Conference kaosws::canada

OK, I'll start with one or two of the 'numerous questions' I have:

Where is Sarnia (other than in Lambton County, the location of which I don't
know, either)?  What are its major attractions or points of interest?

I'm somewhat familiar with the Maritime Provinces, specifically New Brunswick,
as my wife is originally from Moncton, and I've been to Montreal (where most
Americans think Canada begins and ends) several times, but I've never heard of
Sarnia.  From your initial entry, it sounds like a place worth 'noting'.

Thanks,

Kip (originally_from_Maine_now_living_in_Massachusetts)

    We want first to welcome you to the Sarnia conference and thank
    you for your interesting and provocative question.
    Your previous knowledge of Moncton and Montreal will be of
    very little help. From what we heard these localities are also in
    Canada, but there stop the similitude.
    Although some call Sarnia "the Houston of the South of the North",
    we prefer to compare it too Lake Wobeggon (Minnesota).
    But enough poetry and let's get to the facts:
    Sarnia not only is in Lambton County (which you already new), but
    on top of that is south of Point Edward most of the time, and
    permanently north of Corruna. It has also been seen recently west
    of Clearwater and on clear day can be witnessed east of Port Huron.
    Some say it is a legend....some call it a dream...we call it home. 
                                                                      

    Sarnia, Ontario. Home of the ______________!, gateway to the
    ___________!
    
    /cal

    Sarnia, Ontario.  Home of FIBREGLASS CANADA!, gateway to ...uh,
    ...uh,  Sarnia!  yea...that's the ticket....
    
    

Ah, yes, Sarnia!  

When I was growing up in Toledo, Ohio, in the days of top-40 AM radio, we
always used to listen to: 

			C K L W    ! ! !

in Windsor.  Athough my memories of this station generally consist of Mo-town 
music and typical newscasts:

	"Another brutal bloody murder in Redford Township!"

I also remember advertisements for various businesses in Sarnia.

It takes me back...

Russ Schwartz.

    Funny guy,eh?
    
    The exact quotation is:
    
    Sarnia: Home of William's beef parlour, gateway to heartburn...

    We want to congratulate the author of note 53.4 for entering the
    1st reply showing a real knowledge of the economic realities of
    Sarnia. 
    
    Dear M(s/rs/r) Molloy, you just won yourself a voucher for a free
    lunch at William's beef parlour.

    We have another winner who in a single nostalgic note (53.3) just recreated
    with accuracy the cultural climate of the area:
    Yes M(s/rs/r) Shwartz, the beat goes on and one can still listen
    to "Blues at the Red Rooster Lounge" or "Manbo Express" between
    news update about drug busts in a day care center in Wayne County
    or a 10-victim shootout in a kindergarden class of Detroit. One can relax
    though by switching to canadian programming ( "fresh air", "Gilmour's
    album", etc...and listen to the latest results of the Ladies Curling
    Tournament...)...M(s/rs/r) Shwartz jus won a lunch a the Bunsen
    Burner!

    As the official moderator of the Sarnia Conference in the Canada
    notes, I want to thank you all for making this conference the
    tremendous success it happens to be. In a few day we have managed
    to generate a total of 9 notes and replies.                      
    
    In Canada notes, the record in number of replies is detained at
    present by the Conference "what's wrong with the leafs?":31 replies.
    the subject of our conference is of course more difficult and does
    not cater to the "fast-reply-between-2-decmails" crowd...it takes
    some though and some concentration to become a regular on the Sarnia
    conference !...nethertheless we are convinced that the Sarnia-set
    will adress the challenge and someday, in a fiscal year soon, we
    will reach the 32 replies!...keep on with the good work!
                                                   

    
    	Does anyone know how the Northern Vikings are doing?? You Sarnia
    experts should know about them.
    	At any rate, now that I've added to the replies, 32 doesn't
    seem so impossible somehow.
    
    	Glenn ;-)

re: .8

Thanks for the prize!  Although I now live in India-no-place, our area 
headquarters is in Detroit.  Though I have tried to avoid it, I know sooner or 
later I will have to go there for training, a silly meeting, etc.  I will look 
forward to escaping to Canada during my free time (if there is any--my last 
invitation was to attend a 12-hour presentation!).  Being a jazz fan, I also 
like blues somewhat, and will want to check out the place you mentioned.

Also, I'm hoping to do some touring in Canada this summer.  I just got a VIA 
timetable, and would love to go from Toronto to Vancouver, with side trips.  
(This is big bucks, but it's been ten years since I've taken a REAL vacation, 
so I'm trashing my budget).  Perhaps I can check out Sarnia, then.

Russ Schwartz.

    re. 7
    gee, who da thunked it!  i would rather win a voucher to 'williams
    fish and chips' in haligonia (next to olands brewery), but what
    the hey.  where do i go to claim my prize.....sarina? ugh
    
    all i can recall about sarina was figreglass canada came to nova
    scotia tech looking for engineers......one fool went!  i assume
    that FC owns sarina.
    
    regards.....john

    Dear M(s/rs/r) Molloy,
    
    If you whish to renounce to your prize, we can accomodate you: just
    confirm your decision.
    We want also to inform you that Fiberglass Canada not only does
    not own Sarnia, but barely owns itself (as a subsiduary of Owens
    Corning which is still trying to avoid filing under chapter 11).
    We just terminated their service contract on their PDP-8 , which
    gives you an idea of their importance in our lives...

    Mr. Dzialowski:
    
      As a former "DEC tech" that worked in Sarnia, you mention a PDP
    8 at Fiberscratch.  As I recall, it was a PDP 1104 that ran the
    process of making the scratch.  It was the only PDP with a 24 hour
    7 day contract when the Sarnia office was starting.
    
      Sarnia??  great place when the wind is from the north.  The lake
    makes the summers wonderful!!!

    Well,
    
    actually FC don't own Sarnia.  Dow, Polysar, Imperial Oil....maybe.
    FC....not quite.
    
    Enjoy your points

    Sounds like you're familiar with the place.  I've been here six
    months as Junior Sales rep.  Tell me more.
    
    John

    service contract on a pdp 8 or 11/05 that must have accounted for
    the four point slide on tuesday!  is there anything you can do get
    it back or possibly they might be in the market for a 8840.  sounds
    like you got some might fine companies there in beautiful scarnia.
    
    btw.  hold on to that voucher you never know!
    
    regards....MR molloy
    

    You're right ,Neil! It was an 11/04..they become rare these days.
    This one is not going to be replaced...but we upgraded the one at
    EssoChem with an 11/53...by the way, What are you doing these days?

        Neil manages a group of ex-Sarnia folks whose only job is to
        track every 11/04 in Canada.  This is very time consuming work for
        them and he weeps every time he hears that we have lost one.
        
        We expect he will not have a job in 3 years.
        
        Regards
        
        Garry
        

    Is Sarnia the native word for "home of the petro-chemical industry
     or does it have another meaning

    This conference is becoming the busiest forum of the Canada notes.
    We wish to congratulate Neil Baxter on his promotion to the 11/04
    survival group. When he'll be over his present assignement ,he should
    be ready to take over the IP11 survival engineering group...Sarnia
    is supposed to be the largest GIA site for the product!
    
    We are starting a reseach project on the ethymology of the name
    "Sarnia"...first results just came in and it seems it is Native
    for "I-am-glad-this-is-not-Wallaceburg"...Experts are still arguing...

    Once upon a time, (when I worked for Field Service), I was helping out
    (by phone) on a call at Lambton County Board of Ed. Said customer
    site was allegedly in "Sarnia", someplace just east of the St. Clair
    river. Matters went from bad to worse with the call, and I ended
    up going on-site from the vast Western Ontario District Office
    Headquarters, in Burlington. I was given directions to "Sarnia",
    or more accurately, the customer site. All along, there were no
    road signs to "Sarnia". In fact, at London, all signs of civilisation
    ceased to exist. Never mind it was pitch-black out there - not even
    a street lamp. Ready to give up the odessey, I came to the exit leading
    to the customer. Again, no signs for "Sarnia". No sign of life now,
    intelligent or otherwise. 
    
    Arriving at the customer site, nobody mentioned "Sarnia". I worked
    and worked, but could not get the super reliable VAX 8530 to boot
    even so much as DS. My relief came in the morning. I left in an
    advanced state of exhaustion, and the next thing I knew, I was driving
    past London on the way home. At first, I thought I had been in a
    nightmare. But, when I got paid two weeks later, I knew it was not
    the case. I can only attribute this to the fact that "Sarnia" does
    not exist in the real world. It must be a myth. Therefore, I am
    forced to (regretfully) close this topic. ("conference" to those
    on cheap drugs). All contributors will have to be drug tested in
    the near future. We can't have everyone going around hallucinating,
    believing myths are real life, and vice-versa, all the time. However,
    if you would like to contribute this interesting legend to the
    "Reader's Digest", I'm sure they could use it on one line somewhere.
    
    

    At the risk of further propagating this note, I feel that I must
    voice my feelings regarding it.
    
    It was always my impression that a "conference", in NOTES terms,
    was a collection of notes or "topics".  Using this terminology,
    the base note, to which this is a reply, is in fact a note and not
    a conference.  Of couse, if you look at the notes and replies that
    have been written in this conference during the last week or so,
    you would tend to think that this is the "Sarnia conference" and
    not the "Canada conference".
    
    I'll admit that writing a note on Sarnia is a somewhat humourous,
    if not twisted, thing to do.  However, one or more replies each
    day on this topic tends severely reduces the beneficial effect that
    the other Canadian content in this conference provides me with over
    my morning coffee.  Not only that, but I am severely worried that
    some unsuspecting person might actually make Sarnia the focal point
    of a vacation!
    
    Scott (who has lived a significant distance from Sarnia for less
           than two years)

    Mr. Newman:
    
      True, it is a "conference", but it can share information to those
    who seek it.
    
                                               Baxter
    
    P.S.   Ask and you will "get it".
    

    
    
    I'm sure there is more to this country of ours than sarnia. 

I have no problems at all with this discussion on Sarnia.  As I mentioned 
above, I grew up in Toledo.  For years and years there was a discussion as to 
whether or not a penninsula in northeast Toledo was actually in Michigan or 
Ohio (in fact, it was called the "Lost Penninsula").

This, along with your inability to locate Sarnia, has led me to formulate two 
new methaphysical theories:

(1) The "Erie Triangle".  This area, bounded by Cleveland, Toledo, and Sarnia, 
is known in infamy because entire towns (such as Sarnia and Lost Penninusula) 
have literally vanished from the face of the earth.  

(2) The "Chevy's of the Gods".  Obviously the reason no one can find Sarnia is 
because it's where intergallactic travelers arrive and depart from Earth.  
Their cloaking device is so effective that it hides not only the space ships, 
but also the town.  

Russ Schwartz.

    Now I understand!  I just don't take enough drugs to fully appreciate
    this topic.
    
    Scott

    I was wondering if there is a personnel office in Sarnia.  I have
    checked the jobs book and haven't been able to find anything.
    
    I would appreciate it if someone could tell me how I could transfer
    to such a place with sun, surf and cheap drugs.
    
    Paul
    
    P.S I've always wanted to have dinner at the Bunsen Burner

    How is Sarnia's bid for the 1992 winter olympics coming?  I can
picture the Jamaican bobsled team barreling down a run on a toxic waste
heap, padded with fluffy white petrochemical materials.... 

    And of course the futrure  NHL franchise, the Sarnia Byproducts,
can skate right on the concrete, coated with lubricants... 

    I think this would be a better name for the franchise..
    
    Glenn 8^)

re: .29
>    How is Sarnia's bid for the 1992 winter olympics coming?

I heard that Sarnia tried to get the winter games this year, but lost out
to Calgary, so it's doubtful they'll try again in '92.  Can anyone confirm
this?

Also, how far from the center of town is the nearest man-made object?
(Someone else asked me, so I'm trying to find out for them.  I'll admit, I'm
curious, too.)

thnx,

Kip

	YES! The latest news flash from our National Enquirer Foreign 
Correspondent Bureau in South Porcupine has informed me that EXPO '99
will be held in SARNIA!! National Enquirer reporters have believed for 
some time that Extra Terrestrials have been planning to unveil their 
secret inter-galactic space port, which resides in Sarnia, and are gearing
for the de-cloaking at the 1999 World's Fair!!

We wish to maintain some standards reqarding the quality of the
    informations one can find in this conference,and to start we want
    to kill some rumors coming from recent replies:
    1- Sarnia was not a considered site for the winter Olympic (too much
       snow and sun, not enough wind).
    2- Sarnia was not considered either for Expo ( Sarnia is not as well
       known as Vancouver or Knoxville...)
    
    BUT SARNIA IS THE SELECTED SITE FOR DECWORLD 88 (as a backup, should
    Cannes disappear into the sea).

    Scott,
    If you are reading this notes during your early morning coffe break,
    it tells us a lot about working habits in New-England...In Sarnia
    we do not 1)have any time for coffee breaks, 2) have time to play
    with notes during regular hours. We indulged in this conference
    for few minutes, just before going home late in the evening.
    If you want canadian content, go read the CMR21 notes or the Toronto
    Sun. Also, it does not take any drugs to believe that Sarnia exists
    (somewhere...sometime...). Some people even believe that MicroVax
    3500 exists...anything is possible !!!C

    I have noticed that there have been a number of "free" lunches given
    away by this conference.  What ever happened to the "COFFEE CUP".
     Is it still there?  Now that is/was a real eatery.  It was the
    only place in town where the knifes and forks didn't match.  If
    you wanted to sit, you had to wait until one of the three tables
    was empty.  You were never charged for the dried food left on the
    plate after it was washed!!  Now that's service!

        Re .33:  
        
        The one I heard was "in a world that believes that Willie 
        Nelson can sing, everything is possible ..." !  But you're 
        right, Willie is getting stiff competition from the 
        microVAX 3500.
        
        Sarnia, Sarnia ...  I left Kitchener-Waterloo in December 1985:
        isn't that around then that they had found a dioxyn or PCB
        blob in the St.Clair River off Sarnia, and divers had to go 
        in a suck it up ?  Or was it Windsor ?  (My geography on 
        these outposts of civilisation is not very good anymore ...)
        
        Now, at least if Sarnia had a place like Lulu's ... fair dinkum !
        

    The blob was found in the St-Clair river somewhere near Dow, Polysar
    and Imperial Oil sites None of these site produces or uses dioxyn
    which was found in the blob. The closest users of the stuff would
    pulp and paper mills on northern Lake Huron or Lake Superior. Anyway
    Dow as corporate citizen cleaned up the stuff and the companies
    along the river are since monitoring the water.

    Do I sense a slowdown in the posting activity in the "Sarnia" topic.
    Did Scott Newman complaints convince you of dropping out...
    Was any of your questions left unanswered?  Do we need to diversify
    on the topic (like adding comments on Chatham or Walllaceburg) ?
    Let us know...and keep on sending these replies!

    re:  personal comments
    
    Believe it or not, my original reply was intended to be half serious
    and half tongue-in-cheek.  Either I didn't convey that impression
    properly, or my attempted humour is too subtle for this medium.
    
    Creating this note was a humourous thing to do.  Even a number of
    the replies are humourous, but how long can it go on before it ceases
    to be clever and becomes rediculous?
    
    As a Canadian expatriate, I was pleased to see that someone created
    a CANADA conference because I would like to at least read, if not
    participate in, discussions on Canadian topics.  I also feel that
    such a conference is important to help Digital employees around
    the world understand Canada better.
    
    There is nothing wrong having some fun through notes such as this
    one.  However, I think that people will eventually give up on a
    conference where 90% the activity over the last several weeks has
    been on the "Sarnia topic".  I wouldn't like to see that happen.
    
    As for the personal comments concerning work habits, etc...  It
    is generally considered poor form, if not bad "noting ettiquette",
    to make unsolicited and derogatory comments about a fellow noter.
    
    Scott

Scott,
    I was joking too, and I am truly sorry if I infringed on the etiquette.
    My usual dealing with notes is in read-only mode, and this was my
    first shot at an active participation...let me bare witnes that
    your work habits are above and beyond what is required by your job
    description!...Anyway I'll keep feeding this topic whenever I have
    an opportunity to do so and I'll try to feed it with sgnificant
    news:....i.e:
    Did you know that what remains of the conservative caucus at the
    provincial parliament is headed by Andy Brand, MPP for Sarnia.
    The federal government just granted $ 5 million to the Institute
    for Oil and Chemical Industry studies (headed by Dow, essoChem,and
    polysar). Money is to be spent funding research on various topics
    in Universities and private R&D labs. the Sarnia francophony week
    ended as huge success, more than 500 attended the various activities
    organized for the french speaking community...etc...etc...
    More after I get the next issue of the Sarnia Observer!
    

	I would like to take this time to apologize for the previous apology.
It started out okay but then it got to serious and I'd just like to set the 
record straight. I think we all deserve a pat on the back for all the clever 
noting that's been going on in this Sarnia topic. So I hope that you can accept
my apology on behalf of the previous apology.

Yours in true apologeticobjectivenessnidditty,

Glenn

    I have an idea!  The sequel to the "Sarnia topic" could be the "Windsor
    topic"!  After all Sarnia does have its nice spots, but Windsor...
    
    Scott ;-)

    Newman:
    
      Tell the true, your jealous!!!  You want to take part, but your
    waiting for a city that you know...well go to Windsor!!

    I think you on to something  with that Chatham topic! What famous
    Indian chief was killed in a battle at what is now Tecumseh Park
    in Chatham?

    Custer ?

    Neil,
    
    No news on the "Coffee Cup".  Still searching.  Now if had asked
    about the bunsen burner.....

    As moderator of the Sarnia conference I suspect Scott Newman is
    not listening right now so we can start pretending we're in a "Cheap
    Beer Joint"
    

    John,  
    
    I do not think that Scott would mind being in a "Cheap Beer Joint".
    Scott express his nostalgic craving for "Canadiana" of any sort...and
    I am sure that includes the products from our provincial breweries.
    South of Detroit ,they do not have beers of any sorts (except for
    Stroh in Detroit).
    Scott, on your next visit to Sarnia please collect the 6-pack of
    "Classic" you just won!

    Mr. Moderator, I am too listening (lurking in the shadows you might
    say).  Its just that I read a lot more notes that I write.
    
    Louis, you are right!  Not only that, but you are my friend for
    life (real beer, especially Classic, talks).
    
    I wouldn't mind being in a "Cheap Beer Joint" (obviously Louis
    remembers me).  In fact, I had lunch in one in Nashua, NH, yesterday.
    It is called "Stan's Place". It is one of those places where you ask
    for a "beer", not for any particular brand name.  Of course, the beer
    that you get is the usual mosquito p___ that prevails around here, not
    the real beer that is available in the Canada.
    
    Scott "beam me up, there ain't any real beer here" Newman 

    re .46
    
      Talk to me of the Bunsen Burner.  I ate there EVERY noon for 1.5
    years.  This was the closest lunch bar the the "valley".  I figure
    that my system can take anything after putting up with that food
    for that long.
    
                                           Iron guts....
    

    As far as iron guts go, as moderator I take no offence.  Louis might
    feel differently since he eats 4 breakfast's each week at the burner.
    
    Are eggs as good for you as Louis implies ?

    Louis:
    
      My hat is off to you.  If this is true about your eating habits,
    you are much tougher than I though.  
    
      Not only can he breath the air,, he can eat the food!!
    
                                   Still recovering...
    

    I keep this youthful body in the top shape that everybody admires
    and envies, by sticking to a very strict diet:
    No fresh fruits or vegetable
    Dairies only if aged and fermented under strictly controlled conditions
    (the trunk of my car for a summer week generate one of the best
    extra old and sharp cheddar)
    As much bacon and eggs as you want (pan-fried of course)
    If you cannot follow this diet because of the stringent requirements,
    a daily breakfast at the bunsen burner is the next best hing...     

    Sarnia is bursting with joy all other the place since the community
    learned that the moderator of this topic,John Coupland that we all
    admire and respect, got engaged last sunday. From what the gossip
    say it was very romantic and the other party accepted his proposal,
    which is kind of nice. He gave away a ring and he got deeper in debt.   
    Now a few details on the other party: It's a girl and her name is
    July. John plans to pay for the ring with his Sales Bonus (it's
    a cheap ring, I guess) and to have the wedding party during DEC100
    1989, before taking Julie on Honeymoon wherever the DECathlon trip
    is going. It sounds like safe planning and I am sure you will all
    join me in wishing the best of luck to the newly engaged.

    I start feeling alone in this topic. Is the thrill gone?
    In an attempt to revive the "Sarnia topic", I suggest we declare
    it a designated smoking area...

    re .53
    
      Sir:
    
      Your opinion on the shape of your "body" is something that you
    and John can talk about in privite.  This conference isn't the place.
    If you like, I can give you the address of the National Geographic
    Society.  They might be interested in running a program on "The Physical
    Effects Of Living In Sarnia.

    re .54
    
      John:
    
      Is this the same girl that hung out at the River Port Inn??
    Or was that the Happy Valley??
    
                                        Minus TWO rings
    

Suppose, due to some catastrophic geologic event, the St. Clair river shifted 
and Sarnia suddenly found itself in Michigan.  What do you think would happen 
then--

-- The US and Canada would sign a treaty declaring it never existed?
-- Sarnia would declare itself a soverign country?
-- Nobody would notice because nobody has ever been able to find it?

Russ Schwartz.

    The real truth????
    
    The beer would be weaker, but cheaper!!!
    

    If the geologic phenomenon mentionned in 53.58 happened the main
    consequence would be that Digital staff in Sarnia would be working
    for the US north central area and therefore the standards
    in Sales and Service would have to be revisited to accomodate the
    exceptional performance we are used to deliver. This could be done
    in three different ways:
    1)we keep our job titles ,get a huge raise, but everybody else get
    a business cards that says "marketing" if they are in Sales or
    "complaints department" if they are in Service, this way there is
    no confusion.
    2)Sarnia become an area of its own and we all become VP of something
    or other.
    3)The Canadian Navy comes to the rescue, we capture Michigan, Indiana
    and perhaps also part of Illinois. The whole thing becomes the Sarnia
    Area and we all become VP of something or other...
    You'd better surrender now while we're still open to negociation!

    From the Boston Globe Sunday April 10, 1988.
    
    "Marcel Dionne's younger brother can put the puck in the net too.
    At 17, Gilbert Dionne is already showing impressive scoring flair
    - 36 goals and 48 assists in 38 games - in his second season with
    the Junior B Niagara Falls Canucks.
    
    But the young winger had a game last Wednesday he'll never forget.
    
    He scored seven goals and assisted on three others as his team beat
    Sarnia".

