Lifestyle

Weather – Like It Or Not

So… April started out in fine fashion, however has not remained so.

To explain – among other things, I’m a biker.

Hmmm… immediately some of you will get a mental picture – long hair, beard, big belly, tattoos, piercings, leathers, vest with patches, noisy Harley, and so on.

Now lose your mental picture. Bikers are, in reality, a representation of society in general. They come in all sizes, shapes, genders, nationalities and ages, riding a plethora of different machines. They are many different individuals, each their own person.

Now for me, I have a beard, short hair, no tattoos, one piercing, yeah a bit of a belly, wear a leather jacket at times, have a vest with my veteran’s group patch, and ride a Suzuki Boulevard C50 Trike (which is a little noisy).

Anyway, back to April.

As I indicated, it started out well, and I brought my bike out from its designated winter parking spot in the back corner of the garage. It fired up right away, oil levels and tire pressures were checked, and shortly we were out on the road for a wee test drive to make sure all was working well.

Riding was done carefully as Spring roads in Edmonton, or any other place for that matter, can be quite trickly with all the crap that’s left from the winter. And… it seems that many drivers seem to have forgotten what a motorcycle is, and we fail to register in their brain, even when they are looking straight at us.

So, from the beginning of April, I was out riding pretty much every day. The weather was good, with promise of being better, albeit a bit cool, in the 4C to 10C range. Then it got warmer, staying over 10C, and eventually working it’s way up to 22C.

Wowzers, now we’re talking. Let’s go!

Wait just a goldarn minute. What’s this, the temperatures are dropping. No, tell me it’s not so.

Over the next few days we went down to 3C, then down to 0C, then (gasp) -3C, followed by -9C. Dammit!

Ah, but we’re not finished. This morning we were at -12C, and worse, there is a skiff of snow.

Yes, this will pass. Yes, this type of thing happens every year at this time. No, the world is not ending.

However to those of us who are bikers, and due to the climate where we live, we have been unable to ride for, in some cases, many months, this is almost like putting salt on a wound that is just about healed.

It is weather – like it or not.

虎年 – Year of the Tiger

2022 年 2 月 1 日

February 1, 2022

新年快乐！ 恭喜发财!

Happy New Year! Wish you prosperity and wealth!

对于我们家来说，农历新年是按照中国传统来庆祝的。 我们是一个混合家庭。 我的妻子是来自马来西亚的华人，我们有两个女儿，他们的孩子住在马来西亚。 在我这边，我们有一个女儿和她的丈夫在加拿大，一个儿子和他的妻子在英国

For our family, the Lunar New Year is celebrated with Chinese traditions. We are a blended family. My wife is Chinese from Malaysia, on her side of the blend we have two daughters, with their children, who live in Malaysia. On my side of the blend we have a daughter with her husband in Canada and a son with his wife in England.

由于农历新年对我们家来说是一件重要的事情，所以我选择用中英文写这篇博文。 我使用谷歌翻译，它做得非常好（虽然不完美）。

Due to the fact that Chinese New Year is an important event to our family, I have chosen to do this blog post in both Chinese and English. I use Google Translate which does a most excellent (although not perfect) job.

在新的一年里，我代表我自己和我的家人，向所有人致以健康、幸福和成功的祝福。 愿我们在和平、和谐与理解中生活在一起，共享这个地球。

For the coming year, on behalf of myself and my family, I sent along wishes for good health, happiness and success, to all. May we live together, sharing this earth, in peace, harmony and understanding.

谢谢！- Thank you!

Internet Empire – The Back Story

Firstly, for clarification, I am using the term “Internet Empire” in a fun way.

As I have indicated in a previous post, I have been doing things on the world wide web for well over 40 years. I have been doing blogs, in various forms, as well as Facebook and Twitter, since 2008, for work, volunteer organizations, and myself.

As we all are quite aware, life has changed, some would say drastically, over the past couple of years. For me, it goes a bit further back.

