Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Duck, Duck, Goose.
Here's an update on the goose we have been feeding, as well as some greedy, but beautiful ducks as well. The lake is frozen over now and most of the other geese have gone, however our broken-winged friend is still there, as well as 2 other ones that we see now and then. The other day those two flew overhead, honking as if to say "Farewell" to the poor remaining one, and he stretched his neck and flapped his wings as hard as he could, it just about broke my heart, but today all three were together again, although the 2 who can fly seem to stay further away from the injured one.
You should click on this picture (of the 2) to enlarge it, I was really pleased with how it turned out, the colour of the weeds and algae underneath the ice is amazing. The ducks and geese walk so carefully, stretching their necks to see where to step and every now and then they peck at the ice, I guess they see a particularly delectable looking piece of weed beneath the clear ice and they try to get it. 
The other 2 geese and the 4 ducks won't come up to us, but the injured fellow will take food from your hand. We have to break holes in the ice now so thay they can get water. Today we sat and laughed as all 4 ducks ran across the entire lake to get to us, their little fat bodies waddling and their bright orange feet skittering across the slippery ice, in their haste to get some feed before the geese ate it all. The hole we had punched in the ice wasn't even 3 inches across and yet every single duck fell into it. They hopped out and shook their tail feathers and continued on the mad scramble to get to the food. It was almost as if, when the first duck fell in, that the other 3 thought that they had to also.We bought some proper feed for them, bread is like "junk food" for a goose, it won't hurt them and they enjoy it, but they can't live on it. I bought 22 kg of cracked corn, wheat, oats and barly and do they ever gobble it down. You can see the size of his gullet in the bottom picture...full and content.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
This isn't my eye; my eye was quite a bit more amazing (after all, it being my eye and all...) but this is basically how it looked. Can't you imagine the blood vessels being massive lightening strikes, during some horrendous inner eye storm? Or, is it just me, and do I have some type of Inner Eye Fixation?
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Customer service
What the hell is awebding??
Customer Service has been discussed by me before, as well as by some of my friends, whose blogs I follow, who actually haven't updated their blog lately...although that's another story.
This annoys me however. Last year I bought new glasses. The price was HORRENDOUS, but I decided that I would finally get a really good pair, with all the bells and whistles...non-scratch, special coating, anti-glare, bendy-legs (since I always seem to break a leg) and all the other extras. They were $759.00...yoiks! But, there was a $100.00 cash back thing going on, and Steven's Blue Cross would reimburse me $250.00, so really, I ended up paying $410.00 and when I rationalized it that way, it didn't seem so bad.
Plus, there was a one year guarantee that was 100%...if you lost them, sat on them, whatever...total replacement. And the second year was the same deal, but 50%.
Now. After I paid and went home, I was phoned a day or so later, saying that they had mischarged me, and I owed another $50.(she had forgotten to charge me for the eye exam, which is not free in BC anymore. Thanks, Gordon Campbell, but we won't go there now) I was a little choked, but I went and paid it. So, these glasses are now up to $809.00, which is totally outrageous, but again, I am rationalizing that down to $460.00, and I always end up with scratched lens, which drives me insane, so I really am very pleased with these ones.
Jump ahead just less than a year. The glasses seem to need a bit of an adjustment, and since they are so expensive, I don't want to screw around with them, so I zip down to the optometrists and ask the girl to straighten them for me, which she does, quickly and with a smile, also telling me that if her eyes look funny, it's because she just had drops to dilate her pupils, and she wasn't actually crying. As I leave, I am thinking they seem too tight and still sort of crooked. I drive half way home and realize that something is wrong, so back I go. The optometrist himself is there, so I ask him if he could straighten them, and he comments: "God God, who did this?" and I said: "The girl who just had her pupils dilated." He chuckled and said that she couldn't see straight, and no wonder she did an awful job. So off I went again, after he adjusted them.
Since then, they were rather loose, but not really worth complaining about. HOWEVER, a few months later, which was exactly 2 weeks after the one year guarantee ran out (can you see where this is going?) they were just TOO loose, so off I go again. The woman looked at them, and says that the temple is cracked and I need a new one, since I am at the 50% term of the guarantee now, it will be $49.00, which is half of the cost of a new temple. I told her the story, and said that I quite thought that the girl who adjusted them had perhaps been too rough and cracked them, and really, if I had just come 2 weeks earlier, then there would have been no charge to me at all. She basically said: "Too bad.", so I asked her to order the new part, and went home, cranky.
