Greatwall Studios Graphic Design

At the most random times my kids will just shout this statement out loud while playing any game that comes to mind. My guess is they are both watching a lot of twitch stream reaction videos, as “Click the heart, share, to help out the channel” pops up almost as often when their dialogues really get going. Is it sort of adorable? Yeah – a bit. But my feeling is those statements come up on EVERY SINGLE VIDEO, and it is now a mantra they both parrot endlessly. Oh to grow up in the age of YouTube, Twitch Streamers, Reaction videos, and having access to such niche things at your finger tips 24/7. Well, not 24/7 because the tablets go on the charger, and get put away between 9:00pm, and 7:00am. But if they were adults then they could have round the clock content delivery of whatever brand of thing they like.

Friday is here, which means PA Day antics are coming! Did the children, whom hate waking up for school choose to sleep in? Oh no they did not. Yesterday they would have had tears about waking up at this time for class, and yet today they are both up, awake, and hyper as ever. I’m going to wait for the day to get further along before we walk the dog at the farm. I don’t imagine it will get much warmer, but if it goes up by two or three more degrees I’ll be happier about it. My route has grown considerably more muddy as we get deeper into November, and the cold rains sweep across the province.

My paid work is calling out to me, so I best get the kids squared away for a bit while I go and work before we head out to run the dog. May your PA Day activities pan out, and not cost you an arm, and a leg. Ciao Bella.

And… now my house smells like dog. Great. Old dry dog food to be exact. Not the lovely odorlessness of pre-puppy days. The air cleaner is working hard but feels unsuccessful at this point in time. Not a fan of it, the smell that is. I will gather up the dog bed, and any soft chewable toys and will wash those in the next day or two. Will that help? Couldn’t hurt, but I’d be very surprised it is cleared everything up. Also dirty doggy footprints at the back of the house from all of his digging in my garden beds, is making me mad. Silly dirty puppets.

That’s ok. Kids are home tomorrow with the PA Day, so we can all do leaves, walk the dog, and do family stuff for a change. I’m sure they will want to play soccer, or ball hockey if it isn’t raining, or absolutely horrendous outside. Hard to plan ahead when November tends to be so volatile these days. Rain, sleet, heavy winds, warm spell, sun shine, grey & dreary, all in a 48 hour span. Crazy town.

It’s Thursday now, and I’m waiting to hear back about several projects. So I best stay alert, and close by my office. Ciao Bella.

Sure it’s a chance to learn something about yourself, and a skill set you have, but coming to a crossroads where you don’t know how to make a project work beyond that point, is troubling to say the least. Especially if you’ve worked hard to get a project 95% of the way there, but are now stuck on a subjective obstacle that somebody (read paying client) doesn’t feel is where they’d ultimately like it. Tough spot to be in. Uncomfortable. A bit of a bug bear if you will.

Usually I can ram my head & hands against a problem to wrestle it into a useable form, but I’m coming up a bit short. And I don’t know what to do to find that last 5%. Is it ambient light. Bounced light. Texture. Shading, or shadows. The soft focus, or a slight addition of a blur effect. Saturation of the colours… I just don’t know. With the deadline closing I’m not able to test every single permutation to find what gets us to 100. Fun times.

Anyway, it’s Wednesday today, and the kids have yet another PA Day this Friday for me to contend with. Plus the new rock climbing program on Saturday mid day across town in Markham. I guess we could have waited for Friday to put up our Christmas tree. I could have made hot chocolate. Played our holiday playlists. Dressed up in santa hats, you know, the whole nine yards. In all honesty it still would have only taken up 90 minutes of our time, and the kids still got to spend a full hour obsessing over ornament placement on the tree, so it’s not like I robbed them of anything really significant.

We can take the dog for a walk as a family to kill an hour or so. Once we make lunch, watch a movie, and run around outdoors, or rake the last of the leaves the day will mostly be through anyway. I imagine that I’ll have paid work to do, so I can’t be totally absent from my office all day long.

Who knows maybe by some stroke of luck, or inspiration I will tumble across the final 5% that makes everything click into place, and I won’t have to think about this issue any longer this week. Waiting on feedback for the last round of edits. Fingers, and toes crossed for good vibes!

