Quebec Plot Day

The had a more relaxed start but was still early. No alarming wake up call either. I prepared almost the exact same breakfast today. Can you spot the difference?

We made our way over to our research farm and I went out to the field to find one customer who had asked to come early. They had a lot of ground to cover and needed an early start. He was almost done when I found him. I had stopped to take my own notes on some 85 day material before going on the hunt. We had a great conversation. When I emerged I found my colleague there. We haven’t been in person since March 2020 despite talking every two three days normally. We had a good chat as well until some more customers arrived. I conducted my event and visited with a number of customers. When the bulk of them had finished and moved on I dove into the corn to take my own notes. It’s nice to follow the customers through because they L’ every already opened an ear for the ones I want to see. The Western Corn Rootworm beetles also like it. I think there was one or two on every exposed ear. The pressure in this geography is astounding.

Around one I ventured to the shed for lunch. My colleague had treated everyone with some St Hubert’s chicken. I stood to eat mine and that was a mistake. The national functional leader and local lead of my old team were also visiting the research farm at the time and we sat with them and had some discussion. There was chirping back and forth but we also had some good discussion. Their team is looking at how to do things differently going forward. Soon that job won’t look anything like the one I left a couple years ago. After lunch I got back after it.

That was around the time that I came across what I’ve long considered my ideal corn phenotype. The corn is drying down, loose husks that have popped open at this point. The top of the plant is healthy and green. That means that it is still able to photosynthesize into the fall and keeping pumping starch into the kernels. It also shows me that the plant isn’t about to cannabalize the stalks to fill the ear and it should stand strong longer. The open husk will aid in drydown and allow air movement to the kernels that will reduce opportunity for disease development. That hybrid had reached black layer (barely) which is crazy to me. Lots of ideal characteristics in this plot. Maybe just a touch extra husk for my perfect look. When I finished corn I switched over to look at the early bean trials. I checked the forecast and decided I’d better go walk the corn at the next site while the skies were behaving. I can use an umbrella to walk soybean trials. The site was forty five minutes away and I hustled over and finished up as the sun started to set. It was a long ride back to meet Brack for dinner. I was greeted by this warning on my door. That is a bit of downer for a guy who was beyond parched by the time I arrived. Luckily they were giving out some bottles of water.

We went back to Le Cage for dinner and both got a Buffalo Chicken poutine. It was a heavy load. We both had a couple local beers along with our hefty meals. That was about it, we went to the hotel and powered down after a really long day.

L’Hump Day

Beauty breakfast for free. Early start, rolling before seven. Headed East to see early material. Lunch at Chez Ashton in Quebec City before turning back. Covered three locations in the afternoon and decided not to tempt fate by going in the dark. Showered and hosted a dinner for people in town for my event planned for the next day. Biggest dinner tab I’d paid in a long time.

Solid free breakfast that I enjoyed today and days to follow.

Found an unpleasant little invader in some 70RM corn. We’ll need protection across all maturities.

Can you see it? I spotted this neat little frog at the third site of the day. I was well into some Mountain Dew by then.

French Tuesday

Let’s do a bit of a day in pictures today. I’ll have to give you a running start first though. So I got an extreme wakeup call at this hotel. I actually had my alarm set for half six with plans to meet for breakfast at half seven. The universe had other plans. Around six in the morning the alarm in the hotel started going off. I got the feeling that it had been going for a bit. My first thought was that it was the door alarm somehow going off. There is a beeping that starts when you don’t close your door all the way. A clever way to keep hockey teams from partying too hard no doubt. I realized that it was a real alarm. My bags were still mostly closed from the day before so I pulled on my clothes from yesterday and dressed, stashing the few items I’d had out into the bags. When I get up in the morning the first thing I usually do is answer nature’s call. Today was no different. I was sitting on the toilet when the alarm changed to something faster paced and more desperate. I finished my business, grabbed my bags and took off for the stairs. There were some others doing the same. I made great time and got out to join the gathering crowd of hotel guests. I went and put my bags in my truck and went to stand near the others with my mask on. Minutes later three police vehicles arrived and the cops rushed into the hotel. People were milling about the front doors and most were directed across the street with the rest of us. Next a couple of fire trucks pulled up. I was looking for Brack but didn’t see him. We texted a bit, more on that later. The police brought a youngish man out, shaved head, in decent shape but only wearing a towel. I couldn’t see if he had on shoes of some kind or not. Four of them roughly slammed him into a cruiser and took off abruptly. One of the other cruisers left a few minutes later. The firemen went into the hotel with axes and other destructive looking tools next. After about ten minutes they emerged and waved us in with an explanation in French I couldn’t comprehend. I was the first in and rushed to the elevator. By the time I got back to my room it was half six and I didn’t really have time to gain back any of the forty or so minutes of sleep that were stolen from me, and I was feeling it. I showered and got properly dressed from my clothes bag that I’d retrieved from the truck eventually while waiting. I checked out, no apology or explanation was given. I was hoping for the latter. But there was a complimentary sack of food provided in lieu of the restaurant option that they used to provide before the pandemic.

I texted Brack again and found him across the street by the water. He had taken a pano photo of the area and I tried to as well. Mine went terribly so I’m sharing it. I started nearly straight on and ended up with a lot of what was behind us. There is a proper photo below to show the water feature that unceremoniously shutoff at eight. We ate our breakfasts and shared our stories of the morning. He had the same thought about the door alarm initially too (I’m not crazy). He eventually got up and looked out the peep-hole at the exact moment that I went past the door. He decided it was for real and got his stuff and had just opened the door to head down when the alarm went off, which would have been shortly after I’d stowed my stuff in the truck. He decided it was over and went back to bed, unable to sleep but still. We ate our muffin, yogurt, cheese, juice, and granola bar from the bags and watched some fish jump in front of us. We had a good chat and planned the day. It was a later start than anticipated but it was some time well spent.

We got to the first site which was only a half hour or so away and met up with JJ. He was busy trying to plant his winter wheat and was hustling and bustling around. He took a few minutes to point us in the right directions. Again Brack was on the soybean ratings and I was doing corn. I think I take more thorough notes but I’m hoping he gives me enough. It took me the rest of the morning to finish the corn. He was done first and worked on emails. He had some on-going issues to tackle. I took notes on one of the soybean sets and we set off to the next location after checking out with JJ and his assistant.

We went to a restaurant attached to a gas station. We’d stopped here a few years ago to much success. Two things they do well are poutine and smoked meat. That is what we were after, part of the Quebec experience. Our lunch went on much longer that it probably should have. We had some good discussions and shared a lot of stuff that you wouldn’t talk about on a Team call. We basically tried to cram a year and half of hallway chats into a lunch. We did wrap it up around half one and after loading up with some refreshments from the gas station we set out to the second site of the day.

For me this location was the biggest of the trip. It was large and gruelling. You can see from my expression below that I’m not loving it all. It has two maturity sets but they are comprised of six smaller trials. There are a lot of plots to take notes on in them. Brack conversely only had two soybean trials to review. He was done much faster than I was. You can see from my expression in the photo below how excited I was to be still doing the same set after a couple of hours.

At least it was a beautiful day. I had packed fall clothes, lots of jeans and sweaters thinking it would be cool and overcast like normal. Glad I had a pair of shorts in there, wore them most days.

Most of the corn I walked was later maturity and was still pretty green. Not too soon to walk but more than I’ve seen at this location in the past. There is some good stuff in there.

I was feeling a bit better by the end, that’s pretty much a smile.

