Author: greatwallstudios

That’s right, we lose an hour on March 8th, so the evenings will be brighter moving forward, which means spring will soon be here, and we can rid ourselves of all this snow, grey gloom, and brown bare trees. As the weather turns we can get outdoors more without the temperature hurting our faces, and outer extremities. That’s a good thing. I for one am here for it.

I’m still busy, but that’s cool. Hours worked mean invoices coming my way, and that’s fantastic. Excellent even. I forgot to send out some invoices last night because I was working until ten trying to get some high priority stuff off for a client. Then I started in on some promotional materials, and that was cool, but I was getting tired, so I stopped. I need to go back to it today to finish up though. Glad for the work.

I need to build a rig for my computer so I’m not hunched over so much when I sit down to do my paid day job. My floors are rock hard so I don’t want a standing desk either. Maybe a better chair would help? I don’t know.

This weekend is still pretty chilly, but I have some more thoughts about items to put in my friends rented dumpster. I have some old doors I can be rid of, which would be cool to remove from the garage. Along with several busted bird houses, and wooden boxes, and other scraps. Like those that came from my garbage bin box that I had to take apart in December/January. I don’t know if my wife still wants to keep the train table, but I’d pitch that too, if I can. I have some log cut offs from the cottage remodel that I can’t really do anything with. I’d like to see my busted up cut off bin thrown out too. I have until Wednesday, so I’ll make a list to get to for tomorrow.

I think the tiny bicycles and snowboards should be donated to charity, and not tossed into a landfill site. I cleaned out the shed before, so I’m stretching for items to throw away at this point. Not looking to make trash just to throw away, but I’ve been purging successfully since my youngest started school five years ago, and I’m down to just the last bits & pieces! That’s terrific, really. I never thought a day would come when we’d have all the really big junk out of the house. I’m pumped!

We will always struggle with clothes, because my wife & kids are clothes horses, that need items in multiple colours, and have far more than they need, or even wear. The laundry baskets versus the closets and drawers don’t lie. 60-70% of the clothes they own, they do not wear. But if I get rid of it everybody freaks out. It sucks that we have to keep every seasons clothes out together. We have no seasonal clothing storage solutions as of yet. If we didn’t have three totes of costumes, we could remove summer/spring gear from their closets, and rotate through, but that takes timing, dedication, and adherence to the rotation. Three things they aren’t known for. For some reason limiting their wardrobes to only the items they actually wear frightens them. They think they’ll be poor if they do that. But why keep sixty pairs of pants when you only wear right of them consistently? Why keep thirty sweaters when you only wear seven of them? Wouldn’t you rather have the room/space back, instead of keeping things, just to have things!?!

I’m getting drawn back into an internal argument I have all the time, so I must digress. Before I work myself into a lather. Have a nice Saturday, the last day of February at that!

In the few times over my limited life span that I have encountered a “Birthday Week” type of individual, why is it that it was a girl, lady, woman, female of 19 years of age to about 30 years old. They must have one hell of a charismatic kick to keep others engaged in celebrations for so long. Not only that but the support team has to be extensive. Kudos to you for being able to pull it off. I personally don’t inspire that sort of outward pouring of emotion from others around me. My fault, I’m not terribly outgoing, nor do I drink much, nor be effusive with my friends. You cannot expect back that which you do not give! Those who can give big love out to the world can get it back in spades, and often do. I’m envious. Not of the giving out of love endlessly — that sounds exhausting, and draining in a way I don’t think I could measure. But to be the cause célèbre that others rally around (just for a little while, only on the day) could be fun. I’d feel self conscious about it, and would likely hate it. Hard to beat British Conditioning of cool reserve, with no outward confidence in one’s abilities.

Needless to say I have a non milestone birthday just around the bend, and it’s a day much like any other. With any luck work will have calmed down so that I can take a moment to read, or play a video game, or continue to paint my Warhammer 40K Space Wolves of which I have forty to complete, with another sixteen Eldar waiting patiently in the wings for a colour scheme, and some paint application.

I bought myself a chainsaw for Christmas that wound up needed additional chains, gloves, helmet with face shield, ear phones, and chaps to keep me from killing myself. Not to mention the bar oil, and different grades of engine oil that differ from the Proyama to the Stihl. It got very expensive, so I bought myself  three small paint sets for my birthday because I really over spent for myself at Christmas. No snowblower, or upright kick boxing punching bag this year. Maybe if work stays hot I can get my daughter the bag for skill building, and my own exercise. We’ll see.

So to those capable of a birthday week, I hope you cherish it, and enjoy every second of the celebrations.

