Things that make ya go hmmmmmmm....

click on images to enlarge...

(and yup, that last one is quite real.)

Highlanders

Scenes from the 78th Highlanders at the War Museum on Saturday. The Ottawa River in the background. Click on the images to enlarge.

From the top down....
the Salute
the march past
Return to Camp Playing "The Black Bear"
Stand in Review
Jock, a moment of blessed silence before he calls his troops together.

A poignant story from Afganistan

From the Toronto Globe and Mail. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060824.AFGHANCHILD24/TPStory/TPInternational/Asia/

A solemn ceremony for Afghan 10-year-old
GRAEME SMITH
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- The wail of bagpipes and the roar of jet engines filled the air at Kandahar airfield last night, as the Canadian military said farewell to a fallen soldier.
But silence hung over another goodbye yesterday, a smaller ceremony for a 10-year-old Afghan boy killed by a Canadian bullet.
No eulogy was spoken, and no explanation for why a soldier guarding a street in Kandahar fired at him.
There was a gesture of respect for the boy's family, however. He had spent almost 24 hours in the hands of foreigners -- first at Camp Nathan Smith, the home of Canada's Provincial Reconstruction Team, where he was shot about half a kilometre outside the gates, and then at the Kandahar airfield's military hospital.
After he was declared dead, he was zipped into a black body bag and laid on a stretcher.
Sergeant Paul Turner, a military bodyguard who normally guards the PRT commander, was assigned the task of loading the small corpse into a LAV-3 armoured vehicle and taking him to his family.
It could have been a crude delivery, but the Canadians wanted something more dignified. They parked the LAV outside the blue metal gates of Camp Nathan Smith, a short distance from the blue-and-silver sport-utility vehicle the boy's father intended to use as a hearse.
About a dozen Afghan police and Canadian soldiers formed two lines between the military and civilian vehicles. Soldiers saluted as the corpse was carried out of the LAV's back ramp and loaded into the SUV.
"It was a pretty sobering experience for everybody," Sgt. Turner said. "It was pretty quiet. Nobody knew what to say. I just wanted to call my own children."
The bodyguard had another reason for wanting to check on his family. He had dealt with another child victim of war the previous day, when he performed first aid on a young girl who was hit by a suicide bomb. She died shortly afterward.
That same bomb killed a Canadian soldier and resulted in the military roadblock where the 10-year-old was shot two hours later.
Sgt. Turner did eventually find a quiet moment to call home. His four children -- ages 18, 15, 9 and 6 -- are all okay, he said, although security rules prevented him from explaining to his wife all the reasons why he needed to talk. Watching that grieving father take away his son's body has left an ugly image in his mind's eye, he said, and that picture will probably stay with him forever.

Turned Fifty!

What a nice day. I turned Fifty Years old Today! I celebrated by traveling by motorcycle to the Smiths Falls Railway Museum, and crawling all over the cool displays.

The Dental Car (used to bring dentistry to remote Northern Communities during the '40s and 50's. There was a fun story about an Ojibiway woman who took two days to see the "person who is a doctor for the teeth". The 60 mile canoe trip normally took only one day, but since she had given birth the day before, she took an extra day. The newborn was found healthy and of course, had "no cavities". The doctor kept a library of kids books in the waiting room. It was theoretically a lending library, but as the story goes, he wasn't really all that worried about getting them back!

Four different kinds of cabooses. Some made at the Montreal Locomotive Works, some in Toronto. The oldest was from the twenties, and was heated by a wood stove. It was probably creaky even when it was new...but all the wood is original vertical matchboard. During the war, the cabooses were made of plywood, and the little potbellied stove burned coal. The youngest was built during the sixties, and was all steel. Layout inside was the same though!

The real display of course was the station itself. Rescued from certain destruction, it has been lovingly restored to its mahogany, hunter green and gold leaf glory of the flapper era!

A little museum, but still, a nice one. The Chinese Buffet afterward was welcome....it was the first meal I had had since the lunch at the Pirate Show! I didn't take my camera to either the Pirate Show (where I sold very well thank you!) on the weekend, nor at the Railway Museum. So I am awaiting permission from someone who DID remember to bring his camera and has posted them on his photobucket to allow me to show you all some of the pics of that event.

Busy weekend coming up! Fraser Highlanders at the War Museum. I want to see them perform, so the people who were coming over to armour in my shop...well, another time! In fact my weekends are booked solid until October! Well, should make for some interesting blogs.

