Day 175: Humpday, had breakfast and went outside... Needed to get on those pipes that were delivered Yesterday. I cut one in half and it was too short. What the fuck. These aren't 10' long, they are 3m tops. We ordered 10' pieces and got 9' 10 1/2' pieces... That's like buying a box of donuts with a bite out of each one... They don't fix in my jig, they don't fit in the finished product, the numbers can't be fudged, they just don't Fing work... 700$ worth of pipe going back to the hardware store next week I guess. Sidekick came over later on in the day... We looked at a few options to get the project back on track... Nothing really looked promising, better without the pipe that with one that's too short. Heather made cheeseburger casserole for dinner. Only thing that worked out for me today. Played some hill climb racer and went to bed.

Day 174: Tuesday 5:45am too sore to sleep... I say good bye to Heather as she heads off to work... garbage day, not going to forget today... well at least not the garbage, we did forget the recycling. So Lawson wanted those eggs he had yesterday... I guess the scrambled eggs are a change from what he normally eats... what ever, I can do that too, and a bagel. We head out in the driveway early to work on project x again. I think he is getting the idea that he has to work to make money to buy the things he wants... I said well someone has to work to buy you those headphones you wanted... either mommy or your... since they are your headphones and we already got you a set but you wanted better ones... guess who is going to have to work for those. He helped with the boards to pay for the headphones. I couldn't do it with out him, he moves wood well. We took a break for lunch, worked a little more then Sidekick stopped by for a coffee and to drop off some pipe for the project... Lawson and I were both ready to take another break by then. He went on a bike ride with his friends and after the visit I went back to working alone. Eventually Heather got home, went in and made us some dinner. I had to get the pile I was working on finished, this is taking way too long. Far more than I bargained for. The boy got home and help carry more wood into the house before dinner. Eventually Heather hollered at us and we went in for chicken balls and rice, general tao style... After dinner I made myself horizontal, wasn't sure how much longer I was going to be able to move for, wasn't taking any chances. Fell into bed and haven't moved since... likely won't until tomorrow. Spent some time trying to download my music onto my phone... as per usual, easier just to start over again from scratch.

Day 173: Monday again, too sore to move. Made the boy some breakfast anyway... eggs, not eggciting. I had to get something working to view the Zoom Meeting on tonight. I wanted to take it outside, play it on a large monitor rather than have him play hockey in the house... the online soccer training didn't go that well indoors, things got broke, nothing important. First idea was to cast the meeting from the phone to the screen, very portable, take it anywhere. Didn't work well... best I got was a vertical screen in the middle of the monitor not much bigger than the phone it's self, the phone wouldn't rotate the screen in the zoom app and the monitor doesn't have that feature, I know some of them do but this is the one I'm willing to take outdoors. So, no dice... then I tried hooking the Roku to it and casting onto that, the software was limiting, Youtube, Netflicks, things that actually were built to cast worked, even from the phone but I'm looking for more of a screen share apparently but the apps I tried to get that working were far to choppy and showed all the buttons and text but none of the sound or video that zoom was playing. Even tried the old iPhone with a direct HDMI cable to the monitor, which used to work just fine but today I got nothing, wouldn't even connect, just a black screen, no connection. Doh! Well there is always the laptop hooked directly to the monitor, that was working before I started pulling wires off things. I hooked it back up and got zoom working on it again. Sidekick showed up, he had a job in town and needed a coffee fix, so we went to buy some coffee, only had enough for about 1/2 a cup. Got back from the store, fed the boy lunch and sat down for a coffee. Never got back to figuring out an alternative to the zoom video problem. Sidekick got a call to go back to work and shortly there after Heather made it home from work. We pushed a few food things in our pie holes but nothing that could be considered a meal. I scrambled around the house looking for things on Lawson's list of required items for the training session. I set up the monitor outside and plugged it into the laptop, got things running but the internet connection was sketchy. I went with it anyway. 20 minutes in the connection failed. OK now what? Hmm... I need an network range extender... I could hard wire the router and move it outside on a 50' long ethernet cable... but I wanted something "now"... Hmmm... I set the cell phone to work as a hotspot, turned off the data, linked it to the network and put it between the router and the laptop. DONE! So now it was working fine, the video was solid, no dropped audio (could us external speakers next time but it was decent)... OK now the monitor is hooked to the laptop, which is controlled by the Bluetooth keyboard back at the picnic table, the laptop it running the Zoom meeting through the internet it is getting from the HotSpot on the cell phone, which has it's data turned off and it connected to the router inside where it's getting internet from the DSL modem. Running the meeting from the phone and casting it to the monitor seemed like a much more simple way to do it but it wasn't in the long run. So the training session was held by one of the ladies from Team Canada's Woman's Hockey Team and her guest coach today was one of the coaches from the Brock Badgers, which Lawson has actually got to see play last year at their season opener. He seemed to enjoy it, at least I hope he did, he's signed up for 2 sessions a week for the full month of September. After wards we pushed some more food in our pie holes and went in to bed. OK... I hooked the computer stuff back up first.

