Ho, ho, ho, to y'all! :-) I trust that everyone reading this, has had a wonderful Christmas and that you got to spend some quality time with your family and friends. Santa, Jesus, Wally-world or whatever this time of year represents to you, the time with loved ones well spent is what we all should be enjoying, no matter what our other beliefs. Enjoying whatever time we have with our families, is the most rewarding time you'll ever spend. Why do I say this? How do I know this? Well, it's quite simple in fact. I have VERY little "family" left. I'm probably the last of my breed. Whatever I've learned and formed and have become, will end when I depart this earth. Also, friends are VERY few and far between. :-(

So, you see, I'm telling you this from experience. If there are loved ones around you, do NOT take them for granted, ever. You can never hug your children, mother, father, uncle, aunt, cousin, nephew, niece, husband, wife or significant other, TOO much! There is not enough love in the world as it is, so DO NOT have a home where love doesn't live. Make it your business to get more love and happiness going on in there. If we all do a little more huggin' and smilin' and laughin' in our homes, it can add years to everyones life. :-)

In my little world...

My best friend and his wonderful wife, drove up from Kingston to visit with his sister for Christmas, so we went out for breakfast together this morning. We headed out for a tour around some of Bruce's old stomping grounds after an amazing breakfast @ Cory's! He showed me where his school was and then because there was some construction started there, we drove right through the spot with his 4x4 and then through the spot that was once a Shell gas station beside it. The only things we saw remaining anymore was a small stand of stunted Poplars and some other shrubby type of bush in a little hollow that seems to have escaped any progress for the past few decades. This tour by the way, was in one of the oldest parts of Ottawa. The whole place was expropriated and demolished and people were forced to move out back then, with NO recourse, by the NCC and nothing much was ever done with all that land. :-(

Bruce told me as we slowly motored through the area that back then they just called it "the flats" which was short for the Lebreton Flats. His school was right near the tracks, which of course are not there now. "No nice grass either back then, just pavement to play on", he laughed as he recalled playing soccer, football, softball or whatever, all on freakin' blacktop. No wussy grassy fields for those tough school kids from the flats, back in those bygone days. ;-) They don't build kids like that anymore, I'm sorry to say. :-(

Our re-visit suddenly jogged a memory, of Bruce sitting in the drivers seat of his dad's car in the lane way watching the cars go by. A cop pulled up and gave him a hard time about it, seeing as he was only eight or ten at the time. I chuckled at that little flashback of his and just how neat it was, that it had just traveled about 45 years into the past to bring a fresh smile to my buddy's face as well as mine after ALL this time. Another little Christmas gift for two bonded buds...

Then, as if that kool ride with my best bud through memory lane wasn't enough of a Christmas present, he then turned Santa on me and I'm now the very proud owner and wearer of the neatest boots I've worn in over 20 years. Feather-lite, waterproof, camo patterned, insulated with Thinsulate and oh so snuggy/comfy to set a man's foot into. These awesome Mossy Oak boots are really going to keep me warm and dry all winter. I LUV 'em! :-) Thanx again buddy Bruce and sister Elaine for your kindness and generosity, of such a useful and very appreciated gift. Love Always! :-)

While I'm on the topic of one's blessings...

Most of Christmas Day was spent with my other close buddy's family. He had invited me over earlier in the week to have Christmas dinner with them and I had graciously accepted. :-) With Larry's two girls , his son, his lady Tracy, his mom and Tracey's mom there, I was surrounded suddenly, by family. Man, that felt good. Of course Tracy is no stranger to the kitchen and this little doll really puts on a mean spread no matter what the occasion. :-) So, of course, I ate way too much delicious and beautiful food and sat there like a fat little piggy on the couch after we ate and couldn't move my tubby body for a bit. :-) Thank you once more my friends, for inviting me into your home to share your Christmas and family with me this Christmas! Peace Y'all!

You know, when I add these two happenings together, I realize just how fortunate I am indeed to have the friends that I do have, even though I don't have many. I've ALWAYS preferred quality to quantity in my life, so it's only fitting then that Bruce and Larry and their families are indeed the best friends this man, could EVER have! My hat is off to you, dear friends...

On closing for to-day, Boxing day, I pulled these pictures out of last falls pile which perhaps depict a glimpse of some of the different terrain I travel through while exploring around Ottawa. I guess I'll soon have to get a few new woodsy winter shots in here too, just to keep sort of current with the season and all. ;-) Maybe this week?

