Miasmatic Review

Boopie, Boats and Bacon

I finally get to step back for a brief breather! I really do mean a brief one too. Let me give you a cliff notes reference of everything that has been going on.

Last week Boopie had his 16th Birthday, for five years my plan was to buy him a car. Nothing too nice or fancy, but just a cheap $2,000 to $3,000 car. He even knew that was what the plan was. A couple of years ago I promised him I would match him dollar for dollar toward a car, up to $2,000.00 when he turned 16 as long as he had no Ds or Fs on his report card. I knew in October that I wasn’t going to have to worry about it, because he was failing classes, and he just went down hill from there. So he turned 16 and didn’t get his license.

The sad thing is that I get the impression that he blames Ktreva and me for him not getting his license.

Thursday night, I obtained my first degree as a Mason. They’re a group I’ve wanted to join for a while now, but I just never had the opportunity and time. I finally decided to get off my arse and make it happen. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me as I am but an apprentice, but I’m up for the challenge. In fact I have a meeting tonight with them.

Friday night I had to get a car carrier for the canoe I purchased. It came with a foam pad system, but after doing some research, and talking to other canoe owners, I decided that if I’m going to take that canoe on any distance, I want something a bit more stable than those foam blocks. We are planning our family vacation with our friends Wil and Red to The Lake in The Ozarks, and want to bring the canoe along. After doing the research and reading horror story after horror story about those foam pads either failing or scratching the hell out of the paint, I decided to get a real carrier. A local canoe shop had exactly what I wanted, and I ended up getting a Yakima rack system. The owner of the shop even helped me install it.

After the rack I took Ktreva and Clone to see the new Star Trek Movie. Okay, I’m not going to give anything away, but honestly for those Star Trek purists out there, this movie is going to annoy you. The main plot device is was a crutch that bad writers use when they can’t come up with an original idea. Heck, they might as well have done the entire movie based in a Halodeck. That is the only bigger crutch out there. As a movie on its own, it was pretty good. They did pay a lot of homage to the original series with the devices, sounds and catch phrases. I don’t want to give anything away, so I’m going to quit talking about it now.

Saturday morning we had to go to Madison, WI to get the Canoe. It’s an older used canoe, but it looks great. There are some scrapes and dings on it from use, but all the seems are straight, the rivets are all original and it’s sturdy! We put her on the new rack system and left for home. I had originally planed on using some of the straps that came with the canoe, but the seller didn’t have a lot of faith in them, so we temporarily tied it down with twine until I could get to a Menards and buy some ropes for it. We picked up some ratchet ropes and are probably the best thing for canoes I’ve ever seen.

Saturday night I took Ktreva to the Raptor’s football game. Where, since the Metrocentre only sells Budweiser products that I won’t drink, we had way too many Bloody Marys. I mean way too many! Ktreva made our quarterback cry. It was rather amusing, yet sad. Sad for the quarterback, as he really was not having a good night. I also spent a lot of time trying to educate Ktreva on the small nuances of football. I really should only do that when neither one of us has an alcohol soaked brain.

On Mother’s day I gave Ktreva the gift of laziness. I let her do what ever she wanted, and I took care of all the work that needed to be done. Well not all of it, because I needed some help here or there. I did all the cooking. We had smoked pork chops, bratwurst and I made my first Bacon Explosion! It turned out really well. I’m looking forward to making my next one for the Beer Tasting.

Speaking of which, the deadline for the Beer Tasting is rapidly approaching! Let me know, if you haven’t already, if you are coming!