Author: greatwallstudios

These cold damp rainy days are really starting to wear on me right about now. The forecast shows another five or six days of overcast skies and rain. Gah! That one weird week was such a tease. Would have been better to just add a degree or two of heat for every other day in the month, than to have that one spontaneous summer like stretch. I get that the grass, and trees, and the water table etc need the recharge because before you know it the rains will stop and we’ll be in drought conditions. But – sweet cheese, I’m getting sick of the cold.

Also, can you believe it’s gonna be May! In just a few more days. The speed at which this year is moving along feels kind of alarming. No more months of click, click, clicking up the coaster, we’re up & over the precipice whizzing through the year at break neck speeds. That – or I’m just getting older and time has started to move at a greater pace because I have been so busy this year all ready. So far I’ve had no 9-11 week breaks with no work. It’s pretty incredible. I have been steady going since January 2nd of 2023. Pretty much unheard of since I started my business in 2006. Peaks and rush periods – well yeah! Duh!, but nothing like this constant stream. Truly is wild. Glad for it too. Like my old InDesign instructor used to say, “The reward for good work, is more work!” A truth more certain has never been uttered in my presence. I took that statement to heart, let me tell you.

One positive about all this rain is that the fertilizer I put on the front lawn yesterday afternoon should soak in. Birds were trying to eat it, but I can’t imagine that’s good for their insides, like, at all. The bag has a poison control number on it. So we tried to shue the birds away. Will I have more lawn than weeds this year? No idea! But I’ve made the slightest of efforts this time around. Bathe me with your admiration! Bask in the glow of my minor glory! The most modest of attempts! I’ll take a cookie & the medal please.

Lots of kids laundry to sort and put away today. Perhaps some loud music will ease my troubled mind. Hey get rythm! When you get the blues, come on get rythm…

That’s the sound of this latest report kicking my ass. But I have sent it off for review, and my arm/wrist is just a throbbing! Best fetch the Voltaren yet again and slather that shit on good & thick. It wasn’t the only work I had this week either. Which would have been tough enough on it’s own, but I had several, nearly ten if I think about it, multi-part projects to do on top of the report both yesterday and today, combined. A real brow beater of a few days. I’d like to spend tomorrow doing sweet F/A if I could, but that seems unlikely. No matter. I’ll do some grocery shopping tomorrow to finish off the week for lunches for the kids. I did at least three loads of laundry, not yet sorted or put away, but washed & dried nonetheless. A win in the Domestic Duties column! I did some tree pruning to remove as many dead branches as I could on Friday, don’t need any serious injury from those widow maker storm snapped branches on my conscience. Got a good jump on the legs for the resin kit last week, even after realizing I had to pull the old legs apart to add in the previously unmentioned swap out parts. So that was fun. I could potentially wash, prime and paint those leg pieces, if I were so inclined. I’m not. I’m too tired and sore right now, but the option is there if I want it. Good to know, good to know.

I’m fairly certain today is Tuesday. Feels a bit off, because I worked through the weekend to meet a very tight deadline. I’m a little discombobulated at the moment. I need to check the schools lost and found for my daughters gloves. Had a notice that the L&F is getting removed come Friday so it’s now or never if I’m going to have a look for them. Do it now, or forever hold your peace type deal.

I even have the dishwasher running. Almost managed to stay on top of my home duties while working hard. Not 100%, but I’m giving it a try in my off moments. Meal times, and when I need to pee. Dash off to load the washer/dryer, fill & start the dishwasher, move the garbage and blue bins. It ain’t much but I got’er done.

Ciao Bella!

This project is fairly large. After putting in around 16 hours over the weekend, and finishing prepped pages this morning, I’m down to the last 30 subsections. Some subsections equal one page, others can be five or six pages, depending on various factors. It’s a long haul, and I’ll be leaning heavily on my Voltaren to keep my wrist mobile for the rest of this week. Frequent breaks, eating, and stretching should keep me going during these stressful weeks! All the best out there. Ciao Bella!

And the kids have gone to the Zoo with my wife so that I can work on this massive report without distraction. Thus far, moving along smoothly. How long that will last is up in the air. Right now I’m taking the path of least resistance approach and doing whatever seems easiest to garner some positive early wins. That will keep my spirits up so that I want to come back and try to squeeze in more completed pages. It’s a weird affectation I have, but it seems to work when I’m under lots of pressure, and a difficult time line. So ciao!

Fighting the urge to sleep in and not get out of bed until you really, really excruciatingly need to pee. But alas, ringette calls and the kids are up, dressed and on the ice before 8:00am. Such is life.

