RE: 3 hours, 29 minutes, 41 seconds*
Even though today has the shortest amount of daylight, it will still keep getting darker in the mornings for most of us. The further south you are, the later will be your darkest morning. For us, at 48deg north, the mornings will keep getting darker till about New Year's Day. The evenings though have been getting lighter for us since about Dec. 16th and even earlier for further south. Places at a latitude like Toronto, Portland Oregon, Minneapolis etc, have been getting lighter in the evenings since about Dec9th. The difference is slight, but those latter cities, and everywhere further south, should have begun to notice the difference already.
RE: A question regarding Weather and temperatures
There is also an effect with humidity with higher temperatures as well, although I don't quite understand it. Higher temps feel much hotter with higher humidity. New Orleans at 90F feels a lot hotter than Palm Springs at 90F. Also, if you walk into a shadow in Palm Springs, the temp will drop more than it will in New Orleans. I'm thinking that this is a REAL temp. drop and not just perception.
Year ago, when we lived in the Okanagan Valley, hot & dry in the summer, in south central BC, Mum & Dad visited us from the UK. I was going to show them around and Mum asked what the weather was going to be like. When I said the high eighties, she said that she wouldn't need her sweater. In the UK, that would be really hot! ( I can remember a headline from when I lived there- 'London sizzles in the 70s') However when we got down there, and we walked into the shadow of a building, it was quite chilly, and I got heck!
RE: A question regarding Weather and temperatures
There are a lot of factors at play here. A temperature given for any place only relates to where the thermometer is located. They are always located in a certain sized box, ventilated to an exact specification and painted with a certain kind of white paint. They are located , I think four feet above the ground, which I think has to be short cut grass. Any trees must be at least twice their own height away.
So if your local OFFICIAL temp is given as 39F, (The thermometer at the local radio station may be quite different from this) then the temp. on your driveway, in the sun could be getting close to 60F.
As others have said, humidity & the wind only change our perception of the temp. If it is 33F, and you put a cup of water on the roof of your car and drive at 70mph, the water will still not freeze, even though the windchill up there could be -20F.
RE: is it illegal
In this case about the toll roads, the CC would have no choice but to pay this fee as there would have been something in the rental agreement to allow them to do this, same as a speeding ticket.
As for the toll charges themselves, the HOV lanes on SR167 could be the only ones where this could have happened. On this road you can pay extra to drive in the HOV lanes without the requisite number of passengers. Could your 'toll' fee actually be an HOV fine?
RE: Use of the Apostrophe
Punctuation should go inside of the quotation marks.
Not if you're from the UK ! :)
I think that there is a big difference between common typos and the howlers that you often see on here. I have spelling problems myself on certain words, if I didn't have 'Firefox', I would not be able to post on any of these spelling threads! Deisel, satelites, thankfull are words I can never get right for some reason, there are many others.
I hope though that I never say "I seen it", "I like it to", "your right" or " feeling's" . The first one makes you look uneducated, where as the others often need to be reread to get the exact meaning.
RE: Use of the Apostrophe
I care about our English language & how it is spoke! ;)
Should not that be "how it is spoken"?
That's what the 'Winky' guy was for, just in case anyone thought that!
I'd better put TWO in next time, as the Irish say, "To be sure, to be sure"!
RE: Use of the Apostrophe
I don't buy it that it is only on a forum so who cares. It's sure a lot easier to be literate all the time than only when you have to.
As just a few on here have said, I care about our English language & how it is spoke! ;)
RE: is it illegal
If the merchant has put a charge through without your signature, you can always dispute it. The CC company will investigate it, however to see if the merchant is acting improperly or whether there is some justification for the charge. Smoking in a non smoking hotel room is a common one that is disputed, and normally the hotel will have your signature on something that says that they can do this.
I did a few of these when I worked for the bank and it always turned out that they had 'lit up' just as they were leaving the room, which is just enough to leave a smell in the room. I never had a case where there was an out & out denial so I never did get to find out what happens then.
RE: What engine will replace the Big block V-8 in Motorhomes?
I'm sure that we will be moving into smaller units with turbo diesels in about the 2L range. Smaller a/c units, fridges, plastic windows, etc will also be the norm in a few years.
I can also see a move to leaving your units at the resort and driving there in your Smart car! ( I'm kidding about the Smart Car;)
RE: After Alaska Cruise
Just a tip. WE have always found that the scenery between Kamloops & Jasper, with the exception of the part closest to Jasper & Mt Robson, quite boring. When we did our last trip, we drove from Banff to Jasper & then back on the same road, rather than do the Jasper-Kamloops stretch. Banff- Jasper is prob. the most scenic road anywhere so to to see it both ways is a good idea.
