Afternoon, Mumpers! I’m all packed and ready now, apart from the essentials that have to be packed tomorrow morning. We have to leave by 8am for the airport so 'im indoors is going to be out of bed early on his first day of holiday!
Things never go smoothly though, I just got an email from the guy we’re renting an apartment from which said that we can’t have the place we’d chosen because he’d found a water leak in the bathroom and he won’t be able to fix it in time for us to use the place. Luckily he has a friend with an apartment in the next building so he’s arranging for us to have that one instead. Panic averted!
Nobody’s called from the moggery so I guess the fuzzbutts have settled in ok. Ophie was quick to get out of her pet carrier and sniff around the place but when we left, Shadow was still in his box looking a bit nervous. I hope he settles ok, he’s had a pretty rough week so far.
Not much else going on at the moment, I think I’ll have to spend the rest of the afternoon on the sofa with a book. Such hardship…
Awww, {{{Bernie & FCM}}} + butt scritches for one of you! I LOL’d at that comic, BTW, it also reminded me of my dear departed stepdad who could’ve modeled both for the look and the attitude!
My darling daughter came over yesterday and took something like 300(!) pics and vids of SpaceDawg with the whole fam damily–I’m working on collating a good representative sample and doing some cropping and whatnot, should have an album ready to post for the new MMP. We’re talking some stunning pictures, that girl has an eye–she comes by it honestly, I’m a pretty fair photographer (not that you’d know it from those craptastic cell phone pics I post!) her dad’s an artist, and three of her paternal aunts are quite accomplished photogs and her cousin’s been accepted to a photography institute in San Francisco. We agree that we BOTH need to save our pennies to get proper SLR digital cameras–the reason why I don’t have a decent point & shoot is that I keep jonesin’ for a real SLR and don’t want to waste 150 bucks on an interim cam that I could use toward what I really want.
Good lord, Pie, don’t stick your finger in that man’s belly button or you’ll be washing the walls for WEEKS!!
Haze, I always suspected those pics of you were 'shopped–I bow to your mad photoediting skillz, however!
Hooray for SleepyGnat! That’s fabulous! Soon he’ll be a teenager and you’ll be crying the blues that you can never get him OUT of bed…
Weather says coolish today and no rain, so painting the trailer is ON! Gotta go to Trader Joe’s for some asiago and I forgot garlic salt and turbinado sugar at Winco, I’m such a dumbass… :smack: So yeah, errands…
Evening all! Busy busy busy!!! I can’t keep up with you lot.
Yayyyy LiLi for sleepy Nat!!!
Fingers crossed for FCDaughter’s interview.
Haze, does that mean it’s really Dirty Old Man Gingerbread?
Have a nice holiday BooFae. Send us a postcard, won’t you?
I got paid my signing bonus today! w00t!!! And tomorrow I am going to blow 95% of it on business class tickets for the three of us to Australia and back for Christmas! I feel slightly guilty about spending such an obscene amount of money on airfares, but I really want to do this at least once - and it will make the trip so much more enjoyable for us (if not for the other passengers in business class ).
Can’t remember if I wrote about sending good thoughts and skritches to Bernie. They should be there by now. Hope the kid’s interview goes well.
Back from church and brunch. I finished the walls this morning. Now I’ve untaped everything and am about to clean the floor so that I can prime it. Big fun.
After that, I’ll probably run some errands and then do some gardening. Woo hoooooooo!!!
Massive propane explosion in North York (a district of Toronto). Multiple massive explosions, dozens and dozens of smaller ones, 6 alarm blaze, one firefighter with absent vitals, 12,000 people evacuated. It sounds like a war zone. Jebus.
I used to live right in around that area too, so I know it very well. The industrial propane filling station is smack dab in the middle of a residential area, hundreds of row houses on the east side of the station (the closest immediately across the two-lane street from the facility) and some few townhouse residences on the former CFB Downsview military base on the west side. (I assume they’re still residential units; I haven’t been there since the early 80s, but I used to have several friends who lived on the base, though they all moved.) Some houses destroyed, gutted – bad business all around.
My father lives about 15 minutes from where it happened, and I have another friend who lives just 5 minutes due south. My dad apparently didn’t hear it (even though people as far away northeastern Toronto reported hearing some of the explosions) and I haven’t heard from my friend yet.
Been watching the copious footage from amateur videographers (here, here, here, and this one has a good shot of the shockwave from the largest of the explosions.)
I have friends who live out in that neck of the woods. I just might have to make a few phone calls as soon as I get home to see how they’re doing. I’m sure they’re all okay… they’re not so close that the blast would’ve levelled their homes, but close enough that they may have a few freaky stories to tell.
So, I spread mulch today and am exhausted–so tired that I am bitchy to everyone. I took a nap, but that did not cure the fatigue. My legs ache in a new way–what fresh hell can this be? I took some Motrin, film at 11.
