Wishing You The Very Best.

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Hope You Had As Much Fun As Dash This Christmas!

Dash is such a showman. He loves to prance around in his garish festive neck ware and check out all the presents under the tree.

At the church, in Strathroy I snapped this shot of Jake's enormous tree.

He had not one but two beautifully decorated trees.

A family shot.

Our tree hangs from its hook and I think Wendy picked out one of the nicest. She certainly went all out with the decorations this year.

On Christmas Eve Wendy prepared a sumptuous dinner and were favoured by the presence of Tricia, Greg, Pat and even Andrew dropped by for awhile. Erin and Jake spent Christmas Eve with us and stayed over night to open presents on Christmas morning.

Sarah and her husband Calvin.

The food line.

Christmas Day we drove out to Thorndale to Doug and Daphne's beautiful country home. Even though we didn't get snow this year there was no shortage of the Christmas spirit and lack of snow made driving easy.

I think everyone at the "kid's table" are now nearly as old as we parents were when we started having these Christmas get-togethers many years ago.

Doug carves an awesome prime rib of beef for Christmas dinner.

Who Do You Trust These Days?

Click picture to enlarge

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Ready For Christmas?

If you've visited our condo in the summer you will know that the central courtyard gardens are a focal-point with their varied and colourful vegetation. In the winter you wouldn't expect to see much but this year our condo lights committee outdid themselves. The gardens were bedazzled with thousands of complimenting red, green, yellow and blue lights. I can't wait to see them after a snow fall. Above is my seasonal, embellished view through the archway
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Thinking About Summer 50 Years Ago

Click to enlarge.

No reason. Just thinking about summer. The older guys had the fancy cars and the pretty women but we had the water and the sun and summers that went on and on forever it seemed.
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Expect Stupid Inserts On This Blog for the Next 6 Years.

After posting the previous blog entry with the recounting of my tale of the Jockey Cycle "up and down bike" torturous decent down Reservoir Hill, I contemplated some of the other strange and sometimes stupid things I've done in my life.  I thought it might be interesting  to go back through all my years and post some of these weird and dumb events so that not only will they will not be lost in my fading memory forever, but maybe even serve to prevent someone else from needlessly experiencing similar incidents.  If, through this blog, I can save just one poor soul from duplicating even one of my idiotic adventures, I will consider my mission accomplished. Please read and learn from my obvious lack of self control!

Whenever you see this "logo" I will be laying bare my soul and expounding on one of the stupid things I've done or have happened to me in my relatively short life on the planet Earth. As you can see by my list, I have lots of stupid content to draw on. I plan on placing one of my stupid adventures on the blog at least every month so you can see I've got about a 6 year project (72 / 12 = 6) ahead of me if I post all of them. Please email me if you see one you would like me to publish right away, otherwise I'll do them in some stupid order which I haven't even determined yet. Here's the list of stupid things that I hope to cover in the next few years:

Up and Down Bike
Bulldozer Bandits
Eating Tar Off the Road
Riding a Tricycle Down the Basement Steps
Bumper Sledding Behind Helen's '38 Sedan
Firecracker Explodes in My Face
Drowning from an Inner Tube at the Beach
Drowning in North Bay
5 hp Boating Scare
Digging Snow Tunnels - Why I Might Be Claustrophobic
Fording Frozen Sewer Ditches
Halloween Lost Booty
Don't touch it - Cherry bombs - Blasting Caps
Runaway train, Rock on Tracks, Reform School Fugitive
Tree Houses North Bay "safety rope"
Tin Roof Tree House Sleepover in Thunderstorm
Barn Roof Slide - Steaming Sh*t Saves the Day
My "Wheels" Nearly Kill My Favorite Kitten
Rooster Scare - Running Around Like A...
Broken Collar Bones One Two and Three
Grandpa's Car Smashed Through Garage - learn-to drive
Near Miss on a John Deere
Barbed-wire Blunder
An Old Grindstone Goes Airborne
Tree climb up - but not down - Winded
World's Best Mosquito-bite Remedy Lost Forever
Exploring A Deadly Ammonia Factory
DIY Autogyro -10,000 Feet in a Lawn Chair - Not
A Bicycle Show-off Meets Mr. Cross-bar
Kill the squirrel, Lose the Girl
Cadet Tough Guy - Eating Cigarette Butts on a Dare
Bully Escape F**king WOP
Bumper Jumping in a Toronto Snowstorm
2nd Storey Superman - Go Jump off the Garage Roof
DIY Snowblower Goes Ballistic
Freddy - My Race Boat Goes Berserk
Spotless's Boat Sinks - I Bail
First Snowmobile with Spotless - A Disaster
Mom Nearly Kills Us All... Wrong Way On the 427 Highway
Uncle Tom's '65 Mustang
Chemistry, Causic Explosion, Stink Bomb
Why Can't We Make Gun Cotton?
DIY Gunpowder from Sulfur Saltpeter and Carbon black
58 Pontiac Steering Fail On the Gardiner Expressway
Look Spotless, The Morris Minor Has No Brakes
Driving Out On the Runway at Toronto Airport
A 360 Degree Spin on an Icy Bridge
Whities Visiting the Race Riots in Buffalo
Hood flies off my Mad Morris on QEW Highway
Club Inferno in Tonawanda Burns to the Ground
Drunk driving... Here - You steer, I Can't!
(Turner's Old Sailor @ 65 cents a Bottle)
Injun Trouble in Niagara Falls
Skip Class, My Ass
Daddy's Rich, you should be too.
Selling Trash "objets d'art" with Francie Minden
A Licorice High and Real Weeds and Seeds
Water Bombs are Dangerous
Fountain Turned Soapy Pink
Swinging on a Rope from 10 Storeys High
Driving Closed Roads From London to Toronto.
Sneaking Hand-Over-Hand Above a Steel Picket Fence in UK at 3 AM
Moto Europe on a BSA Bantam
Insulting Franco in Spain
Nigel's party... Who's Nigel?
Nearly our Last Snowmobile Ride
Live/Die Better Electrically?
The Big VW Engine scar
Stealing the Weather Vane From The Barn Roof
Hang Glider Fail - Overweight
Rogue Wave Under The Blue Water Bridge
Tough Guy in Lahaia. Pete Will Get Him.
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STUPID: The J.E. Donalson Mfg. Co. "Jockey Cycle" (1944 to 1948) - EXTREMELY RARE!