Now, the new part arrives the same day I had another yearly eye exam, so as I am waiting there, the fellow goes to get the new part. I asked him why it would have cracked, being such expensive frames, and he apologetically tells me that even the high end frames are mass produced and out-sourced now. So I said, then, really, rather than pay these prices for glasses that last a year, I'm better off to go to Wal-Mart and get cheap ones for $300 and in reality, get 2 or 3 pairs for the same total price. He didn't say anything, but just went back to fix my glasses. And when he came out, he said: "Guess what? It wasn't the temple at all, the screw had just broken off inside the screw-hole, so I just replaced it...no charge." I was both happy and mightily pissed off at the same time. It's a good thing that after the eye exam, I was told that my eyes hadn't changed in the last year, so I didn't need new lenses, because you can guarantee that I wouldn't have got them there.
As a small side note, they have a new machine there, that takes a digital photo of the inside of your eye. Since glacoma and other eye diseases run in my family, he suggested that I have this done. It's a $25 charge, that may or may not be covered by my medical, but I thought I'd have it done anyhow. The picture is then shown to you on his computer screen, which is quite a huge screen, and I have to tell you, the inside of an eye is simply gorgeous. At least mine is, I don't know about yours. It looks just like Jupiter. Really! Huge and round and orange, with a large reddish "spot" (the place where the optic nerve enters the back of the eye) that look exactly like the red spot on Jupiter. You can see all the blood vessels, and a shadowy area that looks like the possible storm areas on Jupiter. I was amazed...it was phenomenal to look inside of my own eye.
I asked him if anyone ever asked for a print out, as I thought it was quite fantastic, and he just looked at me like I was an insane astronomer and said, in a hesitant tone: "Ummm, no, you're the first." *sigh*. Oh well, maybe next year they'll let us have a copy for an additional $25.00, I'd happily frame it and hang it on my wall.
~The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient, while Nature cures the disease.
~Voltaire (1694-1778)
Customer Service has been discussed by me before, as well as by some of my friends, whose blogs I follow, who actually haven't updated their blog lately...although that's another story.
This annoys me however. Last year I bought new glasses. The price was HORRENDOUS, but I decided that I would finally get a really good pair, with all the bells and whistles...non-scratch, special coating, anti-glare, bendy-legs (since I always seem to break a leg) and all the other extras. They were $759.00...yoiks! But, there was a $100.00 cash back thing going on, and Steven's Blue Cross would reimburse me $250.00, so really, I ended up paying $410.00 and when I rationalized it that way, it didn't seem so bad.
Plus, there was a one year guarantee that was 100%...if you lost them, sat on them, whatever...total replacement. And the second year was the same deal, but 50%.
Now. After I paid and went home, I was phoned a day or so later, saying that they had mischarged me, and I owed another $50.(she had forgotten to charge me for the eye exam, which is not free in BC anymore. Thanks, Gordon Campbell, but we won't go there now) I was a little choked, but I went and paid it. So, these glasses are now up to $809.00, which is totally outrageous, but again, I am rationalizing that down to $460.00, and I always end up with scratched lens, which drives me insane, so I really am very pleased with these ones.
Jump ahead just less than a year. The glasses seem to need a bit of an adjustment, and since they are so expensive, I don't want to screw around with them, so I zip down to the optometrists and ask the girl to straighten them for me, which she does, quickly and with a smile, also telling me that if her eyes look funny, it's because she just had drops to dilate her pupils, and she wasn't actually crying. As I leave, I am thinking they seem too tight and still sort of crooked. I drive half way home and realize that something is wrong, so back I go. The optometrist himself is there, so I ask him if he could straighten them, and he comments: "God God, who did this?" and I said: "The girl who just had her pupils dilated." He chuckled and said that she couldn't see straight, and no wonder she did an awful job. So off I went again, after he adjusted them.
Since then, they were rather loose, but not really worth complaining about. HOWEVER, a few months later, which was exactly 2 weeks after the one year guarantee ran out (can you see where this is going?) they were just TOO loose, so off I go again. The woman looked at them, and says that the temple is cracked and I need a new one, since I am at the 50% term of the guarantee now, it will be $49.00, which is half of the cost of a new temple. I told her the story, and said that I quite thought that the girl who adjusted them had perhaps been too rough and cracked them, and really, if I had just come 2 weeks earlier, then there would have been no charge to me at all. She basically said: "Too bad.", so I asked her to order the new part, and went home, cranky.
