Month: July 2025

Walked into the grocery store with my daughter yesterday to grab a few odds & ends while we were waiting for her session of flag football to start. And when I approached the deli counter the two employees were engaged in a friendly chat, and the younger one was sending the elderly one a text with some information. I smiled at them both upon approach and nodded politely which they both saw, and we stood quietly beside the digital weight, and ticket printer to ask for the items we wanted. And the bell was right there, within arm’s reach, but so were both employees whom we had indirectly interacted with via smile, and a partial nod. Only for the younger one (whom was working the counter) to wander away. The older woman called out to the younger one three times before the younger one came out. Now I feel as though had I walked to the counter, nodded & smiled and then rang the bell for service, right in their faces, that that would have been a “dick move”, so I did not. I could have I suppose, but I felt the smile & nod was courteous and an acknowledgement that we would like service. Perhaps I am wrong. Now if nobody had been standing out front talking I would ding the bell. No problem there. We were served, and only waited an additional fifteen seconds or possibly more, and that’s not the issue for me. My issue was the bell. It feels icky to ding the bell right in someone’s face. Like hello, I see you, I acknowledge you, I’m walking over to… DING!,  it feels both impatient, and rude to ding the bell when workers are present. I know I would hate to get dinged while present at the counter I worked at. Oblivious employee walking away or not.

But, here we are on Thursday and both of the library programs are done, but the late swimming sessions have begun. So not out of the woods yet. We had people around for a swim, lunch, and a visit yesterday. It was nice, if a bit busy of a day to have three big things going on. All of which were very physical for the kids. I broached the subject of finding more similarly married with children friends for us to golf with, but with the caveat that they must like golf (but not too much), be ok at it (but not too good) and be loosey goosey with the rules enough to keep pace of play moving forward because we are all kind of terrible! That’s my kind of golf buddy. Not a rules stickler. Not a faux PGA tour miser taking every stroke ever so seriously. Those folks can eat my ass. Not my tempo!

So far I think I have found at least three people of similar interest level whom we can golf with as a couple. These are $45.00 courses, so we aren’t flying anywhere, or doing multi day road trips to get to another province to play. Not that Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick or PEI aren’t lovely, but I don’t golf enough as it is to justify that kind of cash layout, when I have not tried 99.99% of the courses near me. Maybe if I had exhausted all public and semi private courses that would make sense, but I have not, so it doesn’t.

Today is the last of the month so I will need to send out invoices. That’s a good thing. That means work being done on the regular, and in this economy, with this much uncertainty, that’s fantastic for a freelancer like me. Do I wish my book sales had taken off (sure I do) but I wrote those books to fulfill a dream I had, not because I thought for a second that it would get me anywhere but satisfied I accomplished a childhood dream — twice! Boom! Which is why I’m making the effort to play my guitar more often, to get my fingers dirty with clay once more, to paint & draw, and to work on assembling my resin mecha kit too. I’m just a cleaning, purging, artsy fartsy machine as of late. I have parts laid out for a Taekwondo belt display for my eldest daughter. Spent a whole lot of time on the table saw, and belt sander prepping those bits and pieces. I’m in slow work, high creative energy mode. Trying to do everything I have on the go, and not rush out to spend money. Tighten the belt just a notch or two, and work on what I’ve got. I have some painting to do in order to finish my children’s book. I’d love to get that published up on here by the end of October. In all honesty I think I need to redo almost all of my illustrated pages, except for just one or two that I still like, and am happy with. But that’s alright. Self doubt will make you try a little harder, get a little more creative. I hope! Add another tick to my list of childhood dreams made real. Releasing a music album is going to be a tough one. But! He says, I do have audio tracks available here, but it’s just me talking. So kinda sorta, but not really applicable? I’m not proficient enough musically to make my own songs, as of yet. Watch my YouTube channel and you’ll see that very quickly.

My list of childhood dreams also requires me to release a comic book I created myself, and that shit will go hard, if it goes at all. I’ve sold a painting, and a sculpture or two before. It’s just that the scale of the thing is greatly reduced. I call a one off a win, rather than having to make hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars doing any one thing on the list. The intrinsic value of accomplishment is what means something to me at this stage. Sure I’d love for any one thing to just take off or what have you, but that’s not the driving force of why I need to do them.

Wow look at me getting long in the tooth here today with this lengthy post. Have a great Thursday. Temperatures seem more reasonable. Touch grass! Ha. Ciao Bella.

