Four teenagers on a single ATV

VOCM News is reporting another ATV accident. This time around four teenagers on an ATV and three taken to hospital. As usual no helmets on! I have never saw four teens on an ATV but i have saw four children on them not quite in their teenage years. Over the years i have pulled my ATV to the side of the trail to give them the right of the way. At times i felt like taking a snapshot and posting it but i might be deemed as a villain if i did. I have a feeling that this Labor Day weekend we'll see quite a few ATV users pulled over and charged. Hopefully we'll see a few parents charged as well.

Afternoon on the Newfoundland Trailway

Spent a few hours with my granddaughter on the Newfoundland Trailway this afternoon. We have made quite a few little rides this pass summer and seldom meet anyone else out doing the same thing. However today i saw a tour group who probably came by way of Argentia and they usually drive on without stopping. I had 16 years on that trailway but back then we called it a railway and rode over it by train or rail speeder. I'll post a link here of a past blog so i won't have to get all teary eyed today describing those years. So back to the trailway........... it passes through my community and the scenery here with the miles of sandy beaches is fantastic. I sometimes wonder why very few take advantage of it here and no local has started a tour company for tourists who might like to see something different. I'm sure in the summer time a tour of just a few hours per day could fetch a few dollars to some young entrepreneur.........So back to this afternoon. Our little trip lasted less than two hours and my granddaughter got to enjoy a great August afternoon before she starts her first year of school in a week or so. We shot a few hundred shots (thank God for Digital) and i will pick out a few to have developed for her albums and the rest will be stored on DVD's. So for anyone who might like to view the Newfoundland Trailway in our area click on a few thumbnails below to see a few of our shots today.

Google Earth - Google Sky.

Stargazing was a great pastime for me as a kid.Trips to the library and an old map of a few stars and constellations kept me entertained many evenings. I couldn't afford a good telescope at the time and what i had was not more than a tube with two pieces of glass in it.It was so shaky i had to build my own tripod out of two by two's. Later in life i purchased one for my son hoping he would be interested but the novelty wore off and i think the telescope was later sold at a yard sale.Yesterday my son sent me a link for the new Google sky. It's amazing how far things have come. A person can now click on the location of where they live and see the sky above them. Progress is great, but i wonder now how many kids will not take the time to go outside and look up but click a mouse instead?

Nightline Returns August 26, 2007

Listeners will hear a familiar voice on the airwaves this evening... Host Linda Swain is back with VOCM's Nightline. The show was off the air for a short time to make way for summer programming, but it returns tonight at its regular time of 8 o'clock. Swain says shes looking forward to taking your calls.

I dare say we can look forward to hearing from our politicians tonight also. I doubt if their calls will be time limited yet because the Premier has not called upon the Lieutenant Governor to dissolve the house. I wonder how many times the letters M O U will be repeated tonight? I know some people do keep count of things like that and just maybe they'll be good enough to let us know tomorrow with a transcript.

St. Paul Island with Cape Breton Island in the background.

Situated 44 miles southwest of Cape Ray is St. Paul island. The highest point on the island is 485 feet above sea level. Sometimes when weather conditions are just right i can go to the top of the mountains here in Cape Ray and see it. Sometimes when conditions are perfect i can also view Nova Scotia. The above photo was taken yesterday afternoon on one of those rare days when i captured a photo of both.

Aerial shot of St. Paul Island.
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Premier Williams makes another announcement.

Early this morning, the Premier of Newfoundland & Labrador, the honorable Danny Williams announced that on October 10/2007 he would pay out of his own pocket the professional services of this man to any Liberal Bloggers who needed it.

Ah,finally!

Finally i can do something to stop Global warming! Finally i can be out there on the front lines with the likes of Al Gore (who sort of reminds me of a Bull Moose) and Sheryl Crow. (who don't want me to wipe my bum properly) This fall i have a moose licence and with one shot i can do my part to stop Global Warming! Never has it been so easy to contribute to this great cause. What's going on,you ask? Will my friends i have just been told that moose are contributing to Global Warming.Yes,an adult moose can produce 2,100 kilos of methane a year. That's equivalent to the CO2 output resulting from a 13,000 kilometer car journey. If you find this hard to believe,check out my source.
So if you see me out in the woods this fall sitting on a stump with a rifle,drinking beer and belching.Just think of me the same way you think of Al Gore and Sheryl Crow. Im a crusader for Global Warming!
Now if we can only prove those God darn Seals contribute to Global Warming.

Paranormal my Ass!!!!

I recently wrote about the weather being a bit peculiar even for here. The local paper wrote a story on a freak wind storm that went through Cape Ray recently. Today after a google search i see a guy by the name of Rob McConnell mentions it in his X Zone Radio Show. It was quite the storm and lasted only 10 minutes but i doubt if it would be considered a paranormal phenomena by anyone. The peculiar weather continues and this morning i made an ATV ride to the beach here. One thing i did notice throughout 2007 was the amount of erosion taking place in the area. Higher water levels from the sea and the effects of wind and rain are changing the face of our local dunes in the area.














I grew up here and spent quite a bit of time on those beaches and now i'm actually wondering if the dunes will disappear in my lifetime? It'll have nothing to do with the paranormal but another phenomena called Global warming.

Ross speaks....not really!

