More Stories For My Readers

You probably don't need to know very much more, dear reader, about my views of the weather. You know that I am not very happy about the fact that this year has been so cold that I really have not been able to go out for a nice walk as I did in the past. Sure, the temperature increased to a very high amount a few days ago but it was raining then. When I started writing this article a little while ago it wasn't too bad outside except that it was too cold for me to want to go outside for a stroll.

Naturally, on my usual shopping day on Saturday, the temperature was to be down again accompanied by some nice rain. At least, we will not see any snow and have nothing that has to be shovelled away.  I just find it difficult at this time of the year to accept rain as the normal kind of weather that I should be expecting. 

Oh well, at least it is nice and warm in my house and we will purchase some good food that we can eat and enjoy.  We will be heading off to our Butcher factory outlet to get a freezer full of meat for the next several months. It had better warm up fast because I want  to do some barbecuing soon.

In the meantime, I don't mind sitting in front of my computer do some dictation on new stories for you, dear reader. Here is the next bunch of them for you.

NO MORE REQUESTS FOR A RESIGNATION NEEDED

Congratulations to Caroline Mulroney who easily will be voted to be the Head of the PC Party and then elected to be the Ontario Premier with her party winning the majority number of seats in the Legislature.

Here is what she wrote recently on Twitter about Patrick Brown that helped convince him not to run:

I have to admit that I am surprised that Brown dropped out so quickly. However, I will no longer be surprised when Ms. Mulroney becomes the Premier in Ontario!

WINDSOR'S NEW TOURISTS

Come on now! It is time to be smart about things. Forget about our border traffic declining significantly. If you want to make real tourist money, use booze to attract tourists to come over here and stay for a few days while enjoying themselves:

"Whiskytown, Canada should be Windsor’s new brand name

Forget the City of Roses and Automotive Capital of Canada and go for the tourists Whiskytown can attract from around the world, Adriano Ciotoli of WindsorEats said Tuesday.

“No other destination not just in Ontario but in North America really couldn’t challenge us in terms of being named Whiskytown,” Ciotoli said.

“We’re the birthplace of Canadian Club whisky, we’re home to North America’s largest distillery which has even been named now the best distillery in Canada. So we really felt it was something we can hang our hat on as a region.” (Sharon Hill, Windsor Star, February 20, 2018) 

Get with it, dear reader. If you thought the growth of the marijuana business would help this area can you imagine what will happen if people come to Whiskeytown to enjoy their trip. What a wonderful time people can have drinking whiskey and smoking marijuana at the same time. Throw in gambling at our Casino as well and it is virtually ideal.

I can just think of the increase in the number of tourists that we would get from Michigan and other nearby US States to enjoy their stay in Canada drugging, drinking and gambling. Perhaps this will give the Federal Government an argument to make about why their bridge needs to be built even at a cost of $10 billion. We will need so many more lanes of traffic across the River to help them coming into Canada to spend a whole bunch of money.

Can you imagine what a life we will be enjoying in Windsor now!

Some Interesting Issues To Discuss

I am not going to give a big introduction to this Website today. Rather, I am just going to get right into telling you about some of the interesting stories that I have seen recently.

HOW IMPORTANT IS THE NEW MEDICAL SCHOOL IN WINDSOR

There is no doubt that it is advantageous to our area to have many new doctors working here. After all, in the past, we were seeing shortages all the time. Here is what is said in a recent story:

"About 90 physicians — graduates of the four-year program and others who have completed their family medicine residencies in Windsor — have remained in the area to practice since 2008…

we began to see physicians who were interested in coming down here,” said David Musyj, CEO of the Windsor Regional Hospital. “We used to post jobs and hope we’d get one candidate from elsewhere in Ontario. After the Schulich announcement, we’ve had competition for positions." (Dave Waddell, Windsor Star, February 11, 2018)

I hate to say this but a similar comment such as this was made quite a number of years ago:

"Dr. Al Kadri, the president of the Essex County Medical Society, said doctor shortages are a thing of the past…

Kadri said convincing doctors to locate here should become easier, now that young doctors are being trained in Windsor at the Shulich School of Medicine.

“We do have a good complement of physicians in the community, much better than we did a decade ago,” said Kadri. “I think from here on in, we may be able to sustain that.” (CBC News, December 1, 2011) 

If you will recall in reading stories that I wrote so long ago, dear reader, I used to be quite involved in trying to get more doctors working in Windsor.  I remember doing a presentation to some Regional medical people about an approach I thought should be taken. Fortunately, my suggestions as to how to move forward with foreign trained doctors was ultimately incorporated. Nevertheless, there was still a big shortage here in the number of doctors that were working.

