I don't play baseball

.... but the one thing I know about baseball is you don't swing at a pitch in the dirt. That's exactly what Iggy did today when he tried to defend his international career. The Conservative attack ads are obviously getting under his skin and today he tried to defend against them. Big mistake Iggy. Keep making that kind of amateur mistake and you will have an even shorter career than the ill fated Steffie Ding Dong that you replaced. More and more it looks like Harper is headed for a majority if he can just keep some of the loose cannons in his cabinet under control.

I don't normally watch Question Period on TV. I've seen the real thing in Ottawa and been thoroughly underwhelmed if not disgusted. However I couldn't resist watching the opening skirmish today and it was worthwhile. Ignatieff was as ineffectual as usual, yammering on about our international commitments but the real prize of the day was Bob Rae. American readers will need a little context to understand the exchange that happened between Red Bob & the Prime Minister. Bob was the NDP (Socialist) premier of Ontario for close to 5 years. Later in life he had a road to Damascus experience and realized that he was in fact a Liberal. Most of us on the right would say that it is hard to tell the difference between a Lib and a Socialist but that's a subject for another day. Bob took a run at the Liberal leadership which ultimately elected Steffie Ding Dong. When Steffie's political career went into the dumper Red Bob looked set to take a serious run at the leadership but was usurped by the return to Canada of Michael Ignatieff. In the interest of getting Steffie out of the way as quickly as possible Michael and Bob hatched a plot to make Iggy the leader and give Bob lots of exposure.

So following Iggy's ineffectual questions to the Prime Minister, here comes Bob with his first question referring to the attack ads that some US media have been running about the Canadian healthcare system. "What does the Prime Minister think about the Canadian healthcare system." Answer: "I believe wholeheartedly in it and it is in fact the only system that my family has ever used or intends to use." And he sat down. Followup: "So can we expect the government of Canada to mount an advertising campaign to defend the Canadian system against the unfair right wing ads running in the U.S.?" The P.M. took a little longer on this answer, pointing out that the Americans are quite capable of making their own decisions vis healthcare and probably don't give a damn what we think about our system but his conclusion was priceless. "The Canadian healthcare system will likely survive attacks by right wing commentators in the U.S. in the same manner it survived attacks by socialist incompetents in Ontario."

I love it - I just by god love it.

Overpriced in Banff

We just can't resist coming back here because it is so incredibly pretty. It's worth putting up with the Parks Canada nonsense just for the environment and scenery. But it's also getting to be friggin expensive to stay here - $41 per night for electric-only if you want to have a campfire. Mind you, that includes unlimited "free" firewood but still ...... $41 per night is roughly twice what we like to average. We rolled in here last night followed shortly afterward by Al & Camiel, had a great supper of pork ribs grilled over the open fire and then sat up drinking and talking way after our bedtime. Camiel and I were determined to get our money's worth out of the campfire and by god we did get our money's worth. Of course when I went to bed I couldn't sleep anyway, having gorged myself on pork ribs and baked potato.

This morning Al & Camiel had to leave because they got a chance to show a house that they are trying to sell. It might have just been that they didn't want to spend the weekend with us but I don't think so. You never know though.

We moved ahead becuase I had a devil of a time aiming the internet dish yesterday and ended up with it located in Al & Camiel's site so rather than trying to re-aim the dish it was easier to move the bus. Anybody who has ever camped in Tunnel Mountain will know that the sites are really just wide spots in the paved roads. In this section we're actually looking uphill to the south so getting over the treetops isn't possible. That means that we have to shoot through a gap in the trees and the dish site on the other side of the road has to align with gaps between the RVs which really just means that there are damn few places to set up the dish. Some people would doubtless say that we don't really need internet access everyday but that just seems silly.

When it warms up this afternoon I'm going to crawl underneath looking for air leaks. My new relay valves have cured the suspension leaks but the tanks still drain over night. So now we stay up on the airbags but the gauge reads zero by morning. That narrows down where the leaks have to be but probably won't make them any easier to find.

Marilyn is gone into Banff right now to wash the truck and try to get a second vehicle pass out of Parks Canada. I didn't feel that I needed that level of frustration in my life so I stayed home. The 8-92 has a habit of decorating the side of the truck with 40 weight oil that it throws out. Marilyn is picking up her sister at the airport tomorrow and I think she was embarassed to pick her up in such a dirty vehicle. I regard it as rustproofing. These old Detroits are like a stray dog - they like to mark their territory with oil.

