Stouffville, Ontario Canada (647) 962-1997 gwstudios@rogers.com M-F 8:30am - 2:30pm & 8:00pm - 11:00pm

Month: October 2022

Friday, friday, fri-yay!

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on Friday, friday, fri-yay!

Wasn’t there a terrible song about Friday’s written and performed by some music executives tween child about a decade back? Oh, fun memories. Can you believe it is the fourteenth already, holy shit. This month is just a zooming on by! What a wizzer! Phfoom! Aaaand it’s gone. Can’t forget about Halloween on the way to Christmas!

Having to really think about whether we’ll wait until after remembrance day this year to put up our Christmas Tree & exterior lights. I think that if I get a nice day between Nov 1st and 11th, I’ll just go ahead and do the outside lights. I dislike putting them up in heavier winds and near freezing rains. Plus i need to check the downspouts and it’s better on a drier day for that sort of mucky business.

I took a turn on my Record brand wood lathe recently to turn a few small Walnut bases for my sculptures. Unfortunately I had already put my finished items onto permanent wooden blocks, so that means I need to do some new things to fill them up. But not just new. New and good. The Walnut, after a clear coat looks pretty top notch. So I don’t wish to waste them on generic, run of the mill silliness. I’d like a slightly higher quality bust to go one or two of them. There is no time line for these, so I can have them ready at some point next year. Though I have the bug right now, and the finger tip sensitivity you build up when you really start going again. So if I can manage it, I’ll keep going rather than wait until after another long hiatus.

I picked up some regular sculpey and it’s so sticky & oily it feels more like the soft wax clay I was using. It’s kinda nice. Could do without the dye being left on my hands, but it spreads like oil based clay, and tools nicely. If I can keep myself from rushing, or growing impatient I might make something reasonable this time around. Maybe? Maybe not. It’s just a hobby man, don’t over think it. Be present in the moment. Remember the things you’ve learned along the way, and use the reference materials you have!

The farm ran a little light on pumpkins this year. The July to mid August drought was rough on the patch. Still got a good few, but not the teaming masses of them from years previous. Need to grab some for my kids school, but it has rained a bunch and I don’t fancy slogging through all that much to grab twenty pumpkins. Hopefully we get a clear day this weekend, and I’ll grab them then.

Not much else to say, except the fridge looks to be going off – again. Not sure what the deal is there. Must have been more moisture in it than I could see, as it kicked off some ice while the fucking thing was empty. So. Yeah. Fun times. Ciao Bella!

Changing interests.

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on Changing interests.

I have spent a great deal of time, over the last three years watching people build & make things on YouTube. Everything from home remodels, to hand made furniture, slab tables and machining. I would like to think that attempting much of this would be fun. Not that I’d be any good at it, but rather to experience it first hand, noise, smells and all. I never cared much for machining as a kid, though my father did it as a tool & die maker, thus a skilled tradesman, before moving into consulting and being a bridge between the shop floor, and the white coat techies and their sales staff. Now I wish I had access to some machining tools of my own, and an ear to bend to help figure things out. I would have had a riot of a time getting some furniture building tips from either of my grandfathers. Both of whom passed away before I even thought about doing it myself. They made chairs and tables in England, before and after the second world war, of which only one grand father had to take part. I myself had a brief stint in wood shop at school for several semesters, built some sets for a university play I was in, and then worked in a cabinet makers shop for a few months making antiques repairs, and milling up baseboards and trim for twelve hours a day, and cleaning up saw dust endlessly. So the wood shop wasn’t totally foreign to me, but I didn’t know I was going to fall for it this hard.

Now that there is no way to get it, I’d really appreciate their hard won expertise (my grandfather’s more so than the German cabinet maker). They could have sat, tea in hand, and pointed and watched as I worked on projects, chiding me for silly mistakes, or making corrections to my order of operations. Those are things I could really go for now. But alas, the furniture makers are more than a decade dead now. No video or hand books left behind of things they’d learned or wanted to pass along. I do have a hand made T square from my Grandpa Holyome. A dense hardwood straight edge he fashioned. Which I use fairly often. I’m not Mr Precise, so it works wonders on eye balled projects. I have properly machined tools too, but those I bought, they weren’t built by my family decades ago. A life time ago now.