I am not all that positive about the news that we saw in the Star story, although it is quite good. Regretfully, I do not believe that the number of new doctors that are working here now after graduating from the medical school as mentioned above---90---is all that significant. That number was created over a 10 year period. On average, that would be only about 9 new doctors per year added on for this region. That is hardly a big number at all unless the number of doctors who work here now, are not retiring because of older age as they did in the past. Nevertheless, 9 new ones each year, if the population is going to increase significantly in this area as the economy grows, is hardly significant.

One final word that should be disturbing to everyone, but probably more realistic, was a comment made by Mr. Musyj:

"The full impact of the medical school won’t be felt for another 10 to 15 years, he said."

WILL THE NEW NAFTA AGREEMENT BE SIGNED SOON

Are we ever tough in Canada when it comes to negotiating with other countries, especially the United States!

Why? It's because we tell them exactly what we want and expect them to immediately give into us.  I mean, dear reader, isn't that the point of view that our Federal Government seems to have been putting forward in its negotiations with the United States and Mexico with respect to NAFTA.

Of course, dear reader, you don't believe that, and neither do I. We just keep hoping that other Governments with whom we deal, take pity on us and let us have something in a negotiations that we are in with them.

Let me talk about NAFTA. Here are the introductory comments by the Canadian Ambassador to the United States in an article:

"Canada's ambassador to the United States said Monday he believes NAFTA negotiators can reach an agreement in principle by the end of March.

The upbeat assessment from envoy David MacNaughton comes in the face of the continuing threat from U.S. President Donald Trump to blow up the deal, which hangs over the final eight weeks in the current negotiating schedule.

MacNaughton refused to speculate on whether Trump is likely to pull out of NAFTA, but he said enough progress has been made on the "wiring and plumbing" of the agreement that all three countries can iron out their differences on the more substantial issues in the next two months." (Mike Blanchfield, Canadian Press, February 5, 2018) 

Wow, is someone ever sounding very scared as if no such agreement will ever be signed!

I wonder if the Government of Canada is terrified that this deal may not go through at all if President Trump loses his power as the calendar moves forward until the election in the fall.  They may believe that the Republicans in the House and Senate may be in big trouble after the next election so that Canada cannot get what it desperately needs. Accordingly, this could be why our Ambassador is giving the signal that he wants a deal completed as soon as possible.

We will have to see what happens and see if our position gets even weaker. We may just have to get the Americans to act quickly so that we could have something signed or else our economy could be in a mess.

WAS FRED FRANCIS POSSIBLY IN BIG TROUBLE POLITICALLY

I was rather surprised that this column came out from Gord Henderson in the Windsor Star:

"Park plan for Grand Marais Drain declared dead on arrival

That proposal to transform Grand Marais Drain into an attractive linear park for the benefit of South Windsor residents has been declared dead on arrival by its most enthusiastic proponent.

Ward 1 Coun. Fred Francis, who made naturalization of the concrete-lined drain between Huron Church Road and Dougall Avenue a key plank in his 2014 platform, has confirmed that the plan he was pitching is off the table and it’s back to the drawing board." (Gord Henderson, Windsor Star, February 3, 2018)

That was kind of an interesting column I thought. I don't really recall something similar to that at all. What he seemed to be doing is giving an excuse to a Councillor about something he could not finish. That was rather generous of the Columnist to do that I thought. After all, do you remember other politicians telling you they could not do something and then still hoping for support notwithstanding their failure?

I just wonder if Councillor Francis was getting very nervous that if he was running for office again then someone might mention his failure to hurt him. He certainly did not want that it seems. I wonder if this could be the reason why he was so upset and concerned that it might be something negative that might be held against him if he was running again for Councillor or trying to become Windsor's next Mayor. In other words, reveal it now so that it will disappear and not be part of a mayoral election competition.

Hmmmm. I wonder if this is why Councillor Francis became so concerned. Here's what was attributed to him recently and, obviously, something that must be of concern to him:

"Now, three of the councillors whose wards were jilted — Rino Bortolin, Chris Holt and Irek Kusmierczyk — have posted their requests for their wards on social media. You could say it’s politics. Or you could say constituents deserve to know how their elected representatives are representing them. You could say it’s the first opportunity for the public to discuss the mysterious allocation of $10 million… 

Ward 1 Coun. Fred Francis thinks his submission should be classified. Why? He doesn’t want his constituents to get their hopes up, he says? The voting age is 18, not eight. I live in Ward 1. What is my councillor saying I want?" (Anne Jarvis, Windsor Star, January 13, 2018) 

Amazing. The Councillor, it seems, did not want any negative information about his failure coming out. He wanted it to remain hidden. That would mean that no one could use it against him.

