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It was 218 ppm here in southern Ontario which is unsafe, but places like northern Michigan it was 1150 ppm, and you can’t escape that by staying indoors and running the AC. You’d have to wear a respirator full time until that number falls bellow 50 ppm. That’s a long drop to be waiting for when pressed right up against the source of the smoke, but only separated by open lakes, creating a wind tunnel driving all that smoke towards you. Yikes. Bad juju all around with this year’s forest fire season. Entire towns wiped out – again. This looks to become an every single year from here on out occurrence now. Tragic.

I think it’s Friday today. I’m still discombobulated by the west coast travel. I can’t fall asleep at 10:30/11:00 pm anymore, I find myself awake until 2:00 am now, and I’m just not feeling the 8:45am alarm, nor my 9:25 am back up. I need to get my old time regulated self back in focus because there’s far too much of summer left to start creeping towards staying up until 3 or 4 am, and wanting to sleep the whole day away. I have work, and responsibilities, obligations to perform, I can’t regress like a teenager because of time zones and jet lag. Maybe if I’m just far more physical today that will help switch me back?

I’m on the last day of my big project before I hand in my first draft. I have a handful of pages left to go, and then soft proofing, and fixing items I know will come up during the style review. Best to get out in front of them now, head it off at the pass. It’s a long one though, I’d estimate it being between 85-90 pages long for this go around. The trick is to pace yourself for the long haul. I start with about 21 pages, next day 33 days, third day once we’re really rolling along (provided the data you have allows for it) you aim for another 30 or so pages, then on day four you do the last ten or so, and begin soft proofing on my end. Export it, hand it off, then wait for any edits or changes. It’s a mighty fine system. Works well and saves my wrists from RSI’s.

Gave myself a carpal tunnel injury nearly twenty years ago and that was really unpleasant. To the point where I couldn’t use my dominant hand to eat, drink, get dressed, or even brush my teeth without severe pain. Sounds like wringing out a leather glove whenever I used any tendons in that hand, and it lasted for weeks. This was before I had children. Could only imagine trying to change diapers with only one good hand. I know people can do it, but by golly that seems tough.

Luckily the temperature is cool this morning, and the air quality back down to a 7 from yesterday’s 11, and I took forty minutes to cut the front lawn. Now it doesn’t look quite so bad. Oh yeah Markham Mower still has my Echo SRM-230 weed eater, that’s gotta be eight full weeks by now. I guess they’ll keep it for 12 to 13 weeks, I’ll get it back in September I think. Ha. So stupid.

As of two days ago this blog exceeded the previous best years viewer & visitor numbers, and as of this minute those two metrics are still climbing. That’s incredible news! And all of this done without a single outlier spike in views driven by an outside source, link, or direction. This is from a modest but recurring daily visits from people around the world coming here to look at my stuff. While the downloads of my books are down comparatively, it isn’t all that far off. I’m just not driving traffic to my free downloadable books on a featured page. I would like to think that it would sort itself out, but I guess I should do more to plug them every so often. Not a problem.

So while I have not experienced that 1,500 person spike on one random day in July like last year that got my numbers well up in 2025, this year any growth whatsoever seems to be more organic in nature or people just finding older articles or posts on the reader, or following a Google search for something specific that they were after. While the thrill of a single day jump of four figures was amazing, a constant flow every single day feels pretty great too. So thank you! Thank everyone of you whom came to look, read, listen, and watch the items I have archived here from the last several years.

I’d love to wax poetic about this sort of WIN for hours on end, but I’m still plugging away at a large project and as such must focus on the fine details. No focus pulling allowed today, or tomorrow. Perhaps I can return to this subject once again soon. Though truth be told I will go on and on about it come late December, so keep your eyes and ears peeled for that! Ha.

Have a bodacious Thursday. Steer clear of the wildfire smoke if you can. It was supposed to sit lower today and act like fog/smog moreso than ever before. Wear an appropriate respirator if outdoors for prolonged periods of time today. I believe in you!

It’s very dim outside, and tinted rather orange. So much so that I have overslept in the gloom by a number of hour(s) plural. Looks like I’ll need to work late today to make up for my extended snooze! The temperature has dropped ten degrees, and I’m sure those trapped VOC’s in the low pressure spaces will begin to decay in the UV light and everything will smell like acetone for a while now. A spooky reminder that mother nature always wins. The northern forest fires are getting worse as the years progress. In all my youth I never once remember the entire sky going orange from smoke, and now it’s happened twice within the same decade. I’m sure this will become a yearly thing as we continue to get hotter, and do nothing about it.