	Does the Boston Globe relate the season of the Digital Sarnia
    curling team? (nobody from DEC in the team, we just sponsor a group
    of customers from various companies and they did pretty well in
    the Labbatt's Challenge)

    
    I hate to inform those who contribute to this Sarnia note that the
    "What's wrong with the Leafs" note is 30 replies ahead of this one.
    How does this make you feel? Happy? Sad? Angry? There is still so
    much that needs to be said about Sarnia, let's no leave it unsaid!
    Besides, Sarnia must certainly be more interesting than the Leafs!
    
    Glenn who_is_not_sure_how_he_feels_about_the_whole_thing

re: .63
    
>>>    I hate to inform those who contribute to this Sarnia note that the
>>>    "What's wrong with the Leafs" note is 30 replies ahead of this one.

I really liked the official documentation of the existence of the Sarnia hockey 
team in the article from the Boston Globe.  For a city whose existence is in 
doubt, I believe we need to document every part of it we can.  

(Don't feel bad Ontario people!  We Hoosiers have the same problem with
Evansville.  Some people think it's in Kentucky or Illinois.  Others think it's
in another country). 

So, I urge all readers to quote any articles or cite any other references to 
Sarnia we can.  For example, if Sarnia has a radio or TV station, list its call 
letters and frequency so we can listen to/watch it if we come within range.
Or, if the Detroit yellow pages contains a listing for some Sarnia business, we 
should mention that.  (Everyone KNOWS Detroit exists, though some might wish it 
didn't!)  Or, if you can cite some itinerary, like "Huron Boat Lines, steamer 
from Sarnia to Moose Antler twice daily on weekends, no winter service."

You get the picture...  So come on people, let's get cracking and put Sarnia on 
the map!  We'll have more than the "Leafs" note in no time...

Russ Schwartz.

    re .64
                        
    I cann't agree more.  If we really want to hear from Sarnia, there
    is a sure way.  Bomb highway 402 and #7.  This would mean that the
    Sarnia DEC people would be trapped.  This would cut off any road
    travel to the real world. (what would John do without a weekend
    in London??)  We could leave the bridge intact, who would want to
    flee to Port Huron??  If Louie is really interested, get the Sarnia
    engineers interested in this conference.  Then we could hear the
    "real" poop.  Summer is coming...which end of the park is going
    to offer the best view of the bathing suits this year?  Come on
    Louie...where is the history??  Isn't the Sarnia area known as the
    Chemical Valley because it was the first major re-fining area in
    North America??  Ask some of the "natives", there are enough of
    them in the engineering group.
    
                        Only there for 2 year...but knows that there
                        is alot

    Neil,
    Good news for the 11/04 survival group: Fiberglass is buying a small
    warehouse management system from an OEM in windsor. They found out
    that an 11/53 is integrated in the system and they want the OEM
    to sell the system without the 53 because they "already have a machine
    they can use for that: the 11/04"!!!! ... 

    Louie:
    
      Does this mean that there was a "lost" sale at Fiberscratch?? 
    If you want some pointers on closing the sale, perhaps you should
    talk with Randy in the LOO office.  It is sad to see that this had
    to be filled by an OEM form the terrible place called Windsor. 
    Maybe we should put a sales rep there.  Any takers Louie??
                               
                                    Able to close...

    This is my first reply on NOTES, so please bear with the errors.
    
    Many of you have a picture of SARNIA without your knowledge.  Pull
    out a Canadian ten dollar bill and behold Sarnia.  If I am correct
    the picture is of DOW Chemical on the left and POLYSAR on the  
    right (Butyl #4).  Personnaly, I am not sure I would want a petro-
    chemical bank as a symbol of Canada, but it does show the import-
    ance of OIL to all of Canada.
    
    Did you know, that Petrolia (south of Sarnia) was the beginnings
    of oil production in North America, and I believe ESSO.
    
    AND NO, I AM NOT FROM SARNIA, but my wife is from Mooretown.

    men! ...if I had a 10$ bill I would not be in Sarnia!
    Somebody in the office has seen a 10$ note once and confirms your
    story.
    Petrolia was the the first operating oil drilling site in Canada
    and the birthplace of Imperial Oil not Esso. Esso hold the control
    of Imperial Oil but was born has Standard Oil of New-Jersey. After
    the anti-trust ruling of 19xx, the Standard Oil was broken in multiple
    smaller outfit entitle to use the name Standard Oil within the limits
    of their initial distribution geography some other name being required
    for general use ( Esso/Exxon, Amoco, Sohio etc...).
    

    Mr. Dzialowski,
    
    I congradulate you on your knowledge of Petrolia and local Lambton
    County history.  Are you from Sarnia?  
    
    I thought every Sarnian, who was a credit to the late Major Saddy,
    had a picture of Sarnia on their wall, ie the back of a ten dollar
    bill.
    
    If you had ten dollars, were would you move to, Corunna or luxorious
    Reeces Corners.
    
    Before, I make any more comments do you know "Jacques", the local
    mafia.  For those who do not know, Jacques made his fortune selling
    concrete at the Montreal Olympics and MOVED TO SARNIA TO RETIRE.

    The results are in and the Sarnia/Windsor Field-Service unit is
    ranked #3 in Canada, based on customer satisfaction survey.
    It is to be noted that #2 and #1 are respectively Kitchener and
    Burlington, which makes South Western Ontario #1  District!
                                  

        I wanted to retire to Queensland or Tahiti, but now that I
        know that Sarnia is on the 10-dollar bill, that changes all
        my plans !!   
        
        :-)
                

retirement plans in Sarnia:
    
    before you do anything foolish, check that you can afford the
    membership fees for the local golf clubs...

    Louie:
    
      How can you let all this 10 dollar stuff go by?  When was the
    last time that the air was clear enough to give you a view of the
    stacks?  Forget the golf...I hit a ball once, and the poor thing
    went into the "fog" and was never seen again.  Louie...what is your
    chip shot like on the "DOW GRASS".
    
                                                Back and swinging
    
                                                           Baxter
    

It saddens me that this conference has been idle since May.  I have
just returned from an extended leave and was overjoyed to notice
a notes conference on my home town.  I was born in good old Sarnia 
General, though we lived just 2 miles (~5 km.) north of Wilkesport 
which is east of Sombra and south east of Mooretown, Corunna etc.  I
also had the honour of attending Wallaceburg District Secondary School.

It's enjoyable reading the impressions and sarcasm of you newcomers to 
the Petroleum Valley, but if anyone would like the real scoop - I'll
be happy to comply.

Anne :-)

    You noticed,I am sure, that the sarcasms were originated by people
    outside of Sarnia.
    Those in Sarnia just enjoy the local way of life (proximity to
    customer sites, easy parking, nice lake, nice golfing, easy access
    to Detroit, etc...) as well as a growing market share which supplies
    everything required by one's goal sheet...

    I thought everyone was outside of Sarnia!!
    
    Glenn ;')

    From a far, far better place
    
    
    Louie...are your roots in Sarnia??  Isn't it true that you are making
    the best of a "bad" situation?  Yes the lake is beautiful, and the
    parking is just great, but talk to me of the "cracker" at IOEL.
     Is this one of the places that you spend the weekends at?  Lets
    all meet at Purdey's fish market and have it out!!  My two perch
    to your one white fish.
    
                                              Clear lungs Baxter
    

    Sir Louie...
    
      I will be asking that this waste of disk space be removed form
    the system.  What's happened..things have been "dead" since July
    5th.  Did Sarnia get to you??  
    
      Time to make sure that the snowblower is ready Louie.  Both of
    the inches are about to fall, and we both know that this will close
    the city down.

Each year, this circumstance known as "Christmas" forces me to return to 
Toledo.  Knowing it is a mere hour or so from Sarnia, I will be very tempted to 
make a little side trip.  After all these notes, I couldn't allow myself to get 
so close and then not stop by...

Russ Schwartz.

    Sorry, but lately we have been busy selling in order to keep DECstock
    from falling any lower. Therefore our noting activity of the last
    6 months has critically been reduced...
    Anyway, Russ Shwartz, if you are driving by Sarnia, give me some notice
    and a call @519 332 3240 or leave a message @519 673 1440 and we'll
    arrange for you an extensive visit of the Sarnia facilities, after
    which we'll go for a beer and a bite!

Many thanks for your generous invitation!  I have not yet taken that extended 
Canada vacation I had planned because I too have been hard at work trying to 
"up" our stock prices.  In 1989 I want to AT LEAST visit Toronto, and I'll be 
sure to stop by Sarnia on the way.  

I would also like to extend a similar offer to any Sarnians how happen to find 
their way to India-no-place.  Except, I won't offer you U.S. beer because I 
know you can get something which tastes very similar from a rusty drinking
fountain. 

		:-)

Not to worry!  We import the good stuff from up north...

Russ Schwartz.

    Whenever! Just give us a call!
    We are sometime in Indiana (home of your VP elect...) when visiting
    Navistar HQ. Where are you located ?

Navistar rings a bell.  They must be nearby.  My office is located in the 
Indianapolis Application Center (@IAC), but I am usually on a residency in West 
Boondocks.  If you're going to be in the area, give me a call at
(317)-843-3858, or send VAXmail to INFACT::SCHWARTZ

Whoah, I just went in the other room and checked the phone book.  Navistar is 
out on Brookville Road (unless you go to another branch elsewhere in the 
state.)  That's definitely within range!

Russ Schwartz.

    Louie:
    
      What is with the "free" offers.  As I recall, it was tough to
    "get anything out of you" (and that coming from a Scot).  Sir, water
    from the Steam Plant isn't beer!!  The engineers in Sarnia have
    been kidding you all this time.

Elsewhere in this conference, there are comments about the impact of the Free 
Trade Agreement.  Many people think it will cause Canada to become the 51st 
state of the U.S.

I have a more positive outlook:

	TOLEDO WILL BECOME A SUBURB OF SARNIA!

This, of course, has all kinds of benefits, the most significant being:

	THIS WILL CAUSE TOLEDO TO TECHNICALLY BECOME A CANADIAN CITY.
	HENCE:
	LIQUOR STORES WILL HAVE TO STOCK MORE REAL (read: "Canadian") BEER!

Now, when I go home, I won't have to drink that watered-down stuff my Dad 
always keeps in the 'fridge.

See, there's a silver lining to every cloud!

Russ Schwartz.

    This could mean also that altough you won't pay any duty on your
    booze or beer, you will have to pay a ridiculously high set of taxes
    (fedral, provincial, sin, etc...). Forget also about going to corner
    store to buy a sixpack (you have to go to a dedicated LCBO or beer
    retail outlet) and about buying it on a sunday.
    (all this is mainly applicable to Ontario)

    As the activity of the present Sarnia topic is a little bit slow,
    I suggest that we extend it temporarily to an other interesting
    subject:
         "Sightings of Elvis Presley in Canada"
    This should bring up some exciting contributions, as it is pretty
    obvious that Elvis is in Canada (where else would you go after you're
    dead and kidnapped by extra-terrestrials...)

I don't know about Elvis, but I heard that John Kennedy is in one of the rest 
homes up there...

Russ.

    Can you believe that, in the _Golden Turkey_ notesfile, someone
    nominated this specific note _Sarnia_ as the WORST note in all
    notesfiles/conferences.
    
    The nerve.
    
    Roger

    I can believe it!
    I was the one who posted the message in the Golden_Turkey_Awards...

    Louie, I knew that. 
    
    I just didn't think it fair to let the whole conference know that
    you did it. After all if one of the greatest contributors to this
    conference and Sarnia booster extraordinaire wants to change his
    orientation and claim his own notes (at least 16 of the previous
    91) are _The Worst_ who are we to argue with him.
    
    I almost went to Sarnia, but now you have convinced me not to go.
    
    :-) Roger :-)
    

    Well...let me explain: the note I posted in Golden_Turkey was a
    subtle attempt to generate some activity on the the Sarnia topic.
    For some reason the noting activity of the topic is subject to
    unexplained periods of silence...I must admit it did not work.
    Another failure of marketing a la DEC!

    Don't feel too bad, it worked a bit. I posted a reply and helped
    to reopen it. I can even get quasi-serious.
    
    I regularly visit my brother in London, and he never asks me if
    I want to take a side trip to Sarnia; probably because he is ignorant
    of its finer points.
    
    What arguments should I use to convince him to go with me to visit
    Sarnia, other than the obvious "Because it's there." Although from
    some previous notes, even that is in doubt.
    
    See, I am even willing to reverse my decision not to visit. Your
    marketing ploy is working.
    
    Roger

Here in Hoosierland, I have driven all the way to Clinton Falls, Ijamsville, 
Story, and Sand Cut (not to mention Coesse) just because "they were there".
What's in Story?  Not a d---ed thing!  But it was still worth going, and I'll 
probably go back sometime.

So, the fact that Sarnia is there is a good enough reason for me to visit it.
Perhaps it's as beautiful as Bridgeton or as dingy as Twin Aire.  Maybe it's 
as lively as Broad Ripple or as desolate as Brunerstown.  In any event, Sarnia 
is a "must see" for me, and high on my travel priority list.

Russ.

    re .95
    
    Are these towns the answers to Trivial Pursuit questions?   :-)
    
    Glenn

Clinton Falls : Where is the Edna Collins covered bridge located?

Ijamsville : What town in Wabash County is located where the Penn-Central 
             and the Erie Lackawanna used to intersect (both are gone now)?

Story : What little town in Monroe County consists of two houses and a country 
        restaurant?

Sand Cut : When I used to drive back roads to Illinois (where the drinking age 
           was 18 and I was 19), what town did I always pass through after
           turning south at Rosedale? 

Coesse : How do you spell the name of the little town between Fort Wayne and
         Columbia City that is pronounced (in Hoosier English) co-ESS-ee?

Bridgeton : What beautiful little town in Parke County is located on the "Red"
            covered bridge route, has a long covered bridge built by 
            J. J. Daniels, a grist mill, and a mill pond where the water
            is icy cold even in the summer because almost all of Raccoon
            Creek is shaded?

Twin Aire : What desolate suburb of Indianapolis consists mostly of the 
            Citizens' Gas and Coke Utility, but is also known for its
            drive-in theatre and shopping center?

Broad Ripple : What suburb of Indianapolis is home to Russ Schwartz, and is
               known for its ducks that people feed while walking along the
               Central Canal?  

Brunerstown : What little crossroads in Putnam County was designated a town
              because there was once a post office in a store that went
              out of business in 1959?

I've got a lot more where those came from! ;-)
I can't wait to see what Ontario has!

Russ Schwartz.

    How many of you have the hottest selling item from Sarnia??
    
    It is a "T" shirt that reads....
    
    		Kiss me where it stinks
    
                      SARNIA ONTARIO

    I am glad to see that the Sarnia topic keeps on running, although
    I am the only contributor located in Sarnia.
    We'll take any contribution, we're not fussy: keep on with the good
    work N_BAXTER !

	Some people when they think of the states, they think it's all 
like Hollywood.  Thanks to Louie, the stereotype of Canada will become 
Sarnia.

	I can see those crestfallen faces, the dashed hopes, suicides at 
Pearson Int'l Airport.  "They deceived us, it isn't all like Sarnia... 
and we blew it all to come here...."  Don't you feel even a little 
guilty??

    I am looking at a picture from the "Toronto Star".
    The title:	"What you can get for $128,000"
    The comment:"Yes, you can buy a home in Toronto for under $150,000..."
    The picture: A large doghouse (for a small St.Bernard, I would guess).
    The whole thing is a comment on a declaration by the provincial
    minister of housing claiming that a family living on $47,000 could
    find a house in Toronto between $133,000 and $150,000. The comment
    from a real-estate agent was: "...a dinky little one-bedroom without
    a basement."
    
    My point: Do you what kind of house you can get in Sarnia for $150,000?
    
    Lakefront property with large garden and sand beach.
    4 bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms, basement, cellar, 2-car garage, swimming
    pool, indoor jacuzzi, sauna, squash court....
    
    That's why it's difficult to relocate people out of Sarnia.

	I was in a meeting of people in Ajax where I live just outside
Toronto.  One of the favourite tangents that all these people like to go
off on is how they'd like to sell their Toronto homes and buy big houses
and farms in the Ottawa area.  (sorry, nobody picked Sarnia!) 

	Then someone said prices had really gone up in Ottawa --
everyone was surprised - then he said, "yeah, about 7%...".  In Ajax,
prices have gone up about 50% in 15 months, yet people are still 
streaming in...

re: Note 53.102 

>>>	but do people WANT `lakefront property' in Sarnia? 

Please tell us about the shoreline.  

Even though it is 8 hours away (from Indianapolis), I love to go to Manistee in
western Michigan and walk along the shore and climb the dunes.  It is
definetely worth the trip.  I can't do this when I go back to Toledo, because
the southwest shore of Lake Erie is all eroded and diked-up with old broken
cement. 

If the southeastern Lake Huron shoreline is in good shape, maybe people WILL
want to buy property there...  Then again, maybe you won't want to say.  The 
best way to mess up a good thing is to tell people about it.  The next thing 
you know, somebody will build lakefront condos and the yuppies will be moving
in.  

Russ Schwartz.

    "lakefront property in Sarnia"
    
    	Isn't that where they found that black blob last summer, and
    they had to send out divers, mini-subs, or whatever to determine
    if it had a conscience or not?

    Big Louie:
    
    Please Louie...show us ONE ad about lake front land for sale.  I
    have friends (hard to believe eh??) that have homes on the beach.
    They tell me that they feel that they are sitting on gold mines.
     The cost of beach front is way out of reach.
    
    Perhaps you are the only Sarnia person on the note as everyone is
    in hiding, or tying to get out.  What happened to Barry Morrison.
    He is a long time Sarnia person and now I understand that he is
    looking at leaving.  Where is the secretary that was in SRN??  Where
    did Oliver Viitamaki, Bruce Kelly, Neil Baxter, Gilles Philippe,
    Barry Leizert, Dave Eedson, Curtis Brown, Mark Daughtrey, John ??
    (sales rep) all go????? Out!!!  Please stop leading the world down
    the garden path.
    

Oh, my!  You mean Sarnia is *NOT* the Shangri La of Canada?

This is getting WAY too controversial.  It's time for an objective viewpoint,
and I'm just the one to give it.  I guess I'm just going to have to come up one
of these weekends and find out for myself...

Russ.

    I do not know what happen to everyone of the persons whose name
    were dropped in Neil's last message. 
    Anyway I know for sure that all of them are no proof that Sarnia
    is a good place just to come from...
    Barry Morrison is still leaving with his little family in Sarnia
    and has achieved to do so while still getting promoted as F/S national
    account manager for some large local accounts (Dow, Labbatt's, London
    Life).
    John Coupland moved to Windsor to become the first resident DEC
    sales rep there ever. He has been replaced by Rob Castonguay right
    away...which shows that an opening in Sarnia does not stay open
    long.
    Barry Leizert is in Toronto, but the rumors says that he is miserable
    up there...as I assume, all the others that left, victim of their
    blind ambition...

    This topic has been inactive for so long that I felt it could take
    a new reply (I am replying to myself, which sounds very much like
    a sales meeting in Sarnia...)

    Louie:
    
      To make it close to the real thing...argue with yourself!!!
    

    I am thinking of developping a split personalinity and have it work
    for advisory support. I could then develop a team approach to major
    account penetration without overloading the headcount....

    ...but then the bastard could manage to have me fired just to get
    my job...

    Wait....
    
    Lets not put all the eggs in one basket...unless of course they
    are rotten!!!
    
    Is that why it "smells" in Sarnia?? What could possibly be rotten 
    in Sarnia??

    Well Sarnia made the national news this morning and seems like you
    guys wern't even listening.  How did Sarnia make the big time?
                                             
                                           
    Well seems that Sarnia is the location of the company that's at the
    center of the "PCB in your tank campaign", i.e. they've been shipping
    Canadian PCB's as far south as Texas to get blended with other fuels,
    then supposedly re-imported and sold to Canadian consumers.
    
           

    What's the name of this company ?

    It appears that the truck was transporting PCB from a Milton (Ont.)
    company to a cement company in Michigan where it was to be burnt.
    The truck was stopped and held at the border by Canada Customs and
    Environment Canada.           
    The whole thing is under scrutiny, but Sarnia is involved only as
    a frequently used border crossing point for truckers.

>>>    a frequently used border crossing point for truckers.


and those of us who like to take exotic Canadian vacations!

Russ.

    Russ,
    
    Are you still planning to drive through Sarnia soon?

    Louie:
    
      Through is an interesting way to put it.  Now that sumer is here,
    the "fog" will start to roll in from the valley.  I hope that Russ
    can find his way through the soup.
    
      Good luck Russ.  I've tried holding my breath, but I can only
    make Indian Road.  Try to make Modeland Road....it seems to clear
    up there.

Yes!  <<They>> have assured me that I *WILL* be granted 2 weeks vacation at the 
end of my current project.  The real question is, "when is the end of my 
current project?"  If you can answer that, you can make immediate project 
manager!

I understand that I will be leaving <<somewhere>> around 1 July.  Currently, 
I'm planning stops in Sarnia, Toronto, hopefully Ottawa, and a side trip to New 
England.  I'll drop E-MAIL to all relevant parties as soon as I know for sure.

In the meantime, I'll be busy checking with Customs to see how many snow bags 
I'm allowed to bring back across the border...

Russ.

    Well, while we are talking about it, rather than driving directly
    onto the bridge from I94, you could go an other 1/4 of a mile until
    the end of I94. It is interesting to see: the official end of I94.
    it's at a traffic light. I found it impressive myself: here we are,
    the end of I94!...anyway turn right and park for a minute at the
    duty free shop, buy me a carton of "du Maurier" King Size. I'll
    pay you back in your own national greenback currency! Thanks in
    advance! 
    
    louis
    
    PS: "du Maurier": pronounce: dew-moe-ree-hey!

    Don't buy the fags duty free, let him pay his taxes like he is supposed
    to!
    
    Jean
    
    

    I have not paid a cent of tax on tobacco products in 4 years. That
    is not illegal: anybody entering Canada after staying more than
    48 hours outside of the country is allowed 200 cigarettes tax free.
    There always will be an opportunity for myself or an non-smoking
    acquaintance of mine to spend 48 hours abroad before I run short.
                                                 
    The tax tolerance also applies to certain quantities of alcoholic beverage,
    but drinking is hazardous to your health.

re: .-back_there_somewhere

Yes, the end of I-94 would be worth seeing.

I-69, which runs across Michigan and Indiana ends here in Indianapolis.
The ending is kind of sad for such a mighty highway.
There are signs that read:

	"Exit 0, I-465 East and West"
	"Freeway Ends, Lane Ends, 69 Ends"
	"Signal Ahead"

and then you're at the 75th Street stoplight.

From there on in it's just Indiana-37.

A "must see" the next time you're in central Indiana.

