Greatwall Studios Graphic Design

Hard to tell what day of the week it actually is! On the bright side I sat down to rewatch The fellowship of the ring, and The two towers yesterday afternoon. Left it a bit late to try a squeeze in The return of the king as well. Not bad though. Went from no LOTR to 2/3 completed. I do not own the extended editions. I know, I know, sacrilege and all that jazz. My wife has the boxed sets but do you think I have ever been able to locate them!?! Not since 2007 have I seen any sight of them. The movies are already long, so I’m not sad that I didn’t add an extra forty minutes of film to the two I have sat down to watch. It was a tight fit to get those two in before midnight. I’m not the goer I used to be otherwise I’d have stayed up until three to complete the trilogy! I don’t have that kind of whimsy anymore.

Seems like the weather has slowed a little bit. Which is nice. We have family to go see, and work to complete at the cottage. I may have work period once we make landfall at the cottage compound. But that’s next week Me’s problem. Today I am focused on getting the dog set up at the inlaws house for the weekend.

I have cleaning to get to, and items to unplug. Ciao Bella!

Boxing day is here, along with higher winds, and some freezing rain, ice pellets, and blowing snow! Such luck. I slept in until almost ten o’clock, but the kids were up early fighting over the new Meta Quest 3 VR headset, much as I knew they would. I have work coming on Monday at some point, for invoices to be filed (that I am aware of) and hopefully nothing big until after January fifth when everything settles back into our usual schedule. I do hope this weather doesn’t persist as we are expected to go to several different locations over the coming days. I’d love for this stuff to settle down, or at least keep the roads clear. We always seem to need to travel when the weather is terrible.

Although the bad weather is really just another layer of the off putting float we experience between Christmas and New Years. Just drifting around aimlessly not knowing what day of the week it is. No schedule to follow. It’s dark when I wake up, and if you blink it’s dark again and yet another day is gone. Very strange time of year. Unsettling even. Not that I want to spend nine hours a day working to guide me through the week, but I guess I should have set up some kind of DIY job, or task to occupy myself a little. I wouldn’t mind watching all three LOTR movies, but that’s an eleven hour task! I can’t focus on hobbits and dwarves, and orcs for that long. I know the stories too well to get lost in the fantasy like that anymore.

I drank a fair bit yesterday afternoon, which mostly contributed to my sleeping in until ten this morning. Not a tonne, but enough for me to notice. I had my wife drive us home. Better safe than sorry! I think if you added up the sparkling wine component of my drinks it might have equalled 1.5 full wine glasses of straight sparkling white wine, but I mixed it with a fruit juice, and Sprite too. Kind of a spritzer, mimosa type thing I enjoy at Christmas and New Years. My parents always called it a Bucks Fizz. Tasty little thing. At 11.5% it’ll get you where you’re headed without too much trouble, especially since they aren’t hard to drink. A lighter mixed drink for those of us who won’t drink straight hard liquor over ice.

This VR headset is going to get broken as I’ve heard both kids punch tables, walls, the fireplace, and door frames with those hand held controllers while inside the helmet. Won’t be long before we have to order new hand held controllers at this rate. Bang… Bang… Ouch… Bang. Not to mention possible broken fingers or busted wrists. Look for us in the ER over the coming weeks!

This year was pretty quiet work wise. I took up both wood splitting, and chainsawing larger logs to soak up some of my free time during the school day hours. I am fully prepared to stick to it this coming year too. I have secured a second PO from another client, so I have the certainty of at least some work in 2026. I know a third client will have two projects coming my way in the heart of the winter. One for late February, and another likely in March. First quarter will look strong, but those PO’s can stretch until June or beyond, so not as formidable as they first appear on January 1st.

