Another One Bites the Dust

Pics from April 2010 titled 'The next to go'. 
http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/577255170xtMrbw

Pics from Mar. 31 2011
http://community.webshots.com/album/579990058kRDCPg

Old Thugs

Teens usually get blamed for vandalism, defacing, tagging and bullying.  Did you ever think you would live in a community that doesn't have a problem with out of control kids, and instead has seniors who deface, vandalize and bully other residents?  Nothing is allowed to get in the way of 'what they want'.  Democracy means nothing to these people.  There are no rules or regulations that apply to them.  They will use whatever tactics available to achieve their goals. 

The mental midget of Union Bay has been back, armed with their black marker, defacing notices on the bulletin board at the post office.  Why are they so worried about what TAG stands for?

 

 

Looks like Fanny Bay is also populated with mental midgets as well, according to the following letter to the editor in the Record today.

 

 

 

 

NO COAL MINE signs will sprout in spite of an act of overnight thievery, vows one Fanny resident.

Photo submitted

Published: March 29, 2011 1:00 PM
Updated: March 29, 2011 1:37 PM

Dear editor,

I am writing today because I am one of many Fanny Bay residents who has contacted the RCMP to report a theft.

In the late hours of Saturday night someone went onto private property and removed every single No Coal Mine sign they could find throughout the Ships Point and Island Highway area.

This was a methodical removal, as in some cases they would have had to remove bolts and roll boulders as well as yank lawn signs to the total of well over 100 signs.

I have never put up any kind of lawn sign until a few months ago. I did it in order to stand up and be counted as one of many people on this island and elsewhere, whose opinion is against The Raven Coal Project. This is due not only to its inevitable impacts on the tourist-oriented direction of the Comox Valley but also on our air quality worldwide.

Raven would be a 3,300-hectare underground coal mine stretching from Union Bay to Fanny Bay proposed by CJV (Comox Joint Venture). Yes, I am a resident of Fanny Bay but we will all be affected by coal being hauled from the site in Fanny Bay through Cathedral Grove Park to the harbour in Port Alberni.

These B-train trucks will leave approximately every 15 minutes, 24/7 for 20 to 25 years. Despite Compliance Energy CEO John Tapics' assurance in a Feb. 18 edition of the Times Colonist that "They have no plans for open pit mines," why it is still posted on their website for the Bear Project?

By the maps on the site this (next?) venture appears to straddle  the fossil-rich Trent River between Courtenay and Cumberland.

We have just learned we are heading into a federal election. I suppose many people will want to exercise their expected right to free speech and post a lawn sign for their candidate.

Every year we see signs vandalized. Must we all have to take these signs in at night so we can continue to express our point of view?

I want to thank these thieves for letting us know the signs are effective and unnerving. I had thought this mining project, which is a threat to our aquifers and world-class oyster harvesting, was becoming old news and that our signs were fading into the landscape.

This spring, not only will No Coal Mine signs sprout again but you have renewed our resolve to paint a different future for this island than CJV ( Compliance Coal, LG International and Itochu Corporation) seems to want for us.
Wendy Keating,
Fanny Bay

Happy Days

PHOTOS AVAILABLE AT:

http://community.webshots.com/user/malcolm1nut1

You know Who You Are

For those who requested the picture on my blog.  Here are the pics I took playing with the camera that day.  Originals (complete with flaws) at full resolution, so you can 'play' with them.  

It's repetitious, boring, and don't expect much, and the pics were taken at midday, they turned out better than expected.




Photos not to be used commercially.

Update:  I realized there are 59 pics - will put them on webshots and post the link here. 

http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/579958609BDYLud 

Handsome Schooner.

This guy is ready for anything.  Another happy visitor.

 

http://pets.webshots.com/album/579424478hUkAXc

Friendly Union Bay

A clear message to the community.

Does the individual who took this action have any respect for anyone?


First, this bulletin board is the property of Canada Post, and a service it provides to the community free of charge.


The conditions for the community to use this service are very clear.  The postmistress/staff must approve and stamp any notices attached to the bulletin board.   The contents of the bulletin board are under the authority of the postmistress/staff.  This is part of their job.


Why would an individual show disrespect for the Postmistress/staff by defacing a notice clearly authorized?


It doesn't matter what the notice is concerning.  Why would an individual show disrespect to fellow residents by clearly indicating a public service will not be available for others to use, if it differs from their wants and beliefs?


