Day SeventyFive: Fuck, another Monday... how do I mess up all the other days because of lock down... yet Monday... you can always tell when it's Monday. Wife woke me up the this morning before she left for work... I'm sure there was a reason for it... I'm sure it was important... oh wait I remember what it was, I was wrong, well it's important to her for some reason... she wanted to make sure I wasn't going to do something unsafe with Lawson... like my intention this morning was to go out and have him feed cookies to the bears or something... she has bat crap crazy moments that drive her crazy because she worries about things that have no need to worry about... I have this shit covered... Relax... ya I can tell her that all I like but it doesn't seem to help any. I think this morning's Bat Crap Crazy moment had something to do with not letting the boy crawl around under the trailer while we were trying to level it and put some cribbing under it... or riding in the trailer while we were pulling it through the fields... or playing in traffic or something like that... He's a pretty sharp kid with a normal sense of fear... I asked him to hold something while I beat on it with a sledge hammer (we were working on a car together today), he opted out of this task because, well... like I said he has a normal sense of fear (I replaced him with a bungee cord, it wasn't anything that had any chance of moving anyplace, more of a balance it here issue, the bungee cord worked fine)... but long story short, I'm not going to take him out and kill him today. Relax... I wonder if they know who they made the Health and Safety Officer at Heather's work for her Department? LOL Lawson eventually got up and we had ourselves some egg mcmuffins. Today we were venturing out of the house. First thing on the agenda was pick up all the boys stuff from school... off to Ramore. The procedure was as follows... you pull up to the door of the school, you push the button to open your trunk, they throw a bag of your kids belongings into the trunk, you push the button to close the trunk, you wave, and you drive away. Off to Sidekick's place... things needed tending to before someone died. I told him he couldn't drive his car until he put new wheel bearing on the front drivers side... when I put on the summer tires a few days back I was afraid that just letting down off the jack might snap the wheel off the car, that needed tending to before it came off while in use. While me and Lawson worked on the car, sidekick work out in the yard on the trailer. Man I really have to feed that boy more, 65 lbs on the end of a 2 foot johnson bar is about as useful as one of those electric torque guns you plug in your cigarette lighter. We got the front corner of the car pulled off... man I hate front wheel drive cars. Brake caliper tied up (another bungee cord)... Tie-rod end bolt was rusted on solid, had to split the nut (looks like we can reuse the rest), he helped my undo the rest of the bolts holding on the front wheel assembly, it was a mess, limited tools... I got to the point I hollered over across the yard... Hey man... you know they make a tool for this job right? And you know what? You don't have it... we went looking for a 75 ton hydraulic press... I knew where we could find one, off to the Mennonite's place just up the road we went. Gave them the assembly and the bearing and set them to work. Lawson got to watch from the parking lot just outside the big shop door. I told him to watch and asked him if he knew what that was... he replied, 'A hydraulic press?' - and it was, one Scooby Snack for the Boy! I know he likes the hydraulic press... no youtuber worth their weight in bitcoins would go anywhere with out their hydraulic press... how else would you make millions of dollars if you didn't have a press? Like I mean when you can squish a whole bag of gummie bears and have 5.3 billion people to log onto your channel just to watch you do it... hell it might as well be a machine that prints money. Sidekick bought lunch at the Mennonite's market for us all... there was no one in the shop, I let Lawson go in as long as he didn't touch anything... hey see that? LOL the rules of shopping haven't changed any. He got the Apple Fritters they make that he likes so much... as he is eating them he's reading the ingredients and goes, 'Hey you know we have all the stuff to make this at home?' Yes, yes I did little buddy... LOL but honestly I don't need a whole batch of those sitting on the counter smelling yummy and all, that's just cruel. Eventually the bearings were removed and replace and we went back to the farm. Sidekick got sidetrack again and headed off to do some other work. Lawson and I went home to grab a bite to eat and well I dumped him off with Mommy because she got home about the same time. After eating I ventured back to the farm to haul the trailer out into the bush before the rain came tonight... definitely a now or never moment as it needed to go in trough a field into the bush where the skidsteer had gotten stuck 3 times the night before... with the snow just melting the bush is more like a swamp and the fields are a little spongy, a truck that size alone is a challenge to get in, never mind the trailer which was twice as big. After wedging it in place, I ask SideKick to stand back and got out the tall jack... sidekick likes to share his idea about how things should be done... and usually it's worth listening to because he has moment of clarity and smart things come out of his mouth.   Ya, I got this one, I shut him down before the advice started... I've set this trailer up a hundred times in different spots... I've got this covered. Jacked up one corner... 3 skids and a 4 by 4 post on it's side... let it down on the pile... he tried to interject... 'No just wait, I got this' I told him... I went to another corner and had him bring a few more pallets. I jacked up the back bumper that was almost on the ground... started jacking... the corner he wanted to put cribbing under started to dip down like I had planned... no need to have this thing 4 miles in the air when 3 will do. I finish with the corner I was on... pretty much goo to go with only doing 2 corners... sure the wheels were hanging in the air at least a foot but that's better than sinking 3 feet deep in the mud. I'm sure we are going to have to level it out a few more times as things sink into the ground... we will secure the other 2 corners then and level stuff off properly... good enough to sleep in tonight. I hope this help make him feel better, environmental issues are a bitch to deal with, seriously effect the quality of life, may the isolation of the forest do him well. Talked to Lefty a bit tonight, he sent photos of my old house... amazing how little had change yet how nice it looks now...

