Day 155: Thursday... day 4 of hockey camp. I got up late... too much working on photo stuff into the wee hours of the morning. Grabbed a shower, fed the boy and headed out the door to Timmins... We got there in time to get some more pics of the Atoms playing before Lawson had to get ready to go on the ice... it takes about as long for the Zamboni to clean the ice as it does for him to get his gear on so that's good. I continued to take photo through out his session, recorded some video... the practices are getting a little better but it's still not the same without Nick here, his stuff was out there in left field, fun stuff that other coaches don't teach the kids. It was unique and what Lawson was looking forward to... but like I said, just good to get back on the ice. As they start to expect more out of the boy he keeps stepping up his game. After one set he got a round of applause from the rest of the goalies watching and the goalie coach came over and let me know that he was making "Some Sick Glove Saves" and that he was... who knew a little kid could stretch that far... he was baiting the shooters with an opening on the trapper size and waiting for the shots so he could just snag them out of the air... I even saw a few windmills in there, like Pete Townshend... wait, wrong windmill. LOL They ended the day with a little game where the players lined up on three chosen goalies and tried to make it in for a shot on net while the coaches lobbed go-kart tires at the kids... it was pretty funny... but at the end of it all Lawson's net had the fewest pucks in it by a long shot... and that's playing with kids that are 4 years older than him. When he got off the ice he manned one of the cameras and we got a few more shots of the older players. Can't call that group kids, sure it's just the next group up from what Lawson was playing but some of them are 6' 4" and then add the height of the skates in there... I'm looking up at them as they walk by like I'm looking at the giraffes at the zoo. Not kids. We head home and I got started on the photo mess early in hopes of getting some sleep tonight... Heather gets home, hot and tired, enjoyed a little sit down beside the air-conditioner before baking us some buns for dinner... samiches... you know it's hard to think you could miss eating samiches but it's possible. Just not something we normally eat... but then again anything not poultry related this week is out of the norm. Anyway we ate, made Lawson some perogies to eat while he played video games with his friends. And we watch some shit on the idiot box.... Heather eventually fell to sleep and then I finished off the photos I had started working on earlier in the evening. Oh, and they gave the boy a new Jersey...

GoaliePow Glove Save

Day 154: Lawson requested pancakes for breakfast so that's what he got... might put some pep in his step today. We head back to the arena. Take a few shots of the Atom players and then Lawson head out on the ice with the older kids. They started to treat the boy a little more like the rest of the kids at that level... they turned it up and so did he... made a lot of awesome saves until about the last 20 minutes he was on fire. Then he got hit in the foot by a slap-shot from about 12 feet out... his game changed and he mostly gave up saving anything other than what hit him... thought he might have been getting tired or just didn't like the drill... it wasn't a drill for the goalies as much as it was for the players. Anyway he shook it of and is ready to go back out tomorrow and give'r hell again. We went into Timmins from hockey... first stop Oil! when the hell is the last time the oil was changed in that poor Subaru? Anyway got that done and a new air filter... I think they have a jar of dirt and bugs they dump on your filter before the show it to you... I swear... then off to BestBuy to see Mel and poke around the store. Picked up more storage for the computer, a few cables and Lawson bought a new set of headphones... I didn't realize he would have to now turn the game up louder now to hear it because the game sound comes out the stereo not the head phones... the head phones are only for talking to his friends... DOH! Anyway, we hit the grocery store on the way home and gas station... what's up with that? Gas prices full 30 cents over night? I'm not complaining but... We finally make it home around 5:30, we brought precooked chicken, no one wanted to cook anyway. I cleaned off the memory chips and started in on the photos again. We watch some more Ranch while I did it. Lawson played with his friends and his new headphones after dinner and we all eventually packed it in. Oh wait, I have to do these entries before going to sleep... ZZZZzzzzzzz......
Photo Below... the coach driving a full size Chevy Puck into the boy today.

Saving a Chevy Puck from the net

Day 153: Garbage day again... we do our chores, eat breakfast (egg mc muffin things), pack up the camera gear and head back to the arena. I got some more shots in before Lawson had to go on the ice. The Atom division, missed the Novice... too damn early. He went on with the Peewee/Bantam division and the twin's dad and I took more photos and video. It didn't get much better, still lobbing cream puffs at the boy, he's not even trying. He did finish up and help me with a bit of camera work... we didn't stay long. The top secrete project was waiting to be started... Lawson helped me cut the first stack of wood. His friends came by and stole him away for a bit to go for a bike ride... I let him go, not many more good biking days left in the year is my guess. Heather got home and we waited for the boy to return before getting any food in us. When he did get home we went back to work and finished up that wood... came in an had breakfast for dinner... Lawson had something with a few more carbs in it. I went back to editing photos to post to the new Facebook group and watched another episode of the Ranch... It's almost like that 70's Show grew up and all the cast are living on the Ranch now... I plugged in all the batteries and went to sleep.

