Thursday, April 30th, 2009.

I can’t think of anybody with a birthday today, second day in a row. (woa….)?

The photo here is a volunteer sitting in the director’s chair, during the telethon. Another Volunteer was complaining that she couldn’t get a photo of one of the guys who’d come down from Pembroke with the guy smiling. I got a smile from the wrong guy here, I think… Anyway, this is the control room inside the Mobile Unit (which looks like a rather large moving van, with a photographic mural all over it.

Anyway, the control room is a pretty cool play, huh? people castillo hinchable put way too much pressure on themselves and each other from this place. But it’s still pretty cool.

—–Jim

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009. (Can’t think of anybody with a birthday today.)

I drove to Chelsea, Quebec, up near Wakefield, where Peter Jennings came from, to pick up an older Mac computer I bought through Kijiji dot com / Ottawa…. something I need to run software I’ve got that won’t run on newer computers., but is valuable enough so I’d rather spend a hundred & something bucks for an older computer than a couple thousand that I’d need to get the latest version that would need a whole lot of schnarr new hardware to go with it… grumble grumble grumble.

We have no idea what the high chair is doing here on the parcours obstacle gonflable stage while we were setting up equipment (this is still the day before the telethon. (yawn… I’m still exhausted just thinkin about it.)

—–Jim

Friday, April 17, 2009

+17˚C/+63˚F in the afternoon.

Let me think- We had an unusual day.

The boy had a doctor’s appointment early and then went to school.

I got paid by my second (in fact of time, first) job and had to cash cheque (in Canada we have cheques, in the U.S. they’re checks) in order to get boy and Mom out of drug store with prescription.

Cathi and I had brunch in an unusual (for us) spot after she got the boy to the school.

When we got home we found two notices that ups had tried to deliver something we’ve been looking for. the first notice said they might try today between 10 and 2 andbetween 2 and 5 pm.

So Cathi got the boy from School. Then took boy to Dad’s and traded him for young woman while I sat here and vegged out in the hopes that UPS might actually make another attempt to deliver. Nope.

But when Cathi and young woman got here we needed a Dairy Queen run and sat almost where the above photo was shot from and watched the gonfiabile percorso ad ostacoli river and the weir and the world do their magic while we chomped on ice cream and stuff like that there.

Yummmmm-

I still think the ‘financial crisis’ is a propaganda campaign, and I still believe the (conservative) Canadian *Government is trying to take advantage of public confusion to try to push through some very schnarr reforms that are on their very schnarr agendae and are not at all in the public interest. {{ (In Canada, “*Government” often refers to the current batch of (fairly recently elected) Members of Parliament, the Prime Minister and the appointed ‘Ministers’ (Senators are still ((as far as we know)) appointed for life up here.) as opposed to the form of government (fer example ‘representative democracy’/’republic’/whathaveyou-) ) }} But then again-

-grumble grumble grumble,

—–Jim

Thursday, April 16, 2009.

+14˚C/+58˚F in Arnprior (tomorrow’s s’posed to be warmer.)

Canadian Government Minister Tony Clement is demanding that Chrysler employees accept a cut in pay down to levels that non unionized auto workers working for Honda and Toyota get.

I’m getting more angry about this by the moment. Last week Union officials were complaining that government officials like Clement were breaking the law that established collective bargaining.

I want to go a few steps farther and demand that giochi gonfiabili somebody convince me that this ‘financial crisis’ isn’t something that was dreamed up and manipulated on us to give schnarr faced moroons like Clement fuel to demand things like this.

I mean these idiots still believe that they can keep pulling the wool over our eyes and get away with it.

Running them outta town on a rail might not be a strong enough statement that “We’re not gonna take it!”

schnarrr—

—–Jim

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 (Income Tax Deadline in the US.)

I think it got up to about 14˚C/58˚F in Arnprior.

Yeesh. The boy has decided he should get up at 6:30 or even earlier in the morning, wash up and do long term homework projects before going to school. He was angry at me for not knowing that and for not waking him up at six o five this morning when his alarm clock failed (do to operator error?) I want to tell him that if he wants to get up at something other than what has been his normal time, well, that’s his parco acquatico gonfiabile responsibility and he can’t expect me or his mother to wake him up under those conditions.