It seems to me that no one really would have known, or even cared much, that Councillor Francis failed in one of his projects. However, it may now be that their attitude might change. Accordingly, in my opinion, no matter how hard Gord Henderson tried to be positive about the Councillor in his column, I believe this matter can be held against him because it got so much exposure.

Here is what Henderson tried to do that can be seen by what he wrote at the end of his column:

"Will the city’s youngest councillor, now 37, pay a price in this election year for failing to deliver on one of his most prominent campaign promises?

I don’t see it. I give him full marks for being frank about this harsh new reality instead of holding out false hope or trying to skirt the issue."

Nice positive comments for the Councillor even though there was a failure.

My Next Series Of Stories

As you know, dear reader, one of the things that I like to do is introduce my new series of stories by posting something at the beginning that deals with my own personal matters. I have to admit that I hope that it does not bore you. If it does, I suspect that what you would do is just skip it and go to the series of articles that I usually add that I believe are important to discuss.

Usually, what I set out are circumstances in which I am involved. They are not all that dramatic but involve personal matters in which I have participated. I set them out for you, dear reader, because I feel that something similar could impact you at some time so I want to let you know how I have reacted. I am hopeful that it is helpful to you.

Here is another story in which I have been involved along with members of my family. I am just so thrilled by how I have been treated and why as I just experienced. I want to let you know about it and hope that you may appreciate something similar taking place with you.

For many years now, my family has shopped at the Real Canadian Superstore on Dougall Avenue. I believe that it changed names a number of years ago to what it is now but I cannot remember its previous name. We shop there, even though we have moved into Tecumseh, because it was very close to where we lived before. Believe it or not, and notwithstanding the distance, it is still the place where we go once a week to buy our groceries. We do this even though there are many grocery stores located where we live in Tecumseh.

To be direct, we go to RCSS even though it is a much further away from where we live now because it is by far the best grocery store in this entire area as far as I am concerned. Plus, it provides excellent groceries at some of the lowest costs around including matching prices of other competitive, low-cost grocery stores. Thus, even if we use a bit more gas for going there, we still save quite a bit.

Again, my illness probably helped me out. Even though I had gone there quite often before when I lived in Windsor, things changed after my family and I moved to Tecumseh. Obviously, I did not go there for a very long time because I literally could not do much for quite some time as I recovered from my illness.  As I felt better, I started going again to RCSS for Saturday shopping. For some reason this time, something new started. I started meeting employees who worked there a lot more often. We actually started talking to each other even if it was merely "Hello" or "How are you today?"

And then one day, a remarkable event took place. As we had finished doing our shopping in the fruit and vegetable departments, we started going to another section of the store. However, before we left this department, for the first time ever, one of the employees ran up to us and asked us if we had bought a bag of potatoes that they were selling at a huge discount price of $1. 

I could not believe that he did that. It had never happened to me before. I was shocked, but with joy. I was so happy even though that probably does not make much sense to you, dear reader. I thought about it all the time that I was in the store that day and I still think about it every time we go back. In fact, I always ask to see if he's around when we return just so that I can say "hello" to him.

The first day, when this happened, we spoke with each other for about 10 minutes. Oh, it was not about personal matters, but just talking about things that had just arisen because of his wonderful gesture. I felt that he made me so "special" a person by treating me so wonderfully. He went out of his way to do me a favour, even if it was only to save me a few dollars. Now, when we go back to the store, we make sure that we try to see him again just so that we can chat again with a gentleman who has been so kind to us.

I should tell you that, when we meet, he will ask us if we are looking for anything special on that day. If we do happen to mention something to him, he will go to the back of the store to see if he can find something that meets our needs perfectly!  He also tells about something that he thinks that we should purchase and offers us the product. He has taken that on as his new responsibility. We are so happy about how he has made us feel. 

We all do speak with him now on some "non-grocery" matters for a short period of time and enjoy every minute of doing so. We do not get too "personal" in our discussions because it is probably not a smart idea to do so. We just enjoy our time together.

Not to make a big deal about it, we are having better conversations now with a number of the RCSS employees there that we see and have dealt with over a number of years. Nothing intense but just greeting each other now and making sure each other is in good spirits.

I am so pleased with what is happening now in my life!

ST. CLAIR COLLEGE STUD

I must admit that I was shocked by what I thought the language was in a Windsor Star story. Oh, it was not really that offensive but it seemed to me to be in poor taste for a newspaper such as this one.

