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Tag: thoughts

Day 95!

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I realize as I write this that we are NOT 95 days into the new year (2022). As I started the writing streak early on in the winter break as I was getting antsy with how few posts I had made in 2021, compared to 2020. And I thought I could goose the numbers with a slew of posts late in the year. A real procrastinators move. Not that I thought I could publish a years worth of content, stories and nonsense in two weeks, but I gave it the old college try anyway. And then I just kept on going. At first I was thinking that if I hit a twenty one day streak, I’d be happy, then it was fifty days, then seventy five, and now that I’m close to one hundred, I think I’ll keep going regardless. I like the habit of taking a break in the day, or morning to write a quick post. Sometimes funny, sometimes absurd, and sometimes I will touch off on a rant, or explore my options on the creative writing front. I enjoy it. Getting the short daily post out tends to prime my brain for more complex thinking, and I can hone in on a new chapter. I am sure the streak will end on an innocuous note, as I just forget to post on a busy day, and go back to day one. I’ll either be kicking myself, or I will not give a shit. 50/50 it goes either way. In the meantime, I’m a few days from hitting one hundred. This is the best year my blog has ever had for views, eyeballs and traffic in general. I tried to turn off ads, but I have to upgrade beyond my current upgrade for the option, and I’m not interested in more money leaving my account. But you with the Ad Blockers, you do you. I don’t care. In the near decade I’ve run this site I’ve made 5 cents off of ads, so it’s not exactly taking food out of my kids mouths, so – yeah.

On the story front – What have we learned so far? The Company has seemingly cured 4000 troops via a Nanotech software upgrade. UB313 and the evil Doctor have several weapons and hidden tricks ready and waiting for the approaching company fleet. The somewhat Alien ship ‘K’, and its ambulatory spokesperson Katayna have come out of their data processing hang up, but can’t view their sensor data logs in chronological order. Have found several items of note, some are random, others are just plain strange like the discovery of plans and out going messages regarding a trans-dimensional For E’s engine. Racquelle is alive and well, though she ate desiccated human remains she found, unknowingly, and was not aware a war had started between her evil doctor boss and The Company as a whole. Learning out of the blue that a flotilla of large ships were a few weeks away from Pluto/Charon’s orbit, with vengeance on their minds.

So all out war is coming, and things are looking perilous for all involved. Stay tuned and follow along, as we finish the last chunk of Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

Everybody loves you when you’re 93.

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It’s all sit down, don’t lift that, enjoy a toffy, don’t get up, I’ll fetch you some tea, why are you doing that, go sit down! Ah, life is pretty mellow when you reach the nineties. Scratching names off of lists, because you’ve outlived yet another person you know. Marvelling at the next big craze going around in fashion, dance and entertainment. Feeling lost in the transition between VHS, DVD, BLURAY, and now cloud media, you don’t actually own, but rent access to. A shame to have spent the last two years plus in lock down and isolation, but the current illness of our times has not been kind to your peer group. If you are lucky enough to get visitors, it’s been waves through a window, and pantomimed questions from behind doors, and shouted answers through glass. If you are one of the more technically inclined ninety year old, perhaps you did more face time this year than your whole life before it. Strange times indeed.

My John Scalzi book arrived, and my Expanse series of collected short works/novellas are arriving later today! Reading is back on the menu boys and girls! I for one am pumped.

Here’s one of the bigger trees we had to take down the other day.

Took a few hours to clear up.

Do you celebrate this, the holiest of days? It’s tree chopping day here at the ranch!

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It does what it says on the tin. All hands on deck for chopping down three large problematic trees here on the grounds. They are dying, dead or dangerous to be under. Safety gear abounds. Chainsaws have had blades sharpened. Axes at the ready. Ropes and pulleys and come alongs are at hand. It’s a great day of the year. I will pray for you and your kin. Take the utmost care. Peace be with ye. And also with you.

Update: the fourth man is an hour late in getting here so much of the work has ground to a halt. A more involved breakfast was proposed, and we are following through with that course of action.

Work notification is turned on for the tree work, and the rest period required afterward. I will be back to paid work tomorrow. If my hands aren’t too tired perhaps I will tackle a new chapter today aswell. Possible. Potentially. Maybe.

Monday’s back, back again, look who’s back, it’s chicka chicka chicka Slim-Monday.

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The sun is shiny, and the ice is icy, and the kids are off school and in need of something to keep them occupied. The time change meant they slept in for a change, but only just. This is the time of year where I wish we had more disposable income, to take the kids skiing down hill and cross country, go play tennis some place, or soccer, go to a movie, or indoor play ground, or go to a beach somewhere. But, Covid is still a bigger issue than earnings being down for the second year in a row, you know, because Covid, once again.

