Day 165: Sunday - not going to be a day of rest this week... Work up sore from playing with Project X. Heather made Bacon and Omelettes for breakfast, well Lawson wanted crumpets and eggs with yokes, I think she broke a yoke and got yelled at for it. I went into the basement and worked on the sled... toyed around with a few ideas, then hobbled together something that looked like it would work. Hmm... testing phase, maybe I should let the glue dry a little bit first. I set things aside and head up for lunch. Soup, Heather made some home made mushroom soup... which would explain are that running about she had been doing earlier looking for dried mushrooms we apparently didn't have... I know I bought brown mushrooms... we have a dehydrator, I can make some for you... and she explained that there was no point because she was just going to put them in water anyway and rehydrate them... I gave up... the soup was good... ok it needed more cheese, I don't think she put any in... how can you have mushroom soup without cheese? SideKick came by to check on the progress of Project X, he brought some more supplies... he even helped push some more wood into the saw... we got everything cut to length... well everything we have on hand that is... Lawson got commissioned to carry the one pile of wood into the basement to be ripped into 2" wide strips. 40ish boards down... then 120 back up. I showed the sled to SideKick, pushed a length of pipe through the saw enclosed in the sled... it seemed to work on the piece I had... the pieces he brought were not the same (DOH!) half of them have flared ends and don't fit nicely like the straight one did... and I have to remember to push them through lid first to keep the lid from coming off... so there are a few bugs to work out but it looks like it will make the job easier and have much better results. At some point in there I did plane some more lumber... I forget when... I think I'm blocking... what a horrible job to do. The cheaper the wood, the farther you are away from finishing your project... I need a sign to hang in the basement with that on it to remind me which wood to buy from now on. LOL SideKick went home for dinner, the rest of the family kinda went next door for a little visit, their grand kids were over and Lawson likes to play with them, the one boy is almost the same age as him. We sat around on the deck and chatted for a while past dinner. Eventually Heather made a break for the house to once again forage in the kitchen for something for us all to eat. Shortly after I followed, leaving the boy outside to play. She had pizza on deck, crust was on the way in the oven and chicken and her home made BBQ sauce was on deck amongst a variate of other toppings. It was good... going to have to remember the BBQ sauce thing. After dinner it didn't take long before everyone was asleep, Heather crashed first, then the boy, then the man.

Day 164: Slow morning, no surprise... Lawson saw an ad for Vector cereal the other day and needed to have some to support his active life style... he needs to eat healthy you know, so he can preform his best on the ice. OK so we bought him some, Heather poured him a bowl full this morning, asked if he wanted some brown sugar on it... nope, he didn't want anything to do with extra sugar, that's not healthy... good lord, and it starts. We had some pancakes, healthy be damned, it's Saturday morning... pancakes, bacon and coffee... because that's they way we roll. I gave the neighbourhood a break this morning, no planer in the driveway. The boy and I cued up a game of BTD6 and played a Co-Op game of helicopters only, he got bored and started adding in non attacking support towers, I held to the plan, he got more bored with the choppers and support towers and added in airplanes justifying it with they fly like helicopters so they should be allowed as well... I stuck to the helicopters... eventually he needed to go to the bathroom... while he was there we died... maybe I got bored too... LOL Heather baked some buns and we had tuna samiches for lunch. Afterwards I went bake out to the driveway to finish up those wood bits... this is hard on my OCD thing... I want them to all be the same, truth of the matter is the tops and bottoms don't need to be the same thickness, just have a decent side to glue the edges too... The thickness planer eventually over heated and I switched my focus on to another part of the project... making a sled for the tubing, don't ask. For this I got to use the lathe... it makes better circles than the table saw.  Heather called me in for dinner... She made BBQ chicken, home made BBQ sauce and yummy tasty Broccoli (how do you make the little barfy face emoji, I'm not even sure people are supposed to eat those little green tree things)... I went without broccoli and was ok with that. Took a break from the sled thing and watched a movie with Heather when boy headed off to bed. Some cheerleader/dance chick flick, you need to watch one every once in a while because after all they watched Rambo with you... remember? After the movie Heather crashed and I went back to the basement to work out a few more project X details... cut up the rest of the wood for the sled but the battery died on the screw gun, can't find the charger, it was likely a good place to stop. I will finish it up tomorrow and test it to see if it works. Going to sleep now... anymore work in the basement and I will likely cut a thumb off. Sleepy workers don't make good safety choices if you know what I mean.

