What Was I Thinking?

2008-10-17T07:22:00.002-06:00

I happened across my "sign in" info for my blog. I'm back in business! 13 months and three days since my last update, I'll have to think about what has happpened over that period of time.

2007-09-14T11:03:00.001-06:00

New Friend
This is mostly for Todd

2007-05-11T09:28:00.000-06:00

It finally happen, I got Rob to come to the ranch. He got to experience first hand some of the things he has listened to me go on and on about for years. We shot piles of gophers, we rode horses, herded cows, sorted calves and we laughed. He got to meet some new and different people, different from him which of course to him means they are weird. He will never be able to make fun of "flat Saskatchewan" again and mean it. It was fun for me, it was like watching two worlds come together. It was a grand time and thanks to Mark and Karin for being such good hosts and letting us enjoy their home.
Kamara and Chelsey, you are both great people, just try and get along! Kamara, you need to write.

2006-12-04T08:07:00.000-07:00

I'm not a plumber!
Rob called Saturday morning and said he had found a pin hole leak in a water line under his kitchen cabinets. Being the good friend I am, I told him not to touch anything until I got there to have a look. The leak was in a tight spot, but I felt confident that with the right tools I would be able to fix it. So, we took his cabinet apart, we had to break the shelf to get it out. Next, we cut a hole in the drywall in the bathroom, he had already removed the toilet. Now we had access to the pipe with the leak. Needing the right tools and parts to repair the leak, we were off to Canadian Tire. With our new torch and a glass of water I started to heat the joint so I could take out the section of pipe with the hole. After heating it for a long time and starting a small controllable fire in the cabinet, I decided it was time to cut out the bad section of pipe and repair it with couplings. Another trip to Canadian Tire for more parts. Did I mention that this leak was in a tight spot? Having remove the section of pipe that was leaking, carefully measuring and cutting the replacement piece, with a glass of water and now a spray bottle (in case of fire) I go back at it with the torch. This seems to go well and everythinig looks good, time to test it, we turn on the water, and find a leak just a bit bigger than the one we had been trying to fix. I have to take what I had just put together apart so the water could drain out. I put it all back together, solder all of the parts again, test it, find more leaks, take it apart again. I'm not a fast learner, it took me four tries at this to finially decide he needs to call a plumber. I went home and had a hot shower, if Rob can find a plumber, he might be able to have a hot shower Monday. What are friends for?

2006-12-01T14:53:00.000-07:00

Look out! I'm on a roll.
My truck died on Wednesday, it didn't seem to be well in the morning but by night I had to boost it to get it going. I called the local Ford dealer and told the service man how it was behaving, he told me to bring it in right away. I got there at 5:50 pm, they close at 6:00, It needed a boost so they could put it there shop overnight, and it was ready to get picked up by 9:30 am the next morning. I just thought that was so unusual in this day and age to take something to a repair shop and have someone actually go out of their way to make sure I got taken care of! That is all good, but the best part was, I thought I was off warranty, I'm not, so this didn't cost me anything.
It just restores my faith in mankind, well that might be a bit much, but I do feel better about my Ford dealer.

2006-11-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

Try again
I just returned home from a fun week in Saskatchewan, it was agribiton week in Regina and that means a great oppurtuinity to see lots of friends and interesting things, and interesting friends. I stayed with my daughter and son inlaw, a new experience that was just great! It doesn't seem all that long ago that I was the new son inlaw trying to figure out what a mother and father inlaw was all about. I was reminded of what wind can do to make it feel so much colder than it actually is. I learned that the guy who judges cattle doesn't always see what I see, there is probably some life lesson in that. I enjoyed the sense of community that exists in the agricultural world, you can hardly get anywhere without having to walk around friends that are stopped talking with people they may not have seen for a year. I heard stories of victory and stories of stuggles, I heard stories of healing and stories of hurting. For a week I got to be a part of a community that I don't live in but that I get to be a part of. What a treat!

2006-05-26T14:38:00.000-06:00

Why CD’s

I walked into my family room the other night and there was a copy of the book Divinci Code sitting on the coffee table. I have found that over the years I have a threshold for hype, and once I have determined that there is too much hype I immediately lose interest. Divinci Code has crossed the hype line. I have not read the book and will not go to see the movie. The book does not belong to anyone in my house, but is in the process of being read by at least the second person in the house. That got me thinking about copyright stuff, and now I wonder why we at least feel guilty about downloading somebody’s music but to lend out a book gives us no problem. We have libraries full of books to be lent and enjoyed by more than one person; I know that I should not make copies of any book and redistribute it to anyone, but I don’t mind lending it to somebody else to enjoy or learn from. So now I wonder about the whole music argument, will the artistic industry collapse if we load our Ipod’s with music from someone else’s library of music? Have I missed a step in this process? Would music artist’s stop being artist’s faster than author’s would stop “authoring” So now I’m a little stuck, is this an ethical question or a financial one? If I ever did anything creative enough for people to enjoy and they would be willing to spend money on, maybe the answer to this question would come to me easier.

2006-05-24T08:12:00.000-06:00

It Feels Like Cowboy Season
For the past twelve or maybe thirteen years I have been able to go down to the Elford Ranch and spend a few weeks doing cowboy things. Sorting pairs, loading trucks, losing count of how many cows are in that bunch, brandings, spending time with people who are just such hard working good people! It has become a part of my year that I really look forward too. I have learned a lot of valuable lessons over the years. I know that I can go at least 12 hours without a drink of water, and now I know where the hose is in the pump house. I have learned how to keep my butt from slapping into the saddle so that by the end of the day I can still sit down at the supper table. I have learned that the peace and quiet of sitting in your saddle and following cows all day gives you a chance to organize your thoughts. I have seen it rain so hard you can't see fifty feet, and the next day be overwhelmed by the beauty of the view as I look across miles of grass that has looked the same for hundreds of years. I know why cowboys wear big hats, long sleeve shirts, and high boots with big heals, (and that is why they don’t like to walk anywhere). I love cowboy season!

