Another winter, another kitty

It’s that time of year when all the homeless kitties seem to show up on our doorstep.  At least this one is not asking to come inside and she is content to visit us outside – so far. She doesn’t seem to live here exclusively but instead travels around to the neighbors.

I just had to have a chuckle. I wrote the first paragraph at the beginning of December and well things have changed. This past week she had a taste of what inside was like (only about 20 minutes) and decided that she would like to live in our house permanently. And she now seems to live here exclusively. There is no travelling around anymore, just from the shed to the house for visits and pets. Once again you can tell that she was an indoor pet at some point which really makes me wonder how she went from that to living on the streets of the duck. She just can’t get enough petting and will come running whenever she hears us outside.

As you can tell she likes kids and sled rides

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At least she has found a warm bed and is able to fend for herself outside. Hopefully she can tell a mouse from a chipmunk and we will be able to put her on the payroll permanently.

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RV Show this week

The annual RV show at the Winnipeg Convention Centre starts this Thursday. This usually means people start thinking a little more about camping and summertime. We will be working at the MACAP (Manitoba Association of Campgrounds and Parks) booth on Sunday afternoon. If you happen to be in at the show stop by and say hi. I believe we are on the third floor.  You can find show info at http://manitobarvshow.ca/index.php 

Now if we could just get rid of this snow we could get on with some more fun things. I recently added a countdown ticker to our website so you can check how many days until camping officially starts. Hopefully my ticker is off and it starts a lot earlier.

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Would you do this?

 NEW YORK – A London couple visiting the Big Apple have settled into their hotel room – under the eyes of thousands of pedestrians and motorists. Duncan Malcolm and Katherine Lewis are receiving a complimentary five-day stay at Manhattan’s Roger Smith Hotel in exchange for staying in a replica of one of the hotel’s rooms on the ground floor of a nearby building. As part of the agreement, the couple must keep the curtains on the room’s large glass windows open between 4:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. until Friday, allowing passers-by to watch them. The hotel partnered with the Real Live Billboards company, which stages live events for advertising and promotional purposes. In December, heavyweight boxer Tor Hamer was featured in the hotel’s storefront window exchanging punches with his trainer.

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Another Poker Derby done

Mother Nature did finally come through in the end. We could have used some more snow, but everyone was able to make do with what we had. The Northern Lites were able to groom on the Friday morning which from all accounts made for a smooth ride. We must give a huge kudos to the NL groomer operators for getting out and getting it done. It was appreciated by lots of people. We had around 165 hands sold with the first place getting $230, so a not bad turnout overall. With it being a long weekend and valentine’s day it was a busy day for everyone with lots of other  activities going on.

Now that our last major winter event is done, it is time to really concentrate on the upcoming camping season. The RV show will be happening in a short couple weeks and hopefully before we know it the hot summer weather will be upon us. Or at least the warm spring sunshine anyway.

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Be careful what you wish for.

We have all been wishing for warmer weather and now it is here. Yay!! (insert sarcasm here) This weather is not quite what we all had in mind I am sure. The kids are getting an early spring break with no school for a week. The parents are ready for them to go back to school. I am sure there are quite a few people getting a snow day from work as well. Especially this morning with hwy 6 closed. That will affect a lot of people in this area.

There have been some crazy videos on the news from yesterday’s roads – truck spinning on shear ice, chipping away the ice on the highway and skating down the middle of the highways. This is not supposed to happen in Manitoba.

This does not look good for our poker derby on Saturday. The trails are melting away in front of our eyes. Unless we get a few inches of snow in the next day or so I don’t think there will be too many riders out. It will just have to become a car derby with social and supper. There seems to be a conspiracy against our derby. Blizzards, ice storms, wonder what next year might bring flash floods, tornado? Oh well we will still be going through with everything. The checkpoints are all set up, the social and supper are organized. At this point it is too hard to completely cancel. There should still be enough snow to do the route and it is a little bit colder today so there shouldn’t be anymore melting before Saturday.

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Ok so it is February in Manitoba and there is not much going on in the campground world, so I thought I would just do a little stand up comedy. Hope you at least get a little chuckle out of these:

Q: What do they call pall bearers in Oklahoma?

A: Carry-Oakies

*********

The Taco Bell Chihuahua, a Doberman and a Bulldog are in a bar having adrink when a great-looking female Collie comes up to them and says, “Whoever can say liver and cheese in a sentence can have me.”

So the Doberman says, “I love liver and cheese.” The Collie replies, “That’s not good enough.”

The Bulldog says, “I hate liver and cheese.” She says, “That’s not creative enough.”

Finally, the Chihuahua says, “Liver alone . . . cheese mine.”

