Tomorrow is an early morning and a long drive to Killarney Provincial Park. The car’s packed. The boat is strapped onto the roof. Hope them foam blocks hold. Hope I haven’t forgotten anything. Hope the weather’s good. Hope the route is navigable.
Continue readingAuthor: cmkl
cmkl: A message to campaigners: I’m really starting to hate the phone so stop using it
At work I use the phone when I need to talk in depth, trade ideas get feedback and work through problems. It’s good for that. Especially if I use email to schedule a convenient time to call. It’s also a really good way to get my attention when there’s …
Continue readingcmkl: Remedies for household debt
Canadian households are more in debt than ever. Both the governor of the Bank of Canada and the finance minister have been “concerned” about this for some time.
Continue readingcmkl: PDFs are poison, part sixty seven: “But people want to print it” if only they could
I usually tell people that unless the document is only useful in print (like say signage for a conference or a campaign) or if its conversion into HTML would take so much time that its publication would be irrelevant, PDFs have no place on websites.
Continue readingcmkl: Foam blocks? Check. Spatula? Check
Next weekend my friend Martin and I are off to Killarney Park. Our third annual fall canoe trip. I’m very excited. I was trolling the gear shops in the west end for bits and pieces of gear, including foam blocks to put the canoe on the roof of the rental.
Continue readingcmkl: Garage sale: a few pounds lighter
Today was the Old Ottawa South Porch Sale. We’re a few pounds lighter. I got rid of a bunch of old computer gadgets, some home made picture frames, three chairs that needed new seats but were never going to get them from me, an old phone, a Nellie McCl…
Continue readingcmkl: Neighbourhood garage sale tomorrow – Old Ottawa South
Come by our place on Aylmer Ave tomorrow during the Old Ottawa South Garage Sale. No, it’s not the Glebe, but there’s lots of people giving away lots of stuff.
Continue readingcmkl: Western Digital sent me a new hard drive today
All’s well that ends well. I have this network attached storage thing in my basement that had a six week old hard disk die on me. That made me sad. So I phoned the store that sold it to me and they said “you’re better off dealing with it through the ma…
Continue readingcmkl: Quiet the mind
I was back at yoga lesson this evening after summer-long hiatus. As my most excellent instructor says, “Yoga works the body to quiet the mind, because the mind is the most difficult part of you to quiet.” Which is helpful for me because after today my …
Continue readingcmkl: Uneventful trip home
Now I am a nervous driver. Who’da thunk it. I’m not. Haven’t ever been. But when I got behind the wheel of the car to leave my dad’s place I became suddenly aware I was reciting a mantra in my head: “you’ll be okay, it’ll be fine.” Never done that befo…
Continue readingcmkl: Homesick
Or something. I’m not sure what, but since I dropped my sister and her son off at the airport this morning just before seven I’ve been feeling tremendously sad and anxious.
Continue readingcmkl: Holding my arms up is challenging
Woof. Sheila and I spent a good chunk of today removing brush and undergrowth from dad’s laneway. With weed whackers. Or whipper snippers. Or weed eaters. Or strimmers. That last one is for UK readers. Should there be any. And now I can’t r…
Continue readingcmkl: Trimming, digital TV over the air and a coyote
A hot humid day – more like July than Labour Day weekend – spent mostly doing chores and chit chatting. Sheila and I spent the morning wielding various gas-powered sharp-edged gadgets and doing other chores. We wrestled with the new era of …
Continue readingcmkl: Golfy is at the car doctor and she’ll be fine
So will I. I rear-ended someone on Highway 410 on my way to my dad’s place. There were no injuries but I’m pretty shaken up about it. And because I hit the woman’s car, I get the ticket, the premium hikes and everything.
Continue readingcmkl: Bad timing for a sick child
So the fam was meant to be going to my dad’s place tomorrow to hook up with my sister and her son who are over from England for a week or so. And Mallory is ill.
Continue readingcmkl: Considering all the other stuff I need to be doing
I should really put the scanner away. And maybe it’s my sadness about the current political climate that’s making it harder to face up to all that is before me – work, life family etc – but unearthing and scanning old images is fun. And I’m supposed to…
Continue readingcmkl: And now, straight to the blackmail material
So yes, old family photos do make for some pretty tame posts. I do like them and of course, the extended family does too. But the real payback for taking photos all these years comes now when I get to post pictures of me and my running buddies from 20 …
Continue readingcmkl: Negatives doing better than slides
So I went through a bunch more slides and started into the negatives in a bid to empty some basement shelves. They’re really only there for ballast and this summer’s snap windstorm notwithstanding, we don’t need too much of that.
Continue readingcmkl: Lac Philippe: walk-in car camping weekend
So we got back from our weekend at Lac Philippe, one of Gatineau Park’s car camping hot spots. We were actually scheduled to stay tonight too, but the hurricane-inspired weather – cold, overcast, nasty wind – made us sorta think that maybe we could…
Continue readingcmkl: Another family camping adventure
This one a little closer to home. Lac Philippe in Gatineau Park has really nice car camping. We were there last year and really enjoyed it. Plus if Irene’s sleep issues are becoming a problem she can always deek into town for bedtime. It’s …
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