Back in 1954 or 1955 our next door neighbours "the Clarksons" Art and Helen for their sons Tommy and Jimmy, acquired some most amazing tricycles. At the time we lived in Byron, a suburb of London Ontario, on Colville Blvd. Mr. Clarkson (Art) owned a Goodyear or B.F. Goodrich (can't recall which) Tire store in downtown London. I suppose  somehow Art came across the line of J.E. Donalson Jockey Cycles through his retail store. Since they were not produced after 1948 I have to imagine these bikes were probably slow-movers sales-wise. Somehow, through the magic of Christmas. I received one of these weird vehicles. In fact several of the neighbour kids sported new Jockey Cycles as Art probably cleared his inventory. I recall they were not terribly efficient devices and it was very difficult to achieve any great speed with the gyrations required to keep one moving.

Here's a blurb from a recent eBay ad for $2350 for one of these machines:

Click to enlarge

The Donalson Jockey Cycle Antique Tricycle Collector

The Jockey Cycle is a most unusual tricycle, since it has two large rear wheels and a very small front wheel. What makes it even more unusual is the way it is powered. Instead of the usual rotary pedals, the Jockey Cycle has a bar that is pushed down on with both feet. This turns the rear axle crank which rotates the rear wheels. Another unusual feature is the saddle/seat to moves up and down when the wheels turn, giving the rider the feeling of riding a horse.

The Donalson Jockey Cycle was manufactured in Kansas City in the 1940's for about 4 years from 1944 until 1948 by the J.E. Donalson Manufacturing Company. According to local newspapers in the area, the company's most notable product was the Donalson Jockey Cycle, a tricycle that was ridden like a horse rather than pedaled. The company also made bicycle, tricycles and some airplane parts for the US Military during World War II. There really are no records to know how many Jockey Cycles were manufactured but several web sites estimated about 100. The cycles were sold across the country before the company went out of business.

In the Schroeders Toy Book (1997 edition) it books for $8500.00

One day a few of us neighbourhood kids decided to take our Jockey Cycles, "up-and-down-bikes" as we called them up to the top of Reservoir Hill. The road was a paved but very winding, narrow, two-lane thoroughfare that wound up to the water reservoir at an extreme angle. Fortunately, in those days there was not a lot of automobile traffic. Nowadays the road has been "tamed" considerably and carries a lot of traffic.

The "up-and-down-bikes" have no brakes and usually went so slowly that you could stop by simply sitting still and in a stroke or two the bike would stop. That's all good on level ground.  

You had to be there to appreciate what happens when this otherwise sedate machine accelerates down a steep grade. Since there was NO BRAKES the speed immediately increased and at the same time the frequency of the undulations of the seat started to become painful. There was no way to keep your bum on that hideously thrusting metal saddle. You could not stand up because the push pedals were also connected to the rear wheels and were cycling up and down with increasing velocity as the whole monstrosity gained even more speed. At age 5 or 6 the ride was simply terrifying. Like the reciprocating linkage of a speeding steam locomotive, the increase in velocity caused the oscillations to become a blur. Steering stability of the small front wheel became an issue as the whole device started into an incredible "speed wobble" all the while bucking me like a wild horse. I don't know how I held on and made it down that hill without upsetting, but I'll tell you... $2350 or even $8500 would not have made me get on that thing EVER again!

