FLOODING PART THREE

You will have to excuse me, dear reader, but I think I have just about lost track of time and days after what has happened here in the condo where my wife and I live. I am trying very hard to let you know what is going on with our condo problems. You will get all the facts but don't worry so much whether my time that I am giving you is exactly right or off a little bit.

I have to tell you that it was last Wednesday, early in the morning, when I first started writing this article. Or at least I thought it was!  So many things had been going on over the past few days before that frankly I might be telling you something that happened on the wrong time frame. But don't worry too much, because it all fits in together so that you will know what happened.

Just so that you will remember, here are the 2 big areas that we had to deal with:

"However, as usual, we got a late phone call that woke us up. This time it was from a gentleman from a company that we had never heard of that told us that he wanted to come to our house on Monday at 9 AM to look at what had to be done because he'd been appointed by the Insurer to do the work. Of course, that was a surprise to me because another company was supposed to come and see us as the Insurance Company representative..."

Here is the second one:

"Someone is supposed to come from the Reliance firm sometime this afternoon to figure out what is going wrong. Of course, that has ruined what my wife and I intended to do on Sunday but what the heck, we can now rest at home."

Let me deal with the Reliance matter first.  One of their employees from out of town who was working in the area because of the disastrous weather had come and fixed up our natural gas hot water heater. Or so we thought.

The water heater was making a horrific sound and, given the fact that it had been around for 10 years, I was concerned that it might need replacement because it had broken down. Alternatively, I was also worried that the problems after the heavy rain might have created some difficulties that required fixing up.  The gentleman came and eliminated the noise completely. I was so happy but unfortunately my happiness only lasted for about 10 hours. At about 3 o'clock in the morning on Monday morning, I was awoken by the same horrible sound coming from the water heater in the basement that I heard before. I contacted Reliance again at around that time but believe it or not their phone system was completely busy. I could not get through to an operator at all. Can you imagine how bad the situation was with Reliance equipment as a result of the flooding.

It all took about an hour and, to be quite direct about it all, I was furious about what happened. I could not believe that it seemed that the same problem was still around and even the repair man who had been to our house before was concerned that there was a much bigger problem but hoped that he had solved it.  Unfortunately he had not.

Again, without going through all of the misery and the extent of the coverage that I had with Reliance in our phone call, they agreed that someone would come and visit our premises on Monday. I was pleased about that until no one came on Monday at all! That is correct. That story I was given when I called Reliance to find out why no one had been to my condo yet was that all of the afternoon appointments, which mine was, were cancelled because of the amount of work that had begun in the morning and still had to be completed. Can you believe that because I could not. I was not warned about that at all although the Reliance employee I talked to believed that all of the customers involved had been contacted.  Without going through our not so pleasant "conversation," it was agreed that a service person would come between 7 AM and 11 AM the next day to try to figure out what was going on.

Naturally, no one came to our residence between 7 AM and 8 AM in the morning so I called Reliance again. I must admit that I never really expected someone to come in 7 AM because of past experiences about when the employees actually started working but I wanted to know what time the repair person was coming. Regretfully, the operator could not tell me at all when that person was coming! I was furious. I called immediately after our telephone call ended one of the senior officers that I knew in our region because of the mess that our family has had with Reliance over about the last year and a half concerning our new gas system that we installed. I think that he was rather shocked about what happened and told me that he would contact one of the repair people and have him come over immediately.

Believe it or not, that happened. One of his senior employees was fixing up another home first and then was told to come to our house immediately thereafter. He did so. The gentleman who came was extremely experienced. He looked over our system and did what he thought would work. Brilliantly, it did!  He told us in addition that if there still were problems in the future not necessarily to get a new system but to try and have the old one repaired. As far as he was concerned, the older systems might even be better than the new ones.

Accordingly, so far, everything is working with the natural gas water heater. Fingers crossed that everything will be fine.  Our technician was absolutely superb in what he was doing and what he explained to me when finished.

Now let me tell you what was going on at exactly the same time as this repair job.  But I will tell you about this in another article.

FLOODING, PART TWO

The story continues as only could happen to our family it would appear! 

Everything seemed to be working out so wonderfully. There was no reason for me to be concerned about what happened because of the flood coming into our basement. It was all going to be resolved in such a nice manner.

After all, I told you what a good job my daughter, Melissa, and her boyfriend, Bill, did to fix up our basement by removing the water. The work they did was wonderful!  I also told you that I was waiting for my son to come over because we found out about another problem in our system and so could not go and pick him up to help us out with the tasks that we wanted him to do.