Our old house

Day SeventyFour: 9am Start... OK that's when I finally got my ass out of bed and made everyone breakfast... Waffles... I made Lawson his first, I can do normal waffles with my eyes closed while I walked up hill both to and from school in a snow storm with paper bags tied on my hands for mittens... Now this Keto thing has been a little more troublesome. Today I came close, the first one of ours came out a little mangled, tasted fine but stuck a little more to the iron than than the integrity of the fluff stuff in the middle could hold together... pretty sure it was an impatience problem... hardest part of this recipe I'm working on is waiting the 5-10 minutes after mixing the batter up before you cook it. I know I have to wait... but it is soooo hard. The next one came out fine (see photo). Finished cleaning out the stuff we wanted from the trailer before we sent it to it's final resting place. It was wedged deep in beside the house on the edge of a hill, it started to rain and the grass started to get wet... had to work fast... got the truck across the lawn without rolling it down the hill... got all the cribbing pulled out from under the trailer... got it onto the trailer hitch and backed out between the clothes line and the firetruck oh ok, I had to stop and take a branch down out of the tree, did that during the heaviest part of the downpour. I got back in the truck to finish getting it out of the yard and couldn't see a thing, wiping my wet glasses off on my wet shirt didn't help any at all. Once it was out of the yard I went in to change and have lunch.... Ahhh... Dry Clothes.   Had another one of those bacon cheese burgers... made drooling noises... yes it has a noise. After lunch the trailer was dragged to an undisclosed location in the bush between here and I.F., may it rest in pieces. When I got home I put the other trailers from the yard back in front of the garage waiting for some needed repairs. Got in the house and crashed... too pooped to stand, then I had to help Heather with diner... I cut up some veggies to go with the sausage that we should have done on the BBQ but I was just too damn spent, Heather finished it all up together in the frying pan, it was kind of a just find some food and push it in your pie hole because you need to eat kind of meal, I wasn't the only one beat. Tried to play Minecraft with the boy but I couldn't even do that, I get grumpy when I'm sore and tired... honest, I'm not mad at anyone just come back and try again tomorrow. Hot shower helped a bit but everyone just kinda packed it in tonight.

