First, is what happened to the road that connects the two parts of Port Renfrew. It is now just 1 lane.
(Click photos to enlarge.)
Second, is the house we used to live in there, it was a dirty, ugly grey color, but now it's all new. I think I would have found a better green.
Third, is Ted & Loretta's house. Now those are great colors. Manfred says the two houses should be together -- apples & cinnamon. It's the house just above the landslide.
Ted sent us these photos. Thanks, Ted.
We are still in Victoria, not doing much of anything. Manfred is cooking a turkey.
Parliament Building here, in Victoria.
We are actually having a white Christmas this year, the first in Victoria since 1965! It almost never snows here, but this year it did.
Can't let them fail? ... . Yes . we . can! . ... Giving them $25B is not saving them -- it is starting an ongoing, open-ended subsidy. It is rewarding the industry for doing wrong. Rewarding executives for bribing the government to allow them to continue to make gas-guzzlers. Rewarding the UAW for pricing their members out of the market. Rewarding auto workers for demanding exorbitant pay for producing unsellable old technology.
If you give them more money now, you will have to continue doing it forever, because they will NOT change. Never, as long as you keep them in business doing business as usual. Don't whine about the 3-4 years-- if they didn't see this coming 5 years ago, what makes you think they have even common sense, let alone the smarts to run a company? These are the people that dumped their electric car in the desert!
Use the $25 Billion to help tide over the workers and suppliers that are hardest hit. Even if 1 Million workers were out of jobs (which would not happen), $25,000 each would be a nice compensation. Or to assist startups of other businesses. Or put the out-of-work workers to work on fixing the infrastructure, or developing green technology, or making trains. Bankrupcy does not mean total disappearance. The worst thing would be to use it to "bail out" one company. Like giving a $50 bill to one beggar when there are others watching. And they all know where you live.
In Germany, "green technology" has surpassed their auto industry(!) in size and impact. They are the world's biggest producers of solar panels, Denmark is the world's biggest producer of wind turbines, Spain is reaching its goal of a high-speed train station within 2 km of every citizen. They don't do it for ecological reasons -- they do it for economic reasons. (It's the economy, stupid.) Come on, people, the US is being left in the dust. Get with the 21st century.
.
-- I haven't said anything here for such a loong time. We have been trying to follow the election "news" but it's all so phony -- pundits quoting rumors quoting hate mail and passing as "news". And all the earnest predictions, based on polls that are not reliable in a situation like this. 
As for the Messiah, I am still disappointed that he accepted that
Notice, my color is blue 
I'm gonna put a few quotations here, when I see one I like, starting with:
If, at first, an idea is not absurd, then it has no hope at all. --Einstein
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Take heart -- truth and happiness will get you in the end. You can't lose in this game. Have fun. It goes on too long to be taken seriously all the time. -- John & Lyn St.Clair Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Men are disturbed, not by things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen -- Epictetus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Be realistic: Plan for a miracle. -- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Near Fredericksburg, Texas, where there is a large German speaking
population, a farmer walking down a country road notices a man drinking
from his pond with his hand.
The farmer shouted: 'Trink das wasser nicht. Die kuhen haben dahin
gesheissen.' (If you don't understand, find out what it means.)
The man shouted back: 'I'm from New York and just down here campaigning
for McCain & Palin, I can't understand you. Please speak in English.'
The farmer replied: 'Use two hands, you'll get more.'
You might think the reason for this photo is the ad for storage -- it is rather weird that we need to pay $$ to keep our stuff out of our living area so we can buy more stuff.
And if you look closely, the website is a .ca -- that's dot-CA, which means Canada (the Canadians have copied the Americans in their acquisitive habits).
In Canada, billboards are illegal.
The only place they can exist is on Indian Reserves, where not all White-guy laws apply.
The Reserves make money by charging the White-guys plenty to put billboards there.
This photo was taken just outside of Victoria, the capitol of British Columbia, Canada.
The funny thing about that is the 2nd billboard... if you click on the picture, to enlarge it, you can read "United States of America" in the red strip at the bottom.
We have gotten this really great new toy -- an iPod "Touch".
It is sooo coool.
It syncs with our computer's email, address book, calendar, photos, movies and music. It goes anywhere on the internet and is especially good for viewing videos on YouTube. It does maps with directions and satellite views, and does lots of other cool things.
You have to find a hot spot, just like with a computer. It really works so there's no need to take a computer with you for those things.
It doesn't store documents or work with a wireless printer, yet, but I'm sure it will. Hundreds of people are working round the clock to make new software for it.
And, it has that awesome iPod sound! Mozart never sounded so good!