Here's what I saw in the column on the left hand side of the Windsor Star News, All News page:

I saw this news story reference too:

I was rather shocked to be honest about that language.  Nevertheless, I went to that page to see what it was about. Thankfully, it was not at all what I thought. Here is the actual headline of that story:

Here is something else that is interesting. I also saw this short-form of the story title on a different Star page. Why it could not be used all over is beyond me: 

I trust that the Star will be a little bit more careful with what is shown on their various webpages in the future.

PERHAPS HE WILL NOT RUN FOR MAYOR IN WINDSOR

I have to tell you, dear reader, that is the conclusion that I have now reached. I am not sure if I am accurate or not, but I cannot see any reason why Fred Francis would be running for Mayor after what Gord Henderson wrote in his Saturday column on February 17, 2018 in the Windsor Star.  

I must admit that, until now, I just assumed that Drew Dilkens was not going to run again for Mayor but was going to get some other job. I did not know what that job was going to be but I thought that it would be at a very nice salary. I thought that he would wait until the last minute to let everyone know that he was not going to run and that was when Fred Francis would announce that he was going to run.  For anyone else to make a decision to run for Mayor at that late stage probably made little sense so it would be easy for Francis to be elected. Of course, after only one term of Councillor, it was similar to the time when his brother became Mayor for the first time.

What made me doubt my own earlier reaction about Dilkens was the number of steps that he was taking these days to improve his image rather dramatically I thought. You can remember that long column that Dilkens wrote a short time ago which started me really doubting my previous thought about his future.  I wrote about it here on my webpages and said the following:

"MAYOR DILKENS REACTS

One has to wonder if Mayor Dilkens will be running for re-election or will he be going somewhere else for a job with the new Mayor in Windsor possibly being the brother of former Mayor Francis who is in Council now.

I must admit that I thought that the Mayor was not going to run again. I figured he was going elsewhere to work with a high paying job. I must admit also that I did not know exactly where he would be going. Not giving us a decision early on just seemed to me to be nothing more than to make it easier for Francis to run and minimize the amount of time that someone could run against him.

However, I also note that the Mayor is talking a lot about his view of Windsor. In fact, he just posted on Facebook a very long letter about Windsor's downtown to counter a letter posted against the downtown. It seems to me that what he did certainly would support him if he was running for Mayor again because it glorifies all of the supposedly wonderful stuff he has done for the Windsor downtown."  (February 12, 2018, Time For Some More Articles) 

It is now absolutely definite to me at least, dear reader, that Drew Dilkens is going to run to be re-elected as Mayor.  More importantly, it means that Fred Francis will be running again to be Councillor for his 2nd term.  There may be a number of reasons for that decision being made. Let us see if something more definite happens in the future to help us know why he will only run for re-election for his elected Councillor position today.

The Henderson column was quite fascinating I thought and led me to my decision. Just look at these comments in his story:

"Krutsch, a likeable straight-talker who has studied the Grand Marais drainage course off and on for nearly three decades, took strenuous exception to the column’s claim (my hyperbolic indulgence) that the drain was “filled almost to the brim” following the storm and, quoting Coun. Fred Francis, that the data underpinning the park proposal was no longer relevant…

“I don’t think (the linear park) is a dead project. It’s just not a higher priority given the priorities through the sewer master plan,” said Winterton. In other words, it’s gone to the back of what could be a very long queue.

Mind you, if the project has lost the support of its most ardent political backer in Francis, who remains deeply skeptical of its post-storm viability, insisting he would need fresh technical proof, then it’s as good as dead."

If Francis could not get his project through, then how can he ever be elected as Mayor now? It means to me that he is not that powerful a political figure so far in his career so how can he be elected to the most Senior Position in Windsor.  It means to me that he will need another 4 years to grow up before he dares think again about running for the mayoral position.

One might want to think about something else, dear reader. There could be a major political disaster that takes place after the 2018 election. Why would Francis need that and be forced to handle it? 

As an example, what if a decision is made not to build the new hospital that is being proposed right now? I can see that happening since the size of the new hospital is not all that large. Accordingly, what is the purpose of just having only one major hospital for this entire region? Its size as described now, in my opinion, is too small for the number of people who are requiring hospitalization care with all of the medical issues going on these days. The issues will only get worse as the population here is more senior and since the greater number needs more hospital care in larger facilities.

What I can see happening is the cancellation of the new hospital building or, alternatively, its postponement for a good many more years while more study is done about what Windsor and the entire area around here requires. Can you imagine if you were Mayor and had to handle that situation!