Keto and Regular Waffles

Day SeventyThree: Saturday, hot... the wife and boy played quietly this morning and let me sleep in until almost 8:30, unheard of for a weekend. I was treated to Omelettes for breakfast with lots of stuff in them and bacon... same brand as before, same we normally buy, but they must have fired that turd burglar with the micro plane... it was normal cut... not too think not too thin... made me happy. I promised Lawson I would help him get the rest of the Netherrite to finish his armor today, we took care of that after breakfast while we waited for sidekick (business to take care of)... sidekick got sidetracked. The game lasted until noon but we both got the achievement for a full set of netherrite armour... either they are testing it and pumped up the spawn rate for the beta or it's not as hard to find as we were lead to believe. After that, he lost interest in video games and took Mommy out side to play catch. I logged in to see a friend interviewed about his new comic book him and his friend are doing... I was a day late... I blame COVID19 for making me forget the days of the week. I'll watch it tomorrow now but I would have rather seen it live, I have questions too ya know... guess I could just call him and talk to him or send him a message on facebook. Anyway the NPGS (rock lickers of the south) had their annual auction, but online because of the COVID19... which means I don't have to go all the way down south to attend. It was slow and hampered by the lag time of the video feed, what normally takes 2 hours tops, went on for 5+ hours... Mid way through my buddy messages me and asked me about an address in Niagara, apparently his father-in-law just bought my old house. Small world. I finished watching the auction while I was outside using the BBQ for the first time in a year. Hamburgers... keto buns... all the fixings, bacon, mac sauce, pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, real cheese, what ever other squirty stuff we had on hand... (see photo) - that I figure was between 4-5 carbs... fuck it... I ate 2 of those monsters because I had some carbs to spare. There's my diet food! Washed it down with booze. Still good. We then ventured outside to clean out the trailer... doesn't look like we finished unpacking when we got home almost 10 years ago... took everything out of it as it's being sent away to it forever home in the bush. May the new owners have as much fun with it as we had. Lawson and I had to test out our new gear in minecraft, he earned a little more game time by carrying in most of the stuff from the trailer. We ran in circles and got nothing accomplished... we will try again tomorrow, he got a little gypped. Sitting down to my computer tonight I got an email from my Aunt in the States... Apparently Grandma L. passed away this morning, waiting to see if there is anything we can do for my aunt. I'll like to go down but... what can you do? Anyway... I will leave you with this happy photo of 1/2 of my dinner tonight... if you need to see the other half add your request to the comments, I think I have a photo of it as well.

Keto Bacon Cheese Burger
Melanie T
omg yum

Melanie T
I didn't get bbq but I got fresh fish!

Melanie T
And burnt...

Rod Turnbull
cool just let me know when we are going and I will dig out fishing stuff

Rod Turnbull
and sun screen LOL

Day SeventyTwo: Still mostly confined to home other than the odd essential job that needs taken care of. Request for this mornings breakfast... French toast... the boy has a crap load of bread he will never get through before it goes green... wait does Wonder Bread go green anymore or has it reached 'Twinkie Status' where the products life is measure in half-life rather than have an expiration date. This morning we finished enchanting our first tool in Minecraft, the Diamond PickAxe of Troth... Fortune 3! Collected the rest of the diamonds we had in our mine waiting for such a magic pickaxe to pull them from the ground (you get more when you mine with an enchant pick, Heather work needs one of these for the gold), finished making complete diamond armor and then went to mine our Netherite Scraps that were on hold... Lawson had a very lucky morning and we ended up with 15 pieces, I believe, one of the hardest items to find in the game. We upgraded some of our armor and now have unenchanted Netherite Chest Plate and Pants in Hardcore... something that may have never happened before in the game. Home-Made soup for lunch, some emails, insurance issues that needed dealt with and 2 vehicles that needed work took up the afternoon... We now need parts for both vehicles so despite a lot of wrench twisting and tire changing, we are not much further ahead of the game... wheel bearings need done bad, hoping the wheel doesn't fall of sitting in the driveway when let down off the jack stand. LOL Got up to about 26 Deg C today out there working... tell me why I was standing on Ice a few days back and now it's too hot out to work... I must have missed Spring... I think it was scheduled for Tuesday just past between 1 and 1:15pm... I think I was taking a shit and missed it. Heather made some Chicken Curry tonight... found some "Up Here" Hot birdseye peppers to add in to make it a little spicy... She asked how many she should put in... Um, like how many is in that little tray we got? About that many... I took one and ate half of it... if they sell it in a store up here, it's not hot, I don't care what the package says... ask me about the horseradish I wrote the company about because I thought the package was miss labeled as EXTRA HOT... it's like ya, I'm eating this by the spoon full straight out of the jar... um did it go bad or something? Anyway dinner was good, I had seconds and then Heather had to put the rest away so 3rds and 4ths were not an option. We talked a little about her work... this week along with getting certified to use the Electric Pallet Jack (ooh-ahh) she was also Elected Chief Safety Officer for her department, now I'm never going to hear the end of proper PPE and about wearing flip-flops in the workshop. LOL Lawson cued up a game down stairs for a little bit after dinner and Heather and I played some Scrabble... Not real Scrabble against each other... on the phones against the computer... it's nice when we can both win at the same time. So I Play all my tiles with the word 'Slikier' as in Silky but More-So... drop the y and add ier... I looked it up, it is in the dictionary they claim to use for the game... but No.. Denied... Would not let me play it... 102 points I didn't get... irks me. Meh what can you expect from a free game. I quit playing. Not quite a Rage-Quit, or a poor sport thing... more an OCD problem as I get squirrelly when things don't follow set rules... no rules I'm fine with, but set rules that are not being followed... Ummm, I have a problem with. Anyway it doesn't really take long or much reason to loose interest in a game of solitary, cards or other wise. Heather fell to sleep, I sent the boy to bed... now I'm contemplating a shower to get the rest of the driveway out of my hair. GN

