I bought it.

Book two that is, of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. I resisted the urge to splurge and buy the first seven that are out (excluding the first book which I already have in hand). I have concerns that after a number of books it might start to feel a bit the same, so I’m going to go book by book for as long as I enjoy it. I must resist the completionist urge to grab the entire set, regardless of whether or not I read the whole lot. I don’t want to restock my entire book shelves. I spent a tonne of time & effort paring it down to just my favourite, best reads. I debated and thought about that selection for months on end. I dug through my books six or seven times to get it down to the smallest number of my personal favourites, and kept a solid selection of books I own, and am going to get around to reading. No point to just load up on a tonne of new books, even if I am trying to bolster my numbers of books read each year. My failing eyes gave me a bad year last year. I’m less resistant to both wearing, and utilizing my glasses daily. I need them for work now, so I wear them quite a bit. Now I just pick up my books to read because I already (most likely) have my readers on my face!

We are on the Tuesday of March Break week, not only that but today is Saint Patrick’s Day as well. Not that I’ll drink all that much in celebration of the day, but I will enjoy some green snacks, as I see some being prepared by my kids. I do like cupcakes!

Looks like last night’s storm left a few inches of fresh snow here, but nothing too crazy. I’m not too thrilled about having to shovel even more — again. Can this just please end! I vote we flip over to simple flurries with less than one centimeter of accumulation on the ground. Ugh.

Happy St Patty’s Day!

Glad I worked over the weekend.

It would have been a nasty, no good, very bad morning for me had I not done so. All good now though. Not to worry. Let us wait and see what else comes my way today.

I have just finished the first book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, and I am excited to purchase, and read the next book in the set. As far as 8 can tell there are eight books in total for the entire series, but I’m good to get them on a case by case basis. Eight books feels like a lot to commit to all in one go. I did that with Dune, and still have two left to read. I found as we progressed in the story it got further and further from what I initially enjoyed about it. But, for now I am looking forward to book two, and potentially book three as well!

The weather is looking to get ugly within the next twenty four hours, as the tail end of the big storm finally reaches us. Friday afternoons snow has almost entirely gone, and the rain has settled in as of about two hours ago. It feels a little bipolar as we watch it snow, rain, heat up, cool down, freeze, and then get sunny, and then cloud over and get dark earlier than expected. It’s a mess outside! Fun times.

File not found, file no longer exists, or has been moved.

It’s Sunday-funday around these parts, and I’m looking at a particularly busy work week ahead. And while I have a busy week coming up I still would never consider outsourcing any part of my workload to an AI agent. People asking AI questions like it is a magic right ball, or to decide their day seems wildly unreasonable to me. How can you outsource your decision making to an external app? That notably doesn’t have your best interests at heart. It’s about billable tokens for tasks, not caring about your well being. Not my place to yuck your yum, but maybe pause to retain some control over your lives. Just saying. Don’t give it access to your money at the very least.

I have the fire roaring in the fireplace, and I’m thinking about starting on some work before Monday rolls around, because why not? It has to get done, and if I can get ahead of it now, then I probably should.

Looks like we are going to get another big snow storm, not as bad as the US will get, but more accumulation is definitely coming. Great. Even more shoveling is in my future. Not how I had planned to spend March Break, but things could be worse. We know a lot of people dealing with cancer diagnoses, and multiple deaths of quick succession. Amputations, chemo, radiation treatments, travel plans and surgery. We are very aware of how fortunate we are at this exact moment in time. It may not last forever, but I’m thankful for what we have right this second. So while I do detest the snow after five straight months of it, and I do not long to shovel my driveway any more this year, considering some alternatives, this isn’t all that bad.

In alternate news I am almost finished painting my sixteen Eldar gun toting warriors. So that’s cool. A few minor details left to paint on and I can put them up on the shelf. Up next will be the clean up and build my Ork Boyz. A birthday present from my wife no less! This time around I am going to carve off the mould lines, and file down any sprue points, and take my time painting them to the best of my (current) abilities. I am half a mind to order the Ork Patrol box to flesh out my shelves, but then some Adeptus Mechanicus look pretty awesome too. I don’t play the game so I don’t HAVE to have all the same people to try and paint as a cohesive army. Also it’s far more fun to paint fewer models to a higher standard than 40 plus models kind of poorly. The weather will change soon enough and I’ll be back outside in the wood shop enjoying a different set of tools. So I don’t need to go crazy with the minis.

