Author: greatwallstudios

Gotta love the reco to wear masks and utilize ventilation against an aerosolized danger coming AFTER the emergency is declared over. One reason for that, and one only. To save money. If they’d have said it during the emergency then the governments would be liable, and on the hook to pay for ventilation upgrades across the board, and be liable financially for all those hurt, injured, or killed through their inaction. So the reco comes in the day after the emergency order is dropped. Gotta love it. Text book. Take care of yourselves because nobody else is going to. Assess your risk with no data reported. Like playing blind folded poker against a house that has marked the cards and won’t let you see if they are blind folded too. Put yours on first they say. Such is life.

I had a thought late last night about a short story idea. No, I didn’t have anything to do with Covid. It started because I sort of remembered this catch phrase one of my brothers used to use when we were kids, and into our teens, but I’m not sure if it came from TV, or a movie, or was something weirdly local to where we grew up in Scarborough. I’m just about to go and look to see where (if at all possible) it originated from. Gimme a sec to go check… So it originates from an old Adam Sandler comedy tape. Not local to us. Good to know, so if you shout “Fuck me in the goat ass!”, a few people out there might get the reference, or at least kind of remember hearing that in their youth. Not sure why it came to me yesterday, but it did. I was too tired to go look it up. Glad I did though. Moving on.

Wed-NES-day, Hump Day, Middle of the Week Day, again. What a blustery cold day at that. I saw kinds in shorts and t-shirts at 8:00am when it was 4°C outside. Yikes. I was in a jacket and the icy wind was cutting right through me. Silly sods. Gotta watch the thermometer, and not the calendar there bud. In years gone by we’ve had snow this deep into spring. Gotta dress for the conditions on the day, not the average for the month. A hard lesson learned across the land. Not that I enjoy fighting with my kids to look beyond the sunshine and green grass. Look at the temperature though! Look at it, closer to Zero than any other number! Gotta wear long pants, a sweater, and a light jacket. Trust me. Given the cold ears, and trembling while waiting in line to go in, my kids should be thrilled that I pushed for the weather specific clothing options today. They aren’t, but they should be, dag nab it!

Did the grocery shopping this morning too. Might even run the dish washer. WATCH OUT!, crazy fun times guy over here! Whoa. Going to have to ask you all to keep it down. Might start a block party with all this JAM. What with the dishes, the groceries, the floor cleaning, and laundry. When does the fun stop? I don’t know. I just don’t know. Next thing you know I’ll be outside power washing the windows or the cars. I can’t help myself. Somebody stop me!!!

In alternate news I’m halfway through book 13 for the year. I picked up Don Winslow’s “City of Dreams“, the second part of the Danny Ryan trilogy. Last book comes out in 2024 from what I hear on the Twitter. Just as fast paced, suspenseful as the first book. I don’t know what to read next.

Maybe I’ll go pick up sculpting another monster, haven’t done that in quite some time. I have been slowly picking away at the resin model kit for all these weeks. I have everything I need to complete the feet up to the waist. Then it’ll be head, chest, arms and backpack. I think it has a fairly large rifle packed along in there somewhere too. I’m just not in a painting mood yet. I got a fix of that doing up the details on my mum’s Moose Fence Topper. Waiting for the clear coat to fully cure before I break it down, and sort out the shipping. Not looking forward to that bill. Yeesh. Glad I made it from pine, and not ultra heavy hard woods. That’s all the rambling I have for today. Take care out there. Ciao Bella!

Is upon us, at least in Alberta anyway. The billowing smoke is affecting our weather, and giving us flaming red sunsets aswell. The air smelled a wee bit smokey this morning at the school drop off, but my thinking is that was more locally sourced due to the overnight frost warnings, and chill air this AM. And not a scented carry over from out west.

In other scented news our Lilacs are about 2 to 3 weeks early this year, and there is zero chance any will still be open and perfumed by the time my wife’s 40th birthday rolls around. A shame that. Usually the Lilacs only need to hold on for a couple days, but seeing as how half are already spent here, we’ll have no luck keeping the aroma until early June. Which sucks.

