Trilobite

Celine, Christine, and I drove to Pittsburgh Thursday night to visit Peter and Gina. Mom drove down from London the next day. We were a bit worried that we’d have to wait a long time at the border when the car in front of us got searched, but we were let through without any trouble. As usual, we stopped in Angola for a rest. Celine picked up some tourist guides and we plan to drive home along the south shore of Lake Ontario and see the sights. As soon as we got to Peter’s house Sweetie bit me, but she seems have taken a liking to Christine.

I was keen to see the computers in Peter’s basement. The one on the right is gollum, where michael.lehotay.com is hosted. The Compaq on the left is kenny, a 486 that used to belong to Christine but she hardly ever used it because it was too slow for her. Now it runs Linux and is the router and gateway for Peter’s whole network. Peter has “modded” his xbox and hooked it up to his network. He installed a media player on it and can show multimedia from his wireless network on his TV.

More photos: treating the pool, emailing Rheni

There was a lab picnic at Gould Lake last Friday. We all took the day off from work and went swimming, canoeing, and hiking. John and I even fit in a bit of geocaching.

On Saturday Celine and I took Thesia and the kids to Prince Edward County to visit the animal sanctuary [caffeinating, waiting for the ferry, chicks, cougar, tigers, raw meat, captive audience, wolves, cute furry rodent, feeding the goats, sticky hands, sleeping lion, bunny, geese, our favourite animal]. Afterwards we did a bit of geocaching [Fizi, benchmark, Birdhouse City]. On the ferry ride home we enjoyed the pretty sunset.

Sunday we went to the cottage for a swim. Sheera thought the water was too cold in the middle of the lake. At dusk we loaded five people into the canoe and paddled out to see the beavers. I really liked that. Later Fizi taught Celine how to play Yu-Gi-Oh.

Yesterday some of the windows and doors were put in at the house. So were the electrical boxes and some of the heating vents. And something is happening with the front steps. Views from inside: kitchen door, bay window.

One of the neighbours told me he doesn’t want Celine’s parents to build a new fence along the laneway. His complaint is that he would be responsible for maintaining his side of it along the 13 meters that borders his property, and that he much prefers maintaining the inexpensive 45 year old chain link fence.

I have set up the blog so that visitors can make comments (click on the “comments” link at the bottom of the post). Write a comment when you want to add more information to something you see on the blog, or to ask me or Celine to clarify something. Enjoy!

11 days ago: The walls at the house have been finished [front, side, inside, left, right, back]. Also, many pipes were attached to the sewer connection in the basement. Gisele’s hot peppers are growing very nicely.

8 days ago: The roof sections have arrived. Some of them are already on top of the house, and some are neatly stacked inside. It looks like they’ve already started to assemble it. The gravel in the basement and garage has been leveled out by some sort of flattening machine.

7 days ago: This morning the construction crew was putting up the roof and installing a hydro box. I went by again in the afternoon and saw them lifting the roof sections with a crane. They had also poured concrete over the power cables.

6 days ago: The frame of the roof is finished and now they are putting plywood boards on top of it. The hydro box is connected to a breaker board, which has a ground wire running to the water pipe. The temporary supports for the main floor have been replaced with steel posts. It looks like they are burying some warning tape above the power cables.

5 days ago: There is now a roof above the front porch, and there are many holes in the walls and floor for the plumbing. The contractors left the blueprints behind today and you can see the changes they made when Celine’s parents decided to take four feet off the length of the house.

4 days ago: The meter was put on the hydro box today, and there are already a few kilowatt hours on it! The windows in the foundation walls were cut to exact size, and the one in the garage seems to have turned into a door. The showers and roof shingles were delivered.

Yesterday: The basement floor has been poured! The sump pit is about a meter deep. Most of the shingles are up and some vents have been cut in the roof. A few more cinder blocks were placed on the front step and between the garage doors.

Today: The roof looks finished. The construction crew has started putting in the pipes for the plumbing. They are using yellow goo to seal the threads at the joints. Three cables have been connected at the top of the utility pole. I thought the power was already connected, so I’m not sure what these are.