Day 172: Now before I went to sleep I closed the bedroom doors and killed any flies in the room. I wake up to a fly driving me nuts, not the way I wanted to start my day. Pancakes... The adults got pancakes. The boy wanted 2 eggs over easy with toast, buttered for dipping purposes. Ok, done and done... I head to the basement where project x waits for me... I ran another 100 pieces of 1x6 through the planer... On an average about 6 times each, 45 seconds a piece plus time to man handle it, say a minute total... 6 minutes a board, 600 minutes... Hang on wood recount... Looks like I only did 79 boards... 8 hours... Ya those numbers add up. I took a short break for lunch, Heather made some samiches. And no one was inspired to make dinner. Lawson carried the wood back outside for me. At the end of the day we said piss on it an went to A & W for dinner. For those who don't know where we live... That's an hour drive there and an hour drive back. Got home, cleaned up and crashed. 

Day 171: Woke up to the phone ringing... fucktards from the septic bed cleaning company that I've "removed myself from the calling list from 100 times" - fuck it next time they call I'm going to just book an appointment and then not pay the bill, hell we live in town, a town with a sewer system... duh. What a waste of my time. Heather made us some omelettes with cheese and stuff in them... then had to go make herself one without cheese because she can't have it with the meds she is currently taking. The eggstra omelette sat on a plate waiting to be eaten at lunch... at lunch people eggnored it... it eggventually got wrapped up and put in the fridge (sorry couldn't think of an eggword that implied it was going in the fridge). Eggnyway after Breaky, I started in on project x eggain. Lawson move a truck load of wood today for me, I couldn't keep up with him... so he played video games with his friend in his down time. Lunch came late... Heather was croshegging a sweater or something and we lost track of time... she made buns, we had tuna samiches. Then back to work... starting to hate project x. I started processing a new pile of lumber... things were working better inside. Dinner eggventually came... some sort of noodle pot roast mushroom leftover stir fry casserole, it was pushing 8pm... fuck at that point I would have eaten pickled rats asshole. I lay down and got into my messages and email for the day. Signed the boy up for some online hockey training on going through the month of September... I can't see anything else happening in the near future as far as actual training goes. Apparently there is a new course needed for coaching this year focusing on the Return to Hockey policies of Hockey Canada... so I signed up and took that to finish it off... looks like my Police Records Check didn't make it into the system yet... and I need to take some checking clinic for the hockey that will have the kids playing games with social distancing incorporated into the new rules... alkward. Starting to get the hang of the new phone. Damn the day is over and we are starting on tomorrow... you know what that means. 

