A Few Quick Notes - 626

-It seems we've finally begun to move towards late Fall and then Winter.  A few days ago we had our first flurries of the season and we've not had a real snowfall enter the forecast (though I'm not completely convinced it will materialize).

-I guess that means it's finally time to start thinking about putting the snow back on the car?  It feels as though we only took them off a few weeks ago.  Bummer.

-Much to our surprise we ended up with about 72 Trick or Treaters by the time we made our way across town for a party.  Had we stayed we surely could have broken 80 as the streets were still teeming as we pulled out of the driveway.  At least from the candy perspective it was good we left when we did - we were basically on empty.

-As we spoke to a neighbour and her son just before we left we were informed that one of our other neighbours (on the de classe side of the street which isn't technically even on our street) was jumping out and chasing kids with a real chain saw.  Maybe this had a negative impact on our numbers?

-To attend our Halloween party I dressed as a Saturday morning hockey Dad.  Of course, because I have no idea what a Saturday morning hockey dad really looks like I just wore my paint and tar stained jeans (they're my only jeans), a tee shirt, a flannel jacket/overshirt, and a toque.  Of course, I also grabbed the largest size coffee available from Canada's favoured coffee retailer.  I'm not really sure if I looked like a hockey dad at all, but at least I got to look like a dirt bag for a bunch of uncostumed people at the party.

A Few Quick Notes 616

-Today has been see-sawing between sunny periods and grey periods.  Despite the less than perfect weather, it is much warmer and generally much nicer than when we arrived in Regina at this time of year two years ago.  At the time Wascana Lake had already frozen and it wasn't until Spring that we had temperatures this warm.

-Yes, we've now been in Regina for just over two years (though three Halloweens).  Last night we had dinner at the restaurant we first visited on our first night in town.  The time has really flown by.

-Yesterday we went to Moose Jaw for the day to participate in an Ultimate tournament.  Because we're too old for that kind thing (though we did manage to beat two younger teams) we're really feeling the effects today in a bad way.  Hopefully we won't be in too much pain by the time we need to head to work tomorrow morning.

-My Margaret Wente pumpkin was a bit of a bust - not a single kid (or parent) commented on it.  Maybe today's kids just aren't up on their national newspaper columnists?  Or maybe I did a bad job carving her likeness? Or, more likely, both?

Jack-o-Lantern time

So because we finally live in an apartment that might be visited by Trick-or-Treaters we decided it would be appropriate if we had a jack-o-lantern. Because my family has a long tradition of having politically themed jack-o-lanterns I realized that I needed to come up with an appropriate and well-known figure on the Canadian political scene to morph into a jack-o-lantern.

Of course, it didn't take long to narrow the pack to Darryl Dexter and Stephen Harper. Given Dexter's more limited weight on the national stage Harper became the choice by default.

The next part of the project was to figure out how to get Harper's face on a pumpkin. At first I tried to find a stencil online. Much to my surprise I was almost immediately successful.

Harper

Not too long ago the Globe and Mail made the above stencil available to the public. Sadly, this wasn't exactly what I was looking for. I was less interested in caricature and more interested in just a standard rendering of Harper.

After we purchased our pumpkin last night I settled on making my own stencil, even though I had no idea how I would go about such a task.

This morning I started my stencil making project by looking for suitable photos of Harper. Almost immediately I came across the classic Harper and kitty shot.

I then chopped the head out and started to turn it into a stencil.

After just a few iterations I had something I thought I could work with.

With my stencil now in hand I was reading to start the carving process. To start I affixed the
stencil to the pumpkin and began tracing the black areas by jabbing the pumpkin with a pin. After maybe twenty minutes I had a largely useless partial outline of the stencil. Eventually I reattached the stencil and began re-tracing the black areas with a knife.

Eventually the face began to take shape from the mass of the pumpkin. And then almost immediately it was clearly a face, if not clearly Harper's face.

Now that I have had a chance to examine my work my guess is that my stencil wasn't quite as good as I thought it was. Maybe it was also a little too large? Anyway, I think I will need to work on my technique a little for next year's iteration.

At the moment I suspect that my pumpkin would really only be recognizable in the following context.

And that's hardly a context in which I can display the pumpkin.