Rubber duckie awards

Not too long ago I had a big argument with a couple of people about the merits of DDT. The loss of DDT condemns millions of people annually to a slow death from malaria. The science of DDT is clear - it is one of the safest compounds ever invented. Yet in most countries of the world its use is banned thanks to junk science alarmism and flat out lies.

So I was pleased to note this morning that the National Post has instituted an award for exactly that kind of lying disguised as science. The Rubber Duckies are designed for people or institutions who promote a twisted version of reality in the name of science. In the words of the National Post the award "recognizes the scientists, NGOs, activists, politicians, journalists, media outlets, cranks and quacks who toil to advance the principles of junk science."

Fall in southern Alberta

I cooked salmon for Marlan in Medicine Hat at noon yesterday and then continued on west to Brooks. Allison and Camiel very kindly came to meet me. They had planned to spend the weekend in the mountains but the forecast went to hell so they headed east instead and we met up at Brooks. We were going to stay at Dinosaur Provincial park but as it turned out pretty well everyone in Alberta must have decided to get out of town for the last weekend of the summer. The Provincial Parks reservation lady claimed that "every" park in southern Alberta was full for the weekend. As it turned out that wasn't true but we didn't know that.

So we headed south and west, wandering our way across the Alberta prairie until we ended up in the Elks park in Lomond. I wouldn't recommend that anybody go more than about 100 yards out of their way to stay in Lomond but it was a perfectly serviceable, more or less level, more or less grassed field to park on with 15 amp power hookups conveniently located a long ways away at the edges of the field.


We had some Alberta beef for supper, preceded by some Safeway skewered prawns that happened to be on sale. This morning Camiel cooked us Dutch pancakes and we made a leisurely departure in late morning. We continued generally west until we crossed #2 highway at Nanton. You might not expect to find an air museum in Nanton but they've got one and it's definitely worth a visit. The museum is the result of a couple of local farmers who rescued a Lancaster bomber in the late 50's and dragged it across country to town. It sat in town and got vandalized for several years until some locals started working to preserve it but it wasn't until town council in 1985 suggested that a group be formed to "take care of the bomber" that the Lancaster Society was formed.

Since then the society has accumulated a collection of vintage airplanes and parts in addition to it's core mission of preserving the town's Lancaster. I didn't see anything that looked like it was airworthy but it looks like the Tiger Moth is headed for the air and they claim to have intentions of flying the Lancaster again. It will be a long time before it flies if it does ever fly again.

I'm not a great big fan of museums but I like little ones like the one in Nanton. It seems more real for the lack of polish. We were able to crawl through a lot of the Lancaster and in so doing could see the active restoration work that is underway, evidenced by tools lying around in critical locations. You don't get that in the Smithsonian.

After we left Nanton we continued west into the Chain Lakes Provincial Park and that's where we discovered that not every provincial campsite in southern Alberta is occupied this weekend. In fact in the farthest corner of the Chain Lakes campground there's probably still 50 or more empty sites. Right now I've got a peach pie in the oven thanks to Allison buying some peaches in Nanton and me buying some pie shells on spec yesterday. We've also got Hutterite corn waiting for supper. Corn and peach pie pretty well covers all the food groups that I have any interest in. And beer.

More than enough stupid to go around

I always told my staff that if they had a really complicated explanation for something that could just as easily be explained by assuming that somebody was really stupid they should go with the stupid explanation every time. 99 times out of 100 that would turn out to be the right explanation.

We've got these three valves located between the tag axles that I sort of understand the function of and it doesn't really matter what they do for this story so we won't go into that. What does matter is that they are leaking. And they've been leaking for a long time now. To the point where they leak all our air out in about 8 hours. I don't think they affect my brake application air but they need to be fixed nevertheless. We have to do a BC safety in order to register this beast in BC and I want the valves replaced before we do that. I was pretty sure I'd have to order them from Prevost mainly because I didn't want to risk breaking one of them taking it out and then not being able to find a replacement immediately.

