17Oct05 - Just a picture for today...

I was on a local website and found this. I hope it makes you chuckle too.

15Oct05 - Our first trip to Canada, the flood of 2005 (aka how I spent all night running sump pumps)

The first picture is the view from Rayne's aunt's cottage north of Toronto.

This is a photo of a park bench in Goodwin Park (just across the street) which is not usually in the middle of the pond!


Well we went for our first foray to Canada since we moved here in July. Apparently if we plan to become non-residents (and thus pay only US taxes) this is something we can't do too often. The drive from Wethersfield took about 8 1/2 hours including a few stops for the dogs along the way. When we arrived it was nice to see Rayne's aunt Pat and one of her cousins (Reed) and his son (Tyler).

The dogs had a great time as soon as we got there, playing with a border collie next door, digging in the sand and swimming in the lake. Pat cooked a prime rib for dinner to go with the wine that we brought with us from our stop in Marmora. We spent the evening at the neighbours house watching hockey night in Canada with a houseful! Oh it's nice to be in Canada again!

The next few days were spent relaxing, eating turkey (the next eveings dinner) and watching movies. We chatted about the cottage and all the changes Pat was making (she sold her house and is moving to the cottage full time) and reminisced about previous visits. The dogs got plenty of long walks in the woods and enjoyed the view of the lake from the enclosed deck.

On Wednesday we headed for home. We arrived in Wethersfield to the same weather that we left, rain. In fact since we had left on Saturday it had rained every day in Connecticut. We spent Thursday hanging out, grocery shopping and watching more movies (hey it was raining). Friday night came and we had a Ham for dinner and settled in to watch the Canucks play hockey. Around 10:00pm I went downstairs to check the basement since for the last couple of days the rain had been pretty constant. Sure enough in the lowest corner of the basement there was a rather large puddle starting to form. I decided to go to the neighbours house to see if they were flooding or if it was just us.

My neighbour Hector met me at the door. I told him that we had started to get some water in the basement and asked him how his place was. He said his place was fine but we decided to look anyway. Where we had a large puddle Hector's entire basement had 3 inches of water. I immediately went back home and called the landlord to see if he had a sump pump.

The landlord Joe, showed up at 10:30 with a small pump. We hooked it up and started to get the water out. Unfortunately the rain continued and got even heavier. The pump alone wasn't going to be enough. Joe wasn't sure it was going to be a big problem so I convinced him to go to Hector's house and check it out. We arrived to find Hector now had 8 inches of water in his basement and stuff floating everywhere.

Joe decided to go find another pump and I went home to check on the pump and get all our things up off the ground in case we weren't able to keep the water at bay. When Joe returned he had another pump but it needed to be submersed in water or it would overheat and stop working. As luck would have it the flodding started to get alot worse and the nastiest spot was the downstairs toilet. We stuck the one pump in the toilet and the other pump in the laundry room. The only problem was the pump in the toilet would drain the toilet then overheat and quit working. After some time we just started unplugging the pump every minute or so, letting the toilet fill up (30 seconds) and then plug the pump back in. This went on from 11:30pm until 7:30am the next morning.

I set up chairs and Joe and I sat and watched TV, drank some wine and marvelled at how much water was coming in. At one point we walked outside to look at the road and noticed that the pond on the golf course across the street had now swollen so much that it was now even with the road. Joe, who has been a longtime resident of the area was amazed. In the past 8 days the area had received over 12 inches of rain. Joe went out in the morning and bought an expandable plug and we removed the toilet and plugged the out take to stop the water coming in.

Finally the rain subsided later in the morning so Joe went home and I went to bed to get some rest. We were able to stop the damage to our place but the neighbours up and down the street have been devestated. Luckily (or not really), the flooding was caused by the sewers backing up (yuck!) and so people should be able to get their things replaced and fixed without having to have flood insurance.

So let's check the score here now.....the hottest summer on record with 29 days of 90+ weather, a flood that many have said is a once in 50 year event, gee I can hardly wait for winter!

Ciao for Now!

Kevin and Rayne

04Oct05 - A Trip to watch the World Series Champion Red Sox vs. my Toronto Blue Jays at Fenway Park


The first picture is from the subway in Boston at the Park Street station. They have a mosaic mural there that is just beautiful and something one doesn't expect to find in the subway!




This is a my view from my seat in right field. It was a beautiful sunny day, perfect for watching a game.
The entrance to Fenway Park off Yawkey Way. There were people everywhere hawking everything from hotdogs to souvenirs. Over 30,000 people showed up for the game on a Tuesday afternoon at 1:05 pm; doesn't anybody work?

Ah, the reason Fenway is so special, The Green Monster in left field. It's 37 feet 2 inches high and 240 feet long and stands 310 feet from home plate. Apparently back in the old days the ground in front was also sloped up some 10 feet. It still is raised a little today but not nearly 10 feet!


Two trips to Boston and the most expensive sporing event I have ever seen.

While looking at things online (on Monday the 26th of September) I decided to checkout the Craiglist sight for Boston. For those of you who don't know what Craiglist is, it's a free online classified ad site. They have most major cities listed and this is in fact how I found our washer/dryer.

