Two vehicles in a row where I didn't drive my previous veicle into the ground/have a major car-driving-ending-experience-thus-causing-a-frenzied-replacing-car-buying-experience.

So with much further ado, here's the breakdown--

Used Vehicle Transfer Sheets--

$20.00

Safety on vehicle--

$66.12

Emmissions Check--

$37.45

Licencing/MTO Standard Fees--

$107.85

First fill-up--

42 dollars

Driving around in a 1991 Honda Civic 4 door station wagon--

Priceless

Yep, it's true! We are the proud owners of a Honda.

For those of you unfamiliar with the history of Dave and Hondas, I'll bring you up to speed--

My cousin Jim gave me my first car--it was a 1979 Honda Civic. Drove it for about 3 weeks before I wrote it off in a single vehicle accident involving a country road and a deep ditch.

My second car--one in which my mom purchased for me--a 1983 Honda Accord 4 door sedan. This was a fantastic car and I drove it for a few years before someone smashed into it.

The 1986 Honda Prelude came next--over 10 years for that car--it was a beautiful little car that I drove *everywhere* in--even up to Sault Ste Marie ('cause of friends up there in the north country).

Eventually, however, the '86 prelude--which acculmulated well over 300,000 kms on it, was costing too much money to repair. And when the radiator, muffler--and a few other 'needs to be replaced' things totalling over 1800 dollars--went on it, I got my mechanic to find me a cheap ride.

Thus entered the non Honda in the story--one 1985 Buick Skyhawk. Never happy with it but it was a relaible vehicle.

Thank goodness my friend Rick sold me his 1988 Dodge Dakota pickup truck for 500 bones pretty soon after that. The Mighty Dodge (tm) has lasted well over 9 years with us, and we still haven't parted with it. But now enters the new (to us) Honda.

The Honda comes from my uncle George--he bought it in 1991 right off the dealership, so it's only had the one driver before me.

I'm pretty happy about it

But hey, going with the flow...

Yep, world! You can now find me on 'facebook'

Dave's Facebook Profile

So do what facebookers do--add me to your profiles!

Sandy's also there, so click on her beautiful picture on my profile and add her, too!

The times--they are a changin'...

So I'm (again) reading one of my favourite blogs--Wil Wheaton dot Net--and he's been mentioning his speech for the 'Gene Roddenberry's induction into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame'.

(K, for me--why did it take this long to get GR into the SF Hall fo Fame? Unless this was the first year for inductees, 'cause, out of the history of SF, there's HG Wells and then there's Roddenberry--know what I mean?)

Anyway, on his blog he had this to say--

So I went over to his 'Geek in Review'--yet another on-line writing of Wil's (he certainly writes lots...) and I, along with Wil's parents and the rest of the reading audience, got to experience it--live (well, as live as the medium of text can make something live).

I liked how he lead us into his speech, and how he touched what I consider to be the 'high points' of appreciating science fiction--

And then he went into what Gene, thru Star Trek, inspired--

But then he got nasty by evoking the emotional thing--

I knew where Wil was going ('cause I've perused his blogs in the past and know that Gene gave Will the bars many years ago on the set ot TNG) and my eyes were already getting misty.

Wil's writings just pull me in--absolutely fantastic.

Well, I can't say anything else.

Sandy and I have been contemplating the idea of redoing our existing kitchen. Long-time readers of our little site may recall that we gave our kitchen a quick paint-job and a few touch-ups last year.

Well, we're talking about something quite significantly bigger. It won't happen soon--probably not until 2008, but we're ruminating on the idea--pulling in various plans and suggestions from all around.

So with much further ado, here's where we stand--

Our existing main floor plan:

And a zoom-in on the kitchen portion--

As you can see by the floor plan, we have this 10 foot by 11 foot area below the current kitchen that's pretty much used for, well, storage at this time.

Our first idea (as inspired by a trip to Ikea) was to turn the existing sink/countertop into an island and have the dining room moved to the 10 x 11 area--

The plusses--during gatherings, the kitchen is the focal point and anyone workign in the kitchen has full viewable access to the entire main floor.