I sent Brack on ahead and I stayed late to try and get it all done. I ended up passing on one trial of the six, having seen it in the morning and knowing I’d see it twice more before leaving Quebec. We had to skirt around the city of Montreal to stay at our unlikely home for the next three days in Drummondville. Normally we stay in Saint Hyacinthe but all the hotels were booked up, and those left were exorbitantly expensive. I was starting to look it pretty good by the time I left, feet were sore, brain was foggy, dehydrated. All the things that happen when you only look at corn for the majority of the day. My drive was uneventful and I arrived at the Quality Suites around seven. We went on an adventure to find food and ended up at Le Cage an exit away from the hotel. Our server didn’t do English so my broken French had to suffice. Even pointing at the French menu didn’t do much for us. We got the wrong beers to start and had more what we were aiming at for the second ones. I think she was testing us to see if we were jerks or not. We both ordered the same seafood meal. Apparently a risky endeavour. It was some kind of Gaspe shrimp roll. with fries. I got mayo to dip my fries in, what a delight! The rolls were served cold, like a lobster roll and were ok. I wouldn’t rush back here for another go at them. We paid our l’addition and hustled back to the hotel to get some sleep. I spent some MSF time before crashing around half ten. Tomorrow was going to be an earlier and longer day than today.

Travel Monday

There wasn’t much in the way of excitement on this day. I’ll just report the facts and keep moving, I have a lot of catching up to do. I was up early and got myself showered and dressed. I hauled all my gear down to the truck and loaded it up. I made sure to grab some extra raincoats and boots in case the weather got nasty. I fuelled up the truck and had a McBreakfast before heading East around eight. I had about three meetings that I called into during the drive as well as a couple of calls from people. Brack, my colleague, was making the trip in his own truck since we’re not allowed to carpool yet and he took the toll highway to save time. I gutted it out on the terrible 401 because I’m inherently cheap. I had a lead out of the gate but that move put him ahead of me but as it turned out only by a few minutes. He slowed up slightly and I was able to catch him by the time we got to the 1000 Island Parkway. We like to take the scenic route and squeeze a little scenery out of the drive, at the cost of about ten minutes. We were a little early for fall colours but it was nice rip along the lake anyways. I’d love to be able to pull over and try fishing some of those little shallow inlets just to say I did. Never works out though. We decided to grab some JJ Shwarma in Kemptville before hitting our first site. We had a call with our boss on the way to said site and had to be careful with the mute button as it was obnoxiously loud to be eating during the call. We did the first stop together. He covered the soybean notes for the most part and I worked through the corn trials that were there. We caught a gas station on the way to the next location and had a similar experience. We were now in Quebec and got on the road just as the sun was starting to set. It was a pretty full day of travel and note taking.

We scurried to our hotel in Valleyfield on the west side of Montreal where we decided to get a quick dinner at the Tim Horton’s across the street. They were completely rammed at the drive-thru lane. The young girl didn’t speak much English and my French was dismal. We managed to mostly get what we were ordering and sat in for a quick meal. It was off to the room after that to neglect all but the most pressing emails and then have some personal time to relax. I wasted my personal time with MSF, falling asleep with it on around ten. Fool.

As per my Monday tradition, here is the meal board from last week. You can see that I wasn’t in the province for the first three days but went two for two on two very easy meals later in the week.

Quiet Sunday

Another sluggish and unproductive morning. MSF and YouTube until close to ten. When I got up I had a relaxing, hot shower and then got dressed for success. Next I decided that I needed to make an elaborate breakfast. Partly because the pastry and the sausage had been in the fridge for a long time and partly because I wanted to eat a lot in one sitting. I whipped up some breakfast bites. These were of course filled with my usual breakfast filling of bacon, chorizo, eggs, and cheese. You’ve heard me talk about it before. I’ve even posted a couple videos on my YouTube channel about it. Anyways, I ate some of that pile pictured below and stored the rest for later. They’d have to be eaten today because I was hitting the road for a good spell tomorrow and they aren’t good to eat cold while driving.

After a short recovery period and then doing the many, many dishes, I went out to the garage to get ready to try something new. I got geared up with some PPE and took my new weed whacker out for a spin. I went around the entire house with it, barely losing much string. Then I did around the fence and under the deck. It was fantastic and really cleaned up the edges. I also did some of the edges of the driveway, not turned over as you would with a proper edger but just to trim down some spots that were getting unruly. I took the battery off the trimmer and put it in the blower and cleaned up that mess, just to see how well it would work. It worked amazing. Next I mowed the lawn. It went much faster and was more enjoyable. Usually I have to be careful around the edges and go over spots twice. Not this time! I just ripped along and it was done before I knew it. I really enjoyed the experience for once. I used the blower again to clean up and it was just starting to lose power as I finished up. I think that battery lasted nearly an hour. I’m very happy with my new toys. And the yard looks slightly tighter. Now if I could get rid of the weeds I’d be all set. I think I’ve got the fertility ramping back up, just need to repair the grass and I’ll have a formidable yard again.

I was pretty sweaty and winded after finishing up the yard work so I went to the cool basement to recover. I watched a small amount of Money Heist before returning to my computer to work on some of the missing MSC challenges. I got it caught up and watched some YouTube. Some MSF followed. I was really into my audiobook so I did some tidying and cleaning around the house to keep listening to it. No vacuuming, which is overdue. That thing is too loud to enjoy my book while using. Eventually I made a meal of the leftover breakfast bites. There wasn’t much productive done later in the day. I got my bags packed up around seven and then packed up some of my toys too. I called Admiral Bonesaw after he put his girls to bed to wish him a happy birthday and we had an hour worth of chat about various topics. Eventually I tried to get to sleep early with moderate success. There was a big drive in my future and I needed to get some rest. It was shortly after ten when I found sleep, after an hour of trying.

Saturday Catch-up

I wanted to use my day off to catch up on sleep but that wasn’t going to happen easily. You can see that I’ve been yo-yo’ing a bit for sleep since that devastatingly long day on Monday. I view sleep as a banking thing, you try to store up as much credit as you can when you can and deplete it as required. I think I was in a good place before this week because my life hasn’t been drastically affected buy recent change in sleep deposits. Things are trending downward and I didn’t hit the line last night, hopefully I can have a nap or a rest of some kind today.

After lounging in bed and fooling in time with YouTube and MSF I decided I needed to eat and that I needed to try to get something done today. I discovered the pre-made egg cups that my mother made for me back in June. I’ve totally forgetten that they were in the freezer. I decided to make a couple of testers to see if they’re still good. They looked freezer burnt as all get out. I warmed them up in the microwave for a couple minutes and they seem ok. There was a lot of juice that leaked out of them as soon as my lips touched them but otherwise their intact. I’ll have to work my way through that sack of goodies. I even went so far as to try one as a samidge. It was a partial success, more of a leaky mess than anything. But it did the job of breaking my fast.

After some more lounging and working on my MSC challenges I found myself in the basement. Laundry was the root cause but the effect was that I started watching some Netflix. I focused on random movies. I have a fear of the series, because generally I don’t stop once I’ve started. There are a few exceptions where I just faded out on some, a notable one being Superstore, notable because it was recent. I saw that Money Heist had new episodes and took down one of those. I’m not sure I’ll binge that one, I was able to successfully just do one. Early in the afternoon I was bored and peckish so I went back to the kitchen and made myself a bowl of perogies. I dressed them up with some Tex Mex cheese and some Cholula hot sauce. It was a tasty snack and went pretty quick with the air fryer being the method or preparation.