When I get to thinking about all of that lost experience and knowledge I feel a little sad. What do they say now, like tears in the rain, or a breath on the wind. Gone.

I’m sure there were some small but strategically important hints or tweaks to techniques that would have gone a long way to improving my skills which they might have shared with me. Not only that, but to have made better memories with them. In all honesty, if they weren’t dead, they’d still be in England, on a six hour time difference. Not living next door or just up the road from me. And they’d both be in their mid nineties by now, anywhere from 94-98 years of age. But the fantasy was, nimble of mind, comfortably close at hand, teaching as we went. Cup of tea to keep them comfortable. Oh well. C’est le vie.

Of course I forgot about crossing Day 300.

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on Of course I forgot about crossing Day 300.

Talk about consistency eh? Was so angered by the refrigerator acting up for the fourth time I totally spaced on crossing day 300 of my writing challenge. Which is a milestone for sure. Perhaps when I get into the whole self indulgent year in review mood, I’ll get a final word count for every single post over the 365 days. What do we think the total will be? My early guess will be around 250,000 words for the year. Nothing too insane, given I wrote about 100,000 for my second book in the early part of the year.

I have definitely not been anywhere near as consistent with my working out, but I’m still working on that. I need to find some additional exercises to do in order to keep things fresh and add a hint of fun. Or, now hear me out here, make it more exciting. Standing still while using dumbbells is not a thought that inspires me to action. Though I feel better now after doing it more often than not. I do miss my olympic lifting sessions. I just don’t have the room for a squat rack, full complement of bumper plates, bars, and kettle bells, and essentially a full box gym. Which is a shame. But that’s the reality. I also don’t want to pay to join a gym I won’t go to as much as the expense would demand. Wah-wah-wah. I get how this all sounds.

With the recent big clear out of the shed, by sending the pergola to the cottage, and gifting our Barbie Corvette power wheels vehicle to my niece I was able to move all four bicycles out of the garage and into the shed. You can now move freely inside the garage for the first time in many months. I took some time during our holiday weekend at home to rearrange some elements in the garage. Giving me the ability to make some longer cuts on the table saw before I have to rotate the whole saw in the space for really long cuts. Or anything over four and a half feet long. Which is pretty rare for me. I work in the two to three foot long space most often. When I build boxes and end table and such, I keep my projects on the smaller side. As much as I would love to, I just don’t know if I could do a whole dining room table build. Would get awful tight in the space I have. I’m thinking on whether I could replace my radial arm saw by getting a larger and more robust sliding double compound mitre saw. One with a twelve inch saw blade to it. I’m hearing conflicting reports about the veracity of that statement, but I think a chunky well made mitre saw would do what I need, and save me even more floor slash wall space. I need to somehow regain some assembly space, which I don’t currently have. I don’t like having to leave partially assembled bits on my work bench if I still have more building left to do. And constantly moving things between the bench, the floor, or the table saw top is a hassle. Again, more whining. But, in this case I am doing something about it, albeit slowly. Piece by piece over months or years. Playing the long game here with this one folks.

The youngest is home under the weather again. I think she’s pulled a groin muscle after tripping on a dining room chair, falling at the park, and falling over at school all within a 48 hour period. Then swimming for two hours last night to aggravate it. So she’s doped up with kids Tylenol for the ache, and is watching the Spongebob movie for the hundredth time. On the plus side her cough is settling down again. She’s self contained, bundled in bed with drink & snacks. Which means I’m able to work, glad I’m not as busy as the last four weeks had been. Stay well out there. Ciao Bella!

Went looking for paint and bought…

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on Went looking for paint and bought…

More Super Sculpey instead. Air brush paint in particular was what I was looking for. I guess the next stop is a games workshop or some such like that. To see if they stock anything that I can run through my airbrush without having to thin it down at all. Not a major sticking point if I don’t pick any air brush paint up though. I have plenty of acrylic to brush it on like usual.

