and political slip-ups aside, it was a gorgeous season in my region. The harvest is here and the crops are plentiful and the bounty abundant. I have been hitting the fruit stands like mad filling up my Dad on his beloved tomatoes, and, scoring big on the ingredients to inspire Mom to cook up a storm of homemade favourites like cabbage rolls and pies. My neighbour organized a tour of his families massive greenhouse operations and the folks were guided on a ...

Expense abuses rampant at OLG: documents Shared via AddThis Quite frankly, I wonder why all the surprise about the conduct and the opulence in this "culture of entitlement"!! This behaviour is common course and general practice in the board rooms, limos and private jets of the vast majority of corporations. The only appalling aprehension, in this instance, is the realization THIS cash string is tax dollars instead of investors dollars. I dedicated almost a decade to negotiating contracts with national and multi-nationals and the entitlements were far more excessive and obscene in the private sector corporations than crown corporations, I was dealing with. This culture is one of the executive communities dirty little secrets, that's not so secret anymore. I recall a story from my associates, about one of the multi-nationals, when we were together berating the paradoxes of cost cutting in the field operations while senior level managers were gallavanting around the continen...

"Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno will be the first Malaysian woman to be caned under Islamic laws applicable to Malaysia's Muslims Kuala Kangsar, MALAYSIA (news media Agencies) A Muslim model who is to be caned for drinking alcohol said she is planning a pilgrimage to Mecca, and seeking solace in prayer as she prepares to face her punishment this week.Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno will be the first Malaysian woman to be caned under Islamic laws applicable to Malaysia's Muslims, who account for 60 percent of the 27-million population." Can you freakin believe this? I was news gathering today and found this article in an arab news service I frequent: http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/08/23/82618.html . I have seen the video clips of Taliban justice being dispersed but it seems so close to home in newsprint. Journalism has not died or denegrated to e-news after all, I guess. Why didnt somebody think to use this brutally invasive deterrent on the greedy bankers. The floggin...

Funnel cloud over Vaughan (North Toronto). Bettina Reid / CTV News Josh Wingrove Globe and Mail Update Last updated on Friday, Aug. 21, 2009 Southern Ontario residents will soon begin picking up the pieces after a devastating thunderstorm rolled across a large stretch of the province Thursday night, generating several tornadoes that destroyed homes, tore up roofs, flipped vehicles and left at least one person dead. At one point, Environment Canada had issued a tornado warning extending 500 kilometres between Peterborough and Windsor.

I just cannot imagine Canadian politics ever getting as entertaining, nor as ugly, as US governance. Have you caught any of these town hall meetings on health care? I would have never believed people would get so covertly hoodwinked in believing free medical services sponsored by democratic administrations are an infringement of liberty and freedom. The hostility reminds me of my experiences in Union halls filled with angry workers at negotiation time, revving up their emotions to strike an employer, who has been brutally denigrating their work lives and workplaces.......when its for free health care, in terms of the benefits for all Americans in renewing the value of all the money that is appropriated within the insurance industries interests. I heard an sample of an media clip on a US radio, with a supposedly Canadian terminally ill patient pleading she had to wait 6 months for ANY MEDICAL ATTENTION. As a Canadian, I have never waited 6 months for any medical attention including the ...

My dream kept visualizing my beloved val scratching the wall. "Shhhhh.....stop it" I whispered in my dream. Now the scratching sound was a kicking sound and again I whispered "Shhhhhhh....stop it Val". Now the sound turned into a banging. Hey this ain't no dream! Someone is banging on my kitchen window!! When I got up, I saw it was my neighbour. He was signalling me to go to the door. I stumbled from the kitchen to the back door and when I opened it he said, "Do you want to go fishing?" What time is it?" I asked. It was 6am and he wanted somebody to join him fishing for walleye. "How long do I have?" I mumbled trying to mentally move from dreamland to waking up. I had 30 minutes to meet him at the boat. I fumbled for the coffee pot and shuffled for my clothes. I had a travel mug full of coffee in one hand and my license in the other hand, running to the boat in 30 minutes We fished with down riggers for 5 hours. The weather was nice but...

I rolled in to my driveway at 1:30am. On my departure from Boston, I had planned to stop for the night in a motel, but found myself homing in on Buffalo shortly after stopping for gas and a sub to satisfy my dinner grumblings. I was only an hour from the border so renting a room seemed unnecessary, when, I could make a serious run for home in 3 hours or so. Well... the sluggish line at the Niagara Falls border kept me thinking of the colloquialism "slow boat to China" and added a few hours to that, and it weren't long before the sun was going down and, I still had the best part of 3 hours to go. The image of a barrel came to mind a few times. Nevertheless, like I said I got home at 1:30am. It is good to be home. My beloved Val flew in 2 days later from Winnipeg and we spent the long weekend lounging around resting up from all the visiting and touring etc. I produced a few videos from the pictures I collected and promised copies of the videos to family and folk and threw t...