Friends just down the road from us are moving into their new home and have a 20 yard dumpster out front. They have given me permission to add some of my own long standing junk to their pile to be taken away. I of course dropped everything to make the most of the opportunity. I fled down to my basement hall closet and immediately removed old cans, bags, boxes and plastic wrap that had been left under the stairs for fifteen years. When we moved in, I was all “I’ll throw that out next week“, and then promptly forgot all about it. I didn’t even click it last summer when I did our tech recycling run to Aurora. No matter, good things come to those who wait. I then walked outdoors to the side of the garage where our old water softener, and accompanying brine tank have sat idle for the last two years or so. Those are gone now too. Yippy!

I have four bikes in the shed I want to be rid of, but those are being donated, and not throw away. Same with our children’s sized snowboards. Why waste them, let somebody else enjoy them at least for a little bit longer.

If they are desperate to fill the dumpster I do have a bit of wood waste, bird houses, cut offs, and the old train table that can go in there too. Otherwise it’s going to the burn pile at the farm. I’m not too picky. Ha!

What a wonderful start to my Thursday morning. I’m well chuffed! Now I must turn my attention back to paid work for the day job. Enough lollygagging around. Worked up a good sweat getting that softener off the property and into the dumpster, along with the brine tank that had ten inches of fused salt still in it. See ya later!

1.) a design agency told me to “just use AI” to help flesh out the 16 other pieces to their 18 piece project, which they are doing, for money. And because I don’t have a huge library of my own images I turned to Microsoft CoPilot to produce them, and it worked ok. Some look a touch janky, but I’m under the gun, and I don’t have weeks to produce images myself. I feel icky.

2.) The children were playing in the basement with friends the other day and I found several 3d printed additions to my D&D / wargaming table (snakes no less!) and it was very thematic. I’ll allow it! I liked it so much I took some pictures to capture the mood.

Now I need to turn my attention to all the new snow we got last night, and of which we have more coming later on today. Enough already with the snow! I bet the skiing folks are happy as clams this year. The season started in November, and will likely carry over until at least early to mid March. My eldest Girl Guide troop is snowboarding next week, so if it can stick around until then, we’ll all be very grateful, otherwise it can fuck off from whence it came!

I have a good chunk of work to do today, so I’ll not keep you much longer. Ciao Bella.

A blazing minus twenty eight this morning. The vehicles had to think real hard about starting after sitting for so many hours in this cold. Even 8 had to sit and consider my life choices when it came time to venture out of doors. To save myself the trouble I put the trash, and the green bin down on the curb yesterday evening before the full throated effects of this cold had settled in. Still had to go out with a third bag of trash this morning though. That was a brisk walk with some pep in my steps!

This Tuesday feels like it should be Thursday. That happens when I work through the weekend after a second very busy week. That means meaty invoices to go out on Friday, which is a good thing. Otherwise I was yawning and tired, ready to go back to bed by four pm yesterday afternoon. I like a good amount of paid work, but not too much, and certainly not all at once with long lulls in between, but in this economy I can’t be too choosy.

On the upside it is sunny with a baby blue sky!

If our dog walking pals don’t show up shortly we’re just going to walk ourselves and head home, in our of the cold. Brrrr. Miserable cold. It’s ugly. No chance the kids have outdoor recess today with it feeling like this.

Not off to a particularly auspicious start for Team Canada, but they’ve held the USA to a one point deficit, so not completely terrible. I would be happier to see Team Canada tie up this game before the final thirty seconds of the third period. I’d rather this not go to OT. We will have to wait and see. I got up early for this, so I’m drowsy, and feeling a bit grumpy to boot!

I believe today is the last day for the winter Olympics, so there should be a closing ceremony on television at some point tonight. Oh… Team Canada power play coming up, LFG!!

Lost in OT, with some disappointing game play during the final minutes. Taking line changes instead of following the puck in the charge to the net. Lacklustre. Lackadaisical. Generally lacking all around. Whiffing on the puck – twice, on  break aways (looking at you McDavid). Lost the gold to take home silver, same as the women’s team. Better luck next time.

Well who TF asked for that!?! Where am I going to find the space to put ten more days of accumulated snowfall? Add in the fact it has rained twice in the last few days, and we have a real mess on our hands. The previous snow banks are now hardened ice blocks, with no give to them. It is going to take a substantial effort to get the driveway, and the walks, plus the back patio & deck sorted out after ten more days of snow. That still only puts us into very early March, which means we can still get even more snow. I am over it. I’m so very tired. If flames would work on snow, and not set the house ablaze I would spend a day washing it all down with a blow torch or a flame thrower! Has some restrictions on use around these parts, but perfectly fine to use as an agricultural tool against weeds, and invasive plant species. Not so cool near cars, and the house, with a forty foot gout of liquid flames and super intense heat. I want to be rid of the snow, not char bricks, and boil off the paint on my cars. I’m sure it would feel very cathartic to lay waste to all this snow though. If I had a suitable heat shielding that is.