2006-05-10T07:59:00.000-06:00

Wrong name.
I should have thought more before I named my blog, now everybody knows that I don't think very often. Darla, Joel's girlfriend is staying with us for a while, she is from Saskatchewan, grew up on a farm and didn't know how to drive a standard, a very unusal set of circumstances. (How does a farm girl not learn to drive a standard?) Last night she wanted to go a friend's house to watch movies, she seems to not be all that interested in NHL playoffs, whatever. So I told her she could drive the Firefly, it's a standard, she declined, I told her I could teach her. Then I thought of last summer when I was teaching Brianne how to drive the same car. What was I thinking? Brianne has not quite yet got over the experience, it was tramatic and I found out that my moustache is intimidates her, (maybe that should explain the first twenty years with Brianne). It only took a few minutes and Darla had it all figured out, I hope the tires last the summer.

2006-05-02T07:50:00.000-06:00

It just needed a big hammer.
We have to replace the brakes on Joel's truck, a job I have never done before. Joel bought the apropriate book so we have the needed manual, then we bought the needed tool for getting the drum removed. We could not get the first one off so Rick came over an pulled the first one off. The NHL playoffs are on so our time has been limited, but the truck is safely parked on jack stands in front of the garage door. So after two weeks we have one drum off, slow progress, but it is progress. We decided to tackle the other drum last night as soon as we got home from work. There is this little hole on the inside of the wheel and inside that little hole is where this little bent tool is placed and there is a small wheel that you turn with the tool this releases the shoes from the drum, and don't forget that you must push this little arm back so that the little wheel is able to spin and there is no room to work or to see what you are doing. Everything in the area that needs to be worked on is either steel or close to concrete. (skin is neat stuff, it just about always grows back) After a lenghty time of taking turns to spin this little wheel we seemed to be getting no where, the drum would not come off. Just as the frustration level was about to reach the limit, I saw the big hammer just laying there, I honestly didn't think it would help the drum but I thought it might make me feel better, so I hit it with the hammer and it came free. So of course now I'm on the look out for what other problems can be solved with one blow from the hammer.

2006-04-18T06:17:00.000-06:00

A Haircut for My Dad
I had my last hair cut in August 2005, it might have been July. Tim and I decided that it was unlikely that we would ever run in a "Run for the Cure" but that we could grow hair as a statemnet of support for people that are affected by cancer. Almost everyday now I am reminded of my Dad who died from Cancer. I am reminded of him because everytime I look in the mirror and see my long hair I think of him saying things like " doesn't that hair drive you crazy?" it didn't then, but it does now! I am ready for a haircut! I think it is funny that something that Dad and I spent so much time disagreeing about would become something that I would use to make a statment in support of him and all the other people I have known that have been attacked by this disease.

2006-03-28T12:52:00.000-07:00

Gone South.

I spent a last weekend in Calgary, and although I enjoyed my Nephew's wedding and I enjoyed getting to see people that I had not seen for some time, I was again reassured that I have no desire to live in large city. It appears now that after all these years that I don't do well in a lot of traffic. I'm sure that all the people living in Calgary are very nice and that is why they have all gathered in one area, it just seems to me that they must be just about full. It was nice to get home to bright sunshine and fewer nice people.

2006-03-21T12:35:00.000-07:00

Maintenance, What is it worth?

I had a coffe with Rob this morning and he was telling me how his old Windstar is going to cost him to much to fix. I thought that the only thing I could do for him was to point out that, had he done the proper maintenance, like I had suggested to him several times in the past, he would not be looking at such a big job now! Then I came back to my office and on my book shelf is this box of plastic plugs, they go in the ends of the chairs, you know the type, when you sit in the chair you can't help it, you have to try and pull them out. You can sometimes see the kid's that have learned the technique very well with one black plug on the end of each finger. The chairs that these come from are probably at least twelve years old and most of them are missing their plugs. It suddenly dawned on me this morning that some times we just leave the little things for so long that they one day they show up as a big thing. It takes only a few seconds to replace the plug in each hole. But on every chair there is eight holes and now to do the maintenance is going to take some time. Gets me thinking about how many times I just don't bother to take the time to invest in a friendship that needs maintenance, and how the longer it is left the harder it seems to be to find the time. I wonder if I can remember the speech that I love to give Rob about maintenance when it is my turn to do some.

2006-03-20T13:16:00.000-07:00

Father of the Bride ( The Idiot's Guide)by Jennifer Lata Rung

Brianne gave me that book, she is so thoughtful! It has a list of ten things inside the front cover, I guess for easy reference, Items # 1 and #10 both deal with making sure all the bills get paid, I feel like I have discovered the theme to the book and all I've read so far is the inside of the front cover. Other items are that I get to dance with her and her mother, I can do that. Another theme is that I should be cordial with his parents and the guests. I should be able to pull that off. I feel like I should say something about this book being written by a woman, but I'm already starting to practise "cordial"

2006-03-18T08:36:00.000-07:00

Here Goes!

I guess this was bound to happen, if you spend time watching others do something, eventually you decide you might as well try it, so here I go, a blog. My little girl and her sister and mother and two friends and an aunt are buying her wedding dress this weekend. I would never have guessed it would take such a collective effort. But I guess it says something about Brianne's life, that this is something to be shared and enjoyed by some of the people she cares about. This group of shopper's has started a pool and they are betting on how long it will take for me to start crying when I see Brianne in her wedding dress, who doesn't love a competion?