Day 162: Well it didn't happen for a 4th day in a row... she didn't wake me up at 6am with car problems... no, she woke me up at 5am this morning with computer problems... I down loaded the needed files to her desk top and she scurried off to work, she needed the info for a meeting held by the PGO to determine who gets their professional papers and who needs to go back to school.... ANYWAY... I think I figured out why she married me, not my money or my good looks... it was my skill at fixing cars and computers... my question is why is everything breaking at stupid o clock in the morning. 8:30, 9am ish the boy surfaced. We played a Co_Op game of BTD6, let me tell you 18 tier 4 & 5 banana farms make a crap load of money... we only had 2 attacking towers and the game didn't crap out until about level 160... We ate breakfast, I made him an egg mcmuffin and I ate a left over piece of pizza that he left sitting on the table a few days ago... meh, it was only a little hard and cold. We both went out to work on Project X, shuffling wood from one pile to the other through the planer. Took a break for lunch when the poor little planer over heated and then did some more wood after lunch. Sidekick stopped by and dropped off some more wood for the project. We covered it all up with tarps, the wet wood is a bitch to work with. And it rained. Fuck it's getting down into the single digits tonight, maybe we will get some snow. LOL We waited for Heather to get home as long as we could but she didn't make it... we needed to head to Timmins for another installment of Hockey for the Boy. We pulled in the parking lot with a few minutes to spare, the twins pulled in behind us. We set up camp in the parking lot and the kids got changed... sure no cameras in the dressing rooms but the parking lot is fine... we can use cameras there where they get changed. Timmins... Retards... That's all I can say. A few of us parents sat around and talked about the new rules, about covid, about renting the ice and just letting the kids play some fucking hockey games... where we decide who gets to watch and take photos. I can see a lot of hockey being played on the side this season... just might have to keep stats in our new league rather than the actual league. My guess is we are over whelmed by people wanting to play by week 3. The boys eventually emerged from the giant metal box filled with ice... I hear they put the ice back in the Mac, so we may be up to 2 arenas now. We hit Timmies to refuel and then back to Matheson... (No Google maps needed today, just one trip to town). Brought Heather home a coffee and found out she had made some crackslaw so I got some real food today... been a lot of eggs this week and the fridge is very empty, we really haven't done a proper shopping trip in weeks. As we sat at the dining room table the Cards Against Humanity Game was calling our name... we took a hand full each and played through the black cards for some amusement. Eventually we moved to a horizontal position in another room and kinda fell to sleep, well Heather fell to sleep... I'm writing this.

Mike S
He he he

Day 160: Garbage day... I wish I had remembered that this morning... I was a little out of it... Now I fixed the car yesterday... OK, I got in it and fired it up and drove around in it a while after I had gotten home from driving Heather to work... it worked fine... I put it in the driveway and left it... apparently something was left on, the battery died... and the car didn't work again this morning... I tried it at 6am... yup dead battery... Heather took the Subaru and promised to be home in time to take us all to Timmins again this afternoon. I went the fuck back to bed. The whole rest of the house was up late last night... and in turn work up late this morning... breakfast rolled in around 10am... Pancakes, maple syrup and home made ice cream... keto and non keto versions... both tastes pretty much the same at this point but the boy needs the carbs to fuel the hockey machine. Mel and I sat around and chatted, I bitched about cloud storage in internet connections, she looked into it and agreed that I'm not losing my mind (at least not when it came to that stuff) and yes my internet connection sucks and it is impossible to down load the files I need from the icloud because my internet sucks. We gave up and discussed out ways to skin the cat. ZZA... yes, we decided to back up that late breakfast with more disgusting keto food... Pizza... made a big ass tray of it and got done just before Heather walked in to claim her share. We piled in the car and head off to Timmins again... all 4 of us... goalie gear... the usual car stuff (ice scraper, safety kit, lawn chairs, cooler full of shopping bags, tools)... the bicycle... Mel's over night bag... Made it to the Whitney Arena on time... I remembered about the letter I was going to send when I got a message about who to send it to... I was given a clue as to where to look but people from the Timmins organization didn't seem to want to get involved. I fired a copy off to the City while I was sitting in the Arena parking lot... if they don't get back to me soon I will start calling people in the city... likely start with the mayor and work back from there. The boy got ready and went inside for practice. They big people were once again set free for a brief moment in time. We dropped off the bike at O'Riely's... and head to Sport Check to look for Golf Gloves. They only had left hand gloves left, Heather wasn't sure which glove she or the boy needed to we abandoned the search and left empty handed. Might as well poke our heads in Winners now since it's just across the hall in the mall. Picked up a few things and head out with no time to spare... need to get back to the arena and dump off Mel on the way out of town. Pulled in and parked, 10 seconds later the arena door swings open and Lawson pushes out in his full gear. I open the tailgate and push him in the back of the car... it starts to rain again. We get his gear off and back in the bag and head back to Matheson after another quick stop at Timmies to refuel the boy. Pull in the driveway an hour later and realize I still need to do something about the Mazda... now I tried to hook up the battery charger earlier in the day but I have one of those intelligent that tell you your battery is dead... no it wont charge it, it's dead, it doesn't work, it's broken... this battery charger only will charge good batteries... DUH!!! Someone from Timmins must have built this, I swear. So it sat in the driveway with all the lights on the box blinking all day telling me the battery is broken and the car won't start... fuck... who hooks up a charger to a battery that works and is fully charged? Obviously the people who make this smart charger... did I mention FUCK! ? Anyway I managed to get the Subaru up beside it and get the jumper cables from one vehicle to the other... let it sit for a few minutes then fired the Mazda with the dead beyond repair battery back up with out an issue because you don't need a working battery for that. I let it run for half an hour in the driver to charge a bit so the charger would realize that the battery was not as broke as it had thought... After an hour I turned it of (likely close to fully charged) and hooked the charger up to the battery that no longer needed charging to start the car and the charger started charging the battery... what a fucking piece of shit. It will likely drain the battery tonight while I leave it charging and I will come out to a dead battery again tomorrow. Fuck this, I'm going to sleep .