I retired from my final job at the end of 2018 with the plan that I would spend some of my winter time in Malaysia and my summer time enjoying my motorcycle here in sunny Alberta. That worked to a degree for a couple of years, but, as often happens, life got in the way.

The pain I had been experiencing in my hip got worse and was eventually diagnosed as arthritis, to be remedied at some time by a hip replacement. This impacted a number of things, one being my overall mobility, and another my motorcycle riding. It’s hard to ride when one cannot swing one’s leg over the bike. For a biker, not being able to ride creates an unhappy place to be. Over the course of the next two summers I went through two more motorcycles, eventually coming to the one I have now. It is a trike that I am able to mount properly and now I don’t have to worry about my leg strength for stability.

Then, along came COVID-19 (followed by how many variants we have yet to find out). Now traveling to Malaysia is out, for who knows how long. It has also put a severe crimp on social and family gatherings, motorcycle events, volunteer group activities and activities with my local veterans group. As well, it has created another factor into the potential scheduling of my hip replacement surgery.

As a result, I’m literally sitting like a bump on a log at home, retired, mobility challenged, Covid restricted, and in the middle of a -30C (at times) Alberta winter.

Quite honestly, it was depressing, and I found myself imitating Jerry Seinfeld and doing nothing, although it seemed to work way better for him than for me.

I would like to say, then came an epiphany, however that was not the case. It was more like a gradual thought process. It started with the thought that, as an amateur photographer for many years, I might have some photos or even some videos that folks might like to see. Obviously, they are not doing much good just stored on my computer or in a trunk in the garage. Then came the thought that I like to write, and I do have some good stories to tell from the last 70+ years. After working with different youth groups over the last 15-20 years I have become familiar with various smartphone apps like WeChat, WhatsApp, Telegram, SnapChat and so on, so that I could stay in touch with them. They were impressed that the Old Guy could actually do that.

After pondering these thoughts for a while, I figured, maybe I can put all these things together (and perhaps some others as well), give myself something to do, and have fun doing it. Maybe even provide a commodity others may find interesting as well.

Hence came into being, the concept of an Internet Empire. It may not be grand in scope, however it is meaningful to me, and in the end, maybe that’s the most important thing.

This Internet Empire is moving along. I now have a website, LeSueur.ca, with links to my various internet platforms. Just recently I have have created a newsletter, Old Guy, New Tricks, where I can notify folks when I update any of my platforms (like this blog) or share other information. I invite you to subscribe.

As this process has moved forward, I find I am contacting with more people from all over. Now I subscribe to a good number of blogs (as you can see off to the right), quite a few YouTube channels, Flickr sites, and such. In addition to being very interesting, I have been able to learn many new online techniques as well.

So, this is a bit of the back story for my Internet Empire. You are welcome to have a look around, comment on things and share with your friends. All are welcome.

To The Unvaccinated

A friend of mine posted this on his social media today. After reading it, I asked him if I could use it for a blog post, and he gave me his permission. Thank you to Matthew Rogers.

I’m fully vaccinated and done with my booster shot.

No, I don’t know “what’s in it”. Neither this vaccine nor the ones I had as a child. Nor do I know what’s in the 11 secret herbs and spices at KFC. I also don’t know exactly what’s in Ibuprofen or any other painkiller– they just treat my headaches & my pains. I don’t know what’s in tattoo ink, botox and fillers, or every ingredient in my soap, shampoo or deodorants. I don’t know the long term effect of mobile phone use, or whether or not that restaurant I just ate at REALLY used clean foods and washed their hands.

There’s a lot of things I don’t know.

I do know one thing: life is short. Very short. And I, personally, still want to do things. I want to travel and hug people without fear, and find a little feeling of life “before”. Throughout my life I’ve been vaccinated against many diseases: measles, mumps, rubella, polio, chickenpox, hepatitis, influenza, tetanus, rabies. We trusted the science, and never had to suffer through or transmit any of those said diseases.

