Drug Gang Shootout In Kelowna, BC

It has all the makings of a Hollywood "B" Movie. Drugs, armored Porches and SUV's, Hells Angels, The Notorious Bacon Brothers and machine guns! The attack occurred in the driveway of a casino in the central BC city of Kelowna. Vancouver's General Hospital immediately went into lock-down with no explanation given but amid speculation that the battle might extent to their sterile corridors as the bad guys try to eliminate the badder guys (or the other way around).

"Police would not say who they believe is responsible for the shooting or if it's believed to be gang-related, but they believe the shooting was targeted and that members of the general public are not at risk."

It is just like Mexico except no police were targeted and no innocent bystanders hit. It was a precise operation with no suspects arrested. Now the USA media will be telling folks to stay away from Canada as well as Mexico!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/08/15/shooting-kelowna.html

What Did I Do This Weekend?

Last year Norma bought a round cedar outdoor table at the local Farmer's Market. She did not buy the benches for it as they were $75 each X 4 = Too Much! This weekend I decided I could do it myself so I went to Home Depot and bought eight cedar 2X6's and a bag of deck screws. The Honda will actually carry four 8' 2X6's! I used some benches we already had as a pattern and built four new benches. Not a bad job and I did it for about $140 in material. I am such a DIY'er! Dad would be proud!

Motorhome Addition

We added a small fridge to the overhead area of the motorhome. It is a 3.7 cu ft electric only unit that Zellers had on sale for $99 the other day. It uses only 90 watts of power and will run very nicely off the 400 watt inverter that powers the TV, StarChoice and computer while we are traveling and boondocking. When we are parked in a site with power it will get plugged into a regular wall outlet. My friend Rae finds her regular RV fridge to be plenty large enough for her but we are always trying to cram one more thing into ours and it is always my couple of cans of beer that get tossed out to make room. Now I will have cold water and pop within easy reach while I drive and cold beer when we park! It will also serve as a "beer fridge" when we are home. I had to get rid of our "junk basket" to make room for it but most of that stuff will find another home.

I just have to find a way to stop the door from opening when I turn a corner and get pummeled by the contents!

Edit:  I am having problems getting the fridge to run off the inverter. I get an alarm and error code when I plug it into the 400 watt inverter even with the truck engine running. I have ordered an 800 watt inverter that should be here in a week and will try again. I guess I am not as smart as I thought I was as I thought it would work. If the 800 watt won't work, I will put in a 1000! I want this to work.

Norma says, "Why did you post that photo? The place is a mess!"

How I Started RVing

One of the RV forums I frequent asked it's members how they first got interested in RVing. This was what i put in there and I thought you might be interested in the story as well.

Back in about 1949 or '50 when I was four or five, my dad had a cabinet making shop in Edmonton, Alberta. A customer could not pay his bill for some work he had done so dad took his Ford pickup truck in payment. I don't know what year the truck was but it was not all that old at the time, maybe a couple of years. This was long before you ever saw campers on the road. Dad came up with the idea of building a tall box on the back with a table, benches and a drop down "shelf" for me to sleep on. It had no cabover and mom and dad slept on the table. The "kitchen" was a Coleman stove and an ice chest with cooking done outside. The bathroom was a bucket with a wooden seat that dad made. It was very primitive but we spent at least one month per year traveling the northwestern States in it.

As we traveled, people were looking at the rig, taking photos and making sketches. After a few years we started seeing the odd similar rig on the road. Dad should have started building these contraptions! We could have been rich.

On one memorable occasion they were driving late at night to get home and I could not stay awake. Mom put me to bed on my "shelf" in the back and they carried on driving. At some point dad dozed off and sideswiped a telephone pole, knocking the "camper" off the truck! They ran back to it and as they heard no crying they feared the worst. They opened the door and there I was, still sound asleep. I had fallen off my shelf and landed on the pile of their bedding without waking up. I always have been a sound sleeper! Dad got some help putting the only slightly damaged rig back in the truck, tied it on and drove home, this time with me in the truck! I guess I had the "bug" then.

