Disaster, OMG!

As of this morning the death count from the Tsunami is greater than 60 000. As usual, India got hard hit....the population is so great that ANY natural disaster takes on biblical proportions. The floods 25 years ago, the Union Carbide disaster 20 years ago, and now this. God must have wanted to fill a new sub-division in heaven to call so many people home.
Don't get too complacent just because that was down there and we are up here....the same thing could happen in the Atlantic and especially in the Pacific. The big island in Hawaii has a crack running through it which is opening at the rate of an inch a year...some day that crack will suddenly open , a large chunk of Hawaii will fall off into the west,and cause the largest underwater landslide in history. Iceland had some extra real-estate arrive in the form of a volcano only 15 years ago, and where there are volcano's there are earthquakes. Imagine a wave like the one that hit India washing onto the streets of New York. Oh yeah, there was a movie about that just lately.... Would not want to be in the subway when that happens.
Legend has it that water lapped the clap boards of that 300 year old church up on the hill in Santa Barbara...some 60 feet above sea level. Undersea charts indicate that there is a shelf of sediment built up, just ready to slide away all along the west coast, except outside Santa Barbara, where it clearly slid away sometime in the past. Cause and effect...? Likely. A little quake at just the right time and I am trying to imagine what a 60 foot wave going over Vancover would look like. It wouldn't be a breaking wave like in the movie, but a big swell.

Well, enough of that...time to get back to work. Later on today, I shall drop into the Red Cross and donate a pint of blood....I suspect the world's blood supply is a little low right now.

arrived in my mailbox..Hot Crysp Chiks

This was interesting....this arrived in my mailbox with the header "Hot Crysp Chiks". Since I LIKE hot crysp chiks, I naturally opened it, and found this collection of pithy sayings. Kind of a spam blog.... looks like a bunch of quotes. I like number 7...."Abstain from beans" and I have no idea what A s'enterveir actually MEANS. Maybe they are taken from bathroom walls. They remind me of stuff I jotted down in my high school notebooks waiting for the pot fumes to clear. (evil grin!)

A s'enterveir

You are either part of the solution or part of the problem.

To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.
I wept not, so to stone within I grew.

Life is a rollercoaster. Try to eat a light lunch.

There is something good in all seeming failures. You are not to see that now. Time will reveal it. Be patient.

The gods sell to us all the goods which they give us.
Abstain from beans.
Might, could, would --they are contemptible auxiliaries.

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.The roads we take are more important than the goals we announce. Decisions determine destiny.

Better Counsel comes overnight.

Undermining experience, embellishing experience, rearranging and enlarging experience into a species of mythology.
Action conquers fear.

A picture is a poem without words.

We only think when we are confronted with problems.

From Paul to Stalin, the popes who have chosen Caesar have prepared the way for Caesars who quickly learn to despise popes.

There is a sort of exotic preposterousness about a lot of elections, the way arguments are made even cruder.

The superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in his actions.

My FTP is finally working!

I knew it wasn't just me! It was Cyberus....the bums! For some reason my server defaulted to a 1 megabyte account! "No way" (I said) "I got 250 megs!" Plus, my usage stat section was completely screwed up, so I could not even troubleshoot my own site! They got it all fixed, so I can put up pictures on my web site, and on this blog! The latest is Maggie's armour, please check it out below, November 30th. I think it looks good. Very sexy armour! Hope she likes it...have not heard from her yet.
Rant mode off.....warm fuzzy mode on!
I have a guy from the neighbourhood coming in helping me from time to time. Steve is a good guy, and I can afford him for an hour a day. Mostly tidying up around the place, shoveling snow, some small bits of armour from time time as I find time to teach and supervise him. There is a lot more during the Christmas season for him to do though... get the floor in the garage nailed down, and maybe get my poor motorcycle in before it rusts to a fare thee well! He also helped me get some coloured lights up outside the house. Well...it was warm (good part) but it was raining (bad part).
Right now, it is cold. minus 15 Celsius....that was a 16 degree drop in fifteen minutes! The car is stuck in an ice sheet! They tell me that for once, this storm is NOT Canadian made, but rather, it started in Alabama! Go figure! We got an inch of rain, Toronto got half a meter of snow! Yay!

Done...like dinner....