They previously removed the same notice a number of times.  With all the staples, it couldn't be removed so quickly, and with that in mind, they came armed with a marker..............?


Will this individual continue to monitor the bulletin board from now on?  Will this become the 'norm'? 


If this continues, there will be nothing on the board, if we all can remove a notice because we disagree, don't like the person, just feel like it?  Right?

There and Here

Gypsy March 22, 2011

Introducing Missy

A sweet little dog.  Missy's first time visiting the other dogs.  She certainly handled the adjustment to all those big dogs wonderfully.  Hoping, Missy will become a regular. A cute sweet little girl.

http://pets.webshots.com/album/579936896ZWAVqV

THANKFUL

NOTE:  ALL PICTURES ARE COLOR

DEADMONTON MAR. 20

GRANDE PRAIRIE MAR. 20

BEAUTIFUL UNION BAY MAR. 20......AHHHHHHH

THIS IS TOO FUNNY.

The Real You or The Fake You?

We're fed so much garbage and bullshit by experts, politicians, media, religious leaders, etc.  The second phase is the "confession" which we're expected to believe as the "now I'm telling the truth".  When fakes are exposed, shouldn't we be more cautious?  The article below posted on the Huffington Post is a good example of what I find alarming.  Why do so many people live fake lives?

The trouble is, we encourage and assist these people.  We all know people who lie to us and never call them on it.  Somehow, that's unacceptable, we refer to these people as 'friends' and yet your instincts tell you that they cannot really be trusted.  Those telling the lies believe you didn't notice, and they've gotten away with it, so it's the green light to continue.  How fucked up is that?

There are very few people who 'are what they are', most put on a facade to be accepted.  We're crippled by 'what will people think?'.  Isn't it exhausting playing a character that doesn't really exist?  It doesn't matter how many 'friends' you have - they don't define who you really are, and they're friends with the fake you - not the real you.  Isn't it more important to be who you really are? 

Sharyn Wolf, LCSW

marriage counselor, psychotherapist, and author

Posted: March 16, 2011 02:56 AM

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

 

As a bestselling psychotherapist author and marriage counselor, I spent a lot of time in the 90s on television talking about love and romance, and promoting my five books on the subject, including Guerrilla Dating Tactics and How to Stay Lovers for Life. I told the world that marriage can work if the two people want it to work. I was unfailingly optimistic. I was funny. I could talk in sound bites. I was quoted in every magazine you can name, including multiple issues of Cosmo and Men's Health. I made the front page of The Wall Street Journal. But it was an article about flirting in The National Enquirer which quoted me that caught the eye of the producers for Oprah.

I appeared on Oprah eight times. On all of my visits, I had pat phrases for the audience such as, "The problem is the place you start working, not the place you stop working." And "When you have the energy to want to throw each other out the window, you can, instead, use that same energy to make love work." Oprah told me that she loved my red hair and my outfit and my outlook. Once, she even sang the name of my book. My fifteen minutes felt as if it would never end.

What Oprah, the audience, or anyone in my life didn't know then was that I had a secret. While launching a career as a "relationship expert," I was going home every night to a failed marriage of my own.

My husband and I didn't sleep in the same bed. We only had sex three times in fifteen years. We rarely shared a meal. Nonetheless, we were deeply attached to each other, would take a bullet for each other, and in some cockeyed way, still loved each other deeply.

He was the man who danced me across the living room floor in my pajamas while the stereo played the love theme from Beauty and the Beast. He was the man who climbed into bed with my dying aunt when she said she wanted to rest her head on his belly. He was the man who gave me his silly mosquito net hat when we were hiking, when I'd forgotten to bring mine.

He was the man who never read a word of one of my books, no matter how much I begged. He was the man who would not listen to me talk about my work, no matter how much that meant to me. He was the man who got shoe polish all over our new white couch and refused to put a cover on it or take off his shoes.

I remember crying on my hands and knees as I tried to wash the shoe polish out, and every stroke of the sponge made it worse. Fifteen years of this and I was still stuck. So, I'll tell you what finally helped me decide to leave.

