The south end of the beach at Hua Hin, Thailand.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Hua Hin, Thailand.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Maldives on March 23rd.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Wanna free pair of Ray-Bans?

Anybody want a free pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses? All you have to do is fish them out of the Madawaska River!

We drove the 10 kms (6 miles) or so into Arnprior and went for a walk around the riverfront. The Madawaska River flows into the Ottawa River, and the town of Arnprior (pop 8,100) is built at those rivers. We walked down to where they had built a wall to hold the water when they release too much from the hydro dam upstream.


When I took the above picture, I had put my sunglasses on my head on top of my baseball hat. You can see how calm the water is, and I leaned over the wall to see if I could see any fish. And as my sunglasses fell off my head, I was able to watch them fall into the water!

See my sunglasses?

You can see my sunglasses, plain as day. But the wall I am leaning over is a good 6 feet above the water level, and the water is at least 6 feet deep here. So my sunglasses are at least 12 feet away! And you can't go for a swim in this area because it's right near the wall that the water is flowing over so quickly.

But, easy come, easy go. Funny enough, these sunglasses were ones that I found on a hiking trail in Nova Scotia last year around this time!

Where the Madawaska River meets the Ottawa river.

Arnprior has a nice beach on the Ottawa River.

And a fancy church. In Mexico, the doors would be wide open for anybody wanting to go in. Not so in Canada, even on a Sunday. Probably worried somebody might steal something!

So we go to buy me some more sunglasses. You can see from the pictures above that this was a sunglasses kind of day! On the main drag, there's a Giant Tiger discount store, and a Shoppers Drug Mart. We go in the Shoppers and I'm looking at their sunglasses that range in price from $14 to $24. And they're junk, at least compared to my Ray-Bans. One of the pairs I picked up to try on had a slight bend in the frame, so I tried to bend it back. They snapped in two! Junk! It was too funny. I ended up buying a pair for $10 at the Giant Tiger.

A few people were wondering how we download TV shows from the internet. I use the free version of the www.vuze.com player to watch and download the files, and I usually use www.kat.ph to find the files we want to watch. Yes, you have to be careful to only download files that are "checked", and there's a bit of a learning curve involved. But we've been using this system for over 3 years without a problem and we do not run any antivirus protection on our computers. It depends on your internet connection, but for larger files like movies we usually start the download when we go to bed and leave it running all night. Sometimes it takes an hour to download a movie, and sometimes it takes all night. 

Voting time...


Looks like we could break the 7,000 mark today!


14 comments:

  1. Maybe England will come through with a new pair of sunglasses for you. Mine are prescription so I really try to keep a close eye on them.

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  2. Giant Tiger...I haven't heard of that store name of years and years. We had a huge one back in our hometown. Thanks for giving me a stroll down memory lane.

    All you had to do is catch the fish that is wearing your sunglasses and you are back in business.

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    Replies
    1. This Gaint Tiger is a Canadian based chain store that started in Ottawa when I was a kid. They have only just started moving across Canada so it would not be related to the Giant Tiger in your hometown unless you grew up in Ontario, Canada but I am glad that we could bring back some memories for you.

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  3. I guess it was time for those glasses to "move on". Only one year per owner.
    I'll "see" your glasses though, and raise you a perfectly fine wristwatch that's at the bottom of Lake Ontario. I no longer wear a watch when I'm on the water. Just a learning thing.
    I use Utorrent for downloading stuff. Again, there's a learning curve and you have to watch the file format to know if something is fake or not. Works for us.

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  4. Been there done that more times than I can count. Problem with cheap glasses is that the lenses are cheap and they don't have all the UV ABCDEFG protection you need. But I sure do spend a lot of $$ on sunglasses having to buy a good pair every time they fall of my head or I set them down somewhere.

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  5. I lost a camera in the ocean way back when....I had to stop myself from jumping off the boat after them.

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    Replies
    1. Ouch that would hurt! I once had a camera in a boat and some sea water got into it, that was the end of that camera.

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  6. It is hard to find a good pair of sunglasses, too bad you lost the good ones.

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  7. Try eyebuydirect.ca

    Good quality, great prices.

    Cheers, Peter.

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  8. butterbean carpenterMay 21, 2012 at 1:09 PM

    Howdy R&K,
    Kevin, Kevin, Kevin, that's what those entanglement lanyards are for!
    When you have a pair of $150 glasses, it's wise to hang'em around your neck, no matter how geeky you look!! I know, it looks really 'cooool' to put'em atop your backward ballcap, but then they fall off
    into the river!!! Wear the string!!! Enjoying all of the great pics
    and the daytrips!!!

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  9. Ahhh time for them to be passed on to the next lucky owner. Wonder if someone has a long long pole with a hoop lock thing on one end?

    ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
    Karen and Steve
    (Our Blog) RVing: Small House... BIG Backyard
    http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kevin has been thinking of all kinds of ways to try to retrieve them. We're here for another three weeks so you never know, we might get them back yet!

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  10. sorry to hear about your glasses!!!..so close and yet so far!!

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  11. At least my Ray-Bans were accessible when they flew off my head (I swear, not my fault) and landed on the other side of a fence right in front of a mountain goat, which had no interest in a new pair of glasses :-))

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