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Spa's Atlantic Retreat

Started by spa, February 25, 2007, 01:13:45 AM

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Jack_wilds

#660
SPA

Glad to hear your still around, and alive  :D...

Yea, yard work and honey do lists  "$Deal"$ makes for time consuming chore(s)  :P you think its gout weed that is bad to battle; its creeping charlie or dragonsblood that's hard to get rid of  ::)  :P

at any-rate... like the progress particularly the front -the main entry, and its a neat interesting collection of the cars... looking forward to the texturing phase to progress ... overall, its a great model interpretation of a complex structure  :thumbsup:

Jack

Lowkee33

I'll trade you for my violets :)

spa

Jack: Yep, still here :) Creeping Charlie eh? Never heard of that one, but a quick google of it brings up the same kind of vitriolic forum replies that googling gout weed does. Glad I don't have that one to contend with. Gout weed is quite enough thank you! Gout weed is one of the very first plants to pop out in the Spring so it gets a leg-up on everything else. If you let it, it'll crowd out everything. Had I been attuned to it earlier, I would have been out in April going after it. Sun Tzu wrote in the Art of War that to defeat your enemy, you must know him. Well gout weed is relentless in its spread so I have decided to be just as relentless in my attack. I start by clearing an area by hand, pulling every bit I can find out by as much root as I can get. After I'm done, I revisit the same spot every day or two to grab any new shoots that might pop up. Left to its devices, gout weed will be back with small shoots within a week. Keeping on top of it takes less time than the initial clearing so I have been steadily increasing the area that is cleared. Happily, I'm having some success. I started in the rock garden along the side of my house a few weeks ago. The gout weed in that section reacted defiantly to my first visit, popping back up in just days, but after several repeat visits, it's actually weakening. The shoots are taking longer and longer to come back and they're coming back in steadily decreasing numbers. Even if you can't get all the roots, no plant can survive without the sun! Pulling gout weed has kind of become an obssession, but most everything I do is somewhat obsessive.

Lowkee: haha done! Would you believe I'm actually planting violets! They're such a perfect little edging flower, require little attention, cost almost nothing, will seed themselves and come in multiple colours. Really goes to show you that the definition of weed varies from person to person. Some people, strange though they are, actually plant an ornamental version of gout weed (the ornamental is just as bad and in time reverts to its original plain green self).

magee_b

glad to see the update!  &apls

I'm headed back home to the Atlantic provinces next week and am looking forward to reconnecting with the architecture on the east coast!

Aaron Graham

Lovely details you have put on this building and I  also love the cars. I'm so so glad you have posted an update on this building, I want to see this finished. &apls
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Jack_wilds

#665
Here gout weed is mostly referred to as 'snow-in-the-mountain' or bishop's weed and is sold as an 'annual' ground cover -highly discouraged planting it, as it is noxious weed... Wikipedia is another place to look up these weeds and other horticultural specimens for a quick-simple-easy summary of plant data. 

A client I once had, insisted on it and now its all over, under the pine trees etc, -it even took over the broad-leaf plantain and hostas  &mmm ... in the horticultural landscape industry here, a Weed is a plant in the wrong place or one mans weed is another mans greens :D... Making it a very subjective determination on choosing recommendations for clients... who sometimes insist on things rather questionable.

Perhaps with all this talk about weeds... a boston or english ivy could be 'let loose' on an end of the dominion building  :P  ::)

Lowkee33

The back door seems a little small compared to the cars.  I'm sure you know better than me though.

Back to weeds :).  It got to the point where a whole weekend every year could be devoted to pulling out violets.  The problem is that they grow singularly and aren't simple to take out, you need to get the "bulbous" part of the root which goes into the dirt about an inch or so.  I don't think it's too far off an estimate to say my parent's yard has about 100-200 violets per square meter, and sections that are all violets.  At this point, my mother just tries to maintain a line.

I rent an apartment now, so as long as my garden is growing...   >:D

spa

Hello everyone. Hope the summer is going well. First, time for a few really, really late replies.

Magee: Thanks. Hope your trip back East is/has gone well. Summer was late arriving, but it was a nice July :)
Aaron: Slowly but surely I'm working on it. It will be finished one day, but I wouldn't want to guestimate when given my current pace.
Jack: Yep that's it. I can't believe that some irresponsible garden centres sell the stuff. It really should be banned. This year I basically wrote the east side of my property off until next year to focus on the west side. The strategy of concentrating my efforts rather than trying to do it all at once has actually produced some nice results. On the west side of my property, scattered fragments of gout weed root still send up a few shoots every week or so, but it's vigour has greatly diminished and it's on the run. Persistence and digging seems to be the key. I'm hoping that the winter will further weaken it and it'll just be a matter of plucking any survivers off in the Spring to clinch my victory. Next year, I can work to reclaim the other side and the year after that I'll try and figure out how to get it out of the lawn. It'll be a 3-5 year effort :)
Lowkee: Indeed it is and I wondered if someone would notice. Here's the thing though, the scale that Maxis used for buildings and cars wasn't very consistent. Maxis buildings are really small when compared to Maxis cars. Rather than have tiny cars relative to the game's default content or an overly large building, I replicated the same quirk. Better to fit in with what's already there has always been my approach. Here's a pic of my cars next to a Maxis car.

On weeds... at least violets are pretty! Gout weed has no redeeming characteristics as far as I can see. Still, violets spreading throughtout a lawn might be problematic. The varieties in use here in Nova Scotia are no where near that vigorous... or maybe it's just the Nova Scotia climate that keeps them in check.