Here is how I described the situation now:

"Of course, a new problem arose starting at about 5 AM. I started hearing a rather substantial sound coming from the hot water pump. I was terrified that it may have been damaged by the water that had come in and was now breaking down. Naturally, I would have liked to take a very warm bath in the morning to try to get myself back to normal as well but was not going to do it if this hot water tank was coming close to turning off. That had happened before to me in a house that I lived in when the tank completely collapsed and naturally leaked water."

So what did we do? We contacted Reliance immediately and they promised to send in one of their employees to take a look at the system and do whatever repairs were necessary.  No, I want you to stop thinking that no one came over. In fact, the Reliance employee came in within the timeframe that he was supposed to do so. It made me really pleased.

Interestingly, he was not an employee of Reliance who lived or even worked in this area. Rather, he came in from London, Ontario to help out with all of the difficulties that customers here had. Obviously, Windsor/Essex Reliance customers must have had a lot of problems after the flooding for Reliance to bring in employees from out of town to provide assistance.

The Reliance employee came in around noon-time to our house to see if he could fix the problem. I was quite impressed with him and thought that he knew exactly what he should do. He certainly seemed to me at the time able to do so in the way that he discussed the situation.

I'm not going to go through all the testing that he took but it was quite extensive as far as I was concerned. I do not think that he found a disastrous situation but suggested that there was a problem with the hot water motor system. The motor at the top of the tank seemed to be extremely noisy to me when I first came down to listen to the furnace system and I think he agreed with me because he chose to replace it with a new system. After all, the unit itself was about 10 years old since the entire system had been put into the basement in 2006 by a previous owner. We took it over when we purchased the house.

To be direct about it, it worked wonderfully after the new system was installed. The noise level reduced to virtually nothing when it started to operate. What a big change that was from what I had heard before.  Everything was now superb as far as I was concerned. Accordingly, my wife and I were able to go and pick up my son so that we could do some grocery shopping because we were running out of a lot of food.  After that was finished, my son agreed that he would wash the entire floor in the basement in order to disinfect the floor from any germs that may have been picked up. That floor could now be relatively clean until it was properly finished by the company that would be retained to do a proper cleaning of our entire house that was required because of the flood.

Of course he did a fantastic job doing that, spending about 2 hours cleaning the basement with tools that were pretty difficult to work with. We had gone to a nearby hardware store to try and get some good tools to use. However, by the time that we got there, they had pretty much sold all of their utensils that we could use.  Accordingly, my son had to do a fairly difficult and lengthy task with some tools that were hard to use that we already have. No problem though for him. He worked through it all and worked through it all wonderfully!

After we took my son home after dinner, my wife and I were both pretty tired from the long and tough day that we had. Naturally, we both decided to go to bed earlier to get some sleep. However, as usual, we got a late phone call that woke us up. This time it was from a gentleman from a company that we had never heard of that told us that he wanted to come to our house on Monday at 9 AM to look at what had to be done because he'd been appointed by the Insurer to do the work. Of course, that was a surprise to me because another company was supposed to come and see us as the Insurance Company representative.  Nevertheless, we allowed him to come over.

On Sunday morning, my wife and I started talking about this. We had no idea who this new company was and why they were coming rather than the company that was supposed to come as the Insurer's representative.

Again, to shorten the story, we learned that the company that had just called us the night before was in fact approved to come to our place.  However, I decided to call the other company to tell them how disappointed I was that they had decided not to come without telling us. So I called them up early Sunday morning.

What a wonderful conversation I had. They had no idea what I was talking about. I told them that I was really looking forward to their company coming because it seemed to have a good reputation. We learned that they were supposed to be calling us on Sunday to set up an appointment! Nothing had changed as far as they were concerned!

Well, what a nice surprise that was. Another mess in which we were involved that we didn't know anything about.  All I know now is that they are supposed to be calling up the Insurance Company to find out what is going on and may be, or may not be coming to our house to examine what is going on. Who knows if anyone is going to call us to tell us what is happening and who is coming.

Anyway, that is where we are now. Someone is supposed to come from the Reliance firm sometime this afternoon to figure out what is going wrong. Of course, that has ruined what my wife and I intended to do on Sunday but what the heck, we can now rest at home.

Do you want to know what is going to happen next? So do I. Just make sure that you are in a position to read my next article that I hope to publish very soon after the next session with the other parties.

FLOODED!

Yes, dear reader, that is exactly what happened to my wife and I this week in our house in Tecumseh. For the first time in our lives!   Now this may help you understand why I have not written anything on my website for a few extra days. 