Friday, leading up to Christmas. Working through injuries, hired people on to make time, skipped going to my uncle's funeral and skipped parties all over the place just to finish these items. My supplier calls all chipper, and tells me that they have the things after all! (arrgh!) The life of a retailer in December. Saturday morning....first cup of coffee down.
Man my left hand hurts. Lets see...drill bit went through it "there", hammer bounced off it "there", sharp edge of metal dug in and cut inside the curl of the fingers "here", oh, and a second one of those "here" that I overlooked until now. Typing is a little slow....grin! Found that duct tape makes an excellent bandage. Hmm...maybe I should wear work gloves more often. Its kind of funny...I bought a package of a dozen work gloves, and the right hands are all clean and still in the glove pile, but the left hands are all worn, battered and torn up. How can you tell which hand holds the cutters?
Well, enough of that bitching...just finished a really nice Roman style helmet for a friendly customer in Toronto. There are a whole bunch of things I don't like about it, but hey, its a prototype... I rather like it....it represents a week's work, and more importantly, a new file of templates. In the same week I finished off a nice shield....customer sent me a nice griffin for me to enlarge and cut out into a stencil. She eventually decided on a white griffin on a blue background...doesn't look bad at all. I am going to try to put these up on my web site (if I can get my ftp working!)
My garage door is finally mounted and sealed off to the weather. Now all I have to do is mount the springs and cables, and I can have a "roll up" door instead of a wall! Should be a little easier with the heat on inside...this 9 degrees below zero weather we have been having tended to preclude any outside work.
And Brenda wants some Christmas ornaments dug out of the back room. So better get off this blog and get to prettying up the place for Christmas parties. Looking forward to a week of parties all next week, and then the big new years party in the hot tup! woo hoo!

Pre Christmas Jitters and Passed my Scuba course

Brenda and I just took the Scuba course at Diver's Wearhouse. I think I came close to having a panic attack during the part of the course when they turn off your air, forcing you to breath with your partner's air. But, a fatalistic attitude helps, as does the lots and lots of practice you do on the surface. And last night, we took the final written exam. Not difficult, but a lot of stuff to remember and apply.
Trying hard to get everything ready for Christmas. My supplier didn't get in the ordered item for one of my best clients, so I have to make him a knife. Well, so much for my day off! I want to go out to a couple of movies this season, but as usual, I will be in my shop the whole time! Well, maybe January!
A blast from the past...the Barter Connection suddenly blew back into my life...this morning I made 500 dollars in sales on the barter. Hmmm....now I will have to see about spending some of my barter dollars.
Well, no sense complaining about the work load, it won't go away by my sitting here on the 'puter, so I'll sign off for now.
Stupid nails on boards at the dump! Flattening all my tires. Now I have 4 tires in the back and 2 of them have holes in them. They "COULD" have marked them for me.....but no!

Stupid Tires....stupid owner!

So, instead of paying for a dumpster to throw the junk into, I just threw it into the trailer. Well, yesterday, two flat tires in the car and a flat on the trailer! Argh...stupid tires...stupid owner! 80 bucks later....and still junk to haul to the dump! Maybe I can armour my tires....

Ah well....had a very pleasant evening after the car was towed to the garage. Just had a nice shower, and a good long soak in the hot tub. The real reason for hot tubs is to sit in them during a blizzard and up the core temp.

I have discovered a great new sport. Mugu baiting! http://www.419eater.com/ These are guys who are fed up with Nigerian fraud scams, and are doing everything in their power to legally waste the Nigerian thief's time, cell phone minutes and internet cafe minutes. Me, I just politely decline their incredible offer, and send them instead the lottery winnings I seem to win every second day. If I was to really get into mugu (Nigerian slang for moron) baiting, I would get an untraceable IP address, and a false name and phone number. But for now, it is just too much fun to watch others do it.

This is WORK!

