Montreal...

Does it always smell like that?

Next stop- Saskatoon.

Then....

<drumroll please...>

Edmonton...

--

Popeye
Not if, but -when- I die, half the people around here
will party because they're my friends, and they know
I would demand that. The other half will party as well,
glad to be rid of me, and I'll see them in hell.
www.finalprotectivefire.com

Douglas W Popeye Frederick wrote:
> Does it always smell like that?
>
> Next stop- Saskatoon.
>
> Then....
>
> <drumroll please...>
>
> Edmonton...
>
Welcome to Canada. You should have come up here when Mike did. He got
much nicer weather.

Watch the weather tomorrow. We're supposed to get some more snow, and
wind to move it around. The stuff we got last night was the really
greasy kind that makes the roads all slithery, even for experienced
winter drivers.

If you come down the 401 to Windsor you'll pass within a half hour of
my place. Montreal is 7 hours east of us, give or take a bit. Let me
know if you stop overnight in the Kitchener/London neighbourhood.
519-276-8168. Hopefully somebody told you about taking 402 from London
up to Pt.Huron to shorten up the drive to Upper Michigan.

JF

"JOF" <jofrancis@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1165440684.597309.317350@j44g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com...
>
> Douglas W Popeye Frederick wrote:
>> Does it always smell like that?
>>
>> Next stop- Saskatoon.
>>
>> Then....
>>
>> <drumroll please...>
>>
>> Edmonton...
>>
> Welcome to Canada. You should have come up here when Mike did. He got
> much nicer weather.
>
> Watch the weather tomorrow. We're supposed to get some more snow, and
> wind to move it around. The stuff we got last night was the really
> greasy kind that makes the roads all slithery, even for experienced
> winter drivers.
>
> If you come down the 401 to Windsor you'll pass within a half hour of
> my place. Montreal is 7 hours east of us, give or take a bit. Let me
> know if you stop overnight in the Kitchener/London neighbourhood.
> 519-276-8168. Hopefully somebody told you about taking 402 from London
> up to Pt.Huron to shorten up the drive to Upper Michigan.

Thank you, but, I was in and out at Champlain, and I'm in MD now loading
for Sask.

My little brother lives near St Albans, and while I was there, nephew
Logan (T2) (terrible twoyrold) dragged the Laptop off the table for a
perfect one point landing on my Sprint modem.

On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 21:49:46 GMT, Grumman-581
<grumman581@DIE-SPAMMER-SCUM-gmail.com> wrote:

>On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 13:31:24 -0800, in
><1165440684.597309.317350@j44g2000cwa.googlegroup s.com>,
>JOF wrote:
>
>> Welcome to Canada. You should have come up here when Mike did. He got
>> much nicer weather.
>>
>> Watch the weather tomorrow. We're supposed to get some more snow, and
>> wind to move it around. The stuff we got last night was the really
>> greasy kind that makes the roads all slithery, even for experienced
>> winter drivers.
>
>Beware of the 401 and Kennedy area... Grace is up there and this is her
>first experience of driving in snow... <grin>

Ah, Tranna is so far down south it's almost subtropical. They do
drive rather quickly there, when they can; a couple of years ago, I
was driving through on the 401 and everybody was at 140 km/h, with
pouring rain, and no more than 20' between each car. I was just glad
that nobody hit their brakes or we'd all be dead.

Most of the time, it's just non-stop gridlock in TO. The roads are
completely overloaded.

>She says that so far, it hasn't been too bad... At least she's the slow
>one on the road and everyone is passing her instead of what you often see
>with the warm weather drivers (i.e. driving fast and not taking into
>account the increased stopping distances on icy roads)...

It seems that a lot of people forget how to drive in snow, esp. during
the first snow storm of the year. I use 4 snow tires and it makes a
huge difference over all-seasons. My wife told me the best present I
ever got her was 4 snow tires on rims.

Is she working in Tranna?

---
Mike from Ottawa

On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 19:55:11 -0500, in
<15pen2t0aiuln1ud50c8jr1hkvcq707r12@4ax.com>, Mike from Ottawa wrote:
> Ah, Tranna is so far down south it's almost subtropical.

Hmmm... Had to look it up to know that Tranna is the nickname for
Toronto...

> They do drive rather quickly there, when they can; a couple of years
> ago, I was driving through on the 401 and everybody was at 140 km/h,
> with pouring rain, and no more than 20' between each car. I was just
> glad that nobody hit their brakes or we'd all be dead.
>
> Most of the time, it's just non-stop gridlock in TO. The roads are
> completely overloaded.

When I was up there recently, that was my experience... When the
traffic was 'good', about 130 was the most that I could do without
constantly changing lanes to get around people...

> It seems that a lot of people forget how to drive in snow, esp. during
> the first snow storm of the year. I use 4 snow tires and it makes a
> huge difference over all-seasons. My wife told me the best present I
> ever got her was 4 snow tires on rims.

I got a chance to actually see some snow tires when I was up there...
They have quite a few more sipes than a normal tire... Kind of like the
difference between a pair of regular sneakers and deck shoes... The
deepest snow that I've driven through was probably around 18 inches in my
Jeep... I just had regular mudders on it since that is the normal offroad
condition that I find around here...

> Is she working in Tranna?

