Circle of Friends Christmas Party 2017

I can't believe another year has gone by. We spent an enjoyable evening at the Marienbad Restaurant on Carling St. in London. This private spot has become somewhat of a yearly tradition. Our daughter Erin drove Greg, Patricia, Wendy and me to the restaurant.

Greg, Peter and Murray, above.

Restaurant manager talks with the ladies. Joyce, Pat, Anne, Tricia and Wendy.

Thanks to Joan for booking this lovely place again this year. Tom brought his friend Donna again this year.  I enjoyed a long chat and told a few stories. I didn't get a picture of myself. Ha ha.

A good, high noise level as everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. I know I was!

Unfortunately Joan was not feeling well and couldn't show up, but we enjoyed talking with Peter.

What a lovely way to kick off the holiday season. Greg, Patricia, Wendy and I finished the evening by taking my second only Uber ride. Home safe and sound with one stop at Tricia's for $15 plus tip for the four of us. Great value.
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We Mulched All Our Leaves... Our Neighbours Didn't!

Well, it's that time of year again when we grind up all our leaves with the riding lawnmower. Our good neighbours across the street don't have a grassed area to mulch in and thus no lawnmower so...

They worked into the night bringing bags of yard waste to the curb.

In the picture above, our 4 bags in the foreground are dwarfed by our neighbour's 100 or so bags across the street.

 The bags actually form almost a complete double row of leaf bags. I counted about 100.

Click any pic to enlarge it.

The garbage men will have quite a load from this pick-up in "Yard Waste Week". Even though the city does re-use the leaves as mulch, it's a shame the neighbour's leaves can't be disposed of in a better way than using 100 crummy bags. You can see my neighbour's problem in the picture above... All trees, no lawn. I think I might invite him to bring them over next year (sans the bags) and I'll grind them all up. Too good to waste!
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OK, Another Cat Picture...

Click the pic.

Sorry, I had to post it. Ben-Z was posing for me.
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Holly and Barry Are Back

Holly and Barry switched ships last Sunday, disembarking the Koningsdam and embarking on an extended 7 day cruise on the Eurodam.

Barry sent an email:

"Hope all is good, miss you on this cruise. The ship is great over 1200 Canadians on board and the Captain is Canadian!!, Just back from a visit with Debbie, a short visit as we leave at 3.00 and Deb and Chris were meeting some folks at 1.00. Deb sends her best. Even got De King to take us down, he has a brand new white van, had a good yak with him.

Bumped into Donna From Vancouver, sister Laurie, met them on the Massdam  yesterday just outside of the fort in Martinique, she stopped us and said I know you. Once she took her glasses off I recognized her right away. She sends her best, will send some picks when we get home. Have to run for the boat.

Cheers
Barry, Holly,"

Back, tied up at FLL. Sounds like they had another great cruise. Have a safe trip back to Canada.

Barry sent these two pictures when they got home. Debbie at her Loxs-een Bar (above) and one of our favorite drivers, De King poses with his brand new van (below).

Here's part of Bary's email:
"Sending a photo of De King and Debbie when we were in St. Kitts. Deb has a new chair man looking after the beach and has her daughter working with her in the bar, had some good kidding around with them. Debbie sends her best and will be looking forward to your next visit. The bar did have some damage as they had to change around some of the plywood on the walls but in general it was still in tack.The King just got his new van in May. There is now a couple of more bars on the beach so the whole beach now is lined with chairs and bars. Funny how things change, as the first time we went down, there was only the one bar at the end the rest of the beach was deserted."
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Happy Birthday Wendy!

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Sometimes you just have to let go.

Our old 1999 Maytag dishwasher crashed again. The lights on the control panel were all lit up indicating a major electronic error. You may ask, "Why don't you just buy a new one?"  Well, we plan a renovation to the whole kitchen and it is never good to buy the appliances first. The problem this time appears to be the main circuit board... again. The last repair bought us about 2 months. This time there is nothing I can do. Nothing fixable. A new board will cost over $200 or even an eBay "refurbished" will be over $100. So...

