20/05/2011

Is the End Nigh?

Cancel the Saturday Restaurant Reservation
We usually go for a couple of beer after floor hockey Friday nights so, tonight should be no different except that according to a group of American, and we have to assume some Canadian Evangelical Christians, there will be a lot fewer of us around, Saturday morning.

Eighty eight year old Harold Camping says he has developed a mathematical system to interpret prophecies hidden within the Bible. He says with certainty, “The world will end May 21, 2011. These dates can be trusted entirely because they come right out of the Bible. “

Thousands believe Camping and are confident that early Saturday believers will, suddenly without warning, disappear from Earth in the "twinkling of an eye."

That creates some interesting situations;

What about those people’s pets? Surely the good people who are going to leave the rest of us and go directly to heaven, wouldn’t leave their poor cats, dogs, hamsters, pot bellied pigs and snakes starve? Of course not.

Someone has set up Eternal Earth-Bound Pets USA.. The company guarantees that when the Rapture comes, for the small fee of $135.00, in advance of course, the owner or one of his 44 contractors in 26 states will drive to your home within 24 hours, collect your dog, cat, bird, rabbit or small caged mammal, and adopt it. He has carefully screened all the rescuers. The contractors have to love animals, of course, but just as important is that they don't love Jesus. So for obvious reasons, they're all atheists.

Would it be ok I if, tonight after our customary visit to The Buskwakker we cruised through “good” neighbourhoods looking for signs that residents had been spirited away, so to speak? Could we just move in to their houses make ourselves a snack or help ourselves to their big screen television sets?  I wonder.

Assuming I guess that restaurant chefs were among those who were going to be called to heaven on Saturday Elizabeth Gunnison writing for Esquire magazine asked some notable American chefs “Of all the dishes that you've made in your lifetime, what's the one that you want to be remembered for? They came up with some interesting and eclectic choices. Everything from fish and chips, 
shrimp alhinho made with olive oil, garlic, coriander and pimenton — complete with the pressed jus from the shrimp heads, Mickey Mouse shaped pancakes, and bone marrow and oxtail marmalade. You can read the whole list here.

I don’t know. It has become a pretty weird world. The one thing I am pretty confident about is that next week there should still be enough of us left to have a good sized group at floor hockey.

16/05/2011

Our two Favorite Roadsigns

In North Dakota they get it. Fairly flat, good, straight roads why dawdle along.

That is miles per hour



















Makes sense to me

Don't Text and Drive

15/05/2011

Welcome to the United States of America

A bit of an Oxymoron
We decided that we just couldn't face another drive across the north of Lake Superior so thought why not cross into the USA at Sault Ste Marie and drive to Regina on an alternate route.

Now I confess that I haven't traveled to the States very often since 9/11 and I did know that these was a building sense of paranoia at border crossings but I am not sure I realized how nasty these people had become.

Most of our experience crossing borders in the last few years has been in Europe where it is pretty painless.

We got a fairly good start, drove onto the bridge, across to US Customs, looking forward to our visit. The Welcome to the United States sign seemed like a good omen but, that was before we met Dudley Doright.

We handed over our passports and were ready to answer the expected few questions about the purpose of our visit, were we bringing any alcohol or food stuffs in, how long did we expect to be in the states. Our good mood didn't last long.

The "Why are you travelling to the United States" question got fairly aggressive off the top as the border thug, who clearly had a poor understanding of geography, tried to understand why, in his view, we had gone so out of our way to cross the border where we did. "Because it is the quickest route", didn't seem to register with him.

We then got into extensive questioning about why Chris might have snapped a few photos while crossing the bridge. Apparently the bridge is a strategic bit of infrastructure and vulnerable to terrorists so, we had to scroll through all the photographs on the camera so he could make sure we were not plotting to blow it up.

Then he moved on to what Chris was studying at University. What did I do for a living before I retired? Trade union rep was not an answer he liked to hear. Have we ever been arrested?

Then we got into the drug issues. Did we have drugs or drug paraphernalia. We said no. He then pressed Chris. "You were about to say something" Were we sure we weren't carrying drugs?

We then moved on to "Open the trunk" He moved stuff around then said, is there anything here you wouldn't want me to find? "No" I answered. "What if we called the dogs out? Would they find anything?"

Finally, unable to find that big bag of cocaine or traces of THC in my shaving kit and reasonably satisfied that we might only be a minor threat to the stability of the United States and therefore acceptable, we were allowed to move on.

Welcome to the United States Indeed.

If I was a paranoid person I might think that Homeland Security reads this blog.