I read all three of the books quite some time ago so I don’t remember a whole lot of the finer points, and so far the first season is just working through the first book. I am liking it from what I have seen. I don’t remember them swearing so much in the book, but I didn’t have kids yet when I read the first one at least, so… Differing priorities, or sensitivities are at play here now. Almost makes me want to go back and reread it to see how faithful to the source material they are, but not quite. Ha.

Today is Wednesday, and I have some work to go do. Ciao Bella!

Here we are nearing the half way point of this wonderful, if overly hot, summer break of the year 2025. We have gone to Canada’s Wonderland, Vaughan Mills, Bancroft Soda lite mine, the cottage, the beach & surrounding swamp, to sleep overs, birthdays, library programming, summer flag football games, played 18 holes of golf, saw a friend give birth to a beautiful bouncing baby boy as a surrogate, and gone to parties, and even some town events with other friends with similarly aged children. It has been a blast.

With the August long weekend approaching we might venture to drive the kids up to see the Bancroft Rockhound Gemboree one day if we can convince the kids to sit quietly to drive all that way for a day. Bit of a trek at the worst of times, let alone when they are excited about seeing fancy gem stones, and attempting to do some shopping for said gem stones, or gem stone adjacent fancy rocks/fossils. It can be a bit much! Ha.

But here we are on a fine Tuesday morning. The dog and I have the house to ourselves for a bit while the kids are at swimming lessons. I pruned a few shrubs so that my office has a view of something other than a wall of leaves for a change. Behind those leaves is a hedge, but I now get sun light into my workspace. Score! I have put some feelers out to see how my late summer, and fall look to be shaking out work wise, and it’s looking a bit quiet. Now things might change if the tariff situation settles, but it’ll take 6 months to a year for that to realign itself, not going to be an overnight thing, unfortunately.

So if I’m going to have time on my hands, then I’m going to continue my mini purge sessions, and really whip the house into shape. Besides the girls wardrobes & closets I don’t want to attack their things, so I will focus my attention on the shared spaces, broken toys, hidden junk piles, cupboards, closets, shoe & coat piles, under counter storage spaces, and open/disintegrating/dissolving/dried out crafting supplies. It will be enough to keep me occupied for at least a week. Plus, I could start whisking those paint cans out from under the basement stairs, and taking them to the house hold hazardous waste dump in allotments. I don’t think I could get all of it gone in one trip. I believe they have rules about how much can go from a single household at one time. I will need to look into it, because that information pertains to our predicament.

My wife was kind enough to go through and sort much of her Girl Guide crafting mess back into her clear storage bins. We had many, many Walmart bags filled with individual craft projects that had gone out, and returned. But not sorted back into the appropriate container. Plus more beads than you could shake a stick at. So many, just so, so many of them. Different colours, shapes, sizes, mediums, and themes. It borders on insane. But now it is organized, and we have cleared some shelf space by tidying it up. I got some crap out of the laundry room, so we have shelf space if we want anything put in long term storage.

As promised, when I took the broken tech away to the dump I did not fish out my wife’s old (and not broken) home theater apparatus, even though it has sat disassembled since 2005. We still have all the speakers, receiver, subwoofer, and cables needed to run the CD/DVD player. I did however toss all of the busted Wii stuff she picked up several years ago that not once got played, except when I personally had to go through and test each item (much of which did not work). Plus I got rid of my old Xbox 360 console, but I kept the hard drive from the top, as it was removable. Nice! The karaoke machine that smelled of burning electronics when turned on for more than 30 seconds went, my old printer, a dehumidifier, an electronic drum set of pads, an old PC tower, an old monitor, an old clock radio. It wasn’t a tonne of stuff, but it was enough. In the fall I will likely scour my books once again and send some more off to donation. I will go through my t-shirts and either transfer them to the cottage so I never, ever have to take clothes up there again, or they can go to the textile donation bins in town to be recycled into who knows what.