On the up side, more clay! Yay! Not that I need to go crazy this year. I can save some for the winter when everything gets real slow around here. As much as I enjoy painting my sculpts, it’s not exactly something I am talented at. I do enjoy both the building and the painting of my pieces. I think I’d rather be known for sculpting rather than the painting if I had my way. Not that either is likely at any point soon. Ha.

Went looking for balsa wood too while I was out to the craft store. Nothing there, like at all. I wonder why? Glad I’m not trying to build any new terrain otherwise that would put a real damper on my mood/build. Should look through my storage closet and see if I have any of my own left. I know I have foam core, and card stock left over. That stuff I saw when we were prepping our photos for the Markham Fair photography department. Have tooth picks, tongue depressers, and popsicle sticks out the wazoo though. Handy for building docks or a wharf for a future build. Always wanted to build a seaside fishing town with various strange buildings. That, and twenty other things. Ha.

This gods be damned fridge.

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on This gods be damned fridge.

Day after the big feast of roast beast and this damnable freezer has flash frozen over yet again. Guess putting one package of frozen burgers in it on Saturday evening was a step too far. Fucking thing. Now I really need to get a tech out here to look at it, see what’s going on with it. Or – the dreaded “or”, we have to think about replacing this twelve year old refrigerator. Not terribly happy about the thought of that, but some things can’t be helped.

Otherwise, yesterday’s big meal went over ok. Tasted good, didn’t create any undue gastric distress in anyone. Which is a massive plus in my book. Also I attempted roasted potatoes for the first time, and they were pretty damn good. A nice crunch, with fluffy interiors. The dusting of vegetable flavouring was right on the money. I could have done without the 4 straight hours of stress & worry, but it all came together, and I had it on the table for 6:00pm. So mission accomplished!

The day before we managed to get a whole lot done too. Leaves, grass, tree pruning, halloween decorations up on the house. Kids helped as much as they could. I pulled up the finished Glad bulbs, and pruned back all of the dead weeping heart in the yard. I moved a juvenile Oak tree, which I hope doesn’t kill it. It grew in so close to the stone walk way I had trouble grabbing as much of the tap root as I would have liked. But it couldn’t stay where it was. If it dies, it dies I guess. I have acorns to plant if I have too. The squirrels dug up & ate all of my black walnuts, so no hope of those growing here any time soon. Although it’s nearly time that I could go get more pods from the farm. Rather than buy slabs, I’ll grow my own! Only takes 25 years. Ha. Talk about long range planning.

Made some changes in the shop too. Tore down an old water damaged set of drawers. Kept the top two intact, and cut the rest off. Put the newly shorted, and undamaged portion under a work bench to store saw blades and lathe bits nice and close at hand. Kept all of the drawer slides and screws, then broke down all that crappy chip board ready for garbage day. I can now make a 4.5 ft cut without having to move my table saw. A real boon! I used to have to move it to do more than 2 ft. Which was a hassle. Plus, should I ever get around to buying a bigger bandsaw I now have a spot along the wall for it. But that is likely years away. Given the state of our refrigerator, water softener (which runs too much) & water heater (that fills a bucket with water every week from the overflow valve). A big tool purchase is a no go until all that gets sorted. Oh well. Not a huge deal.

I keep thinking about my radial arm saw. I think I could get rid of it, if I upgraded my mitre saw station to a sliding double compound saw. I don’t put a dado blade on the radial arm saw, I just use it to cut down overly wide boards, as it can handle 16 inches in width. A solid 12″ sliding compound miter saw would do nearly that without too much issue. And I could regain some additional floor & wall space in the shop. Wishful thinking perhaps.

In other less exciting news, I did the bulk of our laundry yesterday too, so I’m not planning on doing much of anything today. Had a sleep in until almost 9:00am, so that was a welcome rest after yesterday’s stressful afternoon. Not going to be much of a banger of a Domestic Duties Monday, but I will take a rest when I can get one. Oh yeah, we also got out to vote early on Saturday. One plus to not going up north for the long weekend. That, and no holiday traffic with kids in tow.

All the best to you and yours on this holiday monday. Ciao Bella!

Gah! The gravy!

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on Gah! The gravy!