Breakheart beach!!! They took me to Breakheart Beach. There, closure on my previous post. Ha Ha. It's 90F in Boston and humidex will drop you in your tracks, so Bostonians head to the beach or the ocean. We did it both. Kevi n and Audra loaded me and the kids up and went to the beach and followed the next day with loading me and the kids up and driving to the ocean. "What did I prefer?" was asked of me several times. Hey, the ocean has some really unusual driftwood and stuff washing up on shore in low tide. Nevertheless, the beach was a 20 minute shuffle from door to surf, and decent scenery too. I liked them both. And to all you Fenway Park enthusiasts, I did a drive-by twice, and went down Lansdowne Street side of the Green Monster one night during the Sox/Athletics game. I resisted the temptation to attend a game, saving it for my next visit. I had a great visit and my son and his wife are the best hosts , and, the best tour guides I have ever had.....and I have travel...

What comes to mind when you think about Boston? Bruins, beans, Paul Revere, Orr, Red Sox, Fenway Park, Larry Bird and the Celtics, or tea parties??? I never really gave it muc h thought until my son got marrtied and moved to Boston. I drove there last week and been spending time with his family but never really gave it much thought until he said to me 5 minutes ago...."What do you want to do Dad?" Sooooo, what do you think I should do in Boston, eh? It is 90F and the sun is beating down. I think today is a good day for the beach. "How about the beach?" I reply. Guess, we will find out

" Pakistan and India in terror vow A total of 166 people died in the attacks in Mumbai in November 2008 India and Pakistan will work together to fight terrorism, the countries' prime ministers have announced. Meeting in Egypt, they said the fight against their "main threat" should not be linked to wider peace talks. However, India's Manmohan Singh later said no dialogue would start until those behind last year's attacks in Mumbai (Bombay) were "brought to book". Relations between the two countries deteriorated after the attacks in which militants killed more than 160 people. India has accused Pakistan-based fighters from the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba of carrying out the attacks. Pakistan has admitted they were partly planned on its soil - and vowed to do all it can to bring the suspects to justice. Prime Ministers Yousuf Raza Gilani of Pakistan and Manmohan Singh of India made the pledge after meeting in Egypt. The talks on Thursday - on...

I grabbed 3 steaks and a bag of veggies and hopped in the car on Sunday and drove out to John's in Dresden. Ya see, last time I talked to John, he said he bought a tractor. "You trade in the John Deere garden tractor for a new JD?" I asked. "Nope. I bought a new Cub Cadet (International Harvester before a series of merger/acquisitions) with a front end loader, a 60" mower deck, a 3 point hydraulic hitch and a rear and side mounted power take off powered by a diesel engine," he replied. Now, I have blogged about John's 150 year old Victorian house a few years back, and his two storey monstrous garage earlier this year so, I figgered, I gotta see this tractor for myself. Well, I saw it and got Val to snap some pictures which she has to download yet so I poached a reasonable facsimile jpeg from the website. It is one stalky, burly, well equipped, fully functional, exciting "toy". LOL. The strange thing that struck me on the drive home, later that...

Can you believe Lance Armstrong is in third place in the Tour de France? Talk about coming out of retirement eh? Its only the 8 stage but that is amazing. the question that comes to mind is "Why the heck did he retire?" After 4 years of sitting on the beach Lance not only returns and is riding a third of the way into the race, he is in third position overall. Notwithstanding he broke his collar bone in March while racing in Spain. That is amazing when considering the gruelling demands to complete all 28 stages of Le Tour, never mind competing as a leader. It seems to hard to believe. I really thought his comeback was scuttled when I saw the media release announcing he broke his shoulder last March. Hard to believe. I am attempting to reduce my pain medication dosage. The last few days have been harsh. I hope it passes quickly. The preceding prescribed medication was making me feel like I was never wounded most days. That perception rapidly fizzled when I modified my medicine...

How have you been? The week went fast for me since my last post. The week was filled with visiting with my buddy from Vancouver, as I reported in my last post, after he dried out. We did some touring so Gerry could get an idea about the county of Essex and we spent one day in Windsor and stopped by the Thunder Road Harley Davidson dealer and the Caesar's Casino for a spell. With my beloved Val's help, I walked away with a $2.40 (she doubled my $1.20 jackpot..LOL) windfall from the penny machines. I had wished for a week of good weather to compensate for the wash-out our guest had been welcomed with on his ride through Detroit, and my wishes were answered for the most part. Gerry is not much of a "yard-bird" but we had good enough weather for patio lounging everyday for Val and I, in the morning, while Da Gar performed his "rituals" (the term Gerry uses to refer to his computer antics). He routinely surfs the websites that his gamer tendencies insist, and sha...