*****

Top ten signs that you are too drunk

10. You have to hold onto the lawn to keep from falling off the Earth.

9. Mosquitoes catch a buzz after attacking you.

8. The back of your head keeps getting hit by the toilet seat.

7. Your idea of cutting back is less salt.

6. You can focus better with one eye closed.

5. You fall off the floor.

5. The whole bar greets you when you come in.

4. You haven’t had a driver’s license in such a long time that you have forgotten what one looks like.

3. Roseanne looks good.

2. You don’t recognize your wife/husband unless seen through bottom of glass.

1. You spent more time on the floor than you do standing up.

****

Top ten indicators that a redneck has been working on your computer

10. The monitor is up on blocks.

9. Outgoing faxes have tobacco stains on them.

8. The six front keys have rotted out.

7. The extra RAM slots have truck parts installed in them.

6. The numeric keypad only goes up to six.

5. The password is “Huntin”.

4. The CPU has a gun rack mount.

3. There is a Skoal can in the CD-ROM drive.

2. The keyboard is camouflaged.

1. The mouse is referred to as a “critter”.

 

****

Murphy’s work laws

MURPHY’S LAWS ON WORK

A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the pants.

Don’t be irreplaceable, if you can’t be replaced, you can’t be promoted.

The more crap you put up with, the more crap you are going to get.

You can go anywhere you want if you look serious and carry a clipboard.

Eat one live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.

Never ask two questions in a business letter. The reply will discuss the one you are least interested in, and say nothing about the other.

When the bosses talk about improving productivity, they are never talking about themselves.

If at first you don’t succeed, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.

There will always be beer cans rolling on the floor of your car when the boss asks for a ride home from the office.

Mother said there would be days like this, but she never said there would be so many.

Keep your boss’s boss off your boss’s back. This is what I’m doing wrong.

Everything can be filed under “miscellaneous.”

Never delay the ending of a meeting or the beginning of a cocktail hour.

To err is human, to forgive is not company policy.

Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing.

Important letters that contain no errors will develop errors in the mail.

The last person that quit or was fired will be the one held responsible for everything that goes wrong – until the next person quits or is fired.

There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but there is always enough time to do it over.

The more pretentious a corporate name, the smaller the organization. (For instance, The Murphy Center for Codification of Human and Organizational Law, contrasted to IBM, GM, AT&T …).

If you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are really good, you will get out of it.

You are always doing something marginal when the boss drops by your desk.

People are always available for work in the past tense.

If it wasn’t for the last minute, nothing would get done.

At work, the authority of a person is inversely proportional to the number of pens that person is carrying.

When you don’t know what to do, walk fast and look worried.

You will always get the greatest recognition for the job you least like.

No one gets sick on Wednesdays.

When confronted by a difficult problem you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, “How would the Lone Ranger handle this?”

The longer the title, the less important the job.

Machines that have broken down will work perfectly when the repairman arrives.

An “acceptable” level of employment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job.

Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse.

All vacations and holidays create problems, except for one’s own.

Success is just a matter of luck, just ask any failure.

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Finally February

I started writing this about what a day Saturday was, then Sunday happened. So, I guess now it becomes what a weekend.

Wasn’t that quite the day yesterday (Saturday). I had seen Friday night that they were forecasting strong winds for Saturday, but never expected quite that bad and that sudden. I was showing someone the new mural in room 3 and we turned around and poof instant snowstorm. At least it wasn’t cold so we could hide out of the wind and enjoy some ice fishing and a little sledding. By late afternoon however there was no going outside for me, it was time to hide out inside. At least today is so far a nice day, fairly warm, no wind.  Hopefully it stays that way. Well that was Sunday morning now let’s fast forward to Monday morning. Not quite sure what happened to our nice, calm day on Sunday but that got just crazy again. Fortunately we had nothing better to do this weekend but stay home. I am sure there are many people that set out by car or snowmobile when it was looking like such a nice day and they got a HUGE surprise in the afternoon. There were times when we couldn’t even see across the yard.  Now this morning we are back to cold, cold cold. I have heard it is close to -37 windchill again. At least it is finally February and that ground hog had better come through today, we don’t need a fraidy cat who’s afraid of his shadow.

The Marquette Curling Club has taken on the after poker derby social on the 14th. We will also be doing a buffet from 5pm-8pm, so everyone can bring their sweetie out for a Valentine dinner. The calendar has really not cooperated for us this year. Not only does the 2nd Saturday in February fall on Valentine’s, but it is also a long weekend. I know of a couple weddings, and other Valentine activities going on. With all this combined we are not really expecting much of a turnout. But the show must go on and look ahead to next year. It will still be a long weekend, but at least not valentine’s day. In 2011 we get away from the long weekend too and back to a plain old February weekend.

Want to check out the much hyped superbowl commercials. http://thebiggame.sympatico.msn.ca/Home?v=0aefbc0b-87df-4082-a346-b9156aaa977a#msnPlayer_p  I watched a few, some are ok some not so ok. I think the potato head was my favorite though, make sure you check it out.