When September rolls around I no longer have wistful dreams of going back to College/University, even though I greatly enjoyed my time at both types of institutions. Second, movies just don’t grab me like they used to. I suppose that is more a factor of aging out of the target demographic, and not really being as interested in the youthful themes being explored. As an add-on to that, I don’t much care about actors the same way anymore. Who they are dating, what they wear, cars they drive, vacations they are taking, pay cheques, on and on, etc, etc… I just do not have the mental bandwidth to care about that stuff anymore. Oh! So and so had a baby outside of their marriage. Ok. This affects me how? Did I think a rich rockstar was deep down a super healthy guy? Most likely, no. I did not think that. Not a part of my family, not a part of my day to day life, I don’t care much after the initial disappointment wears off. Got it?

I don’t know if it’s apathy, or my own children’s lives taking up more of my own thought as we all get older. Or if the Covid infection which introduced a hefty brain fog for days on end has done some very impactful rearranging upstairs. I don’t much know. I don’t believe it to be depression. I’ve been there. I still have interests, and I have the follow through to attack those interests with zeal! But there has been a fundamental shift in my thinking lately. Something foundational to my pop culture consumption has now popped. It all seems kinda deflated. A bright colorful shell with nothing much inside of it.

Books, video games, movies, all of these items no longer hold the attention I once granted them. Toys, model kits, and sculpted projects seem to be drawing less of my attention. I have not had any thoughts about creative short stories in what feels like a very long time. No desire to create a new world somewhere and follow those characters around for a spell. None. Just devoid of those kinds of thoughts. Eerie.

Now, I have started to watch more baseball, and hockey. I still don’t care about the stats portion, or the individual players (backgrounds, injuries, minutes played, where they came up from, which university/college they played in, siblings on other teams) but I enjoy watching the games regardless. They are just names and numbers. Occasionally I can remember those two paired together, and you get an Austin Matthews, or a Mitch Marner, or a John Tavares whom stick in my memory. I don’t believe that I could name more than five or six leafs players with a first & last name. I could toss out a few more last names, but not many. I don’t know who the coach is, GM or Manager at this point. And you know what? I don’t much care either.

I have started reading a few more autobiographies, and books on real life people as of this year. I thought I was going to read a whole lot more this year than I have done. I need to finish my current book, and that should put me at 12 books read for the year. I might be able to sneak in one more if I find a good short book to end December with. But I won’t hold my breath.

I had the children help me put up the Christmas tree yesterday after school. We observed Rememberance Day first, and then swapped our gears for Christmas in a flash. I’m excited! Tree looks nice, and it gave us something to do other than stare at tablets watching YouTube shorts, melting our brains 30 sec at a time. Nice!

Do you know what this means? I was justified in keeping drywall pieces of a decent size for more than ten years in my garage. Vindication! This brief win goes out to everyone whom keeps lengths of wood cut offs, and odds and ends from around the house so that one fine day it will get used, and you don’t have to go and buy new. Now that’s a win! Score.

Also, ever so slightly cleaner garage. So win-win as far as I’m concerned. Yeah buddy. How is your Monday faring so far?

And what could be better, the same person using the drywall came by to grab various lengths of 2×4 cut offs to use as bracing material, so that’s multiple wins in my column today.

Not that we got up to too much stuff yesterday, but I’m tired as all get out today. I went out to watch the Leafs game, where we won – again. Which is real nice. Have to remember these moments once the team hits an away game losing skid that stretches potentially into the double digits, and I start to lose faith. Take the good with the mediocre. Ha.

I had the exact thing which we predicted would happen, actually happen. Once I committed to helping somebody outside of the house just for a few minutes one day early this coming week, I received word of a new large project that I am to start on immediately. Ha. Like clockwork! I guess my skill for rounding up more paid day job gigs is to volunteer outside of the house more often, and I’ll have a steady fourth quarter which might help to even out how quiet this fiscal year has been. It couldn’t possibly save the year, but it would go a fair way towards mitigating the slump. That’s a silver lining that I can get behind alright. Yeah. Positivity. Doing hood things because it makes me feel good. Wholesome energy expression out into the universe. Bask in my warm glow people! Bask in it – dammit.

