BBQ while the sun shines.

Once again, the view from our front window with summer in full swing.
For some reason my son doesn't want to learn to ride a bike, the height of his enthusiasm is to push his bike around town. The other day he stopped a girl riding her bike and told her she was doing it wrong, at which point he showed her how to effectively push her bike.
Only thing better than pushing your bike is to pose in front of a truck with your bike. This is the company truck that we use for cargo. Christopher is over 4 feet tall, so judge for yourself what type of truck you need to have all season access.
Ready for some real off road pushing?
Those training wheels have a habit of biting you in the butt when your not looking, as Christopher and the bike both take a off road adventure.

Hello Everyone,
Nothing much happening around town that I've seen. So far we've had a really bad summer, rain and fog almost everyday. Today we reached double digits for the first time in quite awhile so we had a BBQ.
Take Care
CG

Harry Potter

Hello Everyone,
Well, It seems the web is awash with Harry Potter and I have joined the fray. I received the book a couple of days ago and while it seems to be a interesting read I wonder at what point the focus of the book changed from her young readers, to the darker incarnation her writing now takes. I remember the first book with rewards being given for performing well in school with stories of games and interesting characters, this latest effort can be regarded as a bloodbath. I realize that her audience has aged with the characters of her books but the new books fail to realize that children will read the books at a different rate than they have been released through their first printing, thus the 8 year olds who start reading her books now can be exposed to the last books at a much earlier age than the first generation did. JKR also seems to have taken a fancy to herself being a writer than a storyteller. Her latest effort seems to have implemented many writing techniques that seem to detract from the telling of the story (it actually seemed to remind me of Morality plays of the 18th century), while her characters are lost and uncertain her writing is unfocused and wandering, while her story is impassioned the writing is brief and direct. While this may not seem to be a bad thing I wonder what would have changed if the focus remained on the story rather than the technique. I wonder if ultimately the cause of these changes was the fact that adult readers seem to outnumber the number of child readers she now holds in her spell. Its a shame because it was the spell that caused children to fall in love with the characters of her first book that introduced adults to the phenomena.
It's a good read, but I'm glad the series is over before the remaining characters have lost their remaining innocence and likability.
Take Care
CG

Moon rise on Thursday.
The final load of our ship.
Hello Everyone,
Recovery from the sealift is finally over, back seems to be fine and the ship has finally left town. Something appeared to have wrong with our ship as it was in town for 5 days, usually they are in and out ASAP but this ship seemed to be lingering. Also rather than loading over the railing like most ships I've seen, it loaded out the back door leading to allot of extra work for the crew. She also appeared to be listing a little bit to port ( yeah, love that naval speak).

People ask me what I miss about the south and today I got a reminder of one of the things I miss, Thunder Storms. we had a small thunder storm today and I realized that was the first time in the last 2 years I had heard the "delicate sound of thunder" and I miss it.
Things are moving ahead and Melissa and I expect to hear about the next stage of our journey in the middle of August, So we'll probably be returning to a different place than we're leaving during vacation.
Take Care'
CG

Today was our day.

Hello everyone,
We recieved sealift today and I personally lifted every pound of the 62,000 kgs of product and I can tell you I feel 40. I am going to have a hot bath and go to bed. Talk to you later.
Take Care
CG

The first of sealift's.

