Aug 10-11 - all's quiet

So ... David, Kim, Jeffrey, Stef, Aaron, Kylie & Lauren got to spend more time at the cottage than planned ...

Jeffrey, David & Kim left the cottage around 9:30 a.m. and were back mid afternoon. An accident less than an hour south of here resulted in a road closure -- they sat for hours and then were able to turn around and come back. The only alternate route south is highway 11 and they would go past us on 522 to get there -- there is no east-west route in between the accident location and here. David & Kim missed their flight from Toronto to Edmonton and had to rebook for today. That ... was expensive -- Air Canada refused to switch the tickets that I had booked with points so we had to book one-way tickets. I expect that if they were there at the airport for the next flight that they might have managed stand-by ... but then again perhaps not ... policy is policy, customer service is not part of their policy. I will think twice about booking points with Air Canada in the future.

Stef & Aaron, having heard from Jeffrey about the road closure, decided to wait until late in the day before leaving for Toronto. They got away around 5:30 -- I think -- we left here around 4:45 to pick up Bonnie on the way to the Scott's across the lake for their annual get-together. When we got back, around 7:30, Kim was in the middle of preparing dinner for David and Jeffrey. Jeffrey then went to bed; David & Kim went for a short boat ride with the 9.9 then turned in. Their plan was to leave here by 2am ... which they did. I got up a little after 1am to see them off and they were on their way by 1:55am.

Speaking of the 9.9 -- it gave David some trouble while we were over at the Scott's -- stalled, wouldn't idle, wouldn't start -- I worked with it a bit and got it going again. It's behaviour has the symptoms of dirty gas plugging the carburetor. I should really clean out the gas tank and put in fresh gas. Another project ... I'll never get bored ! Thank goodness that it did not fail on Kylie -- that would have made her nervous.

Kylie and Lauren Mathews went for a tube ride early afternoon -- Kylie took advantage of the extra time up here to play with Lauren. Lauren's mother Pam rode shotgun and I think that she had as much fun as the kids. She has asked me to take her two young boys out today -- it's calm now but I'll wait until it warms up a bit -- still in the 60's at this point. They go home later today.

I took advantage of some quiet time to trim the basement door. I had to put in jamb extensions because the door is not as thick as the wall -- the wall being 13 inches thick. I used the 6" pine that we use for the baseboards which was exactly the size required, and then trimmed the sides and top -- I'm pleased with the result. The only other thing that I want to do is use the table saw to make a small 3/4" x 1/4" strip to cover where the two pine boards mate, which is impossible to finish properly without a joiner, clamps and glue -- all of which would have had to be done before the door was actually assembled, to get an exact mating.

I have to do the same thing with the four basement windows but I'll need to buy and rip some 1x8's for those because the existing jambs are not as deep on the windows. I may leave those until I tackle the ceiling next year because the drop ceiling will be slightly lower than the tops of the windows.

Sandy just talked to David and Jeffrey on the telephone -- David & Kim were at the airport waiting for their flight and Jeffrey was close to Syracuse, well over half way home. Air Canada, in another example of customer service, would not let David and Kim switch to the 6am flight from their booking on the 9am flight, even though there was standby space available. Policy ? Negative customer service ? Security ?(keep the checked bags with the passengers) Who knows ...

We don't have much planned for today ... I'll move some more topsoil, take Pam's kids tubing, go to Mass this afternoon ... I'm sure that Sandy will be doing laundry all day with all the bedding.

Cheers !