The older I get the less keen I am on just holding on the “stuff/things” that have no value to my day to day life. I found some twenty year old markers from my college days. All dried up. And I finally tossed those. They had sentimental value, but I can’t just keep holding onto 50 dried up markers because they remind me of a good time I had at Sheridan College back in 2000/2001. I mean — come on. Gotta live what you preach! I spent a considerable amount of time cleaning brushes a few years ago, so I can keep my paint brushes, because I was able to salvage them, and rehabilitate them after two decades of abuse! Dried paints, and markers, and pastelle boxes can all go in the trash. I do have two bottles of film developer from that same time (unopened of course) that I just can’t bear to throw out. Next to my first ever point & shoot film camera. It’s crazily terrible against even my phone’s camera, but I can’t think of throwing it away. I never use it, but I see it inside my art box every time I go in my office. Hell I still have my first ever digital camera from 2006, and as far as I know it still works. Also has terrible picture quality compared to my phone. I should toss both, plus the crappy mini tripod I have, but not yet. Not yet. I know my kids would immediately bin them if I passed in 5 years time, so I know deep down all three items are pretty much junk. I wouldn’t keep them if I was offered them from a friend passing. So yeah, in September I will likely purge those items too. I had a good time wandering Guelph with that digital camera. I bought the point and shoot film camera when I was in high school, so it might be nearing thirty years of age sooner rather than later. Holy cow! That’s messed up. If it were a Pentax or a Canon with removable lenses, and flash bulbs and stuff it would be worth keeping, and preserving. But the point & shoots were self contained, and would take no upgrades. So… Yeah.

I recently took some time to sit back down and try my hand a sculpting again. I found a cool picture of a goblin king that I was going to draw inspiration from. Didn’t get too far into it. It reminded me that I need to get a move on my sculpted & painted ceramic Markham Fair 2025 entry. So I might shelve the clay bust once more, in favour of doing something new in ceramic. We will have to see how that shakes out.

I’ve rambled enough for today. Ciao Bella!

Three hours of waiting in the 30°C heat with my eldest daughter and we were able to get our first ever ride of AlpenFury under our belts. I enjoyed it a great deal. It is very fast, and turbulent! Short ride duration for how far you travel, and how long the track is throughout the park. Lots of fun. I will not wait 3 hours to ride any ride ever again though. That’s too much, especially in this heat. We saw two individuals succumb to the heat, and faint. The first woman laid there on the ground for a good long while before the EMS team were able to help her, but the second lady (from a separate group & line row) fainted right afterwards, and EMS was still here, and helped her within seconds. Very exciting! Very hot. Very exhausted now.

For the first time in quite a while both kids were being watched/entertained outside of the house for a few hours, so we were able to order ourselves some Mexican inspired meals, chips with queso, and sit down together to watch Happy Gillmore 2. Which surprisingly enough was not half bad. A nearly 30 year gap between sequels rarely bodes well, but this was acceptable. Made me laugh. We recognized both of his daughters, and his wife from amongst the cast. No problems there. They were fine. It was funny enough, even charming in places. My wife liked all the sports cameos, and Eminem & Bad Bunny too.

I was more impressed that we had three or four hours together to just be alone, eat in peace, and watch a movie nearly all the way through. I say nearly because we waited almost an hour to get our food, so we started the movie later than we’d hoped, and had to pause it to pick up one of our children from her play date. The other stayed behind for a few hours more. Perks of being the older child I suppose.

Today is Sunday. It rained a good amount all last night, and the ground is still wet now, but it didn’t do much for breaking the heat, nor the humidity. While it cooled off with the rain present, I don’t think it ever got down below 21°C, so the interior of the house stayed 25.5°C all evening long. Boo! I need it to come down to 15-16°C so that the house drops to twenty or below. That’s when the amazing sleeping conditions hit! Snoozefest city when we can get the interior that low without the AC, or Humidex making everything feel oddly damp. Yuck.

Plus at five am the dog climbed out of bed, walked around to my side, then jumped back up to sit directly on my head. Not cool. I thought he needed to go out to use the toilet. That’s his “I have an emergency” tactic to wake me up before he messes all over my bedroom floor — again. Puppies, am I right? But no. He just wanted upstairs to sleep on my wife’s bed with our youngest. Must have heard a bathroom trip and figured he was good to start his day early. I was not impressed.

Then I tried to go back to sleep but thought of a fun new story for my old sci-fi universe. Played it out from start to finish in my head. But I don’t feel like writing it out because it was going to get long in the tooth. Might just keep it shelved as notes on a card for a later write up & release. Hard to say. Take it easy today, it is Sunday after all. Ciao Bella!

