Month: February 2025

Generic common sense question with no real definable answer. Platitude. Of course you’re in the right, the whole world is wrong. And here’s how that is. I’m not really telling you, but I will allude to some things. Give you tasty tid-bits that make YOU think you’re in the know. Then, here comes the hard sell. Buy my course, book, seminar, retreat for more information. It used to be that you’d buy a VHS tape that was 29 mi utes long, and the reel to reel inside looked almost entirely too empty. You’d spend $29.95 on each subsequent tape, and they never really would get to the point, and solve what they said they could. Funny that. Right? Grift. It’s what’s for lunch.

So here we are in Friday February 28th, 2025 the last day of the second month. I don’t know about you, but this has felt like a very long week. It might be that my daughters Taekwondo belt promotion landed her in an all new schedule, with far later start/end times than before. It could be that I’m not feeling 100% as of late. It could be the late winter doldrums after a very warm & sunny Florida Keys vacation. Or all of it, or none of it. But my god this week felt like its own month. I need to send out invoices today, and start to build out a template for my next big report that’s coming at any point over the next couple of days. I could actually sit down and start my taxes too if I were on the ball a bit more. I have the hard copies, and now need to do the data entry portion. It’s a three or four hour job, and not difficult, just not much fun.

March is coming, same with the March Break. Will we continue to have snow & ice to skate on that far into March? Hard to say. I believe we are to get more snow this afternoon. But I have not triple checked the weather to see if it has changed wildly since my phone last beeped me some details. Different apps give you different readings oddly enough. That’s fun.

Not much going on here at the moment. My wife’s car is still waiting to go to a shop that will actually fix it. Nobody wants to do the job because it’s an easier fix, but the caveat is, you have to drop just about e very part in the engine bay to get to the issue (which sucks) and for how much it’ll cost nobody wants to waste their time on it. But buying a second new car is way outside our means after the van up & died in October. This $2K fix should keep the car going for another 12-18 months atleast. We just put $700 into the breaks, pads, lines, calipers, and rotors, and a parking break cable too. Not paying for all that to junk it one month (or so) later. Ridiculous.

Makes the case for my wife to come work more locally though. One vehicle, one insurance, one wear & tear fund, one set of all season and winter tires, more room on the driveway for the kids to play. Less fuel consumption, fewer 407 trips, the only snaggle is that both kids need to be in multiple locations on the same night in different towns, and that’s not manageable with only one car. Joys of parenthood. It would require a complete redo of all our activity planning and scheduling to move to just one vehicle. Whitchurch-Stouffville is nice, but it6not exactly a walkable town. The sprawl is real. Everything mostly useful to us is west of us by a couple of kilometers. I can’t grocery shop in town and walk home with groceries over that distance. I could do it once in a pinch, but not weekly. Not without a sizable cart/wagon suitable for a bicycle. Spring, summer, fall is fine, but what about the winter months? I guess much smaller but far more frequent trips would have to become the norm. A tricycle with a human carrying basket up front like they have in the Netherlands would be a requirement for that type of lifestyle. I’d get in shape, that’s for sure. We also don’t gear our roads to safely move bike traffic around town. All very car centric. Not all that flat around here either. But I digress.

Looks as though voter apathy won again last night leaving Doug Ford in charge with his PC buddies. Saw that coming from a mile away. I’m not in the mood to get into it. Maybe later. Ciao Bella

Took us longer to find parking near the venue than it did to walk in, vote and leave. But, on the plus side our civic duty is now done and I can go on about my business. Yay!  Getting in as the doors open is far superior to having to wait in long lines after 5:00pm rolls around. Kinda silly they put our voting station inside an active elementary school during day light hours though. Lots of weirdos just wandering your school unchecked. That’s a liability just waiting to occur. Yikes. Big yikes. Also no parking available on site during regular school hours, so not so hot for those with accessibility issues. But I digress.

Today is Thursday, the second last day in February. Can you believe it? Snowing again too, but not so very cold as it had been before. I think I can be proud of February.  Not only did I vacation with my girls alone (mostly) for five days, but I got a fair amount of work done, and I took apart the wooden racks, purchased & assembled the new metal racks, and spend a considerable number of hours tidying up the garbage wood, cut-off, and general trash that had accumulated over the preceding decade or more. Plus, I recaptured some open floor space, and opened up the head space around my work bench. I have a couple small tools to find a suitable home for, but that task is about 98% complete. Good enough to be done, but I could always do more type of thing. The small items are jars of screw & bolts that need a proper home, and a whole array of hand clamps that need a final storage solution where they are easy to grab when working, but are not in the way of anything else behind or below them. That’s what makes the fix tricky. It requires some thought, and careful planning. But not so much as to freeze the project dead, stopping all progress in its tracks. A fine needle to thread if I do say so myself.