So two weeks ago when we got to Regina I got on the phone to Quebec and ordered 3 new valves plus a rebuild kit. I'm not sure why I need the rebuild kit since these are likely the same valves the frenchmen bolted to the chassis 28 years ago and I don't expect to still be driving this thing 28 years hence, let alone do I imagine that I will remember by then where I have put the rebuild kit. Anyway, I ordered the parts and I told them to ship them to Regina marked "hold for pickup" with my name on them. I figured maybe 4 days to get across the country and I had ordered on Monday so on Friday I called the bus in Regina. Nothing. Nothing on Saturday. Nothing on Sunday. And again nothing on Monday.

Somewhere in there I started to get worried so I phoned back to Prevost partly to make sure that they had actually been shipped and also to see what shipping instructions they had used. They assured me that the shipment had gone to Regina with my phone number on it. They even provided me with a weighbill number from something called Expedibus which was the Quebecois carrier that had taken the parts to Montreal where they got interlined with Greyhound.

Armed with the weighbill number I started out on the web to see if I could trace the parcel. Not a hope so I phoned STC Express - "we can't get into Greyhound's system - you'll have to phone them". Somewhere along the way somebody told me that the Expedibus weighbill would be the trace number all the way west. I phoned about 5 different numbers for Superdog and got less than nothing out of each one. Generally I waited on hold for about half an hour listening to bullshit about how important my business was and then when somebody finally answered all they would tell me was that I was phoning the wrong number and I had to phone somewhere else and start all over again. I didn't handle this part of the process well.

Finally I gave up. It appeared that the parts were likely lost but nobody seemed to give a damn so I told Marilyn that I was going to wait until the last day we were in Regina and if they hadn't arrived by then I was going to phone Prevost and turn it over to them. After all, if I don't ever get the parts it will be a cold Friday in hell when I get around to paying for them. As it turned out I couldn't force myself to wait until Friday so I phoned the frenchmen on Thursday afternoon. Somebody named Mathew said he would look into it and phone me back. Later that night I retrieved a voicemessage saying that they could take up to 10 days to arrive so I should just be patient. Monday to Thursday a week later would be at least 10 days by my math so that didn't make me happy but I had to wait until this morning before I could phone back.

This time I got Martin who had actually taken my original order. I explained my problem yet again and he put me on hold for an interminable wait yet again. When he came back he told me he had talked to Expedibus, they had traced the parcel and it was in Toronto but it would be in Regina on Monday. That would make a full two weeks after the original order but hey, at least we knew where it was. There was no way I could wait in Regina through another weekend so I left and worried my way to west of Moose Jaw trying to figure out how I was going to deal with getting this famous parcel shipped from the bus depot in Regina out to Calgary or even to Chilliwack.

I had parked at the rest area at Caronport and was about to get moving when my phone rang. I could see that it was Quint calling from Nipawin and all of a sudden I thought "you don't suppose?". Sure enough, Quint was standing in line at the bus depot in Nipawin when he happened to notice "Evans" written on two boxes on the shelf. Then he noticed that the boxes also said "Prevost Parts". So being the helpful soul that he is Quint inquired and sure enough there sat my parts. Obviously without a phone number on them because, if they had a phone number it would have been a local Nipawin number and the bus depot would have called me. And obviously shipped to the wrong bloody location. When I eventually talked to the woman at the bus depot she said "no - there's nothing on them except Nipawin for an address".

So this is a great big thank you to Quint. And an equally big F.U. to the idiots at Prevost. This makes two shipments in a row that they have screwed up royally. I used to tell people what a wonderful parts service they ran but never again.

If you've read this far then you must be a real bear for punishment. If you're not ready to go to bed or feed the cat or cut your toenails then I'll bore you with another Prevost story.

The first winter we had the bus we took it to Lake Havasu and then over to L.A. For some reason we had planned to fly home and then back to L.A. to pick up the bus so when we ran into some mechanical difficulties I got a reccomendation for the service manager at Prevost in Mira Loma and we ended up leaving the bus there for them to work on. I was pleased with the work they did - not so pleased at having to write a big cheque - and we continued back home.

When I first phoned Prevost in Quebec it was on a Sunday afternoon. I needed some part for the bus and there was a toll free number handwritten into the parts book so I phoned it to see if it was good and somebody answered. She took my order, apologised that she couldn't ship parts on Sunday and then when I tried to give her a credit card number she insisted on setting up a charge account for me. I said "how do you know I'll pay it?" She said "You have a Prevost so we will set up a charge account." I don't use it much but occasionally I order parts, get a bill and pay them so it wasn't a complete surprise about a year after the trip to Mira Loma when a Prevost invoice showed up in the mail.

