What Did I Actually Say?

walks in the woods, stumbling on words, sometime kitchen ninja

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thunder and lightning yesterday midday, settling into a steady overnight rain and still going. Cooled off enough to want to start the wood stove this morning.

mixed emotions that the one extra day off of the season is cold and wet. But I'll take it for knocking down some smoke.

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mother bucker then walked up the staircase at the same pace.

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the other day realizing I did not actually check the coolant level in the Camry last week. Feeling pretty dumb.

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on the marketplace and a post for a " toddler knife " and my first thought was " who knives toddlers? " " why do yo need a special knife?"

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did not need

old speaker on the left. new to me speaker on the right. 20$ for the pair. They are just pair of GenX Pioneers, but definitely worth the money.

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a few weeks ago STV was under evacuation alert. I know she has lots of friends, but few are in the near enough area without also being evacuated. So I sent a text offering space, and extended that to a couple of her friends also in the same situation.

Turns out she was leaving for a three week stint up north, and asked to park her camper van here, and leave her upright bass in the house. Of course I agreed.

It was a bit painful having her drop by. Our situationshp ended just over 2 years ago. At the time we were both internally conflicted over aspects of our lives. And it wasn't each other, we were getting heavily emotionally siloed by ourselves. She made the call that I did not have the capacity to make.

We kept up some friendly contact, the occasional coffee, notices of job postings. But , and this was part of our not working, I am not a social person. So we never ran into each other at any gatherings or community events. The chance for the random re-uniting just isn't there.

In so many ways we were a very good match. Similar tastes in food and libations, entertainment, media, sex and other pleasures like sports. We have complementary skill sets, with enough overlap to be supportive but not overbearing. We met through a mutual acquaintance when I asked for a phone number. If we had met twenty years earlier I would have been totally smitten. As it was I was smitten.

We were ( are? ) both carrying baggage from a previous long term relationship that failed badly. She had ended, several years before we met, a marriage with two kids involved, in a town she didn't want to be in, with a man who almost went into a deep end in several miens. There was financial trauma for her, and public social angst over her ex's behaviours. They then both moved to Kimberley so the kids would continue to have one school and one set of friends. He was to all extents a total dick.

Me. My long term failure was a woman I was madly in love with, and we tried time and again over twenty years. Each time the stakes were higher as we grew into adulthood. The bitter end was me putting down my foot over moving across the province for her job and friends and leaving my daughter behind.

So, yeah, when she dropped off her van it was hard. She looked good with the changes she has worked on the last couple of years. I am feeling better about myself and where I am. I know there is way more at work than these few paragraphs.

[poppagottaski-blog]

we are fully at the half way of the season by the number of clients coming through.

and I am at the halfway blues. That's the realization that any peccadilloes and entrenched behaviours or habits of the staff ( myself included ) are not going to change.

As a chef, this is a bit frustrating. Every menu has things in it that I try to upgrade, regardless of how good the feedback is. But this year I am feeling like I will not have that space to try. The crew is good, solid even.

But I am exhausted by the constant hustle, and this feeling that every time I lift my eyes, all I see is this gaping maw of people wanting to be fed. I really don't understand how people can get so excited for food so often.

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Success,

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striped ground squirrel is loose in my house. I am not impressed. f'ers are good at getting into everything. set a live bucket trap, hope it works while I am doing the second half of the shift.

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Success, caught the bugger in an old cardboard box in the kindling pile by the wood stove. And the cat actually helped.

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striped ground squirrel is loose in my house. I am not impressed. f'ers are good at getting into everything. set a live bucket trap, hope it works while I am doing the second half of the shift.

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went for a walk... car rehab went the way I was hoping it wouldn't, so opted for plan B of Kokanee Glacier Park. Ended up at the Slocan Chief Cabin, which is just over 100 years old, then up to Smuggler's Notch.