Given all that, here is what I need to say about what is going to happen for the municipal election this year:

"Congratulations, Mayor Dilkens. That is why you are going to be allowed to be re-elected."

Warmer But Now Rainy Weather

I started writing this Blog article on Tuesday morning. I have to admit that I am tired right now because it rained quite heavily early in the morning and woke me up. Naturally, it was difficult for me to go back to sleep. Unfortunately then, I lost out on some of my sleeping time and so I feel a bit weary. It just means that I will have to be careful about what I do today.  And especially what I write!

What is remarkable about today is that the temperature is supposed to go up as high as 15°C. That would be absolutely wonderful for the winter this year. It has been so cold that I have never gone out for a walk once yet. Exercising in our basement is what I have learned to do to feel better. I must say, however, that in the last few years we had a lot of warmer weather during the winter months and, in fact, I even did some barbecuing when it was around this higher temperature last year.

Unfortunately, I did not take out any food to thaw so I could run a barbecue today. The weather prediction was that it would rain between 90 and 100% all day. The last thing I needed to do was to go outside with an umbrella in order to produce some tasty, BBQ meat. I am recovering even now from my ear ache since it still hurts. Accordingly, the last thing I wanted to do is go outside and get really ill and then have to take pills for who knows how long.

What I am going to do, dear reader, is talk about some products that my wife and I purchased a number of years ago that seemed to be defective now. I am going to tell you about our experience in trying to get a resolution of the problem. Keep on reading because it was not a simple event:

REPLACEMENT OF DEFECTIVE POTS

I just wanted to give you a short story, dear reader, about my experience in getting some pots replaced. It was a "fun" time dealing with the Canadian representatives of the manufacturer in getting a satisfactory conclusion. However, wait until you see what they decided to do in the end.

I do not intend to provide the name of the company involved, but if you need to know it because you are interested in buying some new pots, then just drop me a note. Just to be clear, I think that you will be pleased with what happened after you finish reading this story.  You will also like their products a lot.

My wife and I, a number of years ago, purchased a very expensive set of pots and pans. They seemed to be a product that would serve us well in cooking for a very long period of time, i.e. virtually forever. To be direct, they were that good it seemed. We bought a set that contained a number of different items that would be used for all different kinds of cooking. They worked wonderfully. That is until one day, when my wife and I discussed some concerns which appeared to be flaws in several of the pots. We saw some extensive issues on the surface of one of them and the wearing out it appeared in another one of them. It did not make sense for something like this happening with this kind of expensive goods so we thought that we would contact the manufacturer, or rather its Canadian representative, to talk to them about it and get replacements. Their warranty I thought was broad enough to cover this.

I am not going to go through in detail the various telephone conversations that my wife and I had with some of the representatives for the manufacturer. Just to let you know, it did not go all that well during some of the times that we spoke. In fact, I checked to see whether or not I should deal with the US office because I was quite offended on occasion about the manner in which we were dealing. To be honest, I was quite surprised because the US Company pretty much refused to deal with me at all.

My wife was the one who started speaking with the Company originally but since she was not getting along well with them, she passed it over to me. My conversations with some of the lower level employees eventually worked out, but it did require certain requests for this to happen. Upon one of my requests, I was elevated upwards and spoke with one of the more senior staff members. 

My conversation with her was remarkably excellent compared with some of the people on the lower level. We seemed to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion very quickly and arranged for a proper solution to be made. All that was supposed to happen is that we would obtain 2 new pots and in return, send to them the 2 defective ones.

Just in passing, dear reader, that is something you should understand if you have problems with a company that sold you some products that may be defective. Deal with the first level of customer support people for your first conversation to try to get a proper resolution. If that does not work out relatively quickly, then immediately ask, OR DEMAND, that you be transferred to one of their superiors. In my experience with a number of companies where we have had problems, that person generally seems to work out better with the customer than the lower level one.

Arrangements were made to have new products sent to us and they would replace the ones that were defective which would then be returned. No reason to complain is there, dear reader? Oh, there was a slight problem with respect to one of the pots which had to be replaced but in order to do so, they were going to send us an extra pot because, I assumed, they did not make such a big pot any more. That was appreciated.

Of course, my wife and I were quite pleased with what was going to happen. Unfortunately, it did not happen and failed miserably. "Miserably" is the word I am using because I don't want to use some other term, which may not be very nice to put in one of my articles that have public readers! We did not receive pots at all but rather 3 glass dishes!! In other words, there was a horrific mess-up in the products that were sent to us. They were absolutely the wrong ones!!