Schnarr-

—–Jim

Saturday, April 11, 2009.

(Fairly warm- don’t remember actual temperature)

I tried to sleep- couldn’t, figured today was the only chance I’d have for a while to zoom out to the Quebec (St Therese de la gatineau?) property and do something about the open window in the van/storage on wheels fing.

I was half kicking myself for keeping quiet and half proud of myself for letting Cathi sleep as long as I could. Then, when she opened one eye and I said I had to do this and she complained that she thought she could sleep late, I felt awful, bad me- but I don’t know- should I have aufblasbare spiele just left without feeling her out to see if she wanted to come, or could come…?

Anyway, I learned 3 or 4 things worth mentioning here…

•Never trust a computer (or GPS) to plot your course through Quebec.

•Going way off the beaten path in Quebec can be quite the adventure and show you some really beautiful sights.

•The GPS would rather send me through Ottawa then let me take the ferry.

•Moose skeletons at the edge of the road are a really impressive sight.

•GPSes will send you down what looks like somebody’s driveway if you don’t pay attention. (and farm animals herding their young across dirt roads as strange vehicles zoom by is a really touching and beautiful sight).

• I love Quebec. I don’t know yet whether Quebec loves me or not, but it is one beautiful place. (maybe several beautiful places bundled together, but it is beautiful) (and it gives me a whole lot of reasons to practice my French while I’m driving.)

Animals apparently like my property there. There were lots of signs that deer had used the gentle southeastern slope for a bathroom.

And something had apparently chowed down on something about the size of a deer and left us the bones, very close to the trailer. I’m thinking that whatever ate the deer probably appreciated the shelter of the trailer and the snow it caught.

I had just enough time to snap a bunch of digital photos and pop the tarp over the van (Hoping the tarp keeps the weather out, I hope I’m not inviting a hive of nasty insects into the van to breed and make a mess of anything in there. I hope I haven’t given any field mice a convenient tarp to climb up and find their way in through the slit of open window so they can breed and wreak havoc eating the furniture and stuff….) ((Cathi found the van’s keys in the cleverly obvious place I had left them while I was over there tarping and snapping photos.))

I’m thinking that a really wonderful spot to put some kind of more or less permanent shelter would be near the top of the hill, to the right of the road where we drive in- I’m thinking it is a south east slope, would be yummy for solar stuff, and could be very good for solar gain if it’s a little more south south than south east, but anyway, these trees’ roots are holding hands near where I think I should build something.

I should give you a listing of the photos here. (top to bottom)

1. The Ferry Landing on the Fitzroy Harbour, Ontario, side of the Ottawa River. The price has gone up a dollar from last year.

2. The Van with its new tarp bonnet, and the Jeep with its new coat of salt from splashing through a lot of puddles lately. (eep)

3. The bones near the trailer.

4. Roots holding hands where I want to build something. (I don’t think I have the heart to break up that romantic sight, so I’ll plan around it.)

& 5. Stone and fallen Birches just to the right of the trees that are holding roots. I think the stones are a natural formation, I’d hate to find out this might be somebody’s burial site from a couple million years BC or something. that would be creepy.

Anyway- the GPS thingy says the Jeep is parked at 46°N 17.640′ / 75°W 52.517′ I’ll have to plug that into a map to see what it tells me.

The GPS also thought that sending me through Ottawa on the way home should take 3 hours and 13 minutes. If you count stopping for gas, it was pretty much right. We had timed the trip at more like 2 and a half hours if we take the ferry and then shoot over the mountain through Gatineau Park over there. I think it’s Gatineau Park.

—–Jim

Yup-

Monday, April 6, 2009. Frank Whatsisname, Donna Whatsername, Pat Somethingorother Kanter, and Dangerous Dick Chaffee’s Birthday. (all Post Office People)

0˚C/+33˚F @ 2:34:56 a.m. in Arnprior.

