CaptainOrange

Even when what's old is new I'm still behind the times. I watched a news piece on CBC a couple of years ago which talked about how clothes lines (and the installation there of) were booming. When we moved into our current house--8 years ago, for those counting--there was some existing infrastructure for having a clothes line, but it was incomplete and with me running the dayhome at the time it didn't seem like the most attractive idea on the planet. I took the pulleys and used them on the play structure so the kids could haul water, bricks and their lunches up to the top of the fort. only the finest materials Yesterday, with some deck screws, concrete, an auger, a little new lumber and the existing pulleys--stolen back from the fort--I built the family a state of the art clothes dryer. I just need to paint some fancy alpha-numeric. I'm thinking of "Z-3000" or something to jazz it up. Location, location... It's highly customized, as you can see. Thi...

Feeling beaten by my experience with Anwyn the other day, I seared the time of the sunset on the insides of my eyelids and made it out for a few shots last night. I started at the University bridge and then decided I should run the 1km to the Broadway bridge instead (carrying my camera and lenses). The evening joggers thought I was pretty funny and a couple of young women cheered me on and tried to make conversation as they overtook me during one of my frenzied clicking sessions. I ended up climbing up the pioneer memorial at the corner of the bridge to take most of my shots. I won't bore you with all my pictures again (though the link is here ), but I did get a couple that I was very happy with.

I can't say much for the weather lately. Or, maybe I will. At least it stopped raining long enough on Saturday for us to get a chance to burn our Christmas tree. While the endless cloud cover may make Vin happy as a... er... sun-hating clam, it doesn't do much to improve my mood. Oh, I get out in the weather and enjoy myself. Just last night I went for a 10km in my 5-fingers out in the pouring rain. Even there I was thwarted (by asbestos, no less). But, the twinkle in my eye lasts exactly as long as the physical activity. One thing I can  say is that with just a few breaks in the endless grey, I can get to see a lot of my favorite colour -- at the right time of day. Leora was away at a friend's birthday/sleepover (the second in two weeks) so Wen and I decided to go to a movie with Anwyn to help alleviate the sting of boredom. The clouds had been flirting back-and-forth with blue sky all day and I knew there was going to be a great sunset. We saw How to Train Your Dr...

Winter's Icy Grip Crushes Goose Vanguard I've been struggling a bit with this weather. It's a bit of an understatement (we may talk of that another time). Cold and lack of sunlight have me a bit down. I've been grouching at the girls, sighing a lot, and projecting gloom around the house in the evenings. Wendy gave me a kick in the pants last night and told me to take today off. I didn't have any work with the library scheduled, but I would have spent the morning making and canning chutney out of the beautifully ripe mangoes that I got on monday. Instead I went to Don's Photo and found an awesome deal. A used Sigma 70-210mm f/4-5.6 auto-focus lense for $40! It's twin was sitting next to it for $100 (they were both on consignment and the price on one had just been dropped). OK, so Sigma is a bargain brand, but it's my first telephoto--I'm excited. Naturally, I had to go take some pictures. 1st set, 0-0 I went to campus and fooled around a bi...

Sometime last year, Dad went to turn on his Playstation 3 and was greeted by the infamous Yellow Light Of Death. It's tough to find a good description of what the YLOD is, but this forum thread is somewhat comprehensive. Essentially, the PS3 does nothing but show a single LED. Apparently there are a number of possible causes. Dad had just bought a new game it was stuck in the Blue-Ray player and no amount of coaxing was getting it out. With a repair price of about $150CAD (+ shipping) Dad simply bought a new Playstation ($300). tiny ribbon cables galore I had some spare time a couple of weeks back and Dad had found a suitable heat-gun to attempt the, by now, common "re-flow" repair. We watched this very good YouTube video (which is in two parts ) and took the plunge. If it failed I was planning to at least crack the Blue-Ray drive to get the game which was M.I.A. Death by a million screws. One of the biggest challenges in this process is remembering where a...

Pre-Dawn March 17th The Bad Beginning: I was worried about QNY this time 'round. Not getting together with people until April 2 is an unprecedented delay and I typically NEED the pick-me-up that our quest conference usually provides me. This year it was especially true, what with my popped rib-head, a cracked rib, alienating my parents and all. The evening had some disappointing elements for me, but on the whole, was very satisfying. It started out with a great walk to our chosen meeting place. For the first time the girls came with me and we were all giddy with anticipation. We took our time, stopped at a couple of parks, and talked about what Questing meant to the three of us. Anwyn took an approach similar to mine. She said that anything you did could be a Quest, it was how you did it that mattered. Shepherd Book might have said that "how you get there is the worthier part." Leora thought that Questing was pushing boundaries. She thought that to do it you might ...

Not bad considering the odd-ball questions that were used. I am Red/White Take The Magic Dual Colour Test - Beta today! Created with Rum and Monkey 's Personality Test Generator . I'm both chaotic and orderly. I value my own principles, and am willing to go to extreme lengths to enforce them, often trampling on the very same principles in the process. At best, I'm heroic and principled; at worst, I'm hypocritical and disorderly.