Our home's basement was completely covered in water as the huge thunderstorm kept sending a flood of water over our area for so many hours. Above is what it looked like outside. It was all so dramatic to me at a very strange time so late in my life. 

Something like this has never happened to me before in all of my 71+ years. It was a complete shock to me that I never expected at all or really knew how to deal with. Oh sure, there have been a heavy rains around here since I moved in just over a year ago and where I used to live. Frankly, there was no water inside our house in the early morning, around 9 AM, when I looked into the basement to make sure that everything was okay.  That is just standard to what I did before in other thunderstorms that hit my house both here and in previous locations.  Then, about 40 minutes later, I heard some tinkling sounds.  Again, I went to the basement door upstairs and looked downwards. This time I thought I saw some waterstaining on the floor. I could not believe what I was seeing so I called Marsha to take a look and to tell me what she saw.  To my complete shock, she saw what I did! 

Downstairs we went to try to find out what was going on. For me, with my bad leg condition after my fall, using the staircase is very difficult. Nevertheless, down I went because I had to do so. To be blunt I was shocked out of my mind. I could not believe how much water I was seeing on the floor when only a short time before there was not a drop there. Several inches of water were now all over our basement floor and coming in so hard and fast to make that water level increase in size. I just could not believe that this was really happening. 

I was happy at least because our water pumps down there were sending out water but I could not believe that they were not sending out enough water to prevent the flooding that was taking place. It was just so unusual for me that I found it hard to figure out exactly what to do. Nothing going on made any sense to me whatsoever. 

I was so calm, cool and collected a short time before as I was on my computer doing work. I was not concerned about a single thing because our basement was so dry. Now, we were flooded. I just could not believe what I was now seeing and what I was worrying about our future. I had no idea at first what needed to be done and who could do it. It just was that stunning for me mentally. 

The working of the pumps downstairs was so unusual to me. Oh sure, I heard them working before. Naturally, water would come in and would flow into the hole that was built there to help deal with excess water. Naturally, as that hole was filled up with water to the right point, the pump would go on for a few seconds and empty out the hole so quickly. It was a given standard. That was not happening now. That pump would go on and take water out of the hole but it never turned off. There was so much water coming in that it was constantly pushing that water out of the hole. It was continuously working in the "on" position.

Even more surprising, is that the 2nd pump in that hole started working. I have always purchased a 2nd pump no matter where I lived as the emergency pump to operate in case the first one happened to break down. I've never heard that pump ever operate. This was the first time. What was even more interesting is that a huge siren type sound went off as it operated, presumably as a warning to the person who lived in the house that there was a big water problem in the area. It stayed on and on not closing down at all for some reason. Presumably, its process requires the siren to sound as it operates. I've still not figured out how to stop that sound but all I do know is that when the water level was reduced, the emergency alarm went off as that pump turned off again as well. 

We called both of our children to let them know what happened. I would have liked my son, Michael, to come over to help but unfortunately he does not have a car so he needed a ride from us. That was not something that I could offer to him even if I wanted to do so. I would not have gone even if I could given that there was a heavy thunderstorm outside going on. That is a dangerous situation. However, in my case, it is even worse. While looking outside, I could see that the main street in front of our house was being impacted by the water. The water level there was filling up and eventually went over the road edges. Not only that, I was supposed to go to our car dealer that morning because we were not certain if we were having a car issue with our new vehicle. I was not going to drive therefore in this storm and then have the vehicle completely breakdown as we were driving.  Therefore, my son could not come over to help us at that time. 

I spoke to my daughter, Melissa, and told her what was going on. She said that she would speak to her boyfriend, Bill, to have him come over as soon as he possibly could to help us out because he did not live very far from our home. He at least had a relatively new car that he could operate at that time and said that he would be willing to do so. I found out later on how difficult it was when he approached the main street that would lead to our house. He had to take an "unusual" route on that road in order to get to our home because that street was virtually flooded up completely and there were cars stuck in the roadway eventually. However, fortunately, he made it all right! 

Bill spent many hours in our basement as the storm started stopping. He was pushing out all of the water that had come in to our condo out of the basement. He was forced to move around furniture and other goods in the basement to minimize the flooding damage. Of course, he had to determine what was damaged beyond repair and put it in a spot so that it could be removed outside later on to be taken away hopefully by the Garbage Service. 

Naturally, we did not have any particularly useful tools that he could use so I saw him holding a sweeper in each hand so he could force the water out of the basement through the pump hole. It was truly amazing how well he operated in our very large basement.  He arrived at our condo around 11 in the morning and did not leave until 9 o'clock at night. He worked all of that time and did a remarkable job of emptying most of the water from our basement. The several inches of water disappeared through his efforts since they were not leaving because the floor was fairly straight and so were not leaking out! 