Now, the new part arrives the same day I had another yearly eye exam, so as I am waiting there, the fellow goes to get the new part. I asked him why it would have cracked, being such expensive frames, and he apologetically tells me that even the high end frames are mass produced and out-sourced now. So I said, then, really, rather than pay these prices for glasses that last a year, I'm better off to go to Wal-Mart and get cheap ones for $300 and in reality, get 2 or 3 pairs for the same total price. He didn't say anything, but just went back to fix my glasses. And when he came out, he said: "Guess what? It wasn't the temple at all, the screw had just broken off inside the screw-hole, so I just replaced it...no charge." I was both happy and mightily pissed off at the same time. It's a good thing that after the eye exam, I was told that my eyes hadn't changed in the last year, so I didn't need new lenses, because you can guarantee that I wouldn't have got them there.
As a small side note, they have a new machine there, that takes a digital photo of the inside of your eye. Since glacoma and other eye diseases run in my family, he suggested that I have this done. It's a $25 charge, that may or may not be covered by my medical, but I thought I'd have it done anyhow. The picture is then shown to you on his computer screen, which is quite a huge screen, and I have to tell you, the inside of an eye is simply gorgeous. At least mine is, I don't know about yours. It looks just like Jupiter. Really! Huge and round and orange, with a large reddish "spot" (the place where the optic nerve enters the back of the eye) that look exactly like the red spot on Jupiter. You can see all the blood vessels, and a shadowy area that looks like the possible storm areas on Jupiter. I was amazed...it was phenomenal to look inside of my own eye.
I asked him if anyone ever asked for a print out, as I thought it was quite fantastic, and he just looked at me like I was an insane astronomer and said, in a hesitant tone: "Ummm, no, you're the first." *sigh*. Oh well, maybe next year they'll let us have a copy for an additional $25.00, I'd happily frame it and hang it on my wall.
~The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient, while Nature cures the disease.
~Voltaire (1694-1778)
Friday, October 17, 2008
Never in the right spot.
I'm always either a step behind, or, (not to brag) ahead of the pack.
In the Step Behind Department; now that Sex in the City is long over with, I had my first Cosmopolitan drink the other day....it was excellent. I know that everyone who is "in the loop" is probably now drinking new and fancier "in" drinks, and would likely gasp with disbelief if they heard me order one (although I don't even go to bars anymore, but that's a whole other department) ah yes....I am a Step Behind.
I watched TV the other night, my very first episode of CSI. I think it was a Las Vegas one, I am so far out of the loop that I didn't even realize that there were like 3 different CSI series. It was really good, but I am too far behind to keep up. Ah, yes....another Step Behind.
But on a brighter note, my Ahead of the Packs are pretty good. Although, now that I stop to think, they were Ahead of the Pack a long time ago, so they are sort of Step Behind now. Damn...I just can't win.
I was a HUGE fan of "Pillars of the Earth" long before Oprah read it and gave it her Royal Nod of Approval. I was a Richard Bachman fan before anyone knew he was Stephen King...and I bought his books that were published when he was "just" Richard Bachman. I liked souviner spoons and collected them (all 600 and some odd that I have) before you found them everywhere, but of course no one collects them now, but I think they'll come back again. Ummm, let's see....I sprinkled flax on my food long before it was the healthy thing to do.
There was a time, as a teen, when it would have mortified me to not know the latest trends, and/or to not have tried them, but now I am old enough (no...bad choice of words...experienced enough!) that I couldn't care less what is trendy and what is passe. It's the Purple Hat Syndrome starting to affect me, and I'm pretty tickled about it!
~ If I had my life to live over, I'd pick more dandelions.
In the Step Behind Department; now that Sex in the City is long over with, I had my first Cosmopolitan drink the other day....it was excellent. I know that everyone who is "in the loop" is probably now drinking new and fancier "in" drinks, and would likely gasp with disbelief if they heard me order one (although I don't even go to bars anymore, but that's a whole other department) ah yes....I am a Step Behind.
I watched TV the other night, my very first episode of CSI. I think it was a Las Vegas one, I am so far out of the loop that I didn't even realize that there were like 3 different CSI series. It was really good, but I am too far behind to keep up. Ah, yes....another Step Behind.
But on a brighter note, my Ahead of the Packs are pretty good. Although, now that I stop to think, they were Ahead of the Pack a long time ago, so they are sort of Step Behind now. Damn...I just can't win.
I was a HUGE fan of "Pillars of the Earth" long before Oprah read it and gave it her Royal Nod of Approval. I was a Richard Bachman fan before anyone knew he was Stephen King...and I bought his books that were published when he was "just" Richard Bachman. I liked souviner spoons and collected them (all 600 and some odd that I have) before you found them everywhere, but of course no one collects them now, but I think they'll come back again. Ummm, let's see....I sprinkled flax on my food long before it was the healthy thing to do.