Russ.

    
    The Canadian government has abandoned Sarnia.
    
    Hold onto your $10 bills
    
    The Bank of Canada has just released a new $10 bill and have erased
    Sarnia from the back of it. They have replaced Sarnia with an Osprey,
    which we all know live nowhere near Sarnia.
    
    How do they expect Canadians to realize that Sarnia is/was a real
    place?  And what about our foreign friends who take home $10 bills
    to prove there is a Sarnia?
    
    Write your MP, Write your Congressman, Write anybody but save Sarnia.
    If you don't this note might disappear as well.
    
    Rally round Sarnia.
    
    Roger

	What street is Sarnia on?

    Sarnia is still present on the new bills, we are reminded of the
    bad smell by the dead fish in the bird's claws.
    
    Jean
    

What's an "osprey" ?
    

    
    An osprey is a bird of prey that eats fish...
    
    /. Ian .\

Well, folks, it's time to set the record straight about Sarnia.  I have just 
returned from a vacation in Toronto, and on the way back, I stopped in Sarnia.  
I drove around town for a while, had lunch with Louis, and visited Lake Huron.

On my way to Toronto, I stopped at the border and exchanged my US money for 
Canadian money.  The first thing I did was examine the back of a $10 bill to 
see the infamous Sarnia engraving.  My response was: "Omigosh, it's just like 
Toledo!"  Nevertheless, I was bound to hear the whole story, and cut over to 
Route 402 on my way back from Toronto.  

Myth: There are no Sarnia exits.
Fact: Thre are three of them, in fact.  

Myth: There are no Sarnia signs.
Fact: There were plenty of Sarnia signs.  I had no doubt where I was.

Myth: Sarnia looks just like the back of the CAN$10 bill.
Fact: Only at one point along the river.  The rest of the town is clean, quiet, 
and well-maintained.  There are plenty of shade trees, and a huge city park 
along Lake Huron with a beach, jogging trails, picnic areas, everything.  And 
Lake Huron is a beautiful deep blue.

Myth: It's impossible to locate the Digital office in Sarnia.
Fact: It's impossible to locate the Digital office in Sarnia.  Only the London 
office knows for sure, and they're not telling. ;-)

I can't speak for schools, quality of life, etc, as I was only there for half a 
day.  But what I saw I liked.  If I were moving to south western Ontario, I 
would definitely consider it as a place to live.

SO, THEREFORE, I, RUSS SCHWARTZ, "THE HANDY HOOSIER", IN WITNESS WHEREOF, TO 
HAVE AND TO HOLD, FOREVER AND EVER, AMEN, DO HEREBY AFFIX MY OFFICIAL 

		S E A L    O F    A P P R O V A L

UPON THE FAIR CITY OF SARNIA, ONTARIO, CANADA.

	Q  <-- the seal

Russ Schwartz.

    Russ:
    
      I will call your local hospital.  The accident you had must have
    been worse than you thought.  It looks to have totally effected your
    vision and sense of judgement.  
    
      Folks, I suggest a fund be started for Russ's get well program.
     I will act as the clearing house of all funds.  Donations can be
    sent to my mail stop.
    
      What the heck did you feed the man for lunch Louie??
    
                                            Get well Russ....

     Well, I never thought that I would ever have the opportunity to
    make an entry here in SARNIA, but, here it is.
     My 84 year old grandmother is working at the tourist center in
    Sarnia, you know, the one under the bridge.
     Boy, she must scare off a lot of people. The other day she remarked
    on the phone, that it didn't really matter that she couldn't read
    a map, the visitors were having fun just driving around finding
    places.

    Welcome, Mr. Tomkins, to the Sarnia topic!
    So...it was'nt so hard, was it?
    I'll print out your first note (and all your future production in
    this topic) and will go show it to you 84 year old grandmother (I
    know where the tourist information office is...although I did not
    not it was ever populated...).
    I am sure your granny has some exciting anecdotes to tell us about
    lil'rascal you and I am sure that all our readers will appreciate my posting
    them in this topic.                              

     Ah Nut's. Now I'm in for trouble. I would like to forewarn all readers
    that may see some third hand stuff about me supposedly from my
    grandmother should understand that at her age the faculties are
    not as they used to be. Fortunately, she may get me confused with
    an uncle or two and you may be regaled with my supposed escapades
    in MI5, MI6, the time I played the winning pitch for the National
    British Cricket team or what have you. She does have a great old
    memory, but she also has a vivid imagination. She does get people
    and events confused sometimes though, and I warn you, she can talk
    for hours and hours.

<<She does get people and events confused sometimes though, and 
<<I warn you, she can talk for hours and hours.
    
So that's where you got your idiosyncrasies, as it were, Richard.

    Help!!!  My wife is travelling to Sarnia tomorrow.  She is there
    to see family.  She did spend time in Sarnia when I was posted there
    (kinda like a posting in Siberia).  I thought that would have given
    her a good reason for not going back. Strange what family will do to 
    one's sense of judgement.  
    
    Sorry Louie, I told her to stay out of the Sarnia office.  Now that 
    Morrison has left, the place is probably out of control.

    Sorry Neil, I was away and therefore I missed your Wife!
    Morrison is still here, by the way, and if for some reasons your
    Wife want to see him, she can (What was going on between your wife
    and Barry ?)

    Louie:
    
      Barry and any woman....nothing!  Margaret arrived home mostly
    safe.  She is scheduled to go to the doctor.  The green valley cloud
    blew over Lakeshore Blvd.  The skin blisters aren't too bad, but
    the hospital suggested a follow-up visit to make sure that they
    healed properly.
    
      Margaret mentioned that things "are still the same".  She said
    that she did see through the "Dow Mist" and actually saw a tree on Vidal
    street.  

    This is to introduce myself to Digital and to Sarnia Topic, A very
    interesting  subject for me as the added sales rep in Sarnia.
    I have a degree in communications, to say the least, with a slang
    in written grammar.
    Watch out for the house warming party!! at my five bedroom house
    on the lakeshore. so far only Louie knows the address.  

    Well Jeff.....first, welcome to DEC.
    
    Second.....a circle of 5 tents on the beach doesn't qualify as a
    house.  
    
    Where was the interview done??  Bet Louie wasn't there to tell you
    the "real" story.  Too bad you couldn't have read the note, and
    seen the city before you climbed on board.

    Hi Doug:
    
      Get caught up in this conference!!  Then you will understand your
    mistake of working in SARNIA!!
    
      Welcome to DEC, too bad about the location.

	"What is essential is invisible to the eye."

		- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

              <<< KAOSWS::$1$DUA3:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CANADA.NOTE;1 >>>
                  -< CANADA - The True North Strong and Free >-
================================================================================
Note 238.0                       Hi from Sarnia!                       3 replies
TROA01::DLOTEN "Semper ubi sub ubi."                  6 lines  26-OCT-1989 16:13
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Hi,
    
    I just wanted to say hello from Sarnia to the rest of Canada.  I'm
    the new ASR working out of the Sarnia office.
    
    Doug
================================================================================
Note 238.1                       Hi from Sarnia!                          1 of 3
KAOA01::LAPLANTE "Les Montagnards Cameron d'Ottawa"  13 lines  26-OCT-1989 16:35
                     -< Not another Sarnia(ite)(n)(onian) >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    
    Doug, Doug, Doug..... you shouldn't have admitted to being in Sarnia.
    
    Gad, now we'll have you and Louie and Jeff trying to convince the
    rest of us that Sarnia exists other than on the backs of old ten
    dollar bills.
    
    By the way, the official 'Sarnia' note is number 53.  We don't want
    to clutter up the conference with too many notes about it.
    
    Welcome aboard.
    
    Roger
================================================================================
Note 238.2                       Hi from Sarnia!                          2 of 3
INFACT::SCHWARTZ "What shall I give? ...My heart!"   11 lines  26-OCT-1989 23:34
                       -< Sentimental over Sweet Sarnia >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doug,

When it snowed last weekend, I thought of Sarnia.  I wondered what it would be 
like down at the beach with the wind blowing off Lake Huron.  I'm sure it would 
be a contrast to that hot summer day when I visited there.  The rocks I found 
while walking along the beach are still on top of my file cabinet.  The next 
time I pass through town, I'll be sure to stop in and say "hello".

Your devoted Sarnia fan (aka THE HANDY HOOSIER),

Russ Schwartz.
================================================================================
Note 238.3                       Hi from Sarnia!                          3 of 3
TRCO01::OBRIEN "Glenn O'Brien @TRC 18/6"              3 lines  27-OCT-1989 09:19
                        -< news flash: wheel invented! >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Mr. Moderator Dude,
    
    Can we move this to the Sarnia note?

    Dearest Gents: (and I use that term loosely!)
    For 144 notes I have sat back and watched you all alternately slander
    Sarnia, each other and each others wives (say hi to Marg, Neil).
    Enough is enough!
    As a Sarnia employee and a previous resident (I opted to improve the
    human condition by migrating to the metropolis of Wallaceburg) I can
    no longer blithely allow this city to be dragged through the muck
    without the opportunity for a literate defender to stand up and
    champion the cause of Sarnia!
    Unfortunately, everything said about Sarnia so far has been true.
    
    Better luck next slander.
    Brett

>    without the opportunity for a literate defender to stand up and

Since you mentioned it..

>    Sarnia, each other and each others wives (say hi to Marg, Neil).

Am I mistaken, or should there be an apostrophe between the "r" and the
"s" in "others?"  (You know, that plural possessive stuff.)

;^)

Kip

    Well, for crying out loud, rip my face off.
    I could develop several plausible explanations for that apparent lapse
    of grammatical continuity (ie: my keyboard's "'" key is broken - I
    figure you'd see right through that one) however, I'll stand up and
    take it like a man. Yes, you're correct. I mispeled "other's". Son
    of a Britch, it'll never hapen again, I swear.
    Brett

Soon 150 replies in this topic!

    ...catching up steadily with "what's wrong with the leaf" (which,
    in my opinion is beyond needing any discussion).

    I perceive that someone is 'note-stuffing' in order to artificially
    increase the number of replies in here. Such underhanded despicable
    tactics are certainly looked down upon by myself and all other
    honest upright noters. Bnllsh!t like that dilutes the validity of
    having the largest number of replies in the Sarnia category.
    
    oh gee, is this the 150th reply? 
    
    What do I win? 

    re.150!!! (WOW!!)
    
    What do you win?............a "Free" weekend for one, in beautiful
                                downtown Sarnia.
                                                         
    
    Jim..........who will, someday get to visit Sarnia

    Why not start talking of "the grand canal", it might be good for a few
    more notes!
    
    

    re: .151
    
    Thats no prize, thats a punishment.
    
    re: .152
    
    As a point of trivia, did you know that 'le grosse canal' (construction
    has already been completed through Sarnia - the holdup is farther east
    where theyre experiencing the shortage of snow bags) in Sarnia is the
    only body of liquid on earth that is liquid in the winter (the sludge
    content prevents it from freezing) and solid in the summer (all the
    petro-chemical reactions leave a 1" film of solidified Glad Wrap on
    the surface).
    
    Any more tips guys?
    
    -bs

Is that it?

Are there only 153 things to say about Sarnia?


		"Is that all there is?
		Is that all there is?
		Then let's keep dancing..."

Russ Schwartz.

    Russ:
    
      It will never close.  The half life of the sludge is 26K years.

    
    In reply 152, Jean brings up a valid point. How is Sarnia going
    to be affected by the Grand Canal upon its completion in 1990. 
    Economists predict that it should benefit all of Canada as well
    as Alberta, but will it change the face of Sarnia? Some say it 
    will merely be water under the bridge, as it were.
    
Tributarily,
    
    Glenn    

    Again, Mr. Richardson (LE fils de Richard?) has managed to get another
    mention of the stupid <-- instead of an deleted expletive, grand canal. 
    I think he want a new category in a book of world records like:
    
    The man with most mentions of the grand canal in a note file
    
    or 
    
    The man with the most stupid fixation on a trivial subject
    
    or 
    
    The man with nothing else to do
    
    or if one of you knows him personnaly, add appropriate comments
    (derogatory of course)
    
    Jean
     

    
    	Jean, there you go again, belittling one of Canada's greatest
    achievements. 
    
    	Where's your sense of national pride?
    
    	Besides, it was *your* idea wasn't it? 8^)
    
    Glenn

    The GRAND canal was NOT my idea, proposing it as a subject to fill up
    this note WAS, so don't put words in my mouth!
    
    Jean
    
    I think I'm going nuts, I keep on talking about the canal.
    

    	
    
    Only 40 more replies t go.....
    
    
    Glenn ;-)

    thirty-nine...

	After reviewing the last few replies, I think it is time for
    me to re-established the standard of quality one may expect from
    the "Sarnia" topic.
    
    I'll do so with a contribution from a guest noter.
    
    I wish to take full responsability for the content of the following
    contribution. Although I have not been consulted during its
    elaboration, I cannot but expressed my total agreement with the
    contributor. Of course you do not have to share my enthusistic approval
    for the views expressed below, but it is my opinion, and I feel
    a strong obligation to publicize it.
    
    Beside, a reply with some redeeming educative value cannot
    hurt this topic.
    
    And now...
    		...with no further delay...
    						...here's...
    
    	...by Ken Olsen: Standardizing the Open Systems 
        Environment.  
        
        Sometime ago, in answer to a question at a very formal 
        presentation, I said that to accomplish all the things we want to 
        accomplish with Unix, we have to identify everything we want to 
        use and make sure we have a standard for each one.  I said if you 
        believed you could skip all that simply with the name Unix on it 
        - you believe in magic, you believe in snake oil. The press 
        immediately grabbed that and changed it to, "Ken Olsen said Unix 
        was snake oil".  See if I can stay out of trouble today. The Unix 
        community is, and has been added to that list of communities who 
        are very sensitive.  If someone uses the word "girl" in a 
        speech,immediately the press builds it up and all the women hate 
        you.  You've got to be particularly careful in the Unix 
        community.  But I like to make it interesting too.  It's said 
        that when preachers go to school, they are told you should have 
        three points.  You should tell people what you are going to say, 
        say it,  and then tell them what you said.  So I'll tell you what 
        I'm going to say, then say it.  
        
        First I'm going to propose that the computer systems recession 
        that we are suffering with in this country is partly the result 
        of confusion over Unix.  I'll try to say why I think we got into 
        it.  Then as a second point I'll try to explain how I think we 
        can get out of it. And thirdly I'll say a little bit of what 
        Digital's strategy is in the world of Unix.  We promised many 
        things for Unix.  Some of them we don't say as clearly as we did 
        in the last few years.  We promised that software written for one 
        Unix system would be instantly transportable to any other Unix 
        System.  The press still believes this.  You read it in the 
        newspapers everyday.  It's blatantly not true, to our dismay.  To 
        get a popular cad system on our machine, or have what's on our 
        machine on someone else's machine, if it's a complex system, is 
        unbelievably expensive and time consuming.  
        
        
        Customers who run into this trouble read all the time that 
        everything works on everything and they are afraid to speak up 
        and say, "Am I the only one?"  I had lunch a week ago with one of 
        the big newspapers in this town and I asked why, when you report 
        this, don't you ask people, "Is it really transportable?"  They 
        say, "we never have any complaints, it must be true".  Another 
        thing we promised was that, we can make up systems with anybody's 
        Unix components, put them together and they will all work.  I 
        don't think we're so clear in saying that one anymore today.  We 
        have a dream in the future but that is definitely not true.  We 
        also have said that with Unix, because everybody is writing for 
        it, we will get for free that large operating system that 
        organizations use to tie the computing of their enterprise around 
        the world - that they will get it for free.  But those large 
        systems which took years and hundreds of millions of dollars, an 
        infinite amount of testing, maybe necessary because with Unix it 
        all works together. One could ask - in the world in which we all 
        believe we get nothing for free - it takes some explanation why 
        we can suddenly with a magic word say what previously costs so 
        much money and so much time, so much documentation, so much red 
        tape and so much discipline, suddenly isn't necessary.  But if 
        you talk to people in the spectrum of industry, largely in this 
        country but also everywhere else in the world, there is enormous 
        confusion over just what is meant by the word Unix.  Some 
        governments have standardized on it, some people have said that 
        they standardize on it maybe because they felt that it might give 
        their local computer industry a head start.  But in waiting for 
        these things that have been promised, so many people have just 
        stopped.
        
        
        The reason we get into this business, this problem, is partly 
        because we have exaggerated, partly because we have oversold.  We 
        come from an industry which has a tradition of being overly 
        enthusiastic in our promises - extrapolating on a little bit of 
        history to what claims we make. But I think that is only a small 
        part of the reason. One has to realize the nature of the computer 
        industry.  For now the 40th year, I'd like to think that I keep 
        my foot in a dozen or a half dozen different communities of the
        computer industry.  They are all quite diverse.  On one side 
        there is the community of the financial people - the banks and 
        the insurance companies and the like.  They have massive systems 
        with enormous discipline, enormous terror of ever losing a 
        transaction, exceedingly complex systems and very slow to make 
        changes.  It's intolerable to them to ever lose a transaction.  
        Somebody designing something at a workstation might once in a 
        while lose something.  It's inconceivable for the bank to call a 
        hundred of their accounts and say we're sorry we lost all your 
        data.  The conservatism there is extreme.   That is the group - 
        well let me start at Digital.  Our original goal was to introduce 
        interactive computing.  The things we had done at MIT we wanted 
        to show the world how to use.  Some of that world said to us, "It 
        is wrong, almost immoral, to have interactive computing.  
        Computing should be sacred, protected and no one should have 
        human contact with it." But that world is so critical to us.  We 
        have to meet their standards.  They have to tie the whole world 
        together and have no mistakes.  A transaction that has started 
        has to start from zero or be completed - nothing in between.  The 
        other extreme is the casual, creative, artistic, enthusiastic 
        user - the original Unix user.  Unix was designed originally to 
        be a casual, fun, exciting, undisciplined, creative system. It 
        was designed in reaction to the large multics(?) timesharing 
        system.  And it did its job very well.  And out of this came many 
        of the creative, exciting applications.  Out of it came, through 
        the universities and through the bright young students, the 
        things which we see and enjoy so much today. Much of the creative 
        workstations, where it came out of that.  But it's a completely 
        opposite world from the financial world.  If it works - it 
        appears to work - it's often good enough for the extreme part of 
        that community. For the extreme part of that community, they will 
        take a piece of Unix software off the Unix net, adjust it and it 
        will play it on their workstation.  If it doesn't play they'll 
        try it on somebody else's workstation. If it doesn't, throw it 
        away and take another thing off the network.  It's an important 
        part of the world.  It's the place where we get good things and 
        good people. But the problem we get into in that spectrum of the 
        world, starting with the informal, creative, artistic all the way 
        to the conservative bankers, is that everybody looks at the 
        elephant like the traditional blind person.  One grabs the tail, 
        one grabs the trunk and one grabs the leg and they each think 
        they see the whole world.  I once was at the MIT store and a 
        student said "I'd like to buy a map of Europe". And they said "We 
        only have them of the U.S.".  And some bright kid in the back 
        said "Well buy one of the U.S. and extrapolate."  By grabbing the 
        elephant by the tail, it is theoretically possible through the 
        genes, to extrapolate the rest of the elephant.  But you have to 
        be very careful.  And this I propose is how we got into the 
        problem of misleading most of the world.  We see our part and 
        pronounce that we understand the whole world of computing.  And 
        because we don't, we make promises that we should never had made.  
        The Unix world has been promising for ten years, that we will 
        have standards, that we will make things transportable.  If we 
        had accomplished this a few years ago, it seems to me that their 
        would have been no need to develop an OS-2.  Today we love OS-2, 
        we commit to OS-2.  It's obviously the way - at least some people 
        
        believe - that the large personal computer is going. If we had 
        ever followed through, five years ago, four years ago, three 
        years ago, on the things we promised with Unix, their would have 
        been no need for it.  It also means that if we don't follow 
        through with the discipline we are going to lose alot of the 
        goods things that we promised for Unix today.
        
        When Unix was simple, when everybody had some of the same simple 
        human interface, it was quite practical to - most of the time - 
        take application and re-do it for another computer, another 
        operating system, another version of Unix.  But as the human 
        interface became complex, as windows were introduced, and 
        everybody had their own windowing system, and as the windows 
        permeated every single detail of the application, it 
        just became impossible or exceedingly difficult to switch the 
        computer that an application was really used on. Now were are so 
        close to having standards to human interface, we can, and we have 
        no excuse.  
        
        The second point I want to make is: How do we get ourselves out 
        of this predicament?  The obvious answer is we have to have 
        standards.  The floor is filled with people who say they follow 
        the standards.  But we have to follow the standards for 
        everything we do. The human interface is probably the most 
        important.  Last December here in the NY, we had a luncheon with 
        four of the five largest software writers.  I asked them at lunch 
        "What makes it so hard to transport software from one computer to 
        another?".  They immediately bounced back by saying - all four of 
        them - it was the human interface. They said it's relatively easy 
        to transfer software between operating systems and between 
        computers.  Terrible job to do it between human interfaces.  The 
        first one and one we are closest to agreeing on is human 
        interface.  We have to definitely agree on that one and then 
        follow it.  Following standards is expensive.  It's a chore.  At 
        Digital, we have played a key part in the development of the X 
        Windows and the rest of the development of Motif. But when we 
        accepted the standard, we've ended up with two standards.  The 
        old one we had, we have to support to all those customers who are 
        satisfied and the new one. That is expensive.  But without 
        standards we never get the things we have been wanting and 
        promising. The kernel of the operating system attracts alot of 
        attention.  I was saying at lunch why.  The press loves the 
        contest between the IBM kernel and the American Telephone kernel.  
        They have very little interest in discussing SQL or X400.  It 
        just doesn't make good copy.  Now the kernel is probably way down 
        on the list of important standards.  I was propagating for a 
        while, or trying to, the idea of let's keep the two kernels going 
        as a contest. It will entertain both groups, it will entertain 
        the press and lets get both groups to take all the others on that 
        whole menu of standards.  Then some day the people who are 
        stirring on the contest will realize that it wasn't that 
        important and they will join together with all the other 
        important ones that have been done.  But I don't say that 
        anymore.  Partly because of the press and partly because of our 
        emotions that the kernel question has become so important we 
        don't get to looking at the others.  So we have to work very hard 
        to solve that issue.  The press is always pressing particularly 
        in the last few weeks. What would happen if OSF agreed to another 
        standard.  My answer of course is, and I'm sure it's for the UI 
        people too, and everybody in OSF, we didn't joint teams to have a 
        tennis game. We don't want to win against the other side. We want 
        only one thing, a list of standards that we all agree on.  And 
        this of course is the answer. The other thing we have to do is to 
        make sure we are absolutely honest.  We have to be honest because 
        it's the thing to do, we also have to be honest because it gets 
        you into no end of trouble if you are not. We shouldn't promise 
        anything that isn't true and we shouldn't extrapolate way beyond 
        our experience in the things we have promised.  And we should be 
        very careful that we do this.  The other thing we have to do is 
        to carefully make a list of all the things we want to accomplish.  
        