Robert S
You still sheltered

Rod Turnbull
Well the wife hasn't kicked me to the curb yet if that's what you are getting at... LOL They are starting to let people doing things as long as we don't get close enough to touch each other. 

Rod Turnbull
The kids can go to hockey as long as the parents don't come in to watch... only 50 people allowed in a building at a time.

Robert S
What’s taking her so long 

Rod Turnbull
I'm worried now... she laughed when she read that.

Robert S
I need to call up there

Day 159: And oh what a Monday morning it was... 6 am, 'You need to drive me into work the car isn't working' - I drag my ass out of bed and take Heather to Kirkland Lake (you are going to want to follow along, please open up a tab with google maps on it for today's recap). Back to Matheson and make the boy Breakfast. Off to Val Gagne to pick up side kick and take him into Timmins for a Dr. appointment... wait in the car for over an hour... And then back to Val Gagne to drop off SideKick and then back to Matheson to load up the hockey gear and get Lawson's bike... Heather was going to bum a ride home from someone at work. We loaded up the car (forgot the bike that was to go in for a tuneup) and headed back to Timmins. Picked up Melanie at her friends house... now it turns out that her friends Brother is actually on the board of directors for the Timmins minor hockey group AND he was a goalie when he played AND faced a lot of the same issues we are having as Lawson gets worked through the system... so I'm finding that interesting and may just need to sit down and have a chat some time in the not so distant future.... where was I? Ah yes we went out for lunch... Sushi! Well a lot more Sashimi than Sushi... trying to keep it Keto you know. We got there and needed a mask to walk from the door 10 feet to the table, at which point you can take them off to actually eat and stuff, cough on things, lick the seats, what ever turns your crank... us we ate like free willy, oddly enough the raw fish came in waves... LOL The staff there has gotten stupid, not sure where the hell they found these people but it's happening to a lot of places around town. They quoted the price difference between lunch and dinner as only $1, ya... well that came in at about $40 more as a total on the bill. I was pretty sure she was wrong and stupid when she told up so it wasn't a huge surprise that she was stupid. Did I mention she didn't know shit? After Dinner/Lunch we got back in the car and went to drop off the bike to get it tuned up... we stopped and told him I would drop it off tomorrow because I can't remember shit. Then we head off to the Arena. Low and behold some fucktard from the town has made a new rule that no cameras are allowed in the Arena because some people may not want their photos taken... OK Timmins is just full of Stupid people today, the one who made this decision worked for the government... Like Stupid people in the government is any more of a surprise than... well, what happen at lunch... fuck... Long story short (see below) - I leave the boy to head in for hockey practice after he gears up in the parking lot. Me and the Twins dad head over to Timmies for a coffee both with our oldest children in tow. And hour and a half of time just goes by so fast some times... LOL Back to pick up the boys. It's raining... they are getting changed again in the parking lot... the city is really going to have to get their shit together and utilize the stands in sections or something to give the players space inside to get ready. We head back to Matheson (anyone got a mileage total yet?) pretty sure at some point in the day I needed to stop for gas but it's all a blur now so... Heather apparently made it home and finished making the ice cream. Not in time to have some tonight... but... anyway we sat around chatted a bit before B1 and B2 head to bed and left Melanie and I to head to the basement to watch a movie. After the movie I couldn't sleep, got a little ticked about stupid people in Timmins and wrote the following letter which I expect a response to (see comments)... finished up at about 4am and went to sleep

Rod Turnbull

As a local photographer I was a little shocked today when I was informed that no cell phones/ cameras/ or go-pros were allowed in the public arena in Porcupine. In Canada I am guaranteed the right to express myself through photography, and I have the freedom to publish the photos I take. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees my right to take photographs of anything I want, as well as publish them.

