Greatwall Studios Graphic Design

Once a year typically we get to go out together to go see a show, usually a comedian up at Casino Rama. We try to get there early enough to avoid the dinner rush, and to find close to the entrance parking that will allow us to leave the venue promptly once it’s all over. Normally we go between May and October, before the time change, but we lucked out this year, no snow, no heavy rains, not bitterly cold out. It was a very pleasant time. Good seats that weren’t multiple hundreds of dollars a piece. Clear audio, big screens, central lone figure of the stage, well lit. It was great.

We ate dinner at the buffet, and I sampled more food than I probably should have, but I ate a tiny lunch yesterday in order to be able to eat so, so much while there. The food is pretty great for a buffet, and it has so many options you’d be hard done by to eat one of everything they have. Fountain drinks are a tad small, but I guess most folks are there to “drink”, not slurp a soda while they stuff themselves silly prior to a show.

The Casino is bright, clean, and has a bunch of restaurants in it. We don’t bother with reservations so we don’t eat at the other spots on the grounds. The buffet itself suits us to a T. We usually have a bit of free time to wander around the atrium, or look through the gift shop, and watch other people gambling. I like that the washrooms are large, bright, and clean. And that there are several of them all around the casino floor.

The seats in the theater are fairly comfortable. It’s a wide open space, so the stage is never obscured. We’ve sat in the mezzanine before, and in the mid their seats a bit closer to the floor. All of them have been perfectly fine. Prices have always been great for seats at Rama.

It’s a bit of a drive to get to Orillia from our house, but gave us a chance to talk without our children eaves dropping and asking questions about who, or what we are trying to discuss. Which is nice. Very pleasant. Do recommend! Five stars.

We got home after midnight, which is late for us. So I’m tired, and we have a trailer to fill with leaves today from my inlaws front yard. Oh boy! Back, and thighs are going to hurt come Monday that’s for sure. Catch you on the flip side.

As soon as I ordered the three pack of chains for the saw 8 knew deep down in the cockles of my heart that I would manifest some proper paid work for myself, and low & behold, I did, it did, it happened. Report two of three has come in, and I am going to rip right into it, after I complete two small other tasks for a different client.

So no need to fetch gas, mix new fuel, find my appropriately sized saw files, goggles, gloves, boots, and hearing protection today. Maybe for Tuesday of next week. Which, all things considered isn’t too bad. Gives me something to look forward to next week, even with the last PA Day of the year looming on the Friday. I haven’t split wood in like two weeks now. But if I saw things correctly I will have lots to do if I want to!

Then in December I will have one last report for the year to do, unless we get surprised with extra work (which would be awesome) and then I could close out the year on a high note!

Tonight is date night, and we’ve got plans for dinner and a show, and a fair amount of driving to do. Good thing I got the tires done on the van! The summer tires are stowed away safely for next spring. And hark! What’s that you say? No I didn’t totally bone my spine whilst working yesterday. Awesome! I actually remembered not to bend too much at the lower back and to bend at the knees instead, at least some of the time. Building better habits.

Took me a while, about 90 minutes all told to get the old summer tires off, new winter ones on, torque them down correctly, scrape, wash, and bag the summer tires ready for winter storage. So much easier when the seasonal tires are on their own rims. No fussing about with breaking beads, and getting tires over the rims etc… what a nightmare that is. I guess if you have one of those car shop bead breaking machines then it’s just more of an everyday type job. Not so if you are doing it with pry bars, 2 x 4’s, and a sledge hammer. Not fun. Don’t recommend it at all.

But the job is done, so I’m satisfied. It actually stopped raining, and got up to around 6°C so it wasn’t frigid outside getting the tires off. I wore work gloves because even if the air temperature is ok, that doesn’t mean metal items will be too. Working with fat numb fingers is no fun either.