This area was overrun with hard rock mining and exploration, above the Slocan cabin I came across three till piles, and one old cabin site. All of which is mind numbing in the age of heavy lift helicopters and ground machines that this was mostly done with steam mules, mules, horses and man power.

You have to zoom in on the walls for the name carvings, the entire interior is covered. And the builders' plaque.

where I point down is the location of the lodge built after Michel Trudeau died. The spot where I am standing is one of the tills I came across.

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so I watch a fair amount of car noob tube. Today, on FabRats I watched one of the presenters get absolutely blubbery talking about organ donations.

A friend of theirs lost a child, and openly donated organs. Multiple lives saved. And other organs donated to research.

This is no the typical content on these channels. But it did me good to hear that donating has real world value, that lives can be saved.

Last year I learned, that on average, there are fewer than 1,000 altruistic ( living donors with no connection to the recipient ) donations per year in all of Canada.

So, yeah, if you do not have a moral or medical reason to not be a donor when you die, sign the forms to register, talk to your kids and your partners. You can't take it with you.

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bought a 2nd hand hitch for the Vibe, but no mounting hardware ( 6 bolts and lock washers ). Do you know how hard it is to get ' M12x1.25 40mm grade 10.9 ' bolts? I sure didn't. It's just bolts, which is nuts.

Somehow, I ended up at the heavy lift shop ( these guys do logging and crane gear ). Tech didn't even blink, just said " yep, but longer than that. Just rip the extra off if you need to. Also, higher grade if that's ok." 6 calls to shops, 6 different in person. Trailer shop? No help. GM and Toyota said they didn't know what I was talking about.

Shout out to the guys with grey hair and decades of experience who don't even need to look things like this up, they know their stock. And to the younger staff who are willing to say, ' let me look '.

Ok, I get that you don't want to invest that much time for a fifteen dollar sale. But for f' sake, it took me 30 seconds to figure out what I needed. Then later figured out that brake caliper bolts are the same. A good parts desk should be able to figure that out on the fly.

At the trailer shop the parts desk guy was just like ' the techs just have boxes of bolts and try until something fits '. In my mind I go " no, they don't. They don't make enough money at guessing. " A shining example of why dealerships are like the bottom rung of skills and knowledge.

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FMP win. Bought a small rolling tool cabinet. Go to pick it up. Seller asks if I like tools and throws in this box of miscellaneous.

just about to open it, but I can see a few not cheap pieces in it. sorry no unboxing video.

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after leaving the auto wrecker yard the other day I was feeling pretty grody. I mean yeah, it's HAF out and I've just been at the yard lying near the dirt and dust trying to figure out if two stacked rocks count as " jack stands " while under a 30 year old engine.

So I stopped at Canadian Tire, bought some pumice cleaner, did my hands, then went into Weiners ( the Tahrgzay in Canada ) and bought me the most non-me pair of shorts. Linen, drawstring waist, short, Bermuda pink. And yes they are comfy.

I would have just changed shorts in the aisle, but I was commando and didn't feel like using a change room. I felt much better going out for lunch in not junkyard sleuthing clothes.

[elvis2130]

Fiat 500

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Is not authentic. So many tells.

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today I rolled out hose ( 200m) and partially assembled some irrigation pipe, staged a pump and needed liquids, roughed in a sump in the creek. Luckily found a cheap job box to keep the gear together and protected.

And also tried to configure how to get three lines off the one supply line, including a line to spray heads on the roof.

The reality is that this has should become a yearly action. We also have a weep line ( comes from a year round spring but no real pressure ) that I would like to divert to some in-ground cisterns for use in the greenhouse. Not cheap. But also imagine storing 40-50,000 litres of water over the winter ( not likely to freeze solid ).

Would love to figure out if that could power a ram pump for water to the houses. is it possible to have no power and pressured water to two houses? That sort of physics is beyond me at the moment.

As valuable as water is to our operation ( more so than power , or heat ) it is difficult to motivate the ranch to spending money on this. That storage would be a six figure investment.