I thought we were going to have a lazy day watching movies with the kids. But the garlic, she calls out to us. Bellows really. Gotta get next years crop in the ground now before it freezes, if you want scapes, and all new bulbs next year. I don’t think we need to plant 10,000 personally, but it isn’t my circus, and not my monkey. I dig up, water, weed, and pull rocks, I don’t typically plant anything. I do help lay tarps, and set a partial skids worth of bricks to help out though. That is the extent to my helping hands at the farm. I can ferry people about between fields, and move items around. But I’m not much help otherwise. I’m a mover of things, doer of menial tasks at the farm. Busy work that the skilled farmers don’t need to waste their time doing. Split wood, cut grass, move brush. I can do that shit. It’s mindless, and fun. Then I come home to my comfy office and work on my computer with my dog at my feet, and my kids playing in the yard. I like it. Think I’ll keep at it.

Smells like chalk, rubber and sweaty spandex/lycra mixed with concrete forms and dust. Quite the experience my kids will have over the next couple of months. I’ve tried it once, while in Comox B.C. and my forearms felt like bricks the following day because I was grabbing the hand/toe holds too hard because the autobelay system felt too much like falling if it didn’t encounter sudden weight or tension. It’s free flowing when moving slowly. Made me nervous. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. Alas it’s just another hobby to soak up both my time, and my money. I like so many things expenses could just spiral out of control if I tried to do them all. Ha. Such is life. Pick your battles, pick your wagers, pick the things you are willing to pay for.

It’s cold, but that sun sure is bright today. Kids didn’t even pretend to try and sleep in this morning. The dog was barking in my bedroom before seven because he could hear my youngest moving around & talking to herself whilst playing on the tablet. I did not appreciate that at all, not one bit.

Leafs won another big game last night, which is good. I’ll take any wins I get to see on tv. I don’t hold out high hopes for the season, but I’d be lying if I said I don’t harbor any. Who wouldn’t want their home team to finally take it all in an epic win scenario after decades of non-starters, or first round exits. I might even buy myself a jersey this year, if I may be so bold. Depends on whether I have an extra $200.00 just laying around burning a hole in my pocket.

I think the comic book store I used to visit prior to having kids is around here some place. Likely several blocks both south, and east of where I am right now. I thought we’d be closer to the farm, but I don’t really know the ins and outs of Markham city proper very well, or at all really. Not on any deep or meaningful level anyway. To tell you the truth I don’t know Whitchurch-Stouffville all that well either.  Alot of my mental map is still clouded over, hidden like those Diablo maps in the video games.

I’m going to take my turn watching the kids climb soon, so I’ll sign off for now. I hope they are having fun, and making positive memories. Ciao Bella!

Lots of things going on behind the scenes as of late. Never a dull moment when friends of ours are getting divorced, and there are shenanigans afoot. It’s been enlightening to say the least. Eye opening, in a harrowing manner. Yikes. These aren’t the first of our friends to get divorced messily either. I’ve seen it before, but never this close up. I kinda walked into the middle of another divorce already in progress when my oldest child started kindergarten and a best friends parents (whom we eventually began to know more personally) were entrenched in just a ghastly battle. Not for the weak of mind, nor faint of heart. Just brutal.

Here we are into November, and on the anniversary after our big trek into the US this time last year. Hard to believe we managed to spend 41 says in Florida between November and April. We arrived out of an ice storm with sub zero temperatures here, into a heat wave in Tampa Bay, where it was consistently in the nineties Fahrenheit. Talk about melting your brain. Holy cow. That was a massive shock to the system. From freezing rain, into swamp ass temperatures. No amount of SPF shirts, hats, and sun screen was able to stop my neck from charring, cracking, and burning to a crisp. We did just about all we could manage over those 41 days. Key Largo, Key West, Miami, Orlando, Tampa Bay, Clearwater, back and forth, again, and again. I did a shit tonne of driving. We visited Busch Gardens, Adventure Island, SeaWorld, Aquatica, Disney’s Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios, Disney Springs, and also various restaurants, and other such outings. Pools, pools, and more pools to go along with all of the water parks we visited, and a very spectacular beach. Of our first fourteen day trip we spent eleven of them in theme parks, from open until close. It was a weight loss bonanza. Dehydrating too, but all that walking, and swimming did us a world of good. Harnessed the power of direct vitamin D to power through December, January and February.

