Category: Uncategorized

We have a couple of medical items today in the extended family. My nephew is having surgery in Victoria, and my wife is getting her sleep apnea/airway results this morning too. Fingers crossed for swift healing, and good news all around.

Us on the other hand will need to head down to the farm to pick cucumbers for pickling purposes. A quick one hour jaunt before the temperatures begin to soar again. The humidity has made a comeback after being really mild for 10 or so days. Unseasonably rainy in these parts this summer too. Lush foot tall green grass in august is unheard of. Not this year though. I can usually slow down to one cut a month come July, but I’ve had a go at it atleast once a week non-stop since May. At $1.73/L of gas that is going to prove to have been a very expensive maintenance item this year. Could always be worse, if you think about it long enough.

What is worse than non-stop growing grass you might ask, I’ll tell you. The all consuming growth of weeds. But I will say this, the rain has kept the soil soft & fluffy, so the weeds and their roots pull right out. Not that my back or knees care much for that fact mind you. Hunched over on all fours pulling several hundred pesky weeds and long grasses out of my flower beds is not my ideal way to spend an afternoon, nor a morning for that matter. Bugs are still really awful this late in the year tells me one of two things. Either the winter was too mild to kill off much of the winged buzzing bug population, or the avian flu has killed much of the winged bug eating bird types that would usually be out here keeping those pests under control. Hm.

Still haven’t read much of book #15. Had a bit of misfortune with a friends passing, funerals and a fund raiser. Then I was feeling really unfocused, and I haven’t managed to get the desire to read back just yet. I’m kinda leaning towards going to sculpt something, but my resin kit remnants is taking up my work bench. Scatter brained as of late it seems.

Roger’s really wanted us to upgrade away from the next box, so much so they potentially fried our box remotely. After a long morning of waiting in line in a physical store, to be told I needed to call a different helpline, I went home and did just that. Waited on hold & chatted for twenty plus minutes, and I think… I think I’m getting a new box, remote, and power cable under the ignite services? My hearing is shit, neighbours are doing tree work, and her accent & twitchy telephone line made it difficult to 100% understand. But it sounded positive, and that it would be fixed in short order. I’ll likely have to call again tomorrow if past issues are any indication. Wonderful.

In other news I bought & watched the BlackBerry movie, and it was really good. I enjoyed the whole thing. Great. Glenn Howerton should be super proud of that performance. He couldn’t be less Dennis Reynolds than that. Loved it. Up next is John Wick 4. Wish us luck!

Trying to do a better job of exposing the kids to talented musicians, artists, speakers, actors and the like. Brighten their horizons a tad. I know they like to watch funny, and silly shorts, skits and such on YouTube with their mum, which is cool too. I just want to make sure they know that a whole slew of different things exist out in the wider world. If they hate it, and choose to pass on it, that’s ok to. As long as they know it is out there, and don’t feel like they have been deprived of it’s presence. If you hate it, you hate it. I have tried many times over my four decades to try and enjoy jazz, in one form or another. I just can’t seem to do it. Too chaotic. It just doesn’t have the vibe I’m looking for. So I cannot blame them if classical, or instrumental music doesn’t tickle their fancy.

Back home once more. Been a couple of days since we were here last. Well – not really. We were home late last week, just under less desirable circumstances. I had to attend two different funerals. And I brought the rest of my family to the second one, which was much closer, and meant more to my children, as it was their little friend whom had passed. Not a fun reason to come home mid vacation, but important nonetheless.

So now that I’m here for a good chunk I am seeing lots that need to be done. The lawn & gardens are popping out at me first and foremost. I also need to try the water softener again. New parts arrived that I will need to swap out for the initial factory parts that could be faulty. Who knows. I think this Ecopure water softener is just a lemon. A near $1000.00 lemon.

Oops, here I was thinking I had posted this already. Run errands and made the gang lunch instead. All the best this sunny Monday in August.

Watching stars off the dock last night after the storms had passed. We all managed to see some shooting stars, so it was well worth keeping the kids up until nearly midnight. Then bugs or steam set off the fire alarm system last night just after midnight giving us all a jolt to the adrenal glands.

