Hhere are some interesting leather working links, all from Instructibles. They have some great tip on making near anything. These are leather related. Leather is an excellent material to use, being all natural. Mankind has a long history of using leather to survive, and rightly so. If taken care of leather will last a lifetime and keep its suppleness as well as protective properties.
Make a leather watchband or bracelet: This is really a Leather 101 course because it covers leather prep, stamping, rivets, staining and finishing. This is an awesome instructible. (KentsOkay)
Leather Bookbinding: Not so difficult, but the instructions are very clear. (gmjhowe)
Make leather stamps: He calls them leather tooling punches, but these are leather stamps. I will need to try this but won’t use a nail. I will probably use a bolt instead. Then again the nails he uses are quite thick. Still, pretty cool how he makes these. (cbm104)
Successful Rob Ford Mayoral campaign: simple, effective, and grassroots
Democracy works by allowing anyone to campaign for a political position, and the person who gets the most votes, gets the position. Apart from a couple of years living in China, this is all I have known. Here in Toronto we have a new mayor who campaigned on the platform of cost and waste reduction. Roughly a third of all councilors were swept out, replaced by fresh faces and ideas. We have “polls” that predict the outcome of the election before election day. These polls are akin to taking the pulse of a patient, an indicator of events to come. Using scientific and statistical analysis one would think that these polls would be quite accurate, but in the case of Toronto’s mayorality race, the polls were very wrong, by a large margin. It turns out that the offline community, those that do not have internet access or those that spend very little time online, threw the polls off, so much so as to question the benefits of polling all together.
It is with great dismay that I have been reading news reports that the recession in Canada has been over for many months, yet I still cannot find work. I consider myself to be an intelligent fellow, very well educated with work experience to match, but somehow I’ve lost my golden touch. Really, that is putting it mildly. Logically speaking if I had not been fortuitous enough to live a frugal and stable life in the past, today I should be in bankruptcy, living off food banks and be a beggar in the street. Smart strategies and a whole lot of luck in the past have saved me this fate. Or was it typical Chinese values. One will never know.
Rola Bola graphic in Globe and Mail used to show sensibilty, practicality and balance
Not really, but when I saw the graphic they posted all I could think of was to get on my rola bola. Too bad the article in the Globe and Mail discusses house mortgages and interest rates. Still, the intent of the rola graphic is to show the right balance, the tipping point, between a house mortgage and interest rates. This the rola bola does very well. Without balance, you’ll quickly fall off.
Heat rash or miliaria is a bit odd in that you get small bumps (~ 2mm) or papules that are elevated but do not break the skin surface. A few seem to have a clear centre (vesicle). After a while they subside and then eventually go away on their own, but then patches may appear in other areas, randomly bilateral. They may be itchy but not overly, and not painful. These cases are so personal it’s hard to generalize.
China's 60 mile traffic jam of coal trucks lasted 10 days.
Contrary to popular belief, China is still Communist. There has been no change of political will, only the naive belief of foreigners that as China becomes wealthier that China will abide by its own rules of law. This is not the case, as the Toronto Star’s Asia correspondent Bill Schiller, found out. He traveled a little outside Beijing into the countryside only 3 hours train ride away, only to find out that things are run differently in the countryside. Reporters do get hassled and told in uncertain terms to leave.
Jiucai (garlic chives) in bloom, growing at our front doorstep, Sony H4, macro 4x zoom
This hardy Chinese herb seems to grow everywhere near our house in Toronto, Canada, self seeding without assistance. Jiucai is also called garlic chives. Put it into soup, stews, omelets, and jiaozi. You chop it down but leave the roots and it will grow back, multiple times in a season. Somehow this dainty little plant has moved to many sections of our backyard and have proliferated, but the most convenient is a clump near our front door. So handy yet tasty.
Something happened at my local Tandy Leather, Scarborough, Canada and the manager Ryan Wright was removed, the store taken over by head office. I’d like to get into contact with him and ask him what happened. Ryan is a very nice guy and I wish him well.
Ryan Wright, Mount Albert (just north of Newmarket), Ontario. Leather worker, blacksmith, archery, metal work and primitive arts and crafts, larper (live action role play) with Epoch Toronto.
Toronto Buskerfest 2010: Victor Rubilar's grand finale, juggling 5 soccer balls
Hot was the word of the day on Saturday Aug 28 2010, when we took in the Buskerfest in Toronto. It hit 32C and high humidity. There performers were sweating profusely, as was the audience. Arriving at about 12:45pm we took in the shows of Victor Rubilar from Argentina (juggling soccer balls), Mat Ricardo from the UK (balancing, juggling) and saw a couple of others. It was really crowded and we could not see much, which was to bad.
Mary Ward's front door archway, a nice piece of steel and glass.
Mary Ward Catholic Secondary School is a high school located in North Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The school is part of the Toronto Catholic District School Board, or TCDSB. These tips are primarily from a parent’s viewpoint and will cover uniform, student attitude, working with teacher adviser (TA) and a little on courses. I hope this helps new grade 9 students.