I tried to remember to bend my knees rather than my back, but we’ll see later on if I’ve done a number on my back once again, or if I worked any smarter. A tiny wheely chair would be beneficial too. So would a flat & level driveway, but we get what we get, and we don’t get upset! Ha. The fact that 8 do have a 3 ton jack, matching jack stands (x2), wheel chocks (x2), a breaker bar, torque wrench, and an impact gun with 1150 ft pounds of torque for busting lug nuts is very, very handy. Like I said before if I had generational wealth then a separate heated/cooled shop with a lift in it for vehicle service would be high up on my list, along with a knee mill, metal lathe, and a full sized handsaw, and potentially a saw mill & log splitter at the farm too. I’d be processing wood for furniture builds like a mother fucker if I had all that gear, and the money behind me to use it without having to stop for a paid day job.

I got the Stihl MS170 chainsaw up and running once more yesterday, which is excellent news (so far), as it is nearly twenty years old, or there about. I too dream of upgrading the chainsaw to a bigger engine, and a longer bar. I think a twenty four inches would be ideal. But that’s a whole lot of saw for a little bit of work that I do with trees at the moment. Would help me process the longer thicker items at the farm though.

This year hasn’t been great financially, so I won’t be buying anything major until I get back to earning nearly equal amounts each quarter. Started the year out strong, and then had a dismal second quarter, a bit of a brighter third, and back to a slow fourth. If they were all like the first then I’d have the chainsaw, and the wood splitter too. Or maybe the handsaw!?! I don’t know. Gotta earn money to spend it. I don’t think I’d earn anything worthwhile with the log splitter so I couldn’t supplement the purchase price with paid work utilizing it. So not this year.

It’s not all bad, I did get new metal rack for the garage as a birthday present to myself. I used my visa card points to upgrade my mitre saw, and because I thought the first quarter success would carry over throughout the year (like an idiot) I upgraded my air compressor too. It was needed, my little one was having a real awful time. So I’m not hard done by, I just have my eyes on all sorts of toys!

Big news, well, mild news to anybody who can appreciate a real solid clothing purge. The school is running a coat drive for needy kids, and I was able to unload twelve to fourteen winter coats, jackets, vests, and rain coats. The basement closet, and upstairs Hall closet were the last hold outs for unused, outgrown outer wear. If they will take sweaters too, we can send in about sixty pounds worth of sweaters too. Now we need to revisit the shoes, old boots, snow pants, gloves and such. I’m sure with all these items going out a new bag of items will show up here sometime soon to take its place.

I have three 16″ chainsaw chains coming from Amazon today because I don’t fancy sharpening chains in the cold. This way I can try to process some smaller logs at the farm in the morning, after I drop off the summer tires at the storage unit. Dog gets to chase squirrels for a longer time. I get more exercise, and possible I provide myself with better sized wood to split. I might need to stop off for fuel tomorrow to keep the saw running for an hour or two. No biggy.

Of a sort, for me anyway. I drained all of the garbage premixed fuel from a big box store out of my Stihl ms170 chainsaw, ran some premium gas with Stihl branded oil through it, and after twenty or so pulls got the little mutt running. I let it idle for a couple of minutes, and then sawed some real small limb trimmings, and then let it idle for a few more minutes. So far — it is running, the chain spins, the bar oil oils itself, and the choke & shut off both work a treat. My chain is full as all get out, so I need to spend some time sharpening it, or buy a third and brand new chain, and I can get to sawing up some of those over sized logs at the farm to get me back to chopping in no time. I’m told the wood splits easier in the cold versus the mid fall twenties we had all September and October.

I am very happy about the saw not being seized up (so far), and running without any awful knocking, grinding, whining, or running away out of control. That pre mixed big box fuel is essentially lighter fluid masquerading as pre mixed gasoline. It nearly started a fire in my Echo weed eater, and the saw didn’t gar for it much either. I need to get some trigger parts to repair the Echo weed eater, but it still runs, and works around my yard. Good stuff these name brand tools from the early 2000’s.

Once I get the tires on the van swapped, I can head back to the farm for some splitting & sawing action in the mornings once again. It does not appear as though work will pick up before the winter break, and the holidays. More belt tightening is on the horizon!

