Aaaww... goslings and their folks just hanging out by the lake. I should have taken a movie of how the parents stood guard and took turns herding the little guys. But, well, I didn't but you can see it here in the still.

I have a cat that likes basil. He keeps gnawing on it no matter where I put it. Maybe I should just get him his own plants.

I don't normally follow sports. But I sat down and watched THE HOCKEY GAME. The Olympic Hockey game.

And if you don't know yet, the Red and White came out at the end. Go Canada!

This is Biltong. It's a South African method of drying meat. It looks like hell, I admit. But it's the kind of stuff you can't stay away from. It's a lot like jerky; only better.

I've pretty much perfected the method of making it. 

Meat, rock salt, pepper, coriander, brown sugar, vinegar and some other stuff and you have a great trail staple. Drop it in a soup, eat it on the fly. For anyone carnivore-isly inclined this is a great staple.   

I've been working on a bread recipe and just about have it right.

The theory is that one should be able to throw everything together, come back in twelve hours, pop it in the oven and presto! No kneading or fancy stuff. I think I finally hit the mark early this morning. This bread will not see peanut butter. This is the bread of kings. Crusty, light, good crumb... um... it would be really good with a bit of smoked salmon or some cheese.

OK; early lunch!

I love TVO's Saturday Night at The Movies. But I've inherited a cat that just can't stay focused. He dozed off on my lap pretty early and made a real shedding mess of what I was wearing.

I'm not sure if he didn't like the movies or was just tired from running about all day. So here's a photo of him fast asleep on my lap.

This is the pipe thing that I made for The Boys for Christmas. This and some ping-pong balls should be a little bit of fun. Without welding anything it can be any configuration.

UPDATE: The Pipe Thing was played with its original mission and then taken apart, running through cars and then became a sort of Dr. Seuss–type instrument complete with a percussion section. So, there is the lesson for today; take something that kids don't normally get to play with and have at it. Well, take most of the sharp bits off first. But not all, 'cuz that's no fun.

I'm planning a New Years' party and going through my recipes. Most of my recipes are in text files on my computer but I couldn't remember the recipe for Baked Chocolate Pudding so I looked in my recipe box and realized that there is a lot of history there. My Grandmothers, my mum and me and some written down and credited to people I don't think I ever met or locations I never knew. Things like 'The Regina Recipe' for scalloped potatoes.

After muddling through the recipe cards I'm not sure I should be keeping them digitally because it is so nice to see the handwriting and know who wrote them.

I like fish. 

After my little boy's fish Arnie... um... passed away I missed having fish around and I really needed a pet. Since I already have a lot of fish stuff and fish don't usually rip up furniture or poop on the lawn and rarely need a walk an ichthy seemed like a good choice. And he's kinda pretty.

This is Toshiko (tow-she-co) he's a Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens).

I know it's a girl's name but he doesn't seem to mind; I like the name and I imagine he'll come when called.

The photo on this page is pretty much actual size.

Le temps des pommes! C'est de ches nous. Faites votre propre sac!

Which roughly translates to 'Applefest Grown close to home. Bag your own.'

Still love living in a bi-lingual, multi-cultural place. 

C'est de ches nous, but a different language works your brain.

Summer, Summer; we hardly knew ye.

I've had these sandals forever. They're beat-up and lost most of their tread. Every spring I give them a full leather treatment so they've lasted a long time.

But every autumn I look at them with longing because I know I gotta get out the winter boots.

I dunno about where you are but I'm terribly disappointed about the overcast in the sky tonight. Jupiter and Luna could be covered with a thumb at arm's length tonight.

It's no secret that I like potatoes. I dunno if its my lineage (Irish) or my palette but I like potatoes.

Tonight I had a baked potato off the barbecue with roasted garlic and onions and a light tomato sauce with shrimp. Not only did it look good it tasted amazing.

A tuber, some kitchen scraps and you have a tasty treat.

Not the best photo but, reality is reality. The big fuzzy thing is The Moon. The little point of light is Jupiter.

I love living in a dynamic solar system. At two and a half times the mass of all of the other planets, Jupiter earned its name. Given the Galilean moons (my fave) you just can't have a better gas-giant.