While browsing the tickets, I noticed that there were a number of people selling tickets for the Blue Jays/Red Sox series starting that evening so I decided to call Rayne and see if she was interested in going to Boston for a ball game. It's about 2 hours away from Hartford. Once I spoke to Rayne (and got the budget for tickets) I set about sending off emails to anyone that was selling cheap tickets. There were a few for 25.00-30.00/ticket obo (or best offer) and most were much more expensive. I really wasn't expecting much since Rayne and I had decided our budget was 60.00/pair, the Red Sox were in the midst of a penant race with the Yankees and if you were to get on the waiting list today for season tickets you might actually get them by 2050 (seriously!).

As luck would have it one of the people I emailed was a student from Boston University. She had lsited the tickets at 25.00 obo but said she was hoping to get 42.50/ticket. I called Rayne and we settled on 35.00/ticket. Rayne got off work early, I arranged with the neighbours son to take the dogs for a walk while we were at the game and off we went.

The drive to Boston was pertty uneventful. Most of the drive is on the Massachusetts Turnpike which is pretty straight and boring. I had printed directions to Fenway from Mapquest so we could meet and get the tickets before the game. Now here is the thing. Boston has pathetic directions (even to Fenway Park) and is full of obnoxios/discourteous drivers/pedestrians and an inordinate number of one way streets. While we made it to Boston with an hour to spare it took us more than 1/2 an hour (and plenty of expletives) to eventually find Fenway and get parking.

BTW the parking was 30.00, so between the 2 tickets and parking we're at 100.00 (not bad for a trip to Fenway I figure!). We went into the Golds gym next to Fenway and asked to borrow the phone to arrange to pick up the tickets. In another two minutes the girl showed up with the tickets and took our 70.00, she rushed off in a heartbeat because it had just started to rain...

We entered Fenway and wound our way through the hallowed halls (picking up a beer on the way) to find our seats in the bleachers. We put on our Gortex jackets, marvelled at the lights and the Green Monster and sipped our beer while we waited for the rain to lighten and the game to start. An hour passed and the rain continued to fall until an announcement came over the PA that the game had been cancelled and would be made up the next day at 1:05pm. Dammit! We had half expected the rain out (there was a 56% chance of rain) but I did not expect them to schedule the game for the next day. Apparently neither did the throngs of faithful that loudly booed when they annonced the date and time for the make up game. Like Rayne, I suspect that many of the crowd were at the night game because they had to work and couldn't attend a day game. The only happy people this night would be the scalpers lined up at the front door buying tickets for 15.00/each no matter their value! So we went back to the car and drove home to Hartford in the rain...

the tally for a rainout

Two tickets for the game - 70.00
Gas to and from Boston - 30.00
Parking across the street - 30.00
2 beers to drink in the rain - 13.50

Total 143.50

When we arrived home I asked one of the neighbours if they'd like to come to the game the next day, all they had to do was pay bus fare to the game. They couldn't make it (something about going to college or some rubbish). The next day it went like this.

Cab Fare to the Bus Station - 18.00 (with tip)
Return Bus ticket to Boston - 42.00
return Subway fare to Fenway - 2.50
Massive delicious Hot Dog - 6.75
Water to sit in the 80f bleachers - 4.00

Total for day 2 - 73.25

I sold Rayne's ticket after some haggling for 15.00

Net Total for day 2 - 58.25

Total for me to go see one game at Fenway Park.........201.75 (Ouch!)

The game was great. The Blue Jays lost, which made the fans happy. People all around me were giving me high fives whenever Boston got a strikeout or a hit. I even learned to speak New Englandese! A leadoff hitter (the guy who bats first) is a "table setta", Fenway is a "Ball Pahk", and when you go home you get in your "Cah". Now put it all together, "Pahk yuh cah in Hahvahd Yahd". Apparently the letter R is to be used sparingly if at all in these parts. Speach geeks call this non-rhotic speaking...

We are headed to Ontario to visit Rayne's aunt at her cabin (or cottage if you are from Ontario), this weekend. It should be a good time. The dirve is about 7 1/2 hours non-stop so I expect with puppy watering breaks we should be there in 10 hours or so. It'll be nice to be in Canada again!

I ordered the NHL Centre Ice package from the cable company here. Unfortunately something went haywire on opening night and so I missed my beloved Cancuks game...I was pretty dissapointed after 1 1/2 years of waiting to see hockey again so I went and wrote to nasty reviews of the cable company on Epinions etc. A nice fellow showed up today to resolve the problem so hopefully I can watch some games when we get back! Looking forward to Hockey Night in Canada escapes on Saturday night!

The weather here has still been very warm. Today 07Oct05, the temperature has been in the low 80s (25 -28c) and very humid! Apparently next week things will suddenly drop down to the 60s (15c). It's been too warm for the fall leaves to change so far but we plan to take lots of pictures on the way up and back if we see a magic spot.

Hope you are all keeping well and you enjoy Thanksgiving!

Ciao for Now

Kevin and Rayne

BTW if you leave a comment can you put you name in so we know who's speaking? Cheers