.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}

old guy's rants

~ musings from a life well lived ~

My Photo
Name:
Location: Cornwall, Prince Edward Island, Canada

Energetic, articulate and intelligent. A man of vision. Not nearly as curmudgeonly as I pretend to be. (I declined to write a description of myself, so this was a collaborative effort developed by my daughter and my life parter.)

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Thinking of Thunder and Lightning

This morning after Audrey trundled off to work, I felt lazy and decided to lie in bed and read for a while.  I watched a little of the news of elections and then picked up my book and began to read. Well, actually I don't remember reading much.
     I do remember a very loud clap of THUNDER and shortly and even LOUDER clap. So, the lightening was close. Power went off and quickly returned leaving all the clocks in the house blinking 12:00. Really I didn't see all of them at once, just the two in the bedroom.
     It reminded me of the log house in Cape Breton where a bolt of lightening hit the power pole at the end of the drive, went down the pole underground on the power line to the house and entered behind the refrigerator where it blew up the outlet where the fridge was plugged. No one hurt. Fridge still worked just a new plug needed. Thankfully we had no antennas on the roof that would have channelled the lightening more directly.
     That reminded me of the times when I was in St. Bonaventure Univ. The Univ. was situated in a valley south of the foothills of the Allegany mountains. It was not unusual for us to see lightening beyond the hills when a storm was approaching. Dave Yokim and I often took our exercise after dinner on the front drive of the campus which ran straight north toward the hills. We would see lightening in the sky and seconds later hear the thunder. We enjoyed the lightening as it hit in various patterns. We thought nothing of it until one night for some reason the thunder sounded behind us. We turned to see massive black clouds charging in our direction from the south and more lightening and thunder almost simultaneously. Dave, being well over three hundred pounds did not run well. But that night he sprinted with me trying to catch up.
     Ah, thunder which warns that the danger has passed. But also warns that there may be more danger coming. Wouldn't it be nice if other dangerous things in life provided a warning. But perhaps I am misinterpreting because the reality precedes the warning if you are where the lightening hits. I wonder if people hit by lightening hear the thunder also.


Did you ever pound the horn of your car after you swerved to avoid a collision? Thunder after the lightening???

Monday, October 27, 2014

Getting a doctor

Having moved from Prince Edward Island where I had the same doctor for almost as long as I lived there, it was an interesting experience trying to get a "family doctor" here in Ontario.
    There are clinics scattered randomly (it seems to me) around Timmins but none in my immediate (walking distance) area. So Audrey asked around at the College where they have a medical center, if there were any doctors willing to take on new patients. We got two names and I found an address for one of them and went to the office and guess what... we have our names on the list and an appointment to meet and greet the doctor. She has just become a member of a group of doctors who form a Health Care group.
   Who ever guessed it would be so easy?
   Last week when I needed to see a doctor for a minor bleeding problem I went to an "after-hours" clinic and got in after a very short wait. That resulted in two referrals for further examination all of which came fairly quickly compared to the year I waited in PEI for treatment after my initial diagnosis of prostate cancer.
   Shortly we will  meet our new doctor and hope we really don't need her services. So to put it in context, we arrived in Timmins on August 1 and out first visit to our family doctor is scheduled for November 11th.
   So this is my blah blog of the day. I see that nine views were made of my most recent post. I wonder who looks at this and I hope that if you do you enjoy it enough to tell me. However that is done in the mysterious (for me) world of blogging. tout fini, gut genug. auf wieders...




















































t

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Back Again

It has been a while since the old guy got his fingers on the board. However, that is about to change.


Those who follow my intermittent rants realize that I now live in Timmins Ontario with my wife Audrey Penner who was recently hired to be Vice President Academic and Student Success at Northern College of Ontario.


Me I just turned 76 years of age so I guess my name fits. For now that is all I am going to say. But I will now be publishing more.


If anyone reading this knows how to open it so that anyone who wants can read it let me know. Or better, can I invite people and if so how do I do that?