I’m vaccinated.

Not because I’m a sheep or to please the government. Not to make other people do it.

But I don’t want to:

  • die from Covid-19
  • clutter a hospital bed if I get sick
  • not be able to hug my loved ones
  • not be able to travel & enjoy events
  • live my life in fear

Can’t say it any clearer. I’m vaccinated for me and I wear a mask for you!!!

Do the same and knock some sense into people.

As is regularly the case, your comments are always welcome.

Melaka Home – High Waters

As I spoke about in my podcast earlier this evening (link here), our second home is in Melaka, Malaysia. I am retired and my wife is close to retirement, but still, since 2015 we have been spending part of each winter there, except for the last two years (thanks to Covid). With children and grandchildren in Malaysia, it is a natural place for us to go, not to mention all our friends, and oh yes, the food. This photo is a selfie of me standing on our balcony in 2020. Behind you can see the small farm I talked about and in the distance are the buildings of downtown Melaka.

Recently, Melaka, along with much of Malaysia, has been receiving a great deal of rain, very much more than they have seen for many years, particularly when one considers that January is typically one of the driest months of the year, whereas November can be one of the wettest.

What I have done here is to provide you with a number of photos taken around Melaka and posted on the Melaka Facebook Page, so that you can see the impact that the flooding has had.

While many in Canada or the US would typically experience vicious storm conditions associated with flooding, that is not always the case here. The flooding comes from a large amount of rain, causing the rivers to overflow their banks. As well, Melaka is a coastal community, hence ocean tides can have an impact also. The lunar new year is approaching, and generally this is the time of the year’s highest tides.

Regardless of whether the water comes from a storm surge or constantly rising levels, it manages to do a considerable amount of damage and create many issues. The photos in the gallery below will certainly give you an idea of that.

I know a number of the areas shown very well, and am hopeful that our family and friends will not be greatly affected.

With Covid still playing it’s games, we have no idea when we will be able to return to our second home, however we have been assured by our daughter that all is well there up to this point.

Thanks for reading this blog post. I do appreciate any thoughts or comments you may have, so please do share them. I also invite you to visit my web page and check out some to the other sites that I share.

There Is Here

Like so many others across Canada and beyond, I am doing as I should, and staying home during this COVID-19 pandemic.

In mid-February we traveled to visit family in Malaysia and while gone, seeing as how the car would just sit in the garage, I put parked car insurance on it. When we returned to Edmonton, we did 16 days isolation and then, due to the situation, any travel for me was restricted to a limited number of places. So, being retired, I just stayed home, and my car insurance remained unchanged.

Don’t get the idea that I had no desire to get out once in a while. Of course I did. And also, in the garage, I had a way to make that happen. My motorcycle!

Now, seeing as how a motorcycle is not a car, I couldn’t get parked car insurance for it, therefore its insurance remained in full force. So I could get out and move around a bit – right?

There was, unfortunately, a bit of an issue however. Mother Nature. Seems that this year, she had decided that Spring would be delayed. And delayed. And delayed. The last two years, I was able to get out on my bike end of March, beginning of April. Not this year. First day out, when the roads and weather were fairly decent, was April 15. And more importantly, the #%&*@^ ice was finally gone from the laneway in front of the garage.

In the month since my first journey out this year, I have been out on the bike about twenty times. There were a few blank days due to low temperatures or rain, with a wee bit of snow thrown in as well. It is Alberta after all.

The question is, with all this COVID-19 stuff, where do I go. You may have heard an expression, “you can’t get there from here”. In my case, I can. Because, you see, there is here.

I would go out for a ride, sometimes 150 to 200 kilometres, and my destination was always my start, so, there is here. The only stop I might make on a ride was to fuel up, and that was seldom as my bike gets very good fuel mileage.