I was writing a 346-page book called, How to Stay Lovers for Life. It was designed like a manual, filled with 1,000 tried-and-true tips to improve your marriage. I tried every one on my husband but none were true for me. Approaching him at different times of the day. Listening better. Showing more empathy. Using humor. Waiting. Medication. Individual counseling. Marriage counseling. Nothing made a dent in our estrangement.

Since I was too old for a baby, I even got a save-the-marriage-dog, and then I got another dog just in case. I thought raising a "family" together might help. But I was wrong.

Meanwhile, I was counseling my patients with the principles from my book, and they were thriving--leaving therapy to go on with their lives. They kept getting better while my marriage kept getting worse. I felt like a fraud, and that feeling was making me depressed.


When I finished my book, I had to write my acknowledgments, thanking all the people who helped me along the way. I knew that leaving my husband out would be a glaring omission. What would people think? Still, I was so angry. After much deliberation I wrote, "I want to thank my husband. He knows why." Only we knew the "why" was nothing. I was thanking him for nothing.

In fifteen years of marriage, writing this book was my turning point. Specifically, it came when I placed five pages of the manuscript in his hand, as I had done so many times before and begged him to read them. Ninety minutes later I came back into the room where he was dozing--my five pages untouched.

"Can't you just read five pages and tell me what you think?" I begged him.

"But I don't know anything about books." he replied.
"But you know me..." I countered. 

Okay, maybe I wasn't his dream wife. Maybe I was too busy talking to the media about relationships to actually have one of my own.

At any rate, it took my exhaustive exploration of every marriage counseling trick of the trade and trying them at home to realize that nothing was going to make us work. Even then, when it was dead in the water, it took me more time to raise the courage to make a move. Three years later, I finally filed for divorce.

This story wouldn't be complete without telling you how I am now, and that's complicated. At my best, I feel elated. I no longer feel like I'm hiding a shameful secret. I'm lighter. My pants fit better. At my worst, I feel empty. I miss the husband I never shared a meal with and rarely saw. Yet, even in my lowest moments, telling the truth is a huge relief, even if it means I'm the marriage counselor who couldn't keep her own marriage intact. I've learned from my mistakes, and that knowledge lets me feel that I can survive the emptiness and make room in my life now for whatever comes next. 

Sharyn Wolf, LCSW is a marriage counselor and psychotherapist practicing in New York City. She is the author of the memoir, Love Shrinks: A Memoir of a Marriage Counselor's Divorce which is being published on May 3rd by Soho Press. She has appeared on hundreds of television and radio shows including eight appearances on Oprah. She lives in New York City.

World's Most Expensive Dog

Tibetan Mastiff, 'Big Splash,' Becomes World's Most Expensive Dog

The Huffington Post First Posted: 03/16/11 09:23 AM Updated: 03/16/11 10:14 AM

Well, this brings puppy love to a whole new level. An 11-month-old red Tibetan mastiff has become the world's most expensive dog after being purchased in China for 10 million yuan (just over $1.5 million).
Although the specifics of the sale are confidential, the seller divulged that a multi-millionaire coal baron from northern China purchased the Tibetan mastiff, affectionately called "Big Splash," or "Hong Dong" in Chinese.
"When I started in this business, ten years ago, I never thought we would see such a price," Mr. Lu of the Tibetan Mastiff Garden in Laoshan, told The Telegraph.
Tibetan mastiffs are an ancient breed long revered as adept guard dogs. This particular Tibetan mastiff puppy is considered "a perfect specimen," and Lu estimates that the buyer could recoup his investment in the dog in just a few years by hiring it out to other breeders for as much as 100,000 yuan each.
While Tibetan mastiffs have long been a cultural staple revered in Asia, they have increasingly taken on a more heightened role as a status symbol representing affluence in China.
With so many dogs around the world lacking homes and being euthanized in shelters as a result, is it acceptable to place such a high price on a single dog? Or should certain breeds be preserved and considered more valuable than others? Weigh in with your thoughts in the comments below.
And remember, if you have a welcoming home to offer to a new canine friend, you don't need to shell out $1.5 million, but could find a dog just as lovable and in need of a family for far less at PetFinder.com.

A REAL BEAUTY - GYPSY

This dog is one of the most beautiful dogs I have ever seen.  Not only is she gorgeous, but has a wonderful personality to match.  Gypsy is still a pup at 11 months.

http://pets.webshots.com/album/579898291LHlfrZ

My apologies to Gypsy's owners.  I had quite a few pictures, and like a moron, I accidentally deleted them.  I was able to recover some of them.