March Break will be upon us soon, and with that comes the potential for sun burns to the face with the heightened strength of the near spring time sun. I do love to sit by the boiler watching the fire, keeping the sap at a rolling boil. Pulling ice from the sap buckets, filtering the sap, pouring the sap, the smell of the cotton candy smoke when you splash a little to wildly onto a hot surface around the boiler. And sometimes we get a secondary bonfire going to dispose of work/construction materials, and old junk (a la my wood cut-off, and old garage bits). Usually water logged furniture, torn mattresses, old dressers, and magazines, and some times even an old textbook or two that nobody would take off my hands. I’m no pyromaniac, but I enjoy a good bonfire session. The best was the decades old roof trusses that I had to man handle into the fire every time a five foot section burned clear through. They are big, but mostly empty. Still heavy though. Pushing and pulling those about in a bonfire is no joke. Gotta watch for all those nails, screws, and truss tie plates with those barbs on them. Proper footwear required! And a crappy jacket that you don’t mind getting a little singed.

It’s out there just a snowing today. Temperature has been holding a 0°C, so it’s real good packing snow. First started as massively fat flakes too. Makes the trees look real pretty too. I’m just about sick of snow, and shoveling but I can still enjoy the view of a undisturbed snowfall across my lawn. Not for long, but I can, and that’s the point. Ha.

I’m just about done talking your ears off, so I’m going to eat breakfast, and go check some work emails. Ciao Bella.

Actually getting some warmth off of the sun these last couple days, feels a bit different. Maybe because the official start to spring is about 25 days away now. Are we turning a corner? Not if this weekends weather has anything to say about it. More snow, and an associated cold snap to boot. Yippee! No. Not really a yippee moment. These False Spring events can really do you in by getting your hopes up, and then dashing them on all of the new snow, ice, and bitter windchill it blows our way before spring really settles in once and for all. I guess you’d call that moving the goal posts, but done by nature instead of by some greedy asshole looking to make a buck off your back.

Reacher Seazon three is now on Prime, the first three episodes of it anyway. Seems like this season is moving faster than the previous ones, but I’m along for the ride. My spouse is too. She was rather excited once she saw it was back on tv again. I’m sure Alan Richardson getting down to his skivvies didn’t hurt her choosing to watch the show. I’m just trying to guess which female officer he is going to wind up sleeping with. Probably the phoney Boston Accent lady if I had to guess at it now.

It’s wednesday today, rejoice! Hump Day has arrived, and by 5pm, the majority of the week is done! Our Florida luggage made it home to use last night, so I have several loads of laundry to tackle in my near future. Speaking of work, I’m getting e-mails as we speak. Best be about my business. Ciao Bella.

Every February for as long as I can remember has had a mid month thaw that brought a load of rain with it, which would, in some cases, take the snow right back to the underlying grass and nearly clear the entire road from curb to curb. And just as quickly the temperatures would drop precipitously and then we’d get a massive dumping of snow followed by a lengthy cold snap that would potentially last through until the first weeks of April. This year it seems the rainy thaw has turned up late! But I see a bunch of snow and cold coming our way so I’m not fooled by this false spring. Just because it was 7°C and sunny yesterday I didn’t get carried away believing what I was seeing & feeling. I did not let the pilot light of hope catch fire. That way lies madness. Ha.

We aren’t out of the woods yet. Even by March 21st we’ll still be in the thick of it. But there have been cases where I’ve gotten a sun burn sitting outdoors enjoying the early April weather (way back in 2002 that is). But I’ve been out and about in flurries and cold snaps around April 10th, so not out of the woods by any means for a good long time.

Pushing the snow back away from the house every couple of days is about as much as I can do to try to stop our basement flooding. Besides having towels at the ready, and keeping my wet/dry shop vac & mops handy. Dehumidifiers at my beck and call too for the late stages of a clean up. That’s about all we can do.

I went through the eaves troughs twice this fall to clean them out, and to flush the down spouts. I did another clean up when I put our Christmas lights up on the house, but I didn’t pull more than ten leaves out as it was pretty bare. Now the ice dams however, those I can’t seem to stop from happening. Then the water just pours off the entire house and pools wherever it pleases. I could try to have a heated line wired in to prevent that, but of the two properties I know that utilize such a thing, it has not yet worked for a whole winter without breaking down, or not being strong enough to contend with those prolonged dips into the mi us twenty five to thirty range, and then the ice build up gets ahead of the heated line, and they are stuck with massive icicles, and pooling water just the same as I am. Weather, man it’s difficult to deal with let alone beat.