Makes me wish I could find a Russian Olive tree to plant around here, I love the way those smell. Or get some Jasmine planted near by. Anything with a pleasing aroma to make being outside on our property more appealing. As far as being visually appealing the apple tree blooms are going all out this year. Half of the cherry tree is blooming now too. The tulips, those now dead headed & eaten by the local squirrels, are looking good this year. We bought and planted about 50-75 last year, and the chipmunks, squirrels, and bunnies ate most of them. We had twenty five, twenty eight actually bloom this year, and a portion of those got gobbled by the wee bastards. Little shit heads.

I have a few Glads to plant, so let us see if any of those come up later next month. Ciao Bella.

I didn’t want to have two consecutive high spend months in a row, but when big items come up for sale at a significant discount you’re best to strike while the iron is hot. Usually what I would do is wait until I’ve had some calmer weeks or months under my belt, and then spend full price on larger ticket items. But I’m taking the opportunists approach, and grabbing things we need when they are on sale or clearance (like a last years model type of thing) and saving in the long run, while feeling the pinch right this second. We have the water softener in hand now, just waiting on installation. Not a problem. I fear the water heater tank needs seeing too aswell. The overflow is pumping out a great deal of water once the outside temperatures go up. I’m not sure why that is, hence the need to have it seen to by a professional. Yet another expense. Good part is that now we have the softener it should be good for 12-15 years if we maintain it, and don’t abuse it. Hopefully.

Luckily I’m expecting a few more invoices to get paid in the next several weeks, with more going out each month, so we’re not in a bad place. I just need to reign in my spending, and focus on food, and the household basics only. Plus gas for the car, but that’s a given for as long as we have the kids in after school extracurriculars all over town, and in different surrounding cities. Oof. It’s kinds nice when summer rolls around and we don’t have to go all over gods green earth to get to one thing or another. A nine week respite in programming if you will. Actually a number of the kids programs end on the first week or June, so that month will quiet down considerably. We’ll put far fewer miles on the van starting June 1st.

Had a very eventful weekend, starting off with Ringette at 8:00am, dressed and on the ice on Saturday, then to the care home to visit great grandma, then grandmas house, then the park for a few hours. It was a long, outdoorsy kind of day. I cut the grass and weeded the front garden beds. And then yesterday I took the kids to the Zoo for three hours, and then we had lunch & dinner at grandmas where the kids spent hours jumping on the trampoline. Sun dried and crispy spent children after that weekend. The oldest was so over tired and amped up she didn’t go to sleep until well after 11:00pm. Crazy.

Domestic Duties Monday is going a bit slower today. I picked up all kinds of messes this morning, and don’t feel much like sorting toys right this second. I have a chapter to go to finish book #12 this year, and then I’ll sort out the house. Sounds like a suitable plan to me! Ciao Bella!

Around the Metro Toronto Zoo for a quiet Mother’s Day morning. Got there just in time to see the Sting Rays get fed, and see a few animals we never usually get to see, like the Sloth, and some Golden Lion Tamarins. Took a quick jump over to the poison dart frogs, and an activity table with turtle eggs and trivia. We walked the new wooden trail up towards Africa, and we also visited the gift shop to grab a thermos mug for mum. Three hours of walking, driving, and looking around. I even brought snacks for the kids, so we were well provisioned for our travels. A nicely sunny, and cool morning.

It drifts in from out of the distance. At first you’re not sure of what it is. And then it rises in pitch, and the kids begin the circle the yard. Jumping and screeching themselves hoarse. The source is no where in sight, but those kids don’t care. Yelps and screams and tears of frustration cloud their faces. Demands and shouts of “I need it!” Fill the air. Then on the edge of your street you see it, as it turns in from off of the main road, it all its white, chrome, metallic gaudy glory. The mother fucking ice cream truck. Fuck!

It’s that time of year again. Time to buy over priced, low quality ice cream goods at a time that will spoil dinner or lunch, or both. Cash only. Arrives when you don’t want him, takes forever to fill your order, and the kids just can’t get enough. FML.

But nobody reaches out, so I feel like the searched by category notification from LinkedIn is for dopamine and not much else. Or, maybe my profile comes across as unapproachable. Who knows. Lots to think about.

It’s Friday, the sun is shining, work is a bit slower this week, while I wait on feedback for a few things. I have procured the brown spray paint I was after to complete the moose fence topper for my mum. I’m going to take it off, and paint that today. I then need to wait for it to dry, then break it down and ship it off to BC, at some point in the near future. I do think it’ll need a clear coat top coat to protect it from all the west coast rain though. That will add more delays I’m sure. Of course it will.