I have spent the last few days watching others whom play far better than I ever did, play the trombone and other wind instruments in small groups, by themselves, or in full orchestras. And I miss doing that myself. Music with others I think, more so than the trombone itself. Though I do enjoy classical music, and I played for five years until we moved. I think I could scratch that itch if I could find folks to jam with. Play guitar, bass or drums with other people for a spell, would be real nice.

Lazy sunday here again at last. Time to pack up our stuff and head home once more. Summer break is not yet over, but our time at the lake is done – for now. I think my wife will want to come back since she isn’t going back to work until fall of 2024. So none of her panicked return to work process has happened yet. But it will be doubly bad next year! Ha.

Anybody know the list of music that was on the Time Life Classical Symphonies cassette compilation? Or the Time Life Classic Thunder cd’s? One of the two we had when I was a kid, and I loved a huge portion of that two cassette tape collection. I just don’t recall learning the names of any of the pieces, beyond Wagner’s The ride of the valkyries, in the hall of the mountain king, flight of the bumblebee bees. Jogging anyone’s memories? I listened to those tapes incessantly when drawing & painting as a kid, young teen. I searched the Time Life website but it only ever lists two songs from each cassette, which doesn’t help me much, as I know there should be 18 – 20 pieces listed at least, if not more.

I remember buying and playing Holst’s The Planets until I was nearly sick to death of it. And Encarta had a short snippet of in the hall of the mountain king that I loved to play on repeat on the daily. Such bright memories! Music is wonderful, wonderous, and so much more. I hope my kids learn to play instruments for fun. It has brought me much joy, as well as frustration, don’t get me wrong. Practicing new songs is challenging, and plateauing sucks. But the skill and intrinsic value is immense. Love it.

Gastric distress. Wah-wah! Awoooga! Winner-winner chicken dinner. Congratulations on the redecorating, didn’t know you were such a Jackson Pollak fan. Try not to etch the porcelain though, that’ll come back to bite you later on.

Calendar says it’s a Saturday today. Supposed to be the meteor shower at night. We haven’t stayed up to get out to see it yet. Perhaps tonight if the rain stops in time, and the cloud cover actually dissipates. Lots of factors lead to a good viewing. Not too bright of a moon No cloud cover, no rain, no high winds, and being up around 3:00am to see a good block of passing meteors. We’ve had some great nights when everyone gets to see a handful, and others were one persons sees one, and the kids get all grumbly & angry. Hard to predict on our end. I’m sure there are those more in tune that could tell us the best time to view the showers, but eh, whatever.

With an upset gut. One of the few times I’m ok seeing the sun rise. Not that I want to be awake before six am, but at least the mess is in the bathroom and not my sheets. Ha! Winning! As far as I can tell the kids are still asleep. Potentially for atleast another hour, perhaps more. I will try to go back to sleep, but this intestinal cramping, bloating, and rumbling may make that a tall order. I don’t think I even ate all that much yesterday, certainly didn’t consume any dairy, so… huh. Not sure what set it off. The stress from a last minute substantial project might have triggered it, but it’s hard to tell. Last few weeks have been emotional & stressful at the same time. Could of been inevitable. The joys of gut health, am I right?

If I recall we might soon be down to a mere three full weeks of summer vacation left. How time flies. Having slightly older kids is great. Still excited for an outing or an activity, but independent enough to occupy their own time for short stints on any given day. I had hoped we could do a few more family outings before school starts up again, but with the scheduled appointments, meetings, dr visits, lunches & dinners planned that could prove a challenging endeavour. Maybe I’ll take the kids to go see the new animated Ninja Turtles movie. Or at least the oldest child. She may get a kick out of that. The youngest is still not too keen on full length feature films. Takes five sittings to watch a single movie with this kid. Bit of an oddity.

