At the sugar bush

Yesterday, I went out to Fulton's Maple Farm. Fulton's is one of the local sugar bush places, which are popular this time of year when the sap is running. It's a chance to see how maple syrup is made and get out of the city.

I haven't been in ... a few years - by which I mean that I'm pretty sure the last time I went was before my 12-year-old niece was born, so I decided to go this year. 

We got there around noon and went on a sleigh ride through the forest.

It was a little chilly, so we went over to the bonfire to warm up. While we were there, we discovered a woman using coals to carve out the inside of a spoon. We decided to try it ourselves, so we paid our $10 for all three of us to give it a try. They gave us each a piece of wood in the shape of a spoon, and picked hot coals out of the fire.

We used the stick to hold the coal in place and blew on the coal to make it burn.

As the coals disintegrated, we used the stick to carve out the burnt part and then got new coals. The stick came in handy to move the coals to whatever area we were working on.

When we had enough of the bowl carved out, one of the workers used a knife to shave off the top of the spoon, and to get rid of some of the extra wood around the edges.

When I got home, I used coarse sandpaper to smooth out the back and handle, and also to get rid of more of the burnt part of the inside of the bowl.

(After we made the spoon, we had the traditional pancakes, which were good but did not compare to the awesomeness of the spoon.)

Gremlins in the computer

When I got to work this morning, my computer had rebooted. When I logged in, my mouse didn't work. This is normal - I have to unplug my mouse after I log in and then plug it back in before it works. I moved one of my monitors and fiddled with the plug until it worked. I then moved the monitor back and prepared to get to work.

Except the monitor I moved was completely black. I fiddled with the plug and finally realized I'd hit the power button while moving it. I turned it in and opened my email.

My password didn't work. I tried a few times before realizing that my email domain was wrong. I fixed it and logged in.

Before doing too much, I decided to open a ticket with the help desk for my mouse problem. I opened the ticket and then locked my screen to go get some water.

When I got back, my password didn't work. I tried it a few times, checked to make sure caps lock wasn't on, and tried again. It still didn't work.

I went over to talk to someone in IT, who pointed out that my keyboard had probably changed from multi-lingual to another language. I did the control- shift thing that switches keyboard mapping schemes and logged in.

I had an email from IT about my mouse problem suggesting that I plug the mouse into the laptop instead of the docking station. I decided to do it immediately, so I unplugged the mouse.

The mouse cord was tangled with the other computer cords, but I managed to get it untangled. I sat down again, plugged the mouse in, and realized my computer was dead.

After more investigation, I realized that the power cord for my laptop docking station had come unplugged while I was untangling the mouse cord.  I plugged it back in and rebooted the computer.

My mouse didn't work. I unplugged it and plugged it in again.

I opened my email. My password didn't work because the domain had switched again. I fixed that and logged int.

An hour after I got to work, I was ready to actually work. Naturally, I had to go to a meeting.

That's why I should never leave late

For the last few months, I've taken the bus to work. It makes sense - it's faster than driving, it's convenient, and it's cheaper than driving and paying for parking.

But there are days ....

This morning, I left later than usual - just a minute or two, but enough to mess up my commute. As usual, that meant that the first bus was so full it didn't even stop.

The second bus was full, too, but it stopped, so the six of us at the stopped crammed into it. We skipped the next stop since there was no room left and continued down the road. At that point, the transit way is a lane in the side of a busy road, so we were zooming past the congestion on the road. 

At least  we were until we caught up to a cyclist. He was in the bus lane (since the bike lane was covered in snow) and he was probably going fast for a cyclist. He was not going fast for a bus. We crawled along behind him for two blocks, until we stopped to let people off and he got ahead of us.

And that's the kind of thing that happens when I leave the house late.

Limping along

Last Wednesday night, we had freezing rain. Basically, the entire city was covered in ice.

And then it rained.

Naturally, I slipped in the way to work. Luckily, I didn't hit my head, but I was pretty sore. I managed to limp to the bus stop and go to work.

I was still sore in Friday - to the point where I was wondering if I should go to boxing or, if I went, whether I should skip. I ended up going and skipping, didn't hurt, so I did that, too. It worked, too - I wasn't sore all weekend.

And then I did a strength workout on Monday. I've been sore ever since. I'm not even sure if it's a muscle issue, or a tendon, ligament, or even bone. I hope whatever it is goes away soon, though.