Last few steps will be to remove masking, add white eyes, and touch ups, a clear coat finish, and then break it all down to ship to BC. Fun stuff. Spray paint is super stinky, so I have a respirator on, and a box fan running full tilt to air our the garage where I am working. Everything always takes longer than expected around here.

Dismantled more items in the garage to make myself more room to work in. I did it, not in the way I had been fixated on, but I did it nonetheless. I was at Home Depot looking for bolts for my lawn mower when I saw a work top rolling tool bench heavily on sale. The Canadian tire version goes for $1,199.00, but last years Husky model was on sale for $549.00, so I jumped on it. It came to less than half of what the taller, and slightly wider Milwaukee work bench starts at before you add on the sales tax. So, yes while I did spend money, it was just under 50% of what I was stressing over with the other bench. Plus it fits perfectly, with room left over for me to funnel more stuff into it, which would open even more floor space should I want to.

Oh, and the water softener came in yesterday too, so I’ll pop over there and pay the $800.00 for that. Didn’t know it was coming, but I had to jump on it. Didn’t want to finally decide to buy a bench and then have them all go back up to full price.

So I’ve been working, and finding time to come out here to clean, move stuff around, tear down tables, and get organized once more. I have to get back to work now, so have a lovely sunny Thursday. Ciao Bella.

Here’s something I never really enjoyed before, but have since gotten a taste for. Fresh Jerky. I think I hated it before because I was only ever offered old, tired, far too tough jerky before. I never understood why anybody would like chewing on what amounted to as little more than dried bark. But the fresh stuff? Whoo boy, that shiznit is tasty. Smoked hickory, original, teriyaki, they are all fabulous. Filling too. I think my high school “pals” were just trying to pawn off the old crap on me. And I just assumed it was all that bad no matter what. But I was wrong. It’s rather good if you get it fresh.

On the plus side we got through the entire book, and my eldest dictated the content of her report to my wife last night. So today I can edit it. Put capitals where they belong, and punctuation to finish the sentences, where missed. Cut out and repeated words, and look for typos. Cut it into the appropriate pieces, and make sure each sentence is coherent. If my kid doesn’t know the full answer she trails off, and the talk to text app adds a bunch of gibberish. So I need to be on the lookout for that. Luckily in this case I’ve read the book twice, outloud mind you, so I can add context to any statement where it is implied. Gotta give the peeps the straight facts, not be vague and wave at it as you skim past it. That leaves people scratching their heads because they don’t know the ins and outs like you do. Funny that. Huh.

Also – side note: feeling better today. Not sure what set me off last night, but it was tenacious and unpleasant. Once I got to sleep though, all good. Well, except for my sore hand which has been bothering me for several days now. Feels like I’ve rearranged some bones in my hand, and the tendons don’t care for that at all. Not sure what it is, but I don’t much care for it.

Here we are, back to Wednesday. Only seven weeks left of the school year. Sept to Christmas fly by, and then January 1st to May 1st drags on forever, and then May through June will just fly by like a bat out of hell. It has to be due to the better weather. We get outside, see more friends, do a whole lot more besides camp inside, away from the cold & snow. Will I get out on my roller blades this year? Will we ride our bikes anywhere fun? Will I fall when skateboarding? These are the real questions. I’m not afraid to ask them!

**WARNING: GRAPHIC INTESTINAL HEALTH DISCUSSION AHEAD**

I have a pretty decent sense of what will set my guts off, but with today’s bout of rotten guts, I’m stymied. I didn’t eat anything really out of the ordinary. I made an egg sandwich on an everything bagel for breakfast, sometime around 10:00am, which gave me no immediate signs of causing me problems. But woah buddy, something inside me wants to get out, and take everything else with it in a hurry, laws of physics & physiology be damned. Not going to lie. I do not miss this sensation at all. Twisting, crumpling, cramping, blood soaked visits to the rest room are not my favourite thing. The urge to push my cranium out through the soles of my feet is something I could go a hundred years or more without, and would never miss it. Whatever is in there currently feels like shards of glass scraping my guts with every millimeter it moves. That an a white hot, furious, semi liquid lava glorping, grumbling, and roiling about my innards as we speak. Fan-fucking-tastic. My own private Idaho. Or is this Californiacation? Either way, I ain’t leaving a dribble on the mesh of a screen door with this bout. Bet. Fr fr. Fam.