Comox neighbours object to surprise taxation

By Scott Stanfield - Comox Valley Record
Published: March 10, 2011 5:00 PM
Updated: March 10, 2011 5:43 PM

Jackie and Oral Neilson are seriously choked about being taxed for a sanitary sewer lift station in Lancaster Heights.
As are 60 other homeowners in the Comox neighbourhood.
"I'm really distressed about this situation," Jackie said Wednesday before the parcel tax review panel, which is Comox council.
The Neilsons purchased their house on Avro Arrow Drive last summer. They have contacted their lawyer, builder and realtor, none of whom knew anything about the situation.
Had the retired couple known they would be on the hook for an extra yearly tax, they would have lived elsewhere — a sentiment shared by other area residents at a standing-room-only meeting.
"I don't need surprises like this in my life," said Jackie, who suggests someone forgot to do their homework.
That someone appears to be developer Harold Long who, according to finance director Donald Jacquest, agreed to notify potential homeowners about the local service to fund operation of the station, which lifts sewage to the regional district's 'megalift station' at the bottom of Jane Place. The cost is estimated at about $165 per parcel per year.
When Jacquest contacted Long this week to confirm notice had been provided, the developer said he "had dropped the ball," Jacquest states in a report to the review panel.
Jacquest is disappointed Long did not notify residents, as agreed when the Town established a bylaw and approved the first of his subdivisions.
Coun. Ken Grant said if the Town leaves such matters in the hands of developers, it will encounter similar problems in the future. He proposed taking a bond from Long since he failed to provide notice.
In 2008, the town approved the first of three subdivisions that would depend on a lift station for sanitary sewer service. The parcel tax is intended to pay for lift station costs, which exceed the cost of the gravity sanitary sewer and sewage treatment that the lift station also uses.
"Therefore we don't feel it is a double charge since this is a unique cost applicable only to these homes," Jacquest states.
He said he could not roll out the parcel tax sooner because he did not have a handle on the amortization of the project until last spring.
Should council decide against singling out Lancaster Heights residents, the Town would need to charge each Comox resident about $4 per lot for each lift station approved.
Coun. Marcia Turner motioned for more information about notification, developer responsibility, and future connections and contributions.
The panel voted to refer the matter to the April 13 committee of the whole meeting.
reporter@comoxvalleyrecord.com

MOLLY - A GREAT DOG

Did anyone else notice the mental midget who's been removing the TAG posters on the bulletin board in the post office must have had a difficult time doing it quickly without getting caught?  They left it in shreds as there were so many staples in it. 


There are residents who obviously don't believe in democracy or that any other resident has the right to an independent thought.  Real snakes.

ASTRO - THE WHIPPET PUP

This pup is lightening fast.  Luckily, he stops long enough to get a few good pics.  Likes to hang onto Molly's tail - too funny.

http://pets.webshots.com/album/579866189DTvfZz

LOTS OF GREAT DOGS

The following link is from the monthly refresher class Megan puts on for those who graduated from her classes.  It was a great turnout and lots of fun for the dogs and owners.


http://pets.webshots.com/album/579862718mhvZdb

MARCH 3, 2011 - WHAT A DIFFERENCE

EDMONTON AKA DEADMONTON - TEMPERATURE  -20 C

GRANDE PRAIRIE - TEMPERATURE  -21 C

UNION BAY  TEMPERATURE  4 C
FISHING BOATS GATHERING AT HENRY BAY

FOR THOSE ASKING FOR THE LINK TO THE DOGS OF UNION BAY PICS

Will be posting some new pics when weather is a bit better as we have some new dogs.  A beautiful whippet pup, Astro, that is amazingly fast and Gypsy, who is one of the most stunningly beautiful, happy pups, getting to know the regular gang and enjoying playing.

http://pets.webshots.com/album/579424478hUkAXc?vhost=pets

http://pets.webshots.com/album/577126614ZmcWGL?vhost=pets

MORE ACTIVITY ON BAYNES SOUND

It appears the herring fishery will be commencing soon.  The usual boats have shown up prior to the start.  Hopefully, the activity will be in our area of Baynes Sound.  

Unbelievable number of eagles this year, and very hungry.  Food is scarce and they need a good feed.

Will post pics weather permitting.