Finally Done

Friday, 27 August, 2010 - Yesterday, we finally got the new bathroom counter and sink installed (click here for the photo). This install was the last major renovation item off our list, so we are now done with the improvements the place needed when we bought it.
    Of course, we've also had to deal with a few things that have come up since then, like the clog in the sewer line that happened a month ago and we learned the plumber (Don) who fixed the problem was also licensed for electrical, cooling, and heating work.
    This turned out to be very valuable information when two weeks ago the central air conditioner blower suddenly developed a horrible noise. So we called Don who came right over and quickly found the problem was a pulley had come loose. Unfortunately, in the process of working loose it had damaged the shaft it had been attached to and getting the shaft replaced took a week.
    However, while Don was here we arranged for him to install the new bathroom counter and sink (both of which we had already picked up and were stored in the basement) and to install a doorbell (when we're up front we can't hear it if someone visits and knocks on the back door, the main entry to the house) and to install a dedicated power line up to the electric fireplace in the TV credenza (photo above). There was only one circuit on that wall and it didn't have enough power to safely run the TV and fireplace at the same time. So now the fireplace has plenty of juice. I expect it will be getting a fair bit of use come this winter.
    Don did an excellent job on everything, which is saying something because installing the new bathroom counter and sink was quite a challenge due to everything having no room to spare, at all. He made it look almost easy.
    So, I'm happy to report that we're down to the small jobs (like touching up paint, installing a garage door opener, etc.) that we can handle ourselves and none too soon because I'm just about burned out on dealing with this stuff. I'm ready for a calm and tranquil routine to get settled into.
    For Sandra's accounts of things since my last report, click here. For my latest photos, click here.

Two For Two

Friday, 20 August, 2010 - I'm very happy to report that Wednesday morning we once again made the 75km (47 mile) drive to Ottawa where Sandra successfully had her second cataract removed, this one from her left eye. So she is now cataract-free in both eyes and with the lens implants they replaced her natural lenses with, her vision is not only now clear but she no longer needs to wear glasses. She is ecstatic, having had to wear fairly strong glasses her entire life before this. And, of course, a happy wife makes for a happy husband.
    Then yesterday we had to return to Ottawa for Sandra's post-op checkup with the eye surgeon to see how the eye was healing and it got a clean bill of health. The next checkup isn't until next week, so we'll get a break from all the driving and Sandra is talking about driving herself to the next checkup which will give me an even longer break. Unfortunately, yesterday's checkup put us leaving the hospital at evening rush hour and with all the much needed road work being done to Ottawa streets, we encountered bumper-to-bumper backups everywhere we turned. I won't miss driving in the city.
    The photo above was taken of a nearby field which looked pretty with wildflowers and dawn mist.
    For Sandra's accounts of things since my last report, click here. For my latest photos, click here.

Well Hung

Sunday, 15 August, 2010 - I suppose some might think that headline could be an anatomical reference, but my meaning is nothing so crude. What I refer to is the door I hung yesterday on our office (computer room), the door shown in the photo here, and I'm happy to report the job, with the able assistance of Sandra now and then, went well.
    Hanging a door is a fair bit of a chore and one I've done in the past, although that was decades ago. Fortunately, I hadn't forgotten how it's done, but it is not a chore I enjoy doing, unlike the handier kind of guy, so it's one I've been dragging my feet on, especially since the door opening isn't a standard size, which required sawing off some from the top and bottom of the door and the door it replaces was an accordion door, so hinge and strike plate recesses for the new door had to be chiseled out. In days past, the lumber/hardware store that sold the door would trim it for you, but sadly that no longer seems the case, so I had to do the trimming myself and that's a job I'm poorly equipped for. However I did manage to get acceptably straight cuts with a regular old circular saw, having first practiced on a few less important doors around the house that didn't have adequate clearance from the carpet beneath them.
    The fact the new door is a French door full of glass panes also meant greater care had to be taken with it, however it survived the operation unshattered and I managed to chisel out the hinge recesses and cut out the doorknob and bolt openings with all hardware lining up properly between door and frame, so I'm quite happy to have this nasty little job out of the way. Slowly but surely, we are whittling down the list of home improvement tasks this place needed when we bought it.
    One other cool item gotten out of the way recently was taking delivery Thursday of a new upright freezer Sandra has been wanting. We had purchased it at Leon's Furniture in Ottawa on Monday when we were in the city for one of Sandra's eye doctor appointments. I think the last big items she wants (for now) are some kind of storage unit for the basement and replacing the bathroom counter and sink.
    For her accounts of things since my last report, click here. For my latest photos, click here.

