Last Days of Summer

I am in the city at Starbucks, came to town last night. I have an appointment today and it was too nice last night to stay in town.

Nothing major with the trip in, I went to Bike Night in Fort Saskatchewan, but it was lame. There is a segment of riders who love their bikes a lot, they love polishing them, adding things on etc. The one thing they don't appear to like to do, is ride the damned thing. It migrates from the garage to a Tim Hortons, and then back to garage. I am not one of those guys. They were out in force last night.

I left there had a nice ride into the city, went to Groat Road for some twisting action. I am loving the new front tire, it is more responsive than the factory tire. You can lean over further on twisting roads and the bike feel solid. I will get one for the back too - Michelin Commander II, in case you are wondering.

On Saturday I wanted to head to the city, but it was grey and looked like it was going to pour. I was at home watching Bill Maher about 1 o'clock and a fire fighter texted me. He wanted to know if I was going to help out at the kids park. There is a water park there and the Lion's Club bought a boat, for the kids to play on. The boat needed to be built.

The FD was asked to have people spend about an hour there, or so. I was there for seven. Until 16:00 Marshall and I were the only two there; and we have no kids. The ones with kids never showed.

It was a good time, the boat went together pretty easily. The guy that owns the company that sells them helped direct us in putting it together. He was not hard on the eyes and he figured out which team I played for. Which appeared to be ok with him. It was good to flirt, nothing came of it. But it made doing the job easier.

I left after we got the boat to a place where it could be finished on Sunday. It wasn't safe for kids as there were big holes around the posts - i dripped a lot of bolts down them. We had a magnetic device with teeth to rescue them.

That night, I went to Boston Pizza for supper. When I got there, my friend Laura was there with a friend of hers. Marcia also happens to work at the same place I do. We hung out at Boston pizza for awhile and then went to the Alberta (bar out front door). I didn't want to ride drunk.

The Alberta was dead. But we were there to talk anyway. Laura and her common law spouse are having issues and he was jealous she was there, so she left after about 40 minutes.

Marcia and I were sitting there talking, she had to use the washroom, she did. I got us more beer. When she came back, she was all embarrassed. She had never been to the bar before and had gone into the men's room. The stalls are all before the urinals, an innocent mistake.

There was a guy using the bathroom though. I guess he came out at the same time she did, or they they washed hands together....and way she was red.

Now the fun starts: The guy was sitting at a table about 20 feet from us. He was watching pool, he changed sides and sat down, facing us. He was probably pissed, which explains why we was leering, or drooling. He was creeping Marcia out. She is in a common law relationship and has two kids, she rarely goes out. Her spouse was visiting his family in Saskatchewan with the kids. So she went out.

A girl showed up in a dress, which was kind of neat looking. Anyway, she was at the bank machine, I smiled at her. Marcia and I were speaking and the bar was still really dead. The girl came with two coolers and plopped them on the table. She gave one to Marcia and then proceeded to join us. Her name was Robin. I guess she worked at a store where Marcia had bought something. Marcia told her that the service was good. That was the only interaction they had before.

Marcia wanted to dance, which happened to be what Robin wanted to do. A dance song came on and they went and danced. The guy that was sitting by himself, well he decided he wanted to dance too. So he took his jacket off and made his way to the dance floor, He did the shuffle over to the middle of them. Marcia was mouthing 'Don't Leave!!!' I got up to use washroom, she had a look of panic on her face.

After the dance the girls cm back to the table, he went back to his. He was still looking/leering.

Robin then became very weird, especially since this is a bar in a small redneck town. She was really touchy feely with Marcia and then it became obvious that she was trying to pick her up. It was not a full moon.

Drunk guy is still staring at us. A guy that looked like he might be on the team sat down with him, but the guy ignored him. I was wondering if he was staring at me, but discounted that when he danced, he did not look my way at all.

Robin was getting more touchy and Marcia decided she had had enough. She was going to walk home, but due to circumstances, she was going to take a cab. I said I would walk with her.

As we were leaving, creepy guy goes outside for a smoke. Robin didn't appear to need a smoke yet. Marcia lived about a mile from the bar. It was a nice walk, the weather was way better than it was all day.

