Home on the Hill

Time to be going back home. Here's a wee me of me. Try it out .

I had a very weird experience last night. Jo-Ann and my Daughter Sara and Husband went to see the movie 300 at a local big box, 20 theater movie place. Mike and Carol had seen it and we thought it would be worth seeing. It was. Lot's of killing and maiming. The experience evolved as we tried to find a parking spot. Heavy rain had flooded the basement parking so everyone was trying to find spots in the outside parking lots. Everyone. An absolute crush of people. We managed to get our tickets, find some seats and then I went for popcorn and junk food. That's when it hit me. lines of people. queues. Hoards. Everyone in a hurry. Rushing to relax. The sales girl serving our writhing snake of a line moving like a high speed automaton, shuffling through inches of spilled popcorn on the floor. I wanted a large popcorn, large coke, and some Reeses peanuts. That's when I realized I was on a different planet. The girl, young, hair tight under a cap, eyes glazed did ...

Endako Style. This is the log shell I have been helping my Brother with. It's just about ready to ship. Another day or two for the purlins, the logs that support the roof, and some fancy arch work at the front and it will be ready to ship. Actually if the customer has made up his mind, my nephew Conrad will cut the doors and windows before we ship it. Conrad will do the site construction. He poured the foundation yesterday. Today were off to Burns to do some business stuff and pick up some exhaust pipe for our Toyota.

With the snow melting so fast it's time to move the drifts back. My brother, Tiny , brought the Cat excavator to park it here after it's sojourn at the now closed Fraser Lake Dump. He cleaned out the driveway on the way up. Hopefully the water won't wash out the driveway this year. A kilometer of driveway is a lot to clear out with a shovel. Got lots of work for this bad boy excavator this summer. The new pond. Fireplace pit. Burn pit. Insulate and waterproof the basement foundation. Water and power Line to the new shop. New septic tank at Grandma's. And of course, my favorite: just generally having fun and making big holes in dirt. Every guys dream come true. And it's Son in law friendly... This is Tiny operating it. I'm just not that smooth. Yet.

It has been above zero with a wind blowing. Makes for some interesting driveway conditions. This is a picture of the lower driveway, just before the place where the sun don't shine. I don't know how well the picture shows it, but the glistening on top of the ice is water. Really a slippery combination. When we came back up I put the chains on the rear wheels just to make sure. Some of the Locals are saying winter is over. I think that's wishful thinking. It's snowed plenty here in March. I guess their theory is that we've had so much snow this year that Mother Nature is snowed out. Some one should tell her that. Today is Database work. I'm in the middle of supporting some old legacy code and writing a whole new application. Now here's a thought how about an application that is centered around the ease of the user. What a concept. The main problem is, as always, educating the user. Or making the application so strong that users can't put num...

After Breakfast we are going to be going to Burns Lake . It's not a big place but they have a lot more variety than Fraser Lake . The have a Canadian Wholesale club which has the best prices around. Time to stock up. One of the more challenging parts of living a bit out in the boonies is changing our shopping habits. We can't just drop by the Safeway on the way home from work and pick up something for supper. Well we could but the gas money would be atrocious. So we try and do a big shop once a month for staples and stuff we can freeze. Jo has discovered that pancakes are made from flour. You don't need bisquick , or other premixed (read expensive)convenience packs. Who'd a thought. It's like the magic of garden fresh vegetables. I don't know about "Organic" food. I think it has something to do with the fact that it has dirt on it and I get to process it and cook it. Not someone else in a factory. Doing a job. Which brings me to my next t...