Here we are on Tuesday! Lovely Tuesday, last one for the month of February of 2025. Two months into the year, and Christmas is a distant memory. Four months left of the school year, birthdays starting all over again. Tax time is on the horizon. A whole new year really feels new once Spring starts to feel like it’s within striking distance. Still a tad too early for the spring cleaning bug to hit, but a chance to open a window around here will be much appreciated. The Honeywell air purifier has gone a long way to keeping the air in here less stale during these long winter months. Glad to have it!  Especially now with a dog around, keeping the “wet dog” smell to a minimum around here is “pretty – pretty” awesome. (A touch of Larry David for you Curb fans out there).

I need to eat and get to work on a Retail POS campaign. Food for thoughts. Ciao Bella.

Funnily enough my eyes were giving me real trouble about a month ago, but since going to Flirida for a week they haven’t bothered me all that much since. Now the eye lid under my right eye has acted up a bit, but the muscle twitch is gone, and the blurred vision is gone too. Still have difficulty with really small text though, might as well not even exist at this point, my eyes don’t register it at all any more. Had a keen eye for details once, have to pull back and do bigger picture stuff now. Ha.

Weather is warming slightly, so I went ahead and cleared the sewer grates on the street directly out front of our house. We have two of them, and I dig them out, scraped them off, and then opened up a wider path to them from the street itself. Trying to avoid a flooded lawn and driveway that will eventually freeze over every night and cause a skating rink to appear. Not so much fun. I also went around the house to widen our walking paths, and clear off more of the back patio. If we do get rain it’s going to be a disaster. Ugh. Get valuables up and off the floor then!

I have to head out soon, so have a nice Monday! Ciao Bella!

**UPDATE: I do in fact require reading glasses moving forward as my eyes are now 20/30 and nolonger 20/20. Ugh. Ok. Fine. Also the cold winter months makes my blepharitis act up and my poor eye lids pay the price from the lack of moisture. Thanks biology! Stay tuned for more information.

It took quite some doing but I managed to get the new Husky 90″ by 90″ five shelf metal rack all set up and repopulated with stuff. This doesn’t show all of the carnage left to take care of at the front of my garage space. I have cardboard boxes full of cut offs, as well as a substantial pile of garbage lumber with nails in it stacked right by the door too. Not to mention two massive pedestal table legs that need to go, and a kids kitchen play set I’d like to take to the cottage for my niece & nephew. The space still feels cramped and hemmed in because of all this poor quality lumber & cut offs.

I have an old car seat, a busted stroller, and some really old tech to toss at some point too, which will help to open up some space on the shelves. I’m not sold on the garbage can location next to my ladder (which is too big really, but it’s what I’ve got). I could probably re-sort my smaller wood pieces and get rid of a few bits there if I felt like it.

I had high hopes for getting all of my construction lumber, and my good quality furniture lumber to fit between the wall and the new rack, but I have a little too much for that to work right now. If I could get an entire truck bed load to myself to go north with, I’d toss some beams, and cruddy construction lumber away too. If I do away with all my pre-used 2×4’s and cement covered 2×6’s, I most likely could put my furniture quality lumber right at the very back. I know it should be stored lying down so as to not buckle, bulge, but I have the space I have, no more, and it can always be less. It’s not ideal right this second, but if I pick away at it, I’ll make it as optimal as I can over time. That’s progress.

So, in conclusion I still have a number of things left to do, but on the whole this is a massive step forward. The lighting is so much better back there by my bench with this upgrade too. Stay tuned to see the finer details take shape as I continue to fix the space up a bit over the coming spring. Noice!

Man oh man I miss going out dancing. It used to be so much fun, the atmosphere, the music, the drinks. So fun. Now I’m old, with little kids, and these knees and hips don’t shimmy like they used to. I have been twice in the last two years which is a better record than the seven or so years before that. When I worked in person for marketing teams our annual sales gatherings usually ended in late nights & dancing, so I miss that element too. Can’t say much for the new music, but when we got down in the late 90’s, and early aughts it was a real riot out on the dance floor. Glorious.

I don’t miss the drinking, or the after effects of drinking, but I do miss going out with a large group of friends and cutting a rug for four or five hours on a Friday or Saturday night. Eventually that morphed into pub crawl Wednesday’s, or tacking on a Thursday just because you were in the groove. Ah youth. And hip flexion flexibility.

They played some golden oldies last night which got me out on the dance floor briefly, singing my heart out. Did I mention the music was loud, so no harm of anybody hearing me either. Nice! It was exhausting but fun. Home to bed by midnight, a truly wonderful evening. My wife came for the first half too, which made the whole night even better. Finding a baby sitter has been a real godsend. Finally able to enjoy our company on outings once again. Been a long ten years.

A few weeks ago, before I went on vacation, I took the time on a Sunday to tear down some shifty looking wooden racking at the back of my garage. It was hastily erected by the previous owner/Tennant and it was making me nervous to work under. So four hours later I had the shelves emptied, and all the plywood & two by fours, and old unfastened posts disassembled and on the floor. My pile to go north to burn has grown considerably. But! The new 90″ by 90″ five shelf rack has been built and I may have miscalculated a little bit. Oops.