Chow 4 now.

BlackSpruce

Poplar

This picture was taken from a Treasure Hunting Newsletter that comes to my inbox twice a month. The owner, Floyd Mann, is a very recognized person in the TH'ing field and has been giving away this high quality newsletter for a number of years now. He assured me in an e-mail that it would be fine to share a picture or three from his newsletter, if I wanted to. So, I do want to and I think this is a GREAT way for us all to start our day and to be ensured of a smile on our faces! So fair reader, get ready for a wee laugh on my, up to now, mostly fairly serious, little bushy flavored blog. Thanx to the total generosity and caring of Mr. Mann, over at,Lost Treasure USA Make sure you slip over to his awesome website if you have any kind of flair for lost treasures, you will NOT be sorry. Floyd's webite IS a treasure in itself. Nuff said, time for your laugh....



Hope that worked up a nice smiley for YOUR face like it did for mine. :-) It is my firm belief that we ALL need to laugh more, everyday! It's like sort of a sign that we are having some kind of good time. It also lets others around us know that we are happy too and it can even be contagious! Mercy me! :-)

So in the bizz sorta side of my little life, I've been pumping out some of my collectibles on two powerful, local, and free, advertising boards. I recommend them both to anyone that wants to sell anything and do it all for free. I mentioned them in my previous post so if you've been hesitant to try them, this is to clear that up. You see, yesterday as an example, three people from those boards picked up their neat collectibles from me and ALL were VERY pleased with their purchases and weren't shy about saying so. :-) I even made a new contact through one of them for possible future sales of some of my many Hotwheels cars, at great prices. So, get over there and sell your stuff that you have no use for anymore. The extra cash doesn't hurt at this time of year, let me tell you. :-) As a matter of fact, in my personal case, presently, it is REALLY, really important... :-(

Anywho, another busy day ahead. Glad I'm getting an early start on it. Hope y'all have yourselves a a FINE Sunday...

later,

Well, o.k. then, it does sort of look like I've bitten off a bit more than I can chew, as far as keepin' up with all these websites, blogs, and forums goes, on a fairly regular basis anyway. :-( Man, ya know there just aren't enough hours in a day to do all ya gotta do these days! I guess my time management skills aren't quite as good as a lot of other people who do probably ten times more than I do in a day. Oh well, I'll just keep tryin' to blog when I can...

Because the rent monger still hasn't been satisfied yet, I've been spending whole days, Kodakin' some of my little Collectibles, photo-shopin' them, then gettin' them out and posted to 2 of my favorite FREE AD places. I love these places because they are both local and that can save you LARGE in shipping costs. So anyway, they are, Kijiji and of course,Used Ottawa.Used Ottawa by the way, was where my buddy LarryS, got his great Pit Bull awhile back. I zipped over, checked 'em out and hooked-up right then and there and in about five minutes was posting neat little FREE ads, with slick pics to boot! Awesome. Thanks LarryS, you know yer shit there buddyman!

Here's a sweet and very old little China tea cup for any of the ladies out there reading this. It is a Limoges, made in France, probably just after the war, or at least it looks that old to me, but then, I'm NO China specialist! If anyone can correct me, I'd be happy to read your "comments" in here. :-) I wish I had the saucer to go with it but seeing as I don't, hopefully someone on Kijiji or Used Ottawa, just might need this beautiful, fragile, vintage cup! I'll be posting a few more fine bone china pieces in the next day or so over there too, so you can watch for them if ya dig old china...

Limoges Tea Cup




As I was saying, I'm putting on a MAJOR push right NOW to get enough stuff sold quickly to help pay for my rent. SO, if YOU like cool little collectibles, maybe you could tour over to those 2 free boards and see what I'm almost giving away, and scoop up some goodies for yourself possibly... :-)

Anywho, later,

lb

...Still bogged down in 24 plus cm's of white hell out this way. Seems the whole eastern states and Ontario has been blasted good, with the most snowfall in one dump in five years. That most certainly puts an end to any metal detecting for the year. Add biking to that list too. :-( It's a good thing I've got a shit-load of hobbies to delve into for the next few months. That's of course if I can find enough work in the mean time to pay the rent, phone, hydro, ISP and a little food and toiletries on the side...I'm starting to feel the stresses of NOT having a regular type job again. EVERYTHING we do or want to do these days requires money and usually, quite a bit of it. The small wage earners and low-income folks all across the land, are hurtin' big time because of the way the government has run and allowed to be run, this great country. NO REGARD for the poor, despite the false, media style promises, we all hear. Street people DIE in our cities every year and THAT is disgusting! How can ANY government who says the are for the people, let those same people freeze to death on the coldest days of the year.