There was a time, as a teen, when it would have mortified me to not know the latest trends, and/or to not have tried them, but now I am old enough (no...bad choice of words...experienced enough!) that I couldn't care less what is trendy and what is passe. It's the Purple Hat Syndrome starting to affect me, and I'm pretty tickled about it!
~ If I had my life to live over, I'd pick more dandelions.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
I can't stop reading. It's like OCD in a way, like eating cashews...once I start, I can't stop. I have to have a book to read AT ALL TIMES, and a "spare". Right now I am on page 8 of a 674 page book, as well as having a spare, and I am still in a panic because the library is closed for the next 3 days...as if I'll finish those in that time, and be "bookless." And besides, I have books here that I haven't read yet, plus magazines, BUT, they are all old ones that I picked up at book sales and whatnot...so they don't actually count.
*sigh* It's a huge worry. I mean, what if I break a leg and end up in the hospital for a week, and Steven has to get books for me? That would not be good.
~Wear the old coat and buy the new book.
~ Austin Phelps
*sigh* It's a huge worry. I mean, what if I break a leg and end up in the hospital for a week, and Steven has to get books for me? That would not be good.
~Wear the old coat and buy the new book.
~ Austin Phelps
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
My latest addiction...and it's not Facebook!
This is my latest addiction, and I am totally hooked. This is probably one of those things that everyone else already knows and (probably) finds silly, but I am delighted!
Curious? I mean, are you a curious person? I am. I love to know what other people think and what other people's lives are like. Their everyday lives. I guess that could be considered nosy.....
So, at the top of this blog (and on anyone else's as well) you'll see that "search" box, and beside it you'll see "Next Blog". Well, click on it and it takes you to a random blog. I have spent the better part of the last few hours looking at blogs from all over the world. Some are in languages that I don't understand, some are even in cyrillic letters and some are in everyday english. I perused one in French; a woman who takes the most phenomenal pictures of food, and she is also redoing her home as well, I think she may want to be a caterer...couldn't quite figure it out, but it was amazing. I think I'll go back to hers again and again.
It's sort of a voyeur type of thing, peeking into people's lives, seeing pictures of new babies and new pets, holidays and just everyday random thoughts of others.
Yes, I am hooked. I wonder if any strangers ever look at mine?
~Curiosity is free wheeling intelligence
~Alistair Cooke
Curious? I mean, are you a curious person? I am. I love to know what other people think and what other people's lives are like. Their everyday lives. I guess that could be considered nosy.....
So, at the top of this blog (and on anyone else's as well) you'll see that "search" box, and beside it you'll see "Next Blog". Well, click on it and it takes you to a random blog. I have spent the better part of the last few hours looking at blogs from all over the world. Some are in languages that I don't understand, some are even in cyrillic letters and some are in everyday english. I perused one in French; a woman who takes the most phenomenal pictures of food, and she is also redoing her home as well, I think she may want to be a caterer...couldn't quite figure it out, but it was amazing. I think I'll go back to hers again and again.
It's sort of a voyeur type of thing, peeking into people's lives, seeing pictures of new babies and new pets, holidays and just everyday random thoughts of others.
Yes, I am hooked. I wonder if any strangers ever look at mine?
~Curiosity is free wheeling intelligence
~Alistair Cooke
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Things I worry About.
The last few times I was up at Idlewild, I saw this poor fellow with a gimpy looking wing. Apparently he has been hurt somehow, probably a dog or one of the coyotes that roam the area. For the first while, his wing hung down quite badly, it almost dragged on the ground, but as it is healing, it seems to be a bit more back in it's normal place. I don't, however, think he can fly and I am sorely worried about what will happen to him this winter. The other Canadian geese are still around, but it is October 2 now and they should be heading South fairly soon. (Do you see them Lynne? Linda? I know they go your way.) I worry because I know that these Canadian geese tend to mate for life, and I keep imagining the others flying off, and this fellow trying to follow. I wonder if his mate will stay with him? I fed him some bread this afternoon, which you are not supposed to do, but I have been seeing them and feeding them up here for 14 or 15 years (and I know other people do too) and they leave every Fall and return every Spring, so I doubt I have done any great harm. I think that feeding the ducks and geese is as Canadian as apple pie is to the Americans! I'll be checking on him on a regular basis and I'll keep you informed of his progress. My son said: "it's all the circle of life", and he's right, but still, it makes me sad.~Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. ~Emile Durkheim.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)