Guess what, I had to phone back the company to complain. What fun that was. Again, to be short about it, more difficult conversation with a different lower-level employee. Based on my previous experience, I again asked to speak with another upper level one.

Just to bring everything to your information without going through a whole bunch of more stories, here is the relevant section of the note that I received:

"First off we wanted to apologize for any mishap and inconvenience you have experienced.  

We take all concerns very seriously and try our best to accommodate and help our customers to the fullest.   

We are extremely sorry if you did not get that customer service satisfaction , as a will of good faith and to have your ongoing support in the near future we would like to send you a full set of [Name of  Brand] hard anodized non-stick cookware."

I was stunned by what was proposed! I just could not believe it. Nevermind receiving just a couple of pots, I was now going to obtain a new, full set of their cookware! I just could not believe it.

A bit more. I was told in a separate email that I did not have to return to them the new products they had already sent to me previously. I could keep them as well!

Later that afternoon, I was told, who their shipping company was and found out that they were supposed to deliver the products to me so that I received everything the next day i.e Tuesday.

I am sure that you will understand how surprised I was about what was being sent to me and why. I am sure you will also understand how thrilled I was with what was being done.

Clearly, this very positive action is something that I thought that I should post on here because it is a way of keeping a customer "very happy" notwithstanding some of the issues that happened up until now. Not only now do I still like the products, but I will be happy in dealing with the Company again and feeling very positive about them and their products!

UPDATE:

I was somewhat concerned about the delivery date for Tuesday because of all the nasty rain that was expected. I thought that truck traffic might be delayed so that we would have to wait until Wednesday. However, at about 1:45 PM, I heard a knock on the door. Yes, it was the delivery truck bringing a 31 pound box of pots for us!

Naturally, we removed everything and washed everything. Fantastic products in great shape.  Now, by viewing this photograph that I took, you will understand, dear reader, why my wife and I are so happy:

Posting More Comments

I started writing this particular Webpage around 4 o'clock on Thursday afternoon, February 15. I have to admit that I was quite tired because I had to see a doctor early in this morning because of a problem I had in my ear. Fortunately, the doctor said that there was nothing there now which is serious. Of course, other than the small pain that I have now which should disappear very soon, he told me that I was fine.

Thank goodness for that. Who needs to have a problem in that particular ear because that is the ear that I sleep on every night. For the last few days, I had considerable difficulty sleeping on the other side of my head even though my ear there did not hurt. Hopefully, I'll have a very good night's sleep tonight.

Didn't you find the weather on this particular Thursday quite strange? I sure did. I have to admit that I didn't even understand the weather forecast that day. I just went to the Weather Network page and saw this note timed at 3:12 PM:

"Near zero visibility in fog is expected or occurring.

The dense fog has developed in some areas and will persist through tonight."

I had seen a forecast a few minutes earlier that was posted around 9:48 AM, but this one was slightly changed stating that the fog would last longer.

No, I don't want to appear to be silly but something really strange happened on the 15th that was quite astounding to me. I must admit that I do not have a really good explanation for it, but I am happy that it took place.

I was up very early in the morning because I had to decide whether I should go for a doctor's appointment that morning. Unfortunately, my ear was still hurting so I decided that I had to go. I had to go to a clinic because I did not expect that I would be able to see my own personal doctor that morning and I wanted to get something done as quickly as possible. I left around 8 AM expecting to get to the office of the doctor by around 8:30 AM. I wanted to sign up early because the office technically saw its first patient at 9 AM.

To be direct about it, I was not sure if I was going to go at all in the morning. It was pretty foggy out around 6 AM and I just was not sure if I wanted my wife to have to drive in that kind of weather. Amazingly, by the time we were ready to go at 8 AM, it was completely clear outside. Moreover, and I am glad the appointment finished so quickly, it was still clear when we started going home around 9:15 AM. I thought that I was very lucky the fog disappeared completely so early.

I watched a movie after lunch and then just happened to look outside. It was completely foggy. I just could not believe it! I was rather surprised. When I looked out a bit later, the fog was even thicker.  That was around the time when I went to the weather webpage and saw what I posted above. I just could not believe how lucky I was.

Of course, there has to be an explanation about why the weather cleared so magnificently during the time period when I went towards the downtown Windsor office of the doctor and then returned home into Tecumseh. Then, it changed up horribly. If it had not done so, then it would have prevented me from going for my examination.

I, of course, have an explanation about why this might have happened. However, as I am sure that you understand, it is a rather strange one. Accordingly, I'm not going to share it with you, dear reader, but I will let you figure out why you think all this marvelous weather change took place so that I could get the medical care I needed.

Now, it's time for me to talk about some news stories I saw recently.

