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Some years ago, a group of us hiked the West Coast Trail, a 75 km wilderness trail on the west coast of Vancouver Island. There were two of us dads, one son-in-law, three 14 year olds and two 12 year olds. The other dad has died and one of his sons (then a 12 year old) is going to hike the trail again this summer to scatter his dad’s ashes. Two of my sons (12 and 14 years old the previous time) will do it with him. Talking tonight to the son who was 14 last time and is now 45, he pointed out he will be the same age on this trip as I was the previous time. Thanks very much, son, for making me feel old !

I believe an accused’s previous history cannot be introduced to a jury trial before the guilty/not guilty verdict has been rendered. Guilt is supposed to be established on the evidence of a particular case, without reference to previous events. (Not criminal, but I have seen punishment given out in schools on the basis of “Oh, him - he probably did it.” in cases where the pupil definitely had not done it.) Previous history can be considered relevant in sentencing. I thought the purpose of a trial was to establish the guilt, or otherwise, of an accused individual. How would guilt be established before a trial? If a person is obviously guilty, should it be too difficult for the prosecution to establish that in a trial? Don’t get me wrong, I think some sentences could be much more appropriate to the (proven) crimes. But I don’t think establishing a short-circuiting of the trial process would be a good thing. (It would lead to many more appeals, if nothing else.)

Definitely was! I saw the end of steam banking out of Queen Street, when they were using V1/V3 tanks, all the N15s having been withdrawn. By then, steam locos as train engines were very rare.

Some information about rolling stock: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taeyangho_armoured_train (Edit - there’s a more general wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_North_Korea )

Relative of somebody we know here?

Ah … but when did the bar fall down?

Looks like you would have to get there quickly if you wanted to be able to sample the beer!

Then it’s up to soccer players to decide whether or not to do that. It’s different when the local archery club set up their targets so that ‘overs’ end up on a soccer pitch where a game is in progress. (I was quite surprised when I moved up for a corner to find an arrow stuck into the pitch at a shallow angle at my feet!)

Billy Bean and his Funny Machine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Bean_and_His_Funny_Machine

A former premier of this province used to give press conferences like that. The TV stations would tidy them up - in some cases, make some sense of them. They would have the assumed words read by the newsreader, show resequenced clips of edited phrases etc. Eventually, one station just gave up and showed his responses verbatim.

Kokura.

We’ve had friends staying over the weekend. They’re out to dinner tonight with their sons, who live locally. We’ve just had dinner made up from leftovers in the fridge - barbecued pork ribs, coleslaw and cranachan (not all on the same plate, of course!).

I can’t say anything about Seattle, but I used the West Coast Express (WCE) into and out of Vancouver for several years. What you’re talking about here is the “heavy rail” commuter service, which runs on CPR tracks. That’s significant, because CP charge for the use of their tracks. If you’re going to run trains “in between” rushes, you’re not going to get the same loadings on them, and so each trip will make even more of a loss than the trips in the peaks. The line is 43 miles long and a journey takes 75 minutes with 6 intermediate stops. The WCE was intended to get people out of their cars during rush hours, specifically people who would not ride buses. Buses are not considered a ‘cool’ means of transport here - they used to be referred to as “loser cruisers”. There are some routes on which coaches are used - those are considered more acceptable than buses. (The WCE replaced a longer-distance coach route as well as outer suburban bus routes.) The accommodation on the WCE is well above the standard of a city bus, and it does seem to have accomplished the aim of getting people out of their cars to commute. There is no call for the WCE to run out of Vancouver before the evening rush. Nice though they are, towns around the WCE stations offer very little that isn’t available in Vancouver. And there are few major employers in the region outside of downtown Vancouver, certainly along the route of the WCE. And urbanization of the Lower Mainland has happened under the strong influence of car culture (The city of Vancouver was only incorporated in 1886.) Building sprawls, and people drive everywhere. With the exception of downtown Vancouver, there is no real ‘centre’ to the Lower Mainland (though that may be changing - see below). However, there is, and has been in the past, rapid transit which performs functions the WCE was never intended to do. The BC Electric Railway provided streetcar and interurban service to the area between 1897 and 1958. The streetcar services were replaced by trolleybuses, which still operate. Passenger service on the interurban was replaced by diesel buses, and coaches on the longer routes. A freight service still operates on some of the former interurban lines, now owned by Southern Railway of BC. Rapid transit now consists of the Skytrain network - grade-separated rapid transit. The first line opened in 1985 (paralleling a former BC Electric interurban line for part of its route) and the network is still being expanded. This serves a much larger area than the WCE service, with many more closer-spaced stations. One aim of the Skytrain has been to facilitate the creation of “satellite town centres” round certain Skytrain stations - mostly residential, but with significant commercial presence in some cases. It is also intended to serve individual major employers: the “Canada Line” runs to Vancouver International airport, and the “Millennium Line extension” is currently being built to the University of British Columbia. Skytrain operates in the way being suggested in the quoted post - services in all directions on the several lines, with trains running every few minutes from 4.45AM to 1.30AM on weekdays. There are transfers possible between the WCE and the Skytrain network at 3 stations.

