The weather has been up and down since the last update – super hot for a couple of days and very cold the next, but now that Autumn has started it should even out. The trees are starting to change colour – which means a lot of raking and bagging to look forward to – but Fall has always been my favorite time of year. Over the past few weeks we have gone to the Aylmer fair and watched tractor pulls; gone to the Imperial Market for Pepper Fest (lots of hot sauces, tacos, pupusas, and chili peppers), horse shoes every weekend and the occasional bocci ball, lots of cooking, tons of yard work … and for the most part a very enjoyable summer. We’ve been a lot luckier than the East Coast – they’ve had a lot of flooding, and last week they got hit by Hurricane Lee) – and the West Coast – lots of wild fires and evacuations near Kelowna and Shuswap – and even in the States the ‘Burning Man’ festival was flooded and turned into fields of mud that left the participants stranded – how does a desert get flooded!! Well, apparently they got flooded in Libya in Africa – over five thousand deaths – and a massive earthquake in Morocco, which hadn’t had one in over one hundred years, thousands dead there as well ☹. Weather all over the world has gone crazy due to climate change, and I don’t think it’s going to get any better ☹.
On a brighter note … It’s now only two and a half months until our cruise to Mexico (Pacific Coast and Sea of Cortez), we are definitely looking forward to that. Four months to go until we head over to Mazatlán for a couple of weeks at the end of January; and oh … we’ve booked a seven day Canada and New England cruise in May!! Montreal to Boston with stops in Quebec City, Charlottetown, Sydney and Halifax N.S., and Bangor Maine. I haven’t been back East in 22 years (and Kelly has never been east of Quebec City) so it should be a lot of fun!!
The war in Ukraine is still dragging on, the offensive isn’t going as fast as planned but it is starting to gain momentum. The Ukrainians have broken through the first line of defense in the south –ditches, tank traps, intensive mine fields, etc. – but they still have a ways to go to break through to the Sea of Azov in order to split the Russian divisions in two. They have had success in long range drone and missile strikes into Russia – several ships and airstrips were damaged / destroyed – and today had a massive missile strike against the Russian Naval Headquarters in Sevastopol, Crimea. They have managed to harass Moscow with drone strikes – not a lot of damage, but it does divert air defense systems from being used in Ukraine and brings the war to the attention of Russian civilians living around Moscow. Prigozhin – he should never have trusted Putin – is dead. The leader of the Wagner Group mercenaries and nine others died in a plane explosion August 24 – two months to the day after he tried a mini–coupe that got as close as 120 miles of Moscow before retreating. Lukashenko of Belarus struck a deal that had the Wagner Group relocate to Belarus – apparently more smoke and mirrors – there was no way Putin was going to let Prigozhin live. Lukashenko needs to be done away with also, either overthrown or assassinated … and as I have said before; have someone kill Putin … that man is insane.
… We are cooking meals as always … We’ve had beef and chicken curries; beef rendangs; an amazing Beef Wellington; chicken and steak salads; grilled sausages; hamburgers; lots of pasta and meat sauces; lasagna; meatballs; lots of different paninis (roast beef, spinach and ham, chicken, turkey, bacon and Swiss cheese, etc.); and Amish Chicken and Waffles – having that tonight.
We’ve finished Season 4 of ‘Manifest’ – I wasn’t crazy about the ending, it seemed to be a rush job for the writers. We started watching ‘Virgin River’ – kind of an American Telenovela about a big city nurse moving to the middle of nowhere in Northern California to get away from some traumatic experiences in her life. A little drama, a little romance, a little predictable – but on the whole enjoyable. Oh, and almost all the filming was done in British Columbia (mainly on Bowen Island, and some north of Chilliwack near Agassiz). On the Netflix side I finished rewatching ‘Babylon Berlin’ – just as good, if not better, than the two previous times I watched it. I also rewatched all 5 seasons of ‘Locked Up’ (Vis a Vis) – in my mind one of the best ever Spanish series on Netflix – written, produced, and created by Alex Pina – about the inmates and staff in a women’s prison. I just started rewatching ‘Money Heist’ (Casa de Papel) which is definitely the best series ever on Netflix – it became a worldwide phenom – and was also done by Pina.
On the NHL front – not much going on except for rounds of golf for hockey players.
On the MLB front – only about 6 more games left in the regular season. It’s going to be close for the Toronto Blue Jays and the Seattle Mariners to get a wild card spot. I figure the Jays will choke and Seattle squeezes in.
On to golf … Canadians continued to disappoint, only two – Nick Taylor and Cory Connors made the final FedEx Championship tournament. Taylor came in 24th for $550 K U.S. and Connors came in 26th for $540 K U.S. Viktor Hovland of Norway came in first (and first the week before at the BMW for $3.8 M) for a whopping $18M!! Not bad for a weeks work - $21.8 M, and he’s only 25 years old!!
NFL news – pre-season looked good, 2 wins one loss. First regular season game was a sloppy loss to the L.A. Rams – offense looked horrible, defense looked worse. However, second game was on the road in Detroit – an exciting nail biter in which Geno looked great (except for one bad play at the end of regulation) and Seattle won in overtime!! This weekend they will be playing at home against Carolina – who had the number one pick in QB Bryce Young but won’t be playing due to injuries – which should normally be an easy win, but Andy Dalton is the backup QB and he is 3 -1 against the ‘Hawks. Hopefully Seattle will pull it off.
Have a great and safe week … pray for Ukraine … we will see you in a bit!! 😊