Happy Friday though. By all accounts today is in fact Friday. I haven’t completely lost touch with the calendar, though we do, as a family, tend to drift a bit over the summer. Both of my folks worked, so summers were all day camps, or spent at home in front of the tv, feeling like endless years inbetween grades. Not actually the case, but it felt that way. Video games, tv rerun line ups to chew up the restless hours of the midday. Ah… memories. But not my kids, wife is a teacher, so for their lives they’ll have at least one parent home 24/7 all summer long to do stuff with. I work from home part time, so I’m also around a whole lot too. My daughter was complaining about how hard she was trying on a video game she was playing for 45 minute straight on the WII. I laughed, I said when my brother steve and I were little we spent a whole summer in our basement trying to finish a Baldur’s Gate type game on the Atari 1600. Together we put hundreds of hours into that game, and we finished it too. So no, I’m not concerned about your singular 45 minute stretch that did not yield the exact finish you were hoping for. We were too old for camp, and too young to work. The video game sweet spot for the late eighties, and early nineties. I will say this though, the WII is far more interactive than the game we sat still endlessly for. So she’s moving more than I did.

Plus, he says, plus… we didn’t really have any sort of physical media collection when I was a kid. Our house is stacked to the hills with movies, books, and games of all sorts. So we have far more kid friendly stuff to occupy them, than I ever had access to. So not a hardship for them at all. Like – at all.

Is an unpleasant one. I understand how people become jaded, or cynical, even adversarial towards others. It usually stems from helping others in one form or another. No good deed goes unpunished sort of thing. Trying to help others and having it blow up in your face, sort of thing. So yeah. I guess I have to keep on being told, because I keep helping people regardless. Look like a chump in the meantime. Oh well. Don’t help others, or do, I say. Just know that if the intentions behind it can get twisted, or manipulated, in the minds of those who see your actions, it probably will. Can you live with doing good deeds, if it seems terrible from the outside looking in? Tough spot to be in. We know what we wanted out of helping. But the wider world at large had different optics in mind. Such fun.

Thursday. Last day of summer swimming lessons. Best be off and about our day. Ciao Bella.

It’s like being in a whole new country when the wind, rain and low temperatures dissipate to reveal blue skies and warm sunshine. What a day to be alive. Have to find what joy you can in the stuff that is in your midst. Life is short. Too short sometimes. Find peace wherever you can find it.

Has been a busier week than usual. Not surprising since I had to miss a few days at the end of last week. I’ll get progressively more busy as we lead into fall. The summer events have to all happen first, and then we build the reports after all those surveys are done.

Not much to say today. Ciao Bella!

As hectic as an all indoor day can be, they atleast sat still to watch the Super Mario Bros movie in the late afternoon. We did don our rain gear to venture outdoors a few times, but nothing like we’d do on any given sunny summer day. Nobody got hurt (that I know of) and no major fights among the kids. We did swap one child over to a big kid bed which caused a fuss, but that was to be expected. Kids and change go together like fire & ice. Otherwise – all good.

We have officially passed the halfway point of summer break. Five weeks down, with four (mostly) left to go. Almost into double digit days of August. Where does the time go. Some fairly major changes have occurred too. A summer to remember, for all the wrong reasons.

Looking to next week we start having appointments again. Friends to see, and in my case work to be completed. I believe I have four new sizable projects to do for the rest of August, and into early September. I wonder if all my projects will taper off in early November, or if I’ll go full tilt right up to the new year. Difficult to tell at this point. Last year there was a mad dash for events to get some marketing surveys done before the year was out. I have no idea if that was a one off, or if that is usually how things go now. The times, they are a changing.

Soon we’ll need to go and buy new indoor & outdoor shoes for both kids. Backpacks, paper, pencils and markers. Scissors, erasers, rulers and so much more. Glue sticks, and hole punches, white out – oh my! Those “See you in September ” back to school ads will roll out on the television. Radio ads announcing tech & clothing sales will start to dominate the airwaves. Preroll ads for Staples with Howie Mandell chatting to mom’s about backpacks will be unskippable before every children’s video on YouTube. Much to my kids dismay. Tis the season to send our kids back to school. I’ll need to order more masks for the kids since nobody does anything about Covid anymore. Especially not the school. While good hygiene is important, and I appreciate the hand washing focus, cleaner air, and reduced airborne pathogen transmission would be greatly appreciated too. But I digress.

Happy Tuesday.

So much for the holiday Monday, it’s rainy and miserable outside. Kids are going to feel all cooped up indoors if it continues to storm. Blargh.

Finally saw GOTG Vol 3 last night. It was decent. Nothing out of the ordinary though. Music wasn’t the same draw as the first two. But, oh well.