        Each organization has a different list.  Some want to integrate 
        the whole world, some want to take a little part of the world. 
        But if we want Unix to accomplish all the things that we claim it 
        will, we have to specify all the things we want to do, have 
        standards for them and then make sure we all meet them.  It 
        sounds so logical but it's not easy.  Someone wrote a book saying 
        that IBM ended up with alot of operating systems and alot of 
        architectures in order to maintain a monopoly.  Well I don't 
        believe that.  It is just so easy to have everybody diverge.  It 
        is so against the nature of an engineer not to do things 
        different from the rest of his own organization or it is so much 
        against an engineer to ever compromise anything if he can 
        optimize his project and that usually means not going along with 
        the standard.  We are in serious risk of not following the 
        standards we aim for simply because we have this enormous 
        motivation to be different and enormous motivation to be slightly 
        better by not following the standards. 
        
        Now there are, I claim, three things that we like to accomplish 
        with Unix.  The first one I think we are going to have to give up 
        on. The original goal of course was a simple undisciplined, fun, 
        exciting, creative operating system for people who needed just 
        that.  If you take the manuals to describe our VMS, it takes 
        eight or ten feet of bookshelf.  The Unix manual sometime ago, 
        when I looked last, was a half inch thick.  My son, who is a 
        student said to me, 'you know the difference between the two, if 
        you look for something you'd never find it in the Unix one, if 
        you look long enough you'll find it in that eight feet.'  Now 
        what we are setting out to do - and we have to remember this - 
        is the things we say we want to do, our Unix is going to be eight 
        foot shelf and we will lose that half inch manual.  We can cry 
        about it, but you don't have both.  We are committed to have 
        systems which will do everything.  To do everything, there is a 
        cost and there is a complexity.  The second thing we like to do, 
        and this is the thing we don't want to back down on, is 
        transportable software.  The question is often asked, 'Why is 
        Digital, IBM or others with their proprietary operating systems 
        so interested in a standard operating system where everybody's 
        applications are inter-changeable?'  People don't buy operating 
        systems, they buy applications.  We want all the applications 
        written for IBM to play ours, they want ours to play on theirs, 
        along with everybody else's.  And everybody else wants the same.  
        
        Now of course we don't write the applications, most of them.  
        Neither does IBM, neither do the other people.  The third party 
        software writers write them.  So each one of us want them when 
        their written to play on our machine in addition to all the 
        others.  It overpowers all our desire to own part of the market.  
        It's often said that companies with their own proprietary systems 
        are reluctantly accepting Unix.  Sometimes but basically the 
        overwhelming desire is to have those applications be 
        transportable or written once for all.  And we don't want to give 
        that up.  This energy, this time, the effort is there for that 
        one most important characteristic.  The third one is also 
        important, not for everybody, but for the majority of people.  We 
        want anybody's  equipment to work on a network.  Today we can 
        make a network around the world which plays anywhere if it's all 
        Digital.  It has to follow our standards and it works.  We 
        designed integrated circuits in Israel and in Hudson 
        Massachusetts as if they were side by side.  They would cooperate 
        in the design.  The design is done in Israel. The results are 
        always there in Massachusetts.  When it's ready to be produced 
        it's produced in Massachusetts.  When it comes out, it's put on a 
        tester in Massachusetts and that tester is run in Israel.  And 
        all the tests are done there and it's there but half the work 
        is done in Massachusetts.  It's that kind of network.  Permanent 
        work groups are set up as teams for anywheraround the world, ad 
        hoc, casual, spontaneous groups are set-up.  That is what a 
        network will do.  What is missing today is that we can't do that 
        with other people's equipment.  If you are designing a car in 
        Munich or Cologne, you want the same design in Detroit, done by a 
        team, so that work is shared, the parts are shared, the 
        engineering is shared and the testing is shared.  It might be 
        desirable in the dream world but not reality that we will have 
        our equipment anywhere, or anybody will have their equipment all 
        over.  So the third thing we want is that anybody's equipment 
        that meets the standards will play on the network and that anyone 
        no matter what work station, what computer, what personal 
        computer they are on, can spontaneously, if necessary, be a team 
        member to do a certain specific job.  Wherever they can share the 
        same data base, wherever they can share all the services that you 
        have on the network, along with mail and the other information 
        you transmit including software.  Interestingly, delightfully, 
        the same standards, that same catalog of standards that makes us 
        software transportable is also what makes the computers, 
        workstations around the world on one network work together.  The 
        strategy we have at Digital incorporates these things.  We have a 
        very simple strategy.  We offer on the desk anything the customer 
        might want.  Simple terminals, imaging terminals, MS DOS, 
        MacIntosh, someday OS-2, RISC workstations and VMS 
        workstations - whatever the customer wants.  Behind that in the 
        network there is only one architecture.  That architecture 
        combines both RISC(Unix) and VAX(VMS).  They are both there and 
        they fit together.  The customer can use as much of one or all of 
        one.  With that architecture the customer writes an application 
        once and it comes out both in VAX and in Unix.  So our strategy 
        is, whatever you want on the desk - almost - then one 
        architecture for the network and that architecture includes two 
        operating systems.  Our further strategy is, of course, every 
        single one of the old catalog of standards will be met.  So that 
        anyone who meets those standards will fit on our network.  And 
        hopefully if their network fits, our equipment will.  
        
        Now we also have a goal that we would like to encourage the Unix 
        community to follow.  We demonstrated in the development of 
        VAX/VMS, an approach to standardization which we would encourage 
        the Unix community to look at. We said that about 15 years ago. 
        Before that we had mini-computers, many many operating systems.  
        We made networks and suffered by the fact that we had many 
        operating systems.  We set about for our company, so that we 
        could network the whole world together, to pick one operating 
        system. And that operating system we would - very formally and 
        with great discipline, great documentation - specify everything 
        that we want to get accomplished.  That operating system defined 
        what a VAX was.  Every VAX is different - the original 780 was 
        completely different than the final 780.  Everyone since then has 
        been a different machine.  And by the traditional definition of 
        the word, their architectures were different.  The thing that 
        made them all a VAX was the definition and the operating system.  
        
        By laying out all the things we wanted to do, following that 
        discipline, we have been able to maintain them.  For example, we 
        said that a piece of software written 15 years ago for a VAX 
        would play today and would play 10 or 15 years from now - without 
        recompiling.  Now it might be too late in the Unix world to set 
        quite that standard because it's been just too much done in 
        twenty years to say we will have a standard that we won't have to 
        recompile year after year.  But we should set a standard that 
        says software that will be written today will play 10 or 15 years 
        from today.  We also said that with the definition in that 
        operating system, a computer we built that was small enough to 
        hold in your hand and big enough to be a mainframe, still play 
        the software that was written 10 years ago and will be written 10 
        years from now.  Which means that if someone has a family of 
        remote offices, the two man office will have the same software as 
        the two thousand man office. And it came about by standards set 
        that were religiously followed.  We also said that concentrating 
        on one operating system and then having only one of each language 
        (of seventeen languages) but concentrating on only one of each.  
        We put enormous effort into each of those languages.  And most 
        people when they want to write Unix will take our C manual 
        because that many years working on just one version of C, it is a 
        standard.  Our FORTRAN manual is a standard and our Ada  is a 
        standard because we concentrate on one.  And it came by setting 
        goals.  
        
        Now we would like to encourage the Unix community to 
        specify all the things that we would like to have accomplished, 
        set the standards for them and then we as a community could have 
        the same advantages which we have had by setting standards for 15 
        years.  We did another thing.  We broke the operating system into 
        modules.  Each module had its interface defined so that you could 
        take out a module, plug a new one in and no one ever knew that 
        there was a change.  So the VAX operating systems has been 
        changed many times but because of the definition in standards it 
        continues to play the same software.  We do the same thing with 
        the VAX.  It was modular in what defined it and we could replace 
        pieces, make changes without upsetting the system.  Now we would 
        like to see standards not only in the obvious list which we read 
        about.  But we would also like to see standards set so that this 
        much can be accomplished that we think we have demonstrated in 
        VMS.  The question is asked all the time, 'Which one do we love 
        or which one do I love most, VMS or Unix.'  The question is 
        usually phrased, 'How can you love two?'  But it's not like 
        loving two women.  It's more like loving two children.  Today we 
        have two children, one 16 year old: agile, athletic, bright, 
        exciting, fun and can do break dancing better than anybody you 
        know.  The other is a forty year old, he has got a little 
        mustache now, beard, is balding a little bit.  Confident, 
        fast-moving and bright - can't do break-dancing.  But he can run 
        an international business.  Now to point out what one can do and 
        the other can't and vice versa, does not mean you don't love 
        both.  And it doesn't mean you invested more in one and it 
        doesn't mean you want one to succeed and not the other.  It does 
        mean that you have to always evaluate each one and work to make 
        them both strong.  And it's irrelevant with your kids as to who 
        wins.  You can really wish they both would win.  But it's really 
        irrelevant.  In our view - and I think that our large competitive 
        brands have the same feeling - what we gain out of Unix is very 
        important.  Whether Unix ever catches up with the large operating 
        system which has many years head start (Unix is really older than 
        many of the operating systems but at this time it's young) 
        whether one wins or not is irrelevant.  But also one has a big 
        head start.  The argument of our people is when we get a big 
        Unix, when we do all the things with our Unix we will be smarter 
        because we will be doing it again.  It will be smaller, take less 
        bookshelf space and be better.  And I say, 'Yeah I've lived with 
        your guys forever.  You will do the job better but you are going 
        to add to it because you are smarter.'  And who knows which will 
        be the most complex.  But one thing is sure.  And we can be happy 
        and cry over this.  When we get that Unix which is equivalent to 
        the systems that we have today, it will be as big, it will be as 
        expensive, it will be as proprietary.  And with all the standards 
        which are exceedingly important, we are all going to compete on 
        which one has the best quality.  Operating systems are always 
        proprietary.  The applications we can transfer because of the 
        standards.  But each  one of us will work to make ours more 
        reliable, more secure, better case tools and all the things that 
        make quality.  And that is what is going to keep the computer 
        industry exciting, moving forward and also give us room to 
        compete and continue to work hard to make all the users happy.  
        Thank you.

    	Ken is quite a noter, but he didn't mention, even once, the
    Grand Canal. Come to think of it, he didn't even mention Sarnia.
    Though the quality and caliber of the note by Ken was excellent,
    it seemed to be a little off topic, as it were.
    
    Glenn

    
    I think we have to extrapolate Ken's message so that it relates
    to Sarnia.
    
    He seemed to be saying that just because we didn't develop it and
    nurture it that we should love it anyway.
    
    Obviously, Ken has never been to Sarnia.
    
    Roger

    Remember: from now on you can express articulate and well though
    out views on open systems.
    
    And you saw it in the Sarnia topic first. 
    
    The Sarnia topic: the Renaissance Man's topic !
    
    (Renaissance was the golden age for Venezia, where the real Grand
    Canal is. as you can see we are back to Sarnia)

re. 165
        
>    And you saw it in the Sarnia topic first. 
>    
>    The Sarnia topic: the Renaissance Man's topic !
>    
>    (Renaissance was the golden age for Venezia, where the real Grand
>    Canal is. as you can see we are back to Sarnia)
    
      I believe your statement should read "where the first Grand Canal
    is."
      
    	Canada's Grand Canal will be real too upon its completion in
    1990. It will make the one in Venice look rather insignificant as
    our Grand Canal will span the whole country as well as Alberta.
    
    	I hear that in Sarnia many feel that for them the Grand Canal
    will be a waste. Is this shared by all who live in Sarnia? I hope
    that the folks in Sarnia won't dump on the Grand Canal as some 
    Montrealers have....
    
    Glenn

    ...i guess we can find a relation between the grand canal and open
    systems...

	To put to rest all of the scuttlebutt that has been bandied about
the Grand Canal (and its effect on the quaint burghers of Yawnia), read
the following which was extracted from last week's Hansard:


Right Horrible 
Member (Baie Comeau): Mister Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege.
		      Some members of this House have been bandying about
		      scuttlebutt concerning this government's illustrious 
		      and indeed, most Canadian project of this century
		      - the Grand Canal.

Some Members: Uh, oh.

Honourable Member
(Oshawa)	    : Mister Speaker.  Will the Prime Minister please stand
		      up when he addresses this House?

Right Horrible 
Member (Baie Comeau): Ahhh, Mister Speaker.  I am standing.

[The House momentarily erupted into chaos as a titter ran threw the crowd]


NOTE - For those NOTERS who are unfamiliar with the terms used in Hansard,
       the reference to a 'titter' is a curious phenomenon and a particularily
       Canadian one.  In recent sessions, an unknown individual has managed
       to gain access to the House floor from the Public Gallery at certain
       times during the House debates.  This individual then runs throw the
       Members' benches, fondling the ample breasts of the female 
       parliamentarians.  He then makes his escape.  Hence, the term 'titter'.

Honourable Member
(Head-Bashed-In-
 Buffalo-Jump)      : Mister Speaker, we Albertans are well aware of the
		      Federal Government's attempt to bypass our province
		      when the Grand Canal reaches the western provinces.
		      It is a well known fact that the Grand Canal will be
		      diverted north along the Alberta-Saskatchewan border
		      to the NorthWest Territories where it will then turn
		      due west until it reaches the BC border where it will
		      go due south into British Columbia.  Thus, it will
		      completely bypass Alberta.  Will the Prime Minister and
		      the Minister of the Grand Canal and Used Storm Doors
		      deny this?

Honourable Member
(Cock-Wallop)       : Mister Speaker, as Minister responsible for the Grand
		      Canal construction, and for Used Storm Doors, it is
		      my duty, in the general expansion of time and the
		      greater issue of the unfolding of the universe, that is
		      not to put too fine a point on it.  But then, on the 
		      other hand, it has been brought to this department's
		      attention that certain aspirations cannot be denied
		      nor confirmed within the context of entropy.  Of course,
		      there is justification for alternative solutions to
		      very difficult problems, and we would be the last to
		      shirk our responsibilities.  Be that as it may, as 
		      Canadians we can be very, very proud of our flag and all
		      that it stands for.  Indeed, were it not for our 
		      unflagging efforts in the construction of the Grand Canal
		      it would be little more than a fig-newton of our 
		      imagination.
 
[The House momentarily erupted into chaos as a titter ran threw the crowd]

*******************************************************************************

	I hope that will dispel any more negative comments about the Grand
Canal.


Pat

    Scott Newman, are you still around ?

    Mr. Newman is out there.  Talked to him this week in fact.  Don't know
    if he is reading the note anymore.  Something about mindless people
    rambling about nothing....

    Well first there was Glenn, then Pat and me that were converted as
    apostoles of the grand canal, who will be next?
    
    Jean
    

    How and why did that "grand canal" end up in this otherwise interesting
    Sarnia topic?

    ... maybe because of the Garrison Diversion ?
    
    Scooter

For those who were reading 258.17 and 258.18, this is to let you know that you 
have found the Sarnia mini-conference.  This is DEFINITELY it.

Russ Schwartz

    awright, stop yer note-padding ...
    
    SCooter

    I was wondering why nobody has entered any notes in the SARNIA
    note for such a long time.  Perhaps we could discuss this?
    Bob from Accountemps.

Sarnia, yet so far!

    The Grand Canal diversion may have affected Sarnia.

    I think 180 notes and still counting deserves some more notes.
    Really, what is the physical possible limit of notes in VAXnotes
    (10000?  100000?  1 gigallion??)?
    
    I believe Sarnia will go down in history for this (although not
    much else I might say).
    
    B from a.

    
    There is a note in JoyOfLex that is now at number .11219 and still
    growing each day.
    
    I think we might take a while to get this note into that range.
    
    Maybe if we each entered one note that said something positive about
    Sarnia.........naah that wouldn't work. The note could die right
    here.
    
    Roger

I think it's silly to add replies to a NOTE just to get the numbers up,
so I'm not going to contribute any to this topic.

Pat

    	Neither will I contribute to a note just to boost its replies. Also
    given the fact the the city of Sarnia passed a by-law banning the
    construction of the Grand Canal in the city limits.

    Glenn

    I think you guys are right...I won't add a note either.

     Imagine. People adding notes for nothing. Don't they have anything
    better to do?

    You're right...yessiree...must not have anything to do...boyoboy...
    what a darn shame...

I think I'll go have lunch.

    	Well, you certainly won't see me wasting my lunch time putting replies
    in here!

    And I most certainly won't be wasting my valuable time AFTER lunch
    putting replies in here!   

    	It amazes me how people could be enticed to partake in such a
    fruitless endeavor.

    	I certainly wouldn't fall victim to that kind of silliness.

    Most certainly!  I wholeheartedly agree!  To foolishly waste
    one's valuable working hours on such a mindless exercise serves
    only to point out the degenerating state of our society.

Ain't this fun?!

Fun?  I'm hungry again!

    
    Well I'm glad to see that there are no useless or irrelevant notes
    being added to this topic.
    
    Roger

Good, I can go have breakfast now.

    I must say that in 45 minutes I too will be enjoying lunch.

    	You know, reading all of this gave me a great idea, why not go for an
    early lunch?

    	Good thing I'm not contributing to any foolish noting.

    Glenn

    Don't youse guys have anything better to do, like maybe recondition
    snow bags or something ?
    
    Scooter

    Oh, yeah, by the way, we've reached 200 ... see ? -------------------^
    
    Happy now ?
    
    Scooter

    I'd just like to say that I waited until 3:55PM before I
    entered this note.

    
    re .201
    
    You must be a slow typer if you entered the note at 3:55 and the
    time stamp is 3:57
    
    Or did you enter it from Sarnia; we know communication is slow from
    there  (notice how I at least kept this on topic).
    
    Roger

    
     Don't you guys have anything else to do!!!????:):)
    
    
                                                 Chris :)

    No, I think it was because I was THINKING about Sarnia that it
    slowed down my typing by 3 minutes.
    
    Lunch today is at noon.

I've started below to cross-post other notes from the SARNIA note (see
below).

I thought this would be an appropriate thing to do.  I would invite others
to re-post SARNIA notes in the SARNIA note.

Jim from PersonTemps.



              <<< KAOSWS::$1$DUA3:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CANADA.NOTE;1 >>>
                  -< CANADA - The True North Strong and Free >-
================================================================================
Note 53.0                            Sarnia                          204 replies
TROA01::DZIALOWSKI                                   17 lines   3-MAR-1988 20:27
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    This conference is meant to address any question regarding Sarnia
    and the Lambton County area.
    
    Should you have any questions concerning the region, the local customs,
    folklores and dialects, the geography ,the history and economy,
    the restaurants, the hotels, the roads ,etc... please do not hesitate 
    to ask them in this conference.
    
    This conference should help consolidate in a single point the answers
    to the numerous questions raised on the subject.
    
    Browsing through this conference should be considered as a prerequisite
    for a successful week-end, vacation, permanent relocation, 
    honeymoon retreat, off-site meeting, convention or any convivial
    activity of any sort.
    
    Both official languages can be used in this conference.

              <<< KAOSWS::$1$DUA3:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CANADA.NOTE;1 >>>
                  -< CANADA - The True North Strong and Free >-
================================================================================
Note 291.15                    Oilers all the way!                      15 of 15
POLAR::POND                                           5 lines  25-MAY-1990 13:38
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    There is a rumor going around for VERY reputable sources, and I
    think this is probably a sure thing, that the Edmonton Oilers
    are planning to move the franchise to Sarnia (see note 53).
    
    Dude Ranch.

    are they going to change the name to the
    
    SARNIA GASSERS (or POLLUTERS or CHEMISTS...)
    
    Jean
    

    By the way, Louis, Jeff and I just returned from lunch (we went
    out on January 16th if you check back far enough) and have seen
    the mindless drivel being spewed into our beloved SARNIA notefile.
    
    Tsk,Tsk
    
    I'm certainly not going to be aparty to that (or any other party
    for that matter!
    
    Not noting,
    
    -doug

    Why change the name.  Folks from Sarnia are very proud of the
    reputation they have now.
    
    How many people out there have the collectors edition "T" shirt;
    
             Kisss Me Where It Stinks......
    
    
                             Sarnia Ontario!!

    Re -.1
    
    This would depend on WHERE yo stink and the size of the T shirt
    
    Jean
    

    What's going on, here?

    Sounds like we need a subject to give this topic some direction,
    and help carry the number over the top. What was that number 
    11,200 replies.
                                                                 
    I heard on the news some local 'developers' in the Sarnia area want
    to use an area just outside Sarnia as a landfill site for Toronto's
    garbage. They have a gravel pit in Plympton township that they want
    to use.
    
    Some representatives from Plympton township even came to Toronto
    to protest in a Metro Council meeting. The Dirty Dozen they called
    themselves.
    
    The way Sarnia has been degraded and abused in this conference,
    some would consider this part of the Provicial Nabourhood Improvement
    Program.
    
    What's this, 212 now.
                              

Some people are concerned by the multiple environmental issues related
    to waste disposal. As you may know, your irresponsible use of
    polyethylene and polystyrene based products drives the chemical industry
    to produce more and more of them. They candidly assume that you,
    the customer, will take care care of their disposal in a responsible
    way. But you don't: you just throw them in the garbage. Therefore,
    corporations with high moral standards and community concerns have
    to clean after you. That is what companies like Tricil are trying
    to do. I suggest that this topics hosts suggestions on how to re-use
    of dispose responsibly of polyethylene and polystyrene compounds.
    
    I am sure you have no idea, and any idea you will express will not
    be as easy to implement as the present "trash it!".
    
    I am willing to forward any suggestion making sense to the interested
    party inside the concerned corporations in Sarnia.
                                           
    PS: I personally find plastics very convenient. I like my toilet
    paper white, and read glossy magazines without any remorse.
    I don't care where it goes when I trash it. I care about Tricil
    being a Wang account and I am willing to help them see the light.
    In the meantime use non-bleached, non-glossy paper bag!... and have
    fun.

    
    What Henrik said goes for me too.
    
    What did he say????
    
    Roger

    Jeg kan ikke norske verstanden (I know it's mixed languages).  Sorry, 
    spelling and grammar have left me.
    
    p.s. Jeg kommen til Norge (in November)
    
    
    
    

    Hey this has become a bilingual note! I think we should consider the
    possibility of seperating this note from this conference or else give
    it veto power over all of the other notes in this conference.
    I think we should all go to a lake somewhere and come up with an accord
    of some sort and set an arbitrary dead line for resolution of any and
    all conflicts between this note and all of the other notes. I realize
    that there are many more of the other notes... but this note is special
    and deserves to be considered as having special status.
    Who cares about those other notes anyway! Except for maybe the Grand 
    Canal note; those others are all togeather too provincial and therefore
    not worth considering.
    