There were a few problems with this idea, however--that little wall to the bottom of the kitchen sink island has to stay right where it is--it contains the pillars that support the beams for the second floor. As well, the cold air return to the furnace gows thru that wall--can't move it. Moreover, the expense incurred by setting up two beams when replacing load bearing walls--pretty steep on the money side.

So another idea was thrown around--the classic 'horseshoe kitchen'--

Going with this idea, we move the entire kitchen over to the 10 x 11 area. The good bits here are we won't have to take out our old kitchen until the new one is done. When it's done, it a better use of space--the living room/dining room is one large area, and we have complete access from the laundry room in the basement to run all the plumbing/wiring.

We would still have to get two beams put in place to open up the existing load bearing walls, and I wasn't a big fan of how the ktichen 'flowed' with the rest of the area.

So I created a LEGO floor plan for our main floor, and had a bunch of people come up with ideas (I may get pics of our home LEGO MOC up here later).

And between coffee on Sunday--in which Renita had some very good ideas--and Jeff 'n Jenn stoping by last night--where Jenn had some fantastic ideas--we came up with this--

And zoomed in--

Breaking up the horseshoe--you can get into the kitchen right from the hallway and the stairs, and it leads right out into the dining area. Fantastic! Also, loads of counterspace, and we don't have to put a beam to open up the kitchen wall--we close inthe existing doorway, and open a new one closer to the front door! We'll still have to put a beam up where our existing kitchen is, but that shouldn't pose too much of a problem.

So with this tentative idea in mind, we're going to ballpark some facts 'n figures and just kinda think about it over the next year.

Of course, we've been to Ikea for inspiration--

And we're getting a better feel for what we want.

Thinking about this reno is fun!

See all future reno pics here--Maybe our future kitchen

Our New Deck

We had an absolutely perfect Saturday with which to finish our decking endeavours...

For those of you who have missed the first part of our ongoing series, here's a recap--

We started with this--

Our Old Deck

It was a perfectly good, albeit kinda frumpy, sidewalk-slab-converted-into-deck-type substance, so we were in the mood to upgrade.

With that in mind, off to the Despot to pick up--

Lumber

Yes, lumber--that which is used to build things! This specific lumber is not much more than house framing wood that is pressure treated--the pressure treating gives the wood better protection from the elements (mostly the elements Hydrogen in 2 parts and Oxygen in one part)

And then, taking the lumber, and placing it in a specific way on top of the sidewalk slabs (and adding a bit of effort), we get this--

Substructure

Right! A perfectly good frame--or foundation--on which we can build the actual decking surface.

Now I'm going to put on my 'Mike Holmes' hat a few times here, starting now--

I'm not an expert by any sense of the word--not even close. However, a few things learned and taught by those much smarter than myself:

First--measure twice, cut once. You hear it over and over again but it's so true. You're only going to waste wood if you ignore this rule.

Secondly, take your time--these things are home renos, and, as such, have fun with it--no speeding is necessary.

Third, and pretty important--and this is specific to building anything--keep things square as you go! Don't think, 'eh, I'll just square it up later...' Trust me--later is not better! See the frames above? Sandy and I measured and squared as we went and, as what's bound to happen--when you start square, it'll be square when you're done! Less hassles and most important, less fixin's!!

Anyway, where was I? Oh right--today.

We were going to wake up before 8, but that didn't happen. Rolled outta bed around 10 but immediately set to work after that--

Completed Substructure

We finished up the foundation--all 2x6's. As well, Sandy and I spent probably a little more time and energy than really needed to level the thing. But we had fun doing it anyway (even though a 10 foot by 11 foot 2 by 6 frame with 16 inch on center joists is a little heavy) 'cause we talked about our Journey concert and how the last episode of the Sopranos (which we didn't watch 'cause we've never watched that show but we heard about this anyway) had 'Don't Stop Believin'' in it...

After the structure was done, the finnicky stuff had to start.