I say that, but at some point in 2026 I will be receiving a large shipment of minis from Archon Studios for the Porthaven promo I paid into. It was why I went and bought the earth work, leathers, and military colour palettes from Vallejo. I’m all ready once those boxes turn up! Yeah-buddy.

You can have it back.

We started yesterday with bare grass and now we have somewhere in the vicinity of eight inches of snow, approximately. Take it all back. We had managed to rid ourselves of so much snow! We had dry bare grass. False spring really sucks. We have mounds of snow on either side of the driveway again. We are no longer cleared edge to edge because the new snow is too powdery to pile up properly. It has to be pushed to the lawn side of our driveway. I’m hot, sweaty, and irritated as all fuck. In the back of my mind I knew, just knew it was way too early to hope we were done with major snow dumplings. But I saw sunlight. I felt grass. It was sweater weather, and that voice faded just enough for this storm to kick me in the balls. Fuck you.

I’ve had to shovel twice now. Not only that but it’s now minus twelve, and blowing the snow about a little bit. If this season could just go someplace else for the next six months or so It’d be much appreciated. Just piss off. Pack your kit, and fuck all the way off. You can take the freezing rain, flurries, and wind chill factor with you while you’re at it.

Saturday, the first day of March break. Great day for those who ski downhill or cross country. They can get another day or two of runs in. I hear we are in for a wild mix of both positive, and negative temperatures the next nine days, so it’s likely to be mucky outside after this latest dump of snow goes soft and slushy. What a waste of outdoor time. We could have started yard clean up, and washed patio furniture, and played ball hockey in the driveway. Gone to use the swings at the park. I could have looked over the bicycles, greased the chains, inflated the tires, dusted off our helmets and taken a family tour about town. But no. We had more snow, so we aren’t going to do any of that.

To be honest, outside of work I had high hopes for starting some wood working projects because the weather was so agreeable. I will likely still have to wait until late April for that. I did sneak in some farm runs to clear out wood scraps & junk.bso I’m not totally upset about how this new weather development shook out. I am disappointed by it, but I’m not hindered in any sort of way. I have a lot of work coming in the next two weeks with a heavy deadline of the 25th, so I didn’t expect to get to spend all that much time in my shop. Sometimes just ten minutes to sit and admire the space is all I get, and that makes me happy too. After all the paid work allows for the hobby. That an slow periods where I’m not focused on cleaning, laundry, or purging the house of clothes and junk. I can get pretty easily distracted by the opportunity to clear out space around our tiny little bungalow. If I felt like it, I could buy some junk wood to screw down a “floor” in the attic, to give us some more places to put long term storage items. But issue with that is it doesn’t solve the “after we’re gone” clean up issue. It just puts untold amounts of stuff out of sight. I do believe there are things up there already from previous tenants, and owners of this house.

Once we were granted access to that dumpster I had a good look around the house, and besides the things I was able to toss in there, and the water softener, and accompanying brine tank, we don’t have a tonne of trash to get rid off. Yeah the children are clothes horses, and we have far too many shoes, boots, coats, hats and mitts for a family of our size. But you wouldn’t throw that away, you’d donate it to the needy, or younger cousins in the family. I think we had some ceiling tiles, old trim, and a set of blinds that don’t fit our windows, but it’s not really enough to warrant us getting our own dumpster, nor pulling the laundry room apart to be rid of those few items I just mentioned. I’m unbothered by them at this point. I think that stuff, plus whatever is in the attic could go to the dump as one load in our van, potentially with room to spare. I’ve done a very good job of winnowing our stuff down over the last four or five years. Try as they might to restock the house with things, I’ve got most spaces pared right down. Well except the Tupperware cabinet in the kitchen, for some reason we have a differing count of kids to vessels. They don’t all match, or work together. It’s an irritant point of mine. But I digress.

I want to keep some things for when (and if) our kids have families of their own, but I also don’t want the house full to the brim with everything under the sun. It’s a hard balance to strike. Be prepared for become grandparents in twenty years versus having a cleaner, and more spacious feeling house. I wrestle with it constantly.

