….how is that even possible?
Today I posted an article about Weber’s in Orillia and almost immediately I started receiving notifications of ‘likes’ for the piece. When I checked my stats, however, the numbers didn’t make sense. The box that displayed which post was read and the number of views for each post showed that ‘Weber’s’ only had three views but received twelve ‘likes’. Can anyone explain to me how that happens?
…..or is it?
On this Canada Day weekend many cottagers who are heading north to Orillia and beyond will be making a pit stop at Weber’s, an Ontario landmark. All the years that I’ve been going to my cottage on Georgian Bay I’ve never been to Weber’s, mostly because it’s not on the way for me.
Last weekend I passed Weber’s on the way to a friends place and on the way home I decided I needed to stop at Weber’s, just to say that I’ve been there and experienced one of their ‘legendary’ burgers. 
Weber’s is a family run business that Paul Weber started in 1963. The burger hut became so popular that the Ministry of Transportation put up barriers between the south and north bound lanes on Highway 11 to keep people from crossing the busy highway. It was becoming a serious safety hazard. The barrier, unfortunately, seriously affected Weber’s business so they purchased a section of bridge from the CN Tower in Toronto and were given permission to erect it over the highway in 1983. To this day this is the only privately owned bridge, anywhere in Ontario, that spans a provincial highway. 
Travellers now can park on either side of the highway and have easy and safe access to Weber’s. Over the years the business has been passed on to Paul Weber Jr. and many new additions have been made to the property. There are two separate entrances and two separate grilling stations to reduce the line-ups and picnic tables have been set up in well kept park like settings. There is also a diner style car on the property if you want to eat indoors. 
I thought the line-ups would a problem for me but they have a very efficient system that gets you in and out very quickly. The burgers were good but I didn’t think they were any better than a Harvey’s burger or Southside burger. In fact these places have more options when it comes to toppings and choice of buns.
The organization has become so large that refrigerated box cars are on the property to store the meat and over 400 stores across Canada now sell Weber burgers. The weekend I went was before the long weekend in July, when the really busy summer traffic begins. I can only imagine that the line-ups will be considerably longer and the wait times as well. Would I stop there again? Maybe but I certainly wouldn’t go out of my way for a Weber’s burger. I know there are people out there that would disagree with me but a least I can say that I’ve been there, done that.
For more information about the history of Weber’s you can check out this link.
Cheers!
…… which do I take with me on my trip?
Some of you may have noticed that there were a few days where I didn’t post anything. One reason for this was that I misplaced my power cord for the laptop. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to practise on the iPad. Unfortunately I experienced a few glitches.
One of the difficulties that I had occurred when I tried to tried to put photos into my post. I had a lot of photos to choose from but for some reason many of the photos had changed when they went through the ‘cloud’. Multitudes of them only showed an enlarged area of concrete or the corner of a building. I really didn’t know what I was looking at.
The other problem that occurred was that the photos that appeared to be okay just wouldn’t let me place them where I wanted them or they changed sizes on me. Sometimes the text feature would freeze and I couldn’t type anything. Are these problems related to WordPress. Heaven forbid!
I’m not sure that I want to use the iPad as my main photographic device but I don’t know how to get my photos from my camera onto the iPad without putting them into my laptop first. I really don’t want to take both my laptop and the iPad. I think I may be able to use the camera’s cable to upload photos but I haven’t tried that yet.
Does anyone have experience with an iPad? Have you ever had any of these problems? I would really appreciate some input from my followers. I’ll keep playing with it. It would certainly weigh less than my laptop and be much easier to carry on the plane. If all else fails I can try making an appointment at the Genius Bar at Apple.
So that’s why I hadn’t written in a few days. I tried but to no avail. The last few days have been hectic and when I’d get home in the evenings, I was exhausted. I actually started this post last night but fell asleep near the beginning of it. I can finally say “SCHOOL’S OUT“.
…..a great video that Dorothy from Scotland shared with me this week
Dorothy from Jings and Things sent me an email this week with the link to this video. It looks like Scotland, in the very near future, will be joining the ever growing number of countries in the world that recognizes same sex marriages. Earlier this week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that legally married same-sex couples should get the same federal benefits as heterosexual couples and cleared the way for same-sex marriage in California. We can only hope that the remaining 37 states will give same sex couples the same rights.
