Blog 2019

Fast forward to 2019. The world is in turmoil - Donald Trump is the President of the United States, and global warming threatens to extinct us all! (For those of you asking if 'extinct' can be used as a verb, well, it's no wonder the world is so messed up...people worrying about the minutia of grammar when you should be worrying about carbon emissions and the melting polar icecaps... I suggest you dehead your ass and focus on more important things). Where was I? Oh yes, the Canada is in the middle of an opioid crisis, and, just when we thought it couldn't get worse, the lead on my curling team hurt himself and can't play for a while. Man, it's just one kick in the teeth after another. So, this brings us to why we're here - in order to convince someone to fill in for our injured lead, I agreed to come out of retirement and write a blog post. No fanfare, no pomp and circumstance, no twitter, no instagram, just good old blogger, a keyboard, and enough prescription opiods to kill a horse (just enough to keep those creative juices flowing).

Game 1

Game 1 didn't last long, as Brendon fell and broke his arm.

Game 2 After a two week break, team Crowley found themselves back on the ice, for the first time again, trying to get that first game under their proverbial belts. So, it takes a pretty terrible team to get shut out in curling. Really, if you have any idea what the hell is going on, you should be able to use your last rock advantage to draw for a point. Well, whether it was the time off, or the PTSD from Game 1, team Crowley just couldn't cobble together a series of decent shots and found themselves on the losing end of a 11-0 drubbing. If there's one good thing about getting shut-out in curling, it's that there are 3 other people who you can blame. Now, as the reigning 'most sportsmanlike player' in the league, you'd think that I'd be taking some amount of responsibility for our poor performance...well, if you thought that, you'd be wrong. This just goes to show you that the system is broken and anything where people vote on a winner is just messed up. Things should be decided, not by a democratic vote by the people, but by a committee of non-moronic people who know better than the nameless rabble who really only care whether or not the Maple Leafs win, but I digress.  To make a long story short, after a few more fruitless attempts to score a point, team Crowley's spirit was smashed and broken, much like Brendon's arm just 2 weeks past, and so we gave up, scoreless and defeated.

Game 3

After a week of careful reflection, team Crowley found themselves back on the ice, cautiously optimistic, as, don't they say that when you've hit rock bottom, you have nowhere to go but up?  (well, after being in that Oshawa ER, I think that when a lot of people hit rock bottom, they don't go up at all, they just stay at rock bottom and they keep on doing that heroin...)  ANYWAY, this is getting long, so, to make a long story a little less long, after 3 or 4 ends, the score was 9-1 and the opponents had had enough.  Victory was ours!  This takes our season record to 1-1.  Well done team!!

Pumpkins

Pumpkins

Cardboard Fire Truck

Is this what this blog has turned into? Short answer - "Yes". Look at what I spend my time doing these days.Here are some step-by-step instructions:

1. Find someone who just bought a fridge and ask for the box.

2. Find a picture of a fire truck on the internet.

3. Buy some supplies - like paint (from the dollar store - silver, gold, red, white, black - they say it's non-toxic - but I'm a little skeptical of anything from the dollar store... Paint foreman in factory in China - "Is lead in paint toxic? Nope, don't think so..."), I used dollar store foam board for the ladder on the side, and the little crest on the side. The valve thing on the side was from Canadian Tire, and the "hose" was pipe insulation. Basically, I wandered around Canadian Tire looking for things that were less than $2 that looked like they might go on a fire truck. The number 3 was from Home Depot - I think it cost $1.00.

4. Make the box into the shape of a fire truck by cutting and/or folding the box. I reinforced some of the joints with some scrap wood, and I screwed it together (making sure that no sharp ends were sticking out to cut the little kiddies - and making sure that the screw didn't go right through the cardboard) At this point, it might be a good idea to make sure that your truck will fit wherever you plan on putting it. Don't get it all together and finished before finding out that it's 3 inches bigger than the doorway to the basement.

5. I made a steering wheel and dashboard out of cardboard. I have a friend who's into radios, so he got me a defective CB radio that I stuck on the side of the dash. Lastly, the lights are made out of shiny dollar store wrapping paper wrapped around a foam board 'box' to give it stability. Hot glue holds it all together. I had plans to make the sides more detailed, and to look more like a real fire truck, but I was spending a ton of time on it, and I figured that the kids wouldn't really care what it looked like, so I just threw a ladder on the side and called it done.

That's really about it. The kiddies all seemed to like it (but they would probably have been just as happy if I'd just thrown the box in the family room - keep that in mind before you spend 15 hours making your box into a fire truck.) They broke the valve off the side pretty quickly by tugging on the hose - which prompted my reaction "My Fire Truck!" When I remembered that I'd built it for them, I kind of got over the fact that they broke it. Now, it's still sitting in the family room, partly because the kids like it, but mostly because it took me hours and hours to make it and I don't want to throw it away.

