On December 19, I had to leave work early due to extreme abdominal cramping and pain. The drive home (35 minutes or so on a rather jam-packed Queensway) was interesting to say the least. My wife, Sharon, met me at the door. She's a physician and was very concerned about me. We had a Christmas Open House scheduled for the following evening. She said she was going to start calling to cancel. I protested and asked that she hang off a bit. I'd go to bed and rest a bit. While I was in bed, ...

Yesterday was spent in the basement building a generator. My son is entering a science fair at his high school and came up with this idea of creating light from a magnet. Simple, I thought, but wait... there's more. Building the generator, it turns out, was the simple part. He cruised the net and found plans, complete with measured drawings no less! A trip to Radio Shack for the electronic parts (wire and a bulb) and to Lee Valley Tools (my favourite store here in Ottawa) for the magnets ...