I didn’t even think about it until just now. Can I substitute in some Swiss Chalet dipping sauce from a pouch into the mix? Kids won’t touch gravy anyway, so no love lost there if it’s missing. But the wife and I will be looking for it with both eyes open. So update to plan. Once turkey comes out to rest, I put the heat up for potatoes, and immediately do the stuffing. Clean that pan, and use it for gravy. Small mix up, but something we can bounce back from!

I can’t believe I didn’t even twig to it until now. Wowzers. Now let us pray I don’t over cook / undercook this turkey breast lump and do us all in!

About 2 hrs left, or there abouts until show time. Feeling anxious, having a hard time sitting down. Pacing the kitchen waiting, watching, and planning out my timing. Found out the dinner rolls too. But, alas my dear friends, no carrots this year. Boiled then drizzled in brown sugar & butter. Oh my! I’ll miss them!

Thanksgiving dinner by the criminally inept cook.

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on Thanksgiving dinner by the criminally inept cook.

So how things are going. The butterball 3lb turkey breast ball was rinsed, debagged, basted with oil and set in a Corning wear pan. The oven preheated to 325°, and the turkey roll placed in the centre of the lower rack. This is where it will stay for 3.5-4 hours. Once the turkey comes out to rest, I’ll turn the oven up to 450°, and will pop in the pre cooked baby potatoes on a cooking pan, brushed with oil & dusted with vegetable salt for flavour. Canned potatoes are not known for being particularly flavorful. They should take anywhere from 15 – 30 minutes, all going well. On top of the stove I have four pans. One is corn, one green beans, one is straight up peas, and the last is for Stove Top Stuffing. I have cranberry sauce ready to go, and rolls for the table. I didn’t go ahead and make any kind of homemade desserts, because why would I. I’m inept, not a masochist. We have ice cream if the kids actually eat their dinner this time around. I like carrots but opted to keep them off the menu.

Any left overs can get eaten tomorrow or go to my inlaws who currently have Covid.

Vegetables separated & ready for their turn to boil. Plus an empty pot for Stove Top stuffing.
Potatoes waiting to get brushed with oil and dusted with vegetable salt.

Early hours yet. But thus far no major errors in judgement. Still have more than 3.5 hrs to go! Fingers crossed for us all. Ciao Bella!

Later on today

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on Later on today

I am going to attempt to cook a Thankgiving meal myself. I may Chronicle it as it could be a humorous failure in the extreme. Title, “An Attempt at Dinner by the Criminally Inept Cook”. Laughs, tears and possibly a burn will ensue. Stay tuned. I’m no stranger to cooking, the oven & chopping board. But I am usually the one who peels potatoes & carrots, or plunges corn on the cob in boiling water, or whom lifts the finished Turkey out of the oven ever so gently to carve up a breast. I have never been without extended family that would take on the roll of cooking in my forty plus years. Thank you Covid for this new experience. Kinda? I guess? Better late than never, I suppose.

Anyway, I’m off outdoors to finish pruning all of the dead flowers and tidy up the ole homestead exterior. Ciao Bella!

The Black Pepper Society.

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on The Black Pepper Society.

Have you ever felt like you used up one of your best ideas too early, for something or someone you later felt didn’t warrant such an epic idea? And as a result feel as though the idea you used didn’t get to reach its potential, and was otherwise stifled? Yeah – I feel that way an awful lot, and it’s most likely not really what’s going on. An idea in your noggin’ is one thing, the execution of said idea to bring it to life in the real world is another. If you don’t execute it with any kind of precision or skill it will feel wasted. But you have to know where that failure lies. Most likely it is with yourself. Rushing to meet a deadline, or procrastination about starting because you later realize the scope of the idea at 100% is well beyond you. That’s your fault. Gotta figure that kind of stuff out with pen & paper before you end up cutting corners, or justifying major changes to suit your available time & skill.

I don’t want to say that I’ve Dunning Kroeger’ed myself in the past, but I surely have. Thinking I’m better than how I actually accomplished a story arc, or character driven story vehicle. Frustrating. Although sometimes I’m in such a rush (read that as panic) to create content to accomplish my writing every day challenge I’ll write whatever is in my head that second, only to realize afterwards, I should have held that thought back to explore it in greater depth. But two or more posts back to back on the same thing seems… lack luster.