Sunday morning I was up at 08:00 - while all the excitement was going on with the girls I had lined up a date, in Red Deer. With a guy from Calgary. We were going to meet there.

After having a shower and a cup of coffee I headed out on the bike. I was supposed to get to Red Deer by 11. I was doing good for time on the way to Edmonton. But when I was on the bypass route around the city things got interesting. I was pushing the speed limit. I was following a Jeep, this guy was going about 14 in a 100. I wasn't going that fast, but I kept him in my sights, I figured if there was a cop, they'd take him.

Well they did. But there wasn't just one cop. There were about 7. I had checked the overpasses for sniper radar, didn't see any. They had cars on both sides of the road to slow traffic down. A cop ran out into traffic and pointed him over. I had to watch out as a cruiser had lane shared his way up behind the Jeep.

I got gas, texted I would be late. I was going not so fast down Highway 2 to Red Deer. Two more cops had cars pulled over.

I got to Red Deer at 11:30, but then got lost finding the place we were to meet at. I got there at noon. It is a good thing he was patient.

We had a good lunch, talked a lot. It was even conversation with no one doing all the talking. We were definitely in each others type zone. Went for a walk later. Then he had to get back to Calgary and I was headed back North.

I was on Highway 2 about 15:00 headed North and the traffic was nuts around Lacombe. There were also lots of cops, so the cagers were slowing down to below the speed limit every time they saw one. I decided to head West to Pigeon Lake. It is a resort lake in Central Alberta.

I though there would be gas at one of the many small towns around the lake, no such luck. I did get gas in Thorsby, which is about 20 miles from the lake. So I didn't get to hang out by the lake. I went to the biker bar near Warburg, had a beer. The Harley guys were there, they have a hard time talking to people who ride metrics; they can't understand why.

I took the long way home, it was a great day for a ride and a date too.

I am headed off on a trip this weekend, I will be staying in Calgary for either a day or three. No definite plans for timing on trip. I am headed to Nelson, BC and then Spokane, Washington. I have 10 days to do the trip. Great winding roads by Nelson, I know, I was there in the car.

The shadow pic was taken on Highway 16 - it would have looked a lot cooler if I had a helmet cam. The Sun was directly behind me and there was symmetry with my shape, it got all crewed up when I took the picture.

I am still around

Well it has been awhile since I have had the time to write. There is a lot of stuff though.

Last thursday I was a volunteer at A gourmet Affair. I was just in charge of getting the dirty plates from hall to the kitchen, where they could be scrapped and washed. The pay, was free food. There was a lot of it and I ate a lot of it!

I had about 5 or 6 turkey open faced appetizers, they were hot, had mozza and green peppers on them. They were really good. I had at least 4 Creme Brules for dessert.

Before the people showed up we were making parfaits, with mushed raspberry, fresh whipped cream and mint. I got the job of making the whipped cream, I'd never done it before, it was fun. I used a big machine instead of working on my arm muscles.

After the people were gone, it took a long time to clean up. I was stuffed and and beat. Went straight to bed when I got home.

Earlier in the day the Fire Department was in the parade. I was in the last truck, Tanker 1. My co-pilot was she who cannot stop talking. It was ok though, I told here I had to watch for kids and....here and her boyfriend were having issues. This is a regular thing and they have to be in constant contact when it is occurring. This means she was occupied texting and phoning him.

There was a good turn out for the parade. When you are a kid you dream of being in one, here i was driving a Fire Truck with lights flashing. no sirens though, the horses don't like it.

Before the parade, a guy pulled up behind me with a pickup and a trailer. On the trailer were about 8 old ladies and they were listening to Lawrence Welk music, it was blasting. It was terrible. He came at me to ask if he could be in front of the FD. I told him that wasn't my call. It was at least the Chief's. He wanted me to go discuss it with him. I pointed out who the Chief was to him. He didn't go. Eventually, while we were waiting to form up, the chief came our way. He was handing out stuff and the ladies in the trailer swallowed them up. The guy managed to speak to Chief.

First he asked him for some fuel, it appears he showed up at the event 'Running on Empty' (I don't think Larry Welk plays that song). We gave him some gas from our generator supply. He then asked the chief to movie in front of us.

The Chief let him, now he and the old ladies were behind the horses. I suggest next year he wake the ladies up earlier, so they can get their faces on; he go to gas station, and maybe they could contact the Parade Marshall to get a better position.