So you want to have children test

MESS TEST: Smear peanut butter on the sofa and curtains. Place a fish stick behind the couch and leave it there all summer.

TOY TEST: Obtain a 55 gallon box of Legos (if Legos are not available, you may substitute roofing tacks). Have a friend spread them all over the house. Put on a blindfold. Try to walk to the bathroom or kitchen. Do not scream (this could wake a child at night).

GROCERY TEST: Borrow one or two small animals (goats are best) and take them with you as you shop at the grocery store. Always keep them in sight and pay for anything they eat or damage.

DRESSING TEST: Obtain one large, unhappy, live octopus. Stuff into a small net bag making sure that all arms stay inside.

FEEDING TEST: Obtain a large plastic milk jug. Fill halfway with water. Suspend from the ceiling with a stout cord. Start the jug swinging. Try to insert spoonfuls of soggy cereal (such as Fruit Loops or Cheerios) into the mouth of the jug, while pretending to be an airplane. Now dump the contents of the jug on the floor.

NIGHT TEST: Prepare by obtaining a small cloth bag and fill it with 8-12 pounds of sand. Soak it throughly in water. At 8:00 pm begin to waltz and hum with the bag until 9:00 pm. Lay your bag down and set your alarm for 10:00 pm. Get up, pick up the bag, and sing every song you have ever heard. Make up about a dozen more and sing these too until 4:00 am. Set the alarm for 5:00 am. Get up and make breakfast. Keep this up for the next five years. Look cheerful.
PHYSICAL TEST (Women): Obtain a large bean bag chair and attach it to the front of your clothes. Leave it there for 9 months. Now remove 10 of the beans.

PHYSICAL TEST (Men): Go to the nearest drug store. Set your wallet on the counter. Ask the clerk to help himself. Now proceed to the nearest food store. Go to the head office and arrange for your paycheck to be directly deposited to the store. Purchase a newspaper. Go home and read it quietly for the last time.

FINAL EXAM ASSIGNMENT: Find a couple who already has a small child. Lecture them on how they can improve their discipline, patience, tolerance, toilet training and child’s table manners. Suggest many ways they can improve. Emphasize to them that they should never allow their children to run wild. Enjoy this experience. It will be the last time you will have all the answers.

from http://pinkdiary808.com/?p=154


Maybe my loyal readers have one or two of their own?

Arnprior Fair

click on images to enlarge

From the top down....
Dan and young warrior...Simon in the background with his new "cat" shaped shield.
Me, pontificating
A day to hammer things...Shane doing the work, and Dan looking cool.
Henrietta and cutie, showing off their hammering.
Henrietta, lady blacksmith, in her glory.

Warriors

Shots from the Arnprior Fall Fair last Saturday.
(click on images to enlarge)

Golf

A game which ruins a perfectly good country walk.

Once in a while, I get out of the shop! Brenda enjoyed taking these "silloette" shots.

click on the images to enlarge.

Castle D'Estampes

What it looks like now. This is all that is left of the magnificent castle you see in the painting on the previous post. Here is the link to a closeup of that picture.... http://www.christusrex.org/www2/berry/DB-f8v-d2l.jpg
I always liked this tower (The Guinette Tower) since in floor plan, it looks like a four leaf clover! It is actually too dangerous to approach closely, or enter. Several other similar towers exist, Chateau Galliard for instance, are also built on the four leaf clover floor plan.

(from the web site....)
Diaporama
Ce donjon de l'ancien château Royal aujourd'hui disparu, a été édifié vers 1130-1150. La tour servit de prison à la reine Ingeburge l'épouse de Philippe Auguste qui l'avait répudié le lendemain de leur nuit de noces. L'architecture du donjon qui se distingue par sa forme quadrilobée, est représenté dans le fameux manuscrit médiéval "les très riches heures du Duc de Berry". Conservé sur presque toute sa hauteur (environ 27 mètres), le donjon est construit en moellons et chainée aux angles.

The Donjon is the big central tower, (we get the word dungeon from the same word), and you can see that it lobate...like four round cylindrical towers squeezed together.

If you click on the link "Diaporama" above, you will see closeups of that tower. Actually, they are better pictures than the one I uploaded here, but this one is taken from the same angle as the painting...grin!