Woah Nelly do I stink of gasoline right now. Hand soap stands no chance against this kind of stink. Problem with draining bad gas, and mixing new, and pouring new is that the fumes, and the splashes will get on you real good. Gloves be damned! Not my finest odour to sport about town, but I finally checked on the saw, and now I know for sure it’s not totally fuckered (so far). I foresee a few minutes worth of chain sharpening in my future that’s for certain.

The new van has four key lock lug nuts to deter theft of tire and/or rims, so this adds a little extra time to the task. Plus the underside rails only have four very small, round holes for the jack to go, so I have to wheel the jack around a bunch to make sure I nail that spot dead on, otherwise the door, and surrounding superficial trim will buckle. That’s not good. I have the twelve tonne bottle jack for this type of situation, but I’m not as comfortable with it, as I am the rolling three tonne floor jack. I made a little wooden jig to adapt the floor jack to those holes, so I’ll give that a whirl this go around!

Anyway, I won’t do it until tomorrow or Friday anyway, as I don’t want to be in the rain/snow for 90 minutes while I make my back sore bending over, and wrenching on lug nuts. Thursday and Friday should be sunny, above zero degrees Celsius, and be generally more dry than today. All solid check marks in the “do this task tomorrow” column. I also need to wash these tires and rims before I store them so having slightly warmer temperatures to keep my bucket of water from freezing is a plus!

If I had a whole lot of money, I’d want a separate shop where I could also add a hydraulic lift in to one of the car bays. Would make oil changes, tire changes that much simpler. But then we’d have to buy a whole new house with separate shop in order to do that, so… Unlikely. I’m not all that mechanically inclined, but I’d take all the help I could get if I had a bunch of extra zeros, commas, and such before the decimal place. Dream on! Aaàaaaaahhh! A little Aerosmith for yah bud.

It is Wednesday today. Which doesn’t mean all that much, except 8 know both kids have after school programming tonight. Also means we haven’t gone climbing in two weeks. And I have no split wood since before Halloween, because we had to get the Dahlias bulbs up out of the ground instead. If I don’t get my chainsaw up and running, I will run out of suitable wood to split by hand sooner rather than later. I see a gas powered splitter has gone on sale at Canadian Tire, but I’m not looking to start a new business, so I will not break down and buy it, no sir! Even if it would give me lots to do over the next couple months… No, no. Not going to happen. I’m not making enough this year to spend roughly $1,600.00 on a gas powered tool I can’t tow around myself. No hitch, and no ball on either vehicle. Oh well!

The youngest was making a real stink about not wanting to go to school today. Wouldn’t say why, just that she didn’t want to go. Not ill, not over tired, no tests, quizzes or projects come due. No conflicts between friends, foes, or adversaries to concern herself with. Just adamant that she did not want to go. Sorry babe, you gotta. Education is built on repetition, and being present. Building upon what came before. You start missing pieces and you will end up all the worse off for it.

It snowed way too early this year. Three days in and I’m sick of it. I love how it makes my Christmas lights look on the trees, and house, but otherwise, nah, no more I’m good. Until Christmas Eve that is. Gimme a white Christmas then it can fuck right off.

You know what my issue with Christmas is? We have six weeks of build up, cold weather, even snow and for what!?! Christmas is only four days into the official start of winter. Once it’s done you’re left with 3.5 months of miserable cold conditions, grey bleakness, and a horrid, horrendous, abusive cold. All the lights, fun and pageantry is long gone, and you still have months, plural, left to go of this awful season. Just awful.

Battery went dead while driving, so battery got a boost, and a new alternator put in too. All that left us to do on it was an oil change. So 8 ran over to Canadian Tire for a Frame CH9018 filter, and 5L of Pennzoil high mileage SAE 5W 30. picked up the wrong oil at first, the labels all look identical. I saw 5w 30, and thought 8 grabbed it, snagged the one directly to the right apparently. Got to the car to double check against my instructions and low and behold, wrong oil can. Exchanged it easily enough and got back on the road.