I have to confess that I'm a space-geek. So much so that I ran a patch-cord from the media-server internet feed to the central USB monitored hub tv. 

I think that's why I'm a space geek. I have a bunch of cords and adapters that'll let me talk to anything.

-----------

Media Server. Heavy lifting without supervision. Two day data crunch? No problem. She processes data, runs through a database, compiles stuff and lets me know when its done. This is a great reason to keep old computers.

 ----------

USB node; pretty and Useful.

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This is what I mean by Media Server. This is NASA tv from the internet displayed on the tv.

This knife is not beautiful. But, its high-carbon and folded blade is Katana-like. The tough thing is polishing. It oxidizes within a day. I kinda like that its ugly, though.

It is sharp as hell. (The kind of sharp where you cut your finger and it's only when you see the drops of blood on the kitchen floor that you start counting your fingers.)

I'm tempted to shave with this knife but I think it might be sharper than my razor.

I'm not wierd about functional tools but a brilliantly hard knife used well is amazing: It glides through corn cobs, makes short work of weed-trees, minces basil and still does fine work with oregano.

Don't make a mistake about the back of that blade. A hard carbon steel blade has lots of uses.

I'm having to huck a bunch of wire from here to there. Sometimes it's USB, sometimes it's audio, sometimes it's ethernet. And sometimes its some sort of weird protocol.

But I transfer the chatter to Something Useful. Digital Overplay or Interpolation. Sometimes it's just putting the right plug in the right connector.

 I broke the minor metatarsals. Could have broken a toe -- that would have hurt more.

My Boys play with a bunch of plastic dinosaurs that I picked up at the Salvation Army for $.99. Best buck I ever spent. Endless story lines and characters.

So... I broke a bone in my foot. And there are lots of bones in the foot that range from big to tiny. Well, it turns out that breaking one of the little tiny bones hurts an awful lot.

So I have a 21st century walking cast. I really like that it's black and so techy-looking.

'Luke, I am your father'.

I made myself a nice sushi dinner. Good as good and better than better. Time and understanding make for a really good dish.

Well, and a sharp blade, some nice fish, an assortment of veggies and some innovation. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for the recipe.

It strikes me that I have a lot of cast-iron cookware. 

Treat it right and it's like glass. Abuse it and it'll stick everything.

It's been so cold this summer that in the middle of August I actually lit a fire in the hearth. And the fireplace kinda looked unhappy about it.

In BC it's too hot for life and here we've had sort of a warm winter.

I have a wicked audio amp that pretty much represents the first of home audio. It's a Creek 4040. And if you know anything about audio you'd be pretty envious.

Not only does it produce the most excellent sound, it's all black with no annoying lights or anything. Just a little red LED that says it's on.

With the right speakers it can actually shake windows. So, being a holiday weekend, well, I'm shaking windows.

Boston, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Beatles (White Album), Led Zep (of course), David Bowie, U2, Rush... You know, the stuff you want to roar.

Hey!! A night when it didn't rain!!

I got to sit out with a nice cup of tea, a book, and some tv shows. And, yeah, I ran power to my computer. But my candle-lantern is sorta natural.

There is a rabbit that dashes through the back yard just about every day. And I never have my camera. Well, today I was sitting at my desk changing the battery in my camera. And he made the dash with a pause and I got 'im.

Sometimes stuff just shows up that you were not looking.

Under the seat of my old motorcycle was this tin that had goggles in it. They were from WW2 and had aged badly so I pitched them (because I was 17 years old and, well you know). I kept the tin and it showed up today. 

I've been trying to learn how to play the guitar. My broken arm kind of interrupted that but since my ever-cheerful surgeon gave me the go-ahead to start pushing it I started up again.

Anyway, I was thinking about songs that I've known and songs I like, did a search and happened on this:

Most of all I like the kid's shirt. Shoulda been just black but I like it nonetheless.

When my sister sent me these little lights I thought it was a bit of an odd gift. But, dammit, having a set of three easily portable lights that are grab-and-go are just about the most useful thing I've ever had.

