"Fasten your seatbelts; we’re in for a bumpy night"
Congrats for keeping it modest and demure, but we all know what the internet is for.
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Well, I thought that was just a given. 
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The owner of an Indian restaurant in Owen Sound, Ontario, was murdered last year after he confronted some customers who had not paid their bill.
Magdeburg.
How awful and sad.
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a junco somehow found it’s way into the catio this morning. had to open things up for a while to get her to evacuate. she was very lucky; due to the rain, the cats were not venturing out.
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Mods, please delete my last (flagged) post.
❄Greetings and good tidings to all!❄
May we all experience the goodwill and peace that should be in our world. Let us all practice kindness to all, including our animal friends and pets, throughout our lives, each and every day. Remember the best and forget the rest. Warmth, peace and best wishes for sanity this season and beyond!
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I spent an hour in a somewhat local park I fancy. There are rarely any people there. But yesterday there were some really nice kids in the park…I guess because winter break started. One was a group of 5 kids…I’m guessing 8th graders…2 girls and 3 boys. Though they all had phones, thankfully they weren’t glued to the screens. They were playing on the swings…even pushing each other on them.
There were very few profanities being bantered about…the kids were pretty clean cut, too. The boys came on skateboards…one girl came on a cute bike. I enjoyed watching them and felt happy that they were outdoors and not at home playing video games.
There was also a boy playing on the swings while watching his little sister playing on the slide. The little sister was playing with a younger girl she seemingly didn’t know who was there with her grandfather. An ice cream truck came by. The little sister wanted something from it. She mentioned that to the younger girl who wanted something, too and then went to her grandfather. He gave the boy money who was in the park watching his sister playing on the slide. They went to the ice cream truck, bought ice cream for the younger girl, his sister, the grandfather and himself. They came back to the park after that and then left with his little sister.
I stayed in the park a bit longer and then continued on my walk feeling in an appreciably better mood than I had before I had stopped at the park…because I had witnessed something I had thought had fallen out of favor…but was happy to find out hadn’t.
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Experiences like that kind of restore a little faith in humanity, don’t they?
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They most certainly do! Today I was in the other park I like and a young man with a gym bag approached me. I was a bit wary because I thought he might want to ask for money. But when he got closer, he said “Excuse me, sir. I only speak a little English, but can you tell me where I can play basketball?” (That particular park doesn’t have a basketball court.)
I remembered that the park I was in the day before seemed to have one and I told him that although I wasn’t 100% sure, he could go there and try. I gave him directions to go to the far end of the park we were in and make a right and then a left at the intersection. I was going to say “continue for 1 km”, but thought he might not know kilometers, so I told him to walk for 10 minutes and he’d find the park on the left.
I thought about accompanying him to the park, but I’m a little wary of people I don’t know…even if they’re polite. He went on his way and I began to regret not going with him. About 30 minutes later I went to that park and indeed I found him shooting hoops alone. He acknowledged my presence and waived to me. I sat in that park for an hour and while I was there, the young man who was on the swings the day before watching his little sister play arrived again to do the same thing.
I do still regret not accompanying the young man who was looking to find a place to play basketball because he did seem quite nice, but I’m old enough to possibly be his grandfather or at least an uncle and he himself might have found it uncomfortable if I had offered to accompany him to the park. In the end, he found what he was looking for and there was no harm to anyone.
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Getting ready to ride the swing. Soon the ladder will be taken away, motor will pull the swing, and be released.
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If I had your handle I don’t know that I’d be anxious to get on that contraption…
Hope you’re STILL standing. 
Where is that?
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LOL yes I am still standing, although I liked it before all that was built.
It’s in Gampola. It’s on a mountain named Ambuluwawa. When I was a kid we used to go up there, there was only brambles, tall grass, and some other wild fruit trees on the top of it. There was also a dilapidated Buddha statue. Later in 1995 a minister started “developing” it which was actually a destruction. But he built a 7 storey tower you have to climb from outside, and some other buildings which later became popular tourist attractions. The swing is one of the latest additions. They charge around 10 USD for it, and that long dress can be rented for the ride for another 7 or so. I’ll add a very short video of it.
I took those photos and videos in September with my group of tourists. They actually enjoyed it. But for me? I still have those nostalgic memories of nothing there but the fruits and birds, and the blue sky.
Another company started raping the mountain again to build a zipline, which will be in action in near future I believe.
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Looks like it was made for IG. How far down is it beneath the edge? 
It’s a steep mountain, although not a drop like World’s End at Horton Plains. If you take to air while on the swing you will be thrown all the way down to the Gampola town. lol. The “official” height they give is 550 metres (the straight elevation) which has not been confirmed by surveyor department. But I highly doubt it as the official height from the sea level is 3,567 feet only.
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All I can think seeing contraptions like this is “At least a few components were manufactured by a process of ‘lowest bidder wins’.”
I do not have vertigo or acrophobia. But that thing gets a big ol’ “oh, HELL no!”
Same. But I hope he had fun!