A few months ago I shared with you the video of New Zealand’s parliament passing the bill that recognizes same sex marriages and how the visitor’s gallery erupted spontaneously into song.
Saturday, June 1st – Fun Fair
Saturday, June 8th – High School Reunion
Sunday, June 9th – Girls on the Run 5k
Wed, June 12th – West Conference Girls’ Soccer Finals
Thursday, June 13th – Forest of Reading Celebration
Saturday, June 15th – Opening the Cottage
Wednesday, June 19th – Spring Concert
The report cards were printed, proofread, reprinted, copied, signed and sent home today. The grade 5s had their farewell ceremony yesterday and today were away for their fun activity day. Today the rest of the school had their Fun Day and a colleague and I spent the morning clearing out the computer lab so that construction crews can come during the summer to remove the wall and enlarge the library.
I’ve returned 90% of all the artwork that students produced in my art classes and students have returned most of the books that they took out of the library. I’ve started removing the books from the shelves that will be moved during construction. Only one more day with the children and then the staff party, followed by one more day of meetings and closing down our classrooms for the summer.
…….busy,busy and only a few things left on my to do list. Phew it’s almost over and then I can start planning for our trip to Ireland.
….my grade 2s,3s and 4s loved this project
Even though we only have less than one week of school left, my students really wanted to finish their Picasso portraits. I love all of them. They are all so different and so very colourful. The ones that were started two weeks ago were painted with acrylic paint and the ones that were started only a few day s ago were completed with coloured sharpies.
I’ve always loved vibrant colours and when I see them on my walks I eagerly pull out my little camera and shoot away. I was delighted when I found out that Sue’s word of the week is ‘vibrant’.
To check out more vibrant photography go to http://suellewellyn2011.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/a-word-a-week-challenge-vibrant/
…. even if they are self generated
Discovered a great site today where you can create your own newspaper story. Thanks to Kate’s Creative Space for introducing this fun site. This could be an interesting activity to do with the kids at school.
My story headline is: ‘Teacher Blogs her Way into Retirement’.
To write your own story check out this link.
…. where does the time go?
It just seemed like yesterday when I started my classes almost 10 weeks ago. Tonight was our second last class and all my pieces have been fired. One piece needs to be glazed and I started a new piece which should also be ready to glaze on Thursday.
I was really excited to see the glazed pieces tonight. My first piece was a bit disappointing. It was much darker than I anticipated and it had a very flat finish. I’m going to paint another colour over it on Thursday to lighten it up. 
The plate and the bowl that I made I glazed with an apple green and than added a sapphire blue on top. I really liked how these two pieces turned out.
The last glazed pieces are my berry bowl and under plate. They were both made from a white clay and I applied a clear glaze to both pieces. This way the fruit that I add to the bowl will contrast nicely with the white.
My teacher, D, suggested that we make a new piece tonight and save our glazing for our last class on Thursday. I really wanted to try a new technique that involved rolling a ball of clay into a slab and then pressing a design into it. After that you cut out a base shape and build your walls with shapes that you cut in any pattern that you want. I cut out a bean shaped base and then started to layer my sides around the base. It was a lot of fun and allowed me to be a bit creative.
I hope it survives the firing. Now I need to figure out what colour to glaze it.
…..could this sign posted at the dock have had anything to do with it?
I’ve been going to my cottage for almost 30 years and we’ve never seen a bear, never mind two bears. One of the reasons is because the cottage is on an island and it takes 20 minutes by ferry boat to get from the mainland over to the island.
You can get a pretty good idea how far away the island is from this photo. The bear must have swum over in the fall. I can’t imagine her doing it in the spring with a young cub in tow. There was some speculation that she might have walked over on the ice but I always thought that bears hibernated in the winter.
Anyway, it was a beautiful day and even though it’s still early in the season there were very few people on our beach. I did hear that some of the cottagers with dogs purposely stayed away until the bear problem is resolved. I feel, however, that unless they become a nuisance, nothing will be done about their presence. It certainly made me think twice about going for a walk in the woods this weekend.
The view looking east and west down the beach, yesterday.
Mama Cormier 
