Category — General Stuff

Not a whole bunch of activity today. The contractor stopped by to pick up another load of garbage and waste. I insulated some additional areas that were opened up and made an interesting discovery. The water line to the outside front tap was right against the stud and could have easily been damaged from a nail when doing the finishing mouldings. So, I shut off the water, drained the line and cut the pipe in the floor joists and removed the copper pipe and external tap. When the plumbers are back to complete all the hook ups we will have them install a new frost free type external tap. Finally all the gyproc board was delivered and inside for the drywallers to get started on Monday.

Progress today was a little slower, but everything is certainly starting to take shape. A carpenter was back to prep the floor and wall areas for the installation of Gyproc Board and to strengthen and level the floor area in the walk-in closet. Sounds like the drywallers will be here on Saturday to get started, so next week we should see some real changes. Pictures to date are attached below.

Lots of progress today. Plumbing is finished for now and the plumbers won’t be back until it’s time to install the Vanity Sink and Toilet. The drains are all in place, the ceiling in Walk-in Closet is framed in, the 1 piece tub installed and new insulation has been added on the external walls. We think the worst part of dust and demolition is behind us…………. well at least until the drywallers arrive! See pictures below.

New drain lines for Vanity

Finally starting to look like a walk-in closet.

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Last weekend was The City of Kamloops Rube Band60th Anniversary. Rubes from across Canada attended the celebration. In total there were approximately 60 current and past members in attendance. Festivities started on Friday night with a Wine & Cheese get together at the TRU International Center; where we had a chance to renew acquaintances and reminisce about days gone by. Then on Saturday morning we all met at the Kamloops Curling Club to form up and parade (with a police escort) down Victoria St. to Riverside Park. After a few minutes to catch our breath and cool off we put on a 1 1/2 hr. stage show for the park audience. The band was looking good and sounding good………. best in years. The afternoon show was followed with an evening Banquet and Dance. Members who have passed on were remembered and stories that are unique to the band were shared……. what an evening. Sunday activities included Golf, the Wildlife Park and/or Sun Peaks. It was great weekend! In the end it was best summed up by emcee Claude Richmond on Saturday night when he said “Lots of Bands can play better than us”, “Lots of Bands can march better than us” and Lots of groups are probably funnier than us”; “But, No One can do it all and have been around as long as us”. That pretty well sums it up!

Thanks to our friend Roxy for taking all the great photographs……… below are a sampling of her pictures and her great eye for catching the  perfect photo op!

Last fall we signed up as volunteers for Western Canada Theatre Company which includes ushering at Sagebrush Theatre and the Pavilion Theatre. We have seen some good plays, some not so good plays, a variety of entertainers including the Symphony. It’s been great and we have certainly got to see a lot more culture and entertainment than we would have normally taken in. Well last night at the Pavilion Theatre we volunteered to work an “All Ages Concert”. We headed out expecting to have an evening that included a variety of local talent and the audience made up mostly of Mom’s, Dad’s and other family members. Well were we wrong. From the moment we showed up something didn’t quite look like your average evening of entertainment. There wasn’t the usual group hanging around the various areas of the theatre. There was however an interesting mix of hair styles, hair colors, clothing styles and the evenings entertainment was tuning up and the volume was similar to a Boeing 747 during take-off. Amanda was the Guest Services Director and she filled us in on the evenings events; this included 5 Bands performing. The music was Punk, Punk/Rock, Heavy Metal, Yelling, Screaming and it was extremely loud. I took the opportunity to step inside the theatre area and listen to one of the local bands. The lead singer introduced the song and said it was something to do about Police and the fact that we all hated them…… the lyrics went something like this; Bleep you you bleeping, bleep, bleep we think we are a bleeping, bleep off and need to be bleeped so we can bleep your bleeping, bleep, bleep, bleep. This was followed up with words that were sung so loud that I couldn’t completely understand them but it sounded like; @#$%&^%$#@!^&* and finally &^%$#@!!#@^^&&** be free from your &*^%^&*()()(*&^%%$$##%^&*oppression. Or something like that. A rough rendition of this song is posted on YouTube //www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIzw084VQ-U&feature=response_watch. Overall everyone was very polite and it was certainly a life experience………. L&B