I've rubbed shoulders, on more than one occasion, with various street people. I've stood in lines with them and eaten from the same soup kitchens with SO many different types of folks who were in dire straits. Many a time a tear has come to these ol' eyes as I watched others, way more unfortunate than I, deal with their lives and have seen that they are WAY tougher than I think I could ever be in their situations. VERY few of these people are there because they want to be. Like me, they are there because they HAVE to be. They (including me) are not very welcome in very many other places.The old rule of NO money, NO funny, is a VERY true fact of daily life for these destitute citizens of our new, non-caring, non-loving society. What tragic times we are in,despite the fancy footwork from the gov'mt and the media, to keep it all rosey lookin' out there...

* There, Rant off for now... :-)

Yesterday being snowed-in internet Monday, I hooked-up to a few more blogs and forums. There are a few steps to take at each one of them but it only takes a few minutes to do 'em after you've done a couple and it's all worth it. In one sense, I'm meeting others with a few similar ideas about a few specific things. Getting to know some of these people a little. On the other side, they are getting to know me too. The kool part is that I get to tell them selected stuff only. We all only know what each one of us puts out there on these forums and blogs. All of it could be bogus as far as that goes even. See my little point though? A decade ago I built my first web page so that I could tell folks about the Outdoors side of life and how they should check it out and see what it's done for me. Many folks sent me e-mails or signed my guest books to say they loved my little outdoorsy pages and some even started up a correspondence with me that has lasted a few years and helped us to really exchange info on the web.

So all in all, a web presence is a GOOD thing in any form, for those of you who weren't sure! :-) One of my blogs, perhaps this one, will start to focus on that aspect of my life, away from the Outdoorsy side a little more. Stuff like, how to go about making real money from the Internet, how to get SO much stuff for free that you will be able to sell some of it and earn a little ka-ching for yer pockets. Stuff like, FREE Classified ads that PULL like a Hoover and last forever. How about learning a little more about Super Nutrition, on a tight budget, with minimal effort? Or, do you think others would be interested in say, Secret places not far from your home, where you can do ALMOST anything and not have to fear repercussions?

See where I'm goin' with this other blog twist thingy here? Lord knows I've got reams and reams of solid material to share with people who need and want to know. I've got the skills required to get powerful data out to the whole world now, not just my local town any more. I think it would be a safe bet to say that this humble blogger, could keep both blogs going pretty good. Especially now, that I've hooked-up the "comments" function in here for you and your buds to carve your own little piece out of the internet pie, without the need for a web page or blog. YOUR comments left on my blogs gets seen by the whole world too ya know. It's kinda like a free ride opportunity for you and yer pals that share my interests...

Speaking of some of my interests, how about these old dude's,eh? More copper in those than about ten or more of the modern garbage they call pennies these days. One is a 1853 US one cent coin and the other large penny is even older, vintage, 1848. Feels real neat to hold a coin that old in my hand. How many times has it changed hands before it found it's way to me? The other largish one is a Thurston the Magician coin, vintage 1928 and it was pulled out of an old park in the west end of Ottawa, off Richmond Road about ten years ago and treasured ever since. :-)



The little silver guy is an old King Edward 5 cent Canadian coin. It's often referred to as a "fishscale" in coin jargon and it's the smallest coin Canada ever made. The hat badge (if that's what it is) I pulled out of the ground while metal detecting the old Grove in Stittsville about 13 years ago. It's in super shape and the patina is just awesome..