    Regards,
    Ron
    PS: I'm going to learn to speak what ever language the last couple of
    notes have been conversing in right away. Its my patriotic duty to this
    note.

    Personally all this talk about plastics in Sarnia has given me
    an urge to learn Norweigan.   
    
    Her name is Olga I think...
    
    Hymie

    Fluctuat nec mergitur! Ave, cesar, morituri te salutant. In vino:
    veritas. Sic transit gloria mundi, quando se come aqui? Tu quoque
    filii mei, e pericoloso sporgersi: defense d'uriner sur le mur (loi
    du 20 Mai 1881). Si vis pacem, para bellum.

re .220

It's getting very perilous to hang out here, indeed!

/john

That IS Latin, right?

    Sarnia, I thought.

    	Look, if this continues, you may all find yourselves engaged in
    whirly-twirlies. I should warn you, once you've done whirly-twirlies
    there's no turning back. You can't just do whirly-twirlies once an
    expect to be able to return to normal living. Whirly-twirlies is a dead
    end, stop before you start.

    Glenn

    Glenn,
    Is the 'Whirly-twirlies' a new Chrysler product.
    Spam

    
    While we're all showing off, don't forget what my Grade 9 Latin
    teacher taught us all ...
    
    Semper ubi sub ubi!
    
    Truly words to live by!!
    
    -doug

    Sil Ij importun des itime gesicenet; Ij repelijch im lingue frontie.
    
    Des lako s`apel "Honda" ne Sarnia norce, see nosse scribl doquemant
    s`apel "Honda Accord" .
    
    Holdantich,
    
    Scooter

    I knew there was anonther accord besides the famous lake one.  Does
    this one take care of rights of way?
    
    Jean
    

    Non carbirundum illegitimi!
    
    Don't let the Bastards grind you down.
    ....Kind of.
    
    El mucho regardum,
    Ronaldus Ryanum
    Linguistic kinda guy.

    	Look, I'm afraid I'm going to have to invoke the notwithstanding
    clause here in the Sarnia topic. It's the Canada Notesfile's job to
    promote linguistic duality which excludes Latin I believe (right
    Scooter?)

    El Mucho Aquarium Whirley-Twirley,

    Glenn

    I believe Latin is permissible under the 'heretofore' clause, but
    I can understand your confusion, considering the ambiguities in
    the 'Distinct Fjord's' section.
    
    Scooter

    	This topic is lending itself to people bent on self-ratification.


    Ratified now?

    Glenn

    A case of whirly-twirly was reported to the Lambton Scientific Society.
    The incident happened in the middle of Vidal Street. The tragedy
    occured when the victim tried to avoid sniffing H2S through its
    left nostril while inhaling some O2 through the right.

    RE:  -.1
    
    Look, I really can't see what the OS/2 operating system has to do
    with Sarnia, Chryslers, OR whirly-twirlies.

    RTFM, Chapter 3, para 7, subpara g, section ix, subsection z.
    
    Also Chapter 519, para 423, subpara kk, section mmdxlviii, subsection
    a.
    
    Hope that helps,
    		Bob

    <<Also Chapter 519, para 423, subpara kk, section mmdxlviii, subsection
    <<a.                                                 ^^
    
	Actually, you were off by xx sections, Bob.  It's section mmdlxviii.

Quod erat demonstrandum,

Patruccio

    Pat,
    
    Now I'll have to go check in the Sarnia (Grand Canal branch) library
    and check my references.
    
    Bob
    

    This is a test: Scott Newman, are you out there?
    
    I repeat this is only a test.

Yes, I'm out here, but I don't want to talk about Sarnia.  (In fact, I didn't
know where this conference ended-up until someone forwarded me your note.)

Scott

    Note padding?  Who said anything about note padding?
    
    Captain Tweezer.

    re. 53.240
    If you do not want to talk about Sarnia, don't talk about Sarnia.
    This is exactly the topic where to do it. You are free not to express
    yourself on any subject, and you are welcome not to do it at length
    in as many reply as you wish. You can say it loud and clear. It
    is OK not to want to talk about Sarnia. You do not have to repress
    your feelings, we understand. But please, do not beat around the
    bush and be frank: just tell us you do not want to talk about Sarnia.
    We are glad to hear from you from time to time!
    
    PS: do you want to talk about whirly-twirly ?

    Hey..leave my buddy Scott alone.  If he wants to say something, let
    him.  I've seen Scott "express"...boy was it messy!

I'm speachless.  (Thanks for sticking-up for me, Neil!)

Scott

    Does anybody know how that Meech Lake thing ended ?

They drained it.

    I read today in the paper that the city of Sarnia EXPLODED
    last night, destroying the entire town and surrounding area.
    
    It went on to say nobody really noticed.
    
    Capt. Spider-crossing-legs-bottom-webbed.

    I guess it was between the article on "Teen Girl Burst in Flame
    while Tanning" and and the one on "Was Elvis Eistein's Illegitimate
    Child? New Evidences Show Up!"               

     or..., woman of 84 years gives birth to full chamber orchestra by
    Cesarean. The doctor was quoted as saying:
    	"The mother and musicians are doing well and are well into the
    second movement"

        Glenn

    I'll be going for lunch later today sometime.
    
    Just thought I'd let you know.
    
    Regards,
    Jim Splinter-bottom-but-no-tweezers

    Hey what happened, I saw some really strange messages in the last few
    notes, like the network went trough Sarnia or something.
    
    Jean
    
    
    PS Mr moderator, to keep people from "note padding", is it possible to
                     insist that Sarnia be at least mentionned in all
                     replies to "The Sarnia note".
    
    

    Note padding?  Who the heck would have the audacity to note-pad?
    
    Jim.
    
    P.S.  Ah....Sarnia.

    I support the recommendation of limiting this topic to subject related
    to Sarnia, like in 53.1 to 53.27, or 53.75 to 53.181, 53.248 to
    53.259, or 53.28 to 53.74, or even 53.182 or 53.247.
    Any other reply was obviously out of place in this topic.
    

    -.1
    
    I would have to add that I support almost the same range of topics,
    with the notable exception that I ALSO support notes 53.0 and 53.260.
    
    Warmest regards
    Sarnia Jim (kind of like Indiana Jones, but not really).

    
    -.1,.2
    
    In case I miss something tomorrow (going out of town), I would like
    to add 53.999 and 53.1000 to the list, as the number of important
    replies should probably reach that by lunch time.
    
    -doug (who should know better) in Sarnia

    I am glad that you have finaly deceided to talk about Sarnia in the
    Sarnia note or as mr Seguin said: "les moutons avec les moutons, les
    vaches avec les vaches et Sarnia en Ontario"
    
    Jean
    

    I though that it was a "petite chevre" as in "La petite chevre de
    monsieur Seguin". I do not remember anything about "une petite
    cuillere" or "Une petite vache". It was a pretty boring stupid story
    anyway, I may have fallen asleep and missed the part related to
    the cuillere or the petite vache. I am also sure there was no mention
    of Sarnia in the tale or in any other Daudet's tales. That is why
    I am mentionning the fact that Sarnia was not mentionned, so that
    there is a mention of Sarnia in this reply in order for it to comply
    with the requirement of this topic.
         

    I did not ask the initial poster his permission to re-post the
    following, but I do it anyway, as I believe it is the duty of the
    Sarnia topic to be informative and take advantage of any opportunity
    to demonstrate good corporate spirit.
    ===========================================================================
              <<< HUMAN::DISK$HUMAN_WRKD:[NOTES$LIBRARY]DIGITAL.NOTE;2 >>>
                          -< The DEC way of working >-
================================================================================
Note 1131.0                    Ken Olsen Interview                    No replies
CSG001::MAKSIN "Joe Maksin 291-0378 PDM1-2/H4"       42 lines  19-JUN-1990 06:22
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    "Take it from the top" written by Glenn Rifkin, appearing in
    June 18,1990 issue of Computrerworld.
    
    
    Ken Olsen, DEC's only president in its 33-year history, is known
    to be colorful and candid.  In an interview with "Computerworld"
    last week, Olsen spiced his comments with views of DEC and the
    industry.
    
    0 On the confusion casued by DEC's stream of product annoucements:
    
      "There are a lot of prodcuts coming out, and that does cause
       confusion.  But we have a choice of getting behind of making
       to many products."
    
    0 On whether problems within the sales force drove away former
      Senior Vice-President Jack Shields after 28 year at DEC:
    
      "I don't know.  I never asked him.  It just didn't seem polite.
       He didn't say that was why.  He didn't say at all."
    
    0  On efforts to reduce the employee head count:
    
       "I'm not saying that's not going on.  I'm not conscious of it
        because it's not at the level where it's my kind of problem."
    
    0  On whether DEC has plans to resell Apple Computer, Inc. Macintoches:
    
       "I asked that question and so far haven't gotten any good answers
        back.  If anything, I say we should have done it years ago."
    
    0  On the continuing doldrums for DEC stock:
    
       "Wall Street is interested in profit today, and we're not making
        the profit today we should."
    
    0  On paying a dividend to shareholders:
    
       "We've been making cash for quite a while now.  It's probably
        the right assumption that we should pay dividends.  The problem
        is, our advisers say 'Not now.'''
    

    Actually, this interview was done in Ken's Sarnia office.
    
    Strange...but TRUE!
    
    Ripley Believeitornot.

    dear sarnians,
    
    	i am a transplanted canuck working in puerto rico.  it was my
    boss who said - work in aguadilla or i will make transfer you to
    backplane engineering.  with this violent and vile threat, i had 
    little option, so i relocated with wife and daugther to puerto rico 
    last winter. 

        while, my wife could not take.  last week she left me and went
    back to her parents in SARNIA with my daughter.
    
    	what have i done?  what does sarnia have that made my wife to
    go back!  did she miss the polluted water?  did she miss the smog?
    
    	lost in the jungle and waiting for the hurricane
    
    	dave 

    Hi, gringo!
    
    You wonder why your wife dumped Puerto-Rico (and you) for Sarnia?
    It's because in Sarnia we make the best rhum ever distilled on this
    planet. After we have drunk muchos rhum we then dance until magnana
    a mean salsa which drives repatriated lonely senoritas wild, after
    that...
    
    Just kidding! If you want to exchange VAXmails with your wife, she
    can drop by the office. We are at 373, South Vidal Street. She can
    call 332 32 56 and ask for Louis.
                                      

    Dave,
    if you want to exchange DECmails with your house...well, forget
    it, it burned down.
    
    Sorry!
    Jim

    Jim, what does this have to do with Sarnia?

    Failure of Meech Lake has developed an exciting spin off possibility
    for the Sarnia facility. As you may know, the Sarnia facility has
    just under gone a extensive face lift (we now have cubicles). With
    pending political strife, we want it to be known that Sarnia has
    no intention of separating from Canada. In that light, we strongly
    suggest the CMC consider Sarnia as a candidate for any future location
    of support services (RDC, dispatch, etc). "Sarnia is open for business"
    
    Orval
     

    
    Hey, this is the best rumour I've heard in 2 1/2 years.  I'd 
    move to Sarnia anyday, although to be truthfull I'd much prefer
    they move RDC to Kelowna with Victoria being a real close second.
    
    Robin Davey
    Kanata RDC

Now Orval:

  You are totally out of control. We have been through all this 
before.  Sarnia is "open" for nothing.  Crossing the Vidal overpass, 
you will notice that there is a wall in front you. People heading for 
the office would be stopped.  How could you expect anyone to make it 
through the yellow valley fog.


  It is surprising to find you in the office.  I would have thought that 
you and Louie would be at the beach.  Still worth having lunch there??


    

    Neil:
    You should know better than to speak of Sarnia in such a way. After
    all it is the gateway to Canada from the U.S.
    
    No we are not at the beach we are planning the new layout to make
    room for the new people that arecoming down as per .271
    
    Orval
    

    Well;
    
      Next we will hear about the benefits such as.....
    
    Perfect sailing area
    
    No snow to mow, shovel etc
    
    No charge for city water
    
    Free skin rashes
    
    No charge fallout on the car (thank Dow)
    
    Free lighting from Polysar's burn off stack
    
    Corner table at the Riverport Inn
    
    Free swimming in the IPL holding ponds
    
    Clear noses courtesy of the chlorine plant
    
    Are there more benefits???

    HEY Watch it bud, no one talks about the Pigport in that tone of voice,   
    
                               NO ONE!!!!!!!
       As the premier entertainment complex in Sarnia, the Pigport offers a
    variety of exciting and challenging situations;
    
    		1.Trying to guess who on the stage is the peeler and who
    		  is the bouncer
    		2.Catch the rat in the corner
    		3.Follow the Slime
    		4.Trying to hold down the 10 cent hot dogs
    						  
	Also the comment about the table in the corner is totally erroneous,
we have box seats.
    	So as you can clearly see the Pigport has so much more to offer
    than you expected, I expect.
    
    
    Rocco
    

    Neil:
    You want to hear other benifits???
    Well we have everything Hull has. We have bilingualism too. We have
    Louis.
    Orval

    ...we also have bi-linguini: Rocco and Gerry.

    Glenn re: 53.270
    
    Dave's house is in Sarnia (or bits of it anyway after it blew up
    and the wind kind of blew it over there).
    
    JP

Re: 53.270

Glenn, YOU want to stick to the topic?!?  You must be suffering
from delusions of maturity.

    	Pat,

    		Did anyone ever tell you that your nose looks a lot like an
    	asterisk?

    Glenn 8')

    (the man with the apostrophe nose) 

    All the better to smell Sarnia with.

Look....

  In the old days,,,, real men left Sarnia after paying their penance.  
You folks are still there and are trying to tell the rest of us the 
wonderful benefits of your town.

  Lets get real for a moment.  The Riverport is nothing but the insides 
of a beer barrel that sat in the sun for 3 years. Then someone put 
chairs in it, and called it a bar. There is no entertainment!  That 
finished when the "ballet" dancers stopped taking steroids.  

    

    
    AH YES!!!!
    
    	How does that saying go:
    
    	Jealousy is the greatest form of flatery(or was it imitation,
        it doesn't matter).
    
    It sounds to me that Mr. "Yes I do miss the Pigport" Baxter longs
    for that bottom of the barrel draft and lazy afternoons watching
    the pigs wallow (oops, I meant peelers).
    
    	It really is nice to be missed and your longing for Sarnia is
    quite touching.
    
    
    Rocco
       
    

    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    NEWSFLASH    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    
    
    DEC Engineer avoided serious injuries in recent chemical spill at
    local Sarnia chemical plant.
    
    Bo Joda reported that the incident could have exploded into a serious
    situation if not for the courageous and cat-like reflexes of the
    highly trained DEC employee.
    
    Early Tuesday A.M., a massive sodium chloride spill occurred when
    the holding vessel ruptured while the service engineer was neutralizing
    his eggs in the in-plant cafeteria.  To avoid spiritual repercusions,
    the tech, without using protective gloves, quickly scooped a pinch
    of the chemical and tossed it over his left shoulder.
    
    CONGRATULATIONS TO THE COURAGEOUS DEC EMPLOYEE FOR HIS HEROIC ACTIONS!
    
    

    re.284
    
    The said employee is also highly trained in soothing the consequences
    of accidental ingestion of ethyl alcohol by the mean of expert
    administration of salicylic acid compounds and carbonated sodium
    derivative.
    
    In his quest for perfection in health and safety matters, he does
    not hesitate to experiment frequently on his own body.

    
    Little Known Sarnia Fact:
    
    The rumour is true that Mark Daugherty was seen in the Riverport
    on more than one occasion.This fact is well documented because I
    was there...
    

    That was after he left DEC to join Autotrol.

    I'll be going to lunch again today...not in Sarnia.
    Slurp.

I spent a month in Sarnia one Sunday afternoon.

Korff Barbunk

    Just wanted to let you know I had an excellent lunch today.

    	Did you think about Sarnia? If you did, your last reply qualifies
    as a valid reply. If not, you will have to delete it.

    Sarnia Sarnia Sarnia.

    In qualification,

    Glenn

    Prior to going to lunch, I set a logical:
    
    $ SET LUNCH/THINK="SARNIA"/FOOD$POLLUTION
    
    So I'm pretty sure it qualifies.

    oh ya? Well I do a:
    $ ALLOCATE SARNIA$NOURISHMENT
    $ @SYS$VOMIT=PROJECTILE

    IT IS AN UNPUBLISHED FACT THAT SARNIA IS DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE
    HEALTH OF THE AUTO INDUSTRY IN WINDSOR AND DETROIT.  THINK OF US THE
    NEXT TIME YOU LAY YOUR HANDS ON THAT PLASTIC STEERING WHEEL.
    

                            -< THE AUTO CONNECTION >-

What 'auto industry'?  Is that an industry that runs itself?
Surely, you don't mean the 'car industry', do you?

Maybe you're referring to the 'Otto Connection'.  You know, that
notorious hooker who plied her trade across Detroit and Windsor,
Gertrude Otto.  Her death was sudden but she died with a smile on her
face - she was buried alive when a truck carrying used dildoes over-
turned at her street corner.

    It is an other unpublished fact that Sarnia is directly responsible
    for the health of a large section of the Canadian population. Think 
    of us next time you slip on this piece of latex. 

Ya know what's stamped on the end of those things...oh, that's right
you've no need to unravel it that far. ;^)

    Din't have a rubber once so I tried Reynolds wrap. The girlfriend
    didn't like it - - she must have had fillings.
    

    One more to 300
    

    The Sarnia topic has just reached its 300th reply!

    You hear about the girl from Sarnia who chipped her teeth on the
    dildo giving her first () job?
    
    Offensively yours (but you guys started it)
    
    Father Priestly.

    
    Does she work at the Riverport????
    

    Les;
    
      Not now.  That was the pre-employment test!  Ask the Sarnia sales
    reps where she works now.  They follow the people that fail the test.

    
    Someones personal secretary now is she???...

....speaking of enema, isn't Sarnia lovely in the Summer?

    actually, it is a lovely spot for an enema too .. i mean with lake
    huron up stream, you can be sure to have sufficient pressure, and
    then add the blob for cleansing.
    
    mmm.... 306

    Pat Rushton just thought about Sarnia....
    
    And so goes the long road to .400

    <<Pat Rushton just thought about Sarnia....
    
    Gee, with guys like Glenn who needs enemas?

    Aw, you're just saying that 'cause it's true...
    
    
    Sarnia, a topic to end all topics.

    Can I just pop in here and say I have yet to add a reply to the Sarnia
    topic?
    
    Dave

   RE:  -.1
    
    Well then, don't you think it is high time you decided to start?
    
    Regards,
    
    Batenemaman
    

    re:-.2
    
    well what do you want to say about sarnia

    Maybe that I feel sad I will probably never get to visit the place so
    many here have talked about....  But I'll get over it....
    
    Dave (who's_feeling_better_already)

    You know, once when I was a kid somebody dared me to do one
    of two things: either put my arm in the lion's mouth at the
    zoo, or go to Sarnia.
    
    Regards,
    Lefty.

    re-2
    
    well my vacation is coming, and i actually going to go to sarnia.
    see vidal, bleach my hair blond in the air and blackened my skin
    with a little swimming in the river.
    
    of all the places available with my frequent flyers points, i pick
    sarnia and i am proud to admit it to ....
    
    dave formerly of the corner of spadina and college    
    

    Tell me, do they have any White Castle restaurants in Sarnia?  Seems to
    me they would go together nicely....
    
    Dave

    Dave:
    
      We were neighbours then.  I was at College & Brock!!

    NO sorry no White castles here in Sarnia.
    I know that Mr N. Baxter likes to gripe about Sarnia but now we
    are just getting to the roots of the Bitterness in Neil and the
    reason he left and slanders Sarnia.
    
    	THERE ARE NO WHITE CASTLE RESTURANTS HERE
    
    Sorry bout your luck Neil
    
    Orval

    Orval;
    
      You have the next best thing.  The Coffee Cup.  Best "sliding" food
    food in Sarnia.  
    
     

    Sorry bout your luck again Neil
    They closed the Coffeee Cup about two years ago. Sold out for a
    gas bar and convinience store development. Now we have to resort
    to higher class eating establishments for lunch like the Bunsen
    Burner or Lees.
    
    Orval
    

    You know, I would hate to think that Whirly-twirlies, Edmonton,
    and Barf Korbunk take precedence over important things such as
    Sarnia.  I mean really, what city gave us Sir John A?  Ok so
    that was Kingston.   But all right, who gave us Terry Fox?
    Coquitlam...  Well, Sarnia is REALLY KEEN, OK?!?
    
    Please donate to the needy Sarnia note fund, and come on, let's
    win one for the dripper.
    
    Slam.

    	It would appear hopeful that this topic could conceivably reach the
    plateau of over 400 replies if everyone pitched in. Certainly this
    could be viewed as some sort of bizarre parody, imagine, Sarnia in the
    lead in the Canada notesfile. More discussion about Sarnia than any
    other city in this great land! Even more discussion than Peterborough!
    But as Mr. pond has already stated, Sarnia is really keen so I think it
    is a worthy cause.
    	Come on, don't just think about it........

    Glenn

	Well, a friend used to have a girl friend from there!

	pUDding

			






		The Happy Hookers

		....terrible case of crabs....

    Was one of them called "Buster"?  I hear he was from Royalty.....
    Prince Rupert.
    
    dog

    I was thinking about visiting Sarnia next weekend.  What is the mean
    temperature there?  I would like to know what type of clothes to
    bring?  Sneakers, shorts and tee-shirt, or mukluks and parka?

Mark IV, NATO de-con suit.

	I was also thinking about visiting the fair city of
	Saranac Lake. I hear the fishing is quite good, and
	most of the Hotel....what?...oh Sarrrnia....nevermind


	Saint pUD of the bad I's

re The Happy Hookers

Sounds like a pretty rugged outfit...

    Tourism is Sarnia/Lambton's number 3 industry next to chemical and
    agriculture.  There are many atractions such as
     - beaches /camping 
     - inexpesive hotels
     - harness racing
     - bingo parlours
     - highland games
     - festival of lights
     - fishing derby
     - oil museum at Oil Springs
     - parade of combines on every rural road at this time of year
    
    also the temperature warm, and t-shirts are quite suitable.
    

    
......and we have the PIGPORT!!!!!
    
    
                                

    re .333
    Get your mind out of the "Pigtrough"
    

    For those of us not lucky enough to actually LIVE in Sarnia but
    are instead forced to only dream about such a thrill, just what
    the heck is PIGPORT?