I hauled my full gut upstairs and sprawled in my bed, listening to my phone and playing some Marvel Strike Force. I’m pretty into it, if you had noticed. Those games are certainly designed to capture and keep your attention and feeds into the psychology of always something to do. Even once I’m done all the tasks for the day in there I keep plugging away and max out everything that I can do. My friends are over a year ahead of me on it but I’m working to catch up. I have dropped a bit of money into my personal account. Nothing staggering yet, not as much as HomeScapes. I’ve got it under control. When I couldn’t do anything else with that I decided to work through the big stack of writing that I’d discovered in the boxes in the basement. It appears like most of my creative writing from the eleventh grade, some kind of major writing project. If there is anything good I’ll type it out as I do and post it in the Archive section. One thing that did stand out to me was a poem I’d written in a notebook. This notebook appeared to be from grade eight but it also had some high school projects in it. I’m not sure what the deal is. Anyways, enjoy this poem I wrote at some point in the past, assumedly when I graduated public school.

I read through a lot of the stories and organized them a bit before putting them away. I had a long talk on the phone with the Chef while I was reading and that broke things up nicely. But since the phone was near my face again, it lead to more MSF in my bed. It’s a sickness! When I broke free from that I folded my laundry and tidied up my office some more. I’ve mostly integrated that random box in my basement into my room. That only took eight years to do. The effects of the perogies had long since worn off and it was time to get into some more chow. This time I went pretty simple with some microwaved pad thai out of the freezer. Our Finest brand of chicken pad thai to be exact. I enjoyed this culinary delight with a beverage from the fridge. I used one of the glasses that Admiral Bonesaw and Dutchie got me for my birthday. It’s not exact true, but humourous. And not exactly untrue either.

After eating I went back to the Netflix, enjoying some more mindless entertainment. I’m not sure what I watched exactly but I know that I finished with two episodes of Money Heist. The rest was movies. It was just before ten when I powered things off and crawled up to my bed. Not exactly a productive day but not a waste either.

Full Friday

McBreakfast at six thirty. Work early to catch back up. Hammered down until meeting started. Had slides prepared and was ready to discuss things. Updates are all the time up so things are bumped to next meeting. Really valuable discussions. Lunch was soup and crustinis. Washed table on the deck and got extra chairs in case Brack dropped in. He did and we covered some business in person. He was nearby for a funeral, very sad story. Got hotels booked, not in right town. Super costly in QC. Finished off most of minor issues and moved things for big ones. Ordered Pizza Pizza dinner and crushed that. Knocked out all the outstanding MSC challenges and played some MSF. YouTube into sleep times starting around ten.

Haywire

I was a tired boy at the opening bell this morning. I didn’t sleep well after a few nights on the road. I found myself somewhat strapped for time to start the day. Luckily I had a blueberry breakfast to shave some minutes off the normal breakfast prep time. It was a delicious way to start the day.

There would be something of a reprieve for a couple days before heading back out into the world. I’d been marginally neglecting my email for a couple days and there was some back up. I wondered if people knew I was back at my desk because the couple hours of freedom I had in the morning was a gong show! So many things happening all at once. And I was trying to prepare for the two day meeting I had upcoming (big reason I came home a day sooner than I would have). I was feeling really frantic for most of the morning. I wrote some bullet points about products for all the customers and the idea was that I’d pop into the updates for each with a tidbit from my world. But things got so backed up in the schedule that I didn’t get called upon for half of them. Shows me for being prepared. That work will never see the light of day now, effectively time completely wasted. Bummer. The meeting was on Mountain time so when they had a twenty minute break at their ten bells, I had my entire lunch, scarfing it at my desk. That did not calm things for me, just kept that frantic, scramble mental state going. I was supposed to have ten minutes for an update towards the end of the day but ended up getting bumped. That one I was fine with, now I can make actual slides. The meeting continued later into the evening and when it was over I made myself a quick dinner. A cardboard pizza with just some Cholula hot sauce as an addition. You can tell from the picture that the sun was getting low in the sky by the time I got to mash this into my gob. It was satisfying.

The evening was spent starting my slides and getting settled back in. There was a lengthy bout of Marvel Strike Force. It’s becoming an obsession. Since I discovered I have two accounts, it’s been chewing up more and more of my day. I had some YouTube to enjoy and settled in for a wasted weekend. My mind needed a break and I was hoping for an earlier night. That time zone change kept me up though and it was closer to even when I dipped gently into unconsciousness.

GFD-MB Day 2

The day started early with a hot buffet in the hotel. It was not spectacular. I reached back to my knowledge of Brandon to recall where to get gas. I didn’t reach far enough back to recall there is a good breakfast place there, but didn’t have time for that either. I hustled over to the site, arriving before eight and found a customer already waiting there. Despite living two hours away, he was forty minutes early. Wonder if he even slept. More customers piled in and enjoyed the coffee and donuts my colleague provided. We had good discussions and they went off to look at the products. Some had questions for me and I spent way longer chatting with the different groups than expected. I only had a small window of time to take my own notes on the material we hadn’t covered the night before. I left close to my drop dead time and got on the road, hoping to make up time on the fast paced Western highway. I had to detour around a closed section which didn’t help. For sustenance I didn’t want to stop and lose time so I nibbled on several donuts. There were plenty left, and nearly all the muffins. I had dumped out the coffee before I left and just had the box to dispose of. People never eat much of these treats, that’s why I used COVID as an excuse to stop the wasteful practice. Thirst was going to be a bigger issue for me now. I stopped to top up the rental, toss the trash and continued to return my rental car. I told the attendant that I had the leftover donuts and offered them to him as a treat, rather than toss them. He was happy to indulge, not the usual reaction. I got through security, got a proper snack, since there would be no dinner and settled in to wait. I met up with our corn breeder, also traveling in the area and had a chat. They were on a different flight so it was a short chat. Then it was time to pee quickly and board the plane.

The flight was uneventful. It was dark when I landed and I slipped out of the airport quickly, with only some minor stress from paying for the parking at the exit rather than inside. The ride home was intense. Everyone drove like maniacs and I had put on intense and loud music to keep myself in the race. I was home just after ten, much sooner than expected and sleep caressed my brow before eleven bells struck. One of the legs of my travels was concluded.

GFD-MB Day 1

I was awake before my alarm and used the time to squeeze in some Marvel Strike Force before I had to get up. My morning was really my own today but I felt required to get out of the site and gather all the notes I possibly could before the customers started to arrive after lunch. I did have some things to accomplish on my computer before I left so I got myself cleaned up and was down at breakfast before seven. The hotel had graciously given me a voucher for a free breakfast. I’d ordered an orange juice and water before the informed me that the voucher was only good for fifteen bucks. That is relevant because the meal I’d decided on would work out to about that with the tax. With the drink I now would have to pay some out of pocket, not the end of the world but less elegant. I wouldn’t have ordered the drink if I’d been equipped with that knowledge in advance. Aw well, live and learn as they say. The meal I mentioned was a california style eggs benedict. That was also not as elegant. It is pictured below, the hollandaise sauce was replaced with an avocado hollandaise paste. It would have been fine but it was cold. That made everything a bit weird. The bread was also a sourdough rather than english muffin halves. The bacon was thick and chewy and refused to be cut so it was all as inelegant as the bill. The hashbrowns were amazing though.

