embearassing

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TIRES HAVE A SHELF LIFE

OK.....I have come across some information that most males who view this will find very interesting.....
All tires have the date when they were made on them....If you look carefully you will see numbers that read something like this....

3704 or maybe 458 .....

3704 means the 37th week in the year 2004

485 means the 48th week in the year 1995....

ok ...so you can put that information to figure out how old the tires are on your vehicle or maybe you are buying new tires.....make sure they are new tires.....

TIRES HAVE A SHELF LIFE....... 6 years according to the 20-20 TV PRODUCTION...... ...after that they become a ongoing risk......you decide how long you want to risk it I guess.....

I looked at my 1990 Nissan truck tires today and 3 are 8 years old and one is 11 years old......they are not real wore out yet but I think I will replace em ...they are over the hill......

I don't put many miles on my little old truck but I reckon she deserves some new shoes.

I think I know....but

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This photo is of some of the construction of the Sumas Lake drainage project that took place in the 1920s.......I am guessing this is at the location of the Sumas River pumping station......and the buildings are probably the Barrowtown that is talked about but nobody knows exactly where it is........by the look of the mountains, river, etc......... but I may be wrong....any body have any ideas....


guscales@gmail.com


Before 1920 there was a huge shallow tidal lake that took up the flats between the Vedder Mountain of the south Fraser Valley and Sumas Mountain at the north .....The lake stretched from Chilliwack to Abbotsford. It must have been a waterfowl paradise...and mosquitoes* ** * ***lots of em* **..........an energetic canal digging program was undertaken in 1920 ...the Vedder River was contained and Sumas lake was pumped dry by 1924 .....the rich land reclaimed for farming..... also most routes to the coast were moved to the flats instead of the mountains. The lake stretched from Chilliwack to Abbotsford.

bad accident

Chilliwack, Vancouver, Hunting, Fishing, Whistler, Blogs, Craigs List, Camping and Comics......this is an experiment

the wagon wheels would break

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Railroad tracks.


The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet,8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England , because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England ) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts,which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. Ancient horse's asses control the width of present day RR tracks.

up the creek

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A friend of mine was up at Yale lately...He was fishing the creek mouths flowing into the Fraser ....well, the fishing was slow so he got to hiking around a bit and investigating a trail above Yale to the interior plateau........ this particular Indian trail was developed into a route for the Hudson Bay Company to access the fur trade in 1847 and 1848.....it was only used for a few years until the gold rush.... then Fraser canyon wagon trail was built....

A great deal of money was spent on the plateau route. It was steep and narrow and carved into the mountainside, rising from Spuzzum on the east bank of the Fraser near today's Alexandria Bridge...while hiking about on the first part of the trail he discovered the building that is in one of the pictures....what could it be? ...a building for storing valuables ...it has us stumped....what would it be used for in the gold rush days......
Also he found a possible spearhead...it is a tool of some kind....and the flat rock it is laying on is unique as it is about 1/2 inch thick and flat as a plate.....in use a 1000......5000 years ago?...........It is quite a feeling to be around historic places like this..... imagine the thousands of determined young people using these trails 150 years ago...
When my pal Lew and I used to fish the Skagit river we used a trail that was part of the old Dewdney pack trail from Washington to the interior....it is packed into the ground about 6 inches and a wagons width.....yup ...it makes the imagination flow.

The Pope visits Chilliwack maybe

woops sorry...how did this pix get in here.....

Rocky 27

afternoon walk

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he had quite a story

Last Friday one of my coffee pals was in the thick of things for a while...he was where the red mark is.....on his way home heading east of chilliwack.....he had quite a story.....he was a split second away from being involved....anyway he got stopped and a lot of others as well...they did what they could (fire extinguishers)....the authorities arrived quickly and he was lucky enough to be let through....a tight squeeze between all the tossed up debris..then they held everyone up for 4 hours...the traffic must have been backed up 20 miles or more...how the hell they survived that eh.....he said it happened so fast and stuff was cartwheeling around like in the movies....the children are fine and the mum is not to bad off..wow...

the car with kids lost control and came over from the left (westbound freeway lane) and smacked into the vehicle and trailer you see at the right roadside...that one was immediately in front of my pal...yipes

He was side by with a transport and they both had to do some serious braking to keep out of it....the transport is still in the picture....