The next day, he and Melissa, came over to finish the work that he had started the day before. They spent several hours in pushing out the water that was still in the basement and then throwing out all the garbage that he had set aside the day before. My daughter also decided that the stairs that everyone had used to walk down into the basement to help clean it up needed washing. So she did!  

I'm not going to go into a lot of the gory details about what was done other than to say that the efforts were very successful. By Saturday morning, the basement was in relatively good shape being quite dry after the mess that was here before. Of course, a new problem arose starting at about 5 AM. I started hearing a rather substantial sound coming from the hot water pump. I was terrified that it may have been damaged by the water that had come in and was now breaking down. Naturally, I would have liked to take a very warm bath in the morning to try to get myself back to normal as well but was not going to do it if this hot water tank was coming close to turning off. That had happened before to me in a house that I lived in when the tank completely collapsed and naturally leaked water.

Later on in the morning, I heard that sound again and decided to call the water heater company to have someone come out to take a look at a possible emergency. No problem you probably would think. It was a possible break down. Unfortunately, not to the agent I spoke with on the telephone who told me that someone would and come and take a look at it on October 6. I did get slightly "angry" and told her that was unacceptable and that I needed immediately to speak with the manager to get this changed.  Somehow, she was able to change things and someone was supposed to come before 1 PM today to take a look. Of course, let's see if that happens. 

Of course, the program we expected to have with my son on Saturday morning had to change. He was supposed to come over early this morning and then go shopping with us so we could stock up on food, especially considering that it is the Thanksgiving weekend next weekend and we wanted to have enough food to celebrate that day with our children. That usually takes to around lunchtime. After lunch, we expected to have him clean the basement floor again and some of the walls with special liquid to remove any bacteria that might be there. We wanted to have the house cleaned as well as we could before the outside firm came in to fix everything up which was going to be some time in the future that was not yet known to us. 

Naturally, that was another failure. There was no way that he could come to our house easily because of the big distance. Normally, we pick him up. This time it was going to be difficult. We had to wait for a technician to come over to take a look at the equipment that I feared might have been broken down.  My wife and I could not go over to his place to have him come over here because we were afraid that we might lose the phone call from the technician who was just about to come over. That meant we had to wait here for that phone call. I'm writing this at about a quarter to noon and we have received no calls yet so who knows when someone's coming over. Oh well, it looks like I might have to make another "unpleasant" phone call if no one calls us before 1 PM tell us when he/she is coming over. I'm not going to lose my afternoon being able to buy food that will be useful for us to eat next week. 

Anyway, that is what has happened so far. I'm hopeful that everything will work itself out all right and that we have not suffered too badly because of the storm. I'm very hopeful as well that, because of my children's actions, my wife and I will not have to worry about all of the mess that we are in and that it will all be worked out successfully. 

As for you, dear reader, I'm trust that, if you have had some problems because of the monstrous rainstorm, you have been able to deal with them in a satisfactory manner to bring your life back to normal.

Update service story coming soon.  And what a huge surprise!

Dell's Amazing Low-Cost Computer

When is the last time that you, dear reader, have seen a computer priced so low? No, I'm not talking about an advertisement about a "refurbished" one that is being sold by its owner so that he/she can buy a new one. Rather, it is all about a new computer which is being offered by Dell to customers that I shall talk about, which has the Windows 10 upgrades and has some terrific capabilities at a cost to you that won't empty your wallet!  

The Dell Inspiron 11 3000 Series computer starts out at a price of $279.99 as of the date of this article. Of course, if one wants more options, the price does increase. My model that I am using is the Dell Inspiron 2-in-1 laptop computer whose start price is $349.99. It is the more-expensive Dell Inspiron 2-in-1 unit computer that has the 4 set-ups as shown in the picture above as part of the  package.  I really think that the Dell Inspiron 2-in-1 laptop computer is one that ought to be considered given its advantageous features.  Of course, my thought also is that the lower priced computer would be of good use for younger kids. 

Just so you know, dear reader, this is a portable computer with an 11 inch screen. Sure, the screen is smaller than a "normal-sized" unit which is generally in the 15 inch or a bit higher range but after you use it for a while you won't notice any big differences. The unit's low weight, as I shall describe later, makes it so easy to carry around as well or to hold while sitting outside and using it to relax. That is a terrific advantage for such a unit. 