I hustled back to my room and did about an hour of email to get caught up. Some folks had been looking for information while I was careening through the air above them and I was able to take an hour or so to satisfy all their questions. Then I set sail in my van to get over to the same site I was at yesterday. Apparently a truck had fallen off a bridge in a construction zone so the easy route was out of the question. I was going to have to explore some grid roads. This was exactly why I refused to book a compact car, that and it’s size relative to mine. I even got onto a true dirt road, this is the same stuff as the fields but it’s been compacted over the years. I learned a few years back that they quickly revert back to mud when exposed to adequate rainfall and become quite impassable to most vehicles. Being so flat on the priairies does make seems like the sky is bigger. At least there are some trees to dot the landscape in this province, other ones aren’t so lucky and are just plains.

On the way there I got some messages from the local rep saying there were some fires burning and it could be a problem for me. Apparently, the farmer across the road, who is in some kind of feud with the landowner we rent from, decided today was a good day to light some piles of dead weeds on fire. I guess that field was poorly managed all year and eventually they gathered up massive piles of lambsquarters to dry. I’m not even sure how that is possible. There were several dozen such piles and they’d lit a handful in the morning. The wind got up pretty good so it stopped them from lighting more. It also meant that all the smoke was blowing directly into the plots. It was so bad when I arrived that I had to sit in the van for a bit as I couldn’t even see the beans effectively enough to take my notes. Mid-morning the piles had burned down enough that I could see and I did my notes. One of my colleagues arrived around noon and I walked them through what I was looking at and some of the things I was seeing. Then we went in the corn plot. It was heavily drought stressed and not being included in the tour but we walked it anyways and I showed him what I was looking at. Most of my Western colleagues are still relatively new to corn and soybean plants so I usually end up giving my perspective on what are favourable traits and attributes. We didn’t even notice when our guests started to arrive. As we finished they were exiting their vehicles, good timing to make up for the lingering stink of the smoke. It wasn’t a factor by the time they arrived, just the smell remained.

The tour seemed to be a success. Everyone showed up and we all got to socialize a bit before they headed into the plots. I gave a short talk about the site and what we had here and about what to expect for tomorrow. It was straight forward. Most headed into the plots to see things for themselves. I noticed a few knots of people from time to time, catching up, likely not having seen each other for a year or more. I had a steady lineup of people waiting to come discuss things with me. I didn’t even get into the plots, generally I do my mingling in there but I was kept busy near the road. Great conversations were had and everyone was in a good mood. Everyone came over to say farewell when they’d finished up. Being near the road meant that I could keep any eye and make sure everyone dipped in our foot bath on the way in and out. That is required for some of the soil borne diseases they have out there in canola, the other yellow crop. Some customers came a bit later as they tried to see other locations on the same voyage so by the time they’d all been through the site and we’d chatted about everything they wanted to discuss it was closer to four than expected. My colleague and I saddled up and headed west towards the next big town to prepare for the next day’s event.

We arrived at that research farm around six and we took notes in the corn plots until nearly dark. I took real notes in the early stuff and we walked through the middle set so he could see it, leaving the later material until the next day. The early the material, the more excited people seem to get about it. We arrived at our hotel a short drive later and checked in quickly before heading out for dinner with some customers. We went to the same Montana’s I visited the last time I was there. I ordered the exact same meal as I had a week before in Woodstock. We had some laughs and got to know those particular customers better. I think we all had a nice time. We got back to the hotel close to ten and it was a short spurt of personal time before I had to be asleep. I used it to play MSF of course and passed out with my phone in my hand around eleven, waking in the night to pee and turn off the game. It was another full day on the road.

Longest Monday

The day started early. The plan was to go to sleep early and then rise with the alarm clocks chime at half three and be rolling by four. Instead, the idiot next door decided to have a cinema night, and I mean all night. So I was woken up at twenty past twelve by the sound of a subwoofer pointer at my pillow. His audio was so loud that it was louder than the thunder that was also happening. I was livid. Which is not a state to be in when trying to go back to sleep. I moved to the guest bedroom and eventually captured two short thirty minute naps. I was up before the alarm and on the move early. I decided I’d get a snack at the airport as having food too soon when I wake in the middle of the night upsets my insides. I made good time across the near abandoned highway and arrived at my usual parking lot just after five. Only problem was that it wasn’t a parking lot anymore. The cement barriers were removed and it was scattered with trailers, a trucking company must have rented it. I didn’t think I should park there. I headed for the five story garage run by the same outfit across the street. As I pulled up I saw a pop-up tent with two masked girls. One approached and asked if I was there for a COVID test, apparently that structure was closed so they could use the entry as a testing area. Nope! Backed out of there and figured out how to get to the main terminal and use the more costly parking. Next I headed to the gate I normally use. Another nope, it is out of commission. I had to go upstairs and get in the massive line for the newly constructed, COVID friendly security gate. It was a wait but I was lots early yet. Eventually I got processed and found my gate. I grabbed a small sandwich and a chocolate milk and enjoyed some mask free time. Boarding was the same and we got off on time, rare for Air Canada. We flew over the Great Lakes and had some great views along the way. First one is from Ontario and the second from Manitoba. I’m always impressed by the endless fields.

We landed close to on time and I hustled out of the plane to get to the rental car counter. I’d had to go through some song and dance to reserve a full size car and was anxious to see what they had for me. Instead I was offered an upgrade and had my choice between a Volvo X90, a minivan, or an Expedition. Tough call. I also learned I was the first of fifteen looking for a car from the two flights that had just landed. I figured the Volvo was essentially what I’d rented to begin with so it was ruled out. The big unit was large and I’d be doing city driving a bit and parking. The gas mileage was also an issue. Not the cost but because I didn’t want to stop for gas every fifteen minutes. I went with the minivan, a Chrysler Pacifica. The vehicle I’ve had for my last three rentals incidentally. I love a minivan, beautiful machine. I jumped in, oriented myself and took off for the field. No thought to lunch.

As I passed through the city I hoped I’d have time to go to Bass Pro I’m the evening to browse. I should have stopped for lunch but duty called. I made some calls on the way and tried to help resolve some issues. I arrived at the site at half eleven local time and then spent three and a half hours with the local reps, answering questions and demonstrating things. They left and ai spent some time taking notes. Then I drove to another site halfway back to my hotel in Winnipeg to take notes there.

It was around half six when I got to the hotel and I did the new check in process and went up to stow my bags in my room before returning to the lobby for dinner. I didn’t feel like going out to find some great local spot, I was famished by this time, having not consumed anything but dust since that meagre breakfast. Before I could sit down I had to present my proof of vaccination, which happened to be two printer PDF receipts I was emailed after I got each jab. Their province has given them plastic cards with their name and a QR code. You have to show photo ID alongside but that is required for all restaurants, pools, gyms, etc. My out of province documents passed the test and I was allowed to order. I got the club sandwich with fries. The middle had a surprising twist with some avocado and what I thought was cheese curds. Turns out they were goldfish crackers. It was odd but it worked. The fries were as if they were coated in fish batter. So flaky and good. I was hungry enough that it didn’t matter but was nice to have an excellent meal regardless.

After eating I returned to my room and washed a drip of ketchup off my shirt before getting in bed. A furious run of Duolingo and Marvel Strike Force followed. I had to fight to stay awake but I got things done and passed out knowing tomorrow would be a big day.

Dreaded Sunday

The day started unnaturally early. The neighbour wanted to feel whatever he was watching ahead of five in the morning. That was fairly uncalled for and not appreciated. I was up for a bit but eventually managed to get back to a sleep fraught with weird and vivid dreams. It was half six when I came to for real. Came to, not get up. I had a bit of a feeling of dread and I knew why. I would be traveling by plane, getting a rental car and staying in hotels for a couple of days for work. It’s been a year and a half since I’ve travelled and I’m anxious as all hell. More about screwing it up than anything else. I was so comfortable with travel before the pandemic, it’s odd that I’m feeling this way. Eventually the check-in time came and that went smoothly. I’m sure I’ll feel better as it starts but the trip starts at half past three in the morning so that is a concern too. I’ll have to set two alarms. I got up and got the day started, getting laundry in and cleaning myself up, including trimming my beard. That trim made it look much, much worse. I took my bad beard out for a quick excursion to vote. The advance polls opened from nine to nine for four days and I wanted to get in on that since I’ll be on the road for the actual day. I could have mailed it in but this was incredibly easy. I walked in, talked to one person and then went to the poll and cast my ballot. Since I was out and that was quick I swing around to get a McBreakfast. When I got home I was supposed to do a lot of Musings but instead I played Marvel Strike Force. I somehow have two accounts so I played a lot of it. I finished a free audiobook called Sandman by Neil Gaiman. It was like a radio drama with a serious cast. I found it to be very different and more intense than what I usually listen to.

I got up and did my MSC challenges and started some computing but it wasn’t long until I was back on the MSF. Hours ticked by and just ahead of three I warmed up the last of the Family Feast leftovers. I started a new audiobook, an anthology from the Spellmonger series, some in between stories. I got the laundry done and started packing my bags around five and had some rice and salsa around six. I finished my packing, set the alarms and started getting ready for bed. Ideally I could get to sleep early to make the stupid early morning more bearable.

Blown Saturday

This was one of those wasted days that I sometimes partake of. I was very slow to rise. I stayed in the darkness and played my MSF game for way too long, then transitioned to YouTube. Partway through the day I went to fill my guts with food. I decided to cook up a portion of perogies. I did them up as I usually do. They never sat very well.

I spent most of the day working on my Microsoft Solitaire Challenges as an excuse to listen to my audiobook. Many hours were whiled away doing that. I should have been cutting the lawn and getting all my laundry done but that’s not what transpired. I was able to rationalize all that away as I do. I eventually found my way down to my lair and watched some Netflix. I don’t recall what, it obviously wasn’t impactful. As the sun started to set, earlier than I’m used to, I warmed up some of the leftovers from the previous night. I don’t think I got it hot enough again and the hesistant feeling I had when eating potentially raw-ish food continued with the leftovers. I may have cursed this dish for myself, never being able to make it again with fear that I’ll get horribly ill from the consumption of it.

I spent part of the evening on the internet, studying things and doing some research on products I should be looking at buying. My expenses have started to creep up a bit over the last month and my rate of saving is dwindling so I’ll have to be more cognizant of what I’m putting money into. I was able to link up with Ronny Ronkman and play some Red Alert Remastered around nine. By ten we were both tired after a couple of big wins against AI opponents of increasing difficulty. It brough me back to early in the pandemic when that was a more regular type of thing. I didn’t waste much time in hitting the hay after we finished playing.

Friday Feast

Friday was another day to get through. With no more summer hours I’d have to take it to the limit. I had a nice breakfast with my murderer’s row of plants. I’m getting a solid inside collection built again. I suspect there will another morning glory added to the squad at some point soon, I planted some harvested seeds in an empty pot to see what would happen. The day started off with a regular call. Most it had nothing to do with me so I worked away on my own stuff in the meantime. I had a few more things to get ready before my life on the road started. I wished a colleague happy birthday, she was not expecting it. It’s nice to be nice.

I spent most of the morning on the phone, apparently I’ve become popular recently. Or I was planning tours at other people’s locations and had to work out the details for these three events with multiple people per location. The good news is that I didn’t really need to be staring at my screen while having these conversations and generally the topic of my meetings was only a miniscule portion of what was discussed. Nothing was critical but I was an ear for folks to vent to. While I wasn’t at the helm I used my Swiffer Duster to clean up all the old trophies that I’d located in my hunt for the GI Joes. I also cleaned up the shelf and relocated what was there in order to display the successes of my childhood. It’s better these are out than getting destroyed at the bottom of a large cardboard box. The trophy I’m most proud of is the tallest one, that was for winning player of the tournament at baseball tourney when I was around eleven or twelve. The one I find the most enjoyable is the clock, that is my award for being inducted into the Tri-Town Lacrosse League’s Hall of Fame as a builder. I coached for two years in the very first years of the league. They were also the very last years of the league. Things folded up pretty quick after Admiral Bonesaw and I quit coaching when we went away to school. I think the two of us and maybe one other person were ever inducted into that exclusive Hall of Fame.

Included in the collection of trophies is the now faded but otherwise infamous Pat Hengten autographed ball. The legendary story told many times by Big T, rarely without tears, is something most of my friends are familiar with. The most celebrated retelling of that tale was of course in Jamaica at Meat Man’s wedding. For those that didn’t know, it’s a true story, here is the proof. I wonder if my catcher, Admiral Bonesaw still has his signed ball.

I muddled through the workday with just another can of soup for lunch. The afternoon was shorter, I wrapped things up at half four and got into my MSF while I killed time before the Family Feast. This was going to a strange one. Sudbury Sister wasn’t going to be joining us this time. Her and the Irish Gal were away, going to the Big Smoke to attend some type of social function. It was just going to be three households mixing it up this time. The meal this time around was planned to be Italian Stuffed Cubanelle Peppers. The only problem for me is that I was too lazy to hunt around much for actual cubanelle peppers, so I went with regular green peppers. I wasn’t the only one who did that. We ended up with some very different looking versions this time around. This was supposed to be a slow cooker recipe but we pulled an audible and on the advice of STL Sister wer used the oven at the settings she concocted. Turns out that wasn’t enough for mine or my peppers were more densely packed. I tried some of it and it was fairly raw, left a gross taste and fear in my mouth. I’m not sure I ever got it cooked enough but after a second tour inside the oven I wolfed it down anyways. For some reason this one wasn’t my favourite, it was good but I’m not sure I’d do it again on my own.

STL Sister’s dish

The version made by my parents

The Tugboat’s version

After we ended around the normal time I decided I should shut it down. Not wanting to get into any kind of show or commitment other than what I had already I retired to my quarters for some light MSF and then some YouTube. I ended up listening to a podcast until I passed out around ten. My slow transition to early nights and early risings had begun. I’d need that adaptation in a couple of nights.

Blursday Again

My breakfast was leftovers from the weekend. They were still good. I warmed them up in the air fryer. I’ll also level with you, you probably noticed that there was a gap in posting. The actual date I’m filling this in properly is in October, hi-yo! I’m getting pressure to get caught up so I’m going to post the next few weeks of my travels in a more terse and short way than my usual verbose spewing of thoughts into the abyss. So you’ll have to excuse me if things aren’t ideal. The reasons why I’m so far behind are mostly work related. I’ve been on the road for three weeks, having to have late dinners and early mornings. I’ve only taken Sundays off. I’ve also been way too involved with my Marvel Strike Force accounts. You’ll recall I accidentally made two. I feel obligated to play them both daily, they’re set up to make me feel that way and I know it but I still fall victim to it. The other more minor factor was that whenever I tried to type things up on my PC there was an incredible amount of lag, to the point that I couldn’t handle it and had to stop. So between those things, my Musings time was squeezed out of the days. I’ll try my best to get you caught up.

Part of my morning was spent working on investigating some issues a custoemr had. As you can see, things are not ideal with their corn. I had to engage my US colleagues because I’m the middle man in this process. That took up more than part of my morning, the rest was spent preparing things for later in the fall. Refining entry lists and getting templates made. I still have a big chunk of such work to do but anything I can do ahead should relieve some of the stress from in the thick of it all.

I broke for lunch at the normal time and had myself a can of soup, not very exciting at all. No sandwich component. That is a recent trend that I’ve started since I returned from home, I guess my guts are satisfied with just a smaller meal. I’m glad that I’m trending that way and hopefully can continue that type of thing into the fall. Eating normal person portions is going to be important for me slowly getting back to my fighting weight. The afternoon was quiet and towards the end of it I found myself struggling to find things to do. This isn’t unusual, I should be on the road this week, normally I’d be in the West looking at the early corn but with travel restrictions due to COVID I’m grounded. The destination is one of the worst hot spots in our part of the world right now. I had to beg and plead to be able to go where I’m going this fall, no use pushing my luck into a dangerous area. The afternoon dragged by and soon it was time for another feed. I was supposed to make sausage and pasta but when I got to the kitchen and opened the fridge I locked eyes on the leftover hotdogs from the mustard tasting. Very quickly they found themselves in the air fryer and dinner was prepared and eaten in very short order, thus freeing up my evening.

I didn’t do anything with that time, just enjoyed doing nothing. Most of the time was spent on MSF and YouTube. I also knocked out my french lessons. An early bedtime ensued.

Ideal Hump

The day started off with a mild sleep-in. In my pre-wake up haze I noticed that I’d received an email from Home Depot and my new toys had arrived at my local store and I could pick that up. That was exciting news. I got myself cleaned up knowing that I’d be leaving the house to pick that stuff up. I dressed for such an occaision even. With the sleep in and the proper start to the day, I found myself running short on time. Luckily I still had some of those blueberry breakfast treats to eat. I nuked it and dressed it up and then got ready to go to work.

I called out to my old research farm to check if they were around and figured if I was going to leave the house I’d might as well get some value out of it. I needed to stage the soybean plots to lock in when my fall tour was going to be at the location. Last year I did that and then the buggers harvested everything before we got there to walk through it all. I was well annoyed by that. I also wanted to see their new offices in the house, they’d finally moved in. It took about an extra year for them to get in there. When I mounted my truck I hoticed that my RainX seems to be working at least in some capacity. Notice the beading of the moisture. Ideally when driving those beads will just roll up the windshield and make everyhing more visible for me. I have hight hopes of that system working well.

I made my pickup without ceremony and moved on to see the farm and the new setup in the old farmhouse. I was impressed by how it worked out. And by the size of the old bedrooms, it is much more spacious inside than I would have imagined from seeing the outside all those years. I let myself in after filling in the survey on the internal COVID tracking app. They are just getting set up stil but it’s a nice start. They have two offices upstairs for the two site leads and then many other workspaces for their assitants and some “hotel” space for people like me to work from. They even had a pair of boardrooms for meetings. One of my other reasons for visiting them in person was to get some printing done. My printer doesn’t seem to work right since IT started randomly deleting files off our computers. I needed to print my COVID vaccine receipts before my travel begins.

After spending some time helping the crew with some old files and knowledge, I stepped out to the plots to have a look. I walked through them and then decided I would put the drone up also to have a look. That and it is one of the places I can fly it freely. I grabbed overhead shots of all the blocks then thought I should send it way up and out and get some wider views.

You won’t know this but this a pretty accurate recreation of my desktop background on my work machine. A guy who is no longer with the company somehow got himself a Mavic mini back a handful of years and took some pictures for me. Now ai can control my own destiny. My version has a lot more colour and some clouds to make it look more interesting. The farm looks way different from when I used to run it, changes to the layout and a lot of building updates. I’m a little jealous of the extensive improvements to buildings and equipment. Just more stuff to look after I guess.

I got home around noon and tackled my inbox that had been largely unattended all morning. It was pretty slow so I found myself reheating the leftovers from last night by half twelve. It was pretty good, the gnocchi was a bit more wooden than appropriate. It was the right size to get me fuelled up for the afternoon.

I needed the fuel too. I found myself pretty busy for the after lunch portion of the day. I had nothing scheduled but managed to be busy. I was focused on clearing up issues before I had to get on the road. I spent half the time on the phone priming people to advance issues before the end of the week. I started setting up files and lists for later in the season. Around five I’d had enough of that and called it a day. My first job in the personal side was to assemble my new toys. I read the manual and did it correctly. Then I tried them both in the house. I strongly advise not using a leaf blower indoors.

My one error on that purchase is that I assumed my drill was a 20V, 4.0AmpH battery too and I could swap them around. Not the case. I will have to investigate getting a second battery if one won’t last long enough to do the job. Supper was a cardboard pizza and a beer. I added cheese and hot sauce on the pizza and the beer was because as feeling a bit saucy after an outing and getting my new toys.

The capstone of the day was our regularly scheduled D&D session. We were in a heated battle when we left off and it took us the whole time to win it triumphantly. We then took time to loot the place and we gained a village worth of followers/worshippers/slaves. We found a treasure trove of gold to the point we’ll need our new minions to manage it for us. Things are getting interesting, we’re heading into the hardest portion of the campaign. My travel means I can’t play next week and not the week after either. We’ll have to figure something out. It was a fantastic finish to a fine day. It was a good one and I recognized that, taking time to be present for the enjoyable moments. And I’m glad I did, it’s not something we get to do as often now. Hopefully I get a few in a row.

Tuesday

The day started early and in turmoil. My insides were angry with my choice to consume that mustard maelstrom. I had to rise to the call of nature ahead of six. I used the early start to tackle a mouthful of Marvel Strike Force and some Duolingo. I still had time to shower and clean up, water the plants and make a delightful breakfast before it was time to go to work. And those bullets were above average, excellent start to the days culinary adventures.

The workday started right at eight and without much fanfare. I dove back into it and started getting things done. I even started to plot out some things that I could work ahead on. I was really feeling like I had to make some hay in the calm before the storm, once I hit the road things were going to get out of control. I had three meetings that were nicely spaced through the day that allowed me to get my work done and also participate in several teams. Two of the meetings were one on one conversations with managers. Those went well. Lunch was a fairly mediocre affair, just a can of soup and some crackers, hardly worth mentioning. The one key consumable for the day was the water. My mission was to get re-hydrated. I find I’m lackluster about hydrating over the weekend but militant about it while I’m working. It’s like the two have become associated in my mind. Does that happen to anyone else? Anyways, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I also had some cookies as part of my dessert at lunch. And I do not regret it. The Cadbury Mini Egg Chips Ahoy mashup is fantastic. Work managed to slag on until around five. It’s always a grind when you come off a three day weekend, maybe if that was the norm then it would be a smoother transtion. After work finished upI made my way to the kitchen, dtermined to follow the meal board. The prescribed meal was fairly elaborate, the sausage and broccoli gnocci dish from the cookbook we use for the Family Feasts. I steamed some frozen broccoli but otherwise followed the recipe. It turned out great.