Can’t spend it, until I earn it. A major lesson in self control. That’s not a fun lesson to learn early on as a freelancer. Getting out over your skis is a terrible position to put yourself in. Not when you end up working for nothing towards the end because you got greedy and spent the money before you earned it by doing the hours you are contracted for. If you look at the funds as just January, you might think you’re doing a bit of all right! But if you step back and think oh this might have to last until June, or as late as November then it tells a much different story. But with some planning, and a budget, and not having eyes bigger than your wallet, you can manage.

Soon I will begin gathering my 2025 tax information so that I don’t feel rushed come April. I need to calculate my Q3 hst soon anyway, and get that filed for the CRA. Fun times ahead for us all.

This site has done really well for me this year. I have a hard time believing I will continue to see these numbers, and this kind of growth. If I recall the viewers as gone up over 4,600, and I think the unique visitors is over 2,700 as well. The month isn’t done yet, but I don’t think we’ll see a huge crush of people trying to read my archives or download my two free books of collected short stories before the 31st. I’m happy, and kind of impressed with it all. Will be sad to see the counter go back to zero on January 1st, 2026 but perhaps I can spark some type of resurgence or creative drive that boosts engagement here. It’s a possibility rather than a problem.

I still underperformed my reading goals this year, by a wide margin. My eyes going on me, and needing glasses put a damper on my desire to read. I think I will search for large text reading books in the future so that my eyes aren’t the limiting factor. My back log of novels didn’t get touched. I didn’t even read all of the new books I purchased this year. I should get back on that, because I do enjoy reading.

I didn’t sculpt all that much this year, and I only made a small handful of wood projects in 2025 as well.

Starting off the day with opening our stockings, and making breakfast for the inlaws due to arrive in the next ten to fifteen minutes. All the best to you on this, the strangest of days!

Santa was very generous for bringing us the things we need. Lots of tooth brushes, tooth paste, general toiletries and sundries. Also a board game for the kids to play as well, since they love the tic tac toe game at the public library. He’s very thoughtful that way. Bonus that the elf has pissed off for another year! Bye bye lil bastard.

The kids got a saxophone and a meta quest vr headset, so that has kept them busy for much of today. Honking and squeaking scales for a good hour or two. She has ten reeds to go through so we should be ok for a few days or weeks at this point. The saxophone is a beginner version, so not anything too crazy. Still cost me a pretty penny, but not the seven hundred dollars plus that Long & McQuade were asking for their lowest level beginner instrument. Luckily it came undamaged, and can form notes. Blessed.

My wife bought the kids a VR headset, and I got to set that up earlier today. Battery lasts about an hour, with a two to three hour charging time. Will help to limit them from going into la la land for too much over the coming days. We now have gorilla tag, beat saber, and fruit ninja to play on it. I gave fruit ninja a whirl and it seems like fun.

We have finally opened the sparkling wine and fruit juices, so I’m all set to get day drunk and eat until it’s time for bed! Ha. Expect nothing else from me today please and thank you. I sent out all of my well wishes this morning to get them out of the way. I need to do nothing else today, and I’m more than ok with it.

Peace out homies.

Ba dum tiss! Work has been suspended until January 5th unless there is a priority one, triple time charged, explosive emergency that absolutely HAS to be taken care of before the kids go back to school. Otherwise I can crack open a beverage at just about any point in the day free of guilt, provided I don’t have to drive anywhere, or be singularly responsible for any children. What else is new?

Tonight we say good bye to the Elf for another year, thankfully. That’s a nightly stressor I will be glad to see the back of once again. I’m still mad my inlaws introduced our kids to it, since the onus is on us to do the performative Elf skits 24 nights in a row. If they did it at their house I wouldn’t even care, but I have to do it, and that bugs the shit out of me. God damn Elf on the shelf nonsense.

Had a random dream last night that my phone got pick pocketed in Europe last night, and I asked Tom Cruise (who was there randomly) if he knew anything about it, he told me I was foolish for having my real phone on me, that I should just get a cheap burner phone when in Europe, but when I got back to my hotel room the phone was there waiting on the charger. But the security lock down procedure was in place, and I had to log back in using security codes… It was very odd.