So, I am now laying on the porch swing, reading a murder mystery and drinking iced tea. And still I feel like shit. This is bad…
It sounds like we are all having a typical Mumper weekend, except for Mindy, who seems to have teleported into one of Dante’s circles of hell. :eek:
I am very conflicted about this job opp–I don’t know what I want to do. I know what most people want me to do. I know it might be good, but I feel like it’s too much right now. If only it had come in about a month or two. I still have not made up my mind whether to apply or not. My mind is like one of those gerbil wheels right now–very aggravating, btw.
It’s a beautiful day here–sunny, mild, nice breeze. Lots to be happy about, so I am (well, me and my old lady legs).
OMG, Mork! I hope your friend is ok, and yours, too, Muppet. :eek:
I cleaned the kitchen (since I didn’t do it last weekend.) Even the top of the fridge! Go me!
And I went grocery shopping. I am so proud of myself. I saved $56.89 with coupons! Even if I did have one $20 coupon if I spent $200. Spending $200 is very easy for me to do, trust me! So $199.64 after coupons…not bad, not bad!
So I’m celebrating by splurging on jumbo shrimp cocktails, homemade crabcakes, twice- baked NOT and salad.
rigs - apply. Don’t worry about anything else until they offer you the job. Going through the interview etc. is always a good idea. You might not want the job after that. And you can always graciously say no if it’s offered.
Wow, Mork, how awful!
Break from house stuff, so out to the garden for an hour or so, then off to eat cake in celebration of Local Best Friend’s daughter’s first birthday. I’d almost forgotten that was today, but she called. Talked to Faraway Best Friend, too. So I guess it’s a best friend kinda day.
Back later, maybe (going to Local Best Friend’s tends to turn into later than sensible visit)…
rigs what gt said. Apply. At least you’ll have the experience of applying/interviewing out of it. Even if you don’t get/want the job the practice will be good.
We went and ate an early supper at Sonny’s BBQ. Both of us had the sliced smoked beef. 'Twas pretty good.
I’m sure my friend is OK. He’s far enough away from the explosion that he’s well protected; the safe zone is outside a 1.6km radius of the facility, and he’s beyond that a little over one major intersection south, but I’m certain his windows rattled at least.
I don’t know whose boneheaded idea it was to stick a propane plant right in the center of a residential and commercial area, but it was a dumbass move if ever there was one.
I was re-watching the first video link I posted and realized where he was shooting from. He’s just on the south side of Wilson just east of Keele, across from the plaza that I used to haunt way back when, so he was very close to the blaze indeed, no more than three or four minutes on foot. He must have gotten there after the biggest blast, or else the shockwave would have knocked him flat on his ass a good fifteen feet from where he was standing.
There’s a tall Sheraton hotel a few hundred feet south of where he was standing, too. I’d wager it had some blown windows as well.
It’s amazing that nobody has been killed so far. (The aforementioned firefighter is in hospital, but apparently alive. Condition otherwise unknown.)
I’m curious as to which came first. The propane plant or the commercial/residential area. I’ve noticed that in a lot of areas, housing and so forth will spring up on any available land, which, IMO, is a really dumb idea not considering what’s around. Seriously, around here, I know of a residential area with schools even that was built less than a quarter mile from a big propane plant. Dumb, dumb, dumb planning that!
Not to say what happened isn’t a tragedy, because it is, it’s just that, sometimes the best planning efforts do not seem to be made.
The residential neighbourhood was first. I believe the site of Sunrise Propane was a cement plant before that, if memory serves. The residences there are pretty old, – heck, that area was old when I lived there in the early 80s. (I was just a bit north of Wilson right on Keele though, about a 15 minute walk or so.)
Apropos of nothing, just east of the explosion on Wilson used to be a plumbing storefront by the name of “Leaky Lyman.”
So the dumbassness in this is allowing a propane plant to locate in a residential neighborhood. Yeah, good planning there. I can just here all the “butt it will bring jobs!” arguements. Yep, it also blew up the place.
<snerk> Leaky Lyman <snerk>
CutiePie we can’t have breakfast at 10:00 A.M! That would interfere with brunch! Won’t somebody think of brunch!
Yes, that is what everyone says: apply and see where it takes you. Ordinarily this is a good thing (I doubt I need any practice interviewing–I’ve been on more job interviews in the past 7 years than I can recall. Well, ok, maybe 5.)
In the next 2 and 1/2 weeks, I have to get 2 boys into school, one boy a driver’s license, a daughter off to college (flying out there to help her), work my regular days and keep the house going etc; I’m being deposed for a legal something or other that may be work related but I cannot say more (it’s not my fault, btw)–I just don’t want to add interview hell into the mix. And there is always the question: when is TH moving out? IS the TH moving out? etc
I swear if that job is still posted after Labor Day, I’ll apply.
I think I just made up my mind. I think that’s what I’ll do. I can’t FOCUS people–I have Too Much To Do. Other people may take all this in stride, but not me.
I’m bored with the Olympics already. This is not good. Stoopit NBC wants me to download some Windows Vista crap so that I can watch the opening ceremony (which I didn’t do). Can I do so and then delete the thing? Or does it go live in my hard drive like mice under the wainscoting in winter?
I feel slightly guilty about spending such an obscene amount of money on airfares, but I really want to do this at least once - and it will make the trip so much more enjoyable for us (if not for the other passengers in business class 