What Was I Thinking?

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.

New Friend
This is mostly for Todd

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.

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?

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.

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!

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.