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Canada Day Spirit

Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo.

We’re enjoying Canada Day on beautiful Lake of the Woods and yesterday, while we were in Kenora, I decided to get more in the spirit of things and do a little flag waving.

Last night there was quite a strong storm with lots of rain but things settled down over night and we boated into Kenora this morning to catch some of the harbor side festivities that were taking place. Lots of folks out enjoying the day and the weather cooperating. a nice mix of sun & cloud, warm an a light breeze.

We took an untraveled route back from Kenora, investigating a couple of narrow passages and are going to hang out at the dock for a while with a good book.

Enjoy the day Canada, eh! Dr. Doom & Friend


The last night of the Rational Conference in Orlando, Florida and we’re at the Universal Studio’s Islands of Adventure. On the way in a couple of characters are posing for pictures. This one made me laugh.

Back in Winnipeg a couple of days ago while walking by a store in a mall, I had another good laugh. This just struck me for some odd reason as being very hilarious. The store was selling t-shirts with funny sayings on them and behind that rack, there was a display of door mats, each with a saying written on it. One simply said,

I’m Mat

Well the preconfernece day has ended with the traditional poolside reception. I arrived for the opening at 6pm, had something to eat and drink and then is started to rain. and not just a little bit, but a full out thunderstorm with heavy rain. I think the late comers will be out of luck and who knows how they will move the party for a couple of thousand people to another venue. I’d say the food would be soaked before they could put it away.

Right now I’m hanging around a kiosk waiting for it to let up before I head out to the car. At least I’m not hungry. 🙂

Speaking of food, bad marks for the fodd so far. Hotdogs & Hamburgers for a fancy party reception really doesn’t cut it. It seems that the conference glory days of the 2000 era are gone and cutbacks are in effect. Funny, they didn’t make the conference any less expensive. Bull Creek Wildlife Management Area


After getting settled at the hotel, I decided to do a little exploring, something other that the typical theme park stuff. I picked up a brochure on Kissimmee that made it seem quite interesting, wrong! It was quite a let down. The couple of attractions I went to were quite disappointing. The “historic train station” turned out to be just a run down old train station with nothing of interest for a visitor. Today, it’s just another Amtrak stop. The Bull Creek Wildlife Management Area sounded better with an “interpretive loop” 8.6 mile driving tour. There were 3-4 spots that looked like this, and the rest was just a road through the low level brush. I saw 3 deer and two different kinds of birds and not much else. The brochure for the self-guiding tour was a simple map with all the hunting and camping regulations. No explanation of the area or why it’s a wildlife management area. It seemed to be more about the hunting. Oh yeah, I did see one other van driving slowly with the side door open. I didn’t get a close look, but I’d bet there was some fire power pointing out that door. The Birthday Boy


Well hardly a boy but a fine young man that we’re very proud of. While 21 is not quite the landmark birthday it once was, it still means something special to us “older” types.

For Scott, it was a typical work day, up early and out of the house by about 6:30am to head off to work. He did manage to get home at a more reasonable time so we could head out to the lake for the May long weekend. We had an enjoyable discussion on the way down to join Dez and Eric who went out Thursday evening. After a great steak dinner we finally got around to opening presents. Somehow I think I was almost more interested in getting to this part than Scott was! This must be a sign of maturity that I just haven’t reached yet, delaying the receiving of your presents.

Happy 21st Birthday Scott! Snake #2

This was actually from last weekend when we went to Narcisse, Manitoba which is world famous breeding ground for red-sided garter snakes. I’d known about this attraction for some time but we’d never gone until this spring. One of the four dens was very active and it was quite interesting to photograph the snakes and I was amazed by the numbers of snakes in the ajacent fields. I think we’ll go back this fall for the return migration. Bird House

My dad always told me that I couldn’t get married on a summer weekend because it would mess up going to the lake, so we got married in December. December is a great time of year and people generally don’t have better things to do. But that message didn’t get out to the extended family on Shirley’s side so we spend a good part of a lovely +25C sunny Saturday in a basement hall attending a wedding. A very nice wedding, and the bride and groom were lovely and it was all very nice. (I’ll finish this later, company has

So, I hope nobody missed us too much, but we bailed before the speeches began and we heard later that there was dancing and games and the party went on for most of the afternoon. With the great weather and the desire to be outside Shirley and I went off Geocaching. We’ve had lots of fun with this high-tech hide and seek game and as BigDadoo and Hot Mamma we’ve found several caches over the past couple of years. This afternoon we focused on some caches along the Red River. We found two in St. Vital Park, Frogtastically Green, You’re Invited and TikiHut. In fact, the picture is the “Tiki Hut”. This is where the cache is hidden, in the base of the birdhouse behind that latch and swing updoor. Some people are so clever and this is definitively one of the more creative caches we’ve found to date.

While we were in the area we also saw the power of the river and river bank erosion at work on this tree where the trunk has been split in two from the bottom up. Ice Breaker #4


We were at the cottage on Lake of the Woods for part of the Easter weekend with Eric, Dez, Scott & Mandi when the four of them decided to do something new. Well, actually the guys invented this but the girls really got into it as well. It’s rare that we’re at the lake when the ice breaks up and this weekend it wasn’t quite ready to go, but the trusty Lund was pressed into Icebreaker duty. This is a cottage first! With some pushing and prodding and some very rhythmic heaving they actually managed to get the boat a fair way out into the water. Just so they didn’t get stuck there a safety rope attached to the dock made sure they would return in time for dinner.


(tem’pus fyOO’jit), [Latin]: Time Flies



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