Vitucci Goaltending Summer Camp Timmins (Porcupine)

Day 152: Everyone scavenged food for breakfast, leftover pizza, Heather made the boy English muffins with cream cheese I think... I found an avocado and some summer sausages slices... We hit the road, I wanted to get some footage of the other divisions of kids at the hockey camp today. Got there part way through the novice group. Got past the COVID Door Nazi (Later she asked if she scared me... LOL, um, no ). I set up some cameras and Heather and Lawson went into town for the morning... they went to the park, watched the ski line, chased the ducks... ok there wasn't much chasing, they just kinda stand there and expect you to give them food soo... a walk around the lake and lunch at A&W... they brought me back some too. I went out around 11:30 and helped the boy get his gear on in the parking lot... we can't use the dressing rooms yet. You get dressed in the parking lot, you can put your skates on inside but don't move the chairs. They are cleaned between each group and 6 feet apart, they each get a chair to put on their skates... then the parents must leave and the kids file onto the ice. Oh, and yes masks are required while putting on skates... but not on the ice. Lawson headed in fully geared up, skates and all. I went back to taking pictures and video, The twins from hockey father helped man one of the cameras, so he was a helper not a parent and could stay. Heather went off to do Heather things for a while... she went looking for a new golf glove. Came up with squat. She might have managed a nap, oh yes why was she not at work? Doctors appointment, a follow up thing on something she didn't have anymore, they changed it from an appoint she had to be there for to just a phone call which she could have done from work BUT she wasn't notified early enough and had already booked the day off... besides who doesn't enjoy the day off. Boy went out with the Division above him and the division above that. The actual goalie coach was in quarantine and couldn't make it... it is what it is... COVID Sucks. Definitely not up to the standards it was last time he went to the camp... I hope Nick comes back next year. The goalies running the program now are kinda green and just going through the motions , I have all kinds of things I could complain about but everyone is just getting back on the ice and I think the focus is a little off. Frankly they need to take it up a notch for Lawson, he looks bored and is not trying... not that you have to try hard when they lob the puck at the middle of you at half the speed the novice shoot, I mean he would have to literally try hard to get out of the way to actually let the puck in... Then in the second half they were abandoned almost like a real team practice... the goalie coaches did little more than fish pucks out of the net while the players shot on them 2 at a time... not sure what you are supposed to focus on there, you can't even get down in a butterfly because you need to be in two places at once... no feed back, no coaching... meh, I'm hoping it gets better. For now I'm going to drag my feet in regards to posting video because it doesn't look pretty. I took some stuff from the next group that came on, then packed up and went looking for the rest of the FamJam in the parking lot. On the way home we stopped back in town and got Lawson some Italian Cheesy Bread from the Pizza place and grabbed a few coffee for ourselves. Once home I unloaded the camera gear and stared clearing the chips off, putting them onto the computer for editing, sorting and compressing... I made a new facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Turnbull-Sports-PhotoVideo-101397698348904
And posted almost 100 photos there... I looked at some of the video, 5 minutes is 100 meg... times that by the number of 5 minute files I have and that's about 6393 hours of uploading to the internet... I'm going to have to edit it, compress the shit out of it and load it to Facebook on a sunny day when the network doesn't lag as much because of the dampness. Basically the internet connection sucks. I will try to edit some video tomorrow. Too tired now, must sleep.

