Hot Weather

Yes, I remember. I must not write too much anymore on here about the weather since I have written so much about it already. And, of course, most of it is all personal to me!

Now I did promise not to do too much of it. I want to keep my word on it but it is so hot outside and it is supposed to be this warm for such a long period of time that I felt that I could write a few comments on what is happening.

I am sure that you can find out as much as you want about the weather by going to a number of Weather Sites on the Internet. Go and do that if you want to understand more about it. As an example, you will see how long we will be hit with such warm temperatures and really wonder if you can cope with it when you read what the "feels like" temperature is. That can increase the actual temperature by as much as 10 to 12°C.

Of course, if you have young kids in your house, you will have to take care of them to make sure that they do not get too warm because they can get quite ill if that happens. Naturally, you will want to consider if you can take them swimming at one of the local pools in the area. If you have a pool in your own backyard or if a neighbour or friend invites you over to their place to swim, steps have to be taken to make sure that the kids don't get sunburned by staying out too long even if they are enjoying themselves.

More importantly though, I would like to tell you that I like to go outside and cook. After all for so many years, I have gone and made the best BBQed meal that I could for the family to enjoy. In fact, this year I have done some things differently so that the taste of the meat is even better than before.

One must prepare properly in advance. After all, it is very difficult to cook inside when the BBQ unit is calling you to come outside to prepare wonderful food for the family. 

You have to have the right food for BBQing for dinner a few times while the weather is so warm. Now that is a lot of fun to do especially if you, dear reader, think you are a well-qualified BBQ chef. Since I have a great location where I buy my meat, I make sure that we go to the best meat place in town and buy enough ahead of time. The meat we have in our freezer is then defrosted with enough time so that I can spice it up before I BBQ it. Chicken is also frozen in advance and is always defrosted and spiced before it goes onto the grill so that it just tastes fantastic.

One of the things that I do is make extra barbecued items and then freeze them so we can enjoy our dinners on other nights when we only have to defrost them and heat them up. That is a very good way to make meals easily in the future.

Oh dear, I have to stop thinking about this so much now. All of a sudden I am getting my appetite worked up. Instead, I better start writing stories about what is going on around here these days.

MILITARISTIC COMPARISON OF COUNTRIES

If you want to learn a lot about the military condition of countries around the world, 136 of them, then go to this website www.GlobalFirepower.com

This site provides all kinds of information about each one of them. One thing that I found very interesting is that one can have two countries compared with each other with respect to their military power. That makes it very interesting to see which country is more powerful if they are nasty between each other.

Of course, there is a very detailed report about Canada's military position. Canada's rank is #25. Just so you know, dear reader, the US is #1 and Russia is #2 while China is #3.

This Website gives you all kinds of information about the military condition of each country. It talks about each country's military manpower size, military department strength respecting assets they control and financial position.

Go take a look at its Website if you have any interest at all in this subject.

A BENEFIT TO DOWNTOWN WINDSOR. AND ELSEWHERE

Here is some hope that some positive changes are going to be made on Erie Street and also in other areas of Windsor and the surrounding county soon. I believe that the opportunities are there now. Take a look at this story:

"Only two years ago the place sat abandoned, a decrepit relic, a magnet for drugs and prostitution.

Now the 1922 building on Erie Street West at Victoria Avenue is enjoying a complete makeover and should fill up by the fall — four apartments and five retail spaces — all thanks to an Ottawa developer.” (Craig Pearson, Windsor Star, June 28, 2018) 

The reality is that is very cheap to buy property in Windsor for a business and people from out of town should be doing it now, especially real estate developers. Moreover, it is also very cheap to buy property here where someone ought to be living as their house. 

Just to give you my example, when I bought my property in Windsor many years ago to begin living here, it was larger in size than the house I sold when I was living in Toronto. However, the price of my Windsor home that I bought was just a fraction of the price that I received on the sale of my Toronto unit.

Today, I can just imagine how much more expensive my former Toronto home is compared with similar property in Windsor. I frankly don't understand how many people can even afford to buy a place in Toronto even at the very low mortgage rates these days. However, lots of places are being sold in that area.

I would hope that many people from out of town are going to find out about our pricing and to see the advantages that they have for moving here. One of the things that our municipal Governments should be doing is publicizing as best as possible the opportunities not only for starting a business here because of our location but also because of how cheap it is for the business owner and its employees to live here.

MORE POSITIVE NEWS

I like living in Tecumseh. Our Mayor and City Council here just seem to be doing the right things for us. Oh sure, some of what they will be doing costs a fair bit of money. Yet, they seem to be able to find it and spend it without increasing our taxes by some huge amounts. Again, some of these projects just have to be done or we can find ourselves in the middle of a mess that will cost us dearly.

Let me give you one example of what I mean that was reported in the news recently:

“Tecumseh Mayor Gary McNamara says the town is committed to spending millions of dollars more in new flood prevention measures.

McNamara tells AM800 News, the town's new stormwater management master plan is set to be presented to council in late September. The master plan will outline millions of dollars in recommended projects to fight back against increasingly severe storm and rain events.

"We've got a lot more work to do. We're going to continue to invest a large amount of capital to deal with, again, protecting homes," says McNamara.” (Ricardo Veneza, AM800, June 27, 2018)

I am sure that you will remember, as I certainly do, the flooding this area has suffered in the last few years. For me, this was the first time that I had several inches of water in my basement that caused damage. This required my Insurance Company to arrange for the repairs and to pay the money needed to fix everything up. I can just imagine how many millions of dollars all the Insurers had to pay to so many homeowners as a result of the flooding.

Of course, who knows when this is going to happen again. I know I don't want to have the misery thinking about this when weather projections talk about thunderstorms and give out warnings.

As you will understand, that is the reason why I enjoyed reading that newspaper article. I have seen how much money was spent but I have to tell you that I am surprised that we had so much damage over the past couple of years. I wonder if we actually spent the money in the way we needed before considering all the damage that was done:

“McNamara says the town has already spent upwards of $50-million towards flood mitigation since 2011 including backwater valve subsidy, sewer rehab and downspout disconnection programs.

He expects another $25-million to $30-million in spending is likely to be included in the master plan.”

I am hoping that what will be spent soon will be spent on the right tasks. In addition, I hope the work is being done as quickly as possible so that if it does happen to rain heavily no one will suffer any damage in their homes.