RE: Tim Horton's coffee
Tim Horton's soup combos are a great deal. A nice bowl of soup, bread roll & butter, cup of great coffee and a deluxe doughnut for a little over $4! If you both like the same sandwich, then ask for it supersize and for an extra $2, you get an extra sandwich! The supersize is twice as long as the regular, and yes , they do cut it in half.
RE: How is the weather where you are?
Here on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, it is green right now and 46F at 9pm. They are forecasting a green, sunny Christmas Day with an expected high of 41F. We only get a white Christmas about once every 10 years and snow every other winter. The worst thing about our weather is the gloomy wet winters, with only a little sun. Our summers though are warm, not hot and very dry with low humidity!
RE: After Alaska Cruise
A lot of Europeans rent motorhomes and tour around BC & Alberta. You can also drive from Vancouver to Calgary in 12 hrs, so you certainly see a lot of ground in a two week period. A friend from Wales came over and we did a five day trip from Vancouver to just beyond Banff and back a slightly different way. We moteled it & had no problems getting reservations about a week ahead. The other alternative would be to fly into Vancouver & fly back from Calgary. You can find details eg on Air Canada's website by choosing 'multiple destinations'.
RE: Disney World hints
The best way to see Disneyworld, although not applicable in this case, is to do what we did, is to visit there when you have a family member working there.
In the World Showcase area of EPCOT, the various international pavilions are staffed by young people from those countries. Not officially of course, I did read that Disney first tries in the Orlando area to find recently arrived 'foreign nationals'. They visit the various colleges & universities around the world and solicit recent graduates from hospitality type courses. This is how our daughter was able to work at the Canadian Pavilion there.
Of course we had to go visit and got a great hotel room in Kissimmee, for I think $25 a night, in August. Our daughter got us passes for all the parks plus some for the non Disney parks there, like Universal Studios. There were always cast members (Disney's term for their employees) that had spare passes so we went into the parks multiple times. I got to know a really nice guy at the hotel who had won his employers prize of a trip to Orlando from one of the French speaking Caribbean Islands. Trouble was that his prize did not include any tickets to the parks and they couldn't afford to go!
My daughter, who didn't meet this guy, said afterwards that had she have known , she could have easily got one of her friends to sign them in.
We left 'The Magic Kingdom' (known as 'Disneyland' in LA) to the end, by which time we were parked out, so we let our kids & friends go off together and we'd just kick back and have a few beers at one of the bars there. Of course, the Magic Kingdom is the only one NOT to sell booze!
RE: Checkbook system phased out in Britain. What about here ?
It doesn't cost a business anything to deposit a check.
It certainly did when I worked in the bank. A charge would go through based on the average number of cheques deposited in a trial period. There was also a charge for the amount of cash deposited as well if it was a significant amount. This was only for business accounts, but we had procedures in place for business accounts that were run in a personal name. At the time I left, they were working on plugging a few loopholes as some were depositing their cheques & cash directly onto their personal visas and credit lines and then switching it over to their business accounts.
Of course , this source of revenue for the banks may be something that they aren't bothering to collect any more. :W
RE: Checkbook system phased out in Britain. What about here ?
The only time we ever see anyone write a cheque in a store is when we are in the US. Of course , they were way behind us in debit card usage and that may explain it.
We still use cheques to give the kids their Christmas & birthday gifts and also to a lottery club that I have been in for years.
RE: RGV Cold ??
I was just reading through this thread with interest. Our weather is about normal for this time of the year but I see that even though we are just about an hour after sunrise, our temperature is a degree warmer than Brownsville, which is a few hours later.
Amazing when you consider that we are thousands of miles to the north of you in the 'Great White North!' ;)
I just don't understand why all you guys don't drive a bit further south into Mexico to warm up!
RE: movie Invictus
At some point we will only have computer generated movies without ANY humans at all.
I have often thought this myself. How long do you think it will be before this happens, that is a CG movie that is indistinguishable from live actors.
I suppose in a way it has already happened with many of the distant actions scenes being CG, but we are a way from the close ups being done this way. I estimate it will be 5-10 years.
RE: movie Invictus
I haven't seen the movie but wonder how they deal with the fact that it is an American movie aimed at American audiences about a sport that many know little about?
Or is it that the game itself is not an important part of the story?
(Where I come from, 'Football' is not NFL or CFL, and no it's not soccer either, where I come from, 'Football' is Rugby!)
RE: Year End Christmas Letters
I didn't do one this year, but I have sort of done them in the past. What I did is to do a letter that goes over all the important things that have happened over the year. Then I go back & change the original one to apply to whomever I am sending it to. This way, everyone gets a different letter and everyone is personalised in some way, it doesn't really look like a 'Christmas' letter, and it save me a lot of typing over sending a complete original letter to each one. Of course , I have to ensure I don't include any Welsh Idioms in the letters to our Canadian friends or relatives or include 'North Americanisms' to our European friends & relatives.
I do this as we have received obvious Christmas letters in the past and don't like them.
