Park And Ride Home

We stayed with friends in New Westminster and the party was in East Vancouver near the PNE grounds.  We drove there in one car and when we were ready to leave we phoned up a new service in Vancouver. They drive to your location and one of their people drives your car home with you in it, followed by their vehicle. If there are too many for your car, you can overflow into their vehicle. You are driven safely home without having to go through the process of taking a cab and then returning for your car the next day. The cost was $54, split between us. It was no more than a one way taxi ride would have cost.

It was a great party. Not too many people so you could talk to everyone. Politicians, union organizers and back room boys (and girls) from our more active political days. It was a blast and my left wing roots are renewed!

We are on the ferry back to Vancouver Island using their free WIFI. Now it is home to rest up for November when we leave for Mexico. It has been an expensive couple of months so we will be on an austerity program till then. I just told Norma this news but she refuses to respond to me. It will be a quiet sailing.

Well, half way across we lost the WIFI. I will have to send this from home.

Sepia Treatment

I converted a couple of the wedding photos to sepia tone using Google’s Picasa. I have Photoshop installed and I could do it with that but it is so much simpler with Picasa and I am sure the results are almost as good.

Quiet Times Coming To An End

It has been a few very quiet days in the Randle household! I had my final visit to the chiropractor so everything is good there and my eye doctor gave the OK for another year. I danced maybe a little too much at the wedding, sometimes with four women at once and my back held up. Thanks Dr. West.

We are off to Vancouver for the weekend. Some old Political friends are having a party and invited us. It will be fun getting together with those folks, some we have not seen for over ten years. We have a reservation on the 3:15 ferry from Duke Point to Tsawwassen tomorrow and will be staying with another long time friend.

EDIT: Commenters are asking if we are all like minded politically. Yes, we are. We all worked on various election campaigns (NDP) together over the years. One of the group is having some minor medical problems and wanted to get everyone together before we have to say, "We should have". It is a good idea but it is too bad we had to wait for a medical problem to inspire the get together.

They Did It!

Linda Lee and Brooks got married! The bride was gorgeous and in complete control, choreographing the whole process. The table full of the Terrace Mafia (Brooks’ childhood friends who know him maybe a little too well) behaved themselves and everyone had a great time after dinner and the dancing went on well past midnight!

Jayde and Sierrah were lovely and did everything just right, with Sierrah delivering the hand carved rings at just the right moment and Jayde delivering a beautiful, moving speech at the reception, requiring Linda Lee to grab for a towel to soak up a flood of happy tears as she was welcomed into the girls lives! Brooks’ longest time friend Jason (who is also our house sitter) did a perfect job as Best Man, keeping control of the aforementioned Terrace Mafia as well as Brooks’ fellow workers from the Merritt Mountain Country Music Festival where Brooks worked in security for many years.

Everything went perfectly, there was enough food and booze and just the right amount of drama but no one got hurt. My nephew Norman totaled his van on the way out from Saskatchewan and his son had to go pick him up in his airplane but he made it on time, none the worse for wear. My other nephew, Darcy, had a late night run in with a piece of furniture but walked away with just a minor head injury, nothing to slow him down.

Brooks built the very nice pergola they were married under which he later sold to the resort for future weddings.

Here are a few shots:

It's On!

The wedding weekend officially starts at 3:00 this afternoon. We are moving out to the resort for three nights. There are about 100 people coming and there is food for at least 300. Literally! Norma and her friend are stuffing and baking 6 huge salmon and there will also be shrimp, lasagne, seafood jambalaya, baron of beef, vegies and salads. No one will go home hungry.

The fun (work) starts!

The Calm Before The Storm

I just got back from my second chiropractor appointment and am stretched out in my chair. I should be helping more with wedding preparations but everyone seems to have the running around frantically thing going well without me.

I am watching the Democratic National Convention in the US, They have a way better class of speakers than Romney had. Speaking of Romney, he is asking the question, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"

In case you don't remember back that far, here's a short refresher: In September 2008, George W. Bush was president and would be for another four months. Senator John McCain accepted the Republican presidential nomination a mere three days after vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter Bristol revealed she was pregnant. On September 15, 2008, a gallon of gas cost an average of $3.84, according to Consumer Reports. The unemployment rate spiked, Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the Fed agreed to bail out AIG, and the stock market crumbled.

Just before Obama took over the Presidency, the Dow was hovering around 8,000. Today it is at 13,278. That is about a 70% gain!

So, are you better off now? You bet!

It is also a pretty sure bet that Romney himself is better off today than he was in 2008. This is another reason he refuses to release his financial information, he does not want us to know how much better off he is. He is frantically digging up worn out Ronald Regan cliches to try to make a nonexistent point. 

NOTE: Some wise person once said, "Throw a rock into a pack of dogs and if one of them yelps, you know you have hit something". That is what that post did. ;)

Blogging From Convention

If you are a political junkie like me, fellow Blogger Joe.My.God is blogging live from the Democratic Convention.

Flurry Of Activity

Brooks and Linda Lee's wedding is on this weekend. They have taken over all the rooms at a beach side resort near here for the whole weekend so the festivities start on Friday night with a Stag party on one end of the property and a Stagette (?) at the other end. Linda Lee and her friend are coming up to stay with us later today and Brooks will be here on Wednesday night after he finishes a fencing job they were working on. It will be busy around here. There are many out of town guests and they will be feeding and entertaining just under 100 people on Saturday night. They have two or three volunteer bartenders to keep everyone's glass full.

My back has settled down to a dull roar with a constant pain on the left side and a partially numb left leg. I have a chiropractor appointment at 11:30 so hopefully he will be able to tweak it for me. If not, I can live through it. It has been worse.

As I was leaving for the chiropractor one of the friendlier condo owners next door came over to ask the color of the fence stain. I asked him why and he said he was going to buy some stain and stain both sides of the picket portion of the fence between us. I told him I had almost two gallons left over that he was welcome to so Larry and his wife spent the day staining. It does not look bad now that it is all the same color.

40 Years Ago Today

It was 40 years ago today (in 1972) that the New Democratic Party, led by Dave Barrett, first swept into power in BC. "The Socialists Are At The Gates" was the cry from the right. Dave responded by cracking a joke and wearing a button saying, "I wear red shorts".

That was the day I decided I would never be left standing on the sidelines of BC politics again. I worked in some capacity on every election since then for the NDP, Federal and Provincial. My favourite gig was Official Agent, handling the campaign finances. I have only gotten out of it since I retired because we are out of the country so much. It was quite a ride and I do miss it. I have many friends from those days, Dave and Shirley Barrett among them.

http://thetyee.ca/News/2012/08/30/Dave-Barrett/

What An Idiot!

I was working on finishing the gate in the new fence yesterday and wrecked my back! The 100 pound panel I was going to convert into a gate was jammed in between two posts and I yanked it to get it out. Wrong thing to do! My back is killing me. None of the chiropractor offices are open on Saturday so I will have to suffer through till Tuesday as Monday is a Canadian holiday. Damn!

I have had a delicate back since my 30's and have been a regular once or twice a year customer of a chiropractor since. When I retired twelve years ago, I stopped having problems except for once when I picked something up the wrong way. I ended up flat on my back for a couple of days. This might be the same thing although it is not as bad this time. I am usually very careful as I have learned over the years what causes it.

The good news is, the gate works well. Here it is from the neighbor's side: