Category: Uncategorized

Getting our money’s worth our of our 2025 passes!

Setting aside 90 minutes for climbing and at least an hour to drive there and back today with my other child. I do not know if she will have any returning classmates this go around. If I recall my youngest was the only returning kid from her class. The other four kids were new to climbing, at least that was the impression that I got, since the parents were hovering, and I’d never seen any of them before. So we will have to wait and see what is in-store for us today.

It’s really gloomy looking right now so that will make being indoors during the early afternoon a whole lot more palatable, at least while we are in the last remaining summer days available to us. Before long the temperatures will drop and we will be looking at flurries, freezing rain, and actual snow. Ugh! I don’t want to think about it right now.

Took about an hour out of my morning to swing my new splitting mail and bust up some old wood that has been sitting on the grass for the last two or three years. Much of the top layer has pretty decent rot to it, enough that you can smell it as you approach the pile, but once I got down to the partially covered layers it toughened right up into good burnable fuel for the maple syrup operation at the cottage. I did run into two rounds that I was only able to partially split, so I set the remains aside for another day. It might require a steeper wedge, or a stronger set of arms. Either way I made a very slight indent on the pile. Only certain spots have been around for more than two years so those are my main attractions. I have no desire to fight with newer wet & heavy wood. My back can only take so much you know. Gotta be selective with where I place my efforts.

Truth be told at my pace of only being able to comfortably swing the axe for 45-60 minutes there’s about a months worth of work on just the really old stuff. Not counting the newer loads the tree services dump here, or the larger sections that need to be bucked into smaller more manageable rounds. Some of these look fit for a  milling machine, could get some lovely three foot long boards at two or three inches thick if you felt like it. I don’t, but you could.

I would totally spend an hour or two every day running a saw mill, along with splitting rounds. Work is slower than usual right now, so it would keep me busy, and stop me spending money I shouldn’t just because I’m bored. The dog gets a good long walk, and he can run around freely while I split wood with my trusty new maul. Hell he’d love it if I spent even more time at the farm milling wood, so that he could chase squirrels and bunnies and wander around off leash. It’s his favourite thing! Well, that and being at the cottage with all eleven family members, he likes that a lot too.

I do not have a particularly keen edge on the splitting mail because the weight and the wide angle wedge shape do much of the work. My shoulders and back do the other 50% of the work in swinging with a bit of umph! Behind it. My right bicep gave out first so I figured I should stop while I was ahead of the game. I started. I got my mechanics figured out. It all feels comfortable in my hands.  My only injury, such as it is, was a graze from a falling round that brushed my calf & shin leaving a very tasty red rash as a parting gift. I split that round almost immediately in retaliation. Felt good to go after it, little bastard.

At least I know what I can do with myself for the next several mornings while I wait for any paid work to materialize. Plus it helps build up my arm, shoulder and back strength. Might give me a meaningful boost when climbing! Who knows. Gripping all those wood chunks can only help strengthen my hands and forearms, so there is that too. Maybe after many more days of this, and trying to eat better I might see some weight loss, or a shift from fat to muscle bringing my waist size under control. Forget the big back, I’ve got a big belly. One I would prefer to lose and replace with more muscle, and a whole lot less fat.

It will take some time because I can only handle about an hour a day right now. I need to build up some stamina and additional muscle strength to go longer than that. Give it time, and effort and anything’s possible.

Have a great Friday. I plan to reward the kids with a trip to the driving range to whack the snot out of some balls for about 45 minutes. It’s a fun time, and a good way to let off steam. Ciao Bella!

Hard to miss as it was plastered all over the internet. Such is life in the US I suppose. Tough break for the kids and spouse. The day however, moves on.

I snuck down to the driving range yesterday at lunch to whack a jumbo basket of balls and wouldn’t you know it I busted my Taylor Made Aero Burner #3 Fairway wood. Launched the broken head further than my ball down range. Luckily there were only three of us smacking balls on the range so I was able to dart down range and fetch my club head. A nasty break from up inside the shaft. I have attempted a repair using epoxy, but I do not hold high hopes for it being any sort of a permanent fix. I think I might get two, possibly three hits from it before it falls apart. A loss of $75.00 because I bought it used off a clearance demo rack at Golf town. Not only that but I cannot seem to locate the receipt so I can’t even really go and complain about it. At least it wasn’t the full 2015 price I paid for it. But, now I need to find a suitable replacement that has a very similar feel and shape that won’t cost me an arm and a leg. Aw shucks, not another trip to Golf Town! Whatever will I do?

We have made it to Thursday, and the weekend is no longer calling for rain, so that means we can be outdoors for much of the days. I do have my second climbing session on Saturday mid day, but otherwise we can go swim, or ride bikes, roller blade, or ride our skateboards on the newly paved road just outside our doors. The options are nearly endless.

I found out an acquaintance of mine has paid $60,000 to join a private golf course a few kicks from here, not to mention what he pays yearly on top of that initiation fee. He could play golf twice a day every day and not ever come close to having paid that much for local golf, like ever. That’s a preposterous sum of money. For a local course!?! Insane. I like golf don’t get me wrong, but not for $60,000 bucks. I can’t justify six, let alone sixty. Could you imagine? Ha. There are better things I could waste $60K on. My oh my.

For this year’s Markham Fair I am sending in a generic Ninja Turtle I sculpted out of Aves Epoxy. It was the first time I’ve ever used the stuff so I was proud of it for that, but based on other full figured sculpts I have done in different materials, this one is a little lacklustre. Not a problem, perhaps I can hide my crimes with a layered paint job that adds where my physical piece is lacking!

So far it has been primed and had four layers of different shades of green, and one yellow sprayed on it. A dark green wash for the lumps & bumps. And a tooth brush spackle of dark green, plus some red, blue, and purple blotches. I will tie it together with a thinned out dark green over top. I got impaction and laid down some black under layer on the knee pads and then reminded myself I wasn’t done with the green skin, and I haven’t added any brown or yellow for the shell yet either. No point rushing forward just to paint over top of it immediately after.

I’ll see how today goes if I can do any more of it. I need to mow the lawn, do the kids laundry, and vacuum out the van, and unstack all the weights I have piled on the Taekwondo belt display that I glued up yesterday afternoon. I made a huge error and had to cut it down by 2/5ths, because I’m an idiot. So now I don’t think I have any room to router in any text. Maybe a name or initials and that is about it! D’oh!

The camera isn’t picking up a lot of the subtleties of the paint job, but that’s ok. It gets judged in person under orange fluorescent lighting. So I’m not too worried. I don’t typically win these things, I just like to enter, and have something of mine visible at the fair since I no longer draw or paint on canvas much anymore. I’m well out of practice and don’t get in the mood for it until fair time, and by then I haven’t practiced enough to make anything worthwhile to submit. Could be worse! Ha.

Time to see if my push ups and hand grip strength training have any sort of positive improvement to my climbing ability! Put the money where my mouth is type of thing. I’ve spent months, plural, now working my way up from the 50 lbs to the 175 lbs, and I even attempted to squeeze the 200 lbs gripper (with some modest success even). I haven’t promoted myself up to doing the 200 every morning as I am still finding a lot of resistance from the 175. I’ll get there though! I can see it on the horizon. Will it translate to firmer holds on thinner lips, and more intense inclines? I don’t as of yet know.

Our chalk bags are loaded up, and my shoes and harness are ready to roll. Our kit bag sometimes doubles as our day trip bag, but I have made sure to put all climbing items back inside. That includes the two partial bottles of liquid chalk, and a single bottle of hand sanitizer. I have not needed a brush for the hand holds yet. Chalk is funny, you need enough to get a solid grip but too much removes your grip, and not enough lets you slip. When it builds up on certain holds you’re gonna fall, hence why the better climbers carry a brush to clean off overly chalked hand holds.

I am also hoping that my arms and quads will not feel like bricks come Wednesday morning, because while I have done a few seconds of dangling, I have not climbed much of anything, and so the potential to grip too tightly when it isn’t required is really high when I’m out of practice. No need to white knuckle every single second of your climb. I have been practicing my forearm stretches, so I will do what I can to mitigate that overzealous nonessential gripping. Gotta save some strength in the hands for the drive home! Ha.

In other news two of my brothers have birthdays today. Happy birthday! Hope you are faring well as you reach, and near fifty years of age. It’s not all that far off for me either — yikes! As a child I thought the age of forty was “old” and that has long since gone now. I can still ride roller coasters, so I’ll take that as a win. They both live a fair distance from here so I won’t be seeing them to celebrate. Will have to take my texts & gifs in my stead.

It’s Tuesday, so that means recycling day. Plus it’s a garbage week too so I’ll need to scour the house for junk that needs to go to the curb (preferably before they swing by). I will figure that out after school drop off. Plus I have paid work to do today, and more volunteer stuff so I’ll be pretty busy for most of the day. Take care out there. Ciao Bella!

Chemicals to make tap water safe. Chemicals to lower pH balance from Alkaline. Chemicals to keep the pH balance at or very near 7 for fresh water fish. It’s all a bit much for my liking. So our water is good for Nitrites and nitrates, in the ideal range. Our water is soft, and our chlorine is very, very low, also in the ideal range. However we are alkaline, and our alkalinity is also high. So off I went for test strips this morning, which is why I know these esoteric details regarding our water quality. Then off I went to PetSmart to get the pH control fluids, one to go down, and one to stabilize at or near 7, which is neutral if I remember grade school chemistry at all.

So now we wait for the chemicals to percolate through the entire tank, and make the rounds through the filters, and in another few hours I will test again. See where we are. Might be forced to put the purchase of a few fish off for the night while the water gets sorted. I don’t know. I do not fancy having to break it to my youngest that she might need to wait yet another day lest we kill all of the newly (to be) purchased fish. Seems a shame to rush out and then kill them all over night with less than ideal water conditions.

So besides getting several invoices paid over the last few days, and hitting up Wonderland yesterday, and working on some volunteer projects this morning, I haven’t gotten up to much. I did just buy new locking caster wheels for my bench top jointer cart, so that it’ll stay put as I try to run lengths of boards over those spinning blades. Seems helpful to have the machine remain stationary as I hold on to four, six or eight foot long boards running over top of its cutting surface. Should feel a tad safer now. I don’t much care if the planer moves, I feed into it and walk away. The jointer however requires my presence, and active participation.

My taekwondo belt display is slowly progressing. I have the header glued up ready to be planted flat. Then I’ll cut the mounting grooves. Then cut out the shape and then glue the whole lot together. Then I can sand it down a bunch, and then add the clear coat finish. Then pop in the dowels and call it a day! Not necessarily in that order, but you know what I mean.

Back to Monday with all of us. Tomorrow two of my brothers have birthdays. They aren’t twins, just born on the same day two years apart. They will be turning fifty and forty eight respectively. Two of us are now fifty and over, and two of us are still in our forties. My my what a time to be alive! Being at Wonderland yesterday my daughter and I lamented that my brothers were not able to come visit in Ontario this year to try out the new Alpenfury ride. Perhaps next year will work out in our favour!

Namely the driving range! Ooh-ah-oh. We have done years of mini putt, both outdoor & indoor glow in the dark courses. So my oldest is well acquainted with the “short game” particulars of putting on slopes, weird elevations, and obstacles. But yesterday, once the wind had died down and the grey clouds no longer looked as though they were prepared to drop another two inches of rain on us, we came out of GloTown mini putt and dive bombed straight for the range.

I left things as easy breezy as I could because it was the first time we have ever gone together. I wanted it to be a fun experience where they feel as though they’d like to do more of it another day. Mission accomplished on that front. I might have just created a range buddy! Yay. I started her off with a three iron. A club I do not use all that often. I had her stand and wiggle the club for a bit. Then sweep it side to side. Then I let her go bananas on some 5-10 balls, and then I did a few shots. Back and forth we went through a large bucket of balls. The point wasn’t to teach all the finer points and get her deep inside her own head, but to have fun, and to spend time together where we can chat about whatever she likes. I believe we were successful on having fun, and having a nice chat too.

Occasionally I would put forth a small tip, but otherwise I let her get comfortable standing, swinging, eyeing up the ball, holding the club how she feels comfortable doing it, and finding a range of motion that suits her. We didn’t use parallel clubs to showcase swing direction, or do anything technical. This was an introduction, and we kept it fun, and light on any instruction. I’m not fit to give much instruction anyway because I am terrible at golf, but it’s fun!

That was my main message to my daughter, give yourself permission to enjoy things because you love them, and not because you are good/great at them. Not everything needs to become a side hustle or your next “look at me” moment. Enjoy doing the things even if you suck at it. Sometimes only age and lived experience will grant you permission like that, but I thought I’d pass along such wisdom so that she didn’t have to miss out on activities she likes because she hasn’t gotten good at it early on, or ever for that matter.