One Down, One To Go

Sunday, 8 August, 2010 - This past Wednesday Sandra had the first of her two cataract surgeries, this one removing the cataract from her right eye, so one down and one to go. The left eye is to be done two weeks after that one. All has gone well post-op and now Sandra is looking forward to the second surgery. She says she sees much better now with the repaired eye.
    Otherwise, not much newsworthy happened around here until yesterday when we took the new car out for a fairly long drive of 180 km (112 Miles). Click here for a map.
    We first headed southeast to Brockville on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River. From there our cell phones can reach Verizon cell signals across the river in New York state, so we like to update our cell phones' roaming capability when we're along the Saint Lawrence. However, in Brockville we encountered traffic snarling crowds (we later learned they were resulting from Brockville's Ribfest), so we left as soon as we could crawl our way through them and headed southwest to pick up the very scenic Thousand Island Parkway.
    We've driven along this parkway numerous times in the past, but not in the last few years so it was good to see it again. Along there it is also close enough to New York to allow updating our cell phones so we did.
    Also along there is the riverside tourist village of Rockport, which is nothing at all like its namesake town in Texas, but still interesting as one can get a ride on a tour boat of the famed Thousand Islands from there, as seen in the photo above. Here we again encountered quite a crowd, milling around and impeding traffic, having no concept, apparently, that oncoming vehicles could do them bodily harm and showing little interest in getting out of the way. We did manage to park without running over anyone, although it was tempting, and walked around for a while taking photos.
    From there, it was back to the parkway and on to Gananoque, another riverside town where we found a parking spot waiting for us, so we took it and had a bite to eat at Tilly's restaurant. We weren't terribly impressed with Tilly's, but were impressed that once again we encountered quite a crowd along the sidewalks and heavy traffic in the streets. It seems that thousands of people had the same idea we did, that the Saint Lawrence was the place to visit on an absolutely gorgeous day.
    For much greater detail and more photos, visit Sandra's blog here. My latest photos are here.

The New Car

Saturday, 31 July, 2010 - Yesterday, as planned, we took possession of our new car, the little Rio5 EX Sport from Kia. It is quite a change from the one-ton truck, going from mighty to mini and from Big Larry (the name we gave the truck) to Squirt (our current name of choice for the car, subject to change).
    The dealership we bought the car from, Street Kia, seems quite good, at least to this point. Their staff has all been courteous, friendly, and helpful to a fault. So far the only problem we've had with the car is Sandra's keyless remote didn't work, but the dealer immediately found what was wrong (the remote had lost its memory) and reprogrammed it. Hopefully, this isn't a sign of the onset of Alzheimer's in her remote and it doesn't happen again, but unlike the truck, there's no penalty for unlocking the car with the key if it has been locked with the remote. If the truck is locked with the remote and then unlocked with the key, the alarm goes off and the truck won't start for 15 minutes (as I recall).
    Anyway, we took the car out for a sunset drive last evening and I took it out for my usual sunrise drive this morning (and got the photo here) and the car performed well. Of course, it should, being brand new.
    Ours is the top of the line Rio5, so it has a whack of features, like the larger 15 inch wheels, a sunroof, heated seats, fog lights, rear spoiler, dual power heated mirrors, Bluetooth which works with our cell phones, and inputs for external MP3 devices. We had to get this model in order to get a couple of my must-have features (ABS brakes and cruise control), but it's missing a few things we use in the truck all the time, like the compass, thermometer, and mileage display. It also doesn't have 4-wheel drive, which I'd have really liked (4WD has saved my bacon more than once in the truck), but none of the cars in this class seem to offer 4WD anymore, so I'll have to make do with front-wheel drive alone. It does come with roadside assistance in case I ever do get stuck.
    For Sandra's account of yesterday's purchase, click here. For my latest photos, click here.

The Last Tow

Thursday, 29 July, 2010 - Early this afternoon, we drove over to Tranquil Acres Camping RV Park where our former RV still resides and per our agreement with its new owners, we moved it for them from our seasonal site onto their new seasonal site, which is down by the river (Canadian Mississippi) with a great view of the water. We could have had a site down there too, but trees blocked a clear view of the satellites, so we never took it.
    It's been nine months now since I last towed the RV and for that reason I was just a little nervous about doing it this final time and also for the fact that the RV now belongs to someone else, however all went smoothly and I managed to avoid close encounters with anything getting it down to the river, even on the final turn in the laneway which was quite tight, and pulled the rig onto its new and permanent site without incident.
    So, this last tow severed one of the final remaining threads to our life as full-time RVers because having fulfilled that agreement we are free to sell the truck once we take possession of the new car tomorrow. When the truck sells, our lives as RVers will be nothing but fond memories and thousands of photos.
    After the move was completed and we bid farewell to Tranquil Acres, we took advantage of being in the Ottawa area by stopping at a couple of Home Depots (one being where I took the orchid photo above) and bought a new sink for the bathroom and a French door for the office. Sandra will no doubt go into detail on those purchases, so I'll let you read about them in her blog.
    For her accounts of things since my last report, click here. For my latest photos, click here.