Sometimes there's a reason things don't exist any more.
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Back to Normal.

I've had a pretty rough time with the cold but as of Wednesday I feel like it is finally over.  Wendy also says she is finally recovering. What a waste of a couple of weeks!

Any how, I will try to get creative and start posting again. Thanks for being patient and checking back often.
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Sick Again!

It was February this year Wendy and I developed what had to be the worst cold of our lives. I was hoping to go a year before we caught another, but alas...Wednesday I developed a light cough that progressed into a full-blown chest cold by Thursday. The last couple days have been horrible. I've been in bed for more hours than I have been up. I don't have a temperature but I'm achy all over. My throat and airways are stinging and my nose and sinuses are running. The good news this morning is the painful, unproductive cough is now turning productive and the pain and aches have eased. Hopefully we'll get through this one quicker than the last.

One always wonders where they caught their cold and of course there is no way to tell but both Greg and Holly had a cough on our cruise and now Wendy is starting to "bark". Also the server Debbie at Cockleshell Beach bar in St. Kitts had a killer cough. Holly and Barry stayed on the ship for another 10 days so I hope she's not hurting like me. Wendy and I are both glad we are not still on the Noordam with this crippling cold.

Needless to say I haven't posted all my pictures yet, but I've done up to Day 07 Martinique. I'll post more as soon as I'm able.

UPDATE: Over a week in bed and things are starting to get back to "normal" (Thurs. Dec 4)

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Back Home Safe with Pictures to Post.

It was a very exciting landing (much turbulence and wind made for a high speed touch-down) and quite an interesting  drive home from Buffalo. Sustained wind speeds of 60 to 70 km/h with frequent gusts of 90 to 120 km/h were reported Monday afternoon but everything went OK and we arrived home about 5:30 PM Monday evening.

I have started to add pictures from our trip. Usually I try to post some during the cruise but this time on the ship's web page, there was cautionary notes about uploading and slow internet speeds. I decided to upload the pictures within the next few days, starting from the first part of the cruise. Check back often to see, as the pics and commentary are added this week.
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14 Back To The Real World!

Ships in Port: Celebrity Constellation, Noordam, Caribbean Princess, Royal Princess (Total passengers 7676)

Heading home is always so sad. Fortunately our flight leaves at 10 AM so we don't have a long wait. We were the first ones off the ship at about 7:30 and the taxi dropped us off at the Southwest teriminal for $14.10 plus tip.

We later met up with Cheryl, John, Chris, and Deb in the terminal but the plane was delayed about 25 minutes to 10:25 AM, probably because of gale force winds which allowed us to make it back to Buffalo with a good tail wind in a record time of about 2 hours.

Photo shows a streamer of snow that paralyzed Buffalo last week.

 Fortunately the warm weekend temperatures have melted all the snow that completely covered Buffalo in a record-breaking 5 or 6 foot deep blanket of the white stuff, causing the deaths of 13 people. Our car was completely snow-free and the roads were like nothing had happened.
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13 Half Moon Key Sunday Nov. 23

Ships in Port: Noordam (Total passengers 1918)

Happy Birthday Wendy!
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12 At Sea, Saturday Nov. 22

Noordam Main Atrium/Grand Staircase.

 Sea days are good for wandering around the ship, taking pictures of just anything.

A Bellyflop Contest is always fun to watch. Personally I don't think I could compete with this expert.

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11 St Thomas Friday Nov. 21

Ships in Port: Celebrity Summit , Noordam, Royal Princess (Total passengers 4556)

Saint Thomas (Spanish: Santo Tomás; Dutch: Sint-Thomas; Danish: Sankt Thomas) is an island in the Caribbean Sea and, together with St. John and Water Island, forms a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincorporated territory of the United States. Located on the island is the territorial capital and port of Charlotte Amalie. As of the 2010 census, the population of Saint Thomas was 51,634[1] about 48.5% of the US Virgin Islands total. The district has a land area of 31.24 square miles (80.9 km2).

This view through the Lido Dining Room glass shows our little red ferry boat is waiting to take us to Water Island.

So many of us, the ferry had to make two trips. It is limited to 26 people and there were 16 in our party alone.

Mark, ever outdoing his cousin John, is always the perfect gentleman. He insisted on carrying everyone's bags up the long grade to Honeymoon Beach... so John could see the pictures and learn by example. What a guy!.

Last night saw one of the only car accidents ever on Water Island. A drunken lad in a borrowed pickup was not injured but the car is toast. Mark and Louise don't miss a "photo op".

The floating bar was a big success. Cheryl wants one for their new cottage in Muskoka.

Joe's Bar at the end of the beach is now called Dinghy's. Joe sold out and moved back to continental USA.

Sharon enjoys yet another Pina Colada.

Lots of drinks in the hot sun can tire a person out... not Sharon.

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