I was rammed full of food after one and a half heaping portions of that exquisite meal. I’d had some thoughts stirring in my mind since before I woke up and through the day I’d started to put some of them into action. At some point in the morning I ducked downstairs to see if I had some of the components I’d need to put my thoughts into action. I found a softball easily enough in my baseball gear. I probably should have a look through that stuff someday, make sure there isn’t any surprises in there. The next task was a bit more of a challenge. I had a memory of putting some GI-Joes in with my childhood things and would need a few to pull this off. I found the box with most of my childhood in it and dug around. I found a gold mine. This box contained a plethora of forgotten memories. It also housed the toys I was looking for. During the D&D session the night before there had been some debate about a certain scenario, I mentioned it yesterday. I wanted to act it out with my Joes to demonstrate how it should have played out. As I started into it, things got more and more elaborate. My initial thought was to do it in the bathroom and let the side of the tub represent the tub, or maybe the toilet could be three levels needed for the demonstration. But I quickly realized that would be unpleasant and seemly. I transitioned to doing it in the kitchen and using the dining set to accomplish my goals. I used an unhung picture as the bottom level, supported by a bathroom garbage can. The ball was suspended using some fishing line, a hook and my four hybrid golf club that was threaded through and balanced in the dining room light fixture. Here are a couple of photos of the setup.

The baseball represents a flying enemy and we were trying to cover it with a tarp to blind it. I figured my guy would run and leap over the top of it while holding one side of the tarp and my brother at arms would anchor me and we’d both end up hanging off the covered baddy and pull it down to the bridge below where our comrades waited. You can see the end result in the last photo, minus the “bridge” being pulled back for something I did in the previous shot. I made some short videos and shared with friends. They were well received. The Chef called as soon as I showed him what I was doing to check if I’d lost my mind or not. I was a bit sweaty by the end but otherwise I was fine. It was actually pretty fun to do that and film it. Got my creative faculties engaged somewhat. I cleaned up my mess and sorted though the box of treasures I’d found in the basement. I decided to integrate most of it into my home rather than bury it under the stairs. In doing so I found a folder of high school writing projects. Those should be terrible to read later. By the time I got done with all of that it was about time to get to sleep so I closed the chapter on an interesting evening and overall decent day.

Labour Day

Early to bed and early to rise. If I can keep this up and keep sliding it ahead a bit every couple of days it should make waking up at 3:30am next Monday morning a little more palatable. I’ll be on an 8am flight to Winnipeg and I live ninety minutes or so from the airport. Assuming no COVID delays, if I leave my house at four in the morning and arrive at the airport at half five and park and then get through security I should be around an hour ahead of departure time, which is recommended for all flights. So we’ll see if I can keep it up, I doubt it. I spent the next hour in my bed playing Marvel Strike Force and doing my other daily things, except Duolingo, if you wait until late in the day often times you have an easier week. It’s not foolproof but it’s been working for me. I moved to the office next and did the day’s MSC challenges and got to work on the last couple of drafted Musings and got them posted, my scheme worked perfectly, I’ll be fully caught up by the end of the day, success! After computing I went down to the kitchen around nine and started working on a pretty elaborate breakfast. I used two packages of Pilsbury Crescents to make Lazy Kolaches. The filling was the usual, four strips of bacon, two chorizo sausages and four scrambled eggs with a hint of shredded cheese. I didn’t use the Pilsbury Grands this time, I like that I can make sixteen little bites and one breakfast burrito for immediate consumption. The leftovers keep nicely in the fridge. Because this was a long process and it was on in the day and I hadn’t had much of a dinner I decided to make an appetizer of some McCain Breakfast Potatoes that I had leftover from the other day. I dumped some Kraft Bacon Ranch dressing on there to make it tastier. I think I’d cooked the whole bag when I made the perogies just to have something easy in the fridge, they were tasty.

I decided to eat out on the deck because it was a nice cool day. I didn’t check the temperature but it didn’t feel much different between inside and outside temperatures. In fact, I’d had the patio door open all morning and at times opened the front door as well. The resulting wind tunnel was excellent for airing the funk out of the main floor. It didn’t take me long to crush this breakfast. I think the last time I did this it was longer because I ate more and I had a little cigar to enjoy during as well.

I got everything cleaned up and then started doing a number of small errands. I got my tacklebox cleaned up in the garage. It had gotten really dusty being in the bed of the truck for a couple of days. I used Lysol wipes and paper towel to clean it up. Then I incorporated all the new elements I’d purchased in the summer into the containers. I came in for a bit and computed lightly and listened to another big section of my audiobook, eventually finishing it. I wasn’t ready to dive into the fourth book in that series yet so I chewed through some podcasts that were released today while I was cleaning a bathroom. Next I decided that I needed to put the RainX water repellent I’d purchased yesterday on the windshield. I painstakingly washed the window with Windex and paper towel twice before letting it dry for fifteen minutes in the hot sun. I wiped it again with a shop towel to be safe. I should say I was also using my step ladder to really get every inch of the glass. I applied two coats of the RainX, leaving about ten minutes between. I hope it set okay and I didn’t just wipe it all off at the end. I guess we’ll see when it rains and I’m driving next, whenever that will be. While I was doing that task I spotted the telescoping fishing rod I’d picked it on clearance. I took the reel off the other rod with the snapped tip and put it on there. It took awhile to move the clip over cause I tied a bad knot initially but that little task was completed while the final coat of RainX dried. My idea is to put it and the small tackle box under the back seat and then if I’m driving home from somewhere and see a spot I can pull over and try some casts. I think it’s fun and it looks good.

I had a few minutes of just laying down and listening to a podcast next. I’ve got a couple more things I want to do today before my evening plans. I tried to sneak in a nap but that didn’t take. I grabbed some A/V stuff and went to the kitchen instead. I had myself a good old fashioned mustard tasting. I made some hot dogs and used them to taste a bunch of mustards. I filmed it from two angles. Not sure how I’ll edit that but I’ll give it a go. Should make a fun video.

I finished that project and started testing my file moving process and ran into a snag. The GoPro9 uses a format for some videos that won’t play on my computer or my phone. Might need to investigate that further. But that will have to wait. My entire evening is booked with a bonus D&D session. This one is extra long too. We’re going for an extra two hours. The idea is to complete the encounter this week. I can tell you that it is nuts. We’re facing a legendary monster, a powerful wizard and their cult. We lost one of our party and possibly a second and we’re all in jeopardy now. Each of us is down considerable health points and our enemy is as strong as ever. It was intense, tempers flared at one point. I was wired by the end. Here is a picture of the map at one point. It’s a cylinder cavern with bridges weaving across the various floors and a 20’ drop each floor. It’s nuts, enemies come from everywhere.

My character did a crazy move and I pulled a twenty out on the roll to make it work. After rolling garbage all night I finally got one! I couldn’t sleep right away. It was ten last eleven when I was finally able to trick my brain into powering down.

