Yes, it’s been a while since the last update, but a lot has been happening workwise (I’m actually fairly busy lately at work) and the weekends are taken up with a lot of yard work (chainsawing, lawn mowing, roto tilling, seeding, and de-weeding). June had a lot of rain (which we needed) … and lots of smoke from Northern Ontario (which we did not)☹. I believe we had three weeks where we didn’t see any blue sky at all – the sky was grey, sun rises were deep orange, and you could smell smoke everywhere. Two weeks ago Nova Scotia – as if they hadn’t had enough troubles with the wild fires in Tantallon and Barrington Passage – had extreme deluges of rain (up to 200mm in a day) and massive flooding around Bedford, Lower Sackville, and Halifax. Four people died and over 500 pieces of road were washed out. I even saw a video of a beaver swimming up the Bedford Highway!! This past weekend there was so much rain in Halifax that manhole covers were blowing off the sewer system due to the amount of water and water pressure. The yard and lawn at home have recovered from the parching in May – I rototilled over by the shed and put some grass seed down – it’s coming along nicely – however, so are the weeds ☹. Kelly and I have probably pulled out a few hundred weeds by hand. We should have them all pulled out and the lawn spotless just in time to start raking leaves this fall. This week is looking pretty good – warm, but not too hot during the day, and reasonably cool nights that make it easy for sleeping 😊. It’s now less than four months until our cruise to Mexico (Pacific Coast and Sea of Cortez), we are definitely looking forward to that.
The war in Ukraine is still dragging on, and Ukraine has increased their offensive taking back area around Bahkmut and Kherson. Ukraine has received all the armament and weaponry promised by the NATO countries so hopefully they can start retaking areas near Kherson and Bakhmut. There is also a plan to arm Ukraine with F-15 fighter jets; Ukrainian pilots are undergoing training, but they probably won’t be flying the F-15s in combat until October – and that may be too late as the land forces will start to get bogged down in an early winter. Speaking of bogged down, the offensive isn’t going as fast as planned – the Russians built heavy lines of defense in Eastern Ukraine – ditches, tank traps, intensive mine fields – and the Ukrainians are only managing to advance a little bit at a time (they have only recovered about 200 square kilometers so far). However, many other events have transpired in the last 6 weeks. Prigozhin – the leader of the Wagner Group mercenaries – tried a mini – coupe at the end of June and got as close as 120 miles of Moscow before retreating. Lukashenko of Belarus struck a deal that had the Wagner Group relocate to Belarus. I’m not sure if this is a ploy to have the Wagner Group attack Ukraine from the North – there have been some idle threats that Wagner might make forays into Lithuania and Poland. However, as they are NATO countries this would result in bringing the other NATO countries into the war. As usual Russia is making threats about using nuclear tactical weapons. On a good note Ukraine has attacked 2 Russian ships with sea drones (range 500 miles and speed of 50 knots), hit 2 bridges in Crimea with long range missiles, and attacked Moscow 3 times in the last couple of weeks with drones as well. So maybe the real offensive has begun 😊. … and as I have said before; have someone kill Putin … that man is insane.
… We are cooking meals as always … We’ve had beef and chicken curries; chicken and steak salads, grilled sausages, hamburgers, lots of pasta and meat sauces, meatballs, smoked pork ribs, smoked pork roasts, smoked pulled pork sandwiches, pulled pork Cubano paninis… paninis?? Yup, bought myself a Cuisinart Griddler – a combination griddle, grill, and panini press 😊. Oh, and additional griddle plates to make waffles!! So far I’ve made Cubanos, Turkey Club Paninis, and I made some Amish Fried Chicken and Waffles!! I’ll be doing more experimenting with sandwiches and waffles over the next few weeks 😊 !!
We’ve finished Season 3 of ‘Manifest’ – it’s actually starting to grow on me – however, there are a lot of gaps on the credibility side. We are now into 4 episodes of Season 4 – this will be the final season. On the Netflix side I watched ‘The Marked Heart’ - an interesting Columbian Telenovela about a man whose wife was killed by an organ dealing cartel in order to provide a heart for the wife of a political party mastermind. It follows a: the man trying to determine who received the heart; b: the recipient of the heart trying to determine where it came from; c: the recipient falling in love with the heart’s previous owners husband; d: the organ cartel trying to kill and / or blackmail the victim’s husband and the heart recipient. Confused yet? Well, the first season is actually pretty good; the second? Not so much. Staying with couples having one of them murdered I’ve watched ‘Woman of the Dead’, a German mystery / fantasy series about a woman (Blum) who in the first episode watches her husband (Mark) leave for work on his motorcycle and immediately gets run down by an SUV. Blum is an undertaker in a small town in the Austrian Alps; Mark is / was a policeman investigating a bizarre series of serial killings. Blum talks to / and listens to dead people; Mark doesn’t really do anything else as he’s… uh, dead. It’s actually a pretty good series – a little black humour, extraordinary scenery of the area, and a very determined Blum who wants to find out, and kill, her husband’s murderers. I started rewatching ‘Babylon Berlin’ – I watched it twice before – but it’s such a good series that I have to watch it again.
On the NHL front – not much going on except for trade rumours and rounds of golf for hockey players.
On the MLB front – both Toronto Blue Jays and Seattle Mariners are in third spot in their respective divisions.
On to golf … The RBC Canadian Open was won by a Canadian – Nick Taylor – for the first time since 1954!! Taylor took home approx. $1.6M U.S. and it boosted him up to 9th place in the FedEx standings. Unfortunately, he missed the cut on three out of four of the next events that he took part in ☹. It’s kind of a Canadian golfer thing – you win a tournament and then suck for the next couple. However, both Taylor and Corey Connors made the cut at the Scottish Open and ended up tied at 19th ($106.65 U.S.). Rory McIlroy won for approx. $1.6M U.S. … ‘The Open Championship’ had Taylor and Connors as the only Canadians – Taylor missed the cut and Connors ended up tied for 52nd… ouch. Last week was the 3M Open in Minnesota – only two Canadians made the cut, Mackenzie Hughes (30th) and Adam Svensson (37th). This week was the Wyndham Championship in North Carolina – it was the last chance for golfers to get into the top 70 spots (last year was 120) for the beginning of the FedEx playoffs. Two Canadians made the cut – Adam Svensson (T6 – approx. $220 K U.S) and Michael Gligic (T67 - $15K U.S.). Next week is the Fedex St. Jude for the top 70 - there are five Canadians in the top 50 so they will all make that event – after that it’s the top 50; theoretically they should make that, and finally the top 30 for the Championship. Right now there are only two Canadians in the top 30 – Taylor and Connors.
NFL news – not a lot going on except OTA’s are now over; the new rookies in Seattle seem to be doing well and the team looks great – so maybe the Superbowl?? 😊. This Thursday will see the first pre-season game for Seattle playing against the L.A. Rams.
Have a great and safe week … pray for Ukraine … we will see you in a bit!! 😊