The Dell Inspiron 2-in-1 laptop computer offers many features for people who would like one for their purposes when on a trip for business or for leisure purposes at home. Frankly, I expect a lot of people will consider buying the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 Series laptop computer because of its versatility to do every day tasks like surfing the web, writing emails, but it can also undertake many work duties as well. One of my favourite things to do is watch movies on this computer because of its excellent quality.  

If you have a larger family, why not consider getting one for each child to use rather than buying an expensive one that the children have to share. As far as I'm concerned, it is a terrific computer to provide to a young child, as the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 Series computer is a great choice for someone who is either a beginner at using the computer, at the advanced level, or even somewhere

in-between. 

Obviously, as your kids get older, it makes a very good computer to be used for educational purposes especially when note-taking at lectures in College or University. It can be easily transported since it is so low in weight (starting at 2.6 pounds for the lowest priced laptop to just over 3 pounds for the 2-in-1 laptop computer) with a thickness of under 1 inch and has a great battery life (up to 7 hours!) so you don't have to worry about always finding an outlet to plug into.  

Naturally, at the end of a long day or while sitting in the garden and relaxing during the weekend, its small size and the ability to fold it into so many different positions makes the appropriate Dell Inspiron 11 3000 Series computer a great computer to be used as a portable option in different locations.  

If one wants to talk a little bit more about the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 Series 2-in-1 computer, here is a terrific description of what this computer is capable of doing: 

"Tablet mode: A remarkable 360-degree hinge design lets you flip the keyboard around and lay it flat on your lap to surf social media, swipe through photos or pull up your playlists.

Tablet stand mode: Transition the tablet to an upright position so you can play games, scroll through songs, watch movies or follow your favorite recipes while you cook.

Tent mode: Watch the news, the game or catch up on your shows with your Inspiron 11 in a hands-free easel position that supports full touch interaction.

Laptop mode: With a full-sized keyboard, you can chat with friends, reply to emails faster, update family budget spreadsheets or knock out school projects." 

Yes, that is right. This computer is built to last, just like some of the more expensive models! Truly, it is amazing. 

The computer comes in different colours: Bali Blue, Tango Red, or Alpine White. The Dell Inspiron 2-in-1 laptop computer that I had came in Bali Blue, which personally for me was a visually-appealing shade. 

Budget-friendly, durable, versatile and innovative describe the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 Series computers. It is truly a great match for you!

Is Winter Coming Early

I must say that the changes in temperature these days are rather confusing to me. How can it be so warm one day and the next day drop so far down? Seriously, it has been so chilly outside recently, at least in the mornings, that I have had to wear my windbreaker for morning walks the last few days. By afternoon many times though, it gets warm and the last thing I possibly need is to wear a coat.

In reality, who knows what the winter will actually be like. I saw these comments on the Farmers' Almanac weather site that may well be true:

"While last winter was a reprieve from shoveling and high fuel bills, the party is over. According to the 2017 Farmers’ Almanac, “winter is back!

...The 2017 Farmers’ Almanac, which hits store shelves everywhere on August 15, 2016, forewarns that exceptionally cold, if not downright frigid weather will predominate over parts of the Northern Plains, Great Lakes, Midwest, Ohio Valley, the Middle Atlantic, Northeast, and New England this winter. The Farmers’ Almanac’s long-range weather predictions also suggest shots of very cold weather will periodically reach as far south as Florida and the Gulf Coast.”

I have read other predictions that suggest that we will have a lot more snow this year than we have had in the past. For me, in my new residence, that really doesn't bother me at all that much because our outside snow cleaning service, at least last year, came very early in the morning to clear our roads and sidewalks so that we can get out of our residences fairly easily. I hope they do the same this year and do the kind of good job that they did before.

I only went swimming a few times this summer believe it or not. It was just too hot outside to go from our house to the swimming pool for all of the condominiums in the area. I really enjoyed swimming last year and expected to do a lot more this year but unfortunately with the many days with temperatures above 30°C, it was just too hot to go out for a swim. It just seemed too far to have to go from our house to the pool area.

Thank goodness that our new air-conditioning system in our new residence worked so well even though we had several major problems when we first purchased it.  Last year, I think we turned the air conditioner on only several times throughout the entire summer months. Not this year. It was turned on quite often even during the nighttime hours as well.  It should be interesting to see how much we paid out this year for electricity costs because of the warmer weather compared with last year.

I don't know if it is the same thing at your house but the grass growing in front of my condo unit was a bit strange. Because of the very hot weather and lack of rain, for quite a bit of the summer months, my grass did not grow very well. In addition, the grass turned brown as well because of the lack of moisture. Nevertheless, with the recent rain that has fallen now, I noticed that the grass has turned back to green and has grown higher very quickly.  It seems that the grass growing is more springlike now for this year than before.

