As Ian Sees It

     Tell you what:  Life on line ain't no bed of roses for those of us to whom the computer was introduced later in life.  I don't know the lingo.  I can't keep up with the updates.   With every new innovation, comes a completely new format.  You should have seen what I went through to get into my blog today.  Now that I have done it,  well chucks, it weren't nothing.  But the panic a few days ago when I couldn't get on the way I did for the last year?  It wasn't pretty.   But worse than the utter frustration,  and the complete extraction of any self respect or confidence you have, is the vulnerability for people like me.  Which brings me to the reason I am here today.      Last week I took my grand children to the Red Deer Public Library where they participate in Chess club.  They enjoy chess club and I would have loved to see them participate.   Parents are allowed to remain while ches...

    Out here in this corner of my home and native land, winter is a real thing.  It isn't like t.v. at all.  I have said it many many times,  but like winter it just keeps coming....... Winter can be six months.  It has often come in mid to late October and it has often stayed well into April.  In fact Our most vicious storms often come at the beginning of the "April Showers" month.        This year winter wasn't really, when defining the season.  It snowed in Mid October and then was warm and beautiful right up until Christmas.  We got a big fluffy snow fall the third week in December.  Not a lot.  Just enough for an Irving Berlin song.  It has been above or about freezing ever since......until yesterday.       It hit -30 yesterday morning.  Minus 43 this morning.  And that?  Is. Freaking. Cold.   We usually get a bout of that kind of cold every year.  It usually last...