The neighbours have been a bit more friendly lately. The other day one of them called to say he saw some kids pull up in a van and steal some 2×6’s.

Thesia, Sheera, and Fizi are telling me what to write for this post, but they are all talking at once and I can’t make sense of what they are saying. If it were up to Thesia this would be a novel!

We went to the Spit on Wolfe Island and swam at the beautiful sandy beach, then got soaked by a freakish typhoon. The kids didn’t complain though, and wanted to finish the 10km hike. We had to wade through the lake and Thesia ruined her boots. [Lining up, on the ferry, getting wet, fossil hunting, fossil, moth, geocaching, small cars].

We spent a couple days at the cottage. Rheni and Steve brought a trampoline which took four hours to assemble. Jennifer & Roy were there, which was nice. They brought their dog Sydney. [Stretching, testing, Celine, grasshopper, glam queen].

We visited Eagle Lake [dock, mushroom, Sheera, guy talk, Evan, kids eating, Noella]. Celine and I had to to leave early to go to a barbecue at one of my coworker’s house. After we left the kids went tubing. From what they say it sounds like water-skiing, but with several people hanging on to an inner tube.

Hmmm. It seems that I need to do some catching up with the blog, especially with the photos of the house. Here is a quick post before I go to bed.

Rheni had the whole family over for dinner [eating, lots of cameras, Evan].

We went to Nepean to spend the last weekend at the house before the sale is finalized [wine, empty, #44, camping, breakfast].

The neighbours at the cottage have put a trailer on the beach. Steve suggested we spray some graffitti on it because it is blocking our view of their property .

The walls are going up at the house [outside, inside]. These pictures are from July 13th. It looks very different now.

Thesia and Fizi made a cheesecake [smashing the crackers, is it done yet?, mosaic, tasting].

Yesterday was cow leg day at work. I took the day off because I always find it disturbing and didn’t want to be anywhere nearby. I need a new career. Good thing I’m quitting in six weeks ! I spent the day taking Banjo for a long walk, catching up on my sleep, and sorting through a couple gigabytes of photos on my hard drive.

Around the end of June we hid a new geocache near the Kingston Mills lockstation. We went to the Mills with the cache a year or two ago but decided not to hide it until we were more familiar with the area and could pick the best spot. So, after a bunch of exploratory trips, we’ve finally decided to put it under a blueberry patch. There is a blue heron that lives nearby. We’ve seen him looking for fish in the locks a couple of times.

The next day we went hiking on the Rideau Trail and had a picnic on the shore of Buck Lake. The trail doesn’t go right to the lake and we had to do a bit of searching to find a place we liked. Banjo didn’t need any convincing to get in the water, but we didn’t think it looked clear enough to swim in. One day I want to go back there and hike further down that part of the trail. There are supposed to be some waterfalls a few kilometers in!

The following week we went geocaching in Napanee [rain, falls, field]. Another day I really enjoyed finding an underwater cache [gearing up, 50 meters out, back on shore].

Celine’s friend Cecilia came to town for a day with a couple friends and we took them out for a drink.

A couple of weeks ago when I was at the house the gardener who is working on the neighbour’s yard came over to talk to me. He said this guy had been “taking stuff.” I asked him what he meant and he replied, “I don’t know, bits of lumber. Yesterday I saw him with a saw blade. I just thought you should know in case one day something big goes missing.” I’m not going to let myself get upset about the crazy neighbours any more.

I have to go to work now. I’ve still got lots of photos of Thesia, Sheera, and Fizi to post. I’ll try to do that in the next day or two.

The main floor of the house was started on Wednesday [front, back, top] and finished on Thursday [front, back, basement, foam]. Today the guys came back and started working on the walls [top, side, outhouse, back].

The newspapers covering the neighbour’s yard are gone.

I have decided what courses I want to take this year. Fall term: CSC309, CSC343, CSC363, STA247. Spring term: CSC263, CSC324, MAT224, MAT344. All year: MAT237. Some of these are going to seem pretty familiar, but I’m sure I could use the review. The registration process begins next Monday morning and the first day of classes is September 9th. I managed to arrange my schedule so I’ll have Fridays off during the fall.