BTW Ignore the Gold Pants, I wasn't just at the disco... you need to wear something Gold in the Nether now so stuff doesn't attack you... I didn't have time to change before Lawson took the Selfie.

Hardcore MineCraft Selfie, Rod and Lawson

Day SeventyOne: Thursday 4am... Heather woke up turned on the alarm for 5am... then promptly went back to sleep. Ya me not so much, awake... might as well pee... great now I'm up... some morning scrabble? Sure why not. Heather made it off to work at 6... 6:15 Lawson gets up... oh dear lord it's going to be one of those days. Minecraft HardCore started early today... we went on a little walk about looking for supplies. We had a few near death moments and called it time for breakfast... back to omelettes, sausage, cheese, onions, peppers... but not the boy... PLAIN... Just Cheese... Boring! We briefly got back to Minecraft for a bit but as his friends started to get active on the Xbox he migrated to the basement to kill shit with them... I hear a lot of noise coming from down there... sounds like we are raising pigs and he's down there yanking on their tails or something... the squealing is horrible. Made some soup for lunch, a little left over turkey from the freezer, some stellini, other assorted stuff from the spice rack... All is good. Then some more Fortnite with his friends and some videos... I should really get back to that book and some home work for him but this afternoon was spent getting rid of bigger things around the property, trying to clean out all the vehicles and unloved trailers... down to 4 trailers, 5 cars (1 parts wagon, my daughters car, the bee and 2 daily drivers), and a firetruck... now to see if I can get the ones leaving to run or be in a position to at least be pulled from the yard. Heather braved the grocery store on the way home for some basics... Our kitchen is getting depleted, honestly it's a good thing... at the start of this we could have made it until now without shopping at all, we wouldn't have starved... we wouldn't have been eating as well as we normally do but wouldn't have starved... if we had to go another month with what was left I'm not sure concerns about what we ate would be including: does this have too many carb? does this have too many calories? does may ass look fat in these jeans? As this point I have no ass left... I think I must have scratched it off. Pretty sure my stomach hurts because I can't easily digest that is better than my stomach hurts because I'm starving to death. Pretty sure we could have made it at least 6 months before running out of food before we got rid of the freezer. I can see the conversations on day 174... any idea what this is? Nope... looks like it's been in the bottom of the freezer a long time. Want to thaw it out and guess again? Not really. Ya, I'm not really that hungry either. Hey maybe we could slice it frozen and swallow the pieces without having to taste it? What, you don't like the taste of freezer? Good Point... There must have been a lot of eggs at the store... Heather came home with our weekly Pre-COVID19 egg count (4-5 dozen) - Our cooking involves a lot of eggs. Dinner tonight was a double request for a Rehash of Breakfast Food... Lawson wanted Waffles and Heather wanted some of my Pancakes... I was thinking about trying my mix in the waffle iron (last attempt was not pretty, but also wasn't this recipe) but I opted to change the recipe slightly to try to make the Pancakes more Waffley... A little baking soda, a skoosh more water, separate the eggs, whip the whites and then fold them back into the batter... still letting it stand for at least 5 minutes before cooking them... I think it might work, they tasted more like waffles and had the same texture... and looks like they might hold up better... I'll let you know how it goes next time when it actually makes it into the waffle iron. More Bacon... she got more bacon... I hope it's not the micro sliced crap again. You know I'm thinking about it... there is a reality based cooking game show in all this someplace, just wait for it. 'We've taken normal people who like to cook, put them in a kitchen with 500 ingredients... none of which have ever been successfully added together in a single recipe with any success... Today we are going to find out: "What Makes Me Barf or Not!" All the ingredients are in water damaged containers, no legible labels, mixed up on the shelves like even the apocalypse survivors have turned there noses up it the whole lot... You have 5 minutes to shop, no dollar limit, everything is free, not everything is edible... GO!" Tic toc tic toc tic... BBbzzzzz... OK Steve let's see what you got... Ya well I saw the pots and pans we have to cook in and thought I would definitely need some Pam to keep stuff from sticking... this stuff in the Yellow can looks a lot like Pam but I tried spraying it and it has a caustic lemon scent to it, so I may use it to flavor some lemon pudding or something like that. So after cooking has ended the players have to predict if it is going to make them barf or not as they will be the only ones subject to eat what they have made, purely for legal reasons... If you guess correctly you score 10 points... If you guess 'Not' and are able to keep it down for at least 3 minutes you score a bonus 5 points... if you Barf and get any on your opponents they get the option of taking your points (points divided evenly between all those in the spew zone that actually have chunks on them) OR they can opt to let you keep your points but have to eat a second helping in hopes that you won't be able to physically compete in the following round.... SORRY Where Was I? Ah yes after dinner Lawson played some more with his friends on the Xbox I tried to get a mic hooked up so we could have our phone back but no luck... I have to have something lying around here someplace that will work. Meh! A job for another day. GN