Today's the day! Manfred just started his NEW DIET. It's the Fat Loss 4 Idiots diet (fatloss4idiots.com). For the curious -- it advertises "lose 9 pounds every 11 days". I checked out (on the internet) people who had tried it, and they figured the weight loss was between 6.5 & 10 pounds. You pay $39 and you get a downloadable book.pdf and unlimited access to an online meal plan generator. It asks you to choose your favorite foods from 2 lists, then generates an 11 day regimen for 4 meals each day. You must eat four meals, and you can eat as much as you like, but don't stuff yourself.
The meals are super-easy eg. turkey slices, cheese slices, yogurt; tuna salad plate, walnuts, apple; etc. There is an all-fruit day, an all-vegetable day, an all-protein day, and some meals are all-meat. The idea is to change the eating habits so there is no longer a pattern, which ups the metabolism (and puts you into a different frame of mind).
After the 11 days, you eat whatever you want for 3 days and then get a new meal plan and do it again. You get to make new food choices, if you like.
We drove back pretty directly. We checked out the mudslide that detoured us-- didn't look like much. We saw lots of snow on the passes, and lots 
of waterfalls. We came back through the Frazer canyon-- spectacular, and I took the cable car down to "The Narrows".
In Vancouver, we took the Horseshoe Bay ferry, which cost an extra $23, but it's the big new ferry from Germany. We got back to our apartment just after midnight Thursday night. I have been sick, with a cold and haven't downloaded our last photos. I also have a toothache, so don't expect much coherence from me at this time.
Anyway, we are back at the phone. When we are gone, we get messages left on our phone-- they come in eamils.
We are sitting on a big balcony of a small motel outside of Chase BC, overlooking beautiful lake Shushwap, surrounded by beautiful mountains, and the sun is just about to set in a sky full of fluffy clouds, and we have just finished our pizza, and are relaxing with a glass of wine and the MacBook. What a life! Maybe we will never go home.
It's been a perfect day, we made many little stops to admire trains, waterfalls, stopped for snacks and deserts. The drive from Lake Louise to here has been very scenic. Tomorrow we'll make it home I suppose, even though we have the car until Friday 5pm. It is quite warm, hot here today. It was only two days ago that one could see one's breath, around freezing, and today it was at least 24C. The pizza lady said, from winter to summer in 2 days.
On the way to Lake Louise, we stopped and hiked up to a waterfall. Yes, Charles and Diane, new hips and all, hiked there. And here are the pictures to prove it.
When you get to the falls, you cross a bridge and go through a little tunnel and take a picture. Then your camera gets all full of spray and the next pictures you take are very strange.
The nifty condo that Charles and Diane got in Canmore is very nice, but -- no WiFi. So eventful days have come and gone without posts being posted and blog being blogged.
We went first to Lake Louise. Unfortunately, it is too early. We thought, with all the "heat wave" and the excessive snow melt (which caused the mudslide that blocked our road), that the ice would be gone -- NOT. The whole lake is frozen over, except for a tiny bit on the edge.
And there is worse to come -- the road to Moraine Lake is still closed by snow, so we can't go there at all. It is a big blow, a major setback. But we will weather the storm.
Charles & Diane's anniversary was yesterday, and our extra special friend, Bill Jones, paid for a nice anniversary dinner at the world-famous FAIRMONT CHATEAU LAKE LOUISE. It was a most memorable dinner, with a special dessert plate and champaign.
We finally met up with Charles and Diane at the Calgary airport, just as planned. But there were (mis)adventures along the way.
We could not go on our planned route on the Trans Canada Highway all the way to Calgary, because there was a big mudslide (due mainly to excessive spring snow-melt) and the road was closed for an indeterminate number of days. After waiting as long as possible for better news, we back-tracked 100 km to take an alternate route that added over 400 more km to our trip.
However, the alternate route took us through Jasper National Park, which was well worth the extra gas money and driving time. We were rather in a rush, so I had to take most of the photos through the (dirty) windshield. Here are some of them, even some that are "not good enough".
If you click on the map in Sunday's post, you can see the two routes, the straight one and the big loop up north to Jasper and back down.
We are now in the Days Inn at the Calgary Airport, and tomorrow we drive (back) to Canmore to move into the condo where we stay a week, while exploring Banff National Park.
The weather has been good, so far. Rain on the road yesterday, in places, but didn't bother us. Nice and cool.
Tripping away.
We left Victoria at 7am this morning, took the 9 o'clock ferry to Tsawwassen, and here we are on the mainland. There was a rodeo and a big fair and other things going on, people everywhere.
We drove right past Hope and Kamloops and ended up in a B&B in Salmon Arm -- see pics.
The other picture is of the last spike driven in the Canadian trans-continental railway.
I got up at 6 am instead of my usual 9 am so I'm too sleepy to write more.
