Author: greatwallstudios

Weekends are a struggle. Do nothing and it feels as though you have wasted the weekend. Do too much and you’re exhausted running into Monday morning and a full week. Trying to find the delicate balance of doing just enough to not feel it was a waste, and keep everyone happy and engaged, but not so much that I have to drag my own ass about town when all I want to do is go hack to bed for a 2 hour map.

So in review 7 hours of party bus, baseball and rowdy friends on a Friday night, followed too closely on the heels by a nine hour ROM day trip using Go Trains and the TTC subway wasn’t an ideal set up for us. Not to mention it was with a girl guide troop of nine to eleven year olds with WAY too much energy. It was a lot for me, and I know it was a lot for my wife, whom is one of the troop leaders.

Today I’d like to nap, lie down, read or fall asleep while watching a movie. A true Lazy Sunday worth putting on the books. I think I’m on book five or six for this year. A third book of the Dune Series. I have all ready finished Messiah, and Children of Dune. Working on God Emperor right now. Plus whatever else I’ve read before. Not going to be a really high number of books this year, but a respectable dent in my collection. I have a Don Winslow book to read next, and soon a new entry from James S A Corey to contend with. I loved their Expanse universe, and read all nine books plus the collection of shorts which they produced to fill in some gaps and back story.

Truth be told I have some brand new (to me) Xbox games coming to the house. Which reminds me, I need to install the cable box for the tv this week. And get the other packaged materials up & out of the box. I need to cut the grass, plant several bulbs, and pay my tax bill at the bank. I have 3D renders to finish for tomorrow at 9:00am. Work means invoices getting paid. Yahoo!

Got in late last night after an evening baseball game with 11 friends plus my spouse, on an out of control party bus, in a very social part of the ball park. Then a very early morning with my eldest daughters girl guide group to catch a train, then subway to wander the ROM for four or five hours. We missed our planned 3:10pm train home, and are now hoping to catch the 4:10pm instead. I’m tired, cranky, and my feet hurt from all this concrete. I want to go back to bed now please.

I’m not certain exactly what is going on, but I was under the impression my delivery was coming next Tuesday. But it seems it’s coming today. Not only that but just after midnight I had two reminders and a threat of cancellation of services if I didn’t hurry up and attempt to link up my new modem. So I don’t really have a handle on what is coming. That’s how my Friday morning has started.

In other news, Yay Blue Jay’s game today! First one I’ve gone to in a fairly long time. Although the Leafs game seats are going to be tough to follow. I’m looking forward to the atmosphere of being in the park. Bit chilly outside today so I do not see the Dome being opened. I’ll need a full winter coat to wear if they open it up, Brrr.

I have my decade old Jersey to wear, the old school baby blue coloured one. I bought it at the Dome when I still worked for a brewery, in April at that! We went as part of our national sales & marketing meetings. Fun times. We had a massive private box, and incredibly cushioned seats. Free food, and lots of free beers too.

OP! I have work emails to contend with. Catch you around.

Why is this process so slow and/or painful. Used to be able to pop round the store and chat for 15 minutes and get everything sorted. Not so now. Waiting, waiting, glitches, bugs, prompts to talk to an AI, messages that the call centre is full or experiences a higher than normal call volume, or you know, a Thursday. Not impressed by any of this.

**Editors Note: as of 10:20am, after an hour and forty minutes we have our upgrades to both our cable boxes and home internet, and personal security device. Saved myself some cash in the end, and ended up with HBO Max & Crave in the process. Hello LetterKenny and Shoresy! Woot-woot.

Pretty sure I dealt with an AI “named” (add obnoxious finger quotes in the air as you say this) Jake, but either way it should be updated by next Tuesday if all goes well. I have the apps ready to go for connections, and i am excited. I can pick up on the gaming after letting it go nearly ten years ago! Yeah buddy.

Apps for setting up, patches to download, games to download & register. All told this will end up being about 4 hours of my day, and I still don’t have my only game downloaded yet. Diablo four is 84Gb and unless I download that at night it is going to tie up my internet for a day. Not only that but this was supposed to keep the kids off of our data and on a console. Not so! Atleast as of today and all this set up. I’m loathe to order any other games as I can only imagine how large the install files are even with the disks. Ugh!

I did play Goat Simulator 3 for an hour while the Disney Valley game started to download so there is that. I had thought gaming beyond me once I stopped following along after replacing my Xbox 360 with a newer 360. I let the Xbox One flow over me, same with PS4. Didn’t think about the PS5 or Xbox Series X at all. Now here I am gearing it up for my kids. Funny how that works. I’ll have to call Roger’s and get unlimited internet sorted as the 200Gb plan we are on is seriously lacking with just how much stuff we do online these days.

