Even More Stories

Brrr, it is getting cold out these days. 

Oh, I know that winter is approaching but still it is only October. Nevertheless, one morning a little while ago, at around 4:30 AM, I woke up feeling quite cold because it was under 70°F in our house.  Naturally, I had to go and turn on the heat so that I would feel better. Luckily, even though it had not been turned on since last winter, everything worked perfectly and my house was warmed up nicely.  Now it getting much cooler.

I had a good sleep because my wife and I went to a restaurant that we had heard about for many years but had never visited: Piccolo's Pizza and Pasta House on Tecumseh Road West.  It is very close to Huron Church Road.  We actually had won a contest and won the prize awarded that allowed us to eat at that restaurant and have a good part of the bill paid for.

We actually decided to go around 4 P.M. the day we decided to dine so that we could get in early and get a table without any kind of problems with the crowds that quite often show up at that place. It really wasn't that early to start eating because it did take some time to make the food that we were going to eat. We were told by others that had gone there before that everything was made after the order was put in. While that was true, we really did not have to wait all that much longer than the time at another type of restaurant.

Obviously, it is an Italian restaurant and offers so many different types of meals. The good part is that most of the prices for a dinner meal are exactly the same so that makes it much easier to order food. I ordered a Veal Parmigiano while my wife ordered Pollo A La Romanogla. She started off with a delicious soup while I had a salad.   

Of course, the food was delicious and the amount was huge, especially the wonderfully flavoured pasta that came with the main course.  Seriously, each main course could not be finished and was perfect to be taken home for another meal the next day. Enjoying going to restaurant, we had to have a dessert so we split a pie that we ordered between us: the surprisingly excellent cherry cheesecake. I must admit that I am not a big fan of cheesecake but this one was excellent.  It was just so tasty and soft.

I am not going to go through a restaurant review for you.  All I am prepared to say is that the food was extremely well prepared and just delicious to eat.  Our waitress was excellent and a very friendly person as well. It is not one of these new, fancy restaurants that go up, and sometimes, soon go down.  But to let you know, it is well decorated inside. Moreover, it is not outrageously expensive but it is not a cheapo place either. However, the price of a meal itself is not all that high considering that it really is two meals in one.  Taking the left-overs home means that another meal can be eaten for  dinner the next day.

As is usual, I put on weight after eating that wonderful meal so I have had to exercise to reduce it as I am doing now! All I can say is that I will consider going there again when I am in the mood for some more Italian food.

Now let me tell you about some of the new stories that I saw in the media recently.

HYDRO POWER

All that we seem to have new these days to produce electrical power are plentiful wind turbines that are being set up in various locations across the province.  Yet, in one very public example in Toronto, it has been a disaster:

"The wind turbine that symbolized Ontario's push for green energy is at a standstill and won't be generating electricity until next month at the earliest, CBC News has learned.

The  turbine located at Exhibition Place was damaged in a storm in March, and it hasn't worked since." (MikeCrawley, CBC News, October 11, 2017) 

I have to admit that I don't understand why it is taking this long to fix up this highly publicized Hydro turbine and at such a high cost:

"It took until August to find a specialist firm that could do the necessary repair, which cost about $100,000, said Gass.  Toronto Hydro then decided to perform other upgrades, at a cost of $25,000, that are be completed in November 

This is just the latest in a series of maintenance troubles for the turbine since it began operating in 2003."

It would be very interesting to learn what the status is on this type of turbine that has been placed around the Province. Are others having problems like this and what is the cost to repair them? Here is another comment that I found fascinating to read about when thinking about the value of this kind of producer of electricity:

"…wind turbines in Ontario tend to produce power when it is least needed, such as at nighttime, while generating little power on hot summer days, when demand for electricity peaks. 

"Wind turbines are not really effective," said Gallant. "They basically produce intermittent, unreliable power, out of synch with demand."

I wish that someone would tell us what is really going on with this type of hydro producer.

FLOODING

I saw a very interesting article provided by Reliance Home Comfort:

"Basement flooding: An ounce of prevention can help you avoid a ton of turmoil." Here is the website for that article https://reliancehomecomfort.com/toronto/basement-flooding/

I would strongly suggest that you, dear reader, take a look at that article. It does provide a lot of information that I trust you will find useful.  It starts off explaining why flooding can take place in the basement. It then sets out "8 precautions you can take to avoid or reduce basement flooding." In addition, it explains why sump pumps are so necessary and how often inspections of them should be undertaken by professionals.  Regretfully, it tells you what to do if your basement does get flooded.

Naturally, I would strongly suggest, dear reader, that you go to that website and read the article. Given the 2 disasters that we have had in our basement with the huge rainstorms we have had in our area over the last 2 years, I was very happy to read the article. It supported a lot of what we had done in our basement this year to hopefully prevent another water mess happening in our home in the future.  Fingers crossed!

SCRAP BUILDING A NEW HOSPITAL

Oh, I don't mean not building a necessary new Hospital for our territory. As I shall demonstrate, I think we need one. What I am suggesting is not to build a new one and either tear down or provide that our existing hospitals not carry on as they are doing now. What I think that I am reading about the new hospital is that it will be relatively small. If that is so, and I expect our population in this area to grow, then I don't understand what is going on.

I hardly have written anything about building a new Hospital in our area at a huge cost in a location that I must admit I really did not understand. To be honest, I just did not want to be reading and writing about another one of these miserable files considering what I have been involved in over the last dozen years or so.

However, let me do one now.  In reality, I just do not understand what is being proposed about the new hospital.  Didn't we close one of them a number of years ago thereby  reducing the number in Windsor: Grace Hospital.  Now effectively, we will only have one.  I don't get it nor am I in support  of it.  Just let me post some articles I saw much earlier this year and you will understand why only having one hospital is so absurd:

"Wait times at Windsor’s two emergency departments are at an all-time high.

Windsor Regional Hospital CEO David Musyj tells CTV Windsor the number of people waiting for long periods of time at local hospitals is up 13 per cent.

Windsor-Essex is not alone. Most hospitals in Ontario are reporting an increase in wait times in emergency rooms…

“Patients in our in-patient wards are waiting to be placed somewhere else” says Musyj. “There's about 60 of them. That backs up the system, and at the same time there’s pressure from the community.”

Musyj adds they have had to open 37 more beds to deal with the rise in the number of patients." (CTV Windsor, January 11, 2017) 

"At least four surgeries were cancelled Thursday and front-line staff Windsor Regional Hospital are starting to feel the strain of overcrowding as a bed shortage continues, said the hospital's CEO.

Thirty-four patients were without beds Thursday morning, said David Musyj.   

"We have physicians taking care of approximately 40 additional patients than they're usually used to taking care of," he explained. "When you have to run at that 110 or 120 per cent for three weeks running it puts a real strain on the system and a real strain on staff." (CBC News, January 19, 2017) 

"The Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) is calling on the province to open at least 50 fully-funded and permanent hospital beds for Windsor Regional Hospital…

Windsor Regional Hospital has 543 beds total between its two campuses. Adding 50 permanent beds (about a 10 per cent increase) would bring the hospital's bed capacity to 593. A level high enough to deal with the recent patient surges the hospital has been challenged with…

Meanwhile Windsor hospital officials said on Saturday there are 30 "Admit No Bed” patients between both campuses, with 16 of them are at the Ouellette campus.

An official says more beds would provide only a temporary fix instead of a long-term solution." (CTV Windsor, February 4, 2017) 

So tell me…why do we want what is being proposed now as our major hospital to be built as our only hospital in our area?  Time to rethink everything isn't it!