After the parade a call came in, which was kind of good, as we were already loaded up in trucks. I am not making this up....

The woman was at her store and called as she thought it was on fire. There was a big storm on Wednesday night and I guess she left something open or the roof leaked. So she put some fans on clothes to dry them. She put the fans in the wet spot and plugged them in.

After a couple of hours the fans shorted, then according to lady, there was a big flash, and a fire smoke. Then they stopped working. A working fire, our heart rates went up!

We asked for her exact location, she hung up! It gets better (imagine Dennis Leary saying this). She calls back, dispatch gets her. They have the pen ready, we are ready to go...fight a fire!

The lady tells us the address. Then dispatch asks if everyone is out of the building? She says she is in the building with her grand daughter and three customers. A Captain asks if the building is burning. She says, no the big fire smoke was ten minutes ago. Captain asks if building is full of smoke. Lady says no.

Our adrenaline abates and we slowly go back to station. The lady asks if we are coming. The Captain takes command and goes to check out the scene. I go back to regular job.

I was OnCall all weekend, it was slow and boring. I asked some brother fire fighters to cover for me while i went for a half hour ride. No takers.

How about that Paul Ryan.....ROTFL

this week I am on a course and it was long days at work. New system. Monday night though, the Chief had us do a triathlon in the crew competitions.

We walked instead of swim, i walked. I moved through all the positions and wound up walking. I brought motorbike's little brother (no motor). Race walking is not as easy as it would appear. I almost caught the guy who was in front of me. I passed off to bike, the bike passed the other guy's hand off guy (make any sense?).

Oh Saturday night I did go to the fair, the fireworks were at the grounds. I paced myself on beers, had to be legal to drive. Went to a firefighters house for awhile and then to the beer gardens.

I wound up sitting with some friends, they are common law and have three kids. They had a sitter and were out getting blasted. They had a nephew up from Bashaw, which is in red neck country (see the May posts). He was like 18 and 100% cowboy. I got some gaydar pings. Wranglers, cowboy hat, boots and he was riding all day. It would have been fun. But he got loaded. He had killer eyes and it was like phasers on stun. Anyway, it was just a thing. Laura must have been wondering, and she knows. But she wasn't doing anything to stop it. Cool.

At wings tonight, Boston Pizza :( - I miss the nights at the locally owned place, but Roman closed it.

No OnCall this weekend. Going for a group ride eon Friday Night, then Fireman's Golf on Saturday......a big drunk. Later

We wound up in the same position we started in. Oh well.

Critical Thinking

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/1012974/texas_republicans_seek_to_ban_critical_thinking_in_public_schools/

I posted the link first, so you could get up to speed on this. I was in a Jon Stewart / Bill Maher reality when I thought this through. I am trying to beat them. 


So critical thinking would allow you to make informed decisions about all kinds of things. 


I am citing the Texas Republican platform, just to have it in front of me as I type this. 


Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.


In the article it bring up a good point, this may be related to Arizona's Bill HB2281 - the teaching of Chicano/a studies in Public Schools. I realize that there are a lot of illegal immigrants in Texas (and Arizona). The children attending the public schools may be born in the USA. They are American Citizens and of course it is reasonable to expect they know stuff about their country of birth. But kids can learn a lot, there is lot of room in their brains for additional information. Texas an Arizona are next to Mexico. Wouldn't it be good to know something about another country that you may go to? Even if you aren't a Chicano/a. Critical thinking may be involved in your deciding to visit or not to.


There is a  religion which originated in Eastern Europe,the Mennonites. They believe everything you need to know is in the Bible. One of them speak Low German and read that version of the Bible. They were persecuted in Europe so they came to the New World. To prevent being stuck again, in a situation where they are at risk they are highly mobile. They maintain citizenship in at least two countries at a time. To facilitate this they migrate from one country to another every second generation. As a group they have very strong beliefs in pacifism, which means they get a religious exemption from drafts. Anyway, I am not going to go into all their beliefs, the one thing that does not have occurred is their learning the culture or customs of the country they are in. In Mexico/Argentina/Uruguay there are whole communities which are isolated from the surrounding villages and towns. they do go there, to shop and they may know a little of the local language, but they have no interest in assimilating. 