And as no surprise to anyone I just spent the last 5.5 hours pissing about with the console to the detriment of everything else. Just like I knew I would. Hence letting gaming go several years back. It takes over! Gah!

All with little oversight, or something along the lines of 20 sec between choice and action taken against those targets. I feel like I’ve seen this progression depicted in pop culture and film. Seems a less than ideal way to solve a conflict. Maybe use it to pick targets but have people ok it, and press the button at the end of it. Seems like a good way to make a catastrophic oopsie that doesn’t end well for human life on earth.

But what do I know. I have the touch of death when it comes to machines and technology. If it can go wrong in wild and unexpected ways my touch will make it do so. I get a lot of “never seen that before” when my stuff malfunctions or breaks. Fun times.

After spending the last couple of weeks in the sweltering heat of southern florida I didn’t think I’d feel cold again. Not true! I sat through some flurries this weekend while watching my kids play, from an icy park bench, and all it did was make we pine for the sun, sand, and warmth of vacation. I thought that we would have skipped all of this early spring weather change nonsense. Apparently not. Brr.

I don’t understand the appeal. I mean, I’m glad we went and that my kids are old enough that they will remember this trip as they get older, but for the most part, we’re over it. Unlikely to return. Genie plus, fast passes, booking times, lines upwards of three hours, expensive as all hell, and so crowded even in the off season. No, none of these things brought us joy. Wandering around Magic Kingdom in 90°F heat with four kids ranging in age from under two, to not yet ten was a challenge in and of itself.

However, I got a real kick out of seeing the Millenium Falcon but that hardly warrants the price of 3 days worth of tickets. We are a roller coaster riding family, not a show watching family. Meeting characters? Not really our jam either, though I think my kids got a kick out of meeting Olaf & Belle. Pandora kinda sucked, and I was really keen on seeing those floating rocks and such. The big Avatar ride never had a line of less than 225 minutes, and we couldn’t get on the Tron ride without the additional cost of Genie Plus, not even a stand-by waiting area.

So, glad we saw it one more time, and the girls got to see it at least once. But no more. We prefer coasters at Sea World, Busch Gardens, Wonderland and water parks which all cost 1/10th of Disney. Maybe we’ll do a Six Flags tour, or find other roller coaster parks to travel to in the future.

While I loved the immersive decoration for the Star Wars portion there are only two rides there. And my kids could have cared less about any of it. Once the initial fun of looking at stuff fades, there were just long lines and two things to do.

We left a full 2 hours prior to the game as I dislike driving in the US, and I didn’t know the location, nor the parking situation. Took us less than 23 minutes to get from the hotel to a nearby parking garage just up the road from Amalie Arena. $20.00 event parking, in a covered garage was a steal! We walked the two lights down to the arena in a swarm of blue & white. Half Leafs fans and half Bolts. As we approached the front steps they opened the doors so we need not stand around in the 90°F heat. We scanned ourselves in on the promenade level, and proceeded to hit both the bathrooms and the beverage counter. Found Section 109, Row D and Seats 5 & 6. Marveled at how close to the goalies we would be, and had a blast for nearly three and a half hours. Saw the pre-game warm up skate. Heard the slap shots ricochet off the glass like gun shots, and saw most players at arms length distance. Just a great time for my eldest daughter and I to have together. Our first NHL game, and what seats! Oh such seats!

Though it was Kucherov whom made history with his 100th assist or points of whathaveyou, and not Austin getting to 70 goals we had a great time cheering on the Leafs in Tampa Bay for the last game of the regular season of 2024. Nice!

The sixteen day hiatus where our whole family traveled across Florida has finally ended and along with it my once glorious streak too. Truth be told sixteen days without writing a word was pretty nice. I was too busy taking photos, and doing things outdoors in the blazing hot florida sun. I will be putting out a few of those photos here over the coming days, but I don’t see myself slavishly sticking to an every day blog anymore. I think I had just about the same number of visitors and views when I did nothing, as when I did anything. I’ll relax a little around here.

I have a number of things to do today, including a post office run, prescription pick-up, CRA check in for my taxes, and actual paid work to dig in to. I would imagine that by Monday we will all be settled in as per usual.

Yesterday’s travel day was really long. Packing is stressful with the kids leaving important items everywhere imaginable inside the hotel room. Wandering a theme park for six or more hours in the 93°F sun, highway driving in traffic, finding a gas station not clogged with people, car drop off, check-ins, baggage drops, security, finding food where there is little choice, a flight with no food service, but a very short run time. I don’t know, maybe they got out and pushed, we made it home from Tampa in under 3 hours. Nice!

Loads to do at home now too. Patio furniture set up, swings, slack line, grass and hedges. Check the downspouts, wash the back deck. All sorts of fun to keep my busy for the foreseeable future.

All the best. Ciao Bella.