Our friends have just moved and I am envious of the amount of space they all now have, but my kids would still play directly underfoot, regardless of how much bigger their bedrooms got, or the basement became, or the introduction of a living room, and family room, and sitting room, plus a dining room as separate spaces that could be occupied and enjoyed all at once, individually! A bigger primary bedroom, with walk in closet, and an en suite bathroom! Oh to dream! But on the other hand our mortgage is paid off so there’s that to contend with. Why move just to have to take on a whole new, and much larger mortgage? that’s ludicrous. In a few short years the kids will be in high school, and out & about with friends, and then off to college, university, or trade school of some sort. Before long this house will feel both quiet, and empty(ish). Given this economy I think the kids will be with us for quite some time. Likely until they are married, or something along those lines. But again, I digress.

So the long and the short of it is, fuck the snow, yay to spring cleaning, no need for any more major purges because I’ve likely gotten to it already, and while a bigger house sounds awesome, we’re all paid off, and the kids will make themselves scarce in only a few minutes.

An immaculate Friday the 13th, the second one of the year to boot!

I read somewhere that 18% of our Fridays so far have been Friday the 13th’s, and that pretty much sums up 2026 so far. Now you can take that or leave it, as you will. I thought that was funny, not only funny but clever, so shout out to the person(s) that came up with that little tid but of information which I saw on Threads this morning. Ha-ha! Solid work.

I made an off hand comment from what I thought was an Eddie Murphy line on some random thread and it now has over 1,425 likes. I’m not funny folks, I just grew up in the 80’s and 90’s without memes, we talked in movie quotes for just about every occasion, and I often spout them off at random times. It’s all lifted material. I cannot recall more than a handful of jokes that I have ever told that were actually mine. I made a crack about a beaver selling tooth paste having bad breath when I was a kid, and that got a good chuckle out of my dad, but I didn’t understand the innuendo from what I said, so I didn’t know it was a gold mine. To live & learn. His mileage on that joke might have varied from mine when he got out of the house, and went to work the next day. I don’t honestly know.

Either way, it is Friday before March Break, it is also the 13th, which is odd that it has happened again for the second month in a row. There will be a third for the year come November. Interesting. Maybe we should watch some scary movies to commemorate this happening? We’ll see how we feel about it once the school/work day ends.

Fun fact, I finally finished my omnibus. I am now reading Matt Dinniman‘s Dungeon Crawler Carl book one. It’s a fun, snarky read. He has just killed a room full of Goblin babies with high explosive, and I feel a sort of way about that. I was having fun up until then. That goodness it’s ridiculous fiction eh? Who’d want to be found responsible for using a bomb to blow up a bunch of children, I mean Sheesh. Too on the nose for this day and age, am I right!?! Still, good book this far, sans mass goblin baby murder that is.

Oh I have an episode of The Pitt to watch at lunch today, should be a load of fun! I’m excited.

I hope you all have a safe March Break, and don’t get stuck in an airport with no TSA agents running the customs counters. Plan accordingly for extraordinarily long waits. Ciao Bella!

I’ll say this about the cold weather.

It makes the dog walk at the farm a whole lot cleaner, with all that mud, muck, mess, and water locked up in ice so it’s not carried into the car or my house via the dog, or my boots. Otherwise I still very much so hate the cold. I could do with a month to six weeks of weather in the low to mid teens, with some sunshine, and all the rain at night until early morning. But I’m not getting either of those things!

It is now the Thursday prior to March Break 2026, and the kids are getting awful squirrelly at school I’d imagine. With nine whole days off, and only two full school days left I cannot imagine how much pent up energy is rolling through those halls. I don’t think they are doing much work this week with all that excitement bouncing off of each child. Makes the month blow by quickly when you remove one entire week from the classroom.

I have some new projects to get to, so I should get a move on. Ciao Bella!

Heavy rains and then a deep freeze? Count me in.

No way to escape the weather at this point. On the plus side the majority of the snow has melted in the places where it matters, and the heavy rains will do lots to help with what remains. Unfortunately we will then start to get colder, and this precipitation will fall as snow, and we’ll soon be right back where we started from. Oh winter, I hate you.