A New Car

Thursday, 29 July, 2010 - Yesterday we signed the papers on a new car, our first new vehicle in 6 years and our first new car in 8 years. It is a 2010 Kia Rio5 EX Sport.
    We will no doubt take some grief from our brother-in-law John because the Kia is an import and he thinks people in North America should buy North American cars, but we got the class of car we wanted, bought it locally, and got the best deal at Kia.
    Anyway, we've only signed the papers so far because the local dealer didn't have exactly what we wanted in stock (unless we wanted fire engine red), but they quickly tracked one down at a Kia dealer in Bracebridge, five hours from here, and it should be in tomorrow and look like the photo above - silver in color. We learned from our last car, a light gold 2002 Saturn, the joys of having a car the color of road dirt and salt since those things don't show up nearly as much as they do on a darker or much lighter color. The truck is a dark maroon and it shows dirt as soon as we drive it away from the car wash, so it perpetually looks dirty.

A Near Disaster

Sunday, 25 July, 2010 - Well, we had some real excitement around here. Unfortunately, it wasn't the good kind.
    It started Friday morning when I smelled something crappy, literally. I tracked the odor down to the basement where I found the toilet and wash bowl there both full to the brim with vile disgusting sewage! We've had trouble with that toilet not flushing properly so we haven't been using it, although I thought the plumber we had in a while ago had fixed it. My first thought when I saw the sewage was that one of the construction people who have been working around here had to make an emergency pitstop, had used the toilet, and simply hadn't told us that it hadn't flushed properly. This would have been irritating but not disastrous. Then my second and far worse thought was the city sewer line was backing up into the basement. I actually had this happen once years ago and that event left an indelible scar on my memory.
    Anyway, we called the plumber, who said he couldn't make it until the next day and then called later and said he couldn't make it at all and gave us the name of another plumber to call. Thinking the sewage had come from the city sewer backing up and it had receded during the next few hours, I didn't call him, thinking the problem had gone away, but Saturday morning when we went through the same thing all over again with the basement toilet, we called the other plumber, who arrived and fixed the problem, which turned out to be a clog in the outside sewer line to the street, so the back up was all internal to our system, which was far better that than having had the sewage coming from the outside. Fortunately, the toilet never overflowed or a scary situation would have gotten really ugly.
    The silver lining on this crappy cloud is we learned this plumber is very good and is also licensed for electrical, heating, and cooling (he was the one who actually installed the central air in this house years ago), so he's a good person to know.
    Of a less traumatic nature, Tuesday I saw the doctor who gave me the test results of my annual physical and I passed them all with flying colors and Thursday, Bath Fitters installed our new shower and tub liners, which are a big improvement over what had been there.
    And the handyman and his helpers finished the new front porch, which as can be seen in the photo above, is actually a small deck. You can see the difference from the old porch by clicking here.
    For Sandra's accounts of things since my last report, click here. For my latest photos, click here.

Sandra Assessed

Friday, 16 July, 2010 - Where does the time go? I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since my last report, but nothing terribly newsworthy happened until yesterday when we drove to Ottawa for Sandra's pre-op assessment at the Riverside Hospital for her upcoming cataract surgery. She was duly assessed and scheduled for the first eye surgery to be done in early August and the second surgery two weeks after that.
    While her assessment was being done, due to the high cost of parking at the hospital and me having my entire offsite photo archive collection in the truck ready to drop off at John and Margie's, I drove to a nearby park along the Rideau River where free shaded parking can be found (the shade being important because it was 90°F (32°C) and if parked in the sun the truck interior would have gotten blisteringly hot and I didn't want to put the DVDs in my photo archives at risk from the heat) and spent the time waiting for Sandra by photographing the birds that can always be found in that park, photo above being one of them.
    So, as mentioned, I finally got my photo archive collection (481 DVDs) updated, having replaced 50 or so generic DVDRs that had gone bad (and thus destroying my faith in the integrity of DVDRs as a reliable backup medium) and got the entire collection copied to hard drives. The primary archive consists of two sets of DVDs (481 DVDs in each of two identical sets for a total currently of 962 DVDs), one set I keep with me and the second set stored offsite in case the first set was ever destroyed, and since moving out of the RV I've had both sets with me (a risky situation), so it was quite a relief to have gotten the second set located offsite again. Having to check 962 DVDs to see which had gone bad, replace those with new copies from the other set (which fortunately were all good), verify the integrity of the new copies and catalog them, and get all 481 DVDs copied onto two hard drives has been an absolutely huge and incredibly time consuming job, but the photos in the archive represent six years of effort and if I lost them it would be a personal disaster.
    Anyway, another major photographic event we recently had was getting a large photo-quality print made of one of my photos (the one seen here), framing it, and delivering that to the Spotlight on the Rideau, a local art gallery and retail store that wants to display (and hopefully sell) some of my photography. I have two more photos to have printed and framed and then we'll see if any of those first three sell before I do more.
    Otherwise, we've just been dealing with a heat wave, getting things done around the house, and driving around the area a lot photographing the abundance of photogenic sunrises and sunsets we've been having lately, such as this one.
    For Sandra's accounts of things since my last report, click here. For my latest photos, click here.


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Updated Friday, August 27, 2010

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