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the Trans-Canada Hwy., east of Chilliwack, B.C. was reopened Friday evening after being closed for five hours as rescue crews dealt with the aftermath of a head on collision involving an SUV and a black sedan.
The collision head earlier left one car upside down on the highway, and the SUV and its badly-damaged trailer lying in the ditch nearby.
As CTV's Chopper 9 helicopter hovered above, rescue crews could be seen searching the roadside bush any passengers, who might have been ejected from the vehicles.
One of the accident victims, a woman, was loaded on a stretcher into a waiting Medivac helicopter.
Another women and two small children survived with what police said were non life-threatening injuries.
Disruption caused by the collision left traffic backed up along the Trans-Canada for many kilometers.
But by 6:00 p.m. Friday, traffic flows had returned to normal.

yeah okay..good luck with that story

I came across this blog while looking around on line.....hmmm...well you read it....see what ya think.....gus


A seven-foot Sasquatch has been spotted near Chilliwack, a witness says.And two local Sasquatch hunters are convinced the sighting, reported last month on Mount Cheam, is the real deal.“This was a legitimate sighting, not a bear, not a deer or anything else,” said Bill Miller, a full-time Sasquatch hunter who lives in Harrison Hot Springs.The Sasquatch was sighted on June 19 at 2 a.m. when a husband and wife were travelling down the mountain after watching the city lights from a lookout point. The wife was busy fiddling with CDs when the creature crossed in front of them.“He grabbed his wife’s arm and said ‘did you see that guy cross the road?,’” said Tom Steenburg, a Sasquatch hunter and Big Foot author, who interviewed the couple two days after the sighting. “His wife started asking him questions, like what was he wearing. He said that he wasn’t wearing anything, he was just really hairy. She asked how tall he was. He just said that he was really big. Finally she asked, was it the Sasquatch? No, he replied. It couldn’t have been, there’s no such thing as the Sasquatch.”The man who saw the figure described it as having “long arms, down to his knees,” a “very heavy, big upper body,” a “thin waist,” a “flat stomach,” and no neck, “just kind of a head.”He compared it to being “big like a wrestler, flexing its back and chest.” He also said it was about seven feet tall, covered in black hair, and walked on two legs.“He said they came around the bend, then something took a step up from the trees and out onto the road,” said Miller. “It took only two quick steps across the road, looked towards them, and then it was gone.” Miller, who has been a Sasquatch hunter for 10 years, and Steenburg, who has been one for 29 years, investigated the site in the following days. “We looked for signs of where it might have gone into the bush and I found it immediately,” said Steenburg, who has investigated over 500 Sasquatch sightings in his career. “I saw exactly where it stepped.”They found elongated trackings of crushed sprouts and pine needles, measuring a few feet in length, and over four feet apart. Although there was no Sasquatch hair found at the scene, and the road was too hard to leave behind any detailed footprints, the two hunters still believe there is enough evidence to prove that the Sasquatch had passed through. “It’s too problematic to explain it as a hoax rather then accept it,” said Miller. “Who would be running around out here in this ankle-breaking country, in a gorilla suite, on a warm night, sweating their tail off, jumping in front of cars?” The tracks led all the way down a steep 60-metre hill, covered in branches, trees and shrubs. Miller believes that if someone was playing a prank they would have only waited at the side of the road instead up struggling uphill in the dark.As well, the tracks were in a straight line. According to Miller this is even more supporting evidence, as the Sasquatch has a mid-tarsal break in their foot that allows them to walk one foot directly in front of the other with ease. “If I, or any other human, were to climb this hill I would need to turn my feet sideways to stay balanced,” he said. “But these footprints are in a straight line, like he was walking a tight rope. They even go straight over a two foot high shrub in one step. This is circumstantial evidence.”The footprints also proved that the sighting couldn’t have just been a bear.“A bear walks on four feet, and throws its weight from side to side when walking,” he said. “And their footprints are only the size of baseballs, they aren’t elongated like these impressions.”Along with the footprints, Miller pointed out that the description the man provided was too accurate to be a joke. He also ruled out the possibility of the man playing a prank on himself and Steenburg, saying that he had no motive.The man who reported the sighting, an avid hunter, wishes to remain anonymous. “He was really apologetic, and really agitated,” said Miller. “He seemed to be wrestling with the idea that he just saw a Sasquatch. He didn’t believe in them.”According to Miller and Steenburg most people who report sighting don’t want to be named for fear of a tarnished reputation.“Ninety per cent of the population don’t believe that the Sasquatch even exists,” said Steenburg. Both men receive their fair share of slack when they tell people what they do for a living.“It’s human nature to laugh at what your ignorant about,” said Steenburg. “But that’s what it’s all about, trying to get people who tell you it doesn’t exist to believe in it.”Miller feels the same way.“It’s easy to be skeptical and laugh at it,” he said. “But no one has ever stepped up to give a counter explanation for the evidence we have collected, even when they’ve been offered money.”Miller and Steenburg both use their own money to keep the dream alive. Miller is living and working off of his pension right now, but is hoping that the video he will one day get of the Sasquatch will support him for the rest of his life.“I don’t want to see it close enough where I can feel it’s breath in my face,” he said. “But I want a video of it. That’s all I need. Just a video of it, and I’m set.”