Day Seventy: 

[EDIT: I have to admit, some place in here I doubled up a day and thought this was day 69... in the original posts you will find I'm out a day at this point.]

About mid morning I had thought to myself, 'You'd better start writing this shit down because you're not going to remember shit tonight'... and here we are, I can't remember diddly, can't remember squat. Let's start with what I remember... I woke up late, had a meat and cheese sammich to get me going and cut up the meat for the souvlaki, tossed it in my secret marinade, I'd tell you whats in it but in keeping with the theme it's even secret to me... ya I always forget... likely it's never the same twice... olive oil, garlic, lemon, oregano, some other stuff... Anyway got that all tucked away in the fridge and went to do research on my computer for a project I'm working on... ya, you got me, I played some video games while Lawson had his online class meeting... apparently we were supposed to build some Iroquois 'thing' - questioning him did little good, he doesn't know the word in English and I don't know what the hell he's talking about in french... thinking it might be some kind of diorama or something like that but he assures me it's not... I went through a list of possibilities and none where what he's thinking of... I say we build a casino and open a gas station out front and we should have it covered... A+ for everyone. Hit Me! Made him a Quesadilla for lunch... shit, hind sight being 20/20 I should have made him some Bannock, that would have taken care of building something native and fed his pie hole. Not doing well today I decided to write it off as a non productive day but still try to keep the boy entertained. We started a new game of Hard Core Minecraft in the latest snapshot (like a beta version)... We used his friends phone number as a seed for the game and spawned on a crappy little island in the middle of the ocean... first thing on the agenda was swim to a slightly less crappy island in the middle of the same ocean so we didn't starve to death waiting for coconut trees to grow spontaneously out of thin air. We are surviving, got to about day 6, have some diamond gear and even found some netherite... still leery about sky creepers but that's another story. Heather got home late from work, apparently they added 3 new colours of crayons to her crayon box at work and it's causing everyone grief... at this point I think it has involved 3 departmental meetings, a webinar, extensive in house training and a sacrifices to Zorkon the Space God but I'm sure they will all get the hang of the extra crayons soon. I called her on the cell to make sure she hadn't died... while I had her on the line I got an ETA and had dinner ready when she got home. Got rid of another open bag of veg in the freezer, down to mostly new unopened stuff in there at this point. The conversion of the freezer is almost complete... what was once a historic cryogenic containment unit for meals from the past is now serving the purpose of keeping food non toxic during the time it takes to get from the shopping spree to the table. AND THEN... We get back to the topic at hand... What the hell has happened to Hockey in Canada... Well, I went online for a meeting tonight with the NOHA board and the chief executives of most of the northern hockey organizations and let me tell you... I heard nothing shocking. Basically we are all boned until COVID19 is a non issue, not our decision to make... when stuff starts to come back online we will do what we can to salvage some of next season, that might mean playing only locally (there are not enough children for that to be honest) or things might be all better and normal by September. I didn't expect anything more, in the down time they are still all working on issues that will need dealt with next season covid related and otherwise. The general concern seems to be that we have to follow down south rules but have completely different problems to deal with... Like at this point I believe 4 people in an old folks home in Timmins are our only active cases of covid19 and most of those are ongoing from almost a month ago... OH WAIT BUT ROD... that's just Timmins... no, that's a good chunk of Northern Ontario... the Porcupine Health Unit covers a huge area... in the map below it is about the area in the box... that box is like 600km across and 700km top to bottom... do some math... ya, that's way bigger than Germany... 4... 4 people over 70 years old in one location (red indicator)... isolated... AND no hockey. You can see why people up here don't want to follow the rules needed to make someplace like Toronto safe. Some times I guess it's a good thing to live in the Middle of Butt Fuck Nowhere. There is something else I was just thinking about but you know what happen to that though... good because I don't... SO ANYWAY... I made it all the way though that without one 69 joke... And on HumpDay too...  OK, here it is... A metric conversion for my not so Canadian friends... 69 converted to Metric is 88... He 8 her, she 8 him. Sorry, I had too. Oh now I remember... I have to go pick up stuff from his school on Monday, somebody remind me... no more hopes of going back to school... likely have some catching up to do next year. That's all, GN