WINDSOR IS FAILING AGAIN

Oh no, not another negative story about what is happening in this area. How can one of these stories actually happen when everything is supposed to be so wonderful around here these days. I don't know, dear reader, but is it something else that is now adding in so that a voter might get even angrier now and decide not to vote for the Mayor or existing Members of Windsor Council?

It was a short story but not a very good one:

"Windsor ranked 6th on Orkin Canada’s rattiest cities list for Ontario for 2017.  Windsor was 7th the year before." (Liz Thorne, Windsorite.ca, February 14, 2018) 

Wow, it got worse here. In case you are wondering, here are the 25 "top rattiest" cities in Ontario for rats and mice that I saw on the Orkin website:

PLEASE EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCE

I'm not going to write a very big Blog about this because I have no idea what the real story is that is going on. One day everything seems to be fairly positive and then a few days later, everything seems to be in trouble. Here is what I mean:

"NAFTA deal possible by end of March, says Canadian envoy MacNaughton

 

OTTAWA -- Canada's ambassador to the United States said Monday he believes NAFTA negotiators can reach an agreement in principle by the end of March.

The upbeat assessment from envoy David MacNaughton comes in the face of the continuing threat from U.S. President Donald Trump to blow up the deal, which hangs over the final eight weeks in the current negotiating schedule.

MacNaughton refused to speculate on whether Trump is likely to pull out of NAFTA, but he said enough progress has been made on the "wiring and plumbing" of the agreement that all three countries can iron out their differences on the more substantial issues in the next two months." (Mike Blanchfield, Canadian Press, February 5, 2018)

Do you see what I mean? Oh sure, there are some anti-Trump comments. However I saw a very positive comment about the likelihood of a deal that could be completed in a few months between Canada, United States and Mexico.

However, I saw this in a news story a couple of days later:

"The ongoing effort to rescue and revamp NAFTA has made only limited progress because U.S. officials at the table find themselves hamstrung by the demands of the Trump White House and the talks are taking place too quickly, Canada's chief negotiator says…

Verheul described the current NAFTA talks as the most unusual negotiation he's ever been involved in.

"They do not come to the table — our counterparts — with a lot of flexibility. This is being driven to a large extent from the top, from the administration, and there's not a lot of flexibility," the veteran negotiator told the Canadian Global Affairs Institute." (Mike Blanchfield, Canadian Press, February 13, 2018) 

I hope you understand what I mean, dear reader. Are the parties really in a dispute amongst themselves or are they just playing a game designed to fool the public so that when they come to a resolution everyone will be pleased.

DID CAROLINE MULRONEY HURT HERSELF

As you know, she is running to be the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party in Ontario. Yet, now the former leader is going to run to get back his job.

The big question is whether he will win or not. After all, one can argue that he should never have resigned in the first place. Accordingly his party members should be happy that he is coming back and vote for him to get his job back.

Ms. Mulroney may not be too happy about all of this. She has made this comment on Twitter:

"The determination of who is suitable to be a candidate in this leadership race is up to LEOC. As I’ve said before, Patrick Brown made the right decision to step down. A leadership election is not the place for him to try to clear his name…

"Our focus should remain squarely on beating Kathleen Wynne in less than 100 days. This is a distraction from that and I am disappointed." (Twitter, February 16, 2018) 

It will be interesting for me to see what the former Leader will be saying during the campaign and what he will say about her role running for the leadership in any further debates that they have. I just wonder if there will be any nastiness between the leadership candidates and if there is, how will the Liberals use it to have them get re-elected.

A Changed New Article

I must tell you, dear reader, that my original plan was to do a Blog on some transportation matters for this area. There are some interesting things going on that I wanted to talk about. As I am sure you know by now, I usually start off with some personal issue and then go into my main topic. This personal issue generally does not take too much space.

Sometimes though my plans change. Not in advance, mind you, but only because the writing on the particular personal issue suddenly starts to take up a lot more space than I considered at first. Here is one of those specific cases that just seemed to happen and to require me to expand the space needed on here for this topic.  Sure, I wrote a similar story a short time ago but I guess I just have to do another one because it plays such an important role in my life these days.  And it might be important for some of you as well.

This time, dear reader, I am going to deal once more with some of the matters that happened as I started to exercise after returning from the hospital several years ago. This process increased rather dramatically for reasons never anticipated in advance.  I will be discussing the many small exercises that I have been undertaking to get better. These exercises are making me feel so much more fit so that I can transport myself around a lot better than I thought that I could. As an example, in the warm weather especially in summertime, I walk around generally 3 times a day: once after every meal. On particularly pleasant days, one walk itself could last for about an hour, believe it or not.