The foreign language instructions you followed precisely to build your inner frame, the structure upon which every other element rests, is wrong. Well not wrong precisely, it just omits to tell you that various body parts you were instructed to add on with epoxy, metal pins, or glue need to be swapped out once you move on to the second stage of the build which is adding all the armor panels and dress up bits (think photo etched metal fins, and metal bearings, things of that nature) that no longer work because the internal frame you meticulously build doesn’t fit those parts anymore. As you are expected to swap out integral frame segments, heretofore never mentioned, like ever, not even hinted at. So I had to take a fine kerf blade to it and saw my resin model kit apart. Pull parts off that would give. And then use a dremel to reopen tenon and mortise points because the old tabs snapped off and stayed behind inside those needed voids. Not impressed. But I suppose with new pins, epoxy & putty I can dress up my errors – again. Would have preferred to know about the swap in parts from the very beginning. But the two sets of instructions are sealed in two separate pouches. Had multiple separate baggies with their own listed parts. I can all ready tell I need to swap the hips, and possibly even the shoulders. I don’t know how I’m going to do that, as the arms are glued up rock solid. Damn.

Oh well, on the bright side I’m going to be too busy next week to care, so I will calm down by the time I come back to it. I forsee then next two weeks, possibly three being very busy for me. I have a big report coming, a web site reskin project, also gathering up materials for a third company’s archives, and any smaller items that pop up in between. So atleast 2 weeks of heavier than usual work flow. Perhaps the weather will have turned a corner by then. Do need to remember to visit the bank next Friday to pay my income tax. That’s a biggie. A key element to next week!

Today is Friday. Another week down. Will also have invoices to send out next week. So that’s always good! No big plans 9n the horizon, so hopefully a quiet weekend spent chipping away at this big report that’s coming my way. All the best to you out there. Ciao Bella!

As of this morning the radial arm saw is off to its forever home at my wife’s high school in Sutton. Where it will spend the rest of its days cutting chunks of whatever they have to throw at it until it dies. The saw was second hand to me, and most likely from the mid eighties or perhaps nineties. I don’t think it was made earlier than that. A sturdy, and extraordinarily heavy item. I fought with it for a good hour just to get the damn thing into the back of my wife’s SUV. Unfortunately the 2×4 stand it was on could not go with it. It failed whilst being moved to the trunk of the SUV. I ended up having to use a sledge hammer, saws all, and a crow bar to get the thing broken down (the stand that is). No major loss, the tool still works, and I locked it down so it won’t swing around and clang the whole drive there (I hope). They are definitely going to want to have two or more people move it, as it is deceptively heavy. Cast iron, and almost entirely metal parts. A Sears Craftsman item from the 80’s! It’s loaded with metal parts. It would serve quite well as a boat anchor. Now I have freed up more space! Yay! Not sure what else I can do to open up the floor anymore. Well, I mean I do know, I just don’t want to. I don’t have thousands of dollars to buy a 72 inch 3 bank rolling tool cart & hutch, to consolidate all my hand tools etc into one spot. It would leave me with no where to put 2 of my 3 vices. I already need to modify my wood working bench in order to accept the smaller second wood vice. I don’t have a long enough table top to mount a permanent metal vice too. Maybe if my bench were a full 8ft long, but at just under 6ft I can’t afford to give up that much table top real estate. In order to mount my second wood vice I need to cut down one end of the table to 3″ thick, down from the 2×6’s I had used to build it, otherwise the vice sits too low. Not going to happen any time soon, as a project like that needs to be thought about, thought out, and planned for. It will also take me an hour or two of cutting, hammering and chiseling before I can even attempt to dry fit the vice. I have to mount it where it makes sense, but also doesn’t interfere with where I set up my box cut joinery jig at the far end of my bench. Can’t be hasty about this. Have to tamp down my desire to be impulsive.

We have arrived at the Wednesday portion of the week. Far enough in to see the weekend, and far enough away from Monday to settle into projects, meetings, conference calls and whatnot. Once again I’m not certain of what today will bring work wise, so I’ll putter around the house tidying things up as I go. Throw some junk away if I can. Yeah – that’s the ticket! That usually sets my phone to chirping, if I decide to tackle a home project of minor importance. Ciao Bella.