I know I am not alone in this type of endeavor. I have a number of retired military comrades who also ride, and for many of them the experience is the same.

Bottom line. It is really nice to get out, see different areas of surrounding countryside, receive “wind therapy” as we call the ride. However, until such time as we can actually go more places, this fact will remain accurate.

There is here!

Yes, We Have No Bananas

I have a friend. His name is Jim. Usually though, I refer to him as Gunky. Strangely enough, usually he refers to me as Gunky. That’s the way we roll. The title of this post is one of our favourite expressions.

Jim and I first met September 1970 in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, when we began recruit training for the Canadian military.

We have both gone through a great many stages in our lives, some with each other, however most apart. Yet, in some inexplicable fashion, we were always together, linked by some unfathomable force.

Such has been our friendship over time.

What is friendship? I came across this description from Friendship – Simple English Wikipedia. “Friendship means familiar and liking of each other’s mind. People who are friends talk to each other and spend time together. … A friend is one who admires a person’s skill and helps or encourages them to make the right choices and do not get into any trouble at all.“

If one fires up their favourite search engine and enters “friend” or “friendship” there comes a plethora of information, some of which may actually be germane to one’s personal situation.

Generally, I believe that each friendship is unique, and as such, one can have many friendships (be they casual or profound), all different in some way (minuscule or significant).

Interestingly enough, Jim and I are what could be considered a “loose fit” for the description I provided above. Particularly the ‘talking to/spending time with’ and ‘not getting into trouble’ parts. You see — we don’t really do these parts as described.

‘Not getting into trouble’ is a topic for another time. Suffice to say, there could potentially be more than enough subject matter available.

The ‘talking to/spending time with’ is my focus for today. I believe this area shows the depth of our friendship.

First, the ‘spending time with’ part. Oh yeah, we have had times where we lived together (basic training, trades training 1970-72) or lived close by (1984-87 while I was stationed in Nova Scotia). For the most part however, we have lived far apart, and on more than one occasion, have had absolutely no idea where the other was.

As far as the ‘talking to’ part, this might be considered by others to be a bit of a “dog’s breakfast”, particularly during the periods we were not near each other. That would account for forty-four of the last fifty years. Actually for the last ten or so years we have been connected via social media (primarily Facebook), so now there are only thirty-four years to account for.

During those years we would pop in and out of each other’s lives on a sporadic basis, often with gaps of several years. One thing however was consistent. When we would get together, it would be as if no time had passed, as if we had just spoken the day before. On occasion even our conversation subject would continue from our last encounter. For example, years ago, I was living in Ottawa, there was a knock on the door, and there was Gunky, unannounced, unexpected, but definitely not unwelcome. In he came, we sat down, shared a beverage (or two), and continued as if it were a normal daily visit. Four years ago, while Kim and I were in Nova Scotia, we stopped in to visit he and Ruby. It was just as if we were regulars at their place.

I have always marveled at this aspect of our relationship and consider it an indication of how deep our friendship is.

There are, of course, many other aspects of our friendship, things we have done together, experiences we have shared, and so on. This particular aspect is one I cherish and am extremely thankful for.

Take that Gunky!

Wind Therapy

Many folks will read the title of this blog post and know instantly what I will be talking about.

As I go thru life I have done and enjoyed a good number of things. One that I did when younger, then missed out on for about forty years, and have taken up again, is riding a motorcycle.

Riding a bike on an open road provides that magic panacea, “wind therapy”.

It matters not whether one is alone, or with a group, wind therapy is present.

Like many bikers, I frequently ride alone, often on lightly traveled roads that have varying characteristics (up and down, nice curves), usually at or near the posted speeds. It can be, to a degree, therapeutic, this wind therapy.

Other times, we ride in groups, perhaps two or three riders, often about ten or so, sometimes many more as is shown in the video below.

Leaving Wainwright heading towards Edmonton.