Restricting education like Texas and Arizona want to do leads to this type of thinking. I know the Texans will say it is not the same, get over it, it is.


So today, we have an American. It looks like he is a young guy, possibly from Milwaukee or one of its suburbs. This guy took his trusty assault rifle to a Gurdwara. This is a Sikh place of worship/cultural centre/school. He killed 7 and injured some more. He himself was killed by a police officer doing his job. 


I could get sarcastic here about the cop using critical thing to figure out who the perp was, but that would be too easy. 


CNN in an effort to educate Americans decided to teach that Sikhs were not Muslims. 


The perpetrator of this heinous act is dead, maybe he left notes, a Facebook page or an essay some place on why he did this. There are allegations in CNN reporting as well as other news networks/papers which state that attacks on the Sikh Community have been on the rise since 9/11. CNN innocently said this.


The Sikh religion originated in northern India in the early 1500s. Sikh men are identifiable by their beards and turbans, but often confused for Hindus or Muslims. There are roughly 25 million Sikhs in the world, 700,000 of whom live in the United States, according to the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund.


What are the chances buddy in Wisconsin may not have done what he did with his assault weapon if he knew the difference between the two religions, but he had a fixed belief. Not that I am suggesting it would have been right against the other one. Wisconsin was one of the leading states in education in the USA, that is until a certain Governor got elected.


There are dangers inherent in xenophobia and its denial in multicultural countries, especially where there is a first Amendment which allows politicians to say whatever they hell they want and be protected. 

On Call

I hate being on-call for the Fire Department on long weekends. There I said it. Here are the issues, in no particular order. They jump around

a) I am alone for 4 days
b) I can't ride my bike anywhere outside the radio reception zone (basically in town)
c) Usually it is dead as hell. If there was a fire, it would be ok.
d) There is no-one around.
e) You can't go to bar to play pool as there is no-one around and the radio is not the best in there. And you can't really drink more than one beer.

So I have done the household stuff and now I am bored. I have Sons of Anarchy which i could watch, but it is sunny and hot outside. So I'd rather not watch TV.

On-call started at 17:00 on Friday, fortunately for me my WIFI decided to screw up so I was on the phone and net with Shaw trying to fix it. I now know the router has channels. 11 of them an an Auto. do not use Auto if you have issues, it basically eliminates your WIFI.

After 4 hours Friday and 2 on Saturday I learned that I have to wait a week for Shaw to come out. The fact this is causing my data usage on Rogers, my cell provider, to go up is not their concern. It will be. It is their router and it is fucked.

After screwing with the router,I found a channel at .46 mbps (should be somewhere near 20mbps (notice the missing . in the second number)). The wifi of course is so weak, it doesn't make it to the back yard. So the ipad/iphone are switching back and forth like mad.

I had some fun with some friends on Facebook about the Olympics. I think I went too far with one friend. oh well. C'est ma vie, c'est tout fucké

Damn I had a whole other section of this blog with references to legislation and all kinds of stuff. I was impressed, it made it look like I know what I am doing. BUT it was too good. After seeing what social media can do to your career, it would not be a good idea to post it. I am not sure what the powers that be are searching for, but I am not giving them ammo.

Check this excellent blog out.......i know its heavy for a Saturday night....if that was too heavy, this is too funny

I am now going to watch Sons of Anarchy.........

In the city

I am on-call this long weekend. this means I am stuck in Vegreville from 18:00 Friday to 08:00 Tuesday.

I decided to take Friday off my real job and come to the city and have some fun....it was raining, I may as well have stayed home :( No bikes, not too many people out. They were all probably packing for long weekend trips.

The bar was ok, there were people visiting from afar. Long weekends always bring people back. Some you want to see again and others, well they just come back.

I stayed downtown in the cheap place, that way I could have lots of beers.
But it was dead, so that didn't happen and I just had enough beer to make riding not an option. Besides, it was dark. It is getting close to bambi season.

The cheap hotel aka bathhouse was quiet too. Nothing happened there except me having a sauna and then going to sleep.

When I awoke, I had a shower, steam and then .......really there is nothing going to happen here....headed to breakfast.

