Welcome to the August Diner, this time in sunny Mexico - Model Railroader Magazine

Morning all, it is another stunning day on the Coast with temps in the mid-20s today.

Logged a few hundred kms yesterday. The wife is breeding one of her bitches to a dog from Europe that died in the mid-1990s. She had frozen sperm sent over from him when he was seven some 30 years ago. First I had to get the shipper filled with liquid nitrogen at a place an hour East of here which took a couple of hours. Then I hit the highway to go to where it was being stored to pick up the semen and bring it home. After paying to store this stuff for 30 years I sure hope it isn't freezer burned.

The female dog will be surgically inseminated today, I will hopefully not have to go help out. 

Back around 1990 when she was trying to get this semen shipped from Europe she could not get an airline to handle it as the container was a special one not listed to fly on commercial flights. She was pulling her hair out trying to figure out how to get this stuff across the pond. She forgot she was married to a guy that knows how to get just about anything anywhere in the world. One phone call was all it took from me and it was on a freighter the next morning and in her hands that night. I picked it up not a 100 metres from my office at the airport.

Ray, glad to hear things went well for you and your lady friend with the family. How did she like the layout?

Charlie, my Dad started at the Winnipeg Post Office sweeping the floor in the 1930s and retired in Vancouver in upper-middle management. He was pretty sharp and rolled out some innovative programs over the years.

My Grandfather was a medic in WWI and suffered from the gas attacks that he endured. After the war, he immigrated to Canada and had a booming goldsmith business and did very well for himself. He started to suffer from respiratory problems as he aged from the gas attacks and the fumes from the goldsmith business were making his health really go downhill. So he sold the business and got a job as a letter carrier with the Post Office in Winnipeg because his Dr. told him to get a job working outside. So my Grandpa and my Dad both went to the Post Office picnic where my Dad met my Mom and here I am.

Had the lady from the company that's painting our house come and help pick the colours. She showed up with a huge suitcase with thousands of colours in it and I thought, this is going to take all night. The wife, daughter and her had it all figured out in 15 minutes and she was gone. I know when to just sit back and say nothing, however, I did get them to go with a darker colour on the gutters as they tend to get really dirty with all the trees we have around here.

Well, the Vancouver Canucks easily dispatched the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday and I am looking forward to tonight's game 2. Our guys are a lot younger and I think with living in the bubble and all the other considerations from playing playoffs in these unusual times they should prevail. It is somewhat strange watching the playoffs in empty buildings, but as the players say, it is just like playing in Florida.

Ken, congrats on getting the debt down, like smoking, it is one of those things that is nice to put behind you. Keep up the good work.

Jimmy B, how is the bike program going. PM me if you want some helpful hints. I won't give too much advice other than to point you in the direction of some info and you can make your own decisions from that. We are all different and need to find a path that works for us individually.

Weight loss and maintenance is more dependent on diet than exercise and good health is really determined a lot by fitness. Don't worry about doing endless situps, you already have a six-pack as we all do. The ab muscles get more work every day than you know and are well defined, however, if you can't see them a little bit of goo reduction will take care of that. If you do a hundred push-ups and a hundred sit-ups in a week, even if you can start off doing only two or three at a time every few hours, you will notice a huge difference in your muscle tone. It takes me about twenty seconds to do ten pushups and I do them when I am on the floor with the dogs or down there beating up my kid or in the commercials while watching hockey. Don't do as many push-ups as you can, do half as many and then it won't be hard work and you will do it, and in a year you will knock off a hundred without the least bit of effort. I am a firm believer in the gain with no pain workout.

The kid is doing his last Hockey broadcast chit chat show today as he has had to quit that and his writing. He has too much on his plate and school is starting in three weeks. 

Game time in four hours. 

All the best to all.