Day 170: TGIF - What have I gotten myself into today? Why am I up at 5:30 you ask? Because my phone picked up a message from the past saying I will see you tomorrow morning... I thought I was seeing him this morning not tomorrow, hmm... did plans change... likely not, fuckit I'm getting up getting ready and going over anyway. Shower, breakfast, head out to the car, no keys... I thought I left them in the car... I look in the house... nothing, No spare key on the wall Heather keeps those in her purse just in case of an emergency. I call heather to see if my keys are in that car. No they weren't. I go back to plan one and look in the car again. They were there but the battery in the fob must be dying and it wasn't close enough to the ignition which is why I thought the keys were not in the car in the first place... ok battle over, I head off. Heather turns around and head home to give me the spare key with out telling me she was doing that or calling back... she got here, I was gone, she was late... that's ok, they keep her late at work some days too... this is just payback. I pick up some stuff to go to the airport, stuff for Joan again. Then i stop by to get Sidekick, Hey they got a new dog... FUCK That's a HUGE Dog... It's standing in the driveway where I pick him up normally. I pull up towards it, it sees me and fucks off into the field... I thought that was a little big for a dog... Black Bear. I message Sidekick and tell him it is safe to come out of the house now and I get no reply... Maybe he was waiting for me out side already, maybe the bear got at him... maybe I should get out and look for sidekick pieces... I went to get out of the car and he emerged from the house, didn't know the bear was there. We went to the airport in Timmins then for a coffee... didn't have time for anything else... It was Hair Cut Day back in Matheson. I dropped him back off in ValGagne and head home. 9:30am I make sure boy gets some food in him... almost to the bottom of that 1st box of Vector cereal. We head across the street to get our hair cut... we have been couped up a little too long... I took photos. We played a few games on our mobile devices until Heather got home. She stopped by the store on the way home to get something for dinner... pot roast... not yet cooked pot roast... time to put the instapot to some good use... so how long do you figure this will take? We ate late again... it was worth the wait and I got that brussel-sprout/bacon/onion thing done up finally, been craving that for a while now. Eat and Sleep, in that order... hard to do the other way... ok eat, watch something on Netflix, then sleep.

Day 169: Woke up had a late breakfast and then looked for the mouse trap... Couldn't find it. Worked a bit on project x and more supplies showed up. This is a little overwhelming... Space is the issue, everything needs to go into the basement at some point in time... So the outdoor work is being minimized to the quiet parts of the job... The neighbors will be happy. Still missing materials, can't finish the project by the deadline, hopefully stuff will come in tomorrow.

