Out of The PIT

As events, trips, lessons, etc. get cancelled, I can visually see my calendar slowly clearing up, revealing a blank slate of time with which I can use to spend with my family who will be living with me for the immediate future. All day and all night.. all the time. I can see my decent into madness already..

So apparently my blood work is nothing for me to worry about in the immediate future, which is good because I do not want to really go out in the immediate future. MJNL is keeping on top of the whole situation and the rest of the family takes our cues from her. Which, actually now that I think about it, is what we do during normal times as well. I was at a hospital last week after they set up a COVID-19 screening centre, and the ER was definitely less busy than usual. They were set up to handle a flood of possibly infected people coming through but fortunately I guesstimated that there were less than twenty people in line getting tested when we arrived. Things could be worse now, but I will do my best to stay away from other people.. Except I guess for all of the people in the ravine. It has been noticeably more busy this past week than normal. I expect it to get even busier as we run out of things to do, and places to go.. Oh yeah, remember when we installed that bidet last ye...

I just got my first optical cable and I spent some time trying to connect my new TV to the receiver. After spending some time jamming the cables in, I was disappointed to hear mostly silence (with some static) when I tried to listen on the speakers. Thankfully, with the power of the internet, I was able to do some quick research and after watching a video, saw how one guy casually mentioned to remove the caps before use. Those.. penis shaped heads? I thought that's how they were designed! How awkward! *removes caps* The signal came through loud and strong after that. Perhaps too strong. I noticed some distortion so I tried pressing the "Loudness" button on the receiver. That was a big mistake. The signal spiked from one bar to 8 and off the charts. In less than a second I could hear loud pops coming from the speakers and I quickly shut it down. After that.. nothing. The receiver stopped working. I thought I had blown a capacitor or something. Fortunately, it was j...

First time I have been invited to a wedding reception.. as an uncle. This will be.. an interesting experience. Especially when showing up with two children. It is more likely than not that we would be exiting the festivities early, which still means a potentially long night. Fortunately my parents will be around to help?

So we had a bit of a winter storm yesterday. I think we got about 17 cm which, although nothing to sneeze at, was not an end-of-the world type of situation. Still, with EYS sick, and travel difficult, we decided to take the day.. off. We stayed in and let EYS watch television.. all day long. I spent a lot of time going through my stuff and cleaning up areas I had been planing on cleaning for months now. It felt quite cathartic. Stuff was dumped, closets were cleared, and documents organized. I really should do this more often.

I got a laceration during hockey last night. I was down on the ice when someone's skate managed to get up over my shin guard and under my hockey pants. I felt a sting and a bit of a breeze on my thigh, but didn't take a look until after the puck was cleared. When I looked down, I noticed a large gash in my hockey sock. I finished my shift and got onto the bench to take a look at my leg and noticed the 5cm cut on my thigh. The skin was split so I knew I needed stitches. It was quite annoying since we were close to finishing but I did not want to make it any worse so I headed to the hospital. The emergency ward was mostly empty so I was able to get through to a doctor in less than an hour. They asked me about my tetanus shot and I think I was up to date, but they gave me another one just to be sure. Now I have several stitches on my thigh which I need to take out in a week and a new vaccination booklet!

We left EYS with my parents last night so that we could get a good night's sleep and get some chores done at the house. The various items we purchased during the Black Friday weekend had basically arrived and we needed some time to install them. I had purchased a wall mount for our extra TV and a bidet to try out (since we go through a LOT of toilet paper). The mount was pretty straightforward except for the fact that my stud finder got confused and I ended up putting in a few holes into the wall that were not in front of studs. I did eventually find one I could use, but.. holes! Fortunately the TV covers those holes so I only need to fix them if I ever take down the mount.. Second up was the bidet. MJNL told me to clean the toilet first before doing any installation so that took a bit of time, but the set up was fairly straightforward as well. We do not have a plug near the toilet so we had to do with an extension cord, but if this bidet thing works out well, I may look into h...