Going to the Chapel.....going to get Married......

On Saturday my wife and I travelled to London, Ontario as our oldest nephew was getting married. London is a little bit more than 2 hours from where we live. They got married in St Peters Church, which is the largest and possibly one of the oldest churches in the area

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They had awesome stained glass windows there

This is me studying the hymn book prior to the ceremony

It was very hot with temperatures around 35C and in the neighbourhood of 100F for our American friends. There was no air conditioning inside of the church and the varnish on the pews actually was coming off onto the people's clothing. It was one of the shortest Catholic weddings I have been to, with the ceremony lasting only about 35 minutes.

The reception was held at a very nice hall with a very nice meal and free drinks - what more could one ask for?

Unlimited Beer! :)

I thought that might catch your attention.

We went on our annual motorbike trip to Pennsylvania. I have been going for about 6 years now. This year we had myself, my brother (Diesel), his wife (Diesel's wife), and Dennis (Mad Dog). We had a couple of riders drop out but hey, more beer for us but more on that later.

There was a back-up at the border crossing but it went through fairly fast. The US border guards removed people from two separate vehicles and escorted them to the customs building. They must of got word that certain folks were attempting to illegally cross into the States because they seemed to be on a higher alert than normal. I always seem to go first and explain our story of where we are heading. By the time the fourth bike goes through, the guards are "yeah, yeah, go ahead".

We head down to the Allegheny National Forest which is in northern Pennsylvania. There is a motel there that is inexpensive, has a nice restaurant right on site, and they cater to motorbikes by doing the small stuff that goes a very long way such as leaving towels out in the morning so that we can wipe the dew off of the seats and windshields.

There is a train bridge there that was built across a very deep valley at the turn of the century. In 2004, a tornado came rumbling along (likely sounded like a freight train) and torn down half of the bridge. Until then, it was a fully functioning rail line.

For the first time, we discovered that in a small city of St Mary's, there is a brewery named Straub Beer which has been there since 1872 (actually as long as the train bridge). They give free public tours from 9 am until noon, Mondays to Fridays. We arrived there about 10 am and were told to gather at the Eternal Tap. The Eternal Tap actually is three beer taps sticking out of a wall (light, normal, and dark beer). So you fill up a nice glass container (no plastic cups here) and then the tour starts. The tours are informal so you could be in a group of 12, or a group of 6 , or whatever.....whomever shows up.

We were shown how they make beer, from the time they get the grain, fill the large kettles, add the various ingredients, etc. I really wasn't paying too much attention - I was enjoying the beer too much. Then we got to the area where the beer is bottled. They reached right onto the bottling line and gave us bottles of beer, fresh off of the line. They did not even have caps on them yet and although I am not a big beer drinker, this was by far the best beer I have ever tasted. So now I have a bottle of beer in one hand and half a glass of beer in the other hand. The tour winds up soon after and we end up back at the Eternal Tap. The tour guild takes off with a new group of beer enthusiasts, and we are left along at the tap. So what are we to do. We finish the beer in our hands, and fill up again at the tap. We drink some more, look around, look at each other, and fill our glasses again :) What an awesome place and to think we have been coming to this area for the past 6 years and did not even know about it. For sure, this will be one of our must stops in future trips.

The rest of our time was spent riding through the winding roads through the National Forest, and stopping once in a while to quench our thirsts.

The ride home was uneventful.

Tim

California - Here I Come!!!

I went on a business trip to Long Beach, California last week. I have a professional designation as a RPA (Real Property Administrator) and the place that I work for has a membership with BOMA (Building Owner's Management Association). Once a year there is an BOMA sponsored International Conference with people whom come from all over the world to attend. The location of the conference changes each year and this is the third year that I have been fortunate enough to have my company send me. The first year I went it was in Denver, last year it was in Philadelphia, and this year it was in Long Beach. I love meeting people from all over the world who work in the same business line as I do.















Registration for the conference was on the Saturday and the conference itself began with the keynote speaker beginning at 8 am sharp on the Sunday morning. The keynote speaker this year was Ben Stein. I knew that he had hosted a couple of game shows in the past - one being Ben's money where contestants had to answer more questions than Ben and in doing so, they won 'his' money; and the other one that I saw was were they asked beauty contestants (both men and woman) were combined with geeks, and were asked easy questions to see how smart (or not) they were. I think the name of the show was "Are you smarter than a Beauty contestant? One question he said all 6 finalists got wrong was "what language do Australians speak"? They all answered Australian. What I did not know was that Ben has his doctorate in both Law and in Economics, that he wrote speeches for both Nixon and Ford, and that he has taught in University for 35 years. In fact, he said that he will begin teaching again this coming fall. The keynote speech is done in a huge hall, where the speaker has large screens on both sides of him so that the audience can see him (I always sit in the front - if I come from thousands of miles away, I want to be able to see), and also has those clear teleprompters in front of him (like Obama uses) so that it appears that he has his material memorized but the type is going in front of him, invisible to the audience.



















There were courses later Sunday morning and during the afternoon (I took Conflict Resolution and in the afternoon Performance of Green Buildings). Sunday night was a huge welcoming party. Monday was spent attending a couple of more courses (one was Environmental Sustainability) and also touring the trade show portion of the conference. There are lots of draw prizes but be warned, for each one you enter, the company now has your contact information and they hound you for the next year to purchase their products or services. On Tuesday I toured the rest of the trade show portion, then raced to the airport to catch a 12:30 pm flight. I arrived home just before midnight eastern time so it is quite a hike to go from Niagara Falls area to California.
















Speaking of the airport, I did not know that Long Beach is no where close to the Los Angeles Airport. When I arrived in LA, I just thought that I could take a shuttle bus to the hotel. So I searched out where to catch the proper bus, confirmed with the driver that it was for the correct hotel, and rode to the hotel - easy. WRONG. It was the correct hotel but WRONG city. I then took a taxi to the Long Beach hotel - very expensive and when I had to return to the LA airport on Tuesday - same thing - I asked everyone and they all said that they only way to get there was by taxi. If I were to do it again, I may of rented a car.


In the little bit of spare time I did have, I walked the 5 minutes down to the beach. It really is nothing to write home about. That being said, there are a couple of neat things there. There are 3 or 4 islands that can be seen easily from shore. However, they are not islands. They are actually oil rigs dressed up to look like islands so that people from shore are not looking at ugly oil rigs. There are also sea lions on the boys (okay, I know that is not how you spell this). Apparently the sea lions are nocturnal and do their hunting at night and sleep during the day. They prefer to sleep on these objects because if they sleep on the beach, they get bothered by people. The other really surprising thing about Long Beach is that it does not get hot there. I thought for this time of year, it would be swelter there but because it is right beside the ocean, it stays in the low 70's year around. At night, it actually was chilly (and once again, I did not take a jacket!)



















Lastly, from the airplane at about 39,000 feet, I noticed these round circles - extremely huge in nature - first one here and one there - and then lots. I have since found out what they are but do you know?




















Lastly and lastly again (I promise), upon arrival in Toronto, our jet was racing another jet to see who could land first. Have a look.














Tim