What was also odd though for me was the growth rate of the bushes. I cannot believe how big a number of them have grown and how quickly even with the amount of rain that has fallen before. I must admit that I just don't understand that at all.  I expect that the landscape company will have a lot more work to do towards the end of the growth year to cut down the size of the bushes because of the substantial growth that some of the plants have undertaken so far.

One good thing that I noticed in the grocery world this summer is how much fruit and vegetable prices have dropped compared with the prices during last winter. I assume that prices have dropped because we are selling "locally" grown products rather than selling outside growing products as happened during the wintertime. Some of the prices were pretty horrible. In fact, at one of the grocery stores where I shop, one of the vegetable people there expressed his disgust at how high the prices were but there was nothing that he could do about it. It should be interesting to see what happens next winter as well. For me though, it may well be that I'm going to have to buy a lot of products that I can freeze so that we can use the local products in the winter rather than be forced to buy the expensive ones.

I had better go and finally do some summer work at my condo house before autumn comes here in a few days and I will have to think instead about what I must do later on this year. 

The Border File----Here We Go Again

Oh my goodness gracious.  It might be happening again contrary to everything that I have wanted to happen and expected to be taking place. After all, my circumstances have changed so drastically over the last year and a half after my illness that I thought that everything now was going to be different. I still think it will happen except for some ridiculous matters that I still see taking place in this area!

Oh sure, you know exactly what I mean don't you, dear reader. Yes, we still do not seem publicly to have any rational action being taken to get a new border crossing built already. I hope it is not true but who knows. 

Recent news stories are so ridiculous that I just do not understand it. I have been involved in this nonsense for so many years. I don't see why it is still happening but it is. I guess no one in power seems to care whether our regional economy is still collapsing and people are not working the way they should be. Sure, leave everything in a mess so that many companies will have to move over to the US if they are to stay in business. Now that is brilliant Canadian action. Not! 

Of course, it all has to do with the Ambassador Bridge Company and the people who own it, the Moroun Family. The expectation of their big opponents always was that the Family would sell out their interest in the Bridge to the Governments, at a low price too, once pressure was applied to them. They were expected to do so. After all, it seems to be obvious that the Ambassador Bridge Company has the exclusive right to own a bridge between Canada and United States in our area and to build another one if it was required. If they did not have these powers, wouldn't the Governments' bridge have been built already! 

It is so ridiculous what has happened for so long that has been so negative to the economy in Windsor. We are suffering so badly because of this. Is it ever going to change? 

I thought that the Ambassador Bridge Company has done everything that is needed on its side to get its new bridge built. It seems, if that is correct, that all that is missing now is Governments' approval to move forward to start construction.  Is there anything that the Governments are saying that is not good at what is being proposed? Have they gone forward and told the Ambassador Bridge Company to make some changes and if so, what are they? Have they gone public with this? Or, is the reality that there is nothing to prevent the Ambassador Bridge Company starting their project in building another bridge other than the formal agreement that needs to be granted by the Governments! 

It is all so laughable. The incompetence of Governments on both sides of the river is just so obvious. Heck, the Governments have difficulties financially in running the border crossings that they own already across the continent. Do any of them make money at all or do they suffer huge losses in the running of their operations? While we do not know exactly how much money the Ambassador Bridge Company really makes every year in the operations here, haven't we seen publicity of huge profitable revenues that they make of many millions of dollars per year!   

Seriously, it is enough already. Unless Windsor is supposed to sink economically, let's get that new Ambassador Bridge started to be built already.  This City and the area around it have suffered for much too long. That is a horrible position to put citizens in because of political games that are being played and which the Governments have lost continuously. Nevermind the trial court decisions. We all know that the Appeal courts will ultimately have to support the Ambassador Bridge Company legal position. 

Let me tell you why I am writing about this again today when frankly I should not have to do so. In my opinion, the Ambassador Bridge opponents now suspect strongly that the Ambassador Bridge Company will be getting approval from the Government of Canada soon to go forward shortly in building their bridge because there is no other alternative. They also suspect that the American Government, under President Obama, will also approve the project because that Government has established a new strong relationship with the Canadian Government again because of our new Prime Minister. If PM Trudeau will support the building of the new bridge because of a new deal that is going to be made with the Ambassador Bridge Company, then the US Government will do so as well. They will get their share also. 

