Category: Uncategorized

It took quite some doing but I managed to get the new Husky 90″ by 90″ five shelf metal rack all set up and repopulated with stuff. This doesn’t show all of the carnage left to take care of at the front of my garage space. I have cardboard boxes full of cut offs, as well as a substantial pile of garbage lumber with nails in it stacked right by the door too. Not to mention two massive pedestal table legs that need to go, and a kids kitchen play set I’d like to take to the cottage for my niece & nephew. The space still feels cramped and hemmed in because of all this poor quality lumber & cut offs.

I have an old car seat, a busted stroller, and some really old tech to toss at some point too, which will help to open up some space on the shelves. I’m not sold on the garbage can location next to my ladder (which is too big really, but it’s what I’ve got). I could probably re-sort my smaller wood pieces and get rid of a few bits there if I felt like it.

I had high hopes for getting all of my construction lumber, and my good quality furniture lumber to fit between the wall and the new rack, but I have a little too much for that to work right now. If I could get an entire truck bed load to myself to go north with, I’d toss some beams, and cruddy construction lumber away too. If I do away with all my pre-used 2×4’s and cement covered 2×6’s, I most likely could put my furniture quality lumber right at the very back. I know it should be stored lying down so as to not buckle, bulge, but I have the space I have, no more, and it can always be less. It’s not ideal right this second, but if I pick away at it, I’ll make it as optimal as I can over time. That’s progress.

So, in conclusion I still have a number of things left to do, but on the whole this is a massive step forward. The lighting is so much better back there by my bench with this upgrade too. Stay tuned to see the finer details take shape as I continue to fix the space up a bit over the coming spring. Noice!

Man oh man I miss going out dancing. It used to be so much fun, the atmosphere, the music, the drinks. So fun. Now I’m old, with little kids, and these knees and hips don’t shimmy like they used to. I have been twice in the last two years which is a better record than the seven or so years before that. When I worked in person for marketing teams our annual sales gatherings usually ended in late nights & dancing, so I miss that element too. Can’t say much for the new music, but when we got down in the late 90’s, and early aughts it was a real riot out on the dance floor. Glorious.

I don’t miss the drinking, or the after effects of drinking, but I do miss going out with a large group of friends and cutting a rug for four or five hours on a Friday or Saturday night. Eventually that morphed into pub crawl Wednesday’s, or tacking on a Thursday just because you were in the groove. Ah youth. And hip flexion flexibility.

They played some golden oldies last night which got me out on the dance floor briefly, singing my heart out. Did I mention the music was loud, so no harm of anybody hearing me either. Nice! It was exhausting but fun. Home to bed by midnight, a truly wonderful evening. My wife came for the first half too, which made the whole night even better. Finding a baby sitter has been a real godsend. Finally able to enjoy our company on outings once again. Been a long ten years.

A few weeks ago, before I went on vacation, I took the time on a Sunday to tear down some shifty looking wooden racking at the back of my garage. It was hastily erected by the previous owner/Tennant and it was making me nervous to work under. So four hours later I had the shelves emptied, and all the plywood & two by fours, and old unfastened posts disassembled and on the floor. My pile to go north to burn has grown considerably. But! The new 90″ by 90″ five shelf rack has been built and I may have miscalculated a little bit. Oops.

Mind you the space is cleaner, I did regain open floor space, and I managed to get 95% of what I needed put up and away onto it. I have several hours of fine tuning to do to it all though. I’m not certain that how I have things arranged are the best they could be. I knew going in I just had to block stuff out and then revisit to clean up, and optimize the space. The hard part is done. Fine tuning can happen over the preceding weeks or months. I’m not too concerned.

I would like to reorganize my wood selections a bit better too. That’s a heavy job with a lot of lifting, so I need to think that through first, as I don’t wish to brute force it, and wind up doing it three or four times before I get it right.

I managed to cut down all of the cardboard into manageable pieces that the recycling guys will take away. I need to fill a garbage back with dust & debris to go out next week too. So after all is said and done the shop is a little cleaner, and I need to find a way to store a few more long tools, and I’m all set. Nice.

It was a big task to undertake, and I’m glad that the bulk of the job is done. Fine tuning in a semi heated shop should be a far more pleasant experience moving forward. I have my larger heater, and fuel, and batteries now. Ready to heat the space to a more reasonable temperature. The old wreck of a rack was torn down, and is no longer an eyesore to look at every time I go into the garage. I swept the floors that hadn’t been touched in more than a decade. And I have open air space above my work bench for longer pieces of wood to not snag, and I have more open floor to walk around in too. It does come with the drawback of being different, and requiring a better storage/wood management system, but I’m good with positive changes like that. If I need to purge a little bit more, so be it! Once I get those off cuts up north to be burned it will feel like a whole new maximized space to work in! Glorious. And a long time coming too.