It’s just too damn hot, even by 9:00 am it was sweltering out of doors. I had to wear a wrist band to mop up my sweat because it streams down my face into my eyes blinding me if I don’t. Luckily I have several large trees that provide shade (which provides me with many days worth of work cleaning up leaves. But that’s an October post waiting to happen), so I don’t have to be in the direct sunlight 100% of the time. But when I am, woah baby! It’s hot. Stinking hot. Too damn stinking hot. Make your knees weak if you aren’t careful. Not to mention the dust the mower & weed eater kicks up that applies itself to my skin like a powdered donut. I feel grimey. I feel crunchy. I have grass bits embedded in my legs from the line trimmer. I am just about ready to hose off, then go for a family swim.

This is the second grass cutting for all of July, so I haven’t had to suffer much with it, which is nice. I think I’ve spent more time cutting the grass at the cottage, pulling weeds, and weed eating up north in the month of July than here at my own home. Weird. The mosquitoes up north have been especially bad this year. I wonder if that bird flu, avian flu has attacked the mosquito munching branch of the bird population? Because, woof! It’s like a wall of buzzing bastards when you head outside after sun down, or walk out into the woods. Not here though, here the bug population has been just fine.

So I took the plunge yesterday and drove all of our old tech out to the technology recycling dump, and pitched all of it into the dumpsters. It cost me $20.00 to dispose of a dehumidifier because it contained cfc’s. So not bad at all. The basement, and several closets got a good clear out. On my way out of town after I hit the dump, I stopped off at Golf town to look at some second hand woods for my golf club collection.

I am amazed at what folks are willing to spend on a single club. Some of them are upwards of a grand. That’s nuts. I bought one $75.00 previously owned Tayler Made wood, and I found a second slightly different one (which was new, but not crazy expensive) to round out my golf bag. I never even gave woods a thought before I played on Thursday. Most of the Par three courses need a driver or 9 iron, a wedge, and a putter. So that’s mainly what I use to get up, down, and over a fairway no matter how long or short the hole is. Seems I needed at least one more club to do it. I learned that in the field, so I’m comfortable getting the club to sort myself out. I’m hoping to get my wife, and a couple friends of ours to go out and play in late August. Fingers crossed we can make that happen.

Another plus is that our garage is no longer filled with busted tech items, so I’m back to having a clean shop! Yes. I have one bag of garbage to go to the curb Monday night, but otherwise the garage is now free & clear of crap. Besides the children’s outgrown snowboard gear that I’m taking to a trade in place come October, I have gotten rid of every box, every piece of styrofoam, every scrap but of metal, piece of junk/litter that I can think of. I have one more set of drawers I should go through, but it is currently housing my saw blades, and dado stack, and a few other lathe items, so it’s not really something I can toss away right now. I’m happy. I’ve gotten the space to a place I could only have dreamed of just a few short years ago. It’s taken ten years to get it there, but I am feeling relieved that I got there. I hate having to wait and do things piece meal, but having kids has taught me patience, and the art of the “long game”. Do things gradually over time and a good number of people will never notice. Or not until it’s too late and everything is long gone, out of sight, and out of mind.

I’m going to hear up to go for a swim now. Hope you have a happy and/or productive Saturday yourselves. Oh, and thanks for downloading my books. I don’t know if you will actually read them, I’d like to think that you will, but I’m happy to see that number of downloads ticking up on a semi-daily basis. Makes me smile anyway!

Was it ever a warm one yesterday. I knew we were cooked when there was only one other group following us into that hot soupy mixture of blazing sunshine, high humidity, and long empty stretches of very short grass. We still had fun playing like shit (as was to be expected) chasing our golf balls here, there, and every fucking where. We celebrated like champions if we managed to stay on, or just plain reach the fair way at all. I donated a good half dozen balls to the trees, tall grasses, and weed heavy areas. Conversely I found at least five balls on the course, so I didn’t make out too badly. I broke a good half dozen tees, and nearly sweat through every single item of clothing I had on, including my hat, and both shoes. By the time we finished it felt closer to 40°C than to 30°C. It was a blast, and much like I said when I last played Thunderbird in Ottawa, let’s do this again, but on a cooler day! The only benefit of playing when it was so hot was there weren’t any golfers following hot on our heels, so we could play poorly unrushed. We kept up the pace of play, but we could also enjoy a decent swing, or make a quick quip if we shanked the ball hard left/right into the tree line. Along the front of the course on hole sixteen I launched a ball out of the course, across the road, bouncing once over a fast moving car, before being lost to a farmers field. I called it too. Even aimed away from it, but caught such an amazing curve I flew right back to, then over the 10th line. Luckily nobody was hurt. Thankfully. I did manage to par on the 18th hole which was a par three. Solid drive from the tees to the green, a two putter to finish off a four hour marathon game in the intense heat. I felt great after that one decent hole.