See, another thing about renos--you can make 'em as simple or as complicated as you want. We went the, 'let's make it look great without too much complication' route--no diagonally running slats. But, not wanting the end grain exposed along the edges, we came up with what is known as 'picture framing--

Me actually working

'Stars on 45'--no, not exactly accurate. What is actually shown here is me marking and cutting the wood at 45 degrees to make the picture frameAnd the completed product? Well, it's not precise, but I'm told that a back deck can't be considered great if it's perfect. See here--

A few 45's

That took a bit. The picture frame now done, however, and we can get to just adding planks. We started at the outside and worked towards the house--

First 4 rows done

That was the tough bit--we had to cut those to fit. Thankfully, serendipity was abouts 'cause the rest of the deck was pretty much 10 feet wide, so not much cutting was needed for the bulk of the boards.

After slapping 'em all down (I wasn't going to bore you with, 'Oh, here's 3 more boards done, and then 4 more--halfway there!...' No, we'll just jump straight to the sliding door sill--the very last board put down), this was the result--

All boards screwed down

Oh that reminds me--please, please, please use screws instead of nails if you're doing this type of work (and use, y'know, like deck screws on decks) 'cause it's stronger, and most important to your building experience--if ya wanna change it, it's soooo much easier--just unscrew the screw!

Here we are with our patio stuff on the new patio--

No Patio Lanterns--Kim would be displeased

So it's done! We are going to get some sort of railing--from the deck to the ground where the step isn't is around 14 inches--that'll be a nice spill should someone go over. But we don't know what we want to do yet.

What we did do is listen to one of our neighbours--Linda. She had many great ideas, one of which is this--

Deck Trim

An edge along the fence! This not only covers up the unevenness of the boards, it also keeps 'whatever' from rolling off the deck and onto the ground under the fence! It also looks great to boot! Brilliant!

Linda also suggested a bench on the outside edge instead of a rail. We love the idea but we'll think about it for a bit before we do anything.

Now back with the Mike Holmes hat--here's lessons learned and stuff that you may want/need to know if you're doing this, and to show where some mistakes were (but I'm not fixin' cause it's great as it is...)

As stated earlier--it's your job--take your time. With that, and to make things look better--such as the gap between the slats, build helpful jigs you can use. Here's the one Sandy and I used for most of our screwing--

All-in-one Screw Jig and spacer

The spacer goes between the boards, as thus--

Placing the jig

Place the jig over a joist, and the two holes are perfectly situated to guide the screws into consistent spots on the board. Makes it look real neat 'n tidy when it's done--like getting (so I'm told) 'all your ducks in a row'.

I've been told that you shouldn't have a perfectly level deck. Yes, really! Your deck should have a slight grade down as you go away from the house. See, if the deck slopes down as you go away from the house, that can only help with helping the water move away from the house. Moving rain water and melting snow away from the house can only lead to good things. So our deck has a very gradual slope to it--

Always looking for bubbles I am

Slope down and away from the building

Mind you, you don't want a huge slope--decks have to be walked on! So make it extremely gradual!

Anyway, now fro the bad stuff.

Due to a slight miscalculation, we ran into a problem with spacing around the picture framed step--

Not the best at demonstrating parallel lines

Eh, as Papa would say--a blind man would be happy to see it!

We did have to contend with two obbstacles in our deck building endeavours. On one side we had the gas meter/line going into the house--

Got Gas?

So we had to work aorund the gas hardware. maybe I cut the hole too big--coulda cut it tighter. For me and my peace of mind--leaving a relatively large berth around anythign that can, y'know, blow up the house can only be a good thing.

On the other side, however, we have the downspout from the roof--

Obstacles in our way...

Had I planned better, I would have had something to cover the hole beside the downspout. As it stands now, this is behind the BBQ so, eh, whatever...

One thing we can't really get a picture of, but something we had to contend with--the 4th plank--the first after the step--

The 4th plank in--first full plank after the step

This plank was about a half inch off from one side to the other when measured to the very back joist (the one nearest the house). As Sandy and I placed deck boards down, we added around a 32nd of an inch to the gap on one side, and by the time we reached the house, the last board was dead on parallel to the joist that it was screwed to. K, that made us a little happy.