	Its where the cargo pigs come in to dock.

	pUDpig

    
    and they disrobe as well...it's terrible....
    

    re .339
    I guess you could call it that. Depends what you want to pick up.
    Make sure your health insurance is paid up first before you pick
    up anything.
    

    
    I thought they were handing out body condoms at the door for your
    safety...
    

	No they hand them out at the sign saying "Welcome to S..."

	unpUDleavable

    Slander your own city, We like it here..
    

    
    The whole nation slanders this city already....we're forced to
    pick on Sarnia...
    

    OH come on Les no they don't. You just got a chip on your shoulder.
    We'll just set up an imaginary couch here in the notes, you get on it,
    we'll ask the questions, you answer them and we just might be able to
    work this through for you.
    

    <<We'll just set up an imaginary couch here in the notes, you get on it,
    <<we'll ask the questions, you answer them and we just might be able to
    <<work this through for you.

	Question #1:

		Did your mother have any children who lived?

    COME ON LES all of us in Sarnia are waiting. Lay down and just answer
    the good doctors question
    

    <<Don't do it Grizz, I just heard the snapping of rubber gloves...

	Now, now Ian.  We asked him to lay down in a supine position,
	not the prone position that you are, ooh soo familiar with.

	Now, patient...

	Question #2:

		Why do you think that, just because you are paranoid,
		everyone doesn't really hate you?

    Scott Newman...are you there?

    re. 53.4 (march 88)
    
    The styrene lab of the Nova Petrochemicals division will be moving
    to the old Fiberglass building sometime in October.
    
    This is to show that we follow up on old notes.

    
    I NEED HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!....I'm so
    CONFUZZZED???!!!!????!!!???
    
    Ok Dan......where's that couch...but no gloves and put down that
    KY jelly....
    
    No..there no surviving children in our family...only me my sister
    and brother...
    
    Why are you asking me if I'm paranoid...go ask someone else..why
    do you pick on me all the time,the whole world's against me...

    RE: 53.21
    
    NEIL BAXTER where are you ?
    
    Dow Chemical has replaced one of the IP11 systems. Has the IP11
    survival engineering group been sleeping ? We only have 11 sites
    left. This product is becoming an endangered species. Are there
    any mating pairs left anywhere in GIA ? Soon IP11 will be only a
    novelty at the Sarnia Museum (formerly known as Sarnia Surplus).
    
    The Riverport is actively trying to aquire an IP11 for a stage prop.
    
    dh

Neil's wife just returned from a separate vacation.  Rumour has it that on her
return, Neil discovered that she had slipped into Sarnia for a couple of days,
so Neil is busy geting de-contaminated....

    re .353
    
    OH NO ... not an IP11 system gone ... that's another bit of my rug
    pulled out from under me in PDP11 software support.
    
    Stuart

Ok folks:

  I typed del/ent to this conference a couple of weeks ago.  Too much &^%#
for me.

  Anyway, this update was brought to my attention, and I guess a response 
is due. Garry is right.  I let the lady out of the house and what 
happens??  She was kidnapped by the Sarnia CS boys and held hostage.  

  The skin rash is "mostly" cleared up.

  IP11.  Ahh when men were men, and turning off the expansion box meant 
blowing up a plant!!  I guess that things have to change.  Got to go now, 
take care Sarnia.  Oh yeah....Hi Scott!!

Del/Ent=Canada
    

    While it's true that Sir John Eh had his roots elsewhere (rumour
    has it that the Kingston Pen plays a part), Alexander Mackenzie,
    the nth Prime Minister of Canada is a Sarnian (at least he lived
    here during his formative years and is buried in Lakeshore Cemetery).
    
    -doug

    	That would explain his long winded, disjointed, incomprehensible
    speeches.

re: 53.357
    
    	Just to keep this note alive, since it's the only thing keeping
    me awake on a looong graveyard shift, I have found evidence that
    Sarnia was obviously a little known place at the turn of the century.
    Having just read through my great-grandfather's journal written
    during his harrowing emigration from Hornsey U.K. to Saskatoon 
    (why no Saskatoon note?) I noticed that there was no mention of
    Sarnia. How could he have missed it? Did it not smell back then?
    He evens mentions Hull PQ so I know he had an eye for small,
    unimportant details, so why no mention of Sarnia?
    
                             Just curious (and very sleepy)
    
                                            Oliver

    
    It just shows that your great-grandfather was a man of bearing,
    intelligence and high morals.
    
    In his time there were certain things a proper gentleman just did
    not discuss, let alone write down, in public.  Our moral standards
    have deteriorated since then and we can now publicly say such things
    as "lady's ankle" "pregnant" and "Sarnia".
    
    In any case it must be interesting reading.  Are there any comments
    he made of the time that might be of interest to the rest of us?
    
    Roger

    Are OLOTEN and DLOTEN related ?

    He may have laid the foundations of Sarnia when he releived himself on
    his way to Saskatoon.
    
    Jean
    

    re: .357...
    
    Since Oliver and I share a common heritage (ie. his great-grandfather
    was my grand-father, and his grandfather is my uncle and his father is
    my cousin and my daughters are his second cousins ....) I must
    publically admit that Oliver (given his tender age) was only allowed to
    read the expurgated version of the journal.  The blank chapters were
    spent helping dig the Port Huron-Sarnia train tunnel under the St.
    Clair River, which just happens to be celebrating its 80th anniversary
    of completion (just another little known Sarnia/Loten fact)!
    
    -doug
    
    PS: Say hi to all the folks in Ottawa for me Oliver!

    re.363
    ....and from me too!

    Louis
    The or'd product of a not Loten and a Loten is a Loten.
    

    <<The or'd product of a not Loten and a Loten is a Loten.

	That's a load of boolean!!!    

    Perhaps this would be a good point in the Sarnia note to open up a
    discussion again on some of the excellent points brought up in John R.
    Covert's 53.188 note.
    
    

I have a confession to make.  I don't care how many people know this, but 
it has to be said -- it's been building up inside me for so long and I 
just can't hold it back any longer!!

So, here goes .....


I HAVE NEVER BEEN TO SARNIA!!!  (But I passed within 10 km once!)

There, I feel much better now!  It helps to make a clean breast of things, 
but I understand that's not too easy in Sarnia because of the water quality 
down there!  ;^}

Peter B.

    I personally am one who highly approves of clean breasts...

    Glad you got that off your chest.
    

    Was that Sarnia's coat of arms?
    
    Jean
    

    Well, I had never heard of Sarnia before. So, when I visited my Father
    in Germany, I looked it up in a book on Ontario he has, and was
    surprised to read that this place really exists. Sounded kind of boring
    though.
    
    Wayne

    Now just THINK of the people who LIVE in Sarnia!!
    
    Jean
    

    Jean,
    
    Its some kind of punishment, right ?
    
    Wayne ;-)

    Wayne,
    
    Just think of Sarnia like say Swansea, or Redcar ....
    
    Stuart

    Yes I think you are right, Sarnia must be purgatory because it IS close
    to hell (Toronto).
    
    Jean
    

    Hey Stuart, did you have a good Holiday ?
    
    Swansea or Redcar ????
    
    Gross !!
    
    Wayne
    
    ;-)

    Things must be pretty boring up here in Canada if the Sarnia note is
    the only topic of interest.

    Scott Newman has not contibuted to the topic in a long time...

	Scott was last seen wandering aimslessly through the
	streets of Sarnia...

	this reporter puD

    In awe of all the splenders no doubt.....
    

    Are the splenders of Sarnia anything to do with the method they use for
    holding up their Pants ?????    ;-)

    re. -.1
    
    Watch it or you'll get the strap!!

	Ooooo..the strap...you talk so dirty Glen.  ;-)

	Charlie

    No matter how hard I try, puns always seem to get me in trouble......
    
    Sarnia will soon have 400 replies

    YEP
    Go for 400 in splender or suspendors or whatever.
                       

Okay, what are you guys trying to hide?  I was going through the pile of candy
our 23 month old son managed to bring home last night (with a little help
from Dad) and I found a roll of multi colored sugar discs.  The label on the
wrapper says:

       Candy
      Smarties
   Sweet 'n' Sour
   Made in Canada


I tooked closer at the wrapper and the address I found was for Ce De Candy, 
Inc, Union, NJ!

My guess is that these things are made in Sarnia and they stuck the NJ address
on it to add class!

I've confiscated all these 'Smarties' from my sons bucket and will have to test
them all to make sure they are not harmful.....  If I'm not here next week
you'll know why!

Dave

    
    Actually there is a very simple explanation.
    
    Sarnia, Ont and Union, NJ are twinned cities. If you go look in the NJ
    conference you will find a not devoted to Union.
    
    Just a few of the similarities shared by the cities:
    
    Sarnia has a Union station; Union has a Sarnia station
    Sarnia has six letters in its name; Union has five (but American
    pronunciation makes it sound like six)
    
    Hope this helps your frazzled brain.
    
    Roger
    
    PS under no circumstances eat the candy. Send it immediately by prepaid
    courier to the Mayor of Sarnia. He reported that someone had stolen it
    at Halloween.
    

    Actually Sarnia's sister city is Trois Riviers, Quebec.  But since
    separation is pending we are seeking a new sister city to help carry
    the burden of the slander and abuse dumped on Sarnia.  Thanks for
    aiding us in our search.
    
    ps The mayor of Sarnia has a supply of razor blades from the basket of
    apples he received from the people of Sarnia on Hallowe'en.
    

    Approaching .400

	Who will be the lucky individual to grace the 400th reply
	of the infamous sarnia note?

	Only the beaver knows....

    
    Please see 366.9
    
    -doug

    I don't know what the result of this posting will be, but on never
    knows, so I'll do it anyway, it may work:
    
    We have been looking for a while (and unsuccessfully until now) for
    somebody, working for Digital, with some time available on his hand, or
    not doing anything too important (like drawing org charts or forwarding
    by paper mail printouts of e/mail...) to help us in qualifying the
    skills and time required to design a replacement for the DIA11, come up
    with a proposal acceptable to the customer, and do the job contracted
    by PSS, CSS, EIS, or whatever will be applicable (we need the body
    first, there will be no problem to find an organization to take the
    revenue when we have found the rare animal).
    
    Now about the job:
    
    The DIA11 is an old Unibus parallel interface wich connects a VAX or
    PDP to a GPCI (General Purpose Computer Interface) on the Honeywell TDC
    2000 data highway. This was very useful to people who wanted to use
    distributed control systems from Honeywell, but did not care too much
    for their PMX computersand preferred VAX or PDP.
    
    The application software (usually supervisory control) would talk
    to the TDC2000 through the DIA11 using a software driver written by
    Setpoint, Biles, Quadrex, etc...
    
    As time passed, Customers migrated from Unibus to Q-bus systems, which
    required to interface the DIA11 through a Q-to-U converter. The DIA11
    aged poorly, and is now difficult to maintain. The combination Q-to-U +
    DIA11 tends to be less and less reponsive to the needs of younger and
    faster Q-bus MicroVAXes, and nobody cared to invest in upgrading it (it
    is not really a long term potential).
    
    We have a customer who is ready to pay some good money to get a
    replacement solution (Q-bus board and Software driver) with the basic
    functionality of the DIA11, and with support for up to 5 years, at
    which time, all TDC2000 are expected to be retired.
    
    There are loads of Q-bus parallel interface in our catalog, and from
    3rd parties. What we cannot find if somebody credible in the ancient
    art of selecting one and writing the driver.
    
    If you feel you can be the one to answer the challenge, you have a shot
    at becoming a legend among DECusers in the area of process control in
    various country around this planet (multinational company), and a cult
    figure in Sarnia.. and we will make sure that you get the corporate
    recognition applicable!
    
    If you need more informations send VAXmail at TROA01::DZIALOWSKI or A!
    mail at LOUIS DZIALOWSKI @SRN.
    
    
    
    ...the dream continues...
    

    To any smart ass who is about to make funny comments about the previous
    reply: don't bother. This a serious problem/opportunity and the fact
    that I have to post it even in this topic is descriptive enough of the
    state of misery in which we presently are. So if you nothing to say,
    don't say it.
    
    This said, if you have any constructive idea you are welcome. 

    But then again if you have nothing but stupid drivel like this reply,
    feel free to respond.
    
    Jean
    

    So like is there a prize for the writer of the 400th note ... like a
    free trip to Sarnia or what?  Or perhaps the prize is that you DON'T
    get to go to Sarnia!
    
    Martin

    O.K. O.K.,
    
    There,  I ahve set SOMEONE up for the 400th reply.
    
    Who's it gonna be ?
    
    
    Wayne

The following notes were all the first to hit reply Sarnia.400
    
    Scooter_the_mad_moderator_&_all_round_nice_guy
    
    --------------------------------------------------------------------
    
              <<< KAOSWS::$1$DUA3:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CANADA.NOTE;1 >>>
                                 -< No Title >-
================================================================================
Note 53.400                          Sarnia                           400 of 400
POLAR::RICHARDSON "He who laughs best"                5 lines  19-NOV-1990 09:41
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    ME!
    
    And quite frankly I think I've earned it!
    
    Glenn

              <<< KAOSWS::$1$DUA3:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CANADA.NOTE;1 >>>
                         -< True North Strong & Free >-
================================================================================
Note 53.400                          Sarnia                           400 of 400
PEKING::JOHNSTONC "From the Great White North"       25 lines  19-NOV-1990 12:59
                            -< COULD THIS BE 400? >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Well, could this be it?
    
    Number 400!!
    
    I guess it depends on how quickly the communication line is between the
    UK and Sarnia.
    
    It would be a great honour to add the 400th reply to this note - and a
    rather special moment for me as I used to look after SRN when I worked
    in Personnel over in Canada.  You think you have problems - I used to
    try and recruit people to work for us in Sarnia!!
    
    Now that I'm here in the UK, I must confess I miss the place - the
    incomparable ambiance, the unending culture, the historical splendour
    and uncompromising natural beauty!   I'd never seen bowling shirts
    quite like it - tacky yes, but a kind of stylish tack..you know what
    I'm saying?!
    
    Well, perhaps I won't be the 400th reply....and none of this sentiment
    will mean anything!!!!
    
    and onwards to 500.....
    
    
    Craig

              <<< KAOSWS::$1$DUA3:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CANADA.NOTE;1 >>>
                         -< True North Strong & Free >-
================================================================================
Note 53.400                          Sarnia                           400 of 400
OTOO01::PAQUIN "The Canadian Dreamer"                 4 lines  19-NOV-1990 14:26
                            -< I hope I got it... >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    
    
    YESSSSSS....!!!! I got it....I was waiting for this all night and
    day..;)

              <<< KAOSWS::$1$DUA3:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CANADA.NOTE;1 >>>
                         -< True North Strong & Free >-
================================================================================
Note 53.400                          Sarnia                           400 of 400
OTOU01::GANNON "Mind that bus! What bus? SPLAT!!"     3 lines  20-NOV-1990 10:49
                              -< 400... At last! >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Me!!
    
    - Gerry

              <<< KAOSWS::$1$DUA3:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CANADA.NOTE;1 >>>
                         -< True North Strong & Free >-
================================================================================
Note 53.400                          Sarnia                           400 of 400
TROA01::DZIALOWSKI                                     1 line  20-NOV-1990 18:23
                                  -< Scott? >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Scott Newman, where are you?

    Humph !!!
    
    ALL those 400's, and not ONE thanked me for setting them up !
    
    {sulk}
    Wayne

    
    
    
    
    		Merry Christmas from Sarnia
    

    article from the mooretown general star daily newspaper revealed that
    sarnia is violating the embargo/blockage of iraq and is supplying
    technical resources for their refineries.  this seems to be the
    resultant of the mass exiodus of americans and the iraqis need someone
    to man their pumps.

    RE .404
    Thats only so that the gas can be boot legged back to Port Huron
    Michigan so we can go over there buy it and not pay all the Canadian
    taxes. It called a mater of survival.
    

    
    IMPORTANT NOTE to the ENTIRE WORLD!!!
    
    We were all witness to a major event that occurred on 1-jan-1991 at
    precisely 00:00 (and I don't mean Dick Clark and the glowing ball in
    Times Square).
    
    The City of Sarnia and the Town of Clearwater (formerly Sarnia
    Township, circa 1988) officially amalgamated into the new city of
    Sarnia-Clearwater.  The new city stretches from the strikingly blue
    waters of the St. Clair River on the West and the sandy beaches on Lake
    Huron on the North to the Chippewa Indian Reservation on the South and
    the bountiful Soybean fields of Lambton Rd 26.  This progressive
    community now numbers 72,000 industrious, yet friendly, inhabitants.
    
    Happy Birthday, Sarnia-Clearwater!!
    
    -doug_who_used_to_live_in_Sarnia_until_he_moved_to_Clearwater_only_to_find
     _that_the_city_followed_him_home_one_night

    Can we change our LOC code @SRNCLRWTR ?
    Shall we try to raise popular awareness of this historical events by
    leaving messages like " Could you ask him to call Louis in the
    Sarnia-Clearwater office ?"?
    Should we have the moderator rename the topic "Sarnia-Clearwater"?
    Will we get comments to the effect that Sarnia-Clearwater sounds
    oxymoronic ?

    Why not call "Sarnia Township" and leave it at that ?

    
    Because "township" sounds too rural for the industrial gaint Sarnia is
    trying to become.  I suppose if this fails then we will have to resort
    to Township, but until then "The City of ......" should be used.
    
    Besides "The City of ....." might actually attract unsuspecting
    tourists.
    
    

    In case you are wondering about this topic being so quiet lately,
    have no fear, Stormin' Norman is in the process of chasing the
    Conservative Guard out of Sarnia, as we speak, pursuant to UN
    Resolution 53.0
    
    Scooter

    
    We, in the glorious and historic name of all industrious and valiant
    citizens of light in Sarnia-Clearwater, will never, ever, ever leave
    our homeland, even if the Mother of all Battles approaches, unless the
    price of gas goes below $1.15 / gallon in Port Huron, Michigan.
    
    -doug

    Doug,
    Where you hiding.
    Paid $1.02 / gal last night
    Your unless has just become reality.
    

    
    A severe storm raged through the Sarnia - Port Huron region last night
    around 10PM EST, spawning a number of tornados, before heading eastward
    through London, Kitchener and Toronto.  Winds of 100 Km/h were measured
    at the peak of the storm.  Fortunately, at least at this time, there
    were no reports of personal injury, only property damage (roofs, TV
    antennas, garden sheds), downed powerlines and fallen trees.
    
    -doug_who_thought_a_bus_went_through_his_back_yard

    How did the Grand Canal locks hold up?

    I read in the paper that there was extensive damage to the fake vomit
    factory.
    

    Jim! Where ya been?????

    ...single-handedly contributing to the Corporation's expense and
    revenue problems...

    Up to your old tricks I see....
    
    Have you had a chance to do a sales pitch to the fake vomit factory in
    Sarnia??

<<...the fake vomit factory in Sarnia??

It was bought out be Giusepe's Hand-Made Pizzas and Dehydrated Dog-Vom
Emporium (formerly Gertie's Whisker Biscuits and Kentucky Fried Socks).

Welcome back, Jim-bo, but stay away from the light, your head is creating
a glare.


Pass the firkin o'beer.   

    What a strange man.......

I just came across the following notefile announcement, which could mean
    real hard competition for our "Sarnia Topic".
    
    The similar requisites for membership could result in some of you
    feeling more at home in this new note. I hope you'll think twice about
    it and will continue to contribute to the present topic.
    
    
     <<< TURRIS::TURRIS$DUA18:[NOTES$LIBRARY]EASYNET_CONFERENCES.NOTE;4 >>>
                       -< EasyNet Conference Directory >-
================================================================================
Note 3184.0*                    High Intelligence                        1 reply
JARETH::EDP "Always mount a scratch monkey."         17 lines   3-APR-1991 06:57
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The High_IQ conference is now open.  To add it to your notebook, use
    SELECTED or:

    	ADD ENTRY VORTEX::EDPEDP::DKA300:[EDP]HIGH_IQ

    If you are in ZK, you can omit "VORTEX::".  Version 2.0 of Notes is
    needed to access this conference.

    This conference is principally for highly intelligent people.
    
    It should serve to bring intelligent people together on the net to
    enjoy conversation, news, and other social interaction, to provide a
    stimulating intellectual and social environment, and to organize
    dinners, get-togethers, and other activities.
    
    
    				-- edp
================================================================================
Note 3184.1                     High Intelligence                         1 of 1
JARETH::EDP "Always mount a scratch monkey."          6 lines   4-APR-1991 12:58
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    This conference is members-only.  Membership is not limited to people
    with evidence of high intelligence.  To become a member, send mail to
    Jareth::edp.
    
    
    				-- edp

	I am sorry to dissapoint you, mut membership is not just on intellectual
	ability, after entering 2 notes in this conference I have been banned, 
	and EDP will not reply to my mails.
	(well, maybe it does say something about my intellect!!!!)

	I beleive that free speech is allowed in Sarnia........

	Heather
	

	re .422

>	and EDP will not reply to my mails.

	You weren't trying to persuade him the Poll Tax was a good thing,
	were you? :-)

	Tony

    Posting replies in the Sarnia topic is in itself proof enough of very
    high intelligence. If EDP does not get it, how bright can these people
    be ?
    
    PS: anyway, most of the Sarnia topic noters don't need a notefile
    posting to go out for a bite, a beer or a date. We are able to
    accomodate our incredible intellect with a civilized social life...

    
    Since you mentioned the lovely countryside of Devon (someone did I'm
    sure!), I'm looking forward to passing through there next year!  Any
    tips Heather (since you're banned from EPS, you may as well dally in
    the forever friendly Sarnia note)?
    
    -doug

	Doug,

	Tips for Devon:

	Many smaller roads are windy with hedges either side, many are only 
	wide enough for one car , so no white lines - there may be a passing 
	place if you're lucky, and expect a herd of ponies or a tractor to be 
	just around the corner.

	Brush up on driving manual cars, and reversing!

	The North coast is windy - good surfing at Newquay (yup that's Cornwall,
	but it's fairly close).

	The south coast has loads of sandy beaches. Be careful on all beaches,
	and don't swim if their are red flags up, the undertow can be quite
	considerable on an outgoing tide. (I used to be a lifeguard).

	It can be very busy in July and August, avoid the bank holidays, or just
	don't plan to drive on a bank holiday weekend - May 6 May 27, August 26
	this year.

