pixelazy … that #bookstore on #whyteavenue

8r4d #icecream and #bookstore on a #summer friday evening in the #whyteavenue

8r4d We’ve been living thru a week-long #heatwave and a brief reprieve came this evening in the form of a #thunderstorm that passed by. I ran around the house opening all the doors and windows hoping to get some air flow going on so that we could bring the temperature of the indoors down to something tolerable. The Kid slept in the basement last night because while we have a little portable air conditioner for our bedroom, she was sleeping in a sauna in her regular bed. I say this now, but I’ll take freezing cold over too hot any day of the week.

castironguy Our neighbourhood, as I’ve discovered over the last year, is severely lacking in #lunch #pizza slice joints. So you might imagine my excitement when I learned there is a brand new almost pizza-by-the-slice place a four minute drive from my house. I write almost because their slice is not a slice but a pizza shaped like a slice. Their smaller of their big slices is like four slices but cooked to order. So. For minute drive plus a ten minute wait to cook it is much better than the twenty minute drive to the next closest slice joint. Hey, this ain’t New York City folks. I thought I would be adventurous today and spent fourteen minutes (and less $ than a burrito just down the street!) procuring a Big Mama slice. Some day we’ll need an excuse to order their 54 inch’er but this trip was worth it for now.

8r4d To beat the +30C #heat or morning #walk was earlier than usual today.

8r4d I have spent a good chunk of my day writing #code here. You may or may not realize this, but the code running this little website upon which you are reading these words (at least at the time of posting them) is a little applet I created from scratch to organize and share pictures, words and other media bits in a way that was intended to be similar to some other #socialmedia platforms you may be familiar with already. [read more...]

bradsalomons “What do you think, bud?” Ludo stands, hands on his hips, surveying the trunk of a particularly broad-trunked ash tree near the back quarter of his property. “This one? Gee, she must be a hundred years old by the looks of her. I can’t even see the top, can you?” [read more...]

8r4d Just sitting in the backyard with a #coffee and my #keyboard thinking about getting stuff done this #summer. [read more...]

pixelazy #sunset #summer #silhouette

castironguy Mmm… hmmm.. random #strawberry

8r4d #haskapberry jam is a hit this year

8r4d #running #trails in the rising heat and sunshine of #summer meant it felt fast and fast but was actually short and pretty slow. We kept to the shade as much as we could this morning.

Once upon a time in a hot, smoky day in July we went #running on some suburban #trails and I recorded some video…

8r4dsfeets An Saturday evening #icecream break

castironguy The second #haskapberry haul of the season, which is good news cuz the Kid devoured that jar of jam I made with the first mini-haul a few weeks ago.

No, i’m not bleeding from the effort—they are a little leaky when they pop if you’re not super careful picking. I pulled off about 3 cups worth and they are super tasty. #garden #summer

8r4d Some #rivervalley #publicart deserves it’s own post.

8r4d The #rivervalley called is once again, so we did a 2+ hour #hike with some serious stairs for the practice with our upcoming backcountry adventure only about a month away.

pixelazy I’m not used to seeing ladybugs in their larval form, but we found some bushes on our hike this morning with a whole bunch of them. #insect #macro

8r4d A spicy evening so we headed into the shade of the creek for some easy trail #running through the suburban creek, those same trails we avoid in the winter but call us a lot more strongly on hot #summer days.

8r4d A couple weeks in and I’ve written about ten thousand words on the new #keyboard in a variety of settings: home, cafe, backyard and on my lap. I thought the colourful lights were a bit of a gimmick and sure, it mostly is, but I do get a bit of a kick out of writing at night which is about the only time they are bright enough to notice.

squwetchy A theme park might literally be among the worst places in the world to try urban sketching.

There is nowhere to get more than five minutes of peace to draw. So I embraced that: I went with the intention of seeing what I could accomplish in the least amount of time possible. I adopted a loose af sketching style and a sloppy/abstract watercolour style and spent literally no more than 5 minutes sketching— standing in a queue, waiting outside a bathroom for my fam, after lunch—and then painting with super-limited time and supplies back at the hotel.

The result was 28 sketches over the week (i filled a sketch book!) and about 6 hours total invested in drawing and painting. They are not neat nor tidy. They are not photo perfect by any stretch. They are vibes. Impressions. And the whole collection, despite a few flops and a leaky sketchbook seam, is an awesome souvenir.

8r4d We did one of our holiday Monday breakfast #running meetups for Canada Day today. Five kicks earned us some eggs and bacon back at A&W and of course a hot cup of coffee.

8r4d Who knows how long this little bush might survive as I’ve not had great luck with my front #flower bed but I put a rose in earlier this year and it bloomed for the first time this morning!

8r4d We started collecting those Starbucks #coffee mugs with the stylized art and locations on them a while ago, and they have turned into quite a collection, so much so that we’ve kinda sworn off buying any more. That is also a good thing because they changed up the style in North America and they are hard to find. Sure, the new Disney series doesn’t perfectly match the style of the rest of our collection, but I couldn’t help adding just one more #starwars limited edition to my set. And who says I haven’t been to Hoth anyways?