I don't generally need permission to photograph people for the purposes of 'personal photography' and there are no Canadian privacy laws that prohibit non-commercial distribution of the photos on internet based media. The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act may require a photographer to obtain consent from anyone that will be identifiable in a photograph. This is not really applicable to hockey players in full gear wearing helmets equipped with face-shields posted at the resolution and compression used in most online media platforms. Even with the slim odds that a player can actually be identified, this requirement does not apply to photographs taken solely for journalistic, artistic, or literary purposes, which are the photos I am currently taking. Hence no consent is needed from players or staff, there are no laws that state consent is needed.

Although the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms also says that every Canadian is guaranteed a reasonable expectation of privacy. This privacy does not include public spaces like the arena, anything that a normal person could see from public property is allowed to be photographed and shared. Reasonable expectation of privacy includes things like peoples homes, autos in some cases, public restrooms, even the dressing rooms at the arena, a person should be able to expect privacy in these places. You will find that there are already rules in the arenas regarding cameras/cell phones in the dressing rooms, I believe these areas are even posted... if cameras aren't allowed in the arena why are there rules specifically disallowing cameras in particular rooms in the arena?

I spent a week at the Whitney Arena taking photos and video, all which are being posted to the internet on various media platforms, below I have included a link to over 400 photos which are posted to Facebook. All of these photos were taken following the Public Health Units guidelines as to occupancy of the facility and social distancing. The parents are not being allowed in to watch due to these restraints and these photos and videos are the only things they have to allow them to connect with what is going on inside, during the troubling times we are currently facing. There have been thousands of views and nothing but positive comments left on the page hosting the photos and many parents have taken the time to personally express their gratitude for the material posted to date. By restricting photography in the arena you are doing a terrible injustice to the community adding to the stress and concerns that most of the parents are having trying to return to a more normal level of activity with their children returning to sports and other activities. Please correct the situation and be part of the solution, help things return to normal, there are no reasons to justify disappointing so many people by adding rules that have no merit and no legal reasoning.

Sincerely,
Rod Turnbull

Please respond to: rodandheather@grnail.com
Link to last weeks photos in the Whitney Arena
https://bit.ly/2Q4wPwk

Day 158: Sunday, the day of rest... thank god. I'm fucked up pretty bad, can't move, hurt a lot... been doing far too much... so what's on the agenda today? Plane wood in the rain... maybe... nope... golf, well not for me, Lawson and Heather went back to the driving range, they were going to go golfing but due to the damp forecast they decided to do something that if it started raining they could just get in the car to avoid getting wet rather than have to walk 3 miles back to the parking lot... Anyway while they were gone I managed a shower and dressed myself which was more that I thought I would be capable of today. Next I started in on those videos... there are a lot of them, so are pretty good. This is going to take a while just to sort them out. Mid afternoon the golf pros made it home and they brought food for dinner. Apparently from the garbage brought in from the car, McD's was what they had for lunch. Sidekick stopped by, we talked about the top secrete project on deck and made plans to find more parts some time this week. We fed him apple crisp and home made ice-cream with his coffee today because that's what friends do, right. The BBQ was heated up for dinner, steak, roasted zucchini, corn on the cob for the boy and brussels sprouts for us. We must have eaten early, Heather's mom didn't phone during dinner like she normally does, we actually got finished today before it happened. I went back to working on videos, Heather talked on the phone, Lawson played his games... all in all little got done, guess that's why they call it the day of rest.