From the VOCM News site:

Province Will Talk Wages With Nurses
August 18, 2007

Health Minister Ross Wiseman says they can't increase nursing wages until the current collective agreement is up for renewal. Nurses Union President Debbie Forward has said nurses in this province are the lowest paid in the country and that's a challenge when it comes to recruiting. Minister Wiseman indicates government will be willing to talk money when negotiations start.

What about the Home Care workers in NL Mr. Wiseman? We have no collective agreement with anyone. How about it Mr. Premier? You control the purse strings along with the puppet strings. How about wage increases for those of us who have no one to represent us?

Looks like even a Wheel-chair bound Cuban can scare the U.S.A. So it's no wonder an aged dictator still makes them tremble after all those years.

Mary McCarthy, was born in St. John's, Newfoundland in 1900 and met a businessman Pedro Gomez Cueto at the opera in Boston. At the age of 24 she became a widow but has lived in the same house for 61 years. Her jewelry and fortune she inherited when she was widowed in 1951 have been frozen in a Boston bank since the United States placed Cuba under sanctions after Fidel Castro's leftist revolution in 1959.

Since January this year the U.S. government has let her withdraw a $96 a month allowance from her U.S. Bank after Canadian diplomats interceded on her behalf.

McCarthy is asking U.S. President George W. Bush to free her money so that she can live her remaining days with dignity. She would also like to have her family's "trinkets" released.

"They said they couldn't give it to me because I live in Cuba. That's the only money that I have left. It is in Boston, but I live in Cuba, that's the great terrible, terrible thing," she said during a recent visit to her home.

Responding to U.S. officials who suggested McCarthy leave Cuba and return to Canada, Keyes said she was no longer able to withstand a harsh Canadian winter.

McCarthy has been confined to a wheelchair since she fell and broke her hip in 2002.

A devout Catholic, she prays after tea every day. Her godson Elio Garcia wheels her to a darkened lobby where, under the gaze of a marble statue of Salome, she prays with a rosary to Cuba's spiritual patron, the Virgin of Charity.

60 days until Election Day!
Newfoundland and Labrador will go to the polls on Tuesday, October 9, 2007.
On that day i can be an equal with all the other bloggers i see here. I'm allowed to cast a vote and they in turn are allowed one. That is if i decide to take the time to go out and vote. It might sound a bit foolish on my part but this is the first time since i have been eligible to vote that i actually don't feel like taking the time to do so. The way i see it, the present government like the one before it has not benefited my family and were no better off now than a decade ago. Letters & e-mails to my MHA and other government officials seem to have been a waste of time on my part. Seems like the only satisfaction im getting recently is from the auditor general and the RCMP investigations into the misuse of our tax dollars. My wife and i have been working in the Home Support System of this province for the pass 18 years and each year have hoped for a few benefits from our hard work in forms of a pay raise, few sick days or other benefits that other government employees take for granted. Each year we tend to be disappointed but hopefully soon we'll receive a slight bit of satisfaction when some who have reaped so called benefits get their just reward. So on October 9/2007 rather than take the time to write a x on a ballot for a candidate who i suspect is less likely to steal from me. I'll drive on by the polling station and i won't have a thing to be disappointed about. Sounds fair enough!

A Cape Ray Evening

Yesterdays mystery of the missing headstones have been solved. I made another trip to the area this evening and after moving back some tall grass i found them once more. The storm of the previous night had flattened everything all in one direction. The local paper had emailed me earlier in the day asking if i knew a Tornado had touched down. I have never witnessed that weather phenomenon before so i really didn't know. Some of my neighbors did have a lot of property damages. I do know that i must try and seek a bit of help in preserving those old stone markers or one day they will be gone forever. Hopefully with plant workers in the area seeking hours of employment elsewhere, some hours from a grant may be used in fixing that site up.

Our oldest granddaughter accompanied us this evening to the seashore and we spent a half hour or so picking some wild berries there. Her great grandmother will probably drop by soon and show her that with a few more ingredients those wild berries can be transformed into a pie. It's great to live in rural NL at times. Hopefully she'll remember those moments when she grows older and the photographs we take now will turn into treasures.

After the Storm

I don't usually write about the weather but the last 12 -16 hours it has been a bit peculiar even for here. Nature gave us a great light show throughout the night and early morning with a few power outages thrown in to irritate. Heavy winds, rain and hail at times sounding like a passing freight train made everyone in the community take notice. This evening it started to clear so i decided to take a walk to the area called the gut to see if the barhoisway had opened to the sea again. Saw a few rabbits and a scurrying weasel that i don't usually see in the area and had to jump across a few babbling brooks i never encountered on that trail before. I decided to go in the woods and check out the old grave site of lighthouse keeper and his family buried in the early 1900's. After searching around and getting quite wet from the high grass i gave up the search.With the land grabs at that site im hoping that the fallen grass has covered the stones and they have not been removed by someone who would like to have a great view from a new summer cabin rather than let it be a final resting place. I'll go back in the next few days and check it out again.

NEWS REPORT..............
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in Dunville assessing the aftermath of tropical disturbance Chantal. Harper arrived at St. John’s International Airport aboard a Challanger jet at 10 a.m., boarding a Cormorant helicopter to head to the flooded area.

Will!!! i be a SOB!!! Invited Steve to our Come Home Year Celebrations in Cape Ray and he didn't show! We had beer,dancing,lot of young half naked girls and we could of Screeched him in. Instead he comes flying in to look at a few big pot holes that some tropical storm caused. I hope Danny pushes him in the friggin ditch.