Regretfully, all of this action is relatively new in my life. I was hardly doing any exercising before. That is obviously why I had put on so much weight before I entered hospital. After I left, I probably lost somewhere in the range of 40 pounds there. I remember the first time I actually saw myself dressed in normal clothes, not pyjamas which I had been wearing consistently for about 3 months when I was back at home. Truly, I could not believe what I looked like. In fact, and this is really true, I thought someone had redesigned a photo that I saw and put my "head" on someone else's "body" which was quite slim. It took me a bit of time before I convinced myself that it was really a picture that I had taken of myself.

I have gained some weight since I returned home from the hospital about 3 years ago. I must admit that I get very depressed when I see my weight increasing.  This has happened several times when I quickly gained about 2 pounds each time and it worried me that I was eating too much. Immediately, I went on a strict diet to try to reduce the weight, but found that I could not, or rather might only have lost a small fraction of a pound. It took me some time after speaking with people who knew a little bit about putting on and taking off weight that it was the new exercising that I was just starting to do that was responsible for the increased number of pounds. It was the increase in muscle, not fat, that caused the weight gain.

I was very happy when I heard that because I was putting on this weight yet my clothes were fitting almost exactly the way they were before when my weight was less. This has now happened several times and yet, to be honest, I go through the same fear of weight gain every time until I finally figure out that it is the muscle building that put on the new pounds.

I have had to change my diet after I became so ill and returned from hospital. I do not eat all of the same kind of food that I used to eat before and which, to be honest, I really liked. Unfortunately, it helped put on pounds on me. My new diet, surprisingly, was very easily picked up by me and enjoyed by me. I do eat a lot more vegetables than before with more chicken and fish but much less meat. I do try to make sure that what I do eat makes up an acceptable diet that keeps me "full" yet does not put on the pounds. Oh sure, I still do eat meat, like steaks or veal chops, but I do not eat them as many times or in the comparable large sizes as before.

Let me talk a little bit about the exercising that I do. 

It was very important for me early on to start exercising to keep myself in good shape. Unfortunately, I could not do so. After returning home from the hospital, I was in bed continually for several months. I lived in our house bedroom on the 2nd floor and could not even walk down the stairs to get to the kitchen to eat. Accordingly, my wife had to go up and down the stairs several times for each meal to feed me! And I was not an easy eater either so she had to do a lot of stair climbing.

I really did not do very much walking around at all until we moved to our new condo house. Not only did I go for walks outside, but I was trained to do exercising by one of the people who came to help me out as part of the recovery program on which I was now involved.  I won't go into a lot of detail about my new program but he was here for 5 sessions teaching me new steps at each of them.

Just as one example, I had to sit down and lift each of my legs as high as I could for as many times as I could. Pretty easy don't you think? It sure seems that way. Except I could not lift my leg more than a couple of inches off the ground for more than 2 or 3 times and had to stop because I felt so worn out. These days, I can lift my legs individually quite high for about 20 times each and I probably could do more.

I go through about 7 different steps for each exercise session. Naturally, I increase the number of actions in each step as I continue to keep on adding to them. I spend right now about 20 minutes on each session with all of these steps. I go through them 3 times every day, doing a complete session once before each meal.

As I was increasing the number of steps for each exercise, I am sure you will understand, dear reader, that I got quite tired out. As an example, going from 2 steps per leg lifting a couple of inches off the ground for each leg to 20 steps per leg going quite high, and feeling good about it, is quite an achievement.  I might even add on a few more steps soon.

Naturally, FATE stepped in and my exercising changed. It improved dramatically. I saw that there was another group that provided exercising for people like me and contacted them to see if they would help me out. They said they would and after waiting some time, one of their senior people was assigned to me to go through a 12 week program learning new exercises.

Well, this person is quite excellent not only in the way he handles people like me but in exercising techniques as well. The approach he took was to make sure that I could undertake basic exercising that his program offered, but also he gave me specific exercises to meet issues with which I wanted to deal. I am going through that process now since I still have a number of weeks left to work with him. At this stage of the process, I am just learning the new techniques. However, these days, I can do a lot more in the new process than I could when I first started exercising before.

Whew, that is a lot more that I discussed than I intended to do so when I first was going to write about my exercising.  You see, dear reader, I can even write more with all of the exercising that I have learned for a number of different techniques. It is quite an achievement for me and I am happy to have accomplished as much as I have. I intend to continue this wonderful system which I trust will help me live better for as long as I possibly can. It is truly an activity that I enjoy today.