Finally managed to write some new chapters. Mostly because I have a large project on the go, and wanted to rest my wrists, and I had a flash of inspiration that hit. I can see the end drawing near, which is nice. I have some thoughts on how to pull everything together. The direction had eluded me, but I think I see a way to do it sensibly. Yay! I have a little ways to go in order to get the pieces where I need them, but it shouldn’t be a slog to do so. I think that after I finish writing book two, and then complete editing, I may pull book one from Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited, in favour of just having it sit on my site in pieces. I would gladly send anyone both completed pdf’s, but I don’t believe anyone will buy either book. I have a year of sales data to prove my thinking. It was a goal to write a book, publish it, and sell at least one copy, all of which I have done. So bully for me.

How are your 2022 projects coming along? Did you keep up with your resolutions or wishes for the year? I don’t know for how long I will continue my writing streak, but I’m glad I’ve gone as long as I have. I started a sculpting project recently, so I’m happy about that.

I don’t know about that.

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I try not to get too invested in the statistics associated with either my blog posts or my creative writing series, but it really is a crap shoot for what will get any attention, and what will flounder with one single, individual view. I can not find a rhyme nor reason as to what draws people’s attention and what doesn’t. I have had to make a concerted effort to not pander to topics that catch on (in regards to what I would consider to be a good viewing day) vs. Stuff I enjoy writing, or feel like blathering on about daily. In all honesty I don’t write for the views, I’m writing because I made a decision to do a little of it every single day, regardless of quality nor the contents of each post.

I like to discuss family, working as a freelance graphic designer, home DIY projects, sculpting, woodworking and being a stay at home, part time working dad. Followed up by chaotic absurdism, or achingly real melancholy. With no real content strategy. Would I enjoy tens of thousands of views and a potential short story writing career? Yeah sure, awesome. But I’m not currently building towards more work in my life, rather having a fun and fulfilling creative outlet. My goal was the try to reach a cumulative 100,000 words, using the 59,000 word head start from 2020/2021. That feels like an obtainable goal for me.

I also want to sculpt more this year, and do more furniture restoration, or building. I have my eye on some shop infrastructure projects to better utilize the space, and to make setting up for milling my own lumber just a bit easier. Wheeled cart, wall hanging cubby for nail guns and pin nailers and charging hand tools, as well as a peg board for exposed tool. Mixed in there will be a live edge water fall coffee table, and any dressers or tables I tackle refinishing this year.

Our farm has a smallish metal trailer that needs tending too, as once we have to start watering crops by hand, a wheeled trailer i can put a rain barrel with hose in would help immensely. I need to strip off the rust, bang out some dents and twists, reform the tongue portion on the trailer, sand and paint it all. Will be a loud project with all the hammering needed, but could be a lot of fun.

Oh yeah, the front door needs to come off again, get sanded once more, primed this time around, then repainted properly. Took me half a day last time I did it, several years ago.

One of the next steps for exterior house work is adding a rain barrel under one down spout, with a hose attachment point, and a shut off valve for that hose. Then, in the near future, I want to add some solar panels to the roof, so that we have energy saved up when we get those summer time rolling black outs, due to aging infrastructure, and our local population being too dense and heavy for the amount of power our town has available. I think a portable generator would not go amiss either. Losing the contents of our fridge over the summer power outages is getting to be a real threat.

Eighty six bottles of beer on the wall, eighty six bottles of beer…

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You take one down and pass it around now everyone’s in on the felony charge. Misery loves Company, but the inmate game loves a rat.

Thursday! Can you believe it? What a week this day has been huh? Wow. So they’re gonna drop mask mandates every where eh? Including in the entirely unvaccinated kindergarten class rooms and day care centers. Whose bright fucking idea was this? Gods be damned idiots run this province I tell you. Idiots, of a low class caliber. So now what? I gotta make my wife and kids sleep outside because my immune system isn’t up to snuff? Odds being what they are, I’ll have to be the one to move into my own private bubble, with the med’s, and the chronic illness, and the lingering, compounding sickness it brings with it. Triple vaxed or not, I don’t want COVID-19 in this house, for any members of my family. What’s a guy to do, eh? Sweet Cheese & Rice! Motherfucker.

So I had ordered the new Spiderman movie, originally slated to be out on March 15th, now bumped back to April 12th. My new book arrives next week, so it’s been a book less couple weeks. I tried to start another book, but my hearts not in it, so it’ll have to wait until I am done with John Scalzi’s new monster book. Looking forward to it, don’t cha know!