It is Wednesday of the week before March Break and the heightened number of spirit days is slowly killing me. At first the kids were all for it, then declined morning of, then want to do it once they’ve committed to not doing so, once we make it to the school doors. It’s an emotional rollercoaster, and something I have very little patience for. Make your decision and stick to your guns. Flip flop, wishy washy nonsense makes me angry for some reason. I don’t much care for it.

Next week will fly by no doubt, and then we will be inching closer to April, the Easter holiday weekend, and then it’s a head long sprint to the school year’s end, and my youngest daughter’s birthday party. Things only pick up speed from here on out! Hang on tight, things could get rather bumpy.

I am getting close to 700 days of a writing streak, and I could very well finish my Warhammer 40K omnibus today too! Lots going on in the background. Potentially have the family friend coming round to fix the main bathroom shower/tub plumbing fixture. I have marked out the area on the wall behind the shower, in the stair well, and cleaned it of clutter. I have also exposed the main water shut off valve so that I can execute that manoeuvre too. Keep this short, and sweet. I’ll help where I can, then stay out of the way as much as possible. Now that’s using your head!

Tis the season of muck.

Can hardly take a step outside without caking your feet in slush, grit, sand, or sloppy mud. Not the time of year to be a neat freak, that’s for certain. The dog is going to come into the house with a sandy belly, and muddy paws from now until late April. As I assume we aren’t totally done with snow, ice, or freezing rains because it’s still far too early in the year to hope it’s done. While I can appreciate these sunny days with temperatures in the teens, it will swing back into double digits below zero, and ass snow back into the ground before April. To think otherwise is ludicrous. Cross your fingers for it, but don’t get your hopes up.

I will be wearing my Wellington boots for the next five weeks or so, until the ground firms up, the rains stop, or the snow officially ends. Then I will have to gear up for planting our Dahlias, and glad bulbs. I’m also interested to see how many of the two hundred old tulip bulbs emerge this spring. I thought a great many of them were spent already, but I could be pleasantly surprised, or not. They were free, so I won’t be too heart broken over it. It either looks really full and colourful, or it stays the same as it has always been. I’d feel different if I’d bought those 250 bulbs and not a one does anything note worthy.

Also it’s that time of year – again. Tax time! Have to go back through my records, and find all my billing information for every single thing. It’s a drag, but must be done. Wish me luck!

Temperature goes up!

Rouge River going up about 3 or 4 feet with the temperature rise. (Fig 1.)

First it was walls and sheets of wind swept fog rolling around the neighbourhood blocking out sight at about four meters of visibility, then the temperature doubled again and we had rivers of snow melt swelling the creeks, rivers, and drainage ditches to overflowing. It flooded the road in a number of places. I bet the DVP was nearly under water in stretches downtown yesterday, close by the lake. If it wasn’t then, it will be today! All this downhill rolling water has to end up somewhere, and that somewhere is typically lake Ontario.

A good lesson to learn is to not just drive headlong at full speed into a giant puddle, because you don’t know if the road underneath the surface is still there in the same shape you expect it to be. Sink holes, upheavals, and breaks are common with these wild temperature fluctuations. You could end up driving into an eight foot deep sink hole at full speed, killing yourself and any passengers you might have. Best to traverse it at its shallowest point (if you can even identify one), or find an alternate route.

It is the Monday morning immediately preceding the time change, so the roads are going to be extra dangerous this week with over tired drivers. So take care out there! Doesn’t help that the mornings are going to be dark for a few weeks now, and that the sun will still be up at bedtime. Just more ammo for the kids to fight going to sleep. I do like that the kids afternoon programming will end and we will still have an hour or two left of sunlight to enjoy. It’ll be a few weeks yet before I break out the patio furniture, deck chairs, and lawn ornamentation, and extra lighting. I do not have faith in this weather lasting more than a couple of days before dipping back down onto frigid territory. But I will take what I can get at this point. I’ve been a shut in, a recluse since November! Let me out of this house!