Photo is the Arnprior & District Museum (née Post Office & Customs House) The building was one of many designed by Thomas Fuller, who also designed the first Parliament Buildings. The building is also Arnprior’s Trademark, more or less, and is on many postcards and almost anything that advertises Arnprior.

Sigh, Yup, and I have been dealing with a hard drive which is in the throws of a near death experience here. Eep. It’s the drive that has been the most parque insuflaveis reliable for nearly five years now… oh no- and has all kinds of information that can’t be replaced, including an interview with Author Geneve Bleu-oh no—– the hard drive went to sleep and won’t wake up.

So, I’ve sent out a plea for help to Michael the Archangel, who is supposed to be good at things like this. “Help!”

—–Jim

Sunday, April 5, 2009. Erin’s Friend Lindsay’s B’day.

+8˚C/+46˚F @ 6:30 pm in Arnprior.

I could have slept all day…. Well, I tried.

I had to go check on the studio to see if there was a new church service to play tonight.

There wasn’t. But I took some neat 5 p.m.-ish springtime photos around town. Some of these will be playing soon behind the Bulletin board on the local access channel here in town. I really need to find out if Pakenham gets our feed or Jeremy’s. I could be taking neat photos of the five span bridge with tons of spring water flowing underneaf it. Yum.

Looking forward to getting some of Cathi’s birthday cake. She seemed insistant on waiting until the boy was back home. Imwanted to eat the insuflaveis whole dang thing before he saw it, schnarr (joke joke)

oh well. It’s beginning to look a lot like springtime-

Maybe we’ll see if we can move some stuff around in the driveway when they get back from picking up the boy.

sigh,

—–Jim

Saturday, April 4, 2009, Jeeeze. I think Dawn turned 30 today. eeep. a young woman I had a big crush on in junior high school turned 60. o my goodness… not possible– nope.

+2˚C/+36˚F & raining at 8:00 pm.

(This photo is a closeup of another one of the video cameras suspended from the cieling in the same room where the previous photo was taken. The photo below is a map with projected fallout patterns determined by prevailing winds. It looked like my section of Connecticut might have been almost okay- if New York City was nuked- unless the winds were wrong… eeep?)

I wanted to call Dawn & wish her an Appah Hoopie today. –Day’s not quite over yet… but

We slept late. I woke up hurting with muscle pain in my right elbow, sat with a heat pack for an hour or so, felt a little better, then helped Cathi by carrying laundry parque insuflaveis down two flights of stairs and brought the pain right back, Schnarr-

We went and looked at an open house in Fitzroy Harbour- sort of the next town east of here? Part of ‘Greater Ottawa’. Nice house. Pretty nice Real Estate Agent, too. She called a little while after we got home to say that somebody had put in an offer on that house, and wanted to know if we wanted to put in a bid ourselves- and When Cathi said we probably couldn’t outbid anybody, she (the real estate agent) asked what we were looking for, Cathi said, ‘a house with character and a little bit of land’. ‘Oh,’ said the real estate agent, “I’m going to look at one of those right now- wanna ome along?” and we couldn’t, but she’ll send us a link to the M.L.S. listing. (Cool 🙂 )

Après le Open House we went into Kanata and got Cathi a birthday present or two.

And when we got home, I felt lousy, and bombed out at trying to figure out how to transfer photos from may cell phone to the computer here, but with a lot of patience and help from Cathi, we got it done, I think. The photos are living proof- if they’re still there. 🙂

Sigh. I tried to further organize my corner of the living room downstairs, met with frustration, might have actually gotten something done….

And here it is, 9:47 pm.

I should very carefully eat something and see what kind of shape my stomach is in… Schnarr….

—–Jim

Wednesday, (feels like a Monday. or maybe a continuation of Monday, like maybe Monday Never Ends??? Aaaaaaaaaaa-)

+6˚C/+43˚F & raining lightly @ 4:44:44 pm  (eeeep?)

Trying to stay awake until Cathi gets home, I have some bouncy castle for sale more studio work to finish.

The boy is downstairs (Main floor) computing, hopefully not getting away with anything illegal, immoral or whatever.

Photo is from last night- yesterday’s marathon.

catchyalater….

—–Jim