a star is born

I could not think of anything to put in today....so ....I saw the words to this silly song on line and tried to record it myself...I dunno if it works....a lot of foolin and figuring to get it this far....



http://www.supload.com/music/Gus-If-My-Nose-Was-Runnin-Money-download-S368BEIW204S.html

50 miles from Chilliwack

In 1858 the Fraser River had a huge gold rush at Yale where the river roars out of the canyon starts a less turbulent flow into the fraser valley.

Yale was founded in 1848 by the Hudson's Bay Company and named after James Murray Yale. At the peak of the gold rush, it was reputed to be the largest city west of Chicago and north of San Francisco and also known for vice, violence and lawlessness.
Steamers could make it to from New westminster to Yale( about 100 miles), Its maximum population during the gold rush was 15,000 normal 5-8,000.
Yale is the start of the Cariboo Wagon Road , built in the early 1860s. In 1870s an overland route to Tale from N W was built ....Our main Old Yale rd. running through Chilliwack is Old Yale Rd. Yale prospered for another twenty five years after the gold rush. Construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway (1885) overcame the town's old commercial core and waterfront . After CP completion the population was greatly reduced and progressively afterwards.
Not much of the gold rush era Yale survives, as the docks vanished long ago and the railway runs down the main street of what had been town. Now there is a couple of stores, restaurants and a few motels and other services, as well as gas stations and automotive repair and rescue outfits. Most of today's population are members of First Nation.

Construction of the railway meant the destruction of the Cariboo Wagon Road,. A new highway north from Yale was not built until the Cariboo Highway in 1922, and upgraded to the Trans-Canada Highway in 1960.

I wish they were in our creeks

clik to enlarge ...the white underside of the fish is photo shopped...one googly eyed guy huh....the fish

A few days ago a coffee friend of mine ..... a man of rankness in our Flat Earth Society called me to come over to his home to see some fish that he and his son had caught on a trip to Prince Rupert....They took a guided boat for a few days and he had only been home 12 hours when he called....... I grabbed my camera and headed over the few blocks to Jim's place.... this is a picture that I took of him holding about a 40 lb Halibut. Jim generously gave me a couple of feeds of Halibut fillets and I gotta tell ya that is the best fish I have ever tasted.....man, I wish they were in our creeks....They caught what they are allowed which included some nice Coho and Chinook salmon......a couple of steaks off a 32 pounder were also gratefully received.....He drove to Kelowna ...joined his son....they drove to PR went out on the boat for 3 nights then back to Kelowna and home....hit the sack....then up in the morning cause these critters gotta be dealt with....it is Hot...like 33 degrees.....yep they are on ice but they gotta be hacked and packed......I want to let him know how much we appreciate the gesture.......that is about 2000 km ....the guy is what...77 years old...wow that's pretty cool......

I wonder where Dave Smith is?