It was so warm yesterday I took a load of wood junk down to the burn barrel and just about filled it to the brim with cut offs and such. Oh it was great. I was ruthless! I got rid of a bucket full of tiny hard wood cut offs I’d been hoarding for no real reason other than it was hardwood. Too small to do much of anything with. So POOF! gone to the flames now. Bye-bye. I did not, however, get rid of the train table, I think my wife might want to set it back up again to build Lego on, instead of the right seater dining room table that is down there for just that purpose. I don’t know why. Sentimental value maybe? Either way it is stored away safely where it isn’t in my direct path when wood working, so I’m fine with that. All good. I took so much stuff down to the barrel it was very satisfying. I would still like to get those three doors stripped of their hardware and taken away, but it’s not of vital importance. I just think, if I passed suddenly, how much crap would my wife & kids have to sort through that wasn’t worth anything, except to waste their time having to deal with it after I’m gone, so I’m trying to deal with it all now. Or now-ish. Now adjacent. In a timely manner, let’s put it that way. Books, tools, toys and junk. Same with excess clothes and papers etc… I don’t want to have nothing around the house that is mine, but all of the extraneous stuff can go. Why waste time, and valuable space devoted to junk, mess, or refuse. As it is almost Spring, I feel like another round of purging coming on. More outgrown clothes gone, more boots, coats, gloves, and MIT’s donated, more of what we’ve kept in excess pared down to essentials with a back up. Reclaim your spaces! Conquer your closets. Empty those attics, crawl spaces, sheds, garages, and cold storage rooms. Purge! Purge like you mean it! Unburden yourselves from these “things” we cling to! Feel the relief.

Also work slowly over a year or two, as it can be a big shock to the system if you’re one of those burdened by sentimental attachments to “things“. I prefer to work in layers. First it’s cardboard boxes, cling film wrappings, tissue papers, gift bags, and envelopes. Things of that nature. Inconsequential. Then a layer down, if it was unopened for year(s) maybe it can be donated, or use it now. If anything has dried out, gone bad, spoiled, or is so far out of date it’s unsafe, that goes next. Then afterwards I try to figure out what has value to me, versus what can be given away, sold off, or donated. And then I go back month after month to slim it all down more. Eventually you get as far as you can get, and it’s safe to stop there. Imagine you have to downsize from your family home to a condo. You can’t keep everything. So keep whatever is most important, and work your way outwards from there. How far out is up to you. But you want to end up with less clutter by the end, not triggered piles of the same amount of stuff. You want more floor space, more empty closets, more clutter free floors under beds etc… it’s cathartic. I encourage it. Unless you are broke or destitute, then you keep what keeps you going.

Happy Monday.

While I look forward to a brighter evening, I still hate the time change.

It’s almost eleven, and I’m still in bed. I dread my alarm come Monday morning. It is going to be a difficult week as we try to adjust our body clocks to the new normal. On the plus side I have very little planned for today beyond eating breakfast, and taking at least one child with me to go climbing in Markham.

The Gulf is still very much on fire, and exchanging missiles with one another. Gas is heading upwards in price. Things look dire. That which they will let us see anyway. However AI has gotten so clean now it’s hard to tell if we are seeing old videos reposted, new real videos, or manipulated videos, or outright fakes. I guess that was the point? To make us Poor’s give up, and only believe that which we can actually see in front of us. Well played douches.

It is now Sunday March 8th. I put the last touches on my Warhammer 40K Space Wolves yesterday, and I am no longer going to worry about the water slide transfers. I had done a very sloppy job of assembling them twenty years ago, so the mould lines, flashing, gummed up glue spills, and oddly leaning figures are too far gone. I improved their paint jobs, unified them all to look cohesive, based them, and now I’m done. I have a unit of 16 Eldar to do the same thing to. Then for my most recent birthday I was gifted some Ork Boyz, and I will assemble, clean up all that I can, then paint those to the best of my ability.

All 40 of my Space Wolves together at last! (Fig 1.)

I dug out my Goblin archer regiment, and my Gretchen pikemen too. Those went up on the shelf because I don’t fancy repainting those, and I’d like to get them out of my office. Now, the bulk of my minis are up on the shelf instead of hurried in a plastic cake transport that I used to house my miniatures. I have some Tyranids I can put on the shelf as well while I think about it. Cool.

I should get up and eat. Hope your Sunday is going well, even with this time change nonsense draining your body battery. A man out of time. How fitting.