Mind you the space is cleaner, I did regain open floor space, and I managed to get 95% of what I needed put up and away onto it. I have several hours of fine tuning to do to it all though. I’m not certain that how I have things arranged are the best they could be. I knew going in I just had to block stuff out and then revisit to clean up, and optimize the space. The hard part is done. Fine tuning can happen over the preceding weeks or months. I’m not too concerned.

I would like to reorganize my wood selections a bit better too. That’s a heavy job with a lot of lifting, so I need to think that through first, as I don’t wish to brute force it, and wind up doing it three or four times before I get it right.

I managed to cut down all of the cardboard into manageable pieces that the recycling guys will take away. I need to fill a garbage back with dust & debris to go out next week too. So after all is said and done the shop is a little cleaner, and I need to find a way to store a few more long tools, and I’m all set. Nice.

It was a big task to undertake, and I’m glad that the bulk of the job is done. Fine tuning in a semi heated shop should be a far more pleasant experience moving forward. I have my larger heater, and fuel, and batteries now. Ready to heat the space to a more reasonable temperature. The old wreck of a rack was torn down, and is no longer an eyesore to look at every time I go into the garage. I swept the floors that hadn’t been touched in more than a decade. And I have open air space above my work bench for longer pieces of wood to not snag, and I have more open floor to walk around in too. It does come with the drawback of being different, and requiring a better storage/wood management system, but I’m good with positive changes like that. If I need to purge a little bit more, so be it! Once I get those off cuts up north to be burned it will feel like a whole new maximized space to work in! Glorious. And a long time coming too.

I thought that it would for sure take me until April to start this project, and here I am, not even March yet, and I can start the fine tuning portion. Amazing! Really — it is. I hate having a big project on my mind weighing down on my shoulders. Get into it, make some headway. It doesn’t have to be CO.pleted in a day, but if you put in the hours, you will get someplace better. And for me, that was replacing those wonky donkey wooden racks. They were so unsafe. So very unsafe. I trusted them well beyond what I should have. So unbelievably unsafe to work around, under, or on. Yikes. But not anymore! I’ll take a picture once I get things sorted out a bit more.

Ciao Bella!

So much snow to deal with, and a lot of work to go along with it. Thankfully I was only away for a weeks worth of time (roughly speaking) so I’m not entirely buried under work like we are all this snow. But don’t forget about the cold! Oh yeah , while we were acclimating to sunny weather in the low thirties, we came home to freezing temperatures close to minus twenty, that’s fifty degrees of change. Too much! That is too large a temperature variance for the human body to enjoy. One day I’m slathered in sun screen trying not to dehydrate, the next I just can’t stay warm enough to shovel sixteen plus inches of snow off my front walkway. It’s nuts.

So we will either get more snow next week as we get closer to March, and the first day of spring, or it will begin to rain, and flood the streets like crazy, then freeze each night locking us in deep-deep inches of ice. Canadian weather is not for the weak of heart. All that shoveling, and ice picking will do you in if you aren’t in half way decent shape. It’s my nightmare.

Made it to Friday morning. Even with all of our flight troubles, the delays, the push backs, the missing grounds crew, the medical emergency call, the turbulence, the extremely late landing time, we made it home safe and sound, with our plane right side up, and not engulfed in flames. I’m not a nervous flyer but this weeks deluge of fires, crashes, and flips, and major turbulence episodes made me stop & think once or twice about stepping onto an airplane ever again.

I don’t know if it’s knock on effects from Covid brain damages, or under staffing, or a lax maintenance schedule but these planes be dropping in numbers recently, and the old adage of air travel being safer than cars is starting to look, and feel, out dated. Could be that with phones we are just seeing more of the whoopsie daisies on social media, but I have seen a lot these last couple days. Like a lot, a lot. You know what I mean? Could just be people capitalizing on the algorithms by posting old plane fires, crashes, bird strikes, and open doors mid flight to make money off of it all. I don’t know. I’m just seeing a lot of it on my feeds lately. Fun times. Doom scrolling indeed.

But now we are back on Terra Firma with a few projects to complete, and various social things to do this weekend. Rock climbing, belt testing, three birthdays at one bash! And whatever else happens on Sunday.

Oh yeah , I saw the Canada vs USA hockey game last night. The Four Nations finals with the NHL. It was a doozey! We won, with an overtime goal by Connor McDavid #97 himself. It was an epic way to counter their loss to the US a game or two ago. BAM! How do you like them apples, Boston!

Snow, so much damn snow it feels claustrophobic. Piles up past my hips. Chest high banks lining the streets. Fifteen footers in the parking lots, and behind my kids school. It’s everywhere with more on the way. Yuck.