I don't really like to use batteries this way but these little lights are just so damn handy. They lay flat and put light under things, they can't be knocked over, they have a hole on the back for a nail and they're white LED.

Only problem is that you can't put them in anything because they turn on and off by pressing the lens. Still, if I come across any more of these I have a dozen places that I need to see but would rather not spend the effort and time to run NMD copper to.

I'm so happy that my local grocery store stocks Three Tigers brands. Good? No, better than good.

The Banh Pho is better than good as well.

Dinner is going to be great tonight.

I have a lovely little Brit–made darkroom clock. It's poor face is, of course, covered with chemicals and been battered about.

The poor little thing didn't turn for quite a damn few years.

 I took out the pins, cleaned the escapment, greased the major wheels. So it should be happy. This pic is of the open backside where I did the work.

Um... well... it sort of looks happy.

I'm a bit of a clock-fixer.

So... I go out a gate every day and it gave me a lot of pause to notice that a bird had started to make a nest in the fence post.

I don't think he's going to be very succesful getting a girl to come back to his funnel, pasta, moss and twine pad. But we'll give it some days and see.

In the crazy life of picking up stuff and putting it someplace else I lost my favourite set of headphones.

But I was looking for an RCA patch cord and went digging through all the little bits of cords and plugs and adapters and all kinds of stuff that is old and not terribly useful until I need that little thing that broke and hasn't been manufactured for a decade.

The point is that these are great. Better than the headphones I lost.

I kinda look like a wanker wearing them, though.

Wish I had the Walkman they came with.

Jupiter is on the dark-side of Earth for a while. (Cassini at Saturn is marked in grey)

AND Neptune and Jupiter are very close together in our perspective from here:

When the sun goes down, look at the brightest light in the sky. That's Jupiter.

If you have some binoculars or a telescope look just above and to the left. That's Neptune.

I've just made perfect sushi rice.

This isn't easy. I've tried and tried but just by complete fluke and adding a little bit of this-and-that I have a bowlful of rice that is glossy, doesn't stick too much, doesn't stick too little, is fragrant, a little bit hard but not too much, didn't get the sugar boiled out of it and is going to be some serious art on my plate this eve.

To put it in perspective, it takes a Sushi Master at least a half-decade to achieve something like this. Come to think of it, I've been trying part-time for fifteen years.

When I was a boy I had a row of cedar trees to play in.

So it was of particular distress that of eight little cedar trees in my care I'd lost six with only two left.

The lesson here is Don't Panic. Um... I'm pretty sure I read that on the cover of a book once.

Hotdawg!

One thing I've learned in my way-too-long life is that kids like weird stuff. Especially little boys. If it's squirmy or dirty they love it. So, when I stumbled on the Hotdog Critter I said, 'Yeah... of course!'. Take one of these, put him on a little beach of macaroni, have some fruit for dessert and you've got yourself some happy kids.

Make sure you use a Buddha Dog or Veggie Dog , though. Not the crappy ones.

Some time should, of course, be spent on the expressions of the characters before they meet their fate. Ask how many legs the critter should have and what his demeanor should be.

I dunno what it is about clover that makes me think of home.

Whatever it is I like it.

I've been listening to a lot of REM lately.

I've been going through The Library in both text and music. And I think I pretty much know what I'd take to a desert island.

So, I broke my arm and a really nice fellow put it back together for me and even gave me some pictures of the work he'd done. I'm glad I was out while he was working because I don't think I really want to know how the pins went in.

Classic Olecranon fracture.

And, yeah, that's my right elbow. The arm that makes magic and saves small universes. Yup, that one. Coulda been worse. Coulda been my neck.

The bit where the pins go through that is black? That's the break.

I have a hat that no-one likes

But it keeps the sun off my head, lets my eyes see everything and I think it's cool because it's good gear.

----------

I just like the damn hat.

I had to have the talk about mortality with my eldest boy today.

Arnie (the fish) died last night and I had to have That Talk. 

Goodbye Arnie, we'll miss you.

I'm a junk store junky, I admit.