Any of you readers collect cool old coins like these? Leave a comment about 'em in here if you do, I'd love to hear about them. ;-)

Oh, by the way, I've been workin' on yet another, similar to this, more personal type blog, in the last month or so. Ya, I know, I can almost hear you asking, why would a person need more than one blog, or website or e-mail or even fishin' pole for that matter? Well,if I had a nickel for every time someone asked me that question... I'll elaborate on that little point in a future post but suffice to say here, ya can't have too many, of certain kinds of stuff, in life. At least not out there in the real world where I live anyway. ;-) You see fair reader,I got it started when I got a gig through People Bank, my favorite temp organization in the whole darn city of Ottawa. They had sent me to a big retain chain and I ended up workin' there with two other lads from PB and together we got a big job done in good time. Everything was flowing so well in fact, that it inspired me to record some of those bits and pieces of workin' with an able bodied crew that works well together and knows how to work as a team on the internet. Soooo, that's how that bit got goin' and now of course, I have to see if I can Keep'em goin' and try to maintain an interesting content to boot. Oh ya, and, try to get enough jobs to keep the rent man and his buddies the phone guy, hydro man, my ISP, (Storm.ca by the way, for a little free plugging to share a great provider with others) the bus driver and the grocer, all happy and everything. Man, life can be a tough go sometimes,eh? Good thing there's ton's of good stuff too though, to balance it all out in the long run.

So anyway, here's the link to this other blog of mine, where ya now get to meet one or two of my friends and learn about some of the neat folks I've had the pleasure of workin' with over the years. Of course there's another good whack of some ever present Outdoorsy stuff over there too. So here ya go peeps. Slip over and check it out to-day. Enjoy! :-)

LarryB's Blog...

I'll be back...

It's a very bright sunny Saturday for the first day of December but it's also nippy at -12 below, so I'm gonna stay in to-day and work on the net more. Everything out my window is totally covered in at least 6 inches of pretty official looking winter's here to stay, snow, and so far I'm not into making tracks in it. That could all change later of course. :-) That's the beauty of being a free spirit!

I have SO many projects on the go now that it has almost become a full time job, being the web guy. With over 25 websites, 3 Blogs, and the 8 or 10 forums that I frequent, I'm kept quite busy to say the least. As you know, if you know me, I love to communicate with folks about stuff I love. This Internet thingy has opened up the doors to the world to this ol' trapper. I am SO glad I've lived long enough to be able to see the web develop and then get into it, full bore, like there was no tomorrow. This is all pretty powerful stuff that is now available to anyone and everyone in the free world. Probably the word ignorance will soon be removed from the dictionary, if this keeps up. ;-) I kinda mean that there is NO MORE excuse for being stupid, ignorant or simple minded, if you have access to Google which of course since it's inception, has been my faithfull top dog intel supplier! :-)

I'm trying to dig a pile of pics out of one of my crashed computers and get them on a CD so I can upload them to this blog eventually. THAT, is proving harder and more time consuming than I had hoped for. Oh well, it'll happen in the next day or two if it's going to happen at all. If not the time will go back into the care & feedin' of all my web stuff...

Here's a picture from this past summer, of some little cuties, captured here for you, in all their splendor. Hope ya dig 'em...



This is a shot taken with my kool ol' Sony disk camera, a marvelous unit and ahead of it's time. This amazing camera was a very generous gift from Big Bruce, my best friend in the world and has since added many, many, a smile to this good ol' Sudbury boy's face! :-) This shot shows, like the camera, my usual preference for a little older equipment. The old rule of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", seems to apply almost always in my life. If I get the results I strive for, then there is NO need to upgrade. Ever since I can remember, I certainly do NOT try to be like or keep up with, the Jones' as they used to say, back in the day. Hey hey, keep this stuff up, and I'm gunna havta start writing some of it down and callin' it poetry. :-)

So anywho folks, this little rig here is my good ol' "Amigo", a faithful, trusted, dependable and VERY serviceable, vintage metal detector. It's somewhere around a quarter of a century old now and if it could speak it would probably want to write three or four detecting books or E-books nowadays, eh? ;-) Many a park has been haunted and explored in depth by this simply super-neat machine and many a reward has surfaced because of him and my familiarity with him. By the way, that's how I refer to some of my older eqpt. as buddy or him or my, man machine or stuff like that. My vintage MTB gets referred to as Cooly, pretty often. :-) One of my favorite vehicles was a 1975 Toyota Corolla and while CB'ing back then, my handle was "the little yellow Toy", easily spotted by oncoming truckers and acknowledged with horn honkin' with each other on passin' one another heading in opposite directions on the blacktop...

Never too old, as the sayin' goes...



later...