20140817 – Flying Aces (don’t try this at home); Scuba in a hot tub; Busy, busy week.

Sunday – hot and sunny.

 

Flying aces stunt show at the Olympic Park.

Flying aces stunt show at the Olympic Park.

Pleasant morning, coffee and wifi on the deck before the sun comes around.

Then a scream goes up “Oh Tony. Aghh……..”. Apparently our friendly squirrel has just managed to get in the house and given Wendy a fright of her life as she sees this grey thing streak out the house. Fortunately it did run out or we would have had some fun evicting it.

After an early lunch for you know who (Wendy), Hal, carol and Angela pick us up and take us to the Flying Aces Show at the Olympic Ski Jump

Olympic park.

Olympic park.

Park. What a cracking afternoons entertainment – see pictures. After we go and watch the bobsleigh – on wheels in summer – come down at about 65 mph. You can have a go on the toboggan for $75 and for $100 they’ll teach you how to come down on skis and into the pool. Belly flops on skis are optional and probably very painful.

A flying ace. Look no strings.

A flying ace. Look no strings.

Five reasons all computers are male

They have a lot of data, but are still clueless.

They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem.

As soon as you commit to one you realize that, had you waited a little longer, you could have obtained a better model.

In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.

Big power surges knock them out for the rest of the night.

Summer toboggan run only $75!

Summer toboggan run only $75!


You know the other evening when I was getting me over dose of music on steroids at the Mormon Tabernacle choir thingy and me bottle of Merlot had all evaporated I got to thinking.

Would I like to live in the paradise of an Islamic state with full-blown sharia? I mean the self-proclaimed State of ISIS or IS as they like to be called these days, inhabited and controlled by jihadists who want to turn the clock back by at least 1000 years.

What sort of chucklehead would want to trade this awesome life here in Park City for a life of medieval barbarism on the promise, by some smooth tongued inman, of a fairy tale of some big breasted virgins and rivers of wine in an afterlife.

Come to that would you want to trust someone who believes such nonsense, or only lives a righteous life because of such a promise or fear, rather than doing it because they believe it to be intrinsically good.

Perhaps the Merlot fumes got me, but I know my answer.


Monday – hot and sunny.

 

Anglo American Bobsleigh team.

Anglo American Bobsleigh team.

Lazy morning. Nip into town to the supermarket. On the bus with Wendy, now that’s lazy.

After lunch Jewlee, Jerome and Britain pick us up and we set off to the Homestead crater for a dive.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154532606615249&set=a.10152397913775249.954731.621375248&type=1

Afternoon tea at the Blue Boar Inn. A very up market, posh, Swiss style hotel and restaurant. Has to be the best Assam tea I’ve ever tasted.

I degaussed my girlfriend last week, and I’m just not attracted to her anymore.DSC05784

Smash forehead on keyboard to continue…

Error. Keyboard not attached. Press F1 to continue…

Press any key to continue or any other key to quit…

Press every key to continue…

Getting ready to dive.

Getting ready to dive.

While I’m in the mood for a good rant about computers and nerds lets tackle a few of my other 568 pet hates:

Send you an email telling you statement is ready. Zero balance etc. Why not just tell you how much in the email?

Can’t send them an email have to fill in their inane form asking for everything. Then you’ve no record and they don’t bother to respond.

Insist on you logging in to view anything, such as Home Exchange possibilities. They’re supposed to be promoting my home. Can you imagine

Final safety review and equipment check - BWARF.

Final safety review and equipment check – BWARF.

Asda, Costco or any store insisting that you log in before you can browse their products. No not these dimwits. Then when challenged as to why. Well it’s security. How can it be security. It takes all of 2 minutes to set up an account and anyone can do it and lie. To Make matters worse if I want to acknowledge an email invite I have to log in. Hang on they sent me the email!


Tuesday – grey and rainy.

 

Blue Boar Inn at Midway.

Blue Boar Inn at Midway.

Rain on and off for most of the day.

Good chance for a relaxing day hunkered down. Get me Dreamweaver out and set about updating me website. Nerdy paradise. Finally get our Home Exchange photos up to date, start on a revamp of whole site and build in some SEO. Just love talking dirty.

