Blackduck59

I will add best wishes from Lyle and Lynn in Canada. We hope you will continue to post when you can, your dry wit and ability to spin a good yarn are always appreciated. Take care mate.

@NSWP Lynn and I are sad to hear your news. Get some specialist advice and we hope for as good of a result as possible for you. We have enjoyed your good humour and hope you will continue to drop in to chat. Take good care. Lyle and Lynn

Yes RCMP regular constables carry a Stainless Steel 40 caliber Smith & Wesson Automatic. The Auxiliary constables don't. At one time the auxiliaries were armed as well. I have several friends who were RCMP who are now retired. The constable did shoot the perpetrator and the whole thing was apparently caught on a surveillance camera on an adjacent building. Keep in mind the incident happened in broad daylight at about 10:00 AM.

It's been a bit of a wild west show, the way we are dealing with mental health and addiction isn't working. Rather than helping addicts to kick the drugs we are enabling them to keep using. The government buys hotels to help house the homeless and it's not long before they are set on fire. New supportive housing is acquired or purpose built for the junkies but those with true mental health issues just fall through the cracks. As I understand it the Constable was part of a new group of officers who specialize in dealing with mental health issues, now she's dead.

It is Les, the perpetrator was shot and is in hospital. He was charged with 1st degree murder today. I doubt he will be living in a tent in the park for at least 25 years.

The RCMP being our National Police force it hit the whole nation. We have had 3 line of duty murders in the last couple weeks, 2 in Ontario who were not RCMP and now this one in Burnaby which is much closer to us. Fags are half staff across the nation.

It was a ad day for the RCMP yesterday, a member was murdered while on duty yesterday. She was stabbed to death while attending to support a park worker. She had only been on the job for 3 years and was part of the mental health support unit.

Yes that is definitely beyond stumbling distance. For me it's even beyond a pleasant stroll when sober. We once walked from the Ala Moana Center to the Ilikai Hotel with groceries, that was a mistake we will never repeat. If you are going to mix your drinks add a Back Scratcher to the list, they used to come with a back scratcher as a swizzle stick. Lynn still has hers.

That link opened fine on my windows laptop. I use chrome for my browser. I don't do faceplant so that wasn't an issue.

@Clay Clayton It's too bad you didn't make it out to the Arizona, it is a moving place. I was honoured to go but would not go back. I agree about the Dole plantation, the only reason to stop there is the Dole whip and some of their merchandise is cool. There is a rumour that there Is a place here with Dole Whip, I know the place but haven't gone to see if they actually have it. Did you make it to the Byodo - In Temple? Very cool place. Get yourself a Blue Hawaiian and enjoy the tunes, hopefully the house with no door is within stumbling distance of the ship.

I hope you are having a good time on Oahu. I should have responded earlier, there are a few out of the way places we discovered on the north shore. I do hope you attend the USS Arizona memorial. I think that it is one of those places that every American who can attend should attend but that's just my opinion. I also think that every Canadian who can go should go to Vimy Ridge in France. We did see a few sea turtles sunning themselves on a beach somewhere between Waimea Bay and Sharks cove.

While this is all well and good, and smokers need a place; unless there is a partition wall running between the port and starboard side then the whole of that deck is a smoke zone and everyone trying to enjoy a meal there is subject to the smoke from the smoking section. This is not the place to debate smoking but be aware that smoke travels and non smokers can be effected by it from quite a distance.

Well the civic elections were held yesterday. All but one of the existing council got fired including the Mayor. This could make it more difficult for our house sale to proceed. It is conditional on a development permit and the new council is not going to be quite as liberal handing those out as the last council was. Oh well time will tell, We aren't desperate to sell, we're comfortable and the mortgage is manageable so we are okay to stay here. We have a lot of equity in this place so if it takes a little longer to cash that in oh well.