Wisconsin Recall Vote Today

Six of the Republican Senators who backed Wisconsin Governor Scot Walker in his recent union busting legislation are facing the voters in recalls today. The democrats have to win only three of these to take control of the senate. Polls are hinting that at least three of these seats will change hands so it is looking good for workers in that State.

If nothing else, it is a warning to other GOP held states that they cannot use their majority to bully workers and take away their hard won rights with the sweep of a pen without ramifications. It will be interesting to see what happens as polls close in the Badger State.

EDIT: It's a nail biter! The Democrats have taken two seats and are leading in a third. They need three to take control. I wish I was there!

Well, it did not work. The Republicans managed to hold onto four of their six challenged seats. Once again we see that the majority is not always right! A bad night for working families in Wisconsin!

Happy Days!

Brooks has surprised both us and LindaLee with a diamond! The two of them are a natural fit, Yin and Yang. They own their own fencing company and live and work together every day. They have been together like this for several years so if she has put up with him this long, it is an  easy downhill run for them now!

The date and place has not really been nailed down but they are looking at Hawaii next summer. This will be good because I have always wanted a reason to go there. I probably would never have gone otherwise. Just as long as I can wear shorts to the wedding and LindaLee's mom and I can sing a Johnny Rivers duet.

Fear And Panic

That is what is happening in the market today. Both he Dow and TSX are down five or six hundred points.The market is and always has been irrational. Gold on the other hand is up $62 to $1710 per ounce, an all time high. If your portfolio is well balanced, this will not hurt too much. We are balanced. We will see how well.

We will ride this one out as we have before, no fear and panic here. The tide comes in and the tide goes out. The old Honda will just have to suck it up and last one more year or two and we will have to make do with our 70's style kitchen for a while longer. Neither of these small sacrifices will affect our lifestyle to any great extent. We both have bullet proof pensions that continue to pay our day to day living costs and even allows us to winter someplace warm. We owe nothing but like everyone, we will have to tighten our belts a little but in my case, this is not a bad thing! We will not have to dip into our savings.

One thing about a day like today on the market is that it spurs some sober thought the next morning. The fall should not continue. I think the ratings people were making a statement against the idiocy that has taken over American Politics as much as they were looking at the financial situation.

Happy Parrots

Here are the happy parrots after their new paint job. Thanks Sierrah, great job!

Roller Coaster Ride

Well, the market did not like the USA debt deal and did not like the much better than expected July employment figures from the USA either. I am not even talking about the Canadian market because it simply follows in lockstep with the USA. No matter what happens, the Dow is down and has been for nine out of the last ten days! I thought of converting some of my holdings to cash but did not. I am in a huge pool fund and got an email from them saying they had anticipated this drop and had cushioned the fall somewhat. I am also heavily into gold which does good in a down market so I will come out of it OK but I still do not like these wild roller coaster rides.

We both have good pensions, mine a very good Union pension plan so we do not really need our savings for day to day living. It can stay untouched, at least until the Honda packs it in and hopefully the market will be back to normal by then. I still watch it too much and update my portfolio value in Quicken far too often. I should learn to relax!

No Internet!

The Internet went off at about 10:00 yesterday morning and was not restored until about noon today. 26 hours of solitary confinement! I called my provider a couple of times and was told the same thing. "We are experiencing technical difficulties. Try accessing the Internet again in a couple of hours". The second time I convinced him that I was a retired Telus employee and asked him what was "really" going on. He said he was told that some scheduled maintenance went bad and that most of the Province was dead. He had no idea how much longer it would be down and had been told to say two hours. I worked in the radio and fibre optics field and we always had redundancy protection. If something broke, there was always another system standing by to take the traffic. Lengthy outages were very rare back then. Times change I guess.