Saturday is here, same with more snow. I had a very busy week, and it looks as though next week, and the week after that are going to be pretty intense too. Invoices going out are a good thing! Means money coming in, and that’s very important given the times we find ourselves living in.

Funnily enough I just watched a report that shows just how poorly AI does real life work tasks, and in each case the best AI LLM service succeeded just 3.75% of the time, regardless of the brief it was served, and the desired outcome of the task requested. I’m happy to see AI crash & burn, and fail. Much like Meta, and AR glasses. If anything we should go back to more analog tech that can’t corrupt other things around it. No word ending bugs come from a type writer. Beyond a harshly worded letter.

Because my week was so very full I did not manage to finish my Warhammer 40K omnibus. I have one novel, and one short story left to go, but once finished that adds three novels, two novellas, and a short story to my reading challenge. I jump ahead by a good margin if I can finish these last four hundred pages in a timely manner.

Wednesday was a bit of a wash, we certainly did get nearly seven inches of snow, but the freezing rain portion of the snow day, was a total bust. Today however it is zero degrees and full on raining. Was to be a light drizzle, but I can hear it tap tap tapping on the car roof. It’s a fairly hardy rain this morning. A touch of the grey gloom hangs upon the air. We’re at the farm ready to go walk in it, just waiting to hear if our dog walking duo are still coming over. Otherwise we’ll do a truncated loop and get home in our of the rain. Preferably before it begins to freeze over. Sheets of ice aren’t much fun to drive on with people anxious about being late for work!

I can only imagine that the creek in the valley below is opening up in multiple spots due to all this running water. No longer safe to go tubing down the back hill and attempt to cross the creek in one fell swoop. Will have to break before the creek drop off or chance an icy swim in four feet of water, and an under current below the ice. Not favourable conditions for kids under the age of eight. So we will steer clear of the creek for now.

We did it! Made it to Friday in one piece (at least so far, it’s still early in the day). But I feel slightly less stressed out, which means a clearer perspective, and a better frame of mind. The weather tipping back towards cold and snow/ice hasn’t done my mood any favours, but it is February still so I have to get real and deal with it. Not like it’s April 10th or anything like that. We’ve got miles to go yet before we can be reasonably sure that snow is no longer an option. Next we’ll be sick of the rains in April. Ha. Never happy. Too hot. Too cold. Too wet. Too dry. Pick a lane! Sheesh.

I hope you all have a restful weekend, and a cathartic end to your work week. Short weeks always feel so long. Funny how that works. Take care.

Having the kids home for two additional days this week didn’t help me out all that much. Could have done without the extra six inches of snow, not the two bouts of shoveling that followed. I’m tired, and I have a long way to go before EOD Friday before I can relax. Dog walk was held up by snow plows, and farm hands running about the grounds with gigantic snow blowers on tractors scaring the dogs. Not my ideal morning. It’s cold again, there’s more snow than ever piled up every which way, and I’m feeling a tad grumpy. Not ideal! Best get to work though before even more stuff piles into my inbox.

It’s been go go go all day today. I’ve had more emails today than for all of November, December combined. It’s been a real blur of a day. Still more things to go back to and edit, but I’m ok with that – for now. Looks as though I’ll have a very full day tomorrow, and likely a new big project to kick off on Monday (though if that wanted to wait an extra few days I wouldn’t complain).

Hard to believe it is Thursday afternoon already. The new snow is melting under the ever so slightly stronger sun. We are definitely drawing closer to the first day of spring. You can feel it in the rays of light. A sense of warmth where there had been little to none in the minus twenty five degree cold snap we had for six or seven weeks there.

Looks like I’ll be helping friends reassemble their furniture on Saturday after their move. Glad to not have to lift things, just assemble them! A bit more technical, but far less physical. I’m all for it. I’ll bring my tool bag, and my knee pads, perhaps a impact driver, and I should be all set to help out for a few hours. Maybe we’ll get beers & pizza! Who knows!?!

Luckily no dogs were harmed by tractors, plows, or snow blowers on our walk this morning. That’s a big plus in my book. Wouldn’t want to have to pick bits of fur and bone out of the snowblowers blades. Would really kill the momentum of my morning. Ha.

Soon it’ll be time to take the kids to their extracurriculars, so I should go tackle my latest round of edits before I run out of day light. Ciao Bella!