Oh man! I am NOT used to this! Working flat out! I thought I was retired and beyond this....! I am SUCH a whiner! Well, to heck with it...I am going to have a coffee and blog for a bit.
Freezing rain. The trailer is sitting out in the driveway piled high with junk I would take to the dump, but if I do, the trailer will be empty, and I will have no excuse not to put more junk into it! Well, hey, the logic works for me! So the rain will fall on all the trash, freeze and turn into an immovable lump. Even more reason to leave the blessed thing. Tomorrow is supposed to be 4 degrees Celsius and raining. Normal conditions for a dump run around here! Yesterday, we worked flat out to get Maggie's armour finished and delivered because Brenda was so worried about the freezing rain today. As it was, the day was pretty much blown off. Turned out to be a wise decision. If we had not gone yesterday, we would never have made it back today in time to get to my scuba course.
Yup, we are taking a scuba course. The PADI course...which is internationally recognized. (read expensive) There is so much involved with SCUBA...our heads just spun with the sheer volume of information. I suppose you COULD take it all in one day, but...you gotta be smarter than me. And every single bit of it seems relevent to keeping you alive and safe. The pass mark is set pretty high. Typical question...how long can you stay under water with your tank pressure below 100 pounds...answer....the rest of your life....
Something is wrong with my FTP, server, object path or some such...I simply CANNOT upload pictures to my server. (and by extension, to here!)Its like the server was blocking it. To make things more interesting, the monitor suddenly didn't like red. Even going to the settings....there was only blues and blacks and yellows! It fixed itself just as suddenly a couple of hours later, and no re-boots were involved. I have no idea what the problem is, nor do I have the time to figure it out. Hell, it was bad enough that we finally figured out why my Norton Anti-Virus wasn't scanning...seems that all this time my 'puter had been in "audit" mode...no I never heard of that either! Apparently, that is a testing mode from the factory, and should have been turned off! Well, hey, guess whenever I find three hours to kill, I will just re-install NAV. Poor NAV...it had been corrupted like a South American dictator by some invading worm....now nobody trusts it! I do know that if you have McAffee on your platform you better not change it for Norton..they hate each other, and will destroy your Windows in the resultant fight!
And Yesterday was the anniversary of two great massacres...the Montreal Massacre (15 years ago) which has come to symbolize the problem of violence against women, and the attack on Pearl Harbour, which has come to symbolize the problem of violence by Asian autocracies in the Pacific.
Well, enough of this...time to get my butt into the saddle. A word from Kipling...the tight ass Englishman with the work ethic....

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son

Closed the deal

Well, I closed the deal on the land here in Metcalfe today. This gives me three lots side by side...I could build a monster house if I wished! This should give me room to expand. And expand I shall! This will be interesting!
All the vendors are up in arms like crazy about the closing of the festival. If good positive feelings would help, then we would be opening tomorrow! Sadly, I cannot imagine getting into another Ren Faire which would allow me to have such a nice safe area, and allow me to stay with my stock. Well, Brenda will fight the good fight...I shall see if I can build this business into a powerhouse which don't need no ren faires!
Henrietta is a good asset. Has a good work ethic....and is quick to learn. We are making Maggie's armour....below are a couple of pics of it....should be finished by the time I go over the border on Friday. Not many orders right now. This is a good thing, it allows me to eat into my backlog of orders from the summer. Maybe I can get some stock made!

Nothing stays the same....

Just got a call from Dave Exxxxxxx last night...seems the Ontario Renaissance Festival is going the way of the last of the Mohicans! My head is reeling! We went through about 8 stages in about 10 minutes...shock, anger, denial and so forth. Considering that the ORF makes me, what...75 percent of my income...thats a serious hit. Dammmit! I thought things were going a little too smooth to be true! So now, at the age of 48, I start all over again at the bottom!
Well, maybe not quite at the bottom...I still have the shop, and I still have a backlog. I have my health, and a family....and even without the Ren Faire, I still have the coolest job in the world. Guess now I will have to work on this expansion thing. Push the 25% up somewhat.
Was up most of the night trying to make plans with insufficient information. Perhaps somebody else will buy the show, perhaps other investors will jump in. Perhaps I will have to take down the buildings and erect them at some other show...in which case I better get entry into some other show! Wonder if Maryland has an opening.... This show was not showing any signs of being bad...in fact, I had the best year ever, and the people I talked to at the front office told me that they had the highest attendance ever, so go figure. Not looking forward to dismanling that post and beam building....though I built it so I can take it down!
On a lighter note! Shayne fixed my computer! I know...doesn't sound like much, however those who are in this business might be interested in the obscure chain of events which resulted in the poor old Aptiva not getting past its setup boot. It would boot up into safe mode just fine. None of the backups would change anything. Turns out that I had suceeded in clearing out Comet Cursor (yet one more time) and the mouse was looking for it on boot up! Shayne did it in DOS, but apparently I could have done it in Windows...went through all the settings and looked for things which were different in anything between safe and normal boot up. The cursor was set for some "dilbert" cutsey cursor for some reason. It set itself there after a bad shutdown. Go figure!
The patches are in! Now my club can put patches on all their gear...gambesons, shields, whatever! Nice looking things.
Well, its ten o'clock...start time around here. Guess I better make some stuff, get started on that "expansion".

Montreal was a blast!