Day 168: Shower 6am, Breakfast eggs/cereal, boy got ready for golf... we loaded the car, his clubs and mine. Yes I was playing too today. Get out google maps again, we headed from Matheson to ValGagne, pick up Sidekick... then head towards Timmins. Dr.'s Appointment, the boy and I wait in the car, play a little BTD6 while waiting for Sidekick to finish up. Then off to the other end of town, Timmies, coffee, BestBuy... Hey Mel there is some guy with 70's hair looking for you... She laughed at her coworker, ya, that's my dad. OK I really need that hair cut. Time for a new cell phone... Mel digs out the phone she has been putting together for me for the past few days... tired of the Apple garbage that won't play nice with anything else... I really need to be able to use all my shit together, record here, play there, edit someplace else... not apples strong suit. Not software or hardware wise. Fuck it, Android now... I give up, I'm sure there's an app for that. I'm getting use to it, currently using it to type this, keyboard from my computer linked nicely to it... not like the iPhone which only about half the keys worked, making it pretty fucking useless... but that describes mac shit pretty well. Pick of the crop for lunch, picked up a few other odds and ends as well before heading towards Iroquois Falls... yes Golf. Sidekick tagged along... made for a good cadi. Now normally the boy just heads out with his friends but this was the last official time out on the course for the kids and their Wednesday Group. Adults were welcome to play in lue of the annual Adult Child Tournament that didn't COVID happen this year. I tee off and drive the first shot into gully, I took a quick trip down there to look to see if it was playable... like I could even find it... I didn't find it but found 5 other balls that no one had bothered to look for... I dropped a ball and continued. Hole 2, I fucking shank one four miles out, way out... like way out of bounds... likely landed someplace near the middle of town... I have to lay off the wheaties. I drop another ball and continue... my penalties are starting to total more than my actual strokes. 3 hole... I nail it off the tee... then like it was intercepted by a tornado, it fucks off to the right... and just keeps going, it crosses the tree line between the fairway... then continues over the fairway beside us... and then crosses the tree line on the other side of it... the lady with the golf cart offered to drive over and get it for me... it was way to far for me to walk... hence I dropped another ball and took a few more penalty strokes... this is why I only wanted to play 4 holes... when I got done I could tell people I shot a 32 round at the golf club and let them assume I played 9... Anyway the boy is keeping up to me, sure his shots don't go as far but he's making it down the fairway and not loosing any balls. The 9th hole... I tee it up and tell the kids I'm going to put it over the green on the first shot. They didn't believe me... after all they had been watching me play. I don't aim at the pin... I aim at the people teeing up on the first hole (which is WAY to the left)... I crank it out there and it head for the 1st tee... then the hook kicks in and it comes back to the right again... drops just before the green and rolls past the pin missing it by less than 6 inches... and like I said, past the hole... about 20 feet or so. Long story short I choked on the big putt and tap in for a par... going to call that a success. Now the little man who hadn't lost a ball all day had a less than stellar 9th hole. He knew what he was in for... he put away his good balls and took out a handful of reclaimed crap balls from his bag... he had no delusions on where these were heading. He teed up and massed one after another into the jungle valley just off the tee... it was a good size hazard... ball 5 was the charmed ball, he shanked that fucker far enough off to the left that it cleared the hazard and landed right beside the cart path, inbounds and perfectly playable. Timmies... more coffee... dropped off Sidekick in ValGagne, then headed back to Matheson. OK I have an hour to eat and head back to Iroquois Falls... IFMHA Board Meeting... then the AGM, people show up late and the board meeting never happens... Now I talked the twins dad into coming out to join the board this season, they normally need a new injection of helpers each season, I figured he needed to do his part. LOL We go through the meeting minutes finish up all the regular stuff... not much happening since COVID cut everything short last season. Eventually we get down to electing an executive and board, the executive didn't change a lot and then we voted on the board... rather than everyone remember who was nominated and writing the names down, I suggested writing the names on a list and numbering them, each person could go over to the list and just write down the numbers of the people they wanted to vote for rather than waste a lot of time writing all the names out over an dover again... in theory that should work... the first person goes to the list of names and rather than writing down the numbers beside the name, they write out the full names of 9 people on the list... I was wondering what was taking so fucking long... welcome to your new board of directors... LOL I didn't make the cut, looks like I will have a little more free time this season. Pretty sure some of them didn't like my complex voting instruction and did away with me. ROTFLMAO Should be a fairly easy transition back to just being a parent, just going to have to burn the rule book and forget it exists... they aren't going to follow it anyway. The twins dad and I went for a coffee afterwards and I pointed out a few places he could find information he would need é find useful in the coming months... at least there will still be a few people on the board that know what they are doing. My fingers are crossed, about all I can do this year. Home to Matheson, Heather was waiting up... she told me there were 2 mice in the house... I set a trap, 5 minutes later it went off... one down one to go another town and one more show... Yes... 5 minutes later it went off again... well thatˋs 2... I wonder what else it lurking about the house? I set the trap a third time... 20 minutes later it goes off again but then made a clattering noise as it was pulled across the floor. I never did find the trap. Pretty sure the chipmunk likely has it stuck to it's tail someplace... it will pull it off before it leaves the house tonight to go to it's home in the front yard. Well must sleep, working on project X again tomorrow.