Co-Pilot Kristina Maria

We can go where you wanna go
We just gotta fuel it up.
Try catching us if you can
This flight ain't about to stop, no

There's no need to buckle up on this joyride
Please leave your seat back up, push it upright
Come join this irie island way of life

We going up up up 'til the stars are below
I'm gonna take this club to the city of love
Come, I'm going to go flying
Oh me need a co-pilot
Baby be my co-pilot

With every puff puff puff, boy the higher we go
Out on the dance floor, anything's possible
Come, I'm going to go flying
Oh me need a co-pilot
Baby be my co-pilot

We can be who we wanna be
One way ticket to the top.
You can be my wingman
Chillin' in the mile high club, oh oh

Baby, there's no need to buckle up on this joyride
Please leave your seat back up, push it upright
Come join this irie island way of life, woah

Because we going up up up 'til the stars are below
I'm gonna take this club to the city of love
Come, I'm going to go flying
Oh me need a co-pilot
Let me be your co-pilot

With every puff puff puff, girl the higher you go
Out on the dance floor, anything's possible
Come, I'm going to go flying
Oh me need a co-pilot
I can be your co-pilot

Ayo
Co-pilot, co-pilot, co-pilot
Ayo
Co-pilot, co-pilot, co-pilot

Cause we do it like this and we never gon' quit
Well, after the DJ and the pretty boys aboard
I'm up in the cockpit
Every night time every day, we be flying through the air
(flying through the air)
Well, after the DJ and the pretty girls
I'm up in the cockpit, going up

I'm gonna take this club to the city of love
Come, I'm going to go flying

We going up up up 'til the stars are below
I'm gonna take this club to the city of love
Come, I'm going to go flying
Oh me need a co-pilot
Baby be my co-pilot

With every puff puff puff, girl the higher you go (the higher you go)
Out on the dance floor, anything's possible (anything's possible)
Come, I'm going to go flying
Oh me need a co-pilot
Baby be my co-pilot.

I think this song is about drugs. And/or sex. Whatever - the singer's hot.

Trashy Magazines

Over the years, my wife has had subscriptions to a number of trashy magazines. Cosmo, Glamour, US Weekly... Cosmo makes me laugh...it's mostly ads, but the articles are so terrible. My favourite is stuff like "25 ways to please your man in bed". News flash Cosmo, there really aren't 25 ways to please a guy in bed. There are like 2, and everyone knows what they are...you don't have to spend $4 on a crappy magazine to know that blow jobs and sex are the only 2 things you need to know - the other 23 are invariably some form of the other 2. If they're not, then don't bother... Glamour is the same... they also have all these articles about body image, and empowerment, but all the pictures are airbrushed stick thin models that portray the impossible 'beauty' that the articles say you don't need. Make up your damn mind Cosmo. Regardless, the point of this was originally going to be about the "Who wore it best" pictures. I always get them wrong. Always. It could be like 90% on one and 10% on the other and I'd be like, damn, she looks good...what? only 10%? What the hell?

Update!!!

Ok, so what have I been doing for the past 2 years??? Well, I had a kid! Crazy eh? Crazier still is that #2 is on the way... why am I writing this all of a sudden? Bored, I guess. I was just glancing at this blog and I kind of miss it. Do people even blog anymore? Or does everyone just focus on Facebook and Twitter? (I was going to include Google +, but nobody really gives a crap about Google +). I might use Twitter more if I had more than 1 follower. Seems like a waste of time to have all my witty comments only read by one person.

My wife PVRs Oprah's final season, so I watched an episode about some kid with MS (I think) and he was all profound and mature beyond his years...he kind of made me feel like I should be doing something more with my life. He did more in 11 years than I've done in 35. Then, they tell me he died...and since I have a son, every time anyone says something about a kid dying... man, it really bothers me. Fatherhood has really turned me into a softy. I seriously can't watch any story about suffering kids...my son's face just pops in there, and I think, "What if that were him?" And then I have to change the station. I really can't stand the thought of him suffering at all. Then, on LA Ink (which has really gone down the shitter recently...OMG, Kat almost lost her kitty! Oh, no she didn't...nevermind...that's gripping tv) some dude gets a tattoo of his son because he was killed when he was 12 after getting hit by a car, and, or course, my son could get hit by a car some day!! How will I ever be able to prevent that from happening??? I probably can't! How can I possibly accept that??? I suppose I just teach him how to look after himself and trust that he'll make decisions that will prevent him from getting himself killed. Man...parenting is hard. Who would have thought that?? I thought it was all fun and games. Turns out it's emotionally draining sometimes, and stressful!

Anyway, that's enough writing for something nobody is going to read.