August 2025

• Went back to the Bay for  a beautiful quinceañera, wonderful time. 

• Plenty more time at the lake before the kids went back to school on the 19th. 

• The greatest fantasy football league, The Yay Don't Play, has entered its 16th year! The draft is in the books and The Flying Hopheads are facing Dooms Day D in week 1! 

• My mammoth sunflowers have reached over 9 feet! The seeds will continue developing as the flowers dry.  

• I've pruned the fruit trees and there is a bunch of new growth already, seems like a good sign. 

• Bought the wood for the next pergola project.

• Victoria has been making great progress in gymnastics and has started a kickboxing class! 🥊

• Declutter the closet/eBay project has reached over 60 sales this year, but the "to sell" pile is only getting bigger 😂

• Was not planning on doing any PC upgrades, but an Intel promo & Newegg made it hard to say no to "upgrading" my CPU from i5-13600k to i5-14600k. They are literally paying people to upgrade 😁

• What we are playing: I finished Oblivion Remastered. Lil K is into Spider-Man Remastered. 

• Shows: The Old Man, Wednesday, Butterfly, Poker Face, King of The Hill.

• Movies: Heads of State, BLACKPINK: Light Up the Sky, The Pickup, The Bling Ring, Eighth Grade, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Superman (2025), The Bad Guys 2, MI: Final Reckoning, Terminator Dark Fate, Land.

• Golden State Valkyries have clinched the playoffs and Aryna Sabalenka wins the US Open!

July 2025

Busy month, Lil V turns 9 and Mishka tuns 1!

• A trip to the city and a stop at Fort Funston reminded us of the frigid SF summers we left behind ❄️🥶😀

• V and I got kayaks for our birthdays and we've been out on the water a few times already. Would love to explore more lakes. Also setup a "Swedish Wall" for V as part of her bday gift🪜

• Checked out the nearby Honey Run Bridge, an all wood, covered bridge built in 1887, burned down in 2018 and freshly rebuilt just last month.  Beautiful workmanship.

• Harvested just a few delicious plums from our tree and collected some wild blackberries for a jam. Our Mammoth sunflowers are starting to bloom. A friendly neighbor a few miles down had an over abundance of apricots on his tree - V and I picked 20 pounds in just minutes, ate half and made jam with the rest. I need more apricot trees. 

• A little quiet on the PC front, although I did get to play with and refurbish a ThinkPad X1 Yoga 7th Gen for a friend. A solid laptop. Otherwise I have been busy with reducing the size of my media library via x265/HEVC conversion, a task made so much quicker with the latest Nvidia cards.  

• Completed restoration of a vintage dresser, custom ordered by lil V. Took close to 40 hours requiring lots of patching and reinforcing due to its age. Turned out great - photos on the wood projects page.

• What we are playing: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. 

• Shows: Project Blue Book, Ironheart, American Murder: Gabby Petito, Why Women Kill, The Loud House, Phineas and Ferb, The Osbournes ✝️

• Movies: Fantastic 4 and Smurfs at the cinema. The Truman show, Mama Mia! series, How to Train Your Dragon series, My Mom Jane, Midsommar, Karate Kid Legends, Ballerina, Milli Vanilli doc, K-Pop Demon Hunters, Happy Gilmore 2, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Last Show Girl. And of course Black Sabbath - Back To The Beginning, the final concert.  

• RIP OZZY 🤘✝️

June 2025

• The truck got some love with refurbished door panels: new folding mirrors, window rubber, JBL speakers, and sound deadening material. A few photos on the cars page.

• Wood projects update: restored a 35 year old cedar chest, built a dog food/water bowl stand, working on restoring a vintage dresser. Some photos on the wood projects page.

• The fruit trees are over 7 feet tall now and looking good :) We harvested a small handful of black currants, a couple of plums and a beautiful nectarine - looking forward to more in years to come. Planted some sunflowers next to the grapes. 

• eBay store has  been doing well. Trying something new with print-on-demand items. Also available as a stand alone store here: https://kamtoria.printify.me/ Very much a work in progress. 

• The annual camping trip to the Mendocino coast was a wonderful change of scenery. Beautiful and a bit chilly, as always. 

• What we are playing: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. Victoria and I are playing the new POPUCOM - great coop fun. The kids are into some new garden game in Roblox.

• Shows: Squid Game S3, Project Blue Book, Fubar S2, Phineas and Ferb, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Reacher, Clarkson's Farm, Ginny & Georgia, Sirens.

• Movies: We saw Lilo & Stitch and Elio in theaters. Summer movie season is on at the house: Secret Mall Apartment, Deep Cover, Old Guy, The Ramen Girl,  The Boy and The Heron, Friendship, Sacramento, In The Lost Lands, Snow White, Novocaine, Black Bag, Cleaner, The Order, The Accountant 2, Back in Action, Riff Raff, The Amateur, A Working Man.

• Let's go Golden State Valkyries!!!

April/May 2025

It's been a busy couple of months. I had to pull some wisdom teeth, delaying progress, but all is good now. Some highlights:

• Finished building our deck and we are loving it! Build photos on the wood projects page.

• On the PC front: Upgraded the CPU, GPU, RAM and cooler on my main PC and refurbished and resold three Dell laptops. More photos on the PCs page. 

• The fruit trees and raspberries are thriving. The strawberries and potatoes not so much. The compost mix I planted them in was too hot. Also, after the last spring rains the soil level in the raised beds went down significantly. Lessons learned. Better soil and perhaps a shade component coming soon. 

• Spring turns to summer pretty quick around here. We've had a a few 90 degree days in late April and our first river swim day of the year is in the books!

• eBay store has  been doing well. All March and April items sold and new items are being posted now.

• What we are playing: finally finished Red Dead Redemption 2, currently deep into The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. Victoria and I are also enjoying Nikoderiko - The Magical World in coop mode. 

• Shows we are watching: The Americans, Andor Season 2, The White Lotus Season 3, The Handmaid's Tale Season 6, and Poker Face Season 2. Looking forward to MobLand, Lazarus, and The Studio.

• Movies we are watching: We saw Minecraft and the awesome Thunderbolts* in the theaters. The Electric State was a disappointment, but Nonnas was excellent. Sacramento and a few others are next in queue.

• Let's go Golden State Valkyries!!!

March 2025

• Kamtoria Jewelry Design Studio put on hold until later in the year due to other projects and health taking priority.

• eBay store in full swing, link in the next section. 

• Landscaping and garden have been taking all my time this year. So far I've planted about 100 strawberry plants, five varieties of potatoes, three varieties each of blueberries and raspberries. The fruit trees planted in late January are looking great. We have three different multi grafted trees with cherries, peaches, nectarines, and plums. Along with regular rainier cherry and apricot trees. Meyer lemon, navel orange, and satsuma mandarin round out the citrus. At the front of the house I've planted gooseberry, black currant, honeyberry, rosemary, and lavender replacing much of the useless plants planted by the builder.