I had to get fuel, the bike did the sputter before I had to switch to reserve. There are hardly any gas stations downtown. I had to go to the far side of Whyte Avenue.

On the way back downtown, a Corvette and a Viper were at a stoplight - side by side. There was a third lane, which ended about 4 car lengths up. I was tempted. The Corvette was blasting Subterranean Homesick Blues, by Dylan. The Viper had a pretty girl in the passenger seat.

I really thought about showing these guys driving about $150k worth of metal what a vehicle significantly cheaper could do. But I resisted.

The took off and burnt rubber and had to brake hard at the next light. Impressive.

Whyte Avenue is not a place which lends itself to that. It is cafes, shops and people out people watching, what's happening on the road is a none event. Even the bikers know this. Still would have liked to have shown them, though.

Constable Powers of the Edmonton Police Service has been tweeting stuff for two years. It was meant as an outreach tool and for recruiting purposes. Sort of like a day in the life of a cop. The constable was very good at getting close to the line on what he could say about issues, without crossing it.

Some of his posts were funny, usually it involved former high school BMOC's and their drunken escapades years later. He had hard hitting posts about a drunk driver with a kid in the back. Basically it was a window into a world people rarely see. Not a scriptwriter's version.

Last Saturday he took a picture after an armed standoff, had ended. This picture showed no-one, just the barrel of a gun and a car. It basically said this was his view for a long time. This is not just a cop view, this could be a soldier in Afghanistan, or a firefighter with a hose. Someone doing their job. The picture spoke volumes. I preferred to think of Cst Powers as a beat cop or the guy pulling over the excessive speeders more than a guy holding weapon which from that distance only had one purpose. But that is part of the job.

A local TV station must have been following Cst Powers on Twitter. Hell I would, if I were working in news. In fact, when I worked at a radio station and had to do local news the first places I'd call were the police stations for any updates from the night before. This was in Fort Colonge, Quebec. That town is near Chapeau, Quebec and Canadian Forces Base Petawawa. When I was working at the station the former Airborne Squadron was located at the base. They liked to go to Chapeau, Quebec on Friday and Saturday nights and take on the farm boys, loggers and Quebec Provincial Police.

Anyway, local news lady must have taken offense to the story or it was a really slow news day. Armed with her trusty cameraman she went out on Whyte Avenue and did street interviews on the controversy of the picture. She based this on receiving complaints. I didn't see the complainer interviewed. I have gone searching on Twitter and cannot find the complainer.

I think the picture was a little closer to the line than he had gone before.

I know myself I am at an MVC and am tempted to take pictures. But you have to be careful, a person could have been seriously hurt there. They could have
criminal charges against them. You could tweet something and a relation of the person could see it, unintentionally. So Social Media can be tricky. I am sure that the established media had it's growing pains. Publishing names of victims before the families were notified. They probably pushed the limit on gore etc.

But if you look deeper into this, Social Media and blogs and online news organizations i.e. Huffington Post and Gawker, are replacing the established media.

You can find out on Twitter real time what traffic is like. People are posting accidents etc. If a security guard decides to shoot his co-workers and rob the money, the story could be well developed on Twitter before the Real Media Professionals even get out of bed.

And now, the Fire Departments and Police have to be aware of cell phones. People are always trying to be the first, to win the 'Newshound' prize. They have their cameras going all the time. Twitter and Facebook spread the story.

In the US, even though it is not against the law in some states, the police are threatening the video makers. In Anaheim, California there has been an ongoing issue between the police who had short two unarmed men. The incidents were videoed and the police are alleged to have broken and confiscated phones. They have also gone door to door getting info on who could have videos and paying to get them. They have fired rubber bullets at women and children. Read more on this, there is the normal Anaheim and then Anaheim Hills (all the rich people and Mayor live in the Hills).

Social media is spreading this story and there is a Facebook group, when isn't there :)
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D1rBawz2q-C4%26feature%3Drelated&feature=related&v=1rBawz2q-C4&gl=CA

A cop friend of mine lead me to this story, I had not heard of it. But now it is gaining momentum.

Anyway, Constable Powers is taking a break. He has posted on twitter this. (see the text). I'll let him speak for himself. I respect his decision as does the management of the Police Service, btw they even supported the picture. It was a reporter with a deadline that didn't support the picture.