Day 157: Saturday... I was informed we need to clean something today... no one had been home all week, the house had been used as a launching and landing pad with a refueling station that served up chicken of various types all week long. It was trashed, the sink full of dirty dishes, the dishwasher was full... yes the house needed cleaned... however I had other things that needed done as well. The Mazda needed attention pieces had literally fallen off. I went out in the driveway and pulled the back corner apart... I didn't have all the parts I needed but made due with what I had... the shock is now attached but still needs a new bracket on the top, I welded up something to make it stay in place. The brakes were almost impossible to get off. I needed to use the hydraulic press to separate the caliper from the rotor, it was a little seized... going to have to order a new one of those... I got it working the best I could but the pads won't last long like that... hopefully long enough it doesn't wreck the new rotor before the new caliper comes in. Didn't get to fixing the shifter yet... sure it's tore appart but I don't have parts for it yet either... a whole assembly is only $100 I might just swap out the whole thing and be done with it... Screwed with the car right through lunch, no one came out and fed me... dinner rolled around just as I was getting not done but as far as I could get, wheels back on the car, test drive around the block (a few times)... works much better, only had to pry it into gear once with the screw driver... I'd tell the wife about the screw driver but that would just open another can of worms. Pizza and Wing Night... Heather made Pizza n Wings, I came in changed into some clean clothes and washed up before dinner. After dinner I went back to photos... I finished the lot. 406 photos posted to the internet... of about 2000 taken... still lots of good stuff than didn't make it... so I then took a photo that didn't make the cut and did an editing job to it - ( I can fix anything ) and posted it to the page with the original (see below) just so people have an idea of what can be done if they want a photo edited. 2 am... crap into tomorrows time. Be back soon.

After Editing

Before Editing

Day 156: FRIDAY!!! Got up early, made breakfast... and packed lunch to take with us and headed back to the rink. Needed to catch the Novice in action today. Lawson helped set up the cameras and took video for the first little while of the novice game... eventually he got bored of that and came and took the camera I was using for still photos and sent me over to tend to the video camera. After their session we hopped in the car and headed over to O'Rielys to see if they had some polish for his pads to make him slide better on the wet ice... unfortunately they didn't but They did have some sticks on sale and the old one was on borrowed time (working on it's 4th season)... So I picked him up a stick and a roll of tape, the 'crappy tape' that he makes more money on rather than the Howies garbage he typically sells... I hate the Howies Tape, give me a truck load of the over price garbage stuff any day of the week over the Howies stuff... anyway back to the arena... we got some photos and footage of the Atoms on the ice and when the Zamboni came out (sorry the Olympia) Lawson got ready to go on the ice and I taped up the new stick just in case he wanted to use it... we went up a size because the other one was not ridiculously long enough, I mean people have stopped telling me it's way too long for him so he must need something longer, right? It took a whole roll of tape right down to the last inch, I could have used one more turn around the stick but close enough... and there was some debate about spending another $50 at the shop to get the stick that was 1/4 of an oz lighter, LOL Like that matters after putting a pound of tape on it. But the finishes on they sticks suck... every time a puck hits it the gel coat and paint just blows off it... the tape helps hold it together. They have realized they need to do a little more with him out there, the pucks are coming a little faster and they aren't going in the net behind him, he's got the rebounds covered, still making those sick glove saves and even through out a double pad stack as the coach was trying to hammer in the 3rd rebound... after the pad stack the coach gave up trying to score on him. In the 2nd session they squared off to play a little scrimmage game... OK Peewee at this end, Bantam at that end... the boy was perplexed as to where he belonged... I sent him to the Bantam bench, no point in only playing up one level, might as well make it 2... did I mention some of those Bantam players are starting to grow face hair? LOL, ya, the boy should be fine over there... I'm a horrible parent. LOL The game was confusing as shit... they had on black and red pinnies but I couldn't giver out which team was going which direction... peewees vs peewees and bantam vs bantam but the black and red seemed to switch ends from time to time and the goalies stayed out for 3 shifts which meant they were playing both bantams and peewees and for black and then red... fuck I don't know what was going on... neither did the goalies... at times their own team mates would line up and hammer on in their own net, ya well they weren't expecting that, on a few shots the boy didn't even flinch as the puck went sailing past him... when he figured out which colour he was playing for he did just fine... likely one of the better tenders on the ice, even with the age and size disadvantage. The memory chips filled up, the batteries died and cameras went off line one at a time as his practice wore on... when he got off the ice I packed up the gear, both his and mine and we headed out. Stopped by the BlukBarn on the way home and made it in the door just before heather arrived. I found some leftovers in the fridge that weren't chicken, hmmm.... so when did we eat this last, no fur, has no odd odor... I was tempted to look back in this post to see how long it was there but no one else reads this why should I... I tried some... waited a few hours and wasn't sick... so we had that for dinner. Lawson had Kraftdinner and Hotdogs... not sure who ate the most sketch dinner us or him. We retired to the bedroom for some TV and sleep, boy did the basement thing with video games and then sleep... I couldn't do anymore photos tonight, just couldn't do it.