When I was 13 through 16 yrs old we lived in a big old house on the east corner of Broadway and Yale Rd....It is still there but 1/2 the lot was sold to make another lot....a new house replaces an old garage/woodshed that was there....and a huge cherry tree...dad drove an old 1947 Willy car at that time...we had great neighbors and friends next door...the Haynes.....Grandpa and Gram Haynes lived in a little house at the back......the yard was open where it joined ours and the path was well traveled back and forth.....my folks had a grand time over there playing music ...My dad on a Hawaiian guitar, mum on the piano Grandpa Haynes a violin or an accordion.....The old guy built steam engines...working models of locomotives....they were close to 2 feet long...all to scale, they were very impressive and powerful looking...I had a border collie named "Tippy", he had a spot on the front porch that he loved to sit at and watch the happenings ....when he wasn't perched in his place there was a smudge mark on the house where he kind of leaned against the front wall at the top of the steps. I had a couple of Darwin Award entries at that house....one was when I was 13..I found a .22 cartridge and had a bright idea.....I took it into the woodshed and shoved it into a split in a piece of firewood that was piled in the garage....my BB gun was in there as the garage was also a target range....okay...if I can hit that shell from back here, that would be fun and drive the lead further into the wood.....well, that's what a dum guy would think.....and seeing there were no smart guys around I aimed and caught the rim of the shell first shot.....as soon as I pulled the trigger someone slammed me in the chest with a 2x4....that's what it felt like
as the casing came back and walloped me in the chest....O my gawd....what...I was afraid to look.....but slowly I pulled my shirt down...there was a pink blossom ...whew...no hole.....of course the casing came back not forward...jeez.....kids ....they don't think.....let that be a lesson...

Every Monday night was hamper night at the Paramount Theatre and a bunch of us boys would go to the show....Mervin Vance started it out from Little Mountain (Carlmar Motel) and we walked straight on Yale Road to the theatre picking up members of that elite bunch as we went along.... I was about the eighth , I could see the troop out our front window as they progressed up Yale Rd. towards town.....there would be two more at the next corner....."Gimmee a hamper" was our slogan...led by a comedian and one of our citys future Mayors...Man,If we knew then what a an amazing diversification our lives would take, but at that time its just about a bunch of young boys together havin a good time...that was fun.....we attended the first show from 7 till 9. Bill Wolfe (local radio announcer and all around good guy) awarded a hamper of groceries to a lucky ticket holder....I don't remember any of us winning.............. there is a possibility that some members of that crew may read this journal....if so....HI, HOW ARE YA....I wonder if any remember how in the summer the bright sun smacked us for a bit as we stepped out of the front exit door after the first show was over..... hmmm ....unfortunatley some of em are gone now but not forgotten.....I wonder where Dave Smith is? or Terry Valjean....
I used to drive the Willy back and fourth on the driveway ... ......then I got brave and drove out on Broadway, then quickly back.....eventually, a long block down to Huth's place, turn around and back......I timed that when dad had a 15 minute snooze at noon hr....He always came home for lunch...we all did.
When I was 14 Charlie Smith taught us how to fish properly on the Vedder...before that we would harass the salmon and catch them any way we could.....I caught my first Coho salmon and first Steelhead with him....He sometimes took 3 and 4 boys at a time plus his fishing partner,,,(usually Bob Carruthers) all piled in a little Thames English Van......from his Bike Shop to the river and back to the store...One fine December day in 1952.....I walked from the store (across from the present post office) to home, all along Yale rd. packing my first steelhead....what a showoff ...
I will never forget that.....people slowing down in cars...the odd toot toot.....half way home, Roy Gleig came out of his house smiling ear to ear......He was an avid Steelheader(sportshop) and was really happy for me...recalling the story his first Steelhead......non fishers have no idea what a bump in credibility catching the first Vedder Steelhead is.



A Steelhead is a Rainbow Trout that lives in the ocean and spawns in a river. This one was an near average 10 pounds.

green machine

Photo of senior Flat Earth Member riding a green machine...it not only saves gas but saves rubber (an oil product) .....old shoes can be used after they are out of fashion or slightly worn ....it has been estimated by "they" that 14 million metric tons of sap from the disappearing bongy tree can be saved and used for elastic bands to propel large propellers generating 4 million jiggawhats of electric power.

green machine