What a huge victory that would be for the Liberal Party. Of course, how could it be possible for the Government Opposition to be successful in the future? As the best example, how would NDP MP Brian Masse  expect to be re-elected if the Liberals get such great publicity. If one looks at the articles that have been published recently in the media, then obviously he knows that something is going to happen shortly and he wants to put himself in the best position possible so he can have a chance to go back to Ottawa.  Take a look at a few of these media articles to understand what I mean: 

---"MDOT-Moroun showdown looming over land need for bridge

John Gallagher, Detroit Free Press August 20, 2016 

A potential showdown could flare soon between Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel (Matty) Moroun and the State of Michigan over land in southwest Detroit needed for the Gordie Howe International Bridge... 

“Our land acquisition team at MDOT is committed, sophisticated, it’s robust, and it’s spending a lot of time serving the interests of the project because this is a benefit to the entire region in a major way,” Doctoroff said. “There are a lot of people doing a lot of great work on land acquisition.” 

No doubt fans of the project will continue to fret and worry until they see construction rising against the skyline. That will take at least another couple of years, though, so until then, or until Canada issues the RFP and MDOT moves publicly to take all the land it needs in Delray, conspiracy theorists will continue to suggest that all is not well." 

---"Morouns aren't done trying to block Gordie Howe bridge

John Gallagher, Detroit Free Press August 23, 2016  

The Moroun family that owns the Ambassador Bridge could soon launch a few legal Hail Marys to try to block or delay the rival Gordie Howe International Bridge — including possibly arguing that the Michigan Constitution prohibits using eminent domain to seize private property for a Canada-led project. 

The Moroun family business,  which owns land in the path of the new bridge in the Delray neighborhood, has multiple legal strategies it could present. It could argue broadly about problems with eminent domain or try to delay MDOT's seizure of the family's Delray land, where they run a trucking operation." 

---"Gordie Howe bridge plaza work making significant progress

Dave Battagello, Windsor Star September 1, 2016 

But questions remain as to why the bridge authority’s board has not yet launched the final step of the bidding process — known as a request for proposals — to select the private sector contractor. 

The bid documents were scheduled to be released by the bridge authority in January, but nine months later they remain on hold. 

Board chairman Dwight Duncan, who did not attend Thursday’s tour, has attributed delays to property acquisition issues in Detroit — land needed for the Howe bridge. 

He fears expropriation of the lands, which include several properties owned by Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun, may lead to prolonged court battles that may impact the project... 

The Howe bridge was scheduled to be completed by 2020, but that target date is no longer firm following delays to complete the bidding process." 

Oh my goodness, all kinds of opposition can be started still by the Ambassador Bridge Company to cause complications for so many years. But of course, we need to know about something horrific now that might be the excuse for the Government of Canada and the Ambassador Bridge Company to come up with some kind of an arrangement to resolve these disputes and to come out with a resolution of their border differences. And guess what happened, we have an excuse for one: 

"CTV Windsor, September 4, 2016 

Transport Canada has issued orders against the Ambassador Bridge for railings the authority is considering unsafe, according to documents released by the authority. 

The order, which was issued on Sept. 2nd, is an emergency direction from Transport Canada for the Canadian Transit Company to install protective barriers along the side railings, says Windsor mayor Drew Dilkens. 

Dilkens says the order was imposed because the railing would not deflect traffic back onto the bridge, should a collision occur. 

The order says the current condition of the concrete edge and railing of the Ambassador Bridge is unsafe. The order also states the person issuing the report is of the opinion that the problem is an immediate threat to the safety of the Ambassador Bridge." 

Naturally, Brian Masse has to say and do things now if he wants to be re-elected and he does: 

"To be fair, I give the  minister credit for taking the lead on this,” Windsor-West MP Brian Masse said. “Never to my knowledge has a minister issued a directive like this in public..." 

The poor state of the bridge is another reason Masse said the federal government shouldn’t consider buying the bridge and should get on with building the Gordie Howe crossing. 

“Why should the taxpayers pay to fix it up?” Masse said. “Why pay a premium price? 

“We need two bridges, get the new one built, before even thinking about that (buying the old one).” (Dave Waddell, Windsor Star September 4, 2016)

Of course, I suspect that Masse is well aware that it makes more sense to build a second Ambassador Bridge at a cost of around $500 million rather than another bridge that may well cost up to $4 billion as was recently projected. He doesn't care because he will change his position whenever it makes him look better. Naturally, he will take credit for whatever happens in all of the new news stories that will be coming out over the next little while or else how can he get re-elected! 

Do you see what I mean, dear reader? All of this is so absurd and ridiculous. It really needs to stop. Like it or not, a new Ambassador Bridge is going to be built and it had better be started now before our area becomes even worse economically. We just cannot allow that to happen any longer. 

