Putting Everyone's Fears to Rest . . .

[BobH]

. . . I've just got off the phone with Chris Greaves. Because Canada adopted similar draconian measures as the rest of the world to counter the COVID-19 pandemic, the cafe and library are closed in Bonavista, NL depriving Chris of Internet access. I'm happy to report that his physical well being is unaffected by the virus, but to quote him as directly as forum rules will allow, he is p****d off. He has no Internet. The cafe and library are closed depriving him of the coffee, books and social interactions with the ladies he flirts with but to add insult to injury, his yard is still covered by 3 feet of snow under which lies several inches of ice; therefore the bulbs he purchased last October and labored to plant have not - and likely will not - sprouted and will have to be dug up and placed on the compost heap in July . . . maybe.

He made me promise to carry this message forward and to give my best shot at stating it as nearly as possible in his inimitable prose. I failed in the prose but otherwise followed his dictum.

[Nick Vittum]

I'm glad to hear he's okay. I wonder sometimes how bad things would need to get for communications infrastructure to break down. For those of us who are alone, the isolation is kind of rough. Ten times worse, with no internet. I don't envy him.

[HansV]

Thanks. I got an email from Chris on Sunday the 5th, sent from the house of a friend - apparently he could visit that friend then.

I'm glad he is OK, but perhaps Newfoundland was not the ideal place to move to if you want to grow flowers and vegetables in your garden...

[jstevens]

I'm glad he is OK, but perhaps Newfoundland was not the ideal place to move to if you want to grow flowers and vegetables in your garden...

I'm glad he is doing all right. Perhaps he should try ice lettuce.

[GeoffW]

Or snow peas?

Especially as it's an Easter crop.

"Peas be with you".

[Skitterbug]

. . . I've just got off the phone with Chris Greaves. Because Canada adopted similar draconian measures as the rest of the world to counter the COVID-19 pandemic, the cafe and library are closed in Bonavista, NL depriving Chris of Internet access. I'm happy to report that his physical well being is unaffected by the virus, but to quote him as directly as forum rules will allow, he is p****d off. He has no Internet. The cafe and library are closed depriving him of the coffee, books and social interactions with the ladies he flirts with but to add insult to injury, his yard is still covered by 3 feet of snow under which lies several inches of ice; therefore the bulbs he purchased last October and labored to plant have not - and likely will not - sprouted and will have to be dug up and placed on the compost heap in July . . . maybe.

He made me promise to carry this message forward and to give my best shot at stating it as nearly as possible in his inimitable prose. I failed in the prose but otherwise followed his dictum.

Thanks for letting us know, Bob! I've been thinking about him - buried under all that snow and ice! Maybe his flower bulbs will surprise him and make an appearance anyway. Time will tell!

Happy Easter!

[LisaGreen]

Thanks bob!! If you... or anyone actually.. get the chance please convey our best wishes and so on. That probably goes without saying of coursse.. but sometimes it's worth saying anyway.

Lisa

[ChrisGreaves]

I'm glad he is doing all right. Perhaps he should try ice lettuce.

I'll get you for that! :rake:
Cheers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

. . . I've just got off the phone with Chris Greaves.

So.
Bob.
What's the opposite of "putting everyone's fears at rest"?

I mean, hadn't you better warn the users?

Cheers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

... the isolation is kind of rough. Ten times worse, with no internet. I don't envy him.

Actually, Nick, it's been quite nice having even less access to the internet; I have managed to do a great deal of programming and writing instead of my annoying tendency to add inane comments to threads.

The most annoying thing to me has been the needless over-reaction and the crippling of business in a town that relies on just four months of tourism to keep its head above water.
I have re-arranged my John Grisham collection into date-of-copyright sequence and am partway through reading them, yet again. Sometime in June I will be finished, and then I will re-re-arrange them in sequence on number of pages.

After that I am open to suggestions.

Cheers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

Thanks. I got an email from Chris on Sunday the 5th, sent from the house of a friend - apparently he could visit that friend then.

Tom is still a friend, but not for much longer.

A guy called Dave handed over a router today and fiddled around the west side of the house for a few minutes. A hundred bucks, since you ask.

Tomorrow I plan to rename the router from "T2L1G5HN2L1A" to "CrabTreeTom5G" and drive Tom crazy working out how his WiFi signal can be so strong a half a mile away and on the other side of the hill.
Tom has been bugging me for weeks now to steal time from my neighbours signals ...

Cheers
Chris

[StuartR]

Welcome home Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

Rain again today; A good day to stay indoors and catch up replying to posts in threads that I haven't visited for 2+ months
After that, I think I have some unfinished business on Woody's Lounge, from 2011 or thereabouts ...
Cheers
Chris

[GeoffW]

The most annoying thing to me has been the needless over-reaction and the crippling of business in a town that relies on just four months of tourism to keep its head above water.