She's finishing up a project up there subcontracting for Business
Objects... They couldn't find anyone locally that could do it and had to
get someone from the U.S. for the project... It's a short term contract
(i.e. less than 6 months) but it's worth $95 (US) per hour (plus
expenses), so it basically like the Michael Douglas line in one of the
Romancing the Stone movies -- "I might not be cheap, but I *can* be
bought"... If she had known how desperate they were, she would have asked
for more... Turns out that B.O. is billing around $300 per hour for the
project -- pays for a lot of layers of management that provide no useful
purpose...

Douglas W "Popeye" Frederick wrote:

> <drumroll please...>
> Edmonton...

When ?

David
Edmonton, Alberta

On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 21:30:22 -0600, in
<jKydnTA9L6BNF-rYnZ2dnUVZ_ujinZ2d@comcast.com>,
dazed and confuzzed wrote:
> grab the check quick like. He's good at getting it first.

Yeah, but those Canucks cheat and get you distracted by the cute
waitresses...

Grumman-581 wrote:
> Yeah, but those Canucks cheat and get you distracted by the cute
> waitresses...

Years ago, I married one of those.

David
Edmonton, Alberta

dazed and confuzzed wrote:
> Joe English wrote:
>
>> Mike from Ottawa wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 01:32:51 GMT, Grumman-581
>>> <grumman581@DIE-SPAMMER-SCUM-gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 19:55:11 -0500, in
>>>> <15pen2t0aiuln1ud50c8jr1hkvcq707r12@4ax.com>, Mike from Ottawa wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Ah, Tranna is so far down south it's almost subtropical.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hmmm... Had to look it up to know that Tranna is the nickname for
>>>> Toronto...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> They do drive rather quickly there, when they can; a couple of years
>>>>> ago, I was driving through on the 401 and everybody was at 140 km/h,
>>>>> with pouring rain, and no more than 20' between each car. I was just
>>>>> glad that nobody hit their brakes or we'd all be dead.
>>>>>
>>>>> Most of the time, it's just non-stop gridlock in TO. The roads are
>>>>> completely overloaded.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> When I was up there recently, that was my experience... When the
>>>> traffic was 'good', about 130 was the most that I could do without
>>>> constantly changing lanes to get around people...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> It seems that a lot of people forget how to drive in snow, esp. during
>>>>> the first snow storm of the year. I use 4 snow tires and it makes a
>>>>> huge difference over all-seasons. My wife told me the best present I
>>>>> ever got her was 4 snow tires on rims.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I got a chance to actually see some snow tires when I was up there...
>>>> They have quite a few more sipes than a normal tire... Kind of like the
>>>> difference between a pair of regular sneakers and deck shoes... The
>>>> deepest snow that I've driven through was probably around 18 inches
>>>> in my
>>>> Jeep... I just had regular mudders on it since that is the normal
>>>> offroad
>>>> condition that I find around here...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> At a few degrees above freezing, all-seasons and summers become round,
>>> solid blocks that slide on anything. Snows use a different compound
>>> and stay flexible at lower temps. 'Course, nothing can save you in
>>> freezing rain except very low speeds & a lot of caution. Give me snow
>>> any time over freezing rain.
>>
>>
>>
>> Hallelujah to that - everyone thought it was great last week when it
>> started raining form the sleet we were having - me was uh oh rain
>> freezes and sticks to wires and trees - sleet and snow not some much
>> we still have some without power. I think(especially where I live)
>> those that actually pay their power bill should be hooked up first! It
>> actually pissed me off to see people with their xmas lights on while
>> their neighbors didn't have power - XMAS - bah humbug
>>
>>>
>
> When power is out, I always turn on my outside lights as soon as I get
> the generator running so my neighbors can be envious....
>
>
>
> Of course, if the outage lasts long enough the ones on either side of me
> generally get one 15 amp outlet each to run their appliances or sump
> pumps. That way they don't complain about the "thump" of the Lister engine.
>
my neighbors are actually close enough - but I have several pictures of
some of the storm up on www.englishsbar.com - just click on ice storm at
the end of the opening paragraph - don't bore yourselves with the family
pictures and news

On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 21:09:08 -0600, Joe English
<joeenglish2@wisperhome.com> wrote:

<snip>
>> At a few degrees above freezing, all-seasons and summers become round,
>> solid blocks that slide on anything. Snows use a different compound
>> and stay flexible at lower temps. 'Course, nothing can save you in
>> freezing rain except very low speeds & a lot of caution. Give me snow
>> any time over freezing rain.
>
>Hallelujah to that - everyone thought it was great last week when it
>started raining form the sleet we were having - me was uh oh rain
>freezes and sticks to wires and trees - sleet and snow not some much we
>still have some without power. I think(especially where I live) those
>that actually pay their power bill should be hooked up first! It
>actually pissed me off to see people with their xmas lights on while
>their neighbors didn't have power - XMAS - bah humbug
>>

In Jan. 1998, we had 6 days of freezing rain through Ontario, Quebec
and New Brunswick, leaving a coating of 3-4" of ice on everything. I
drove to work on the first day of it. Millions of trees were knocked
down, and even 130 hydro towers were toppled. 28 people died, mainly
from hypothermia, 945 were injured, 4 million people were without
power and about 600,000 had to leave their homes. There was a helluva
rush on generators.

Everyone calls it the "Ice Storm of '98." A lot of people helped out
others and took in neighbours, but I remember hearing about stores out
in the countryside that jacked up their prices, looking to do some
gouging. I hope people treated them like the scum they were, and all
of them went out of business. It brought out both the best and worst
in people.

We get several ice storms each winter, and each time, people wonder if
it's going to get as severe as in 1998.

---
Mike from Ottawa