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Southern trip and paying it forward


YK Thom

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Just got back from a trip to southern Canada Monday. My father is faring poorly and is now in his final months. We went down to spend a week at his place in Ontario (Minden), via Ottawa. A very nice visit and realistically the final one. We had a young man we know house sit/cat sit whilst we were away. He was bar none the best we have ever had. The place was as clean and well tended upon our return as it had been at departure. He is something of a musician in his spare time and a music lover in general. Like many younger folk he has a pretty minimal system that he is working on improving but progress has been limited to funds and his contract renewals. This being the case we decided that we will give him the set of RB61IIs and stands that were displaced from the living room by the Ohm Walsh Talls I acquired towards the end of last year. He is very excited and was absolutely gobsmacked when I brought this up. He'll be coming by this Saturday and will transport them to his place. It seemed to me a good use of them, as they are now just sitting doing nothing in the spare room and realistically will not be used in the future. It will be satisfying to have them singing again and helping out a budding audiophile.

This is a shot of one of said beasts standing alongside the Ohms upon delivery. Another shot from the holiday season of 2015.

Av unit and room.jpg

IMG_20161204_1848186.jpg

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After spending a great week with my father, my wife and I had a couple days in Ottawa before we had to zip over to Victoria BC to see her elderly aunt. We stayed at the Chateau Laurier for the first time ever (thanks to a ridiculously good deal via Hotels.com!). Trust me, not where we normally stay. Worked out cheaper than our usual haunt - the Lord Elgin Hotel.

It is as magnificent as it looks. There is a lot of history in that hotel.

 

Took these photos on the way back to the hotel from one of our favorite pubs in Ottawa, Darcy McGee's.

Chateau Laurier.jpg

Laurier2.jpg

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Well that's a very nice thing for you to do, I'm sure they will be appreciated and used alot,  you are probably adding to his future audio addiction, but that's not a bad thing.

 

Glad you also got some time with your dad, sorry to hear about that.

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My father lives at the old family cottage outside of Minden. It is in Ontario cottage country and is very nice in the summer. A lot of connected lakes and a lot of wildlife. We saw more white tail deer and turkeys than you could shake a stick at (as the old expression goes), this trip. Something new (I haven't been down this way in many years), was the addition of these turtle crossing signs. This region provides habitat to most of Canada's turtle species, many of them endangered. Before we moved back north, my wife and I would drive around the back-roads during turtle breeding season and move them off the roads. A lot were killed by traffic each year.

turtle cross.jpg

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24 minutes ago, dtel said:

Well that's a very nice thing for you to do, I'm sure they will be appreciated and used alot,  you are probably adding to his future audio addiction, but that's not a bad thing.

 

Glad you also got some time with your dad, sorry to hear about that.

Thanks, he is a very nice guy and has been a friend for a few years. He tried offering me some money but I wasn't having any of it. A few of my other friends are in the same boat with their parents. Seems we are getting to that age (mid fifties), and this is something we all have to deal with.

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1 hour ago, Tarheel said:

Goof move YK.  Good to know they will go to a deserving young man. 

I agree and recall when I was younger and would have appreciated something like this myself. He will most likely have them for years to come. He is already considering a new two channel receiver to replace his Sony sometime this year.

I am much happier giving them to him than selling them through YK Trader ( a local online buy and sell site), for the couple hundred dollars I may have got for them. I know this guy and know they will be used a lot.

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Thom, sorry to hear about your father.  It's something we all go thru.  Your a king, Duke or something living in that hotel, lol.  Life is a surprise and sometimes we can make lemonade out of lemon.  Good to know you are doing well and holding up buddy!

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Lucky to find someone you knew but also trustworthy. And kind of you to reward his loyalties to your family. Most good deeds have a tendency to circle back. Much different than when my mother lived with us for several months and we had to find day care while we were at work. And much different than your outcome as our not-trustworthy help stole from us while we were at work. I withheld finals payments to the agency until I received notice from their attorneys that legal action is following. I explained I was More than happy to accommodate their time in court and briefly onlined the police report evidence and how their agency would look once we went public with their operation. Amazingly the threats vanished as the tide swung back to us.

Sorry for the rant - good for your generosity and Best to your Father. 

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After we left Ottawa we headed over to Victoria BC. Cindy has been there before but this was the first visit for me. We were off to see her elderly aunt who has had some health issues but seems fine now. A popular site in the area are the Butchart Gardens. This place is very famous in Canada; it is a massive classic Victorian style garden park on the estate of a turn of the last century industrialist. The family still owns and operates it. The climate in Victoria is warmer than anywhere else in the country - they barely get winter at all and temps rarely fall below freezing. People plant and maintain palms in this area. You wouldn't even know you were in Canada, crazy.

Butchant Gardens.jpg

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  • 2 months later...

Old thread but an update... After a month and a half or so later we finally got our schedules to match. Living up north work travel is very common and we have been out of sync. The RB61 IIs were delivered a week ago. He is absolutely blown away and has given his former speakers that these replaced to another friend (domino effect). He is something of a musician and frequents one of the pubs with open mic nights as a participant. The live sound is not what he was used to or expecting. He has been texting me all week as he tweaks the positioning and can't believe the difference is sound and detail. Another member of the Klipsch tribe is born.

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I missed this thread the first time through but I'm glad I caught it now.

 

I'm sorry to hear about you dad.  Not much else to say about that, I've been there.

 

Very cool for you to pay it forward to the young man, a lot of young people these days may not have been so appreciative.  That makes for another unique Klipsch story.

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On 3/10/2017 at 1:45 PM, YK Thom said:

My father lives at the old family cottage outside of Minden. It is in Ontario cottage country and is very nice in the summer. A lot of connected lakes and a lot of wildlife. We saw more white tail deer and turkeys than you could shake a stick at (as the old expression goes), this trip. Something new (I haven't been down this way in many years), was the addition of these turtle crossing signs. This region provides habitat to most of Canada's turtle species, many of them endangered. Before we moved back north, my wife and I would drive around the back-roads during turtle breeding season and move them off the roads. A lot were killed by traffic each year.

turtle cross.jpg

With all the snow, the sign just looks out of place. lol

 

Sorry to hear about your dad. I'm sure he's proud of you. It's great of you to pay the Klipsch addiction forward. 

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5 hours ago, Woofers and Tweeters said:

With all the snow, the sign just looks out of place. lol

 

Sorry to hear about your dad. I'm sure he's proud of you. It's great of you to pay the Klipsch addiction forward. 

turtle-on-skis-deborah-willard.jpg

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