Day 151: The day of preparation... Breakfast... Coffee, Omelettes (Western with a Kick), I precooked the innards for princess this morning... well all but the cheese. I started mulling about the house looking for things... surprising enough I was actually finding shit without trashing the whole house. I started finding things by accident that I hadn't even started looking for that have been missing for months. I took a USB outlet I was going to install in the wall and thought to myself you know, this would be even more handy on an extension cord... or just wire it to the cord from that old heater I took apart to make a bodkin out of the other day... I went to tape it up, needed electrical tape... I look in the box for the tape and find 2 batteries for the camera that I needed to find today but never would have looked in that box in the basement in a million years, yet there they were just lying there. I finished the USB Charger and plugged in some stuff to get it charging. Now the battery charger for the camera batteries... I have 3, should be able to find at least 1... I found 2, and the correct adapter plates for all 3 different batteries... less than 5 minutes total, nothing where it belonged... I just found them sitting there with some other stuff I was looking at. Hell I was on a roll, what about the goPro, check over there, cable to charge it, plugged in still, memory card, check... dash cam, cable, card, check check check, what else have I been missing... Honey do you recall misplacing a check for 1 million dollars? Alas she didn't, and I didn't find one. MacBook, charger, check check, a mic... found 2, Battery packs to run things off of when they run out of juice, check and charged... tripod... hmmm... only found one of those, close enough... extra lens, found it, then I matched it up with the original lens covers that go on each end. Hockey gear, under layer, cup, helmet, stick... I thought I found my Tilley Hat for a minute but it was just the cheap knock off I bought to get me through until I found the real one... We had Cake for lunch, Heather took a break from the blanket long enough to join me. I started transferring all the data off the memory cards so I have room for new stuff. Might have to invest in a new hard drive this week things are getting a little full. I found a few more things while my luck held out... I was in freaking bloodhound mode today... I started to run dry looking for money in my jacket pockets from last winter... seems I've been cash poor at least once likely just preCOVID and got to all the pocket change... no extra $100 bill lying around. Packed the car with the hockey gear... had to take the Golf clubs out first... Not like the Leafs that do that the other way around. Heather made that 2nd Pizza crust into Pizza... sausage, peppers, mushrooms, olives... other stuff I'm sure, no point skimping on the toppings. Packed up the Camera Stuff... Filled my Vest... Watched a few episodes of the Ranch and went to sleep.

Day 150: 6:30am Fuck people it's the weekend someone better be dead... I ignored the cell phone chirping messages at me, turned it off and left it off for the bulk of the day... see no problem. I woke up again to Heather making more blanket in the bed and Lawson sitting on my head watching videos on his iPad... pretty sure there are better places to do something like that in the morning but his alarm was set to go off at 8am because mommy was taking him to the driving range this morning. He ate the rest of the KraftDinner from the Measuring cup from the night before for breakfast and the wife found the cake in the fridge... so the cake got smaller. I wasn't quite sure what the delay on the driving range was... likely another row needed finished in the blanket. Eventually they left... Went down to Kenogami and hit a few buckets of balls, took a trip into L.K. to grab some lunch at MickyD's and get more toonies to feed the ball dispenser at the range... stopped and hit some more balls on the way home with the change from Timmies. Meanwhile back at the ranch I cleaned up the kitchen and made a few pizza crusts for the evening Pizza/Wing night. SideKick came by with a skid of wood and dropped it in the driveway, hence the beginning of another top secrete project involving what I believe to be some kind of containment devices for a particular genera of music... he figures it will be more lucrative than the COVID Vampire Stakes... not that I didn't make a buck off of those when the panic set in... We stacked the wood, he informed me that is was only about a 1/5th of what we needed... seems he's planning on filling a stadium with music or something... time will tell... We invited him to stay for Zaa and Wings... We bitched about doctors, politics, conspiracy theories, immigration, stupid people and the statistical numbers behind the BLM... (B)ow(L)(M)ovements... We are well on our way to being grumpy old men that bitch about everything. Afterwards Lawson, Heather and myself loaded up the latest version of BTD6 on all of our devices and played a Co-Op map together... Heather's getting the hang of it, saved our ass a few times and we cruised past the hard level before the game got a bit unstable and we finally lagged out and were decimated by Bloons. The Boy went to bed and we watched a few episodes of the Ranch... which reminds me that Mexican guy looks a lot like Fez.

Rod Turnbull
OK looked it up... didn't look a lot like Fez but all the facial expressions were dead nuts the same... yup same guy... Wilmer Valderrama... ya, I'm going to just stick to calling him Fez.

Day 149: Ya ya yesterday was a slow day, the boy and I played some games in the morning while eating some more everything eggs, this time with cheese... it required an extra egg to get around all the cheese and not break the yolk. In the afternoon I make chocolate cake, mostly from zucchinis and it was timed to come out of the over just as Heather got home... it's good to walk into a house with stuff in the oven... as long as it isn't oven cleaner or something that was supposed to come out of the oven a half an hour ago... We set them out to cool and Heather got tied up in a new project blanket while she thought about what she wanted for dinner. Sausages were on deck but she wasn't feeling it... as time marched on I gave up and at least made the boy some food... then handed him a large measuring cup full of kraft dinner for him to eat bachelor style over the sink... today my son you are a man. LOL I gave it another few hours before I broke down and made icing for the cake and piled the layers on top of each other... I knew what her deal was... she just wanted that damn cake for dinner and new if it was late enough she would get what she wanted... Soooo... we had cake for dinner, watched the last episode of the Umbrella thingy (apparently it's trending on net flicks in Canada so we've gotten that out of the way now. She fell to sleep, the boy went to be and I took the cake plates into the kitchen.

