An Excellent bootcamp

This weekend we enjoyed an excellent bootcamp, thank you to all the instructors and organizers. The lung drugs I am on have certainly made a difference, as my shuttle run and 2km run times were vastly improved, and I didn’t have to throw up after either! All the seminars were very enjoyable, and I now have two more weapons that are actually legal to carry in Canada. It was nice having the RV there to just climb into after as well, maybe we can get a few more next year.

Dennis Donohue

Back from vacation

We are back from our vacation in Montana, and I am catching up on yard work and greenhouse stuff this weekend. The most interesting discovery at home was in the greenhouse, where I set up the automatic watering system at the last minute before we left. It turns out that I missed one button push, so that it did not actually water while we were gone. I thought that the plants looked a little dry and heat stressed, but overall were doing well. So I went to adjust the programming on the timer, and found my error. Normally the consequences of this would have been a lot of dead plants. In this case though I have been experimenting with a soil mix recommended in the book “Square Foot Gardening”, which is 1/3 each of compost, peat moss and vermiculite (exploded mica rock, which acts like a sponge) and the plants made it through OK. So if you are going to be gardening, I recommend reading and following his book.

Dennis Donohue

Tia Chi, Violence and NovaBrik

July 7, 2013

   This weekend we started section 4 of the Tia Chi form class, which is where I started a year ago. I am feeling a lot more comfortable with the moves, the terminology and the stances. I don’t directly remember the moves, but I noticed with all experienced people in the class that we went a lot faster than last year, so I think I am getting the hang of it. I figure that I may actually know the form by the time I reach retirement age.

    I thought that the Demo last Canada day went very well, and was somewhat surprised that my cane application with Sifu Prince was judged “most violent”. After all it was just an old guy with a cane defending himself, right? Spears and Swords and other scary looking implements of destruction seem like they should be the violent ones, not an innocent little cane. Must be Sifu Prince’s acting skills, thank you for being a great partner.

   In other non-kung fu type stuff, other than trying to fit more projects into my life, I think that we have found the product that we would like to put on our house in place of the poorly installed, mouse friendly vinyl siding that is currently there. The product is called NovaBrik, and is a concrete block veneer. This will add 3 ½ inches of thickness to our walls, but once installed it will be completely mouse proof. I am intending to tackle just one side of the house at a time to make the project a bit more bite sized, as opposed to an immense, overwhelming task. It will also be a learning curve, as everything with this house has been, but it is the only way that I can see to get what I want (the vinyl was not our first choice, but we needed something to seal up the outside, and it was getting into November that year we built). So if you are considering something like this for your own house, and want to get some hands on experience, I expect this fall I will be needing a bit of help.

Dennis Donohue