It’s still the long weekend up here in Canada. 
I went out to a Firefly shindig in Toronto on Saturday night.
Also got some serious pages out for my Roswell/Doctor Who crossover fanfic, which is actually drawing towards a close.
And I’ve got an online writing class on Sunday afternoons this month, through www.storywonk.com - great stuff!
I went to Kingston for Mekaro 8. This was the eighth annual Mid-Canada Gathering of Esperanto-speakers. It rotates between cities in Southern Ontario and Southern Quebec; last year it was in Trois-Rivières, year before that in Toronto, year before that in Montréal, etc. Next year it will be in Quebec City.
There were about 40 of us, ranging in age from kids to grandparents. I met friends I haven’t seen for ages, and made new friends.
We went on a tour of Murney Tower, Fort Henry, and Bellevue House.
Murney Tower and Fort Henry were part of a system of fortifications built in the late 1830s to defend the town of Kingston and the harbour against attack by the Americans, since Kingston had both a Royal Navy shipyard and the southern entrance to the Rideau Canal, which leads to Ottawa.
Murney Tower is one of four Martello towers, self-sufficient forts topped by a gun emplacement that covered the approaches to the harbour. Fort Henry, the centre of the system of fortifications, commands vast views of the town, the harbour, and the landscape.
We were halfway through the tour of the Martello tower, when we realized that not only would the Martello towers and Fort Henry be effective at defence against 1840s Americans, they would be superb at defence against zombies. So I spent much time drawing cross sections in my sketchbook.
Bellevue House was rented for a time in the late 1840s by Sir John A McDonald, the first prime minister of the confederated provinces of British North America, which became the Dominion of Canada. It has been restored to that time period, and the guides are dressed in period costume. We saw how people lived in those pre-electricity, pre-gas days. The well-to-do had servants, and households ran on wood (or just possibly coal) fires, and hand labour. And people wore a lot of clothes then, so there was a lot of hand labour.
We also walked a lot through the Old Town area of Kingston, which I hadn’t seen before. It was quite beautiful. Limestone buildings, rare in Ontario, are very common there, giving the streets a very different look to most 19th-century Ontario towns (which tend towards red brick). We also went on a “ghost tour”, led by a guide dramatically dressed in a black cape and bearing a candle lantern. Strange things went on in Kingston in the old days…
It was a good weekend.
Repotted some orchids, including Encyclia cochelata that I just bought, however you spell it.
Tried to put the Ruger MK III 22/45 back together again. Gonna need a gunsmith.
Loads of great hobbies represented here.
Do you mean radio sets? I wish I had enough electronics to build my own, but sadly I do not. Maybe someday I will take that up also.
[QUOTE=kath94]
The hubby & I drove 100 miles to Ventura
[/QUOTE]
I grew up in Ventura - small world.
It’s Victoria Day, so it’s still the weekend.
I got my garden cleaned out and 1/2 a dozen tomato plants planted (including one in my upside-down planter, which I’ve yet to decide an experimental result for).
Then I cleaned and tuned up what’s left of my downhill bike after taking the rear shock in for rebuilding, and leaving the rear wheel at my friend’s place for a rim change.
(This thread reminds me; I should start a thread asking about helmet/chestmount cameras…)
Did a charity walk along a new section of soon-to-be-opened motorway. Indulged my fascination for old railway lines by getting a good view of some disused stations from the motorway flyovers
Our GM’s back in town after having been away for work for a couple of weeks, so on sunday it’s looking like we’ve got a WHFRP session going.
It’s not DeathWatch or Dark Heresy, but I’ll take it.
I’ve gotten into repairing & refinishing guitars. My son saw a cheap beat up Warlock at the music store, so we bought it. We took it home, played it a while, then took it apart & started sanding it down. He wants to do a swirl finish kind of like this, but with yellow, green and purple. We’ll see.
How do you do that sort of finish Jim?
Here’s a youtube video that demonstrates the process. Basically, you float some paint on the surface of a bucket of water & dip the guitar in. But as with so many things, the devil is in the details. The video makes it look easy, but it’s tricky. I’ve tried it a few times now & have yet to get results that I’m really happy with.
Well, the weekend before last I spent at Wonderfest, the pre-eminent sci-fi and fantasy model contest in the US. 610 models entered, almost all of extremely high quality. Wow. I won two Silvers and a Bronze in the contest, which was very gratifying. 
Managed to keep my spending in the dealer room down to a reasonable amount–not like last year when I bought an airbrush and compressor. :rolleyes:
And last weekend I spent Sunday afternoon at a model-building session at a friend’s house. Cleaning up castings and shooting the breeze while Galaxy Quest played on his big screen; very pleasant.
Sweet!
Now I want a malachite guitar like that. (perhaps a Strat body instead)
I went bird watching and along with the usual finches, sparrows, doves and pigeons saw a turkey vulture and a red tailed hawk soaring near each other as a blackbird chased them. I also went to an art group meeting to see a painting demonstration by a local artist.
Sweet, I wondered if it might have been the paint-on-water dealy, or something a bit different.
Rocketeer - what models did you enter? Gotpix?
Wiped my hard-drive clean and did a fresh, clean Win 7 install.
…yes, computers are still a hobby. At least when you still manage your own hardware and software.
Win 7 is really great, but I’d been running the same install for what, two years now? Since whenever Win 7 got released publicly.
System feels quick and responsive again. I had been at the point where boot was still quick, but loading Win 7 was a 5-minute drag. The system feels lean and stripped down again.
…though with SS drives getting cheaper and cheaper, I already started looking at building a new system. Current hardware dates to summer 2008, and it could always be better.
I won a bronze for my UFO Interceptor 1959:
…and Silvers for my Land Ironclad and Hoverbike & Girl:
Won my class (kinda sorta-long story) in a 2 hour race at the Nurburgring Nordschleife in rFactor. At one time I was dicing with 4 other drivers within 10 seconds of each other (which is pretty rare at the Ring in fact where typically people drive off into the distance and hide), but they each wrecked in turn and the last guy ran out of fuel and had to pit for a splash and dash. Most intense race of my life ever.
Do you drive the Nurburgring often John?
Also, way cool Rocketeer. Those are some sweet models.
Got in a 140 mile ride in the mountains on the Honda motorcycle…6 miles of it on a dirt road…which is saying something as it’s a cruiser and not really set up for that…but what a ya gonna do? The state highway sign was CLEARLY on the fork of the road that turned to dirt, and that was the route I’d plotted out.
Sunday we had the last cub scout meeting of the year, I’m the advancement coordinator, and it’s been pretty rewarding. Last weekend was spent trying to determine how to salvage our 66 Cadillac Hearse…it’s got some frame cancer and we’re trying to determine just how much money is appropriate to fix and maintain it. 
Wow way to go Rocketeer. Those are awesome! I especially love the land ironclad.
Keep on fiddling D18. Music is therapy for me.
I worked all weekend, but I managed to play my baritone uke for about an hour a night. I git all itchy if I can’t play for at least a few minutes every day.