Today I think we might run off to Wonderland for a brief rendezvous with some roller coasters and pre-paid food & beverages. Going to get our money’s worth out of these seasons passed. Giddy-up!

Means scouring my inlaws basement cellar for pebbles, rocks, filters, bubblers, coral and terrain for these new fish we are expecting.balso means a lot of tank cleaning and enrichment item washing. I figure we let everything soak for a few days, with a couple of water changes and we should be good to go on the fish by next week or the one immediately after.

Depends on if we are buying distilled water or letting the tap water sit and off gas before we use it on anything worthwhile. Depending on the volume of water we are using will alter how long that step takes. It’s not something I am very familiar with, and off the top of my head do not know how to calculate it either. Time to learn!

Just out at the farm walking the dog. Or I was and now I’m taking a moment to sit and collect my thoughts on these impending fishes coming out way. Fresh water and not fancy salt water fish. It’s a cool morning by any standards at just 13°C. Not so long ago we were deep into the high thirties and low forties. Now I’m in a t-shirt, long sleeve shirt and a sweater combo. Still clinging to the shorts though. I’m still Canadian! Ha.

Wife and kids are off shopping for fish accoutrements. So that could be a while. Likely also expensive given my children’s tastes, and my wife’s love of top of the line gear when it suits living creatures. For herself not so much, but for animals in our care, whoo-boy! They live like kings! Kings I tell ya.

I best go enjoy my Saturday. Ciao Bella!

Made from Walnut I sourced from KJP out of Napean, near Ottawa. It came in two heavy boxes in the mail about a year or so ago. Possibly longer than that, I have a bad habit of moving on from projects once I hit a snag that requires me to wait on materials. But nevermind that.

I started out with several skip planned boards that border on being S4S quality, a near miss. Which is a good thing because I did not pay S4S prices for this rustic Walnut. So I have eight or ten four foot lengths that are all one inch thick, and varying widths. Some four, some six, some are even eight inches wide. I ordered twenty board feet and if you mix n’ match them all together you get what I needed out of it. All is good.

But the project 8 have in mind is delicate, decorative and doesn’t require one inch thick pieces. And, because I do not own a handsaw with more than three inches of resaw capacity, I turned to my table saw, fence, tape measure and about twenty passes to cut two thick boards into four book matched thinner boards. Those I ran through the planer here to get a somewhat consistent thickness across all of my pieces. The table saw resaw is a tad sketchy when you have the blade all the way up, as you lead a four foot length of board through it on its narrow side. Huge potential for life altering, nay, life ending calamity. Some of those accidents are diabolical. Yikes. Viewer discretion is advised.

Next I cut those four boards into the appropriate widths to form the two backbone pieces, and ten plates that will eventually sit flush inside those two backbones. I rounded over the four corners of those ten plates on my bench top sanding machine. My trusty old WEN. It has a four inch wide by thirty six inch long belt running on it, and made short work of the round overs. Not particularly consistent, but that’s more my error than the machines. Ha.

Today I set up the dado stack on my table saw, along with the wider blade guides, removed the riving knife, and used my dado stack table top sled to give me a reference surface, and a way to get out of sight of those spinning collection of blades. I measured out the gaps I needed with the ten plates and a set of calipers. Marked off what was to go, and what needed saving, and tapped the backbones together and had at it. I followed along with my vice and a small hand plane to get everything to fit. As with all my table saw dado work, some were loose, some were right, and some were perfect. I’m not talented, but a three way 33% split has got to count for something! Ha.

I have to figure out my top panel. It was going to have my daughter’s name on it, or just say “Belts” or “Taekwondo” routered into a shaped panel. But I have not made a panel yet, and the shorter the routed text the better. So I have a glue up to do, and then some shaping before I can even think of how to add text to it.

Then it will require dowel pins for the belts to be drilled in and glued, and/or elastics too. Plus hours of sanding, and at least two layers of a satin clear coat finish, with a mild scuff in between to knock down any raised grain fibers. It’s a process. I’ve made progress today so I will quit while I have all of my fingers, toes, and both eyeballs in working order. A win! Yes.

If I remember to I will post again once I make even more headway on this project that I started back in June.