To keep its head above frozen water anyway.

Many people have had to keep out of the office. You have to keep off ice.

[ChrisGreaves]

To keep its head above frozen water anyway.

Hah hah!
The tourist season usually runs June-September, but March/April is a teaser; people drive from St John's (3.5 hours each way) to Bonavista just to stare at the icebergs.
Of course, a few souls actually drove up here in March/April, found the stores, cafes, and restaurants all closed, stared at The Iceberg, and were then warned to - go away we don't want visitors in Bonavista.

Now, if you get bad service/food in a restaurant, the first thing you do is tell all your friends, right?
Hah hah!

Cheers
Chris

[BobH]

Has the snow melted yet, Chris! it's 92°F here according to my security camera.

Did the cafe and library reopen yet? Did the virus sicken anyone in Bonabista?

Please post pics of the iceberg(s).

Welcome back.

[ChrisGreaves]

Welcome back.

Hi Bob, and it's good to see your text instead of hearing your voice at $50/minute, roughly (grin!)

Has the snow melted yet, Chris! it's 92°F here according to my security camera.

Yes, the snow has melted, and if I can find where they have hidden the attachment icon I'll post a photo to prove it.

Untitled.png

Nope. That's not it. Let's try again ...

Bonavista_20200522_164140.JPG

There we go. Bonavista's largest continuous-flow modular composting system, with a few buckets of soil that fell through my home-made sieve (I've been knitting all winter, tell Skitters). The grey thingy is the steel sheet that covered my side door before I had that replaced. It is faster to fold the sheet over than to construct a 30-inch wooden panel.
Don't be fooled by the Muskoka Chair; I dragged it out of the shed so that I could get a bit of carpentry done, which will be done once the air is warm enough to spend more than five minutes in the shed.
I rake the top surface of a garden bed, sieve the soil. All soil passes through the composter, as do all sawdust and grass clippings, or they will once the grass and trees grow again.
The rocks are wheel-barrowed over to Dave's place to fill in the mud-holes in his driveway, but you ask me, he'd have fewer mud-holes if he sold some of his seven vehicles.

Did the cafe and library reopen yet?

No, the Library, Commons, Cafe have not reopened. Were I my normal optimistic self I would hazard a guess that they would be open within a month, but the local authorities have suggested that Newfoundland (which, sadly, includes Bonavista) should abandon the idea of a tourist season this year and instead make robust preparations for next year instead. That is, for those folks who have not re-settled in the Alberta Oilfields to earn a crust from The Earth's crust.

Did the virus sicken anyone in Bonabista?

Thanks for reminding me to get back into Spanish Classes.
Strictly speaking, yes. There is no documentation publicly available, but I have listened to reports from two sober seniors who say that a woman took her own life. The ragged story is that her daughter brought her new baby, the lady's first grandchild, up for a visit and then returned home and refused/failed to return. Our guess is that she was following the "Stay Home" directiver.
A brand-new baby, after all.
Rumour is that the lady thought that her daughter didn't want the lady to have any more contact with the baby.
If this is true then it is a tragedy on several different stages.,

Much is made of us "being safe because we are an island" or "because we are isolated on the tip of the peninsula". IMNSHO that is hooey. People still make trips to/from St John's (for appliances, equipment) and to Clarenville (for cheap groceries, medical etc.), so we are all continuing our gregarious lives.

Please post pics of the iceberg(s)

I think we had icebergs, but reports have melted away.
A bunch of folks drove up from St John's (3.5 hours each way) but were surrounded by locals who told them in effect to "shove off and take your contaminated bodies with you". Also "Don't come back". Who knows what that little incident will do to our tourist image. Maybe the photos taken of the car registration plates will yield a clue.
I, of course, haven't owned a car since 2003, so the following pic shows no car in my driveway.

Bonavista_20200522_164043.JPG

You can, however, see my daffodil. One down up, ninety-nine to go grow.
I have spelled it with one "L" because a peta seems to have blown off early this afternoon.
I see David's Little Red Truck, so that may mean he has run out of room in his driveway. maybe he has eight vehicles now.

And how is your Turing Machine Interpreter coming along?

I thought you'd never ask.
I now support a limitless number of subroutines, and have started planning for a macro facility, a true macro facility, code expansion, not this MSoft Tools, Record, Macro nonsense.
Isolation appears to suit me.

I look forward to chatting with you once the internet breaks down again.
Cheers
Chris

[Argus]

You can, however, see my daffodil. One down up, ninety-nine to go grow.
I have spelled it with one "L" because a peta seems to have blown off early this afternoon.

2020_Linus.jpg

The Line, La Linea (Youtube).

[Skitterbug]

(I've been knitting all winter, tell Skitters).
Chris

So noted, Chris! I hope that you actually completed a project and I expect to see pictures of your knitting efforts soon!