	The coast is very pretty, the North coast being more rugged than the 
	south. Dartmoor national park is also very pretty, some of Dartmoor 
	can be quite exposed. Ponies roam free, as do sheep, and there are many
 	small rivers and stone bridges.
	There is a nice walk around Lydford gorge, it's about 2 miles, it's a
	bit rugged, so make sure you have flat shoes (keep your stilletos at 
	home!)
	The pubs sell good beer (beware of courages, except the "directors"
	brand). The standard cider - Blackthorn or Strongbow are 5% by volume
	and not too strong, however, be careful, if you get scrumpy try it by
	the .5 pint first! it's an aquired taste and very strong - don't forget
 	to have it strained so you don't end up with the rat!. 

	The accent may fool you a bit in some of the villages, my husband was 
	born and bred in the SE of England, and he sometimes has difficulty!

	Plymouth is the largest city, the barbican area is quite an attraction,
	and has the "mayflower steps" from where the pilgrims set sail.
	They're just a few ordinary stone steps, with a plac, but there's always
	people having their photos taken there.
	It's a cobbled area with many old victorian houses.
	They have a large Dome, which covers the history of Plymouth through 
	the Blitz, a lovely promanade walk .....etc.......there is NO sandy
	beach in Plymouth, but there are some 5 miles west and east. (though it
	might be a 20 mile - by road.

	Checkout the local National trust properties, they are all historic 
	houses, with lovely matured gardens - and of course, sell the obligatory
	cream tea. If you want the Devon tourist info, then drop me a mail and 
	I'll get it to you.

	Williams ice cream is the one to go for - with cream and a flake.

	That's all for now, is it like sarnia??????

	Heather

    Sounds pretty much like Sarnia to me, excepted for the ice-cream.
    Your life-membership to the Sarnia topic is confirmed.
    If you drive by Sarnia, stop by and we'll go for beer and ice-cream
    between between highly intelligent people.

    ... you are in a maze of twisty, unlined roads, all the same ...
    
    ... you are in a maze of twisty, unlined roads, all the same ...
    
    ... you are in a maze of twisty, unlined roads, all the same ...
    
    ... you are in a maze of twisty, unlined roads, all the same ...
    
    ... you are in a maze of twisty, unlined roads, all the same ...
    
    ... you are in a maze of twisty, unlined roads, all the same ...
    
    Scooter

	is there a Williams ice cream at the centre?

	<<is there a Williams ice cream at the centre?

No, it has a creamy caramel centre...and we don't know how it got there.


Mr. Frozen Road Apple

    
    Other than the Ice cream, the ponies and the other nice bits, its
    exactly the same!!
    
    If you keep your eyes facing North (the Chemical Valley, although its
    not really a valley, is to the south) then there are beautiful sandy
    beaches, parkland and the bluest water in Bluewater land.
    
    -doug

	Pah, can it be really the same, does it rain for days-on-end in the 
	summer?


	Heather 

    
    
    No the only daze it rainz is Saturday and Sunday(z).
    
    Monday and Tuesday(z) are GLORIOUS.
    
    Wednesday its alright.
    
    Thursday and Friday its over cast.
    
    Start all over again.
    
    
    
    Sarnia has perfected this very accurate and on-time weather system, but
    now if only we could shift it a couple of daze.
    
    
    Franco
    

	Well, at least it keeps the "Sunday drivers" away........    

    My naughty bits are all engorged and tingling!!
    
    Ah...oh yeah...Sarnia...thought I'd throw that in to legitimize my
    note.
    
    Little-rat-faced-git

    <<Little-rat-faced-git

	Don't flatter yourself.


Climpf Dimmphart

    Heh fellas, I know (or rather hope) you are just having some fun here,
    but to the outsider, some of these comments are starting to look just
    a little too personal and insulting ...  In jokes, and private jokes
    are one thing, but when they are made in a semi-public forum that's
    another.
    
    
    Stuart

    Pat,
    
    I haven't lost any of the respect I had for you before this little
    incident.
    
    Jim

    
    Hey none of that mushy stuff here!
    
    This is the SARNIA notes file.
    
    Home of the Brave, Strong, and Mentally deranged!
    
    

    I heard something real sad about Sarnia. All the gas stations are
    closing down. I feel really sorry for Shell, Esso and all of those
    benign petroleum corporations who lay off people every time their
    multi-billion $ profit margin takes a dip.

    I think the federal government should give Shell and Esso some
    assistance as we continue to fight the recession and not the deficit.
    Perhaps even Pink Floyd could help them out......

    Glenn (who wishes he could tank up on the other side too!)

    	Gas prices have me fuming!

    
    
    Deficit?  What deficit!
    

    Who's brain?

    Mr. Ambient Temperature Choke Cherry

    <<Who's brain?

None other than, The Prime Mover, The Right Horrible, Brain Baloney.



Mr. Frozen Road Apple

    My brain hurts......

    Since I've decided not to spend my vacation in Sarnia
    this summer, I'd be slightly uninterested to know what
    places and sights I needn't see or visit in Sarnia - 
    due to my absence. 
    
    Among other things, I've been told there's no Small Canal there.
    Nothing else?
    
    Henrik

    
    re: -.1
    
    Henrik, I'm sorry to hear that you would pick anywhere other than
    Sarnia for your summer vacation, 'cause the places that you'd miss not
    seeing would include (in order of importance) ...
    
    1) the Taj Mahal
    2) the Empire State Building
    3) the West Edmonton Mall
    
    -doug_who_will_miss_not_seeing_them_too_but_will_spend_his_summer-
    	_in_Sarnia_anyway!

    re. .445
    
    You will also missing three impressive fjord (taurus):
    mine, Jeffrey's and Don's.

    The following message bring news of an exciting event on which we
    should all try to leverage all kind of creative initiatives in order to
    enhance the public image of our company.
    I am not sure that the "Sarnia Topic" is the right place to collect the
    suggestions, but it can be used as a temporary repository until a
    dedicated notefile is created on the subject.
    ============================================================================
Subject: Digital Sponsorship on TV

Digital Canada contributes to the nation's economic and social well-being 
in a number of ways, including the investment of equipment, expertise or 
funding in groups involved in amateur athletics, the arts, health, welfare 
and education.

One of our initiatives involves the Canadian Synchronized Swimming 
Association (or "Synchro Canada" for short). The association recently held 
its senior national championships to pick those athletes who would 
represent Canada in this sport at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, 
Spain.

Through an arrangement with television networks TSN nationwide and RDS in 
Quebec, Petro-Canada and Digital Equipment of Canada Limited are sponsoring 
a one-hour show on these championships in June.

All employees are encouraged to alert their families, friends and customers 
to watch TSN on the following dates. Digital's logo will be used throughout 
and Olympic Gold Medal Coach Debbie Muir, who will be doing the colour 
commentary, will be thanking us for our kind support.

AIR DATES

TSN            5-6 PM    Saturday June 15
               4-5 PM    Monday June 17
RDS            10-11 PM  Wednesday June 19

Air times may vary so consult your local listings on these dates. Thank 
you. 

    We are proud to announce that Hubert Gubbels, a Sarnia Office landmark,
    just graduated from the Canadian Management Institute (4-year course,
    Lambton College). Hubert is an other demonstration of Sarnia's office
    academic excellence, which has produced in the past CMI graduates such
    as Wray Lamb and Barry Morrison. Based on their example, we expect that
    Hubert will disappear soon from this office and move ahead in his
    career, far away from any real work.

    Did I hear correctly the other day on the Sports that one of Sarnia's
    own was pitching for the Boston Red Sox?
    

    Yes: it is Hubbert Gubbels. Now that he is over with his CIM
    graduation, he can go back to his favorite hobby, pitching in the
    majors.

    I think it's just a ploy to get this note up to 500 replies.....
    
    
    
    48 to go......

    No, it's true....Mike Gardiner, who pitched for the Canadian Olympic
    team is from Sarnia. The Sox picked him up from the Seattle Mariners
    eraly in the season when they dumped the hefty contract of Rob "The
    Caterer" Murphy.
    When he was a kid, he used to fish for salmon and carp in the Grand
    Canal, when he wasn't playing baseball.
    
    Tom 

    Well I'll be a Grand Canal, Sarnia, Frozen Road Apple!
    
    Glenn
    
    
    46 to go...

The Sarnia Topic is the obvious place to re-post the following:
    --------------------------------------------------------------------
             <<< ASIMOV::$1$DUA4:[NOTES$LIBRARY]MARKETING.NOTE;3 >>>
                   -< Marketing - Digital Internal Use Only >-
================================================================================
Note 1595.0          PLEASE - Someone tell me this is a Joke             1 reply
CIMNET::ENGBROCK                                     90 lines  20-JUN-1991 16:18
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
News item

NEW YORK  --  During a creative session at a major public relations firm today
to formulate a new corporate message for Digital Equipment Corporation that
reflects the company's new direction promoting and supporting computing
industry standards, the shopworn phrase "Digital has it now." was replaced by a
new tag line that is more contemporary and tied to DEC's adherence to
standards. "Digital's hip to the standards thing." will become the $11.5
billion company's new-image slogan.  In a radical departure from it's
traditionally staid advertising approach the company will produce a television
advertisement built around a rap music theme played out in a rapidly changing
sequence of office and engineering scenes.  In a parody of the commonly used
product nomenclature, the video itself is referred to as a mythical Digital
product called DECrap.  The lyrics to the rap music video are published here
for the first time. 


A DECrap by

		Rapmaster Ken 

		"Digital's Hip to the Standards Thing"


I heard some news just the other day
It sounded kinda strange and I said, "No way!"
But I heard it again from another source
It mighta made sense and I said, "Of course!"

Now computer biz has a lotta confusion
'Cause operating systems abound in profusion.
But there's a whole new wave in data processing
Now that Digital's hip to the standards thing.

(chorus)
Digital's hip to the standards thing!
Digital's hip to the standards thing!

Way back when a long time ago
IBM owned the whole show.
But other dudes saw this proprietary mess
And formed committees to find out what's best.

Some went their own way and built their own software 
But users were perturbed, "It's just a different nightmare."
So they got together to look over the picks
Put their down their money on good 'ol UNIX

(chorus)
Digital's hip to the standards thing!
Digital's hip to the standards thing!

Now Digital always kept their users in mind
And pushed VMS as the best of the kind.
A lotta folks agreed but kept askin' for
UNIX support, "We gotta have more!"

Soon DEC saw the light and decided to give
UNIX to the masses, (sorta live and let live).
So DEC's ridin' the wave ahead of the rest
On a backplane bogie board on top of the crest.

No doubt about it DEC's sprouted its wings
'Cause Digital's hip to the standards thing.

(chorus)
Digital's hip to the standards thing!
Digital's hip to the standards thing!





From:	OZROCK::UNIX::midoff::fulton "15-Jun-1991 0119" 14-JUN-1991 11:15:56.98
To:	unix::partners
CC:	unix::others,zuunix::eucc
Subj:	Digital Standards Rap to Music

hi,

I will be sending the RAP tape to those who expressed interest later
next week. for those who would like to hear it albeit roughly, please
phone DTN 899-5970 and you will have played to you the full record, c
3/4 mins. Of course it sounds better on tape where it was recorded on a
24 track machine.


DIGITAL'S HIP TO THE STANDARD THING!!!!

>
>I will be sending the RAP tape to those who expressed interest later
>next week. for those who would like to hear it albeit roughly, please
>phone DTN 899-5970 and you will have played to you the full record, c
>3/4 mins. Of course it sounds better on tape where it was recorded on a
>24 track machine.
>
Try 'phoning the DTN number and take a listen. It's pretty well recorded,
though the quality over the 'phone is pretty poor. Also, the volume is very
low. However, there is some good talent in this company, as all the people
involved in the production and playing work for Digital here in the U.K. 

Tim

P.S. The DTN number is in Reading, the Sarnia of England.

    43 to go.....

    
    
    OH YEAH?   42 TO GO......
    
    
    I know its cheap but I had to!
    

	Well, my brother and his wife have spent some time in Sarnia, and they 
	liked it!!!!!!!!!
    
	Heather

Heather!  You made it back.  How was the trip?  Did your brother and
sister-in-law find the subterranean section of the illustrious Grand
Canal in Sarnia?  Formally, it was called the Korff Barbunk Memorial
Sewer Mains but after it was widened and the depth increased it was
inaugurated as the Sarnia section of the GC.

Send me a mail message.

Cheers,

Pat

    
    Just wanted you all to know that at this very moment there are as many
    replies in the Sarnia notes file as there are topics in the Canada
    conference.
    
    let the pigeons lose!
    
    

>Heather!  You made it back.  How was the trip?  

The trip was wonderful. Fortunalely for us, we didn't get to Sarnia.

However, the experience at North Bay was a wonder to behold:

I phoned from the room
"There is no information pack in the room, could you send one please, I'm 
interested in the room service menu, the telephone instructions, and the
opening times of the pool"

Knock on the door 10 minutes later
"Here's two envelopes madam, I'm sorry there's no paper"
Me: "err, I asked for the information pack, not envelopes"
Lady:" Here's two envelopes"
Me:"I wanted an information pack on the hotel, you know, opening times, and
resaurant menu"
Lady"I've only two envelopes, they'll have to do"
She went away leaving me agog.

I went to see the receptionist.
Me:"Hi, remember me, I'd like an information pack, but somehow ended up with
two envelopes"
Receptionist"There should have been writing paper too, didn't you get any?"
Me:"I don't want paper or evelopes, I want information on the hotel facilities.
Receptionist"Oh, I gave you that when you came in"
Me:"You gave me a map of the room layout, with some adverts on the back"
Receptionist:"Isn't there any hotel info on there?"
Me:"No"
Receptionist"I'll write it on then, bar open x-x, restaurant open x-x, pool
open x-x"
Me:"What about room service menu, and telephone instructions?"
Receptionist"go to the restaurant, and get a menu, and use the phone like any 
other telephone"
Me:"How do I dial the UK?"
Receptionist"Just dial the codes"
Me:"What code do I use to dial overseas, I want to phone the U.K.?"
Receptionist"What country is the U.K. in?"
Me:" The U.K. is the United Kingdom, I want to phone England"
Receptionist:"I've never heard of the U.K., what part of England is that?
I am rather speachless, and she pauses for thought , and comes back with
"are you English?"

I gave up and went to the bar!

>Did your brother and
>sister-in-law find the subterranean section of the illustrious Grand
>Canal in Sarnia?  Formally, it was called the Korff Barbunk Memorial
>Sewer Mains but after it was widened and the depth increased it was
>inaugurated as the Sarnia section of the GC.

Look, after North Bay, I'm not sure anyone would know if they saw a sewer main,
or would notice even if they fell in it.

Heather

    Are you sure this North Bay wasn't located in, say, Louisiana?

    Sounds like an American experience,"Canada? What state is that in?"
    
    The Youkay is in South Africa isn't it?
    
    Glenn

>    Are you sure this North Bay wasn't located in, say, Louisiana?

	
	Are the people from Louisiana the same as those from sarnia and North
 	Bay????
	

	Heather

    What's going on here!?
    This is the "Sarnia Topic", remember?
    We do not have to suffer the consequences of anybody's tribulations in
    the North Bay Bayou.
    
    ...so, your brother-in-law liked Sarnia ?

    
>    ...so, your brother-in-law liked Sarnia ?


	Nope, it's closer to home, my brother liked Sarnia...........

	...................I wonder if it's an heredetory defect?, and if I 
	went there, I might find that (shock horror) I liked it too?


	Heather

    you sure would!

    Sarnia, of course, should properly called:
    
    "Not, Ontario - formerly Sarnia"
    
    (ask Don Brand, of Sarnia, for clarification)
    
    Scooter

    Is it true that around Sarnia, gas stations are closing down because of
    cross border filling?
    
    Glenn
    
    
    30 replies to go.......
    

    
    re: .-1
    
    Yes, Glenn, it's true!  Shell Canada has closed down 2-3 stations in
    the last month, ESSO -- 1 and at least one of the independents closed
    down another 2.  If it weren't for all the Digital Car Plan "A" cars
    here in Sarnia, some more would surely go too!  
    
    -doug

    But there is yet hope for the Sarnia Pumps. Esso has said they are 
    coming out with some kind of a coupon marketing plan in co-operation
    with local merchants to keep us spending our money in Sarnia and not
    the U.S. Merchants involved are eagerly awaiting the anouncement of
    this program but it will have to be pretty attractive to slow down the
    trend.
    
    Orval
    

    Seems that Sarnia made the nataional news this morning ... a
    propane tank blew up and a community of about 200 had to evacuate
    their homes in the early hours!  No after effects and they were
    able to go home again this morning.

    
    
    That's nothing......
    
    
    
    
    
    You should see Canada Day!!!!!
    
    

    Tanks for the warning....

    
    re: .472
    
    Thanks for your concern, at least I think that's what I detected!
    
    A ruptured pump seal at the local AMOCO Light-Ends Fractionator plant
    caused an explosion and subsequent fire.  This plant is approximately 
    1/4 mile from the closest populated area, and local plant officials
    didn't think the danger was sufficient to need an evacuation.  However,
    city police and fire officials decided to err on the safe side and
    evacuated several blocks of homes, temporarily displacing between
    500-1000 people.  The 'all clear' sounded within 2 hours of the
    evacuation order and everyone went back home.  There were no personal
    injuries reported, but the plant estimated the damage to be in the
    order of $100K.  I wasn't one of those asked to evacuate by the police,
    but we were just about to leave on our own when the 'all-clear'
    sounded.
    
    -doug

Well, the DECrap recording has been discontinued.....

Dave

- doing my bit for 500

    What was the story about the armed sniper in Sarnia that was on the
    news last week?

    It started as a domestic despute and some guy holed up in a house with
    some guns. They blocked off a one block area and city police called on
    OPP tactical team for help. It started at 9:30 in the morning and ended
    in the early afternoon.
    It happened not to far from the DEC office here.
    

    How did this affect the day's fares on the Grand Canal?
    
    

    The incident is over now, although his wife is still waiting for him at
    the DECoffice with a shotgun... as long as she does not request a
    terminal, we are OK (no more ports on the mux).

    Doug Loten, our local sales advisory support in residence, has reached
    his 40th birthday last Friday. This was the occasion for several local
    celebrations and was reported in the local press as well as mentionned
    on the local radio.
    This posting is late, but you can still wish him happy birthday!

    Scott Newman, are you there ?

    Hey, you guys must have heard about the big to-do with Eric Lindros
    refusing to play for a team from Sarnia, and how the Sarnia NHL
    franchise offered him all this money to play there, and how he told
    them that he would never play there and to not even draft him, but they
    did anyway, and he's threatening to go and play for Oshawa again, and
    all the people in Sarnia hate his guts now because they think he is
    anti-Sarnia...
    
    ...hold on...sorry, that was Quebec City, not Sarnia...thought I made a
    mistake somewhere...

    
    Lindros, Smindros!
    
    We had the rights to him, but we traded them for Bobby Baun and furniture
    considerations!
    
    -doug

    Oh.
    
    I thought it was Furniture Futures and Rug Rights.
    
    Scooter

    
    No, no, no!                                                  
    
    You're thinking of Pork-Belly Futures and Rug Rats (Micron not included)!
    
    Scooter, forget about the 4xx B.O.B.O.T.W. and pay attention!
    
    -doug_who_should_know

    We are glad to announced the recent wedding of Franco "Rocco" Mariuz
    with a young human of the female gender.
    
    Congratulations are in order, and can be posted 24-hour/7-day in this
    topic (... which has been a bit slow recently).

The Lambton County Sheriff has called on a few good men for a posse.
Of course our office gave up his best: our Doug is now a deputy sheriff,
riding proud and high, in the high noon sun!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
                  I N T E R O F F I C E   M E M O R A N D U M

                                        Date:     06-Nov-1991 08:29 EST
                                        From:     DOUGLAS LOTEN @SRN
                                                  LOTEN.DOUGLAS
                                        Dept:     SWS
                                        Tel No:   (519)332-3248 no DTN

TO:  SAUL MORRISON @LOO                   ( MORRISON.SAUL )

CC:  LINDA BAKER @LOO                     ( BAKER.LINDA )
CC:  LOUIS DZIALOWSKI @SRN                ( DZIALOWSKI.LOUIS )
CC:  SCOTT PEZZACK @SRN                   ( PEZZACK.SCOTT )
CC:  DON BRAND @SRN                       ( BRAND.DON )

Subject: Further on PIIP duty                                        

Saul,

The Public Institution Inspection Panel met yesterday in the Lambton County 
Court House (I was elected Chairperson--oh joy!).  We toured the Court House 
complex and the Sarnia Jail.  The other item on the agenda was for us to 
determine the other sites we wanted to visit.  We have decided on a list that 
will require our attendance for the rest of this week, Nov 6-8, and next 
Tuesday, Nov 12, to present the report to the judge.  As Nov 11 is a 
government employees S/H (but not us), I'll be in to work on Monday.

-doug

Re Franco's demise................

Louie;

  How could you?  As a senior person there you should have offered guidance to
    young Franco.  (I understand that there was a shotgun involved)

  There are ways around these things.

  Could be your loss.  He will probably want to transfer to London now.
    

    In a fast breaking story, an issue that has captured the fancy of at
    least 4 people has finally been settled in a referendum during last
    nights municipal election...
    
    A year ago, the City of Sarnia officially amalgamated with the Town of
    Clearwater (formerly rural Sarnia Township) and became known as the
    City of Sarnia-Clearwater.  In last nights voting, by a landslide
    majority of 19960/1784, the name was restored to the City of Sarnia!!!
    
    Now the Middle East peace talks can regain the focus they deserve.
    
    _doug

    WOW!
    
    
    
    8 more to go....

    
    	I thought it was 7 more, or am I one off???
    

    Sorry, you're both wrong - it's 6 more. Counting this one. If you don't
    count this one, it's only five more. See?

    Just 505 more
    or 504.

    Mike Gardner (a picture for the Boston Red Sox) is from Sarnia.
    Any other famous people from Sarnia?
    
    Don  (just helping the countdown)
    

    Don, where have you been?
    
    only three more to go!
    
    Yipeeeee! and horay for Sarnia - home of a 'picture' for the Boston Red
    Sox!
    
    8^)

    Hi Glenn,
    
    Glad you caught that. I saw the picture of the pitcher in the paper.
    Besides, there may not be enough famous people in Sarnia to get the
    number up to 500. 
    
    Don
    

    >  "Mike Gardner (a picture for the Boston Red Sox)"
                        ^^^^^^^
    Is that what they mean by "a fine figure of a man"? 8')
    
    In any event, it's not Mike Gartner, who's from Utopia.
    
    Cheers...Gary

    Wow!!!  Number .500!!
    
    Picture of a pitcher... ya mean he's 'jugged'?
    
    G'day,
    
    Pat

    sigh...
    
    figures Rushton would get the honour....
    
    Oh well, on to .600!
    
    Glenn

    Scott Newman, are you out there ?

    
    Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the
    Sarnia crew...
    