Thanks for the correction, yes the RAV4 is a RAV4 here. I think our Highlander is the Kluger in OZ, It is unfortunate when health issues force hard choices. You ordered your RAV4 right abought the time we got our Subaru Forrester. While the Forrester has a power driver seat I honestly don't know if it has a power passenger seat. Perhaps someone could customize the seat to better suit your needs. Best of luck finding cost effective solutions to suit your needs now and in the future.

@GUT2407Hopefully it will be easy to retrofit a ramp in your house. If I remember correctly you recently bought a new Highlander, I hope that it has turned out to be easy to get in and of. It must be difficult surrendering to health issues that steal your independence. If that requires a new lightweight easy stow wheelchair then get the best you can for yourself.

Happy to hear you left the house in something other than an ambulance. I'm sorry to hear that the spine specialist wasn't very encouraging. On the plus side you did get Harry's while you were out.

When tasked with the decision of the main ingredients for my hot toddy I was faced with the dilemma of Ron Zacapa Rum (Nectar of the Gods) or Crown Royal (blended for King George on his visit to Canada in 1939). I decided that it would be a whiskey toddy rather than hot buttered rum. It is doing a wonderful job of soothing my throat.

Yes the so called woodworkers giving out advice on how to do something, all the while wasting many dollars worth of innocent wood. It's literally painful to watch and often dangerous.

I've been kill time watching an Australian machinist Curtis from Cutting Edge Engineering on You Tube. It is fascinating to watch as he repairs and creates parts for large machines. I understand the principles but have no knowledge of how to do any of it. I have tried watching some of the woodworking ones but often cringe at what I see. There is a Luthier I watch doing guitar repairs he does really good work.

Well we had an offer on our house, it was not really acceptable so we did a counter proposal. They made another offer and we accepted it. As it stands the sale is under contract but it is subject to development approval. That will take some months so we will be here until mid June at which time the deal fall through if they don't get the zoning.

I am recovering, I still have a cough and fatigue. I was hoping to go back to work tomorrow but I don't think that will happen, maybe by Thursday. For now I continue to rest up and drink lots of fluids. I have stopped taking the cold meds which did keep the symptoms in check. Now I think perhaps a hot buttered rum is in order.

@GUT2407, I really do hope that you are able to find relief soon. I can't even begin to imagine the frustration you feel with ongoing pain and no relief in sight. Take care and I hope things improve soon. In the meantime you do have the marvelous Max to brighten your days.

I'm feeling okay. It is like a really crappy cold. Earlier on I had some heavy coughing fits that were quite painful. I haven't had those for a while. It feels like a more mild cold now. It is our "Thanksgiving" weekend so Monday is a day off with pay. With any luck and a good test result I'll be back at work Tuesday. Apparently there is an "offer" on our house, we are scheduled to look at it tomorrow at 10 AM. It could be interesting...or not.

I think there must be excursions from Vancouver to Butchart Gardens. BC Ferries offers ferry and stay packages which may work for you. There is way more to Victoria than Butchart Gardens so if you can spare an overnight you should. There are frequent flights daily both from airport to airport or harbour to harbour as well as helicopter flights. I guess if Butchart Gardens is the goal and your time is of the essence you could fly Vancouver to Victoria, rent a care, drive to Butchart Gardens (it's closer to the airport than downtown) spend a few hours there, drive back to the airport and fly back to Vancouver. You will see the garden but little else. If you intend to hire a car on arrival at YVR then I might suggest you drive from the Airport to Tsawwassen Ferry terminal. It is a nice 1 hr 35 minute passage to Swartz Bay. You could either proceed in to Victoria or go directly Butchart Gardens (it's on the way). Give yourself at least 4 hours at the garden. Stay on the island overnight, explore Victoria for a bit and return via ferry to Vancouver.

That is over the top. We can get it fresh never frozen "in season" for about $60.00 Canadian here. Frozen is even less. Of course we can get dungeness crab live at several locations. I can understand skipping the crab at $75.00 per pound.