I thought that it would for sure take me until April to start this project, and here I am, not even March yet, and I can start the fine tuning portion. Amazing! Really — it is. I hate having a big project on my mind weighing down on my shoulders. Get into it, make some headway. It doesn’t have to be CO.pleted in a day, but if you put in the hours, you will get someplace better. And for me, that was replacing those wonky donkey wooden racks. They were so unsafe. So very unsafe. I trusted them well beyond what I should have. So unbelievably unsafe to work around, under, or on. Yikes. But not anymore! I’ll take a picture once I get things sorted out a bit more.

Ciao Bella!

So much snow to deal with, and a lot of work to go along with it. Thankfully I was only away for a weeks worth of time (roughly speaking) so I’m not entirely buried under work like we are all this snow. But don’t forget about the cold! Oh yeah , while we were acclimating to sunny weather in the low thirties, we came home to freezing temperatures close to minus twenty, that’s fifty degrees of change. Too much! That is too large a temperature variance for the human body to enjoy. One day I’m slathered in sun screen trying not to dehydrate, the next I just can’t stay warm enough to shovel sixteen plus inches of snow off my front walkway. It’s nuts.

So we will either get more snow next week as we get closer to March, and the first day of spring, or it will begin to rain, and flood the streets like crazy, then freeze each night locking us in deep-deep inches of ice. Canadian weather is not for the weak of heart. All that shoveling, and ice picking will do you in if you aren’t in half way decent shape. It’s my nightmare.

Made it to Friday morning. Even with all of our flight troubles, the delays, the push backs, the missing grounds crew, the medical emergency call, the turbulence, the extremely late landing time, we made it home safe and sound, with our plane right side up, and not engulfed in flames. I’m not a nervous flyer but this weeks deluge of fires, crashes, and flips, and major turbulence episodes made me stop & think once or twice about stepping onto an airplane ever again.

I don’t know if it’s knock on effects from Covid brain damages, or under staffing, or a lax maintenance schedule but these planes be dropping in numbers recently, and the old adage of air travel being safer than cars is starting to look, and feel, out dated. Could be that with phones we are just seeing more of the whoopsie daisies on social media, but I have seen a lot these last couple days. Like a lot, a lot. You know what I mean? Could just be people capitalizing on the algorithms by posting old plane fires, crashes, bird strikes, and open doors mid flight to make money off of it all. I don’t know. I’m just seeing a lot of it on my feeds lately. Fun times. Doom scrolling indeed.

But now we are back on Terra Firma with a few projects to complete, and various social things to do this weekend. Rock climbing, belt testing, three birthdays at one bash! And whatever else happens on Sunday.

Oh yeah , I saw the Canada vs USA hockey game last night. The Four Nations finals with the NHL. It was a doozey! We won, with an overtime goal by Connor McDavid #97 himself. It was an epic way to counter their loss to the US a game or two ago. BAM! How do you like them apples, Boston!

Snow, so much damn snow it feels claustrophobic. Piles up past my hips. Chest high banks lining the streets. Fifteen footers in the parking lots, and behind my kids school. It’s everywhere with more on the way. Yuck.

Got home just after five am with little to no traffic on the road out of the airport, big props to my brother in law for grabbing us at such an ungodly hour. Delays upon delays pushed us well back into the wee morning hours. Then the oldest smoke detector we have chose last night to have a meltdown. Lovely. I woke up around 7:30am in a panic for some reason. Oh I don’t know, lots of plane crashes lately, and a roof top landing the day before we were set to leave.

It’s cold as all balls here, and yesterday we were fighting off sun burns in 85°F weather off the coast of Key Largo in some modest waves. Made me feel rather ill. But that’s ocean side baby! We got some fishing in, along with visiting smaller keys, and drinking. Had a manatee encounter which was most excellent. Saw three dolphins in the bay, and then saw two more much smaller manatees in the canals. Yay!

I’m exhausted, and I still have alot of work to do. The kids were a mess in the airport last night/this morning so no school for them today. I have had some time to shovel the back patio, and widen our front walk path, and clear around the garage & car. Still have loads to do on that front also. I pray we get no more snow for a few weeks atleast. My back & shoulders need a reprieve from this most recent dumping.

Pretty sure it is Wednesday right now, but I might have lost a day somewhere in transit. Pretty turbulent flight last night too, though not the worst one I’ve experienced. Thankfully. Anywho, back to work after I finish my lunch.

Flight delayed nearly three hours, no gate grounds crew when we land, somebody called medical so we can not deplane until further notice. It is now ten to four am. This is fucked. Exhausted.

Nuf said.

No worries about a drought when I’m around, I can bring the rains out of the wood work if there’s a chance it could ruin my plans whilst on vacation. Ha. Atleast I’m doing my part to keep the grass green, and the water cisterns partially filled. Party on Wayne, party on Garth.

Nothing quite like waking up knowing I have eight or more inches of snow removal waiting on me. Can’t say I’m too pleased about that. I don’t have a heated driveway, nor a flame thrower so back breaking labour it is then! Fun times.