I just picked up my summer pass for the Pinery Provincial Park. This has become a welcome Spring ritual. This year the rate is $89.15 and is valid April 1, 2008- Nov. 30, 2008. The pass is good for all Provincial Parks, not just the Pinery. It is a great deal if you live nearby. Without a seasonal pass, a day pass will cost you $12.00. This can add up during the season as it is always on the list of things to do when friends & family visit.

Last week the Heritage Trail (2.5km) was the only trail open and access to the beach was restricted to walk in traffic only (Park at the Heritage trail and walk to Beach area #9). I expect this will change in the near future as the weather continues to warm up. This time of year they also do controlled burns, usually in the early morning hours. This might restrict access to some areas as well.

The Pinery beaches are my personal favorite. Most of the season they are sparsely populated. It only gets really busy on weekends in the heat of July/August. You do want to come prepared for the day. It’s not like Main Street, you can’t walk a few feet from the beach for a snack or something cold to drink. The park concession store is located some distance from the beach areas (near the canoe & bike rentals) and is closed until summer season is in full swing.

If you are thinking of hiking one of the many trails, be sure to make the Wilderness Trail a priority. It is the longest trail in the park at 3km. The forest growth is spectacular, bring a camera and at the mid point of your hike you come to an overlook of Lake Huron. On a sunny day it is breathtaking!

See you there…

With the annual spring boat launch just over a week away it is time for the Village elders to have a look at our public boat launch. The launch has been in need of repair for sometime. There is exposed metal along the sides that will take a piece out of your boat and your body if you are not very careful. On a calm pre-season day it’s not an issue to be extra cautious but come July all hell breaks loose as folks are rushing and jockeying for position.

Just after Thanksgiving last year, calamity struck and the end of the middle pier was smashed and is now unusable. It has been tied up with caution tape ever since. When I first noticed it I was immediately thankful I didn’t cause it. Friends that have seen me pilot a boat probably wonder… No, it was not me this time.

I am hopeful that we will not go into our season with this unsafe situation. The pier needs to be repaired. The addition of rubber guards along the sides of the launch and platforms that compensate for the reduced lake levels are critical. It is a challenge to safely haul yourself out of your boat when the dock is 3 feet above your head.

We would also do well to invest in whistles for the Municipal dock hands that collect the tolls. Assisting with traffic coordination and advising folks of the lake condition would be helpful. There is something amiss when the lake has swells and a tiny bow rider filled with the family is launching without a word of caution from the folks with the clipboards.

A little maintenance and proactive launch supervision would go along way in making everyone’s lake experience a great one in 2008.

May 4th Update - the middle pier has been repaired.  No improvements have been made to the railings so be careful launching your boat. 

We are looking forward to sunshine and warmer temps this week. This picture was taken on Sunday at the Main Street Beach pier.

• A fundraising event is scheduled for April 19th at Twigs Floral Company. A BBQ is planned to benefit Julianna Zahn as she participates in the Organ Donor Tribute Walk, April 24-27. Julianna’s father, Mike Kahn died on August 29, 2007 at the age of 53. Please stop by and sign up to sponsor Julianna for the walk.
  Twigs Floral Company is located at
  54 Ontario Street South, Grand Bend.
  519.238.1262

From the Grand Bend Strip

Save the tears and back up your data

April 14, 2008

Technically Speaking
By Tamara Nicola

After years working as a software executive in a fast paced, high pressure career, I decided to quit my job, sell the house, and buy a Winnebago… to the shock of everyone close to me. Okay they talked me out of the Winnebago, but they couldn’t talk me out of moving to Grand Bend. I have fallen in love with our village and it’s a privilege to share some of my computer knowledge with the Grand Bend Strip readership. Today I spend my time focusing mainly on web design, e-commerce and the marketing of both. For my first article I want start with a very important topic, and that is Backup and Restore.

A healthy sob
It’s almost time to put down the TV remote, dust the Doritos off your chest and head outside in the evenings. I have to admit that I have become addicted to reality TV over the winter. Is it just me or have you noticed the contestants crying a lot more this season? From Biggest Loser to Survivor they are all having a healthy sob on national TV.
This reminds me of my years working for a Backup & Restore software company.
See where I am going here? Everyday I encountered people sobbing over lost data. Even if they managed to hold themselves together initially, they most certainly lost it when they saw the price tag to manually recover a hard drive.Literally thousands of dollars, and often times it was only partially successful.

Off-site solutions
Businesses have long understood the importance of storing backups off-site. A disaster that wipes out one location won’t destroy the backups, too. Online backup services, which automatically move duplicates of your critical data over the Internet to remote servers, are now available to everyone.
It’s not just businesses that need to plan for disaster recovery; with digital cameras the new norm, important family memories reside on hard drives that will eventually fail.
If you have DSL or a cable modem and are backing up to floppy disk (yikes!), burning files to CD/DVD, or lugging around a zip drive, it may be time for a change.
Online backups are affordable and some are even free. While not designed for a full system backup, they are a great way to protect your critical documents, pictures, email and music.
Security is an important concern. The online service should offer encryption of your data so that any stolen files are unreadable. Restoring should be quick and easy. I recommend that you practice restoring so when a crisis hits, you are calm and ready to go.

Hay Communications in Zurich offers a $9.95/per month plan and they have a free trial offer. Sign up online at www.hay.net
At Mozy.com, you can sign up for 2 GB of free space. They support both the PC and the MAC. PC Magazine rates Mozy as Editors Choice. www.Mozy.com
Windows Live SkyDrive. 5 GB of free storage is available. SkyDrive only backs up individual files, not directories but it has built in file sharing capabilities. http://www.skydrive.live.com