I always enjoy Montreal! The magic was wearing a little thin at 7 in the morning the Saturday I got to the convention, but it came on again like a carnival in the evening. Here in Ottawa, the parking lots charge you to park during the day, and are usually un-manned in the evening so you can park free of charge and go off pubbing. In Montreal, the parking attendant doesn't come on duty until 8 in the evening! No doubt about it, Montreal is a party town! Nice to see things have really turned around the last few years...6 or 7 years ago everything was for sale or rent south of Place Bonaventure, now its all factories which are working and employing people. I think it is thanks to the Quebec government's policy of rewarding young entrepreneurs with interest free or interest delayed loans to start businesses. The Ontario government could take notice!
Con-Cept is a small fan run convention. Doesn't attract near enough people for its quality. Monsffa is the organizing body, and they are competent. Thats saying a lot! http://www.theendoftheuniverse.ca/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=78

Everthing went smoothly. Nobody cut themselves on the swords or knives, and I made a huge number of contacts. Who knows, I might even get a few seminars in Montreal! I'll have to see what I can do about advertising this event for them some more...the local papers seem to have a problem with it...I think the English language dailies think it is too French, and the French language dailies think it is too English! I wish they got a tenth of the publicity that the animation festival gets. Well, its quarter to ten, time to get to work!
(starting to look forward to going to work these days!)

Mice in the walls. Deceased. And an armour picture.

Below is the best pic I have of the perfectly preserved mouse skeletons which I found when I pulled the insulation away from the wall. Their little skulls are almost transparent on top!





Below here I am attempting to show off a helm I made.

Behind schedule again!

Had a couple of old clients drop in, one to pick up some armour he is having me make. Neat armour...a scale mantle, as worn by a Roman soldier. What with training a new employee, I was about 4 or 5 hours delayed, and they will have to come back today to pick it up. Not an ideal situation, but oh well! Such is the life of an armourer! Finish that off today, and then work some more on the female armour for Maggie. (odd stuff that female armour....it is made sort of upside down....with the breast plate overlapping the waist plates instead of the other way around. This weekend, the CON-CEPT science fiction convention in Montreal! Should be fun, it is the joining together of the two big SF clubs in Montreal in a single convention. Its really fun because there is so much French content...very refreshing.
Snow all yesterday...but it didn't hang around. Hired a young high school student to sweep up around the place...requires constant supervision. Had him do small stuff, like drilling out scales and simple manufacturing jobs. He really IS more trouble than he is worth, putting the folding legs on the plywood backwards. Had to re-do it last night...in the cold. Ah well...I remember how I was at that age (2 decades ago! Oh all right, 3 decades!) and if people never gave me a chance I would never have had a chance. Well, this morning, I have a folding table to take to the convention tomorrow! 5 am departure tomorrow.. OMG! 5am is when I put the book down and go to sleep!
Got the new key to the motorcycle. The dealership won't cut it...but they will sell me a blank for only 14 dollars! Arrgh! Well, today, finish off the armour, take the air conditioners out, maybe caulk up the windows upstairs with removable caulking. STILL Dont have hot water in the house! Tradesmen who run gas are even more unreliable than armourers! Cold showers....hard on the love life, but my natural gas bill is miniscule!

Henrietta's first day!

Well, I have hired Henrietta sort of pro tem...don't know for sure how she will do, but the first day went well. A little surprised in the gaps in her knowledge, but super impressed by her overall accomplishments. She has her own forge over in Morewood, and will be doing 4 or 5 hours a day before coming over here. Monday was supposed to be a day off, but she was so excited about working here that she dropped in. She had these cool little life size steel chili peppers she had forged...they just have to be painted to look to look right. She made them with the top part hooked so they could be hung from a Christmas tree.
The garage is mostly dry walled, and mostly painted. The frost is hitting every morning now, so Brenda made a command decision to start moving stuff back into the garage. She doesn't want it frozen into the ground. Me...I like an uncluttered work area...and the shelves are just a pain in the tushy. Painted the walls a parchment yellow, baseboarded it, and calked under the baseboard. No air leaking in there! Then installed the shelves. Surprise...they don't fit any more because there is drywall on the ceiling! Okay then....so I had to trim off a few upright supports. We are now shelved. Now we are waiting on the garage door...an insulated item which should fit. The windows look really nice...maybe I can put them in tomorrow as well.
I see the trailer is well and truly filled up with garage junk...some of this stuff I wouldn't even sell on E-Bay! Oh well, pleasant outing of the day tomorrow...a trip to the dump!
Last night was a gorgeous display of Northern Lights! Don't think I have ever seen them so bright! They were even in the south sky! There was quite a bit of red...which is really unusual....usually they are green, blue and white. Coming home from watching The Incredibles. What a neat movie!
Did a little chat with the local Scout troupe this evening. Children! Oh well....always nice to make points in the community. Some of my armour is going to be in the Company of Fools production of Lady MacBeth. Might break from the drywalling and attend the play. It got good press...we'll see how good the reviews are.
And another day ends at the South Tower!