Solid Sunday

The day waffled back and forth early on whether it would be enjoyable or terrible. I woke up from something at quarter past five and the neighbour was watching something at a somewhat reasonable volume. I would normally have slept right through it but my brain fixated on it and I knew I wasn’t getting back to sleep. I did my French lessons and did some Marvel Strike Force in the early morning hours before getting showered and dressed to seize the carp. The first item on the list was to get groceries. This involved what used to be a usual routine, grab a McBreakfast and do my shopping at seven at Walmart. I guess in the past I used to get the breakfast afterwards. The store was quite empty, just as I hoped and I decided to do a more thorough meander through it. I walked many extra aisles and found a couple of small things for Meat Man’s boys in case I get a chance to see them this fall. I imagine I won’t or if I do it will be at a distance but it doesn’t hurt to be ready. I perused the fishing stuff but didn’t need to buy anything, I’m stocked up for now. Then I stopped by electronics and remembered I had to price some stuff out for Christmas. I got my food shopping done and returned home. It was nice to go for a walk like that. On the way home from the store, during the two kilometer drive, I called my parents regarding an accusatory text the Big T had sent. He alledges that I broke their satellite receiver in their bedroom. I didn’t touch it the whole time, the only thing I did was program their new dish remote to work the volume on the TV. Apparently that would wreck their other receiver. It was like how I was subtly blamed for Mother’s Audible account not giving her a credit in July when I helped them cancel their Prime subscription. The two actually had nothing to do with each other and she got her credit in August, turns out it was something to do with the bank or her credit card. I’m the easy scapegoat I guess, but anyways, that was the day trying to go off the rails and be unpleasant again. I got home and unpacked my pile of groceries and then stowed them.

Next I headed upstairs determined to get myself caught up the rest of the way on my MSC challenges. I’d done that for this month but still had a dozen or so challenges lingering in August. I knocked them all out. There were some Expert level ones that took some doing but I managed to close them all out. I also started getting myself caught up on Musings. You wouldn’t have noticed likely but I was nearly a week behind and needed to get things posted quickly. By the time all of that stuff had wrapped up it was nearly noon. I grabbed three items and headed to the basement. I took a can of ginger ale, a bag of Jalapeno Cheddar Doritos and my copy of Draft Day on Blu-ray. I was feeling pretty good about myself two hours later. I even watched some of the special features including the making of section. I didn’t realize they filmed parts of the movie at the actual 2014 NFL Draft. They were the fourth camera team at the venue and most of it was during the real deal. They got some footage before and after with their actors but it was basically live. That is neat. I swung my twenty five pound kettle bell after that. It is much easier to handle than the big boy. I got some work in and then I noticed there were new episodes of Money Heist on Netflix so I started into that, taking down two of the five. It was after five so I warmed up some Stouffer’s Bistro Crustini Chicken Parmesan paninis and had several pints of water. I followed that with some Chips Ahoy Cadbury Mini Egg cookies. I HAD to buy them. More computing and Musings were up next. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for catching up, my three day strategy is working. I also had priced out a Dyson vaccum yesterday and I went back to see if it was the same deal. It is, and it’s very costly. I polled a number of people to see if paying $904 (taxes included) for a v11 Dyson Torque was nuts. A couple said that’s a lot, most said to look at it like an investment. I will probably use my old Bissell one more time and be so outraged at it that I’ll storm up to the computer and make the purchase. I want to talk to Admiral Bonesaw more about it, he owns a v11 already, need to ask him the hard hitting questions. I didn’t have much left in me after that so I retired to mop some Marvel Strike Team challenges and to listen to my audiobook, I should be able to finish it soon. I planned for another early night and I got it, this time about quarter after nine I was away.

Flaturday

The early waking continued with a nice six in the morning start to the day. I didn’t really do much with that start though. I did a lot of French lessons and got myself out of the demotion zone for the Diamond league in Duolingo. I did a lot of Marvel Strike Force, I learned during D&D that I’ve been doing it wrong and I should have been focusing on my five top players so I win most battles and then get more rewards. I was upgrading most of my team and thus wasting precious resources. I’m sure I’ll get in trouble from that strategy later. It was around half seven that I finally got up and made my way to the office. I set about catching up on the MSC challenges and Musings. My theory is that if I do a little extra over the next three days I can get myself fully caught up on both, but I have to stick to it. I got a big chunk of the challenges done and a good start on a few Musings. STL Sister had asked if I’d given up on them, she didn’t realize I’d had a busy week and just needed some time to come storming back. And that I did. By the time I’d had my fill it was noon. I decided to have a piping hot shower and get myself into some clean clothes and start my day finally. I topped up my shower consumables beforehand and was again amazed at the power of an actually hot shower. Having to replace the mixing valve and getting my water softener hooked up was the best plumbing moves I’ve made yet. I descended the stairs and started working on lunch. Along with the computing, I’d taken down a large chunk of my audiobook in the morning and got back to it now. I can’t listen when I puke out Musings onto the page, it’s too distracting from the book, I have to go and relisten to large portions, silence is more efficient. As I was deciding amongst my few culinary options the doorbell rang and I figured that it was my GoPro9 charger being dropped off. To my surprise it was a campaign door knocker. It was the party I’m not super pleased with. I’m not a monster though, I’d loved to have ripped a strip off the person but I recognize that this individual is a cog in the wheel and a poor bugger who is allegedly volunteering their time on the Saturday of the long weekend. They did their thirty second speech of who they were and why they were there and asked if they could count on my support and I responded in a flat tone, “No, not a chance.” and then thought better and added, “Have a lovely afternoon though.” as they turned and walked away. I don’t typically get into politics here so I won’t. Ha!

After that brief interruption I got about the business of making lunch. I was pretty hungry by this point so I made sure to down a couple of pints of water before deciding on big and easy. I dumped a mess of perogies into the warmed up air fryer and topped them with Cholula hot sauce on the other end. That was a good feed but I had the feeling that it wasn’t going to sit well. I was right about that. I won’t go into the details but it was unpleasant.

About ten minutes after crushing my meal I decided it was time that I got out there and dealt with my property. The weeds were towering over the dying grass again. I got the mowing done pretty easily. The neighbours were having some kind of gathering but were in their house for now so I didn’t feel too bad for sparking it up. I could have done it much earlier in the day and disrupted the guy working nights’ sleep. Earlier in the week I’d seen something on the side of the house that looked like it could have been part of a baby bunny. As I was mowing I discovered an empty nest that was already torn apart. I checked to make sure and then mowed over it. It appears that some kind of predatory took out this year's crop of babies.

In happier news, the lawn is short again. Between the grubs and the overwhelming weed pressure, it looks pretty terrible, worse in real life. I decided not to hand weed around the outside this time. Why? Because yesterday I bought a new battery trimmer with a bonus blower. It uses the same battery as my drill I think so I might have three batteries to rotate around. If not I may purchase a spare later. It is supposed to arrive at my local store this week and then I’ll need something to try it out on. Looking forward to my new weapon. Until then, I’ll have to suffer looking at the weeds. I should probably make plans to spray the lawn mid week, try to take the weeds back a bit before winter. I really have to get back to spraying in the spring.

I came back in after cleaning the mower and watering all the plants. My next project that I’d been wanting to get done was to edit together a video I’d made when back home. I shot a rack of pool again and needed to stitch the footage together. There is a larger video to be made about my two weeks at home but I am scared about the prospects of getting it all together on one device, it’s currently on three other ones. I’ll get there though, until then, enjoy this little diddy. I kept it short so you can watch it in the bathroom without raising any suspicions.

Around five I had myself the last Stouffer’s Bistro Crustini Mozzarella and Meatball panini and a Dr Pepper. I polished it off with a couple of pints of water. All the important parts of my day were done. I climbed back up to my office and worked on the MSC challenges once more. By the time I finished I’d knocked it back to about eight outstanding challenges, which was a full day and three errant Expert level ones. I also watched a lot of clips on YouTube, there is a longer video I should watch but don’t want to commit to something that long right now. Instead I retired early, around ten to nine. I’m meaning that I actually went to sleep. I guess I was more tired than expected so I packed it in really early, on a Saturday night, of the long weekend. Weird move, but I think I’ll thank myself in the morning. I’ve noticed a lot of bags under my eyes and must be living in sleep deficit.