Day 167: Garbage day... I should really start writing these in the morning so I can remember what day it is... missed the garbage truck again this week. I gotta start setting an alarm. My luck I will just stand around for an hour or two trying to remember why the hell the alarm is going off. Omelettes for breakfast, just a little more exciting than the day before, I added some sausage in for a little change. Got back to work on project X. Lawson carried in the wood, I cut it to size and he carried it back out, no empty handed wasted trips... I cut the remaining pieces of pipe into thirds and took them back outside... simply not enough room inside to facilitate the construction process. All the hard work was done before noon too... I put some perogies on for the boy to carb him back up. A knock came at the door, I assumed it was Sidekick but it wasn't... yelling at the door "come on in" failed to produce the desired results, I had to get off my ass and answer the door. Maybe it was the post office/UPS or something, still waiting for goalie gear to come in... only been a month or so, can't see it being here already. LOL I was one of his friends fathers here to pick up Lawson for a birthday party... good that I was kept in the loop. He wasn't real shocked that I didn't know anything about it. The plans were only made yesterday and it was between the 2 boys so why tell the parents right? The perogies finished cooking as he left, he didn't even take a traveler... he head over to his friends house for a birthday dinner, some time on the quad and he left with game controllers so I assume some time playing video games... it's one of his friends that he normally plays online with. The house was quiet for a change, Heather had not arrived home yet, I was still sore and dying... I took a break. Heather made it home to no boy in the house, I explained the above and we made a chicken stir fry for dinner. Watch some Netflix, Lucifer had a few new episodes we hadn't got to yet. We had to try real hard to stay awake long enough to see the boy come in the door. We did have an exact time just an after dinner... and he did arrive after dinner... LOL way after dinner. The door opened and he sneeked in the house... He did the whole bed time routine and then head off to bed... Heather crashed 2 minutes after she was assured he was home safe... I wasn't far behind.

Day 166: OH DEAR LORD, I THOUGHT I WAS SORE Yesterday... Oh fuck, of course I feel like this... it's a Monday isn't it. My mind isn't even working. I make the boy some crumpets and eggs... I didn't fuck up his yokes, I didn't want to get yelled at. Then a cheese omelette for myself... I haven't had a plane old cheese omelette in a while, normally I have the energy to put at least a little something extra in it.  I finished off that stack of 120 side pieces today for project x, but not after disassembling the table saw this morning to find out why the blade seemed a little loose... oh the blade was tight, it was the whole saw that was almost falling out of the table... that's what the problem was. I fixed that up and broke the sled trying to modify it somewhat... then I brunt my bad leg on the glue gun... it was hanging from the ceiling and the hot point was hanging just below knee level... I will live but it got burnt pretty good... no feeling where it hit so there wasn't that reaction to pull away from the heat... more of a hey? What's the burning smell? Ya it's starting to hurt more in the area around it that has feeling still. I did mention it was a Monday right? I got the sled back together, I will leave that until Tuesday to try... As some point in there I took a break for lunch... it's all a blur now and things are getting mixed up in my head... yes... Mondays. Heather came home and made some sausages, potatoes and corn for dinner while I finished up in the basement. Now only mister man gets the corn and potatoes... we got bowl of bread with our meat... definitely needs some tweaking... ya, tastes a bit like an old stale hamburger bun... she adjusted the time in the microwave and added some more butter... I tried a bite of hers... it was much better, although nothing to blog about. Sunshine wasn't feeling well, she went to lay down... and as well all know that's code for went to bed early. The boy watched a few videos, took a bath and head off to bed like a good little trooper. Heather woke up around 10pm, still not feeling well, she went to the hospital to get some antibiotics... I took a shower and then looked for a stash of medication that was left around from days gone by... I found some left overs... she was more happy about the stuff I found than the stuff the hospital gave her to hold her over until she gets to the pharmacy tomorrow. She's already feeling a bit better. I'm going to stop typing so she can get back to sleep now.