Anyway, if you're interested, I found the instructions for 'picture framing' just by typing 'how to build a deck' into The Google and clicking 'search'.

Other than that, that's about it!

Oh wait--we did have one visitor after the deck was done--

Great Horny Toads!!!

A toad had to see if we were doing the deck right. I gave it a free ride to the back valley after he signed off on it.

So there you are.

See all deck building goodness here--Deck 2007

Back at it

The hard part'll be tomorrow--what, with the leveling and all...

But for now we'll enjoy knowing that we put as much possible effort into the substructure that we possibly could.

So far, so good

Not too many pics 'cause we just finished the framing, but this should tide y'all over until tomorrow when we should have the whole deck done!

See all pics here--Backyard deck 2007

We're having fun with it.

Yep--our local MPP, Jennifer Mossop, is stepping down from politics.

Bountrogianni, Mossop quitting

Will she go back to television?? Dunno, but I'll let you know this--I'll miss her. She'd be the only reason why I'd vote for a person in our riding.

Eh, now we'll get some person who is totally 'party focused', instead of Hamilton-Wentworth focused, (no matter which candidate) and that'll be it.

I've been thinking a long time about getting my name on a ballot somewheres. The biggest drawback--I couldn't give a rodents heinie about any of our Canadian parties at this point in our history of politics--I'd have to run as an independant, and, as it stands, the independants can do squat in our system of government.

I'll tell you what would happen should I run and win a seat with any political party--I don't care what the 'standing' rules are--I'm voting my conscience on any bill, and screw the party line. Seriously--I got voted in *by* the people in my area--they expect me to vote for *them*--not vote for what my party wants.

And no promises leading up to the election, either--if I can't do it, I'm not promising it.

Eh, this is sounding like a political campaign already, so I'll stop now.

We'll miss you, Jennifer. All the best in all your endeavours.

Either too tired or too lazy at this time to put pictures into the blog here (prob'ly a li'l of both), but go have a boo yourself--

Backyard Deck

Sandy and I didn't mind the concrete sidewalk slab deck that we fixed up a few years back, but we had a better idea--a noce, wooden deck!

With that in mind (and a quick triop to the Despot), we started it last night.

Even with the constant stream of visitors and such, we managed to get alot done.

Now there's an old adage--'Measure twice, cut once!' I'm a firm believer in that. However, another adage that should have been around when I needed it was 'Don't assume anything!'. I assumed that putting the joists 16 inches on center starting from the left would just line up the header plate below the sliding door. Unfortunately, not so much--it was an inch off.

Thankfully we're using screws instead of nails, and a few minutes later, all joists were shifted over by a few inches, and Bob's your uncle (or cousin or brother...)

Tonite we finish the joist structure and maybe have enough time to get some of the planking on, and then a full day on Saturday and we should be good to go for our Papa's day BBQ on Sunday!

We'll get pics up when it's all done, and maybe I'll find the energy to post 'em in a blog

I'm just tired of it!

Tired of waiting to turn left whilst opposing traffic continues thru the intersection, even though the light has *already* turned red.

Tired of being in the right lane 'cause I know my turn's coming up in a few feet, and others in the left lane think they can scoot past me and duck in at the last minute to make the same right hand turn.

Tired of seeing people use the off- and on-ramps (and sometimes the shoulders) as passing lanes.

Tired of people thinking that turning right on a red light means you don't even need to slow down, yet alone stop.

Tired of punk kids in after-market intensive cars who think that the sign that states 60 km/hr is the *mimimum* they should do on the roads in our neighbourhoods.

And lane changes? What's a blinker?? Yeah, the drifting across 3 lanes of traffic with no signals really impresses me on most days.

I'm just tired of it.