I checked Kijiji and found about 48 used dishwashers for sale. A lot of them, mostly white, have been torn out for renovations and upgrades to the now popular stainless steel. Personally I don't think you will ever go wrong with basic white in the long term, but I guess fashion dictates. Remember the 70's: Avocado, Harvest Gold, Coppertone and Poppy? Yeah, so do I.

I found this Canadian made Inglis for $40 a few blocks from our house. The owner David assured me it worked fine but they no longer needed it as they were "going stainless". If this one will go a few more months, then it will serve our needs. Fingers crossed.

The old Maytag had a good blanket of sound-deadening so I stripped it off the old machine and double insulated the newer machine. Wendy says it runs quieter than the old one!

Monday, out at the curb, it was gone in a couple hours.
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All in the (War) Game!

"Just Ducky!" - Click the pic to enlarge it

It's all just for fun isn't it? Where's Kim?
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First Snow This Season...

Classic streamers off the lake brought our first dusting of snow this season.

This is what I saw from our back window first thing this morning.
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Our Cruise Friends Are Leaving on the Koningsdam

Cheryl and John, and Holly and Barry and Deb and Chris are leaving on their 11-day on the Koningsdam. Holly and Barry are switching to the Eurodam for an additional 7 nights at the end of this cruise. The above Webcam pic was captured around 5 pm so they are already an hour late in their departure.

All 3 ships in FLL today are still tied up at 5 pm. Hmmm!

Webcam pic shows they are finally leaving at around 5:30.

Hard to see, but that could be Barry in the red shirt?

Wendy and I are not cruising this time as we have other commitments. Goodbye my good friends. Have a great trip!

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A Post Card Of Ipperwash Beach From 1957

 I found this old post card on the internet. Wendy remembers the place well. In fact her Dad had a yellow Ford station wagon and her uncle Ray had a '57 Chevy. She thinks they might have rented one of these cottages. How amazing would it be if they were actually pictured here.

Anyway, I decided to colour the scene for your enjoyment. This is my "artsy" pic for today and is how I remember it. Click on the pic to enlarge it.

The map shows where I think Siegner's was located. I remember driving past it many times when you were allowed to drive on the beach. Click the map to enlarge.

It's all gone now and 60 years later, expensive lakefront homes have taken over.

London Free Press pic from 1968

You can no longer drive on the beach and an era has ended forever.


Maybe that's a good thing?
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Finally Closed the Pool

Yesterday (Friday) was a sunny day but cold and rain forecast for next week so...
Ladders off, final vacuum, looking good... Ready to close.

Spring will be here before we know it, especially when we close this late. Five months or so and it will be Spring!

Don't Toss It! Fix It!

I went to use my nice new Panasonic DMC-ZS40 camera and found it as dead as a brick. I tried charging the battery and found it was fully charged. I assume that somehow the "ON" button got pushed while it was still in the soft case. This caused the camera to try to extend the lens while being stopped by the case, thus blowing a fuse somewhere.

But where is the fuse? I went on-line and found the schematic/block diagram and service manual for the camera. I found two fuses in the diagram that could be blown but there was no mention in the text as to where these fuses were located.

Straining my old eyes to see micro components not much bigger than grains of sand, I finally found the first fuse near the USB plug-in. Checking it with the ohm meter showed it was fine.

After completely removing every circuit board I finally found the other fuse. It was located under the top buttons of the camera.

The ohm meter confirmed that this fuse was blown. That made sense since it was right beside the battery contacts.

A complete tear-down was needed to get to the fuse. Not very considerate of the designers. A fuse is something that should be accessible since it's the most likely thing to go wrong.

As soon as the soldering iron touched the blown fuse, it evaporated from the heat. Not having another grain-sized fuse, I took a strand of copper wire and soldered it in as a link.

Of course, now I have to be extra careful not to overload the circuit again or more extensive damage will certainly result since there is now no fuse in the camera.

Now I put everything back together to test the camera and make sure it works.

Evereything really only fits one way, so there is little chance of screwing up.

If you enjoy doing puzzles, you should really like fixing cameras.

Everything went back together and I only had one extra screw left over!

Oh well. The camera works as good as new so mission accomplished.

Maybe I'll buy a fuse and take it all apart again some day... Then again, maybe not!
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