Almost Friday, then the weekend, and then kids are home bound for the March Break week. I forsee some zoo trips, skating, tobogganing (if we hit a temp trough, and not a heat wave!) We got out to play ball hockey in the driveway on Sunday, which was pretty awesome. Fourteen degrees and sunny! Sweaters only! So nice. Then we had a wind storm, then freezing rain, then hail, then snow. Holding around zero, with tilts up into the single digit positive numbers by 3:00pm some days. Clocks also leap forward on Sunday, so we have that to look forward too – again.

Anyone out there want to share some writing tips? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Eighty four things I hate about everything related to hyperbole.

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Literally or figuratively? I just don’t know anymore. But all preamble aside, let’s find more time for ado. Poor old ado. Never given the time to play out, always without further. A shame really, that. I’m a big believer in ado. Let’s the moment play out, it does. Gives us all the time required to stop and smell the roses, or check a text, email before getting started. We need to stand up to the ‘No Further Ado’ people and scream, Yes! Ado, give us more – more – MORE!!!

Otherwise it’s a quiet and serene Tuesday in early March of the year 2022. Yesterday the green grass was exposed and today we are blanketed by more wispy white snow. It won’t last though. The sun is getting warmer in the sky, and our average temperatures will exceed zero degrees Celsius on a consistent basis. What we are entering into now is the slush & mud period of Ontario Canada living.

Which also means the clocks will leap forward an hour making our morning awful once again, and our evenings brighter. We really need to choose one side or the other and leave it be. I hate flipping between the two. Not as much now that I no longer commute, but dragging bedraggled kids out of bed in the darkness is no fun. Zero stars. Do not reccomend.

If I recall I managed one or two new short story entries over the last few weeks. I really need to take better notes, so I can keep tabs on all my threads so I can bring it together in a sensical manner. I thought I’d have it done by the end of February, but paid work takes precedence over my hobby time. Not going to lie a part of me wants to just bullet point explain the ending to you all, and myself, rather than write out the necessary chapters remaining. Come to think of it, I have gotten as far as I had plotted in January, so I just might have to. I hope some of you have had fun following along. We only just passed chapter 27, so I hope to wrap up before it balloons out to 50!

What a weird weekend.

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Due to a sudden onset of a child’s stomach bug we had a three day weekend, but I keep thinking today is Sunday, and that yesterday was Saturday, but in actuality we’re only in the morning hours of Saturday March 5th, 2022. I’m all discombobulated because of it. Though it was nice to have everyone home yesterday to play card games, board games and watch a family movie together, it wasn’t how I had been planning to spend the day. I had been building up my rest day for a few weeks, ever since I get heavily into the weeds on my In-Store signage projects and then the fairly large marketing audit report on top of that. So the day didn’t turn out how I expected it to, but it was awfully fun anyway, in an entirely different way, which is nice. With the kiddos home, an idea of a peaceful day withers on the vine, as they can only go so long in close proximity before they squabble and fight, and fists start to fly, and bad names get called. I will say this, they actively tried to separate rather than go at it full tilt as per usual. I’m blessed, as it were. Thank your lord for small miracles.

Given that the weather is suppose to swing quite heavily throughout spring in Ontario this year, we will venture out today to try one last family outdoor skate session. Tomorrow it’ll be plus fifteen, so everything will dissolve into slush before our eyes, and who knows if the flat pad of ice will survive until the next precipitous temperature drop, which will happen the day or two after the uptick. This wild swing reminds me of how hard it is to dress kids in May, where it’s only slightly above zero at eight am, and then in the early to mid twenties by three o’clock, and the kids are melting in their morning suitable clothing. Layers, zippered, easy to remove and re-add, layers. Breathable textiles, and multiple layers to be shed as the temperature rises. Then try to remember how many layers you used, and counting the articles of clothing as they come home to make sure you have everything for the next day.

Can I tell you how much aggravation I endure due to having to keep track of every item of my kids possessions, and both their indoor & outdoor clothing. Toys, books, socks, hats, gloves, mitts, boots, shoes, water shoes, running shoes, indoor school shoes, fancy dress shoes, rain boots, winter boots, wellington for out in the farm field boots, all weather jackets, snow pants, long johns, face masks, helmets, dolls, doll clothes, favourite spoons & plates… the list is endless, and they move, discard, and then swap allegiance to their ‘favourite’ toy on a semi-daily basis. It could lead one to absolute madness. Try to keep that favourite pair of jammies washed, and ready for bed time. Where’s my sweater. No the other white fluffy, cloud face sweater!!! Wah-wah-wah! Ugh. Some days it can feel like altogether too much. But you know what, if they listened to me and put their sweaters in their rooms when they take them off, and throw the dirty clothes in the hamper, rather than bury it under a pile of toys, I can wash it, and you’d know where it was. So we didn’t have to have a five alarm tantrum when they can’t find the item they all of a sudden have based their entire personality on that day.