Our house was built around 1950. At that time most of the homes were heated with Fuel Oil. Anyway, when we moved in 21 years ago it was not a big deal that there was still an oil tank still in the ground, even though the furnace was now natural gas. Well nowadays it is a big deal. It’s kind of like having the Exxon Valdez parked in your backyard. The tank needs to be removed if you ever want to sell the home because the new purchasers cannot get home insurance; but that’s another story. Don’t get me started on insurance companies. Anyway, since we were aware that we had the biggest environmental disaster since the “1991 Kuwait Oil Field Sabotages by Iraqi Forces” situated under the lawn in our backyard we decided to have it removed. This first involved contacting a company and discussing how this could be done without destroying our garden. After much discussion and with some prompting from Kevin we decided to dig it out by hand. So, I located the tank and dipped it to see if there was any oil remaining. Luckily there was none and the tank was dry…. that was real good news. I also was able to determine that the tank was down about 6 1/2 ft. It was about a 250 galleon tank and was approximately 4 ft long and 3 1/2 ft in diameter. The soil was mostly clay so digging was fairly easy. To end a long story after a couple weeks of digging and a little ingenuity I got the tank out and it’s ready to haul to the scrap dealers this Friday.

Today we headed up to Sun Peaks for our last snowshoe of the season. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky,  the sun was shining bright, the temperature was about 5 deg C and it was a fantastic day. There is a lot of snow up at Sun Peaks and the conditions were perfect; it wasn’t icy and it wasn’t sticky so snowshoeing was outstanding. We headed out of the village and not too far out on the valley trail we came to a snow cave that someone had built; see the pictures below. Then after going about 3 km we stopped for lunch just off of the snowshoe and cross country ski trails. After a few minutes we could hear a snowmobile coming down the cross country tracks which at first we thought was the trail setting machine; but it wasn’t. The driver of the snow machine went by and waved, he wasn’t going that fast but he kept looking behind. Well all of a sudden around the corner came a dog sled team of about 8 huskies pulling a sled, there was a lady all bundled up in blankets and the sled was being steered by a driver on the back. It was really neat to see and it happened so fast we didn’t have time to get a picture. After lunch we headed back to the village. For those skiers out there the conditions were amazing. No lift lines, the slopes were not busy and the snow was looking good. It’s hard to believe that a little over one month ago we were on a beach in the Caribbean enjoying 30 deg heat and sun. Enjoy the pictures below. L&B. 

Last night we called up our friend Rick P. and asked if he would like to go snowshoeing at Sun Peaks, he was game so off we went to Sun Peaks this morning. It was snowing lightly when we left Kamloops and a little harder up at the mountain. But, overall the conditions were excellent. There has been quite a bit of snow since our visit a week ago (get ready Lindsay, Jeff, Kevin and Tamara for some great skiing/snow boarding at the end of February). Once we arrived we got suited up and headed off on one of the many trails. Part way along we stopped to take a group picture by resting the camera on our day pack and using the self timer. We had no sooner taken a picture than this lady comes jogging down the trail wearing small snow shoes. No Kidding, she was jogging along. We got her to take another group picture. I’ll get these two pictures attached and others once Jeff (a.k.a. Low Paid Tech Support) fixes my weblog picture link issues. The trees along the trail are really getting covered with snow and if you accidentally bump a tree or branch it will dump a load of snow on you. Well, poor Rick is that slight bit taller than us and a couple times when ducking under hanging branches he moved the tree limb enough that he got completely covered. He has the greatest sense of humour and the greatest most memorable laugh even when getting snow covered. We did a loop of about 4km and headed back to the Sun Peaks Village to have our lunch at Bento’s Day Lodge. After lunch we headed home and by now it is really snowing. Got stopped in a traffic back up because somebody put their car in the ditch and the tow truck driver decided the best way to pull the vehicle out was to block the main road…. not thinking I guess. We finally made it home but the road conditions were a little slick. Great companionship, great conditions and a great day……… we’ll do it again.