The contents of the invoice were surprising though. It was for some innocuous repair - I think maybe a start switch and installation - amounting to well under $500 - maybe $265 or something like that. The repairs had been done to a 2 or 3 year old H3. I'm guessing now but that bus would have been worth somewhere close to half a million bux. The serial number was on the invoice but I didn't need to look at it to know it wasn't our bus. So I phoned Mira Loma, told them what had happened and they said they would fix it. I offered to pay the bill if they would guarantee that the keys would be there when I flew in to pick it up but they wouldn't take my offer. And I forgot all about it. Until a month later when the statement came from Quebec.

Long story short, after about 3 calls to Quebec over the course of 3 more months I finally lost it and wrote a long letter to the North American service manager for Volvo. When that letter hit his desk I got a phone call from him followed by a phone call from Quebec followed by no more statements.

Like Forrest Gump says - stupid is as stupid does. And I still haven't got my parts.

Feeling good

That's gotta be the most impressive recycle station anywhere, let alone that it is in a non-descript little campground east of Regina. They have containers for things I didn't even know you could recycle, not that I'm any kind of authority on recycling. And the old geek that owns the park is out there regularly rooting through the garbage just in case some boor such as myself might have inadvertently (or deliberately) put something in the garbage that we shouldn't have.


It's all bullshit of course but it must make him feel good and no doubt makes many of the fools that religiously sort their garbage feel good too. I'd like to see an honest study of the cost benefit of recycling programs but I doubt that will ever happen. By the time you add up the transportation cost to move all the bulk to the recycling facilities I'd be willing to bet the ledger is negative and that's without accounting for the labour cost to do it all. Of course the eco-terrorists will tell you that it's all about the environment and you therefore can't do a cost benefit analysis but that's recycled alfalfa hay too. There's a huge cost to the environment in terms of fossil fuel consumption to move that crap around.


Foolish recycling tendencies aside, this is a cute place to stay. It's nothing fancy and the sites are pretty cramped but it's reasonably priced and the owners have a good attitude. Regina is getting to be a hard place to stay. When we arrived close to 2 weeks ago King's Acres was full as was Dyer Straits. Life is too short to stay with the assholes at Buffalo Lookout so we didn't phone them. That left this place and they have been more or less full the whole time we were here. Most of the sites are taken up by travelling workers of some description. Our neighbours most of the time we were here were a young couple where the husband described himself as a "millwright". Several of the sites have diesel 1-tons parked in front of them with toolboxes and welders loaded on the back. I think there is a lot of pipeline activity around here now and there likely is oilfield activity as well. We likely would have stayed through the weekend but they told us they have a full house for the weekend so we have to leave. Marilyn left for the mine today - she flies into McLean Lake tomorrow. I'll visit father in the morning and then start wandering west. I've got some lovely salmon to cook for Marlan on Saturday so I'll probably park at the Sask. welcome centre west of Maple Creek tomorrow night.

We're all doomed

This morning we went in to visit father around 10:30. When we got there Natasha informed us that someone from Occupational Therapy was coming at 11:30 to see him so that was a good thing. When the someone arrived she introduced herself as being from Occupational Therapy too. I guess she hadn't got the memo from the self-important system bimbo who in no uncertain terms told me that the correct terminology was Physical Therapy.

As it turned out this morning's "healthcare professional" was there to see if father could get a free folding wheelchair from the government. Of course she disguised her visit as an assessment and pretended that she was there to measure him. Since he simply doesn't fit in those chairs and since he already has one of them that he doesn't use I told her to save her time. That let her segue into shifting responsibility for this over to yet another person. I don't know what the professional to patient ratio is in Saskatchewan but if the government took her $70,000++ salary plus whatever else it costs to keep her in stylish pantsuits they could give away a lot of wheelchairs to whoever happened to ask for one. I for one wouldn't miss her, no matter how cheerful and pleasant she may have been.

On a more positive front we followed father from his room to the patio encouraging him to move the wheelchair himself. I also talked to Natasha about asking her staff to be less helpful. Father is very good at getting himself out into the hallway and then conning somebody into pushing his chair to wherever he wants to go but that doesn't get him any exercise. And it has allowed him to go two years without really learning how to run the chair.