Not going to lie like our feet, hips, and lower backs weren’t suffering from all of that hot weather walking, and standing in line. The Christmas push had started in all the theme parks we visited that November. It was rather surreal to be sweating so profusely whilst hearing Christmas carols, and seeing magnificent holiday displays, decorated trees, and all the light shows, fireworks etc… shorts and sweat don’t read as Christmas time to me. Florida, and southern countries must have a very different feel to their holiday season, should they observe it. I hate snow after we have it for more than a month, so I’m not opposed to moving someplace warmer that doesn’t get as much all winter long. But with no snow, bitterly cold weather, comes snakes, and bitey bugs that kill. So… there is that to consider.

I just can’t get over the fact it was a year ago. So wild to think about. My how time flies. Not only that, but how much has changed since then! Maybe not directly to us, but around us. What a difference a year makes. In some instances the battles continue even after one party members death. It’s really very upsetting. I can’t believe it’s even true. But I’m sure I’ll know more in the coming months.

Within reasonable standards that is. I just now remembered I wanted to run some things through the wash that I noticed while vacuuming the floors, and just as quickly as I thought of it, I forgot about it, until right now. Back in a sec.

Now I just need to remember to move that washing over to the dryer in about 35 minutes or so. Putting the kids sheets back on their beds would be helpful too. But one step at a time. I have all ready trimmed the dog nails. Clipped one a tad too short which resulted in some blood pooling at the surface. Here I was thinking i was being very conservative with my cuts too. Not trying to limb the tree here, just take an eighth of an inch off the ends. But nope. Still nicked a quick somehow. Poor puppy. He likes the duck bacon though, so I was able to finish without too much fanfare.

Had a big walk already this morning. Worked on some retail stuff that is probing to be like fitting a rectangular peg into a round hole. Taking some effort, time and patience to get it just… right. But I digress.

What else can be said about this Thursday in which we find ourselves situated. I went to bed, and woke up with the same headache. That was fun. The time change hasn’t officially altered my body clock yet. May need another week or longer to get on board with not feeling absolutely wiped by 9:00pm new time. It is far more pleasant to wake up feeling refreshed, than to feel harried, and sluggish. I don’t know if that is a factor of the sun being up as I awake now, or that I’m not getting up until 8:00am old time, which feels like a lie in every more thus far. I’m not mad.

My daughters friend left her cat purse here yesterday afternoon, so I really should go drop that off today, get it out of my hair, and off my mind. Which reminds me, I left my coat at the inlaws last night, because I had planned to walk home, but then had to drive, and forgot my coat which was underneath all of the kids stuff at their front door. I should go run those two errands, and call it a successful morning.

I could try to take on some leaf collection, but I’m nolonger in the mood for that sort of thing. I did somewhere in the vicinity of 12-15 bags over three days previously, so I’m no slouch. I’m just so over it right now. I got the Christmas lights up on the house, and that is giving me a big helping of satisfaction regarding our outdoor situation. If I’m home this weekend I’ll put the patio furniture away, and will call it a day with exterior chores, until the snow comes. Keep on keeping on.

What can I say? Yesterday was lovely and warm, with blue skies, a healthy breeze, and I took advantage of those factors when choosing to put up all of our exterior Christmas lights. I’m glad I took some time on Sunday to check the light strands for dead bulbs, so that I could simply put what I have up without any additional fussing about. Despite tacking on the chore of cleaning the gutters while I was up on the roof top, the whole process went fairly smooth. It still took me nearly two and a half hours, but given how lovely it was outside the puppy and I enjoyed labouring in the sunshine.

I just saw the news (because I was avoiding it) that Donald Trump has been elected president once again. My oh my. That’s a development to wake up to. Jesus.

Had a few steady projects to work on which included Photoshop compositing, among other things. Retail displays and reading die lines has become a larger portion of my day job than I ever thought it would be. It’s pretty cool. I’m no engineer but I can read a die line fairly well. Once you learn the rules between, cut, bend, and removed sections, and what makes up the structural elements.

Took a bit of getting used to, the news out of the US today. I can’t believe it. I honestly can’t.  Is this crazy town? Wildly out of left field here. I wonder if I should have been prepping instead of amassing guitar gear recently. Who knows!?!