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duckies update

Well we hear that our ducks have been a bad influence on their foster brothers and sisters. The others used to be quiet, good little ducks and now well the Rubber Duckies have taught them how to quack. Whenever someone walks into the barn it used to be all quiet, then once our ducks came they would squawk and now apparently everyone squawks. They have also taught the others to follow their foster parents around the barn. What can we say – they like people and are used to everyone talking to them.

The Stonewall Argus phoned yesterday to do an article about our poker derby coming up. We really appreciate the extra publicity, but I hate when you have to on the spot come up with interesting things to say. I don’t think that I will ever get used to that part.  We had a total of 4 snowmobilers stop in to the warmup this weekend. It was cold and miserable even for snowmobiling. My fingers are crossed that the forecast for this weekend holds out.  It will be nice to actually get out and enjoy a weekend of ice fishing, sledding and snowmobiling.

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Enjoy today

I heard this morning that tomorrow will be back to -38 windchill so we better enjoy today and remember what this week has been like. Yesterday was absolutely amazing -5, sun shining, no wind. Even I enjoyed being outside on a winter day.

We will be heading up to Gimli tomorrow for a workshop put on by Interlake Tourism Association and Travel Manitoba. See if we can learn anything, maybe do a little networking. It will be a pretty slow weekend around here I imagine. The colder weather again will most likely keep most snowmobilers away.

I had a good response to yesterday’s newsletter. There were a lot of people clicking the links to check out the specials and events coming up this summer.In the last few days I have booked the cabin and 5 sites for May long weekend. That puts me up to 12 sites booked already. Also, booked the cabin for a one week stay in July. I have started getting things together for our campground map advertising too, so  spring must be coming. We will be printing a few hundred more maps this year since we ran out around the end of August last year. I am going with positive thinking and planning for an early spring. I would like to have the maps printed and ready to go for April 15 this year. That groundhog better come through for me.

To continue on with the positive thinking theme I will leave you all with this thought. It’s been around so some of you may have seen it already.

 Mayonnaise Jar & Two Beers…

 

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 Beers. 
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.
 

When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

 He then asked the students if the jar was full.

 They agreed that it was. 
The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar He shook the jar lightly.

 The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.

 He then asked the students again if the jar was full.

 They agreed it was. 
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.

 Of course, the sand filled up everything else.

 He asked once more if the jar was full.

 The students responded with a unanimous ‘yes.’ 
The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand.

 The students laughed.. 
‘Now,’ said the professor as the laughter subsided, ‘I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things—your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions—and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. 

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car. 
The sand is everything else—the small stuff.

 ‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’ he continued, ‘there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.

 The same goes for life.

 If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.  
Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.

Spend time with your children.

 Spend time with your parents.

 Visit with grandparents.

 Take time to get medical checkups.

 Take your spouse out to dinner.

 Play another 18.

 There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal.

 Take care of the golf balls first—the things that really matter.

Set your priorities.

The rest is just sand.

 One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented.

 The professor smiled and said, ‘I’m glad you asked.’ 
The Beer just shows you that no
matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.

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Poker Derby of a lifetime

To say the  Northern Lites Poker Derby was a success is a minor understatement. They have never seen that many sleds come out for one of their derbies.They had a total of 513 hands sold, in comparison to 183 last year. I have heard estimates of up to 200 sleds involved. The club raised almost $2000 and the 1st place winner received $865. Not bad for a day of snowmobiling. And it certainly was a nice day which was one of the main reasons for the huge turnout. Everyone had been hibernating from the cold for so long that as soon it was warm everyone came out like crazy. I almost wish for another prolonged deep freeze to happen and then a warm up for our derby. I’m not sure if it is worth $2000 or not though.

We did not too bad on our end for the day with 44 breakfasts served and some various other things throughout the day and into the evening. We were finding that a lot of people were confusing this derby with our derby in February and thinking that we were running this one. They would ask us questions about the checkpoints and derby route and I couldn’t help them much since I didn’t really know where things were going. Things got so busy in the morning that I didn’t even get a chance to find out much details and they ran out of maps by the end of the morning. We are hoping that the confusion doesn’t affect the attendance at the Rubber Ducky Derby. Last year mother nature gave us a nasty day with -40 and full out blizzard conditions, so we are due for a nice day this year. With this year’s derby landing on Valentine’s Day we decided not to do the Bud, Spud and Beef dinner that we have done in the past.  There are so many other things going on and a lot of people will be going out with their sweetie so we didn’t want to end up with a whole bunch of left over beef. We will just be doing our regular menu for that day and will stay open in the evening as long as there are people here to order.

Here are a couple pictures that I was able to get while registration was going on.

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