This morning a ship arrived in front of our house. This would be the first of the boats arriving for this season. Our ship wasn't scheduled to arrive till tomorrow so we weren't happy to see this ship in the bay early, and not on a church day. We went out to meet the ship and luckily this was the Co-Op's sealift, so we could sit back and enjoy until our ship arrives, possibly tomorrow.
Sealift boats come into town with everything they need to offload their cargo, that way they don't have to worry about getting town resources to assist them. This ship has 4 forklift's, 2 tug boats, 2 barge's that they will use in today's sealift. Usually as soon as the ship arrives a few guys come into town by zodiac to tell the necessary people they have arrived. Meanwhile, the crew set up the dock area by moving their office, generator's, lights, forklifts, transport trucks to the shore to await the first load's arrival. Here you see the first of the forklifts being loaded.
This is where they will set up their offloading area.
This is the first load. It contains 3 forklifts, a portable office, a fueling station, generator, and floodlights and a flatbed trailer.
This is the office being installed.
This is all the cargo from the first load.
Here the office is being hooked up to phone service and electrical service.
The fueling station for the forklifts is set up. All this prep took less than 30 minutes and while its being done the flatbed trailer is being towed around town where they are filling it with empty containers scheduled for pick-up on this trip. The entire Sealift for the Co-Op will last about 20 hours, basically about a hour a container and they should be getting about 20 containers on this sealift.The traffic starts to build up on the water as the offloading gets into full swing.
The first actual load of cargo arrives. 3 boats and 5 containers.
Hello Everyone,
well a long night was followed by a brief sleep and allot of panic. Last night I was patrolling the warehouses till about 4 am due to the fact we've been broken into 3 times this week. I went to bed in hopes of sleeping in and relaxing my Sunday away. However, I got a phone call around 8:30 am asking if that was our boat in the bay, all I knew is there was no boat in my room and no boat in my dreams, but damn... there was a boat in the bay. So I scramble around to wake up and rush out to the dock to meet the first barge and find out who it for. Thankfully it was the Co-Op.
Now I get allot of questions about the sealift and what it is. Lets try to explain it better than I may have last year.
All product comes to the store by air, which is expensive. The heavier the more expensive. So during the summer we arrange a boat to come up and deliver good by water saving about 66% of the shipping costs. There is only so much you can bring in this way however due to storage, dating and other issue's. commonly sealifted products are things such as Pop, furniture, vehicles, laundry detergents, dangerous goods (ie: propane, cosmetics), fuel for the town, dry goods etc. This means we have two pricing levels for all products, one for sealift and one for air.
These products for the stores are ordered usually in February and make their way to Montreal where they are staged for loading into containers and onto their respective ships. There are several ships that provide this type of service, I know of 2 but there must be for due to the number of the communities these shipped service.
These ships usually service about 5 communities per run and do several through the summer ending when ice starts to form in the Davis strait.
And today wasn't our day.
Take Care
CG

Our front Yard... again.

When I went out for smoke this evening I saw what appeared to be a log with branches floating in the bay, then I realized, without tree's its difficult to have floating logs. Luckily (as usual) I had my camera and Telephoto lens with me and I saw the log was a caribou about half a mile out swimming towards my front lawn.
I was the only one who had seen him for about the first ten minutes so I was able to get down to the beach and make some noise to divert him from his path. If he came out of the water where he planned to he wouldn't have made it 3 steps before being invited to dinner by one of the local men.
However, by this time about 20 people had gathered to watch this buck make the most dangerous journey of his life. I still held up hope though as so far I'd seen people but no rifles. Caribou aren't plentiful in this area and his little attempt at socialization was most likely still going to cost him his life. Its strange, If I'd been out hunting I would have shot this buck myself however when he comes to your door you kinda want to treat him as a guest.
After his redirection he came to ground just across the river in a area where the town usually held picnic's and other events. I couldn't see anyone over there and I took that to be a bad sign, It looked like the hunters where already hunkered down awaiting his arrival.
With amazing luck, it seems this particular Buck made it safely to ground and quickly sprinted away, and since I didn't hear any shots for the next 5 minutes, we're going to presume he made it.
These 2 children are showing me thier best "tuutut" impressions.
Hello everyone,
Some people pay thousands of dollars to travel to the far north to see what I get to when I walk out my door. Tonight after this little adventure I watched two eco-tourists walking along the road in front of our house, the strange thing was, they had their camera's, their north peak windbreakers and hiking boots, eye's focused out to the bay... but they still walked like they were in the city. That hurried walk as if you have to get somewhere where someone impatiently waits for you, you can take the man out of the city, but not the city out of the man.
Take Care
CG

The Usual Suspect

The crime.
The reporter of the crime.


The Suspect.

Hello Everyone,
Tonight while I stood outside enjoying the fine weather I noticed someone had left their mark upon my abode.
My Observation was observed by my son, who assisted in confirmation that the mark was indeed left upon my abode. Upon questioning he was reticent to list any suspects but his demeanor indicted otherwise. Further investigation is pending.

Anyone for a swim?

Lets remember, less than 3 weeks ago this area was frozen solid. The large boats haven't even hit the water yet as there is still ice out in the mouth of the bay, so everyone grab your swimsuit and ... well, we'll wait for vacation. Doesn't the boy out of the water look warm?

Hello Everyone,
Just a quick update to get a couple of interesting photo's from yesterday.
And for a Top Ten List. I've been waiting do do one of these and without anything else today I guess I'll plug one in here.

The Top Ten Excuses I've gotten for not coming to work today.

10. I/My wife, husband, daughter, son, mother, father, babysitter is in jail and I have no babysitter.

9. It's too cold out

8. Its too nice out.

7. I'm going fishing

6. I'm going hunting.

5. I stayed up all night drinking etc.

4. I don't want to work today.

3. Its child tax/GST day

2. I forgot

1. I'm tired.

I had only heard one of these excuses while I worked in the south, but in a different world you hear different reasons, at least we're happy they called (rarely).
Take Care
CG