Supreme Court Victory For Insite!

Insite is a clean injection site in Vancouver where addicts can go to inject in "a clean, safe, health-focused place where people inject drugs and connect to health care services – from primary care to treat disease and infection, to addiction counseling and treatment, to housing and community supports". The Canadian Supreme Court has just re-affirmed it's right to exist in it's storefront locations in Vancouver.

New needles and swabs are provided and nurses and social workers are on standby. Safe disposal of used needles is provided. Addicts are going to inject no matter what the laws say and it is best to provide a place for them to do so that protects the addict from HIV and Hepatitis and also protects our kids from stepping on used needles in their schoolyards. Addicts also know they are not going to be arrested. A win - win situation and it proves that sanity can prevail. Needless to say, conservative groups are outraged! Tough! I think the drugs should be provided as well. This would stop 90% of thefts and robberies in Vancouver.

Posted Without (Much) Comment

In time for your early Christmas shopping! RPG Jesus! Gotta get our little christian soldiers ready for a lifetime of hatred, intolerance and killing!

 

Go ahead and hate your neighbor
Go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of heaven
You could justify it in the end
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.
 

- Joni Mitchell

A Satisfied Customer!

I got a phone call today from the person who bought our old 1994 Tioga MH. He actually bought it from our son who had bought it from us, but anyway... He had a list of questions for me mostly about electrical changes I had made to the rig and after we talked for a good half hour he told me how happy they were with the rig and how much fun they were having with it. They had just returned from a one week baseball camp for his son up in the Okanagan. It had a couple of small existing problems like a slightly leaking exhaust manifold and a windshield that would not seal properly due to some rust on the frame. We had fully disclosed these things during the sale and he had no problem because he could fix both things himself.

He was thrilled to find that even at 160,000 miles it burned absolutely no oil. He is good at the mechanical end of things but a little shaky in understanding the electrical stuff like, "Why would you install 6 volt batteries when the coach needs 12 volts"? He is a nice guy so I do not mind walking him through it although I sometimes get the feeling he thinks I do not know what I am talking about. ;)

He asked my advice on a couple of maintenance issues and thanked me for taking such good care of the rig. It made me very happy to get that call as I always hate selling anything for fear that there are hidden problems that I do not know about and pass on to the new owner. I am glad they like it and it has a lot of life left in it. As a matter of fact, I often wish I had spent some money on it and kept it instead of moving up. It has more power (Chevy 454) and a much heavier frame than the new one (2005 Ford V10) as well as getting better gas mileage.

'Twas A Southeaster!

This morning was garbage day so I dutifully wheeled the garbage can and recycle bin down to the highway last night. Sometime overnight or early this morning the wind came up! It was from the southeast where our worst weather comes from. When I got up I looked down the driveway to see the garbage can on it's side with the lid gone but thankfully with 90% of the garbage still in it. The recycle bin was not so fortunate! It was upside down and empty! I walked down and retrieved a couple of our magazines from the neighbors yard but there was no sign of all the plastic bottles and cardboard! I am one of the people I detest, a litterer!

After pickup I grabbed the bins to carry them back to the house and almost got blown down the highway myself. Norma says the news was reporting 80 mph winds which is almost hurricane strength. Just a breeze for those of you on the Gulf Coast but for here it was noticeable!

Joined Google+

I joined Google+ today. I had been tossing the idea around and today I got an invitation to join from My buddy Michael in Mexico. I hope G+ is better than Facebook. I like the idea of being able to have "circles" of "friends" so I can separate old school friends from Mexico friends from Union friends etc. I never wanted/planned to use FB either but found that many of my friends and family used only FB to communicate. I guess I will have to use both.....

One thing I like about FB is that they seem to have limitless space available for photos whereas Google has lots of space but all your Google applications (Gmail, Blogger, Picasa) share it and I fear I am getting close to filling up my allotted space just with my Blog photos. If this happens, I will have to either eliminate old photos or buy more space, neither of which I look forward to.

Whale Of A Show

No photos... Sorry!