But then the Fair comes to town and I write about that four plus days in a row, so maybe I’m just over thinking things again. This isn’t a nationally syndicated column with gravitas and cultural weight attached to it. I’m just some schmoe who tried to write anything he could once a day, for a whole 365 days. That hardly makes me the pinnacle of anything, so the feelings of wasted ideas are silly. Foolish even. Get a god damn grip my boy!

So that is how I woke up feeling at 6:54 am today. Also, had an upset stomach, so that is what really woke me up, and as I laid back down in my toasty bed, I thought about what I wrote late last night, and how I should have saved that post for today. Not to get out of needing to write even more today, but so i could go over it, and expand on points i now feel i should talk about in more depth. But does it need it? Most likely no. It was just a feeling i had. Humans are weird.

I wonder if we’ve secretly had Covid in the last three years, because i feel, ever so slightly, around the edges that I’m getting dumber. Or something akin to that effect. I can’t quite pin point it, but there’s some obscured thing there. Like the boundaries of what i used to know a lot about are fuzzy now, like has my knowledge turned from things i know, into things i ‘think’ that I know? My memory of some things has gotten fuzzy, in the softest sense. Very strange. Forgetful. Losing a word in the middle of a sentence. Or no clue why I came into a room. Misremembered events from a book or movie. It’s not major, but it’s a softly misting haze at the outer edges. Weird. Could it be that I am merely experiencing the regular effects of aging like every body else? Or is it more. Don’t know.

And on that bomb shell shall we say ciao bella!

On the cusp of day 300!

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on On the cusp of day 300!

It’s getting real close to 300 days of writing something, no matter how ludicrous, each day. I think I have it in me to make it to a year if I keep on it like I have been. Not going to lie, it has been a challenge, especially over the last three or four weeks where I have been consistently busy with paid work. Easy to commit to the ideal when your days are wide open. Felt the panic settle in during those longer than average (for me) work days, that bleed into weeks. Still came around and found the time. In some instances merely enough to write a partial paragraph. And, I’m ok with that. Also I’ve not done much of any creative writing in a fair few months. I think it was June the last time I did anything more than just a blog post/daily update. I have had a couple of ideas floating around, but just didn’t commit to putting a pen to paper, as it were. I typically write all my short fiction on my phone via thumbs. So – there we are.

This weekend will be the first time ever, in forty some odd years, that I will purchase, prepare, cook & eat my very own Thanksgiving dinner. Call me lucky! I’ve had family, inlaws & siblings do it every other year. But Covid came calling, so we’ll be a little isolated, and I’ll fire up the oven & stove top to prepare a Turkey, stuffing, potatoes, peas & green beans, plus corn for our family dinner. No hand made pies, or anything too niche this time around. If it’s edible, I’ll call it a win.

Other things that I have tried to be more aware of over the length of my writing every day challenge, are the reading one book a month, which I am 9 for 10, so far. Hoping to catch up, or over take the 12 books this calendar year. Could do it, we’ll see how it pans out. Also trying to exercise a little every day. Mainly free weights, plus sit ups, push up, air squats and the like. Less successful here, but any movement on that front is better than none. Might have to accelerate the plan, and actually go to a gym with more olympic weights, but that costs money & even more time to do. Quickly running out of suitable weather for bike rides, and use of my long board. Things that I can work on this year, and possibly every other year coming! Hurray for small but incremental behavioral change for the better! Go team!

Have done lots of wood working. Built some furniture (which has been a dream of mine for a while). Would love for that to culminate in a sizable gaming table & custom chairs. A few years yet for that to happen. Will need to build desks for my kids as they progress in grade school, and the demands on their time increases. A.k.a. Home work! Also I’m finding a groove with sculpting again. Which is very therapeutic, and gets the hands moving. Get a sense of the delicate touch back in ye olde finger tips. Also finding time to play my guitar more often is a lovely way to spend an hour. When that’s too much I pop over to the keyboard to tickle dome ivories of a sort. Feels more like plastic or nylon, but the sentiment stands. Ciao Bella!