In the evening there’s a free demo on bike maintenance just around the corner from us so off I peddles. Some interesting info on mountain bike but not really much use on “how to”. Really all about trying to sell you on bike build / selection service he provides. Can you believe there are people with so much money and so devoid of any intelligence that they go to this guy who tells them what to wear, ride, bike pump and colours. That’s Park City for you.

image002
Four fonts walk into a bar. The bartender says “Hey… get out! We don’t want your type in here!”

Black holes are where God divided by zero.

Put to scale, the head of a spinning disk drive is like a 747 jumbo jet flying at Mach 4 at an altitude of 1/4″ over the rocky mountains.


Wednesday – hot and sunny.

 

Local sports centre, just 5 minutes around the corner. Not a bit like Shadsworth.

Local sports centre, just 5 minutes around the corner. Not a bit like Shadsworth.

Hi ho, hi ho it’s off to work we go. 3 hours on the mountain for both of us. Smile. Be nice. Keep thinking of the free ski pass and apparently we get ski lessons for $1. Now ain’t that awesome. My last ski lesson was in Livigno in 1968, with this greasy Italian geezer who we didn’t understand a word of.

Have a nice day.

Called off due to forecast rain. Oh dear how sad.

It seems that once we’d got the email to not work,2014-08-20 the rain stopped and the weather picked up despite the dire forecast. By lunch time it was lovely again.

Wendy went with the Schmitt’s to the Farmers market, while I went to me Gentle Yoga. Definitely American Yoga. How can you tell? Well the intructoress kept telling everyone to “keep breathing”.

By late afternoon we’re sat out on the patio having afternoon tea in the scorching sun.

Moral of the day. Ignore the forecast and get on with life.

Bloody germans

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152583489987340&set=vb.648477339&type=2&theater

Posing-in-burkasDon’t you just love the daily PASSWORD HELL that the 10 year old numbskull programmers are allowed to inflict upon us because they have not a jot of common sense nor ideas on customer service. Here’s my list:

Won’t accept last pass input.

Won’t accept iCloud input.

On the telephone, I have to speak to your wife she’s the account holder. My response tends to be either, “This is Mrs Edwards speaking. I can’t help it if I have a thyroid problem. Would you like me to send you a picture of my left breast.” or “Just a moment there’s a women walking down the street I’ll ask her in to talk to you for me.”.

Password must contain….. The list is endless. Perhaps they might add a 12 digit prime number to really spice things up.

Must be so long, 6 or 8 or 12 or 20…. Why not go the whole hog and ask for an infinite long one.

Username does not allow an email. You then spend the next 3 hours trying to identify a username that’s not already been taken and you know you’ll never remember. Now this really curdles me blood and wherever possible I just don’t bother signing up. Do they not realise that having to remember a password is bad enough, now I have to remember some crap username that has restrictions on size, content and uniqueness. Email addresses are unique and easily remembered.

Enter credit card number and then operator asks you for it as well. Does your telephone system suffer from Alzheimer’s.

Local sport centre.

Local sport centre.

Barmy additional security questions. What is your favourite book, film, food, first teacher, pet, character. Do they not realise these are not absolutes. They change with time. Ask absolutes that cannot change.

I wouldn’t mind half the time they’re for sign up to some mundane website that has no confidential or financial data, such as Knitting patterns, nerds daily.

Oh and don’t write your password down! Do these chuckleheads not realise that I have enough problems remembering what I had for breakfast so there’s no way I can remember 88 different passwords and usernames.

Perhaps one day someone will solve this problem. If only Apple would get there arse in gear and use their finger print Id on the iPhone 5 to achieve 2 factor authentication. What a great solution that would be. Something I have and something I know. Simples.


Thursday – warm and sunny. With some light rain showers early on.

 

Our local sports centre pool.

Our local sports centre pool.

I’m mountain hosting for 3 hours and then archery at the NAC, while Wendy cleans out bed pans at the hospital.

Get a decent bike ride in.

Then in the evening we get “The Wolf of Wall Street” DVD out as a freebie (my sort of word) from Red Box. Came highly recommended by Kurt. Actually by now I should know better than to go on his tastes. Thought it was 3 hours of mediocrity. At least it wasn’t a Tarantino crapic.

Time for some pearls of Wisdom from the late George Carlin

I don’t have pet peeves. I have major psychotic hatreds.

By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.

The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse: You cannot post “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and “Thou shalt not lie” in a building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.

National Ability Centre archery range.

National Ability Centre archery range.