Medieval August

This scene is at Etampes which, like nearby Dourdan, belonged to the Duc de Berry and which he put also at the disposal of Charles d'Orléans. A richly dressed horseman, wearing a white hood and bearing a falcon on his fist, leads two couples hawking.Leading on foot, a falconer holds two birds on his left fist and drags a long pole in his right hand. He is followed by a rider wearing a hat with upturned brims and an ultramarine cloak, carrying behind his saddle a maiden dressed in a gray frock trimmed with a white flounce; the rider releases a falcon from his right hand.

Another couple appears, perhaps more concerned with an amorous conversation than with the hunt. And, as in the month of May, small dogs accompany the riders.

The Château d'Etampes commands the scene. We can distinguish towers, the chapel, and buildings covered with tiles. In the midst rises the quadrangular twelfth-century dungeon, the Tour Guinette, flanked by corner towers which still exist.The inventories made upon the death of the Duc de Berry attest to the pleasure he derived from his stays here.On the hills, peasants bind into sheaves the newly mown wheat and pile the harvest onto an overloaded cart. Swimmers frolic in the Juine. A figure, obviously female, has just undressed and is preparing to enter the water, another is emerging; two more are already swimming. The deformation of the figures' appearance by the water's refraction has heen carefully observed and curiously rendered.All of this varied scene recalls the diversions of court life amid the seasonal work of the country.

Thus we review, from one month to the next, the daily life of the court of the Duc de Berry.

click on the image to enlarge it.

all this info is from http://www.christusrex.org/www2/berry/f8v.html

Those crazy Dutch!

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A young Dutch architect has created a floating bed which hovers above the ground through magnetic force and comes with a price tag of 1.2 million euros ($1.54 million).

Janjaap Ruijssenaars took inspiration for the bed -- a sleek black platform, which took six years to develop and can double as a dining table or a plinth -- from the mysterious monolith in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 cult film "2001: A Space Odyssey."

"No matter where you live all architecture is dictated by gravity. I wondered whether you could make an object, a building or a piece of furniture where this is not the case -- where another power actually dictates the image," Ruijssenaars said.
Magnets built into the floor and into the bed itself repel each other, pushing the bed up into the air. Thin steel cables tether the bed in place.

"It is not comfortable at the moment," admits Ruijssenaars, adding it needs cushions and bedclothes before use.

Although people with piercings should have no problem sleeping on the bed, Ruijssenaars advises them against entering the magnetic field between the bed and the floor.
They could find their piercing suddenly tugged toward one of the magnets.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060807/od_nm/dutch_bed_dc

Muskets

Normally, I would be maintaining muskets on a Monday, but today is a national holiday, so I think I just may go on a bike ride up into the Gatineau Hills. These pics are from last Monday, but hey...they all pretty much look alike!

The last image is the test shot!


click on images to enlarge.

Shop Work

I am now volunteering to maintain the muskets for the kilted regiment I wrote about below. Here are some shop pictures. The lad is Andrew McFee, and his dad, who dropped in because, well, he wanted to see an honest to goodness armourer's shop. The distinguishing feature of course is the curly air hoses hanging over all the benches.

What I am doing here is taking the locks out, and drilling the touch holes out because, well, they plug up with charcoal, wadding and other fouling almost right away when they shoot them. They are lucky to get off more than 3 shots. This procedure should help.

The fellow in the top picture wearing the ball cap is Jock White...at 75 he has started this regiment, got the grants, got the interest up, did the recruiting. He is a Scottish Piper by vocation. He is working 14 hour days. I think it will either keep him young, or put in his grave.

Close ups of the muskets later on....stay tuned....grin!

In Memoriam

Unfortunately, those bayonettes I made have been put to use. Here is a picture from the Ottawa Sun.
What can I say that doesn't sound trite.

We were all watching this funeral when we got news that 4 more soldiers had died in the course of their duties.

The tears are there. As is the steely resolve.
"Take up our quarrel with the foe, for if you break faith, we shall not rest...in Flanders fields".
----John McCray

(CP) - Since 2002, one Canadian diplomat and 23 Canadian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan. Here is a list of the deaths:

2006

Aug. 3 - Cpl. Christopher Jonathan Reid, 34, of the 1st Batallion of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, based in Edmonton, killed by a roadside bomb. Three other members of the same batallion killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack by Taliban forces west of Kandahar: Sgt. Vaughn Ingram, Cpl. Bryce Jeffrey Keller and Pte. Kevin Dallaire.

July 22 - Cpl. Francisco Gomez, 44, of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, based in Edmonton, and Cpl. Jason Patrick Warren, 29, of the Black Watch, the Royal Highland Regiment of Canada, based in Montreal, killed when a car packed with explosives rammed their armoured vehicle.