Merry Christmas everybody. Take care out there.

I do not have a large enough Lysol wipes stock pile to keep us all from catching these colds, sore throats, fevers and such. We did get Flu shots but stand little chance against all of these accumulated bugs that we are currently seeing. I hope that we settle out a little otherwise we are going to have to postpone Christmas, and possibly scuttle all travel plans, and external family visits if we can’t contain what is currently plaguing our household. That’s where we are with two days to go until the big day itself arrives.  I for one know that the kids are excited for the Holidays and getting together with everyone, but it is looking less, and less likely with each spike in temperature, and an assurance that one, or all of the rest of us (likely me) will pick this up shortly after my youngest starts to feel better. Compromised immune system to the starting blocks please!

I recently sat down to rewatch Deep Water Horizon, and Limitless the last few days, and I miss those mid tier movies being available in theaters. Both are good in their own right. Not exceptional, but good through and through. I think I have seen the least amount of new media this year, ever in my life. Fewest movie theater visits since Covid that is. It’s kind of crazy to think that what was a huge part of my life has just withered and died off. Partially because sound design is terrible and I can’t hear people talk, and I prefer closed captioning now. Also not much has come out that I’d care to see. Nuremberg was out for three days and gone. I think I would have liked that a good deal.

I’m now out of the Marvel demographic so that sort of thing doesn’t ring my bell. Too many consecutive disappointments. I have little faith in the Marvel umbrella. Should have stopped at End Game and that would have made their legacy untouchable. Instead we got dog shit film, after poor CGI render, after filler content, in a near constant stream of emptiness. Star Wars had Andor seasons one and Two, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Our blue box program ends this week, goes on hiatus next week, then picks up with the new gigantic wheeled carts in the new year. I will have to tear apart my garbage box on the front porch to make room for the apartment sized, tiny home looking blue bin we have to use from here on out. Should be an absolute riot!

Vent covers, electrical box cover, replenishing wire nuts, and buying and using more hangers to keep the power hugged close to the wall and ceiling so it can’t be bumped, tugged on, or pulled. Nothing major so I feel comfortable doing it. I did end up buying two 2″ PVC pipe caps, one to go indoors and one for the exterior. Inside one slipped on with a nice pressure fit, no problem there. My issue is the exterior already has an elbow on it with a wire mesh insert, so the cap I have will not fit over that wider elbow piece. I am loathe to cut it off incase the length of the exterior pipe is governed by a bylaw or building code, and messing with it will only cause me issues in the future. I could likely silicone a metal plate over it and call it a day at some point in the spring. I didn’t see any 2.25″ caps, or 2.5″ caps, so I’ll just make do with the interior cap for now. No harm done. It was $3.00 for the cap, so I don’t need to rush back to return it. That’s a blessing in and of itself.

I picked up some larger pliers and side cutters while I was out since my tiny ones made the wiring job so much more difficult. I personally don’t touch wiring in the house, at all. Too high of a potential for burning the house down. I did however wire in the smoke/carbon monoxide sensors which worked out pretty well, but all I had to do there was join a red to a red, and a black to a black with wire nuts, and the job was done. Nothing to it. But typically I wouldn’t touch any of it. I’ve needed to swap out a light switch in my wife’s bedroom but haven’t done so because it makes me nervous. Our electrical panel isn’t marked very well from the initial install when the house was built, so finding the correct zone means going through and shutting every switch off and on until we find the correct one. That’s annoying, time consuming, and I don’t feel like testing them all. It would be beneficial at some point to identify what they all do and mark the box accordingly, but not today. Not while everyone is home, and my wife’s in a bad mood already.