I’d also love it if my kids could describe a toy, or article of clothing like a regular human being who understands colours, shapes, sizes and how to describe actual things that occur in our reality. Telling me how the item makes you feel, doesn’t help me search through the laundry pile for the item. Describing a t-shirt as though it was a night gown also doesn’t help. These kids. I could go mental. Heavens above! But we trudge on through, and make things work as best we can.

Day 75! Woah. That’s like a milestone or somethin’.

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Early start on this weeks paid work project. Hoping to get through the first forty or so pages before Monday morning. Still going to be a challenging week even with a forty page head start! That’s pretty insane. But it pays well, and I’ll have two more after this one is done coming to round out my spring.

So Day 75! I’m happy to report I had a tiny spurt of creativity last night while watching Hacksaw Ridge on tv. I worked hard in the morning, and went skating (where I fell on my left elbow) ouch! But had a great time in the blustery icy winds. I dressed accordingly and was thus richly rewarded. A hard fall on my elbow and shoulder when I caught an edge, but, as I said, well padded in warm winter clothes, so beyond the pain of the bump, no real damage done. But these forties, they keep on coming with the physical disadvantages! For real. Makes me question my desire to down hill ski or snowboard any more. Perhaps a shift to only cross country skiing could save me from potential calamity! Plus – exercise and loud music!

Ten pages left to reach today’s goal, so I’ll leave you all to what’s left of your Sunday.

Seventy three feet below the surface,

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And i’m beginning to feel a lot like Hans Moleman. Short, shrivelled, thick coke bottle glasses and desperately in need of a kick to the balls to remain relevant in today’s media environment. Or was it a football to the testes that garnered him the win during the short film contest? It’s been so long that I forget. A lone “Ha-ha!” Booms out from the distance, as Nelson Mandela Muntz skitters back into obscurity behind a dumpster somewhere.

Yeah, so…. busy week I guess. A long feeling short week coming off the holiday Monday. Looks like Ukraine has a shit tonne of bad to look towards for the foreseeable future. That’s just going to be a horrific mess no matter what. You know what, I don’t really know enough to make any real qualitative statements, so I’ll just leave it alone, from a policy, or action view point. Just to say, I feel for Ukraine and its people. I hope they prevail, and that most of their people make it out the otherside alive and well. But, God-Damn!, what a mess.

Looking like white out conditions here. The starting temperature was minus twelve, plus whatever the wind chill factor is because she’s a tad blowy out there fellas. It’s fucken WIMDY, as the memes would say. Sad wind blown fox on a field of white .jpeg – as it were. It usually doesn’t snow once the degrees drop that low, but again, not a meteorologist. Studied weather, climate and ecology a little in university, just enough to be a useful idiot I suppose. I had a broad but shallow base to my post secondary education, excluding the Print & Web Graphic Design stuff. That was laser focused and very intensive. But that was from two separate Art Schools and not the University I attended as well, so – Nyah!

The last couple weeks have been busy with work, so my brain hasn’t occupied the creative writing space in a number of days. Next week won’t be any better in that front as I have the first of three big spring reports coming, and those will soak up some serious brain power, focus and wrist strength. Although, you know I’ll say that, and then will desperately need a break from it all and will write something. So who knows any more. I don’t think this second book will reach sixty thousand words, but if I hit forty thousand then cumulatively I’ll have done 100,000 which is like a short-ish full sized novel. Which is cool.

Strike that from the bucket list. Check! Just need to write and record at least one song, produce a comic book of 32-64 pages in length, and I will have a good chunk of my childhood dream projects completed. I’m a working artist, I own my own business, I sculpt reasonably well, I have made tables and wood working projects. Went to art school, but also did Soc & Business in university, traveled across Europe, got married, have kids, had a lovely old fat dopey mutt (until he passed away at 12 yrs old) and have worked on major campaigns for multiple big breweries, and have helped launch smaller micro breweries too. Do I wish we were rich beyond measure, sure, but we’re also not doing too badly either. Working for myself affords me the time to be with my kids, instead of leaving the house at 6:00am and getting home after 8:00pm, and being a grumpy shit. I do school drop offs and pick ups, I’m here for sick days and appointments. I fix lunches and breakfasts. I brush teeth and hair. I can do bath times and bed time stories. It’s rather lovely when you compare it to my days before kids.