July 9 - Cpl. Anthony Joseph Boneca, 21, a reservist from the Lake Superior Scottish Regiment based in Thunder Bay, Ont., killed in a firefight near the village of Pashmol west of Kandahar City.

May 17 - Capt. Nichola Goddard, an artillery officer based in Shila, Man., with 1st Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, killed in a Taliban ambush during a battle in the Panjwai region. She was first Canadian woman to be killed in action while serving in a combat role.

April 22 - Cpl. Matthew Dinning of Richmond Hill, Ont., stationed with 2nd Canadian Mechanized Brigade in Petawawa, Ont.; Bombardier Myles Mansell of Victoria, Lieut. William Turner of Toronto, stationed in Edmonton and Cpl. Randy Payne, born in Lahr, Germany, stationed at CFB Wainright, Alta., all killed when their G-Wagon patrol vehicle was destroyed by a roadside bomb near Gumbad, north of Kandahar.

March 29 - Pte. Robert Costall of Edmonton, a machine-gunner, killed in a firefight with the Taliban insurgents in Sangin district of Helmand province, north of Kandahar.

March 2 - Cpl. Paul Davis of Bridgewater, N.S., and Master Cpl. Timothy Wilson of Grande Prairie, Alta., killed when their armoured vehicle ran off the road in the Kandahar area.

Jan. 15 - Glyn Berry, a British-born Canadian diplomat who had served with the Foreign Affairs Department since 1977, killed in a suicide bombing near Kandahar.

2005

Nov. 24 - Pte. Braun Scott Woodfield, born in Victoria and raised in Eastern Passage, N.S., killed when his armoured rolled over near Kandahar.

2004
Jan. 27 - Cpl. Jamie Brendan Murphy, 26, of Conception Harbour, Nfld., killed in suicide bombing while on patrol near Kabul.

2003

Oct. 2 - Sgt. Robert Alan Short, 42, of Fredericton, and Cpl. Robbie Christopher Beerenfenger, 29, of Ottawa, killed in a roadside bombing southwest of Kabul.

2002

April 18 (April 17 in Canada) - Sgt. Marc D. Leger, 29, of Lancaster, Ont., Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, 24, of Montreal, Pte. Richard Green, 21, of Mill Cove, N.S., and Pte. Nathan Smith, 27, of Tatamagouche, N.S., all killed when when a U.S. F-16 fighter mistakenly bombed the Canadians as they were on a pre-dawn training exercise. Eight other Canadians were wounded in the friendly-fire incident.


"With the Going Down of the Sun,
We Shall Remember Them"

Away From My Desk

OUT OF OFFICEAUTOREPLYBy Jim Stallard

I will be out of the office on travel from June 13 through June 21 and from June 23 through June 29, 2006.

I will have e-mail access through my laptop on June 17 from 5:36 a.m. to 5:39 a.m. (GMT), but will be using the bandwidth to download an A-ha ringtone.

My work cell phone (212-555-3285) is in a rented Camry at the bottom of the Delaware River.
If you wish to fax me, I suggest allowing yourself ample time to emerge from the cryogenic state.

If this is an urgent matter, my assistant Kelli Browne can be found in the third stall of the 17th-floor women's room trying desperately to locate a fresh vein.

I will be back in the office June 22 from 3:00 a.m. to 4:30 a.m., trying to erase certain financial transactions from my hard drive. From June 22 through June 23, I will be checking my BlackBerry periodically to see whether company accountants have begun to pick up the trail.
On June 24, I will be receiving messages through a dead drop in Washington, D.C. Put masking tape on the front leg of the mailbox on the southwest corner of 37th and Upton Streets, N.W., to alert me, and then write the message on the back of Lincoln's head in the memorial.

From June 25 through June 28, I will be traveling to the homes of various friends, trying unsuccessfully to borrow money, except for June 27, when I will be attending a Bobby Vinton show in Branson, Missouri.

During the afternoon of June 29 through the morning of June 30, I will be crawling through a drainage pipe connecting Chula Vista with Tijuana and will not have good reception.

Beginning July 2, you should be able to reach me through the main switchboard at the minimum-security prison in Texarkana, Texas. My pager (212-555-2946) may be with me, depending on the thoroughness of the cavity search. It will probably take me a while to call back.
If my attorney comes through, I expect to be back in the office at 9 a.m. on July 5. Have a safe holiday!

Jim Ballard archives at McSweeney's.net