I eventually went home, showered, gulped down yet another drink, then slept for two or three hours under a fast moving fan, with the AC going. Today my back, and sides ache a good deal. My feet hurt yesterday. But otherwise, it’s all good. My wife tells me there is a good, and inexpensive course up by her school in Sutton that we should play next. I’ll look into it.

Otherwise happy Friday. Hope your week hasn’t been too insane, or stressful. I did work briefly yesterday, for about 90 minutes or so to answer some emails, and edit a report for a client. As far as I know I have one more report coming before the end of August. So I will plan accordingly. Take care out there. Ciao Bella!

Playing a full eighteen holes today. Let us pray that it doesn’t get brain meltingly hot. I do not wish to sweat through my shorts, nor pass out on the fairway. Playing at a new (to me) course I have never been to. The last time I played through a full eighteen was a day or two before I got married, about fifteen years ago now. I have gone out to play some nine hole par threes since then, but that’s more akin to the driving range, followed by some mini putt. This will have some serious yardage to cover. Could be a real shit show!

I had hoped to warm up at the driving range first, but that seems very unlikely now. I should have gone out yesterday to do that sort of pregame warm up. Too late for that! We will just have to go in rusty, and dry. Should be a real show stopper when I pull a muscle, a limp home wounded. Ha!

I had best eat and find a bottled beverage to take with me to stay hydrated during this sun soaked adventure. Find a hat, and sun glasses too. Sun screen and maybe a fan, a portable AC unit, a pool, or a slip n’ slide, among other game day essentials. Wish us luck!

**UPDATE: it was incredibly hot today, and the humidex put the heat up into the high thirties Celsius. By hole three I had begun to sweat through both my socks, shoes, and shorts, as well as shirt. I was spectacularly bad as I knew I would be. I managed one par, for the 18th hole, which was a par three. I had the drive of my life, and a solid roll to get up onto the green, and a two putt to make me forget how awful I was on the prior seventeen holes. I gifted the course a half dozen balls, and the rough gave me back five other balls in return. I busted five tees, and drank four Gatorade zeros to finish no where near the course record. Fun time had by all. I seem to say this a lot but next time we should go when it’s cooler outside. I’d like to try a foursome and have my wife play along too. All in all it took us a hair shy of four hours in the blazing hot sun. Although the breeze was hot, it was welcome once shaded under the canopy of the courses trees.

My father in law rescued a beaten up trampoline from the side of the highway about three or four years ago and we have tried time and again to get it assembled. But parts were broken, it needed welding in places, and we couldn’t understand the design. Fast forward to yesterday and with some new parts, and a mitre saw and four of us bending, pulling, and reefing on these fiberglass rods we did finally manage to get it assembled,along with the safety netting, and positioned onto the sand pit. Where it will stay until it dies a heat death. That is all.

But it has long since been forgotten, or perhaps it will be repeated by the only other person listening; to a raucous round of applause, and laughter obviously. I don’t write punchlines, I live jests that carve deep. Hewn from the bone by a life lived, and felt, most deeply. Am I sensitive to it still? Yes. Do I make a meal of it all? Often. But only when alone with my thoughts. Just desserts you may wonder? A pun? In this economy, you must be madder than a shit house rat. More like a little known chess move aptly named “the elephant mans emission“. Loud, sloppy, and so much more than a person could handle. You feel that? Slipping through your fingers. That’s time, and you have a finite amount of it, and no one can see their own hour glass to know how exacting they should be when delegating their allotted time out. It’s rough out there for a cowboy. Ride a donkey. Or the neighbours wife I don’t recall how that idiom goes.

Absurdity is a pass time of mine. For brief injections of fun only. Used sparingly. Sprinkle on your breakfast, or mix it into your favourite drink. Not for use with existentialism or nihilism. May cause drowsiness or disdain in others. Sleep well.

Tuesday is upon us. That means library runs for both kids today. And on a more sombre note, Tomorrow is the two year anniversary of the passing of my friend and her daughter. I think of them both often. I still dread going into the summer months for fear of losing more friends, and their offspring. We did lose Great Grandma but at 97, and struggling with dementia it was all but a certainty. My friend was out of the blue, and had not been struggling in an LTC for nearly five years. They hit differently. Listen to me ramble, I need to eat. Ciao Bella!