        Dan Kranz           Louis Dzialowski        Doug Loten
        Dan Hodgson         Scott Pezzack           Don Brand
        Hubert Gubbels      Jeff Nazareth
        Orval DeBoer        Mark Cauchi
        Gerry Recchia
        Franco Mariuz
    

    May the new year see us reach 600 replies.
    
    Compliments to the season, whatever that means.....
    
    
    Do you realize "season's greetings" is a saying that could be used all
    year 'round?
    
    
    Glenn

    OK ... "Merry Festival of Winter -- 1991"
    

    Hello,
    
    It is with great personal pleasure that I announce the latest addition
    to the Sarnia family, a 190 lb bouncing software specialist, namely me.
    I've been here for practically two weeks and I have enjoyed every
    minute.  Previously, I've worked for Laidlaw Envirnomental Services,
    and before that the Sunoco Refinery both located here in Sarnia.  I
    have worked with both Dec and Wang systems. If I can be of any help let
    me know.  As far as Sarnia/Lambton goes, ask anyone here, its God's
    country.  

    To help get the replies to .600, what's your name?
    
    Welcome to the most popular note in Canada!
    
    Glenn

    Obviously, .506's name is Trooa Gillam (pronounced "TRUE-ahhhhhh", unless
    I'm very much mistaken).

    No Trooa words have ever been spoken my good man!

    You are a cool one, Mr. Polar Richardson!

    Hey! We both have the same first name!
    
    My cap is off to you Mr. Polar Rushton!

    Do you guys suffer from Bi-polar disorder ??? :-)

    
    You silly guys...
    
    TROOA is just only used by his close friends, but you may call him..
    
    	TROA01 or
    	TROA02 or
    	TROA09 but, don't call him
    	LATE_FOR_DINNER
    
    -doug_who_knows_his_other_name_but_isn't_telling

    Is the "2" in "TROA02" silent, Mr. Dloten? Not like the long 2-sound in
    "SWAM2".
    

    
    It's very similar, but more like the silent D and A's in DLOTEN, eh!
    
    -Ddoug

    This reply is just to remind everybody of who's the moderator in this
    topic. No particular reason for it. Just felt like flexing a little bit
    of muscle and showing some assertiveness. I feel better now.

Sarnia is one of the chosen.

Chatelaine magazine has named Sarnia as one of the 10 best communities in
Canada in which to live in its latest edition.  It was one of two Ontario 
communities to be selected and was the second largest of the 10.

The city, along with Okotoks, Alta., Pentiction, B.C., Prince Albert, Sask.,
Waterloo, Ont., Kirkland, Que., Sussex, N.B., Truro, N.S., Charlottetown
P.E.I., and Grand Falls-Windsor, Nfld. were selected as the safest, most
affordable and most neighbourly communities in Canada.

They were chosen in collaboration with relocation experts as the most
favoured places in Canada and are featured in the April issue of Chatelaine
on sale now.

Mayor Mike Bradley calls the announcement a "selling tool. And this has
more of an appeal because it's not a  self-created tool."

"This points to many of the things we've been saying all along that Sarnia
is a well-kept secret," he added.  "When they asked the relocation experts
which was the toughest to convince people to move to, and the toughest to
leave, Sarnia was on both lists.  Once they're here, they don't want to
leave.  It speaks well for the community."

The magazine said for "new residents who want to live in a city with heart"
Sarnia, which boasts a busy waterfront with a marina, gardens, beaches and
parks and has a 91.4% employment rate, has 500 civic volunteers who help
with everything from hospital fundraising to stringing Christmas lights in
city parks.

Author Lesley Barsky said "people want to feel safe and have a sense of
community where they live, and they will gladly give up the bright lights
and fast pace of the city to get those things."

In all of the chosen towns and cities, employment is above 80% of the
populations ranging from 4,200 to 79,000.

	It was a misprint - they actually meant Sudbury.

	;-)

	Charlie

 Re: .517, "... featured in the April issue ..."

Would that be the April 1 issue by any chance?

    Hmmm ... right up there with Okotoks, is it. Now, I've never been to
    Sarnia, but I have been to Okotoks. I have fond memories of the
    hilarious graffitti on the, ahem, vending machine in the men's room at
    the quaint Willingdon Hotel there. It said the machine dispensed "RCMP
    Rain Hats."
    
    I have a much better vision of Sarnia now. And we're that much close to
    the big .1000, too!

    Now that the NHL is on strike, Hockey Night in Canada will be live
    Saturday night from Sarnia, when the Sarnia B's host Petrolia Jets.
    Sarnia arena holds a capacity crowd of 527, tickets will be at a
    premium, there will be a blackout in the Sarnia-Lambton area.
    This is a pivotal game in the regional semi-finals and a must to see.
    The winner advances to the finals against Okotoks.
    

    Sarnia! Beware!!

    Pierre Gagnon has threatened to check you out!

    I only hope things will be the same once he's through....

    It's sort of like pollution, but worse, and kind of like ozone layer
    depletion, but definitely not worth taking note of....

    Glenn

    	Ohh...so this is Sarnia...
    
    	What's that smell?  Oh...I see, Richardson was just here.
    
    	Fear not, O Sarnia, for I am here to resurrect you from the
    disrepute that this note has brought upon you.
    	For starters, I'd like to say that Sarnia is:
    	- certainly not worse than...er...well...<Insert Favorite
    Despicable City/Town Here>.
    	- not the armpit of the world, (of course this is in the literal
    sense).
    	
    	Please don't thank me,
    
    	PG

    
    ...rather than repeat myself and add useless clutter to an otherwise
    worthy note...please see 558.4
    
    -doug
    

    Hey, be nieve you guys. I like Sarnia. Though I've never been there.
    And from what I've heard, it isn't an armpit. It's more a navel. (Warm
    and fuzzy, occasionally Playfull, and yes quite sexy.) But you have to
    live there to appreciate its beauty.   

    
    Just poking around in the CANADA notesfile and have been reading this
    Sarnia note.  Nice place!  Was there a few years ago.  Our cruise ship
    dropped anchor a mile offshore and we took a launch to the dock,
    passing these cool looking little fishing boats with brightly colored
    sails heading out to sea, the happy Canadian fishermen waving to us. 
    We had breakfast at a seaside cafe, the proprietor bringing us stuffed
    olives grown in the region, along with some nice goat cheese.  Later, we
    strolled in the hot summer sun along an ancient Roman road...uh, excuse
    me - phone call.  Oh, I see.  Sardinia?  *Not* Sarnia?
    
    
    never mind...
    
    
    Marc   

    Every place has its own problems ... what are Sardinia's ?
    
    One good thing a lot of Sarnians will admit to is close to the US
    for all that cross border shopping!
    
    A lot easier for people there than in say T.O. or Thunder Bay!
    
    

    Why does everyone in Canada want to buy cross borders?
    
    There are plenty of other breeds available.....
    
    hmmmm.
    
    Glenn

    ...and why would they want cross borders?  Wouldn't timid,
    mild-tempered borders be more manageable?
    
    Beats me.
    
    Korff

    Just in case you wondered, the Sarnia topic is still active. Slow, but
    active. It's just that we have too much business to attend to right
    now...

    Not unlike some of you old duffers who frequent this notesfile...
    
    Slow but active...
    
    Barff

    Re. .531
    
    I'm sorry, I didn't quite get your name....

    Re. .531 & .532
    
    Korff Barffdunk, relative of Knarf Knute the inventor of the electric
    fork and the cement canoe.
    
    
    Dunkk Barfdink

   The Observer, Tuesday, June 9, 1992
   ---------------------
   By The Canadian Press
   and The Observer
   ---------------------

   EX-SARNIA NAMED TO ASTRONAUT TEAM

   A Sarnia native who remembers being inspired in his childhood by the first
   manned flight to the moon, has been named one of Canada's four new
   astronauts.

   Chris Hadfield, a 32-year-old Canadian airforce pilot, was selected Monday
   along with three other Canadians who are expected to serve abourd the
   Freedom space station near the end of the decade.  If all goes well, they
   will spend a total of six months every two year in space.

   Mr. Hadfield, who attended King George School, has been one of Canada's top
   fighter pilots for several years.  In 1991, he was honored by the U.S. Navy
   as test pilot of the year.  He is currently on an exchange program with the
   Americans...

   Freedom is a partnership among Canada, the United States, Japan and the
   European Space Agency.  Construction of the station is to start in 1996 and
   take three years...

    re: -.1  aka "Lost in Space"
    
    How appropriate that a Sarnia lad be named to the Astronaut team.  You
    must have many potential candidates as I have often been told that
    there "are a lot of space cadets in Sarnia." 8-)

    
    re: -.1
    
    I'll make sure our rep-in-space hears of your comments!!
    
    We know where you live Martin!  Star Wars live!
    
    -doug

    Should I expect a rain of DEATHmates (aka DECmates) falling from 
    the sky onto my house when the next Shuttle lifts off? 

" Mr. Hadfield,[...], has been one of Canada's top fighter pilots for several 
  years.  In 1991, he was honored by the U.S. Navy as test pilot of the year."

What does he pilot to be honored by the Navy: a stealth canoe ?

    Yo ... the U.S. Navy has a few jets .... remember Top Gun and those
    F-14s flown off the carriers?

    Sorry, I don't watch cartoons.

<<In 1991, he was honored by the U.S. Navy as test pilot of the year.
    
    You mean it's possible that the Top Gun might just be a Canuck?!
    
    Holy afterburners!!

Article 3680 of rec.humor.funny:
Path: nntpd2.cxo.dec.com!nntpd.lkg.dec.com!news.crl.dec.com!deccrl!decwrl!sdd.hp.com!wupost!darwin.sura.net!europa.asd.contel.com!uunet!uunet.ca!xenitec!looking!funny-request
Message-ID: <S41d.1a93@looking.on.ca>
Date: Sun, 5 Jul 92 4:30:3 EDT
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
From: adb@herboid.UUCP (Anthony DeBoer)
Subject: The Normalcy of Living in Drainage Culverts
Keywords: urban legend, smirk
Approved: funny@clarinet.com
Lines: 15

(From the news on CFNY FM 102 this morning):

The police in Sarnia, Ontario, recently received a call that a man had
been seen living in a drainage culvert.  They promptly dispatched two of
their finest to check out this report.  The officers did indeed find a man
living in a culvert, and attempted to reason with him.  "Sir," they said,
"it's not normal to be living inside of a drainage culvert."  The man
pulled a piece of paper from his sack of posessions, and replied that he
had just been released from a mental institution, and had a certificate,
signed by an expert in the field, saying that he was perfectly sane.  "Do
either of you have one?", he asked the officers, who were left speechless.
--
Selected by Brad Templeton.  MAIL your joke (jokes ONLY) to funny@clarinet.com.
If you see a problem with an RHF posting, reply to the poster please, not to
me.  Ask the poster to forward comments back to me if this is necessary.

    What's so funny about that?  Do you have your card?
    
    -doug_who_always_carries_his_when_camping_out

    re. mental health issues in Sarnia.
    
    Check .111, .112
    
    (...for a while I though I was schizo, but it was just me!)

    KEN OLSEN RESIGNS, BOB PALMER GETS THE JOB.

What does that have to do with Sarnia?

Who cares, as long as thestock keeps going up.

    
    	Rumor is that KO will be spending his retirement years in Sarnia...
    

    IS THIS IT?????
    
    COULD THIS BE THE END?????
    
    STAY TUNED TO THIS CHANNEL TO DISCOVER THE FATE OF YOUR HEROES IN
    SARNIA.
    
    We have been instructed to pack our belongings into boxes.
    The story is that as part of the office expansion, (yes I said
    expansion, the only one in Canada), we are to pack are belongings to
    facilitate a furniture upgrade.  On the weekend a large truck is coming
    to take our desks away.  Latter that day another truck is allegedly
    coming with new office furniture.  Fact or Fancy no one knows for sure.
    
    Stay Tuned.
    

    'Changing the furniture.....'
    
    Will that make any difference to the office in Sarnia?!
    
    (Louis - have you still got the car licence plate VAX*VMS?)
    
    CJ
    in the
    UK
    

    
    re: .-1
    
    > (Louis - have you still got the car licence plate VAX*VMS?)
    
    Actually, it's Saul Morrison @LOO (our London, Ont office) who has this
    license plate.  I told him that he should really change it to...
    
    	OpenVMS Alpha AXP
    
    but The Ministry of Transport won't allow that many letters!
    
    -doug_who_likes_his_new_furniture
    

    Hmmmm .... but will Saul keep his plates in his new career?

    Nah, it's just that the Yes voting booth was across the GRAND CANAL.
    
    Jean
    

    Yippeeeee! Three cheers for the Grand Canal!
    
    Glenn

                        **********************************
                           TORNADO DOESN'T STOP WALKER
                        Sarnia Observer, November 24, 1992
                        **********************************

    Even tornadoes can't keep Sarnia's Betty Dee Black from her mission to
    raise money to battle leukemia.

    Ms. Black, who is walking to Florida as part of her "Snowbird Flight
    for Life Walk", arrived in Rome, Ga.  Sunday just as twisters were
    sweeping through the U.S. south.

    "We've had a bad time here in Georgia," she said.  "There were lots of
    winds and quite a few people were killed (in the south as a whole). We
    managed to miss it by going into a church.  The winds passed over us
    but it was a heck of a storm.  There was a lot of rain and high winds."

    She collected funds from the congregation in the Rome church as she
    rode out the tornado.

    She said she was on the edge of the tornado, seeing branches knocked
    from trees and shingles blown from roofs.

    A series of tornadoes cut a swath of destruction through Texas and
    Mississippi, killing 25 people.  Although considerable damage was
    caused in Georgia, only one injury has been reported in that state so
    far.

    Ms. Black has now walked 1,287 kilometres (800 miles) and is now
    two-thirds of the way to her objective in Plant City, Fla.

    Attention DEC shoppers: Sarnia Open House extrav?ganza an overwhelming
    success.  In celebration of the recent Sarnia office expansion, key
    corporate clients filled the office in anticipation of experiencing the
    Alpha AXP.  Their wildest expectations were greatly exceeded.  In
    conversation with Scott Pezzack, the event orchestrator, he indicated a
    marketing success.  Sarnia again maintains leadership in inovation on a
    shoestring budget.  

                        **********************************
                           BETTY DEE IN HOME STRETCH
                        Sarnia Observer, December 12, 1992
                        **********************************
    
    Like a sprinter rounding into the final turn, Betty Dee Black has
    picked up the pace.
    
    The Sarnia hairdresser crossed the border into Florida earlier the week
    and is now two days ahead of schedule with 160 kilometres (100 miles)
    remaining in her walk in aid of leukemia research.
    
    "She's looking to the end now," said daughter Sue Core. "But her
    spirits are just as good as the day she left."
    
    While not on her last legs, Ms Black is working on her third and final
    pair of running shoes, having worn out the others on the 1930
    kilometres (1200 mile) Snowbird Flight for Life walk, she said.
    
    Her travel team has also changed.  Friend and nurse Ilene Wilson, who
    walked much of the way with Ms Black, returned to Lambton County this
    week to be with family for Christmas.
    
    "She did a super job and Betty misser her," said local walk
    co-ordinator Daphne With.
    
    Ms Black left Sarnia Oct. 10 for her mobile home at Plant City, Fla.
    with husband Victor Fast, who is driving a support vehicle.  They were
    originally scheduled to arrive Dec. 22.
    
                        **********************************
                           WALKING WOMAN NOW A CELEBRITY
                         London Free Press, Dec. 12, 1992
                        **********************************
    
    Betty Dee Black got a large dose of celebrity this week during her walk
    to Florida to raise money to fight leukemia.
    
    Black, 59, from Sarnia, was spotlighted on a segment of NBC-TV from
    Tallahassee, Fla.  Now, the Tampa Tribune's Tallahassee office has
    started tracking her progress in its newspages daily.
    
    "Then everybody has been asking me for authographs," she said Friday
    from Old Town, Fla.  The autograph sessions haven't slowed down Black. 
    She's three days ahead of schedule, staying just outside Old Town.
    
    She expects to be at her winter home in Plant City, Fla., by next
    Friday or Saturday.
    
    Her only complaint is her feet.  Her shoes have been sent for new soles
    and she said it's been difficult getting sleep because of the soreness
    of her feet.
    
    
    [The address for pledges has been removed...but if you're interested,
     send me mail -doug]

    OK, it's time for an almost serious note in the Sarnia note ...
    
    On December 31 (yup, New Years Eve), I am starting my long trek in
    my francophone automobile (it's a Renault Medallion ... that's
    pronounced ren-oh med-eye-on ... not ren-alt med-al-yon) from Ottawa 
    to Colorado Springs.  I plan on spending my first night somewhere
    between Sarnia and Kalamazoo, Michigan, depending on how long that
    journey takes from Ottawa takes ...
    
    So, you Sarnarians ...
    
    a) how long do you reckon you are from the big t.o. ?
    
    b) can you suggest inexpensive but comfortable, clean accomodations
    (note that I am not on expenses here ... it comes out of my own pocket)
    in Sarnia, Port Huron and places west en-route to Kalamazoo ?
    
    Muchly thanks very ...
    
    Stuart

    What an honour to have S_BROOK to visit our humble environs!!!

    From T.O. take 401 West to London and then 402 West to Sarnia...it's
    about a 3 hour drive from Pearson airport (or 2 hours for Louis).

    If you want stay on the Sarnia side, there's a Days Inn right near the
    Bluewater Bridge (383-6767 or 1-800-325-2525) or you could stay at the
    Best Western Guildwood, where we have a reasonable Digital rate
    (337-7577 or 1-800-528-1234).

    On the Port Huron side, the Thomas Edison Inn is very nice but could be
    a little pricey (sorry don't have any phone number, 1-313-555-1212).

    I don't have any suggestions anywhere from Flint to Kalamazoo, but if
    you want to take a brief side trip to Frankenmuth, MI (nice Bavarian
    style tourist spot), I could dig you up a couple of phone numbers.

    Hope this help, and I do hope that you will stop by our newly renovated
    offices on your way through!

    -doug

    Battle Creek is about half way across Michigan and near Kalamazoo. 
    There's a Holiday Inn right on the Interstate.
    
    Garry
    

Have some extra special fresh Special K for me while you're in Battle Creek.

    Unless yuou plan on working New Year's Eve, then I don't think paying
    a visit to the Sarnia office would be particularly profitable!  I set
    out on my trek on 31 Dec.  Anyway ... I will certainly wave as I pass
    through!
    
    Thanks for the info ...
    
    Stuart

    This is incredible.  
    
    I'm the first note of 1993.
    
    Whoa!  Boy I am really glad I spent all this money on a new PC just to
    achieve this honour.
    
    My life is now complete and my wife wants to play some more solitare.
    
    Bill

    I spent a few minutes in beloved Sarnia last Sunday ... long enough
    to find the main street in town to find Tim Horton's, and a CIBC
    bank machine in the Mac's Milk next door.
    
    What I did notice was that on my trip down this main street (with a
    girl's name I cannot now remember) the shops / buildings that were
    most illuminated were 1 R&R dance club, 2 Adult Entertainment clubs
    and 1 Adult Magazine and Video Store .. the rest was gloomy and dark.
    The plaza Tim Horton's was in was absolutely filthy.
    
    A really depressing place I'm afraid to say ... 
    
    Stuart

    
    RE: -.1
    
    We knew you were coming, so we rolled up the sidewalks and turned out
    the lights! :^)
    
    -doug

    ...and I thought ol' Sarnia always looked like that!
    
    CJ

    In case you needed one, there are a set of snow tires and logitec mouse
    for sale in the "for sale" topic.
    This was a no charge announcement.

    We need about an other 100 reply to get this topic to have as many
    reply as there are topics in this conference.
    Any contribution on any subject related, even remotely, to Sarnia, is
    welcome. Some examples:
    * possible impacts of Brian Mulroney's resignation on the Sarnian political
      and economic scene.
    * Windows NT in Sarnia
    * Alpha AXP in Sarnia (an OSF1 success story)
    * bilingualism in Sarnia
    
    etc.

    
    
    Sheesh!
    
    	Get a life.

    	The most interesting thing I can say about Sarnia is that the sun
    never seems to shine when I'm there. Is it always like that, or is it
    just me?
    
    (actually, that's a small price to pay for being able to listen to the
    Detroit FM stations; but I often wonder what would U.S. rock radio be
    like if .38 Special had never gotten a record deal?) 
                         

    I hope that this note isn't going to degenerate into silliness.
    
    From what I understand, Windows NT runs faster in Sarnia. Can anyone
    confirm this?
    
    Glenn

    Confirmation: NT run faster in Sarnia. So does OS/2.

Re: .573

>    Confirmation: NT run faster in Sarnia. So does OS/2.

Actually the speed of Windows NT is the universal constant.  It only appears
to run faster in Sarnia because time runs slower there.  I cannot comment
on OS/2.

    Perhaps it has someting to do with gravity around sarnia. I hear that
    all the bathroom scales in Sarnia tip a little higher which could account 
    for the time differential.
    
    Glenn

    Hmmmm....
    
    I'd heard rumors about NASA experimenting with Artificial Gravity for
    the new space station Freedom...  Now we know the experiments are
    centered in Sarnia...  Who'd have thought?...

    Sarnia is located in one of those time-space warp thingy mentionned in
    most general relativity textbook... or is it an effect of the Coriolis
    pull ?                   (not cross-posted in PHYSICS)

    
    Well actually the other day I noticed a time-space warp thingy
    previously mentioned (worm hole in Trekkie Talk) in my backyard.
    I really thought nothing of it until these bright lights decended
    from the sky. The yard started to fill with these guys wearing 
    'Eddie VanHalen' jump suits with CIA stamped on them. At that point
    I decided it was nothing and I needed another coffee.
      
    They left almost immediately, but my yard is still a mess. I wouldn't
    suggest to anyone in the general public about getting one of these 
    time-space warp thingys, they're just not worth the mess.
    
    franco_who_borrowed_this_neat_way_of_adding_some_more_junk_to_a_reply_from_
    doug_who_is_the_pertetual_sum_of_knowlege_in_sarnia

    Any mutilations noticed on the cattle in your backyard ?
    They do these things, you know (check a Globe and Mail of last
    week: cattle mutilated with surgical accuracy by out-of-space
    beings,etc. ...of course these things are usually happening in
    Arkansas, which happen to be the favorite location for
    extra-terrestrial spring break).

    Pardon me, but what does this have to do with Windows NT?
    
    

    RE: .579

>    week: cattle mutilated with surgical accuracy by out-of-space
>    beings,etc. ...of course these things are usually happening in
    
    Out-of-space beings??  Out of closet space?  Out of disk space???
    

    Furthermore, what does this have to do with the Grand Canal?
    
    Jean