Sosoetry - The Blessed Event

I was bored and wrote a poem about my friends having a baby. I must have been really bored.

Yolanda wanted to be a mother

for Andrew there could be no other

no ifs, buts or maybe

they wanted to have a baby

after a night of boffing

a child was in the offing

Andy found Yoly yummy

hence the swollen tummy

what started as a tiny cell

began to develop and swell

her belly kept on growing

and her skin started glowing

her organs were pushed aside

the discomfort tough to abide

she loved this little jewel

but it kicked like a mule

then came the blessed day

a sunny afternoon in May

her water broke

the couch got a soak

no time to warn the neighbours

she was going into labour

not even propped up on a cushion

barely need for any pushin’

it happened real fast

like a cannon blast

all of a sudden - floop

out it came in one fell swoop

like a runaway train

that kid had birth on the brain

out came some red hair

a skull that was still rubbery

a mighty gasp for air

skin that was all blubbery

strike up the house band

here’s Tristan Anand

it’ll whimper cry and yell

life’ll be a bleary eyed hell

filling all its diapers

they’ll be full time stinky bum wipers

Yolanda’s boobs’ll grow huge

but it’ll drink up all the deluge

this new creation they’ll mollycoddle

always giving it a fresh bottle

I know they’ll perform their duty

of raising their new born cuty

S.o.t.D. - Turns Me On - Big Boi

Generally not a fan of most hip-hop, but I think this track is really good.

Turns Me On - Big Boi

Bush Buddy

On a few different trips recently, I opted to take my BushBuddy rather than one of the usual alcohol stove set ups I use. I knew it was going to be cold, and I knew I wanted to have an actual fire to help stay warm.

Besides its obvious utility as a means of boiling water and cooking food, it’s also a nice self contained fire box.

The pot looks a bit unbalanced, but it’s actually balanced better with it off to the side a little bit given the slight slope of the terrain.

In front of the wikiup. I know it looks precarious, but it really did feel more securely balanced off to the side a bit.

Cupatea.

I was using the knife to split small pieces of wood even smaller. Only twigs and very thin branches are needed to fuel it. It does require almost constant attention though, and a very steady feeding of wood. Which has to be done very gingerly as the slot is small, has flames licking out, and a pot of hot water sits there.

As much as I like alcohol stoves for the convenience on a hike of known duration, not to mention the lack of noise and smell, and lack of sooty pots, a wood stove has the edge when the trip will last an unknown length of time, warmth is needed, water needs to be boiled for bathing, etc. In addition to that, there is something so awe inspiring about a fire. Sadly, I live in a modern city, and a fire is something I get to enjoy very, very rarely. For millennia, a fire was a daily occurrence for almost everyone. Now, our use of an actual fire has been drastically curtailed. Yes, yes, it probably is safer not to have fires in densely packed cities. But I think it’s fair to say, we would never have gotten to the point of even having cities, let alone be able to worry about the safety of the issue, without having attained mastery of fire. I think that connection with fire is so utterly primal, and not experiencing it on a daily basis leaves a void in our psyche, whether we realize it or not. I somehow feel amazingly “right” when I’m sitting next to a fire.

S.o.t.D. - Journey Through Life - Solid State

Journey Through Life - Solid State

Pumpin’ and thumpin’!

Bibliophilia: Tattoo Machine: Tall Tales, True Stories, and My Life in Ink – Jeff A. Johnson

Tattoo Machine: Tall Tales, True Stories, and My Life in Ink – Jeff A. Johnson

Having spent quite some time in and around tattoo shops, I loved Jeff’s very keen observations about this crazy industry.

Logo - Drone

Jiriki

A friend has a Burmese Ball Python, called Jiriki. Often when I visit he’s hiding in his little cave, so when he popped out I snapped a few photos. Not that clear, with it being through the glass of the aquarium and all.

I’ll get some pictures of him when I’m over there some time and he’s out.

Very docile snake, maybe 6' long, with beautiful markings.

Once when his wife’s mother was over, Jiriki stayed at my place for a month. (Irrational fear of snakes and all.) Pretty cool having him for a while, and really neat to have a snake curled up asleep on my lap. It’s not like you’ll ever have the warm bond you’ll have with a cat or a dog, but there is still something pretty amazing about getting to interact with him.

Street Art - Blocky Dude

Night in a wikiup

I cobbled this wikiup together a few years back, and it’s still standing. Decided to go and spend a night in it. Spent a lot of hours gathering up bags of leaves to build up the walls. (Not necessarily something that anyone would carry with them, but if anyone ever decides to build one of these for fun, close to home on their property, a leaf rake would be a hugely helpful tool to have. One of those hoops with a handle to hold plastic bags open as well.)

That’s about as far as I got before dark. It would have to do. It really needed two, three times the load of leaves I managed to gather.

I would ordinarily have made a shelter much smaller than this. I opted to work with this framework since it was already standing. It had been a long time since I had built a debris shelter, and I guess I forgot how much work gathering up the leaves required to cover a shelter this size was.

I guess I should have thought to move my stuff out of the way before snapping a photo of the interior. Whoops.

