Ghost Town

 Drove an hour north to the ghost town of Girvin, just south of Davidson. It is listed as a ghost town on the internet but isn't entirely abandoned. We talked to one guy who is having fun building a second story deck (I imagine that there are no building codes there). I guess I expect ghost towns to be full of dust and cob webs, but really they are full of bird shit and mouse nests. Nice adventure. Had ice cream at Twisted Sisters in Chamberlain on way home.

Movies and finishing Swampy

William finished the Swampy drawings for the script I wrote. Now it is back in my court.
We picked up cinnamon buns from Emerald Park. I dropped mom's half off with her and then took her to the new Winners. Margaret felt betrayed.
William and I watched two movies, River's Edge and Fireman's Ball. 

Settlers with six players

On a rare big game night with Terri, Xander, Allan, and the three of us, we played the six player expansion of Seafarer Catan. A few discussions over house rules (Terri and Xander seem to have a few) but very fun.
William had a two hour driving practice with they guy who taught him driving through the school. Positive feedback and some stuff to fine tune. 

Beach

With the temperature hitting 34 or 35, we headed to a beach on Lake Diefenbaker that we'd never gone to before to roast for a couple of hours. Very few people there. The water was cold but nice. I read TWO stories from the book I started three years ago. Ate at the Deja Vu Diner in Moose Jaw on the way home. 

Common Weal bbq

We went with Margaret to her annual barbeque for Common Weal. Mostly we talked about David Lynch. 

Alarms

I realized today that the six dvd Coen Brothers set I got last week through an American retailer via Amazon are region 2 pal discs. The page doesn't tell you that. The only way to confirm is that the image of the back of the dvd set has the word PAL on it. I cleaned up the basement so that we could watch them on the computer down there but then found out that the Linux operating system requires some tweaking before it can play dvds at all, so I felt quite derailed. We finally patched Margaret's laptop into the tv and watched one.
We went out to a sale down the street and got an amazing red jacket (no images yet as it will be a gift to someone) and an old alarm clock that has cartoon characters on its face. Classic design.

Cool jacket but didn't fit right, had fun anyway. Didn't buy it.

Comics

Dropped off Dubble Bubble wrapper sheet for framing. Typed up new Lint script. Watched "Strike". Finished reading Justice League Elseworlds Volume 2 which contains all three chapters of the Superman/Batman/Wonder Woman alternative stories set in German Expressionist films, namely Metropolis, Nosferatu, Blue Angel, Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and Dr. Mabuse, merged with their own stories. It was really a fun read. William is most of the way through it now. 

Wasisow the Puppet

William worked his puppet some more. We went to Value Village and picked out clothes. At the Salt Gallery opening with the General Store people, a name was given to it: "Wasisow" which means "He shines". 

"General Store" at the Art Shack

The Dunlop Art Shack is hosting the General Store with Lane Shordee and Nikki Martens this week. They are doing various negotiations for trades of unusual natures such as trading a glass test tube for a story or a small artwork for three cups of coffee. We went there yesterday and had a great hour chatting and working and observing. In the end, William got components and services to half build a puppet he's been toying with but not moving ahead on.
 

Amazing Pud delivery

A while back, frustrated by having purchased over 1000 pieces of Dubble Bubble gum without having found all 60 comics, I wrote to the Tootsie Roll company (who purchased Dubble Bubble a number of years ago) to inquire about finding the missing ones. After a bit of email exchange, we received "the complete set of Canadian comics printed in colour on plain paper from the printing company who produces the comics"!!! I didn't entirely believe it would come when he said he'd send this, but today it did! The surprising thing is that the wrapper is printed on the same sheet as the comics. The other surprising thing, which helps explain a few oddities, is that the comics are laid out in a nine by nine grid which means they print 81 comics, not 60. There are still only 60 different ones, but 21 of them, chosen with no clear agenda, are printed twice on the base sheet, making them more common.  

Lamb stew with Carcassonne and Allan too

William and I did some errands on Tuesday which included a trip to the comic store (German Expressionist JLA, more on that later) and we got big carrots (for stew) and big top Carcassonne to play with Allan when he was over. It's a pretty good set. We only played a compacted game so it will be interesting to see how it mixes with a larger range of the game. 

Eclipse day

We dropped the idea of trying to get into the states to see the total eclipse, but still enjoyed what part of it we could from home. As well, as part of the extended birthday celebrations, we tried to do cool stuff with William today.

At 11:45, the eclipse was at its ultimate for our area. Here it is through the safety glasses (click to zoom in on it). 

After the eclipse, we had cherry pie and coffee and watched this week's Twin Peaks. William drove me downtown where he took out a Filmpool membership (you need to be 16 to join a co-op and have voting rights). 

Gerda brought William a strange tin toy airport tower. We took a while to make it work (needed to partically disassemble it) but odd and cool. 

Paul came over for steak sandwiches and a fire. 

Mooky joined us at the fire. She proved she knew William well by bringing him a huge book about the twentieth century. We reciprocated by giving her an accordion with her name on it. 

William turns 16

Great day full of activities for William's 16th birthday. Allan, Geremy and Xander came over for a noontime game of Fiasco (with a Lovecraft theme to match the book I bought him). Ice cream this afternoon with Paul. There were cakes galore when my sister and all the grandparents came for evening desert.

Peaches and Orchards

We picked up boxes of peaches at mom's church today and intended to have pie and coffee. However, we were too late and the pie was all gone. We went to the farmer's market instead, but even they were mostly sold out of food truck stuff.

This evening we went to a really nice dinner hosted at the Over the Hill Orchards near Lumsden. Terrific. We sat beside Mike Maekelburger and his partner. The tour of the orchard and their methods was particularly enlightening
. 

Wheat Soup Beer invite

Invitation for the September 9 tapping of the keg and launching of the Wheat Soup beer arrived today.

40TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION TAPPING OF WHEAT SOUP BEER

LOCATION: BUSHWAKKER BREWPUB 2206 DEWDNEY AVE, REGINA, SK

SEPT 9TH

TIME: 2:30PM FREE ADMISSION

DOOR PRIZES, REMINISCING, FUN AND SOCIALIZING!

Huge Lego from Sharon

Sharon took William out for an early birthday lunch and then bought him a gigantic Lego set. It's just nuts. The instructions are square bound - practically a novella.

Shooting in Art Shack with Lindsay Arnold

We visited the Art Shack at the RPL and shot some animation with Lindsay. I've not seen it posted yet. It will eventually be on her Instagram page.