Speaking of which my youngest has come down with a fever, which means tears to the uninitiated. Also means my wife’s plans for the afternoon have been scuttled, making her even more angry. Fun-fun. That’s also why I’m tying off loose ends so there are fewer items to set her off. I have managed to convince my youngest to try some pain/fever relief medication, so I hope that helps to cool her down, and brighten her spirits. We had three flavours to choose from, so she had some input into what was used. Fingers crossed.

Soon enough this cough is going to add a runny nose, and then likely a fever, with some chills and hot flashes thrown in for good measure, I just know it deep down in my bones. I can feel it. I can sense it brewing deep down inside me right now, as we speak. I for one am not here for it! I don’t care for the way this shit plays out every single time. The way stuff passes from chest to head to throat to nose to chest to head, round and round it goes until 8 can finally fight it off. Every illness takes just that much more effort and time to defeat. I’m not happy the kids brought this home, and into my life once again.

We did go get our flu shots, but I fear we waited too long and the requisite two weeks lead time to build up the antibodies will not have passed as I am sick already before five full days have passed since the inoculations. I took a seventh round of Covid shit too. That Moderns was always kind of a rough ride. The Pfizer was the softest of them all, it barely affected me. I was hoping for Pfizer, but got the Moderns which kicked my butt for 48 hours straight.

Christmas is getting close enough to taste at this point. Shopping now would be a nightmare. I hope you are all finished wrapping, and shopping so that you might enjoy a couple of days of rest, and relaxation. I wish you all well! Take care out there. Don’t forget you can download both of my books here for Free if you’re interested.

Had to drain the tank again yesterday. But we had a new shut off valve installed so the back fill from the cold water side would not happen again. Nice. We are moving from natural gas to electric this time, but keeping the hookups for gas because it’s here, and might as well keep them. It’s great to have trained professionals to do this stuff so I don’t get blown up!

I got the old tank up the basement stairs and outside next to the garage. The new tank is slightly shorter, so it looks to be a hair thinner too. Takes up less room is what I’m driving at here. I have washed all of the towels for a third time because tipping the old unit dumped a fair bit of brackish water all over the floor, and stairs too.

Just waiting for the unit to get hard wired in to an existing 240 volt box from an old dryer. Otherwise I have purged the air from the system by opening all of the hot water taps. All bar two I guess. The basement bathroom hot water taps is shut off at the valve below the sink because it leaks out of the faucet. Has done so with three faucet replacements, so I just turned off the hot water rather than hear a constant drop, no matter which faucet it has been replaced with. That’s a different story for another time. Also I did not run the basement shower, so I might get some sputtering from that once I use it after the wiring gets done, and we have hot water again.

We’ve had to bathe at the inlaws for the last two days, which isn’t ideal, but could be a whole lot worse if they didn’t live so close by. We’ve made do. Not really an issue at this point.

I did not have a new hot water tank on the bingo card, as we suspected the refrigerator, Air Conditioner, or my wife’s car if I’m being honest. Luckily this was about $700 plus tax, so not great, but not terrible either. Just waiting to hear what the labour costs will be for the installation.

It is Saturday, and school is done until January. I officially have a cough so that’s cool. Sore throat comes and goes depending on the severity of the coughing fits. I am likely to keep this well into January or February with it only getting much, much worse before it gets better. Thanks autoimmune diseases! Wanna see a party trick of how much worse my body can make a common cough? Let’s just wait and see shall we?