I'm tired of taking my life into my hands every single day on our highway system--in the past 2 weeks, I've had to pass 5 severe accidents--some of which lives were lost. Yet the very next moment, jackasses in their vehicles--seeing a very narrow opening between semis--will use the opening to scoot past slower traffic. Didn't you just see the ambulances and the wrecked SUV there on the side of the road??

I'm sorry, but right now, if I had any authority whatsoever, I'd so bring back photo radar and mount the cameras on every bridge/overhead sign/post and start the onslaught of tickets to the traffic violating jackasses.

You want to treat the road/highway systems like your personal playground?? Well then, you're going to pay for it.

If you don't want to pay--SLOW DOWN and obey the traffic laws!

I've always held the belief that 'just words' don't hurt people. It's the old 'sticks 'n stones' rhymn we all learned growing up.

That said, there are certain words that are appropriate for certain situations--but not for all situations.

For example, the words you would use and the manner in which you use them at a monster truck rally might not be the same as if, say, you're at a formal dinner with your boss.

So that's the context to which I come at this particular issue.

For myself, my choice of words remains relatively constant, no matter what situation I find myself in. In that way, I don't have to worry about switching between 'appropriate for formal dinners' and 'appropriate for hanging out at the speedway'--but I digress...

To bring it to the point--here we are, walking around the neighbourhood, when we hear 'Oh ^*%$' (insert expletive here) multiple times. The '^*%$' was switched between a few really good four letter words, to be sure, but they were 'profane' words.

Anyway, in our usual travels thru life, we will most definitely hear such words and, for us, it's usually 'water off a ducks back'--we tend to ignore 'em.

However, when one happens across a 4 year old playing in her driveway, throwing a ball at one of those little plastic basketball nets, and swearing everytime she misses--well, her parents must be so proud.

And we're not talking 'under her breath' or anything--it's like "Oh ^*%$!!" when she missed and had to go running after the basketball.

Maybe it's the issue of a 4 year old girl that uses language that would embarass a sailor that I find particularly troubling. Or the fact that she has no sense of 'appropriateness' with her volume control. Then again, our infrequent run-ins with anyone under the age of 20 who like to use 'more colourful metaphors' show us that most of these swearing kids don't seem to have a volume control.

She was 4.

Again, her parents must be so proud.

(Can't convey sarcasm thru blogs easily, but take it as said that the above was stated sarcastically)

Not my place to say, but I have a feeling that this kid may be a wee bit of trouble as she gets older--for her parents as well as 'civil society'.

And I think that's what it comes down to--civilness. Unlike, say, playing the radio loudly on the back deck for 6+ hours during the day, even though everyone went inside 5 hours ago--where'd common courtesy go?

And if you don't try and teach your kids some sort of courtesy for their fellow citizens, how do you expect them to have it when they get older?

Who needs it??

Sandy's and Sparky's Space served from a Windows 2003 server running IIS6??

Not so much.

Maybe a new website that doesn't have a 10+ year history of evolution would work fine on IIS, but our little website certainly didn't like it!

Thankfully I tried the 'upgrade' on a different server, so the last 5 hours of work can be dismissed with a casual 'wave of the hand' and a swap of the server box.

So we're back to old, reliable (slow, for sure) Win2K and Apache.

Next upgrade I'll try 'off-line' and leave this one up until all the kinks are worked out.

So there you are.

Chippy

The invite--

Chippy's favourite food

The guest--

Chippy foraging

Sandy and I had dinner outside (again) the other day--we seem to really enjoy it. I mean, what, with the weather as glorious as it is and all...

Anyway, during our meal, we had a welcome, though uninvited guest.

So we put out some food for our dear little furry visitor--

Chippy

Chippy

Seeing how famished litle Chippy was, I was in a rush to get more peanuts and 'accidentally' dumped some on Sandy's foot--

Dinner a la foots

I'm told this tickles a bit

All gone...

After all our respective dinners were done, we went our separate ways.

One last shot off the porch before we went inside for the night--

Nice view

So there you have it--we'll keep our nice little neighbours fed and happy.

All pics from around our place can be found here--Sandy and Sparky's Spring 2007 pics