It's really hard not to be once you've been exposed to it. It's like a constant yard-sale. 

Anyway, there are ALWAYS golf clubs. And at my fave store they have golf balls as well. And I think they've had some trouble with golf balls rolling into the low corner of the store.

So, this double entendre sign resulted.

Do not play with balls in store.

Sound advice.

I'm growing a pumpkin from seed with my eldest boy from one of the viable seeds of our jack-o-lantern from last year. Even though it was planted in mid-May I'm starting to get worried about it being ready for halloween this year.

But there is a pumpkin-flower just about to burst today.

It's looking a little bit sallow so I think it's time to harden it off; that means putting it outside for increasingly longer times each day.

This song keeps going through my head when I'm trying to get to sleep: Furry Happy Monsters.

I think that The Muppet show should be voted as one of the best things of the 20th century.

Also: 7 Great Sci-Fi Moments From The Muppet Show from io9.

My boom box is dead.

I used to connect it to my computer for an amp. The cool thing was that I could put it in a workspace away from my laptop computer and just run a cord for whatever I was listening to.

It's got spatters of paint on it, bits of drywall, hunks and bits of wood in the controls, was hit and dented by a falling ladder, fell out of an attic (an entire different story) and kinda looks pretty sad. Despite all that it just died quietly last night for no reason.

It's had a good life.

Every time I turned it on I'd read 'Turbo Bass' and pronounce Bass like the fish.

Maybe I'll cut out that panel just so I have it. The rest is going to be cut up for anything useable. Sliders, push-switches, speakers, magnets, motors, sub-woofer and wotnot... Yeah, Hi, my name is Craig and I'm a Maker.

I managed to locate a pack of Bicycle cards.

I promised to play Go Fish with my eldest boy, so I got a Go Fish card pack from the dollar-store that turned out to be c-r-a-p. But when I was out today I went to four convenience stores and finally located a deck of classic Bicycle playing cards.

There's gotta be an interesting story as to why a playing card brand is named 'Bicycle'.

The terminator on the moon this morning was kinda beautiful. Sometimes when you're just out and about you look up into the sky and remember just how big our solar system is.

How, for example, if our local star imploded we wouldn't know for seven minutes (because of the speed of light Constant). But the moon is only six seconds away. Jupiter is some 20 minutes.

I made some potato-leek soup ('cuz I had some potatoes and leeks that were getting kind of old) and on a whim threw in some pureed chipotle peppers. Damn. It's good. Like hella good.

With a little bit of cappuccino it'd be... wait a minute. I'll be right back. I gotta go have some soup.

Japan has a probe in orbit around the moon. And they put a HD camera right on the front of it.

Sorta like wot Jim Lovell saw.

NASA has hope with Ares and Orion but it's not the money-hose that made the Saturn-5.

Someone, somewhere, understood that the value of doing science is communicating the ride. That you could take 10 million people, show 'em something like this and ask for a dollar.

Actually... um, that's not a bad idea.

I've been listening to the Tragically Hip's song Courage at window-shaking volume. (And I don't have my Creek amp but I do have enough kit to literally shake windows.)

Might've set back my seedlings on the windowsills, though.

I've started engaging a clock radio so that I don't sleep in.

It's so nice to have the CBC wake me up again. I'd quite forgotten just how much I enjoy doing a morning routine while listening to Fresh Air or Ontario Morning.

Anyway, this morning there was a story about Buddha Dog. Two guys that decided to make an actual good hotdog that wasn't made up of emulsified crap.

As a father of two boys who think that hotdogs are the pinnacle of culinary art I was, of course, interested.

The best part was how they came up with the name;
Buddha walks up to the hotdog vendor and says, "Make me one with everything."

Needless to say, I'm glad I wasn't drinking milk at the time. The cleanup would have taken hours.

It still amazes that a product could be named 'magic'. It's a little bit of an over-promise if you ask me.

But, it works quite well. It' just NaHCO₃ + H⁺ → Na⁺ + CO₂ + H₂O  so it isn't really magic.

I don't know what this bush is. But how such red leaves could appear on a green bush is beyond me.