I have tasted durian once. If you’ve ever siphoned gasoline and accidentally got a mouthful - that’s the closest experience I could get to the taste.

Weak? With selection and quantities like that, I reckon just one custard tart indicates an iron will!

You could always adopt the Woody Allen approach to summarizing (though not his approach to some other things!). His summary of ‘War and Peace” - “It’s about Russia”.

That’s known as a “rolling meet” in North America. Appears dispatchers will try to arrange them if possible, and the “loops” on single tracks here tend to be much longer than in Europe.

Oh, I quite believe you’re serious. We just want the yuks 🤪!

We want pictures!

Long post - feel free to TLDR it. I got an e-mail from a cousin yesterday. He has been looking through his dad's WW2 RAF logbook. The book has been in the possession of several people in our extended family over time, and this cousin has just recently got it from his brother's widow. He previously knew none of the details of what's in the logbook, just general information about what his dad had done. Like most ex-servicemen from WW2, he talked very little about his experiences. My uncle was an RAF regular before 1939, and served as active aircrew all the way to 1945. He was a wireless operator/gunner in Bomber Command till 1942, then a wireless operator/dispatcher in Transport Command. My cousin has been looking in detail at the time after D-day till August 1945. He included some photos of pages in the e-mail. There are some very interesting entries. In summer 1944, my uncle was flying in Dakotas. His crew made many trips from the south of England to ALG (Advanced Landing Ground) B-14 at Amblie. This was the major airfield in the British sector for evacuation of casualties. There are notes on different days of “24 wounded”, “19 stretchers, 6 sitters, 1 passenger”. They also evacuated wounded from ALG B-8 at Sommervieu; 24 on one occasion. But it's a trip into B-8 that is really remarkable – they carried 5000 pounds of 'blood plasma', and penicillin. They probably took a similar load of plasma into B-14 on one occasion, but part of that entry is cut off in the picture of the logbook page that my cousin included. (I presume the weight included the packaging.) At the end of August 1944, there is a flight described as 'Relief of Paris'. Immediately after the liberation of Paris, there was a severe shortage of food in the city. As part of the effort to supply the city, there were flights to Orleans/Bricy (designated ALG A50) from which trucks took the food on into Paris. My uncle's crew flew “Biscuits, beans, bacon and dogs” to Orleans. I presume the 'dogs' were of the hot variety. My cousin pointed out one more flight, which actually happened in August 1945, 3 months after VE-day. They were supposed to fly from Hendon to ALG B-164 at Schleswig in Germany, but had to divert to Detmold and continue on to Schleswig the next day. They were carrying 17 German POWs, included (noted in the log book) General Hans-Jurgen Stumpff, who had signed Germany's unconditional surrender as the representative of the Luftwaffe. As my cousin finished the e-mail: “What a life that must have been, we're so lucky to have avoided war service in our lifetimes.”

A friend of mine was a senior programmer in an organization we both worked in. He had a very quick temper. There was a major layoff of staff, and John chose to go. He had another job lined up abroad, but it wasn’t to start for six months, so he wanted a short-term job in the meantime. He applied for a junior programmer’s job, which he could have done in his sleep, and was called for interview. The interview was a “high stress” one - multiple interviewers, aggressive questioning, questions asked before previous answers had finished etc. John took so much of this, then stood up, said “I didn’t really need this f…ing job anyway” and walked out. Their loss, even as a short term employee.

Because Canadians can often convince them to value it as at par with the Canadian currency, then make a profit of about 35% when cashing US notes at a bank?

Far, wide and regular but not very plentiful yet. CPR units have been far, wide and regular on non-CPR lines south of the border for many years, often as leaders - in general, Canadian engines have more crew facilities than US engines. For example, in 2013 I saw a CPR engine as the leader of three on a BNSF freight on the transcontinental through Flagstaff, Arizona.

But when you are, the cost won’t be bothering you. We’ve just gone through the process of writing new wills, too.

Had he lost anything else? Like his common sense?