My little warrior

This weekend Brandon and I went to Niagara Falls so the boy could compete in the Ontario Open BJJ competition.  It’s one of the toughest competitions there is and attracts a lot of high level talent and unfortunately Brandon got beat up a bit.  He went 0-4 in his division and the other kids were simply to big/strong for him, he was the only 12 year old, the others were 13 and obviously going through puberty so it looked like a boy fighting with a man.

I always tell Brandon that it’s ok to lose but don’t lose because the other person outworked you and it broke my heart after watching him getting thrown around for a few minutes in his first fight, he came back crying saying he didn’t work hard enough. 🙁  He did, this boy doesn’t have any quit in him but sometimes that’s how it goes and despite being demoralized, he continued to fight hard.  Sigh only his 4th competition so next year he’ll do some easier ones to get more experience.

There were like 10 other families from Action & Reaction that came and we all booked the same hotel so the kids hung out before and after the competition.  Saturday night after dinner, we went to the touristy areas and played around, we all bought the Family Pass cards and lol it was funny when Brandon went on the ferris wheel.  He’s scared of heights and as bad as this sounds, his terror was funny for the people in our pod lol.

We left Niagara this morning at around 9, went to Toronto to have pho for lunch with my mom then came home and relaxed the rest of the day.  Maggie didn’t come with us so it was nice to see her and the last work week of the year for me starts Monday. 🙂

Brandon I’m so proud that despite the adversity, you didn’t give up and fought your hardest.  It didn’t go your way this time but that’s ok, keep training and try again in the future!

Thanks Mario!

Met Mario today for lunch and it was fun just to catch up.  He went to Indonesia for the month of Oct, was telling me about his trip and I definitely want to visit there in the future.  Also from watching some videos, it looks absolutely beautiful.  I also borrowed his PVS-14, I went on night walks with Brandon and once with Maggie and tonight we got out as a family which was fun. 🙂

I’m starting to hate WordPress and the way they handle images, why is that one photo’s thumbnail a different size than the rest?!?  Argh anyway the walk was a lot of fun, we weren’t out too long and we did see some other people walking around with flashlights but they didn’t see us lol.  Hopefully we can get out one more time before it gets too cold!

Training

Brandon’s going to compete in the Ontario Open BJJ competition and I’ve signed him up for some private lessons.  Today he was learning from Ethan (who recently won silver in Abu Dhabi) and Brandon quite enjoyed it!

Kingston his partner will be competing too so both of them were running drills for an hour straight, before their actual BJJ class and I’m glad that my boy loves this sport. 🙂

Happy birthday to me

So today I turn 43 years old and couldn’t be happier.  My life has gone better than I could have imagined, lol perhaps it’s because I didn’t have that high of an ambition or huge dreams but yeah I’m pretty damn satisfied.  I have a great life partner in Maggie and our son Brandon is an absolute joy to raise.  Heck even my cat, Slinky is great, I really have nothing to complain about and feel very fortunate to be where I am right now.

Thank you to everyone who’s passed over warm wishes, it’s greatly appreciated. 🙂

Ready for the snow!

Yesterday I put the snow tires on both cars and man it’s so much easier to work in a double car garage!  No moving cars in and out, working in tight quarters and made things so much more efficient.

Next year I’m going to buy a new car lift, the old one still works but takes forever to jack the car into position. Mmm brand new snow tires for the winter and timing couldn’t be better as there’s suppose to be flurries this weekend. 🙂  Swapped Maggie’s tires too, there’s one more season with hers then it’ll be time to get her a new set too.

This shows it all

I know Europeans are desperate for energy but this has to be the most symbolic example of humans going back to fossil fuels…

In a backwards move indicative of the world’s fitful transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, a wind farm in western Germany is being dismantled in order to make way for the expansion of an open-pit coal mine.

The expansion of the lignite mine underscores Europe’s energy crisis, as energy security has sometimes taken precedence over clean energy.

Source: Eco Watch

As a species we’re not going to solve climate change, the best we can hope for is a future where we can survive the worst of what the planet will have in store for us.

Halloween is special

While Halloween is a fun day for kids, it’s a very special day in our family because it’s the day we got Slinky and it’s his 7th anniversary!

He’s been such a wonderful pet and our family is better with him in it.

Lots of night activity

Fright night, Brandon was at a friend’s house so I took Maggie to the local park in the area to try walking around at night with NV and she enjoyed herself. 🙂  Haha now I have to buy a 3rd device so we can go as a family, I think I’ll try and borrow Mario’s PVS-14 for next weekend and get out before it’s too cold. Last night it was Brandon’s turn but this time we went to Durham Forest.  That was fun because we’ve camped over there a few times as a Beaver & Cubs so it was nice to see the old campground.  We walked the perimeter, I don’t think there were any campers but even if they were they wouldn’t be able to see us.

LOL I need to put the camera higher so there’s less neck fat when taking pictures…  Ahh well I’m getting older I guess but in any case yeah the family had fun and maybe next week we can do it altogether if the weather permits.

We’re doomed

As I’ve grown older I’ve become more disillusioned at the prospects of humans dealing with climate change.  When I was younger I had a lot of hope mainly due to naivety but now that I’m middle age, I’ve become skeptical and frankly think we’re screwed.

What needs to be done will not be as our capitalistic system puts short term profits over anything else and if the war in Ukraine has showed us, the Western world has embraced dirty fossil fuels even more.  I was never a fan of nuclear power but if you want cheap power, that’s the only option they really have out there but unfortunately it’ll take a few years to bring up the supply while some of those countries continue to pull nuclear power out of the system, to replace with coal lol.

Sigh I do fear for the type of world we’re leaving the future generations, boomers and now gen x’ers are failing future generations.

Whoops

I’m happy to report that Brandon no longer tests positive for COVID19 woo!  Of course that doesn’t mean he’s clear, the rapid tests are not that accurate and it’s just possible that viral loads are too low for the test to detect.  With that said he’s been completely symptom free for the last two days and looks like we dodged the worst of it with both Maggie and Brandon. 🙂

Still with that said, it’s recommended to stay home so that’s what we did and in the afternoon we carved some pumpkins or at least we tried to but the bases on both were completely ruined.  I guess pumpkins are not suppose to sit on just one spot so while cleaning the inside Brandon went through the bottom unfortunately.  That’s ok I decided I’ll get some new pumpkins and toss the old ones but still got a few pictures.

hehe he hates touching the guts and it’s always funny to see his reaction.  All in all a relaxing slow weekend which is exactly what I like, I guess we’re getting prepared for winter weekends where there’s not much to do. 🙂