Took the vehicle to the farm to drain, and add in the new oil. Old stuff came out like liquid charcoal. So black! We had it changed at the end of August, the 29th according to my records. So… That’s odd.

Next up was the oil filter and it turns out we do not have a 32 mm socket for the hard to reach and deeply inset filter cover. So I drove it home to check because I did at one point but a docket specifically for oil filters. But that was for the old van. Wrong size. Glad I checked though. Add a 32 mm socket to the list of items we need on hand. So my FIL drove to the mechanics, and asked Bryan to borrow his 32mm socket with extension to get into the hard to reach cavity. Took a bit to get it to come loose, but we got it done. With all the driving, shopping, waiting, draining, fighting with mismatched sockets, we took about 3.5 hours to get this twenty odd minute job done.

But if I get the oil, filter, sockets, and can dispose of the oil in the drum at the farm I can do our own oil changes for less than half the price of Jiffy Lube, or Canadian Tires service centre.

The only reason I did do it myself was because CT is booked solid through November for tire changes due to all of this early snow. Which funnily enough I had previously swapped out my wife’s tires, so she’s all set now that the car is up & running. I have to do the van still. I regret not doing it that same weekend. But it really does my back in with all that bending over, leaning, torquing of the wheels etc… needs to be done soon though now that we have snow of the ground.

Today is Remembrance Day here in Canada & the UK, and Veterans Day in the USA. So things will be quiet about town as some offices are closed to mark the day. Banks get the holiday. My kids school is at capacity for the gymnasium, so families can no longer go and enjoy the assembly, and the children’s poems, and songs. Perhaps for Christmas they will open the school up once more. Who knows?

We have Parent Teacher night conferences coming up next week just before the last PA Day of 2025. I think my kids are likely doing ok. Could improve in a few areas no doubt. So I’m not as worried about them as I could be. We have the youngest in tutoring because Covid really stymied her early education. But after another year or two she should be all caught up to grade level, and that’s all that matters.

I had one other item I was looking to discuss but it has slipped my mind. Otherwise I will say thank you to everyone whom has downloaded a free copy of my two books of collected short stories. I hope you like, some, parts, or all of either one, or both. I am pleased to see I am getting closer to 100 downloads of each as we get closer and closer to years end. You’ve earned my heart just a bit! Thank you.

It wasn’t the doggo whom caused the puddle/leak upon the basement floor, it was the drain line for the furnace humidifier. I must have bumped it when doing all that laundry, dislodging the end from the drain hole, causing it to pour water into the floor under the storage racks where I could not see it, which worked its way under the wall, below the flooring to pool in the middle of the next room. So now that I’ve checked all the window wells, hot water tank, water softener and water pipes, this looks to be the one, and ONLY culprit. Let us hope I have got it sorted out. This is a nuisance, not a tragedy. I can solve for x here without too much to go wrong. Nice!

To my puppers “I’m very sorry I accused you of peeing in the basement”. Seemed very out of turn for our camel based pup. Glad to see I was proven wrong about the pee, and correct about the puppies “Good boy-ness” disposition in general and bladder control more specifically. All good. Extra treat today for breakfast.

It is still snowing. Not ideal. I am not too keen on snow this early in the year, as we haven’t even gotten out of autumn yet. Still several long weeks to go until we actually hit winter. Let us hope this is all gone by late in the day Tuesday, or Wednesday morning. Blah. Hate the snow. Does make out Christmas lights look all the more thematic though. Like I didn’t rush to get them up or anything, whilst they sparkle in the snow! Ha.

I even ventured to take apart the lint trap on the dryer yesterday to suck out all the left over lint, and dust, and crud that accumulates around the screen. I couldn’t get the trap to seat one hundred percent back down into the well, so I undid four screws. Popped the cover open wide, and stuffed the vacuum hose down there. I was killing time before I had to pick up my eldest from a birthday party, so I didn’t get as much of it as I had hoped, but I got a bunch, and the dryness of the clothes coming out seems a bit crisper. That’s a good sign. Increased air flow should mean better dried linens.