So, as indicated in my last post from back in May, my Sim City time is a little limited right now as I'm putting a lot of effort into the backyard (planting, weeding and hauling rocks for edging). I don't think I'll have a whole lot of freetime to really concentrate on Sim City until the Fall. After Christmas though, I'll probably be back to limited time as my wife and I are expecting our first child J I have, however, been slowly picking away at the Dominion Public Building. I'm into texturing. Below is where it's heading.


I have to say, texturing this model is a real pain in the butt. Creating custom textures for all those stone walls and manipulating them so that the bricks line up is very time consuming and I still have a long way to go. Now that I have textured the atrium, you can kind of see the furniture in there. When I do the nighlighting, hopefully all those chair, table and potted plant models I made will be visible. Anyway, I'll update again when I have more progress to show. Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later.

Jack_wilds

Thanks for update.. as I was wondering about ya out there in the maritime...

also wondering about what you think of the notion -in keeping with the 'weeds' story line of late, to set an ivy lose on a side of the Dominion Bldg.

Sounds like you have a plan on tackling the 'bishops weed'... thats one of the things a house gives is a place to putz-n-putter around with.  And the new developments, a child "J" is on the way? life will never be the same :D super news. it sounds as life is really happening for you in 'Halifax' area. The Lord's peace and blessings keep you, your wife and family, the house all in goodness... :thumbsup: Life is good when there is someone to share it all with. 

Sage sayings to consider: it ain't the fishing its who you bring -life fishing, shared with good company makes it that much better... that is: adventure is in the living all of life, not so much adventurous activities to make a life

What I hope is this latest series gets finished and released before RL gets to be an issue... so heres hoping [emoticon w/ fingers crossed]  Like the textures so far your choice in materials is good-n-neat should make for a historical landmark for sim-cities everywhere... and the atrium plan sounds really neat  :thumbsup:

take care SPA hope to hear from ya soon

Jack

Mulu2065


spa

Thanks Jack and Mulu. It has been a while since I have posted. I honestly haven't done much on Sim City in the last two months. The wife and I are now only 3-4 weeks out from the birth of our first child, Janetta. We're quite excited, although Michelle is just ready to have pregnancy done with now. Over the last 2 weeks though, I have kind of picked up batting again on my long overdue set. First, I took the barely started bits of the Postal Station A and Annex, and finished the historic Prince William Street front of the building.

Still lots to do on the POA! The real building spans across a city block and has entrances on Prince William and Canterbury Streets. You can see it in real life here. I'm realizing that the big change in elevation between Prince William and Canterbury Streets means I'm not going to be able to replicate the real life building exactly. I'm either going to have add a few extra floors to the Annex (Canterbury Street side) or change how the two roofs line up since, without adding floors, the Annex won't be taller than the Postal Station. Will have to puzzle over that one some more, but I'm leaning on altering the roof since street level is what most people recognize.

Besides the POA, I have also been slowly working away at the textures on the Dominion Public Building. It's really slow going since I'm clipping from photos I have taken which means that each section needs to be adjusted to fit. Still, besides the tower, I'm pretty much done with the front now.

Anyway, the next few months have a lot of unknowns. I'm hoping that I'll be able to keep slowly picking at thing though in between diapers and sleep deprivation :)

Jack_wilds

Just glad to hear from you and life is filled with the expectation and anticipation of new life... ()stsfd()

tell your wife [at the right time mind ya] that its all temporary... its all part of the bigger picture for future and family... or whatever... I attempted to boost my sister-in-law's morale with this -it didn't work :-[... I guess about the only real way is to "take it one day at a time" just like it'll mean for raising a girl 'its one day at a time'  :P like a tree that grows one day at time, if your not watching; its gotten bigger -like my nephews and nieces growing up in Az. [how about that for soapbox wisdom  ???]

Looking forward to a lex release soonish...

Merry Christmas and blessed new year...

spa

Thanks Jack for words of wisdom. I don't have any Sim CitIy news, but I thought I would share that my daughter, Janetta Nan McCann arrived at 10:30 this morning Atlantic Time. The delivery was a little tough on Michelle, but both Mom and baby are doing fine. Janetta weighed in at 8 lbs 6 ounces and despite causing mom some pain and stitches, arrived with nary a bump or bruise on her. My folks were quite impressed as we have a bit of a family tradition of delivering babies that look like they've been to war and back. I did note that New years Eve is an unfortunate birthday as Janetta's birthday will always be overshadowed by the holiday. Michelle "helpfully" pointed out that it won't be all bad for her since when she's older all the boys will buy her drinks. Great! ;) Anyway, all seems well at this early point. Here are some pics we snapped earlier today.

Mom and baby

Me and baby

Ramona Brie


asturianu

Congratulations my friend! Those are some good news :)
and talking about simcity content, I love the new model and those cars...man we really need more american car props to fill parking spaces! Take care Sam

Cristian

io_bg

Congratulations! &apls That's a cute baby :P
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Delecto

Good news, 2012 will be a great year!  :sunny:



Sam.

art128

I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

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Jack_wilds

and now your life -lives, will never be the same... from pampers to 'daddy, can I have the keys'  :P peace and blessings keep you all well-n-good... see what happens with Halifax Boxes  :D

Sciurus

Congratulations for your baby Spa! &apls Have fun with her! ;)

Guillaume :thumbsup:
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