Map of the Porcupine Health Unit

Rod Turnbull
As for the 69 thing... if you do that sideways are you more likely to get cancer or just crabs?

SixtyNine: Tuesday... Garbage Day. After cleaning the Basement there were a few extra bags of garbage to take to the curb this week... I felt sorry for the garbage men... ok I knew they weren't going to hoof 10 bags of sawdust and crap up into their truck... easier to put a tag on it and tell me they only take 2 container less than 50 lbs each... So I loaded the stuff in the back of the Mazda and took it to the dump. And can I drive 4 blocks without some ass wad from Quebec trying to run me over? Apparently not. The highway speed limit drops to 60km/h through town, when you pull out on it and get up to that speed and the car coming up behind you is closing on you like you're a parked car you know they are doing about 120... then they get their panties in a bunch and lean on the horn like I'm slowing them down or something, duh... yup fucktard in rice burners with Quebec plates... more common than folks up here marrying their cousins. I continued down the street at a leisurely 57 or so until the speed limit went back up to 90... took me almost a 1/4 mile to get up to speed, it's just a little 4 cylinder you know, no point pushing it... lot of cars coming from the other way, someone wasn't getting back to Quebec anytime soon today. Just after I reached the limit I had to start slowing down for my turn... let's see, it's up here someplace... Ah there it is! And off to the dump I went. When I got home I pulled out some weeds (they call it BAM up here, I think it's because they look like weeds and then you turn around and BAM! they are a shit load of small trees)... some of them were already beyond pulling... (I swear they were all under a foot of snow last week), so I cut them down with the big tree trimming snippy things. Made lunch and got into the freezer to look for a viable source of diner. OK Time to clean out the freezer... bagged veggies lower right side, bagged fruits/berries and freezypops bottom left... top basket meat and left overs. Let me tell you, one thing for certain is this COVID19 thing has really helped clean out the kitchen and stashes of miscellaneous food lying about the house. Still in no far of starving to death and only shopping very infrequently and just for the essentials... we could likely do without those, but why if you don't really have to. OK much better now... but there were a few things that were packed for Heather's lunches that had been there long enough to know there was something wrong... the question is if you didn't like the meal in the 1st place why would you pack it up in the freezer to eat it at a later date... that's the stuff you leave out on the counter over night and the next day and claim to have forgotten about it, isn't it? DTB Frankly I was fine with it, she ate the left overs from yesterday that were still in the fridge... Lawson picked what he wanted out of what was left in the fridge and freezer and I pretty much cleaned up what was left... after all was said and done I ended up with Duck, cauliflower mash with cheese, carrots and a left over porkchop that they passes up from the other day (didn't think I was going to get that)... all-in-all not a bad meal, not great fresh home cooking like we have become accustom to but... pretty much on par with any of the restaurants up here, fresh from the freezer to your plate. Heather was subjected to more fun time outside with Lawson, he had his bike out, they played some ball, he makes up rules, she objects but gives in anyway... just typical 'try to drive mom crazy' stuff... I wonder if he realizes the more nutz he makes her, the more difficult it is for him to get her to do stuff with him. Some days I wonder about that child. Lawson got to bed at a reasonable time tonight but Heather's mother called at like 8:45... I certainly didn't answer the fucking phone but the wife did... I'm like if someone's dead they will leave a message, we will get it tomorrow, they will be just as dead then... she stayed up way to late... sure she's going to be grouchy tomorrow... not because she stayed up, because she had to talk to her mother.