I have to admit that I do like to be involved in talking about the border file. I talked about it for so long and the subject does interest me a lot. However, the reality is that I'm tired of it. It is not how I should be living my life after my illness. I ought to be doing a lot of other more interesting things so that I can enjoy my time left. 

Everything to do for the future of the border crossing is all resolved in reality. The game being tried for so many years by the opponents of the Ambassador Bridge Company just did not work out. The Moroun Family has stayed involved contrary to expectations. Another Ambassador Bridge has to be built and it will be because there is no other rational resolution. All that has to be worked on, and I hope that it is, is the deal that will be negotiated between the Governments and the Moroun Family. 

It is something after all that President Obama should have as one of his closing files with the new Prime Minister of Canada that will make both of these gentlemen appear as if they are fantastic politicians in the future.

Micro-UN-Soft

I trust from you reading the title of this story that you may have the idea that for some reason I'm not all that pleased with Microsoft Corporation dealing with the upgrading of my computer system to Windows 10.  If that is what you are thinking then, surprise, surprise, you are absolutely accurate, dear reader.

I have to tell you that I am completely unhappy and not satisfied at all from changing my older computer operating system by going up to Windows 10 a relatively short time ago. I really had no choice unless I wanted to spend some dollars down the road moving from my lower Windows system to Windows 10. The "freebie" operating system that was made available by Microsoft was just changed a short time ago by me. One needs to spend money if one wants to upgrade at this time. It was given away at no cost for quite a period of time by Microsoft to its end users.

I made the decision to go forward quite late as you may recall i.e. just before the new upgraded Windows software had to be paid for. I had lots of trouble updating as well. At that time, to be blunt about it, I almost decided not to move forward with the Windows new system with all the problems I had in the updating. Surprisingly, even with all the problems that I had at that time in upgrading, somehow the software system seemed to change and started working when it could not do so before.

How marvelous for me, right? As I wrote before, I did not get much help from either Microsoft technical people or the representatives from the computer company for the computer that I had purchased a number of years ago. Shockingly, the software system finally went through the downloading right to the end unlike all of my other downloads when the unloading seem to stop just before the end of the downloading process and died.

What a complete mess the upgrading system seems to be. Who knows, maybe it's just my computer system and not anybody else's. All that I can tell you is that going online and downloading the new Windows 10 programs is so objectionable I just can't stand it anymore. It was such a mess in doing so that I found out that supposedly no one in positions of power believed that the specific, old Windows PC that I was using and supposedly upgrading could be upgraded at all.  Gee, it meant that I would have to go out and buy a completely new computer.  What a great position for the manufacturer to have!

Of course, the result of the downloading the software had its own problems. How many hours did it take you, dear reader, to download the system in the first place onto your computer? One hour, two hours, four hours or even more? Seriously, the amount of software that needs downloading is a lot but not so bad. However, the time to do so seems to take forever before it goes on to one's system for reasons that are unknown to me.  And then the time to upgrade afterwards... that takes a very long time too.

What have I had so far? Naturally I have had one of our family's first download of the software that downloaded the first system on to our computers, at no cost of course. Wasn't that nice of Microsoft to make us feel so good financially? Then, we seemed to have had a number of loads as well for improvements to the original system. Naturally, I expect to have some more that we will have to accept whether we want to or not. As I said up above, that downloading messed up my operating system for a good period of time.

I probably spent the good part of several days trying to figure out a way to download the system in the first place to get it operating. Notwithstanding all of my conversations with the service people from the suppliers, I got nowhere with them.  Well that's not quite true. I was told that an easy solution was just to purchase a new computer. Now wasn't that helpful to the manufacturer of a product that seems to be reducing in number the size of people purchasing the product.

I'm not going to go through all the misery that I experienced other than to say it was a horrible one. I must admit that I have had to upgrade products before but I have never had such a horrific experience that I had this time.

In all honesty, I almost came to the point of transferring my system back to my old computing system that would run my daily work. I did not feel the need, with all the problems, for this "upgraded" new operation and for which I had nothing but misery.  However, I did not do so because I figured that my older Windows system was getting very obsolete very quickly.

I could talk a lot more about how horrible this operation was in the past and how horrible it is when it has to be upgraded these days. However, why bother. I'm sure that you all, dear readers, have similar situations.

There are a lot more matters that I could criticize about this new Windows 10 product that came out. However, I don't think it makes any real sense for me to do so because I don't have a practical, alternative software product.

All that I will be when I am online with this new Micro-UN-Soft product is disappointed!