I had good insulation with me, good underpad, layers to wear, but it was still a chilly night. For one person, for sleeping, a shelter this size is probably too big. But if you’re in an area for a length of time, a shelter like this might make sense as a living/working area.

Cat On Guard

Coming up the Wentworth Stairs, I noticed this little guy perched atop one of the support stones from the long gone incline trolley.

Undoubtedly lurking in wait for a mouse to pounce on. Oh and hello cute, fit blond lass.

S.o.t.D. - Something Wicked - The Herbaliser

Something Wicked - The Herbaliser

Cootes in Autumn

Some photos taken over two days about two months ago.

Cootes from Cholera Point.

All my tree identification books are in a box right now, so I can’t recall off the top of my head what tree this belongs to.

McQuesten High Level Bridge.

Sassafras Point.

The trail towards Borers Falls.

Nice at night...

...nice in the morning.

The view if I turn 180°, Burlington Bay.

Frosty foundries.

Carroll’s Cove.

S.o.t.D. - Dolly Unit - The Orb

Dolly Unit - The Orb

Seems like a bit of a return to The Orb greatness of old.

Logo - Doke Smoper

Logo for a psych-rock band, that as you might be able to surmise from their name, smoke a lot of dope.

Witches Tit

Spent several nights out in the woods with minimal gear, trying to remain as low profile as possible. Partly as a way to test out some gear, partly just for, well I can’t say fun. Practice maybe. All I can say is, what essentially amounts to escape and evasion exercises when it dips to well below zero, sssssuuuck! 

I set up a very nicely hidden spot on this hill, and slept fitfully. In the morning everything was covered in frost. I had made tea the night before and had drunk it throughout the night in an effort to stay warm, I fired up the BushBuddy again and made some more tea as I packed up. No hammock on this trip, :-(  .

The view out of my little hidey hole.

Since it was as cold as the proverbial witches tit, I decided to christen this hill, the Witches Tit.

As cold as it was, nice view.

Made in Canada Matters

Yes, it does. 

Lunar Eclipse

Camouflarachnid

Not sure what sort of spider it is, but thought it was beautiful and think it’s neat that camo appears even on things that small.

S.o.t.D. - Turn It On - Mark Pritchard & Steve Spacek

Turn It On - Mark Pritchard & Steve Spacek

Eikon EMS 400 Tattoo Power Pack

Cool little video introducing the new Eikon EMS 400 power pack. (Featuring some pals: the lovely Jen at Cottage 13, Evan Dowdell at Time Will Tell Tattoos, and David Glantz at Archive Tattoos)

Very slick design!

Capacitance touch buttons, that chirp when you touch them to let you know that your command has been activated. With no buttons or dials jutting out the front to fiddle with, covering everything with barrier film is very easy. The buttons are quite large and far enough away from each other to prevent accidental activation of other commands. The vertical orientation and small footprint take up little room on a work space. The angle makes it very easy to read. No more contorting to read the voltage meter. Prominent LCD display of the voltage. The other meter readings aren’t as prominent since they’re generally only used during machine tuning.The secondary display area can be changed to display Speed, Duty Cycle, FT, Amps, Timer, Diagnostics or you can simply cloak all the readings. Cables that are routed out the back. Partly to prevent cluttering up a work area, and also to prevent them from becoming contaminated. Sticky silicone foot print to help keep it anchored to the work space. A timer to let the artist know how long they actually spent tattooing. Four voltage presets for four different machines. Easily switch between liners and shader - plug the machine in, press the voltage preset and away you go. No more fiddling and adjusting. Plug and play. Two footswitch modes - momentary or maintained. Can be used anywhere in the world. Very handy for artists traveling to conventions. And perhaps most importantly of all, smooth consistent output power. Whether the machine is a coil or a rotary machine. Minimal voltage is used, decreasing the chances of overheating.

Eikon have done a really nice job on this.

S.o.t.D. - Bend Over - Wagon Christ

Bend Over - Wagon Christ

Continuing the theme from yesterday (they’re one and the same).

S.o.t.D. - Get Your Head Down - Luke Vibert

Get Your Head Down - Luke Vibert 

Binoculars Pouch

A bunch of years back I modified a LowePro pouch I had for carrying my binoculars. Okay, but it still had some shortcomings. Decided to build one from scratch.

I had some neoprene from an old Platypus bladder carrier that I had taken apart.

I tackled the back and flap first, adding CLASP to the back.

The neoprene was put in and stitched in place.

Then seam tape was added around the edges.

Then I tackled the body. I left a ¼" seam of material rather than a seam of neoprene. I thought it might prove difficult trying to form the seam otherwise.

Stitching around the edges to hold it in place, button holed the drain hole and seam tape at the opening.

Now, stitching down the first side was quite easy, and the bottom a little bit trickier, but the other side was really tricky. Not my finest sewing ever, took quite a while, but it will hold.

And the finished result.

The bottom drain hole is covered by a strip of webbing. Lets any water that gets in out, but helps prevent sand and other crud from getting in.

One of the things I didn’t like about the LowePro pouch was that it was a really tight fit and it took quite a bit of wiggling and pulling and tugging to get it out. With this one, I left about an inch at the top to grasp the binoculars, and it’s sized perfectly to make for a snug fit, but still allow for easy extraction.