Here we are on Monday. I need to vacuum and mop these floors! Yikes. The family tracked in a whole lot of dirt from their Girl guide Camp experience. I knew I saved the floors until later for a reason. I just had an inkling that something like this might go down. Bonus that it’s still snowing so the kids had to wear all their gear to school this morning. Not left on the floor, like their indoor shoes, and extra gloves. A saving grace, if you will.

My wife and I have a date night planned for Friday evening, so I hope that that goes off without a hitch. We will drive to the venue, have a lovely dinner together, then mosey on over to the show, and hopefully be back on the road home a couple of hours later. There and back again in the same evening. Golden! Looking forward to it.

Shame I got so much done this weekend, feel like I wasted it being too productive. I’d feel just as bad had I done nothing at all but scroll on my phone, eat pizza, and watch movies. I’m done outdoors (besides snow shoveling at this current point in time), and the lights look ok, grass is cut, leaves are as good as they are going to get. Got the bricks up out of the farm gardens too. Pulled up some thirty off dead pepper plants, and soon we can pull the tarps up, and store those for the winter too. We pulled up all of the cages for the climbing plants too. Like I said, very productive.

The kids and wife had two more loads of laundry to go through last night. So six in total — holy shit! That’s far too many articles of clothing for three people. Mind you I did run towels through after I mopped the basement floor, SO seven washed & dried loads in a weekend. That’s insane. You know what, I’m going to strip their beds, and wash those sheets now too. Might as well.

Not sure why, he went out just before 11:00 pm when I went to bed. He even followed me downstairs to sleep on me instead of taking an empty child’s bed. He didn’t bark, or scratch, or whine in my ear to go out, just relieved himself in the middle of the basement floor. Glad for vinyl tiles at this point. Between the multiple dogs having peed down here, flooding from snow thaws, and overflowing water softeners the basement floor has seen a whole lot of liquid action over the years. Spent several minutes this morning washing, spray foaming, wiping, and mopping the floor clean. Not my fondest Sunday morning memory.

Family has been away for two consecutive nights, and I am ready for those little noise machines to come back home. I was productive yesterday, a little too productive so the day got away from me, and when I wanted to let loose, I was exhausted, and called it quits by eleven pm. Boo! Boo I say! I was going to do so much nothing. So much of it, instead I walked the dog twice, stacked two pallets of bricks, put up all of our exterior Christmas lights on the house, cleaned the gutters and downspouts inlets, wrapped two trees in lights using a ladder, which was way harder than I was ready for, and took 10X the amount of time I usually devote per tree to get it done. Came inside and did four separate loads of laundry. Tidied up the living room, dining room, and kitchen table tops, and general living areas. Watched Walk Hard the Dewey Cox Story, because I haven’t done so in forever, watched the extended unrated cut while I was at it, had to be nearly 3 hours long. Did all that and not much else, except eat pizza for two meals.

I’ll save my other house work for tomorrow, because today I just want to chill out, and relax before my family comes home to dump all their stuff at the front door, and wander off leaving it there for hours, or days. I didn’t have any visiting guests so the inside of the house is not as clean as it could/should be. I didn’t go on a murderous rampage with a garbage bag, and ruthlessly purge the kids rooms. They are old enough to sort their own shit out now, my little hoarders. Keep all the trash and stuff they can get their tiny little baby hands on. Children. Such fun. So while I was productive, it was aimed mostly outside of the house. I didn’t go on a cleaning binge, which is always easier when nobody else is here.

It is currently snowing. Not a lot, but enough that it is sticking around a little bit. Glad I got to the lawn and leaves when I did, not waiting for Thursday of this week because it was supposed to be warm, and sunny, and above zero degrees Celsius. Never can count on the weather forecast, so I hustled to get the lawn, and leaves, and lights done ahead of schedule. I got impatient and plugged the lights into the timer, and we are officially lit up for the holidays now. It’s been so grey lately, I needed a little illumination pick me up.