Day 147: Hockey - ok I will get to that later. Big town day again. Picked up SideKick for the usual run to town for doctors appointments and shopping. Lawson sat in the car all morning. During the first appointment we linked our phone and tablet together and played the daily co-op round of BloonsTD6 - pretty simple today, after killing the required level we just continued playing... Eventually SideKick came out and I had to give the boy my phone so he could finish the game and play both accounts at once. Too hard to play BTD6 and drive at the same time.  Canadian Tire, brake parts, shock, suspensions parts... the had most of the stuff in stock... took them for ever to find it... they had it in stock because someone else owns one of these pieces of crap and it was currently in the shop having those same parts put on it. Son, no parts for me... I finally ordered them from some place else at half the price. Never buy anything from CT that's not on sale... always a good rule of thumb. How else do you think they can afford to put things on sale for 75% off all the time? Yes the are marked up too high in the first place. Pick of the Crop for lunch. Masks and social distancing seems to be working, we haven't died yet today. Timmies drive through for boovrages... And the Bulk Barn... seems they are slipping from a store that was better to shop at after the changes to just another shop that can't count... they adopted the take a cart so we can keep count method of operation, I laughed at the employee when asked to take a cart but I complied... I pushed it about 8' to the fist bin by the cash register, fill a bag with stuff from the bin and placed it directly on the checkout counter and passed her the cart back. She then understood why I was laughing. Yarn... WTF? I get a message from the wife pick up enough yarn for a blanket while you are out... I might as well asked her to pick up enough stuff to rewire a house on the way home... I do colours... that's it for yarn, I know which colours go together well. So I requested more info... give me a length in feet of how much string you need and how thick should the string be and it that made from nylon or moose hair or frog nipples or what. She gave me a brand, a type and a weight. Close enough, that I can at least work with... no if Walmart only had that much of that kind of string. I finally hobbled together what looked to be the last of their stock of this type of string thing... it took a while to dig to the bottom of the bins and mixing and matching colours... but I did get string... while and blue and grey. Golf was canceled due to shitty rainy weather... which was convenient because we were running way late. We dropped off SideKick on the way home, hit the Mennonite shop up for a few other odds and ends and then limped the car back into the driveway... I pick up the parts to fix it on Monday. Heather made some buns when she got home, I got out the slicer and cut up some cold-cuts.. and Wednesday Night Samiches. No one has the energy to do too much in the kitchen on HumpDay. After diner I headed north into Iroquois Falls to the Jus Jordan Arena... Hockey is coming soon... we had the first board of directors meeting in almost 6 months. All went as well as can be expected... looks like we are going to be working on skills and playing some small team 3 on 3 games or 4 on 4 with Cochrane and Matheson... we might try to sneak South Porcupine in there. We will see what happens after registration night when we start to get some real numbers in. Gas on the way home... getting late, almost 9:30... I walk in and Heather is working on the new blanket with the wool (string) I just bought. Starting to look interesting already. She worked on that damn thing for hours... didn't bag off until almost midnight. Someone is going to be draggin' ass tomorrow... I mean other than me. LOL

Day 146: Garbage Day... I bagged it, the boy took it to the curb... I use the term curb loosely, what I meant to say is the spot where the dirt in the yard blends seamlessly into the dirt of the street... street, another loose term here... LOL Had all kinds of wonderful ideas of things I wanted to do today... unfortunately my body was not co-operating with me... I was having my Monday a day late this week. I did get the kitchen cleaned up a bit but nothing to write about... wait I just did. When Heather got home she was late... doesn't she know I worry about her? My god at least give me a call to let me know... she stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few odds and ends. I had already taken chicken out of the fridge for dinner... it turned into Butter Chicken and cauliflower baked in the over smothered in butter and turmeric... trust me it's good. I found the Vodka bottle unattended on the counter... some of it may or may not have fallen into the water before getting whacked by the soda-stream machine... BTW don't do this. LOL It says so in the directions... really... but you know me... so I do it anyway... I've learned the problem is in removing it from the machine. Basically it's like taking a bottle of champagne and shaking it up and then trying to remove the cork. It can be done but it requires a lot of patience easing it off the seal... it wants to explode... seriously don't do this... but it does make for a nice drink with a little of that squirty water flavouring stuff in it.   Boob Tube... or what ever they call it now... Heather and I watched a few episodes of the Umbrella Corp or what ever it's called, Season 2, episodes 1 and 2... the world just keeps ending again and again... for different reasons... can't wait until they do the 2020 COVID Apocalypse. And then Darkness came... seems darkness is starting to get earlier again... it should snow soon.