I was mixing up a cheese omelet this morning when I noticed a large splash in the ocean out the kitchen window. I was almost sure I saw a large fin in the water so I called Norma and we went out on the porch to watch. A minute or so later a huge Orca Whale surfaced, blew and rolled! It was a couple of hundred feet offshore right at the end of our driveway!  She hung around the area and surfaced a couple more times, obviously filling her stomach on herring or pink salmon. It was a great show but by the time I thought I should grab my camera, she had left for more fertile feeding grounds. It is not a scene that translates well into photos in any case as they are quite a distance away and do not normally break the surface by all that much. The best photos are taken when you are above them and looking down at an angle. They never give me enough time to get the tripod and telephoto lens out. It was still quite a thrill to get a look at this visitor!

This partly made up for the beating I took in the markets last week! And of course the final visit to Norma's implant specialist in Victoria. The bill was a little less than it could have been because some of the items on the original bill were not done at our request. It was bad enough in any case.

We still have enough money left over for a winter in Mexico!

The Continuing Saga Of The Electric Fence

Norma had another brush with the electric fence! She came in the other day and said, "I got it in the neck this time and I think my heart has stopped"! I told her I was highly trained in Industrial First Aid and I could assure her that if she could walk all the way into the house to tell me her heart had stopped then she could be assured it had not actually stopped. I don't think she bought my argument.

The fence does seem to be doing it's job though. My friend Kelsi reports that Norma's fence is working so well that it has actually driven many of the Island deer onto the ferry and up to her place in the Okanagan where they are now munching on her vegetation. One of the deer actually had Kelsi send Norma a photo of her.:

Home Work Day

The summer is coming to an end so it was time to cross one more job off the list. The main bathroom had an old Corian counter top with the sink molded right into it. I have no idea how old it is but it is at least twenty-five years. It was in good shape except for the sink itself which had some tiny cracks and unsightly staining in the bottom of the bowl.

We went out and bought one of those newfangled counter top sinks and a new faucet set to go with it. I got my reciprocating saw out, put a new blade on it and started cutting out the old sink. It was tough going because the Corian was almost an inch thick in places but after a ton of (probably carcinogenic) dust which I tried to keep out of my lungs with a mask, I managed to cut around the outside and removed the old sink part of the counter top. The new one fit nicely over the hole and after a few hours of fitting the new tap and drain stem and modifying the house drain to fit, it was done! The drain leaked a little upon testing but after tightening everything up, the leak stopped. Norma does not really like the way the new white sink goes with the old counter top but I think it is perfect!

The front panel under the sink is still off because I am building a drawer to take advantage of the space we gained by using the counter top style sink. It will get finished tomorrow. Life is Good!

Día de Independencia, Mexico Independence Day

In the very early hours of September 16, 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla rang his Church bell in the central Mexico village of Delores (now Delores Hidalgo) and issued his El Grito de la Independencia (Call For Independence), calling his flock to revolution. The excesses of the Spanish occupation had become intolerable for the enslaved peasants of Mexico and Hidalgo took the lead in organizing the Mexican people along with the Criollos or Mexican born Spaniards to attack the hated Spanish Colonial Government and to drive the invaders from Mexico.

The battle would rage for eleven years before being ended on February 21, 1821 with the Plan Of Iguala, or the "Plan of the Three Guarantees" which established Mexican Independence, Social Equality for all social and ethnic groups in the country and acceptance of the Roman Catholic Church as the official religion of the new country. * I would have supported two of the three...

In remembrance of this victory for the People, every September 15 at 11:00PM the Grito or Cry For Independence is issued by the President and all State Governors from their respective palace balconies. It goes like this with the speaker calling the statement and the crowd answering with "Viva": 

¡Viva los heroes que nos dieron patria! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Hidalgo! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Morelos! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Allende! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Aldama y Matamoros! ¡Viva!
¡Viva nuestra independencia! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Mexico! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Mexico! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Mexico! ¡Viva!

My friend Les has just published an excellent post covering the times before the Revolution, explaining what lead up to the War For Independence. It will give you a greater understanding of what was going on in Mexico.

Victoria Trip

We are back from a couple of days in Victoria where Norma had another appointment with her dental implant specialist. The appointment took a little over two hours and he wanted another $2,700 installment. And here I thought he only charged $1,000 per hour! She has one more appointment next week when he told us to have another $4,000 ready. This will bring the bill for this repair to close to $9,000! We are disputing one item on the bill that we do not think is necessary so that might bring this down by a thousand or so. I think we will be dipping into our "Rainy Day Fund" to pay for this job. Adjusting our lifestyle is not an option!