We’ve got about 12 states we’ve never visited. I’ve been canvassing opinions on why we should go to some of them and have really struggled finding anyone who has anything positive to say about the 4 below.

Some orgasmic reasons why we should visit the following states:

North Dakota

World’s tallest stack of empty oil cans (45 feet).
Geographic entree of North America.
Salem Sue the World’s largest Holstein cow.

Sourth Dakota

Wall Drug Co, Wall.
Mitchell Corn Palace, Mitchell.

Nebraska

Carhenge, an auto inspired version of Stonehenge.
World’s biggest ball of stamps (600 pounds).

Oklahoma

Cow Chip throwing capital of the World – presided over by King Cow Chip, a 15 foot fibre glass beaver.

They sound as popular as a pork chop in a synagogue. I think we’ll put them at the bottom of our list for now.


Friday – warm and sunny.

Lazy morning followed by a trip to the mountain with the Schmitts. We’ve about 12 free tickets left so Angela can do some rides and there’s still plenty left over for them for the rest of the season.

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In the evening the Schmitts and Randy come round for a farewell dinner. A sumptuous feast and a great opportunity to use up the remnants of our freezer. Evening’s entertainment is provided by Angela who does a dance and song routine, but only after a warning that “please turn off all mobiles, no talking, no flash photography and no dancing with the girls. 5 years old going on 40 – don’t know where she gets it all from.

More from George Carlin:

It’s the old American Double Standard, ya know: Say one thing, do somethin’ different. And of course this country is founded on the double standard. That’s our history. We were founded on a very basic double standard: This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free.

Isn’t it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do “practice?”

How can [God] be perfect? Everything He ever makes dies.”

Electricity is really just organized lightning.

2014-07-09The video showing the murder of the kidnapped reporter James Foley by Islamic State terrorists has taken on an iconic importance.

It is the focus of attention of the entire world. And yet actually watching is now considered to have almost magic powers to convert normal folk into either muslim hating extremists or else else into murderous jihadists. Presumably ordinary people are best letting police, governments, and reporters watch it for them.

So it is somewhat inevitable that there has been a massive call for censorship of the video.

The Metropolitan Police Service provided to news reporters the following statement:

The MPS Counter Terrorism Command (SO15) is investigating the contents of the video that was posted online in relation to the alleged murder of James Foley.

We would like to remind the public that viewing, downloading or disseminating extremist material within the UK may constitute an offence under terrorism legislation.

But it appears that the police have been making it up about the video being illegal to view. Yet the police, when challenged, cannot substantiate which law is being breached.

Worrying!

But two things are for certain:

It will encourage normal folk to have a rational fear of islam.

No doubt the moderate muslims have stopped protesting over Gaza and taken to the streets and minarets to protest this vile barbaric act done in the name of their so called religion of peace. What a joke. Go read the koran.


Saturday – cold and sunny, with the odd sprinkle.

Well as they say “It’s a luvly shade o’ black o’er t’mother-in-laws”, said with a Robin Hood accent of course. Wendy reports that there was thunder, lightning and a torrential downpour all night. Bigger thunder, bigger lightning and bigger rain than in the UK of course.

Preparing us for our return.

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It’s our last day as mountain host volunteers, next time we do it will be in ski season. It’s a really slow day. I’d much rather it be busy, so much more entertaining.

At the end of the day we strip off our uniforms and return them. Fortunately we knew about it so we don’t have to go home like some scroty snowboarder whose waistline has finally slipped off his knees to his ankles.

https://www.facebook.com/tony.w.edwards/posts/10154550420330249

More from George Carlin:

We’re so self-important. So arrogant. Everybody’s going to save something now. Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save the snails. And the supreme arrogance? Save the planet! Are these people kidding? Save the planet? We don’t even know how to take care of ourselves; we haven’t learned how to care for one another. We’re gonna save the fuckin’ planet? And, by the way, there’s nothing wrong with the planet in the first place. The planet is fine. The people are fucked! Compared with the people, the planet is doin’ great. It’s been here over four billion years The planet isn’t goin’ anywhere, folks. We are! We’re goin’ away. Pack your shit, we’re goin’ away. And we won’t leave much of a trace. Thank God for that. Nothing left. Maybe a little Styrofoam. The planet will be here, and we’ll be gone. Another failed mutation, another closed-end biological mistake.

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

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