This ride occurred in August 2018. The Rolling Barrage is a rolling fundraiser presented by Military Minds Inc, in support of veterans, serving members and first responders, as a show of strength, and unity to conquer the stigma of PTSD. A good number of the participants ride from the Atlantic to the Pacific across Canada. A number of our local veterans rode from Edmonton to Wainwright (just over 200 km) to meet the Rolling Barrage and accompany them to Edmonton. The video is from my helmet cam showing us leaving Wainwright with a police escort.

Most bikers are very generous people and we can often be seen getting our wind therapy by riding in fundraising charity events. A definite win-win situation.

The reason for this blog post in mid-December. Well… I miss my wind therapy! Although I can’t get out on the bike in a Canadian winter (it is hibernating in the garage), today I can reminisce with my videos and share with others, giving me a pseudo fix at least.

Getting Older – Not Fussy About It

Not really sure about this getting older thing. I’m not going to say I’m old, because there is always folks who are older than I, and at least one of them will be sure to point that out. At least that’s how it seems to go.

Anyway, last month I entered my eighth decade, which surely means I’m getting older, at least by some scale of measurement.

I know that I have gotten to the point that I actually do suffer from what I call (very tongue in cheek) part-timers, when I forget things part of the time. There are many folks who tell me that they suffer from the same thing. For instance, when speaking of someone, I can see them oh so clearly in my mind, however their name seems to be on holiday on the far side of the moon or some other unreachable place. Makes for a great conversation as we try to identify them utilizing a number of various descriptive techniques, to essentially no success. And then, of course, the person’s name comes to vivid recollection long after the conversation has been completed, in the process accomplishing nothing, other than creating the occasional utterances of frustration generated verbage.

As well, there are times when my body gives the occasional indication that there are other aspects to growing older as well. Occasionally with a sharp reminder that “you can’t do that anymore”, but generally with usually subtle hints that I am not as quick, flexible, strong, sharp-eyed, handy (you get the idea), as perhaps I once was. When these hints occur, they may be met with a degree of frustration, however mostly with the realization that they “come with the territory”. I also have an arthritic hip and at some point I will be able to relate to Steve Austin when at least part of me becomes a bionic man.

Becoming older brings other aspects though, one of which is entitled “retirement”.

Now “retirement” is an interesting phase of one’s life. I am at a bit of a loss as to how to define it in real terms. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines retirement as “withdrawal from one’s position or occuaption or from active working life”. However, should you ask, say 100 people, to describe retirement, you would likely get quite a number of different responses. I know retired people who are seldom home because they travel so much, others who say they have never been so busy in their lives, still others who sit at home and do absolutely nothing. For myself, I am actually somewhere in the middle. For instance, I had never traveled outside of Canada and USA until I was 60 and went to Switzerland for a Kiwanis Convention. Now I travel to Malaysia for two to three months almost annually and scoot around Asia a bit while there. After retirement I worked as a casual guard in a RCMP cellblock for over six years, I remain active with Kiwanis in Canada and Malaysia, am active with a veterans group in Canada, and just over two years ago I took up motorcycle riding again (after 40 years). Does that mean I’m busy, busy? Not really, as I also spend quite a bit of time at home, much of that online for both volunteer and personal activities.

Getting older also means, losing people that I know, at what seems an ever increasing rate. Now, throughout my life I have lost people I have known as a result of natural causes, and usually they were quite a  bit older than me. This is no longer the case, as essentially some are around my age or younger. Each occurance does tend to give me pause for thought.

Are there benefits of getting older? Of course there are. Experiences I have had, people I have met, the good I have been able to do for others, and of course, grandchildren. I would not be the person I am without getting older, making mistakes, learning from them, helping others avoid them.

Getting older is not a bad thing, it is not something I dislike, I am just not fussy about it.

And one more thing. You will note that this whole blog has been about getting older. It has not been about growing up, because I never plan to do that.