Day SixtyEight: Monday... the wife seems to still be home from work... is it a holiday or something? Oh BTW for the record, I think yesterday's Lunch Plate was planted in my bed, the wife admitted to not feeding me lunch because I was busy working, as if it was some consolation she told me she didn't eat lunch either... not sure how that's supposed to help me thinking I'm going crazy but ya ok. I was right about this morning breakfast though... we were boned, I had to go to the farm up the way to pick up some eggs, grabbed some Summer Sausage while I was there (great stuff but you need a meat slicer to get it thin enough to eat, LOL) and bought the boy some Cinnamon Buns for a treat. Whilst I was out Heather put some buns in the oven which doubled up with the Sausage I sliced up made for some samiches for brunch... I think Brunch is a polite way to say: 'Ya, I'm sorry you missed breakfast, you can eat now but you're not going to get Lunch.' - So I think I got boned for lunch today again. Fuck it, I ate one of them cinnamon buns, sure I will pay for it later but it was worth it. Off to the basement again to work on strengthening the fortification to the Zombie/COVID Apocalypses Fallout Shelter... Spent the day adding blocks between section so even if they get through the sheeting they wont get past the structure, also it made good places to properly attach wires and stuff... not sure who worked on this before but it could use a little sprucing up. I have a florescent lite that plugs into the wall and hangs from a few hooks on the ceiling, I turned that the other direction so it goes between the beams rather than across them hanging at about eye level (that was never safe)... it's not like you can see anything after staring into a pair of 4 foot long florescent bulbs for more than a few seconds... A switch to turn that on and off would be nice but would require doing electrical work... I can just plug it in when I need the extra light and save myself some money... likely that's what the last people who lived here thought about the whole deal. It didn't look any different from top side (other than Lawson did help out and sweep the floor up there today), HOWEVER it did make Heather happy because the wood I was using is now no longer in her kitchen/dining room (it needs to dry a few weeks inside before I use it, we try to pretend it's not there as we walk over it trying to carry our food to the table). Which reminds me, I need to bring in some more wood. That big pile that was out there is getting smaller the more I mess around in the shop... Stakes to kill vampires, KubKars, Shelves, a bird house maybe... going to have to order another load soon. During my battle with blocks and messy wires and decorating the Bomb Shelter Heather must have felt bad about not feeding me... she made chocolate chip cookies 'we' can eat. MMmmmm.... no nutz either, just the important stuff. She made Porkchops for dinner... And Jello too.... shit I'm starting to get worried looking back on this... If I didn't know any better I should be thinking there is something going on here... maybe she's cheating on me. What's that? There are more cookies left in the kitchen? Hang on I will be right back. --