I do believe today is Wednesday. I had a full day yesterday or work, dishes, laundry, vacuuming the floors, and a general tidy up. Later today I will put the girls sorted laundry into their rooms, drawers & closets. I believe there is at least one large load of laundry that I have discovered on floors, chairs, and under beds, tangled in sheets that can get done today, alongside my day job project that I got several hours into yesterday.

I could not fall asleep last night so my alarm pinged I immediately fell back asleep after turning it off. I expected like 30 more minutes, maybe an hour while the rising sun beamed down directly onto my face waking me up purposefully. But no. The gloom and dim orange glow did not in fact stream directly into my eyes and I slept soundly for SEVERAL hours instead. Damn.

Air quality is at a seven (7) which is pretty awful. One is good, and a three is borderline unhealthy, so it’s way beyond any sort of safety guidelines for outdoor activity. At least here in Stouffville, things at the cottage seem better somehow. Strange.

Not of a hot one out there today. Supposed to feel like forty plus degrees with all the extras added on top. I miss the BC weather all ready! I know I’m getting older because my back hurt just from sitting down on those consecutive flights, and not much else. My shoulder was hurting from all the driving we did. It was a fun trip though, even with the minor inconveniences of personal injury. Ha! Also my innards do not seem to care for the cabin air pressure changes. Does a number on my guts that lasts for a few days. Not my favourite aspect of air travel these days. With any luck it will be a few months if not longer before I have to head back out on an airplane again.

Just found out I can no longer fly directly back into the UK until I sort out a British Passport for myself. That might make a Euro trip a bit tricky in the coming years. I’ll have to look into that sooner rather than later. But with the stuff going down with Russia and Ukraine, and threats to Poland we may hold off going to Europe for a bit longer still. No worries.

We had to spot friends that wound up getting shot down by the Russians when they took a passenger jet out of the sky in the early 2020’s. It was very very sad for the whole town. The family was well liked.

Getting back into the swing of things. Working on some new stuff today. All the best.

We totally got all of our steps in this time around! Not only that but we put quite a few kilometers under our heels in the rental car driving between Comic, Courtenay, Cumberland and Campbell River as we found beaches, animal rescue tours, river bed fossil tours and whatever else took our fancy in the moment. We also got to see a bunch of my side of the family, and the kids had time to play with their cousins and swim until we all turned pruney. It was a blast. Sad to leave, but real life awaits us back here at home.

Now we focus on getting over the red eye flight, and doing so much laundry in this heat! What a way to return from a week in the mid teens with rain, it’s going to feel like 40°C with the humidex here during parts of this week. Ugh! Nasty. Welcome home!

Landed. Booyah!

Today concludes our family trek to the west coast to not only see family, but search every beach we can for sea glass, or fossils, or treasures of any sort. It has been mild in temperature, and mostly overcast and you know what? We’re fine with it. Heading home to temperatures in the mid thirties, so nearly a week in the mid teens has been most welcome. Also the complete lack of humidity has been very refreshing. Kids love it out here. Sad to have to say good bye once more for who knows how long, but we will be back to our regularly scheduled life in just a few short hours, and two flights, and three separate airports. Hello Sunday morning!

On a warm sunny day where it is 22°C in the full sun you walk deep into the forest where the temperature drops six full degrees and the air becomes noticeably damp. You follow a downward sloping path that leads deeper and deeper into the sun shaded woods. Before too much longer you begin to hear the thunderous roar of rushing water. There are various warning signs plastered up on the ever widening trees whose canopies disappear into the mist well above you. You approach a set of stairs leading down. Many fellow travelers around you balk at the sight of the steps. People murmur in quiet panic as you push past them and wander down, down, down. The dull roar of the water is now so loud you can barely hear anything other than the water itself. At the base of the steps is a long, and narrow bridge that visibly swings under the pilgrims foot steps. You are standing with one foot hovering over the edge. What do you do? Roll for initiative…

Having an aimless wander along the beach in search of sea glass, fossils, or sea creature teeth is a big thrill for us. Cheap, and easy to do as long as you can find somewhere to park, and have the time to devote to wandering around whilst staring at the ground looking for minute pops of colour that’s faintly different from all the rocks, sand, and water borne debris. Helps if it’s cool and rainy, because then the beaches are deserted, and we don’t have to worry about bothering other people, or having our treasures found before we get to them ourselves!

Hard to believe it is Friday all ready. We are gearing up for the England versus Norway game tomorrow afternoon. Should be a fun watch!

My wife found us a river bed fossil tour to go to yesterday just off of the highway on the outskirts of town and it was a shake busting blast! Started off with a short guided tour through the museum then a short drive to the fire, and a quick walk down to the river. We took my niece along for the ride, she seemed to enjoy it. My knees weren’t so fond of the two straight hours of either kneeling or squatting, but they’ll get over it.