Used to be a fun pass time of mine. Going for a car ride, read. Taking a long distance bus trip, read. Heading downtown on the train, read. Flying across the country, read. But now, if I tried to do it anywhere other than my home or on a plane I would most likely vomit, and/or need to lie down, and try to let the motion sickness wash over me and dissipate as quickly as possible. Even hearing my oldest read in the car while I was driving, was starting to make me queasy, as I imagine the bumping, jiggling words bouncing around in my eyes, and feeling my stomach turn. Ugh! No thank you. I feel in the last ten years or so I have become so much more susceptible to motion sickness, vertigo, and other such things of that nature. I absolutely can not spin anymore. Tea cups, octopus, scrambler type rides will make me very sick. I did this gravity well, spinning thing with my oldest at the Strawberry Festival last summer, and it did not go well for me. I made it through, and was able to walk around the fair grounds for an hour or so afterwards, but once we got home i required a three hour nap in near total darkness to feel right again. My oldest went back on the ride a bit later, went twice in a row, and then immediately wanted to go home, so… i guess i didn’t fare too badly. I do miss being able to read just about anywhere though. No wonder my habit nearly dropped off. All of my free time was during a 2hr each way commute on the train, and if I couldn’t read then, I was likely not going to find an additional 4 hrs a day to indulge.

Tuesday is here! Looks as though the green bin trucks will start taking yard waste again. I see lots and lots of paper bags out at the curb this morning. I am leaving my leaves in the beds as mulch cover, and to add more material to raise up those beds. The earth seems to sink no matter how often I add new topsoil, triple mix, or clay based mud to all of our beds. Last year I emptied out the compost pile, and that didn’t seem to do much at all, except give us pumpkins all over the place. Or gourds, and the occasional random tomato plant or potato plant for good measure. I like growing things that require little from me besides a little bit of water when we hit a dry patch, or cleared space in which to do their thing. That I can do. My thumb is only ever so slightly tinged green. More flesh coloured with a slight grass stained hue.

Still waiting to hear back about a few things, so I’m not 100% certain of what is on the docket for today. Dropped off my tax stuff, so I’ll have those related bills to look forward to at some point next week. Tax time is always fun. No not really. Stressful and nerve wracking is more like it. Times were simpler when I worked for someone else and only needed a T4, and my reassessment forms, and any financial contribution forms from the bank. Not so simple now. Glad for the accountant that’s for certain. All the best out there. Ciao Bella!

Well some, but not that many! I added seven new shelves to the racks. Three very small ones meant for stain cans and rubber gloves, one dedicated to my chainsaw, one for thinner cut off strips, and two general purpose shelves to split up items and give me room to add more should I feel so inclined. I have more shelf space left over so I can add more things from the floor if I need to at a later time. Always good to leave yourself a wee bit more space than you absolutely have to have right now. I am toying with putting my generator back there and/or my welding stuff, to get rid of the manky old rusty tool cabinet I have at the front of my garage. I am fairly certain I won’t get rid of it, after all I pulled it out from the weeds at the farm, washed it, sanded it, oiled the hinges, hammered them back into useable shape & position, and stationed it where it is because I keep small blow torch propane bottles in there. Safely away from everything else, and near a door low down so if they should ever leak it would dissipate outside, and not go up in a ball of flame at the back of my garage near all the paints, thinners, varnishes, and wood dust. So perhaps I won’t get rid of the blue tool box just yet. Still hoping to move the radial arm saw to a new home. I’m on a kick, and need to keep this ball rolling, or else I will just wander away and find something else to fixate on for a while.

Speaking of which, made some progress on the resin kit this weekend after I left it untouched for a week or two. Gorgeous unseasonable warm weather will do that to you. I got it washed and scrubbed via old tooth brush. Dried off and then primed with a rattle can of grey paint. It needs touch ups, but first I want to fix the tough spots that require more sanding, fill some unsightly gaps, and then do all the test fitting for armor plates before I commit to the real extensive paint job. I’m not sure how much of the under structure will be visible either, so no point spending days painting that which will never see the light of day again. I don’t feel like magnetizing all the plates just so that I can see my paint job beneath. Sounds laborious.

Looks as though the months rain is going to all come this week, or there abouts. I’m going to have to service the lawn mower sooner than I thought if this weather keeps up. Buds on trees starting to open. Saw my first bees and a wasp this weekend too. Great patio drinking weather, so I’m sure bars were thankful for that 7-8 day sunny stretch we just had. Before you know it, I’ll be out pulling weeds, and pruning trees again. The ice and high winds this winter broke a lot of branches off of our larger, old maple tree. It’s going to need seeing to. I counted eight or nine broken or dead branches that need to come down, or get pruned back. I’ll also need to pull the loose dead stuff from the tree so it doesn’t fall out spontaneously and hit one of us in the head on its way down. The joys of home ownership. Still have the water softner issue to contend with too. Gotta get a new one, and haul the old one up from the basement. That should be no fun at all. Then the water heater will need looking at. Oh my. I’m a regular ray of sunshine over here today!

Domestic Duties Monday is off to a slow start. I did the laundry yesterday. So I guess it’s floors and a general tidy up today only. Yay!