I did it! I bought the farm!

Okay, not the farm, but the next door lot anyways. Too small to be a farm...though I might plant hazelnuts or some other low maintenance crop on it...grin! I'll see what we are allowed to plant here in the village.
The property had a nice house on it until one of the owner's personalities decided that "They" are not going to get it. She lit the fire, and the others went for a shower. Everybody got out fine, though the emotional baggage from all concerned never gets any less! The court case is still pending, but after a year of having a crack house next door, (no, really, it was!) the city demolished it.
Nice place, big double lot, with another double lot in behind that the real-estate agent didn't know about until I put my offer in! Pretty sweet deal. Everybody wins except the poor lady who nearly owned it outright. As far as expanding my shop onto it...well...it might require a zoning change. Closure in at the end of the month, so nothing can be done until then.
We had a light dusting of snow this morning! Bloody Canada! Cold eh!

Brenda and I have booked SCUBA classes for ourselves. This should be fun! A bit expensive, of course, anything worth doing always is, but all in all, should be good prep for our visit to Malta in January. They tell me that there is really good diving on Malta!

And the last cool thing is that yesterday I have started the second class of the Chivalrous Sword Handling advanced series! I have forgotten how much I enjoyed sword fighting at speed! Hooo Ahhh!
Now I have promised that I will make everybody some armour....ooops! Well, I have Henrietta dropping by this afternoon to examine the facilities. She is a lady blacksmith who is working a forge in Morewood... a little burgh about 15 minutes away from me. She wants to make armour...so I will be pleased to show her. I think this might be the break I need!

Well, enough of this! Brenda just looked at Dierdre's pictures of Brittany, and all she can say is "wow!" Hope it was worth the hassle! Wear the garbage bags in the shower Dierdre....keep your feet dry. You might also think about dropping a few tablespoons of Drano down the shower drain. It is probably just a small bundle of hair in the U-bend. I know, its not your job, but if you don't do it, it probably wont get done! Hmm...should have put this little comment onto her blog....oh well....

Back to work! Woo hoo!

Meeses! I hates meeses!

Dirty nasty little rodents. pooping and dying all over the place. You know, its not so much the activity of the living as the stench of the dead! All I am trying to do is to pull out some of the fiberglass insulation, staple up the vapor barrier on the warm side of the wall, and put the darn insulation back! Didn't want the sprinkling of mouse dung which accompanies this. I did find the neatest perfect little skeletons though...guess they have to go somewhere to die besides inside the neighbours' cats! I have to do something though. There is plenty of evidence of moisture which has condensed inside the batts of insulation....eventually leading to the destruction of the wall! I suspect strongly that there is already some destruction lower down...I'll have to see....later....when this ceiling is finished and vented.
Lot next door just came up for sale on "power of sale". Might be able to get it at a good price. Or maybe not. Real Estate may not be such a great investment this year. But it would give me a place to expand my shop real easy though!

Rafters all done!

Been re-furbishing the garage. Spent a couple of weeks digging out the rocks and soil, and setting in the concrete! Ended up leaving it too long before I started troweling...a perennial problem with me. Oh well, so part of the floor is a little bumpy from the float!
The objective is to make a sort of shipping-receiving room for my business. It will turn into a nice south facing room when it is done...and Brenda is looking forward to using it to make brooms. It has been more than a month now, and it is starting to look like it might get finished! Trouble is there are hundreds of little jobs which slow the work down....each a small job, but they must get done. Things like wiring which was stapled onto the surface which must be routed through the walls (new wiring essentially...grin!), pulling nails, installing vapor barrier deep inside wall cavities, and so forth. All these silly little jobs add to the finish date. Looking forward to some insulating tonight! Maybe dry wall tomorrow, and after that install the insulated garage door.
And while I am doing all this, my real business is suffering. Oh well. Got my flue shot today. We'll see how it makes me feel! Usually the flue shot hits me hard.

Long weekend!

Well, long the sense that I had lots of people coming over to visit! Built some armour, wound some coils, generally lazed about.