The kids have asked about the tree already, so that will likely go up next Saturday. Leaving it for well after Remembrance Day this year. By four days, give or take twelve hours. Feels like an ok compromise. The vets get unfettered attention on their day, and we get to add some sparkle, and colour into our lives for a full six weeks or so pre Christmas Eve, Christmas, Boxing day, and New Year’s Eve.

By January the snow settles in, and all the colour goes away, and we begin the year anew. Fun. I have a habit of taking down the tree and interior decorations on January first. By then I am happy to see it go back to normal, and recoup the floor space. If it were up to the kids they’d likely leave the tree up, and decorated until Valentine’s Day, or beyond! Madness.

Didn’t do quite as much as I had hoped, but!, I did order myself a pizza, walk the dog, watch a movie, be social for two hours after driving friends to & from said social event (a forty first surprise birthday soiree) and then have a warm couch cuddle with my dog. All before heading to bed at the very reasonable hour of 12:30 am.

Now I have gathered up the girls laundry, and started one of three – possibly four loads of washing. I will take the dog for a walk at the farm since we missed that due to car issues, and heavy rains earlier in the week. If it looks reasonable upon our return I might even venture to put up the exterior Christmas Lights, but I promise nothing! Any hint of wind, rain, or other adverse conditions and I’m waiting for Thursday’s somewhat nicer day on the weather network app to do that task.

Besides tidying up around here, and doing laundry, I don’t have any plans. I will definitely watch some movies, and eat pizza, and play my guitar really loudly. But otherwise I am probably going to waste the day doing odd tasks off & on throughout. I shan’t be hyper productive, but I also won’t wake & bake the day away you know. If snow is coming tomorrow, then doing the lights now might be beneficial. Ask me after I go walk the dog for an hour.

As far as being alone for the weekend – I’m fine with it. It is rather pleasant for the first three to six hours, and then the house feels too quiet. Though I have grumbly Ma Ghee here with me (a.k.a the dog) so I’m not totally alone, or free to do as I please.

I pruned some offending branches yesterday afternoon, and cut down some of the dying plants because I always forget to do that sort of thing. Then the snow catches me unaware and I end up having to wait another year to get around to the finer details of the property maintenance. Not so this year! No November travel plans, so I can focus on the yard for a change. I also remembered to grease the AC unit’s fan before covering it off, and I greased all of the exposed hinges on the back screen door. Score!

I spent much of the previous week on a large report. One of three I have left for this year. It’s off for review right now, so I expect Monday to come with edits to make. And then report two will follow quickly on its heels I’d bet. Saving the last for very early December would be my guess. I haven’t looked at the total numbers for the year, but it’s looking to be trending downwards again. Ho-hum. Really shouldn’t go buy the log splitter I’ve been watching that’s just gone on sale then huh. Best to be smart about it! Save those dollars and cents. Save, save, save where you can!

Christmas may be scaled way back this year too. More so than last year, I’m sad to say. The kids don’t really need “things“, so much as clothes that fit properly, and shoes that are the correct size, and snow pants, boots and the like. Everyday important items instead of just toys. This year especially they have both leaned hard into tablet use. Maybe nicer headphones? But neither of them take care of their stuff so not too nice or we’ll get angry when they abuse it carelessly. Plus the oldest has her birthday in December which makes Christmas presents even more difficult because we probably just got her things she needs. Fun times.

Last night I watched Moneyball, a classic baseball film if ever I saw one. My go tos for home viewing are: Scott Pilgrim vs the world, Nick & Nora’s infinite playlist, Accepted, The Onion Movie, Apollo 13, and if it were any closer to Christmas then a whole laundry list of holiday favourites. Those films keep me entertained when I am by myself, without getting too sad, or too manic while I’m home alone. A pleasant even keel.

Have a wonderful Saturday. Chat with you again soon. Ciao Bella!