For those of you playing the home game, yesterday morning we discovered that our water heater had sprung a leak overnight, leaving a pretty decently sized puddle in the middle of our basement floor. But we didn’t know it was the water heater at first, because the puddle seemed to emanate from between the water softener (which was notorious for breaking down whilst being essentially brand new) and the water heater (which up to this point had never given us any trouble as it got closer to being twenty years old). I had to dry the floors enough to be able to watch for where new water was coming from. Eventually it became apparent that the leak was from the hot water tank. So I had to shut it off, and unplug it. Shut off the gas line to it. Shut off the cold water inlet valve at the top of the tank, and then continue to mop up as we waited for the scalding hot water, inside an insulated tank cooled down enough to be drained. The 80 litre tank took quite some time to cool down. Then at 7:00 pm, when I was tired of the constant mopping, Shammi wringing, bucket emptying, and washing & drying of twenty odd towels I grabbed two containers, opened the drain plug, and then proceeded to hot swap my buckets while I emptied the tank. I put a good deal of water on the laundry room floor with the hot swaps, but less so than having 80 litres slowly dribbling out of the tank over several days. It never completely drained because, (as I was informed) by someone more in the know of mechanical things, due to how the tank had likely broken, the cold side was rushing back in due to lack of pressure and was refilling the tank for the pipes in the house. So it may very well refill and need to be drained again when the repair people come on Saturday to replace the unit.

Now my hands are cracked and dry from playing in the water all day yesterday. My back aches from all the bending and lifting full buckets of brackish water, and my cough/sore throat has made a bid for revitalization on my behalf. But, in other news I completed some last minute edits for a client report, and started two new jobs for a different client, and! Here’s the big news, I was finally paid by another client that had had some internal personnel issues leading to the mix up / miscommunication. It’s been remedied, all good now! Perfecto!

I do need to keep an eye on the floors, because of the tank is indeed refilling I don’t want to be surprised by another massive pool of dirty water in the middle of my basement. So I checked it early this morning, and I will do so again in a moment. This house likes to keep us on our toes. Home ownership is not for the weak of heart! It’s not an asset, it’s a liability!

Also, hey man it’s Friday! The last day of school for 2025. One of my last days of work before the new year too. I am making myself available early next week, and then ducking out until everybody goes back in January. I suppose if a world ending request comes in I can work, if it’s super-duper important, but usually these liminal days between Christmas and New Years are empty, and not really all that important. Most commercial print shops and suppliers have closed down for the Holidays, so nothing to rush about for.

Have a great Holiday season. Take care out there. Singapore, Germany, the US I see you all here reading the archives, a special nod to you all for your eyeballs, and site visits! Thank you. Download my books! They’re free, and you can read them on your devices as a PDF with no restrictions. It’s all good baby – yeah!

We either have an overflowing water softener once again, or the water heater has sprung a leak. Because it happened over night, and isn’t like a tonne of water, I think it’s the softener personally, but I know very little mechanical wise, so I’ve opted for a more seasoned opinion, due to arrive at some point today. If it’s the softener it won’t happen again for several days because it only runs once or twice a week at most. Maybe the drain line is blocked with salt crystals or hard water minerals or something, I don’t know. Fun, fun, fun around here that’s for certain.

Happy Thursday before winter break 2025 starts! Booyah.

**Editor’s note: We have discovered that it is in fact the Water Heater that has sprung a leak. A fairly substantial one at that. So we have shut off the power to the unit. Switched off the water inlet. And drained some hot water by running the taps down to cold. Still there is a non trivial amount dribbling out of the bottom. Enough to soak through five shammies, six full sized towels, a youth poncho style towel, and a dozen or more hand towels. I have mopped several times, and the fresh dribbles continue to flow. I will have a cycle of towels to wash, dry. And reuse to attempt to keep the floors from becoming overly saturated. I seem to have split a knuckle during my endeavours, and I’m not sure when I did that today.

The water goes under the vinyl tiles and out into the main living space of the basement to pool there. So I will have the dehumidifier running non stop to help me soak all this back up. I hope that by turning off the cold water supply that it will not continue to fill, and it will at some point actually be empty. We currently have no hot water. Showers at Grandma’s house until we get this fixed, or repaired/replaced with a new one.

I’m actually glad that I took down the train table, and put the Lego bricks into its own tote bin, because I now have more room in which to mop, and attack this water leak where it will eventually pool once it’s done running under the vinyl tiles. Fewer bits to worry about rotting or developing mould. This has been a day! Good grief.