Every morning I pick up my little garden and move it over to the East window sill of the sunroom so that the plants all get the best chance at direct sun. Then about noon I move 'em on over to the West windowsill.

This morning the pumpkin grabbed a hold of the basil pot and down it went. As I noted earlier, growing basil from seed takes patience. Even more when you destroy your plants. 

I did, however, take the opportunity to put the little plants (and new seeds) into a nicely weathered clay pot that I picked up at a yard sale. So if they don't all die they'll be looking all Old-Worldy.

And if I knock them off the shelf again it'll be at least a satisfying crash of smashed pottery rather than the thump of an ugly plastic pot.

This is my tripod. It does a full extension that is at eye-level and still collapses enough to fit in my bag.

It's built with 1960's tech. And would've been horribly expensive when it was new. As it is I picked it up at a garage sale for $5.

I still feel like it was a crime to pay so little for it. This thing coulda been on an Apollo mission... It's not fashionable anymore, or the right colour or some kind of material but I gotta say that it's the most flexible piece of hardware that I've ever had.

And I think it looks cool.

Okay, I know I obsess about this but last year's pumpkin effort was scuttled by a late frost and friggin' crows.

Maybe some sort of net or screen? This baby is just getting too big to be inside.

Okeydoke, it's friggin June and it's thirteen degrees outside. WTF?

I picked up a new phone at the beginning of the year. The problem was that it was so small I kept losing it. I could put it in my pocket and not know where it was until it rang.

This pouch I picked up at a Roots promotion decades ago and liked it but never really had a purpose for it. Well, it turns out that it fits my phone AND camera just perfectly.

With this, my iPod and my ever-present Leatherman on my belt I'm starting to feel a bit like Batman.

And I think it gives me a bit of cred actually using something so iconic.

My oldest boy and I found dozens of cicada exoskeletons around the base of our big pine tree last summer and I always kind of wondered what it would look like watching a cicada emerge.

Well now I know. They're such cute bugs.

I was craving some Singapore Rice Noodles and I dropped the recipe on the floor. I liked the way it looked.

Growing basil from seed takes a while but the payoff is ginormous.

I love Skype. I got to be outside with both The Boys today. Pretty damn swell.

It's June and still chilly. What the heck is going on?

I really like the lines in the front door. Simple even with the pneumatic cylinder. 

Pumpkin plant in the morning.

Well, here's Emmett and a car. Much fun ensued.

He's amazingly communactive without language. He points at things, understands their meaning and then interprets context talked back. So... I know what he's thinking without language. It's just days before he starts talking.

I'm looking forward to October. This pumpkin will be gorgeous.

 Arnie likes his new environment.

Arnie is my eldest boy's fish.

I made the mistake of taking a four-year-old boy to a pet store. And he picked up Arnie and very slowly walked toward the cash. I was just there to look at the possibility but with a little boy putting a fish on the counter... well... what would you do?

Owen's Apple Tree is coming along nicely. I'm pretty proud of it but this morning I thought about pollination. If it doesn't have a mate then there's a bit of a problem making apples; er... so to speak. Vegi-sex is a touchy subject these days.

As a lot of people know, I took a tumble down the stairs when I missed a step. I broke my elbow (which is healing quite well and is useable) but I'm more upset at breaking my iPod.

I loved you, man *sniff*.

I started thinking about cars (because my old car was in the newspaper this morning) and came across the Citroën Karin. I love this car. It's ugly, elegant and future-perfect at all the same time. It just needs an oscillation overthruster.

The apple seed that Owen and I planted looks like it might actually be a viable tree. I wish I'd written down what variant it is.

A fella's gotta have a place to do stuff. And The Workshop is finally getting in order. It's gone from this:

To this:

It's taken a lot of work. That's sort of ironic because a lot of work had to be done before any work on The Boat could be done.

My oldest boy and I made a train tunnel. An entire afternoon was spent just making something. And that's pretty cool.

 A kid and a train. Well, whatcha gonna do?

I dunno wot this Ikea box is trying to say, but I imagine that it's going "waaa, waaa wot waww wot waaaa". Like the Charlie Brown adults.