Day SixtySeven: Slow to Rise Sunday... I should be putting beer in a cooler and making plans to crash someone's party today, May Two Four... yet Nothing but crickets... hey Google turn off that damn cricket noise... how the hell is that supposed to be 'sounds to put you to sleep'... sounds more like 'sounds your house makes when it's infested with crickets'... So we got up late and ate all the eggs and the rest of the bagels, tomorrow we are going to be boned for breakfast... Oh ya and the bacon... Had to cook 5 frying pans full of bacon because some jizz gobbling cock jockey down at the bacon plant set the machine to paper thin and we ended up with almost 400 pieces of bacon in one small not quite a pound of bacon package of bacon... Mmm bacon... I have to assume that either they are trying to help families get more servings out of each package of bacon in these desperate times OR they are trying to suck you in to buying their Thick Cut Bacon... I just want normal fucking cut bacon, is that too much to ask? I started back on cleaning the basement, boy went outside to play in the yard. Apparently I have more tools than I remember... shit goes on sale you know... last circular saw I bought was on clearance for $24... I can't buy the blade for that, so now I think I have 4 or 5 circular saws. Always good if you want to do something with the tools they weren't designed for where you know there is a good chance it will never work again by the time you are finished the job BUT it will likely get the job done and you won't wreck one of your good ones doing it. Goal for the day, dig the table saw back out and make a shelf for the back of the counter in the kitchen. So after a while I get to it, clean it up, put on the good blade (not the one I was using to make vampire killing stakes) and found some of that wood that was lying in the front yard all summer... Milled some 1/4 inch stock and looked at my tape measure... ya not a tool I need for this project... I did however find my square, that helped square up the blade and the fence and what-not... I take a jar down stairs for testing the size of things (actually I took it down just after figuring out how many I could fit on it, in the space available in the kitchen and told Heather we need 4 more jars like that, wait 5 more just in case we break one)... so about 20 minutes into the project the jar fell off the table saw, I saw it happen in slow motion, it hit the concrete floor, bounced once... turned a bit in the air it caught off that bounce and I was amazed that it didn't break (this is how I know I was watching it in slow motion)... gravity took over as the bounce reached the apex of the arc... yes it started to head back towards the floor again... I though to my self, well it didn't break on the first bounce and it's only falling from about a foot this time, it should be OK... ya, I was wrong. It wasn't ok... we now need 6 just in case we break another. I got all the pieces of the shelf going together nicely, a slight arch in the middle so when we load it it will level out rather than sag... glued it together, put on the clamps and waited until after dinner. At some point I might have eaten lunch but right now I'm not 100% sure that I did... fucking old persons brain in my head. I do recall taking a plate into the kitchen not to long ago that was on the edge of my bed and Breakfast and dinner were in the dinning room, so... meh, must have ate, I'm sure Heather was a good wife and brought me something. So as I waited for the glue to dry I got to fixing my disco Facebook cover photo. I took a few of the pics from my Art Photo Album and made the funky little mishmash of stuff you see there now. A little more personal than the Disco Ball Thing that was there... By the time I started hanging out in bars, disco was dead... or at least we wished it was, LOL. Lawson played with his friends, Call of Duty is the latest game they were playing... my god the sound that come out of that room... I so want to record it and play it back at his wedding or something... 9 and 10 year old boys playing 1st person shooter games sounds a lot like what I can only assume 12 and 13 year old girls would sound like if a dozen of them won dates with Justin Berber (is he still a thing?) AnyWho... Heather instapotted us up some beef and peppers and put it on noodles for dinner, which definitely hit the spot. (hey add that to the dictionary... I've just used instapot as a verb) - Spent some time finishing up the cover photo and posting it after dinner while Heather beat on Zoey in Scrabble... All you kept hearing was, 'Suck it Zoey!' So apparently Heather was doing well or trying to pone her wifely duties off on Zoey for some reason. LOL Everyone went to sleep, I went down to take off the clamps and do a little final sanding. When I was done I took it up the kitchen and loaded some stuff on and under the shelf... it seems to be holding and fairly stable... I wasn't expecting that. GNight.

Canisters on our counter

Day SixtySix: Damn that boy Likes Crumpets... I bet he could eat a flat of them if you let him. He was up at 7 this morning but was very quiet... 8:00 on the dot he came to the end of the bed... Dad? Ya ya I'm getting up... he needed to tell me about something in Minecraft I think... So some of the stuff for his schooling hasn't been loading right... I got a list of things that were supposed to be done and we went hunting for them. He spent a few hours catching up on the ones we could find that actually loaded on his computer... Starting to think it might be time for a new one for him, pretty sure the one he has is maxed out and not cutting the mustard anymore, likely 10+ years old... may have been a beast at the time but... // SideKick stopped by today to take me over to the auto parts place to get the fan belt for the Mazda, we had a coffee and took care of some business. I got a lot of the stuff in my Art Work Album taken care of, I'm still looking for a number of things to add I know I've done but that may take some time. I did get a description added to most of the items there... and Wow... some of that stuff is like 30 years old. You can really see how far the software has come in the past 30 year... it use to be real hard to edit things, there wasn't a lot of this click the button and stuff just happened for you. I don't recall layers and masks and special effects... there was vector art and pixels... something like win95 MS Paint was as good as it got. LOL I'm almost doing no Vector work anymore (use to be a corel draw fan), just a personal preference thing, most everything can be done with adobe photoshop including all those things I've done recently that look like cartoons. Pretty sure I haven't gotten any more artistic, I think the software is just getting more powerful. The difference between the new and old stuff is like night and day. Heather came home and Made Brownies!!! She had just enough time to get them into the oven before I had dinner ready... I put a chicken in the rotisserie, corn on the cob, some asparagus... and then Brownies!!! After dinner Lawson retired to the basement to play some MineCraft with his friends. I really can't stop him from playing games, it's the only social interaction he's getting now... it's good to talk to other people... well if you're the type that actually like people LOL. Heather was tired, long week at work... she beat the boy to bed tonight. He was in bed by 8:30. Maybe I will hunt down some more Old Art Stuff tonight.