May 21 - a bright place

I finished up the lighting and many of the ceiling panels in the main room and wow, is it bright. I suppose that at some point I might look for lower wattage compact florescent bulbs -- I have 13's in there now, perhaps 11's would be better. I've also placed the lights, but not wired them, for the games room. That room is more problematic, since I cannot completely balance the lighting due to the number of panels and the location of the ductwork. I may wire them and turn them on to check before actually starting to cut any panels. Also, with the TV at the front of the room, I'd like to see whether there is any problem with the lights being reflected in the TV. Unfortunately, I'm just about out of wire. Sandy is going to Sudbury today though and I will probably send her in with the empty wire spool to get some more.

Jim and Bonnie came over for a drink around 5pm. Jim was feeling miserable though, his allergies bothering him. A combination of sitting outside in the gazebo and having a beer did him in. His doctor told him that it's probably residual sulfates that they use to clean the beer bottles that cause him problems. He doesn't have the same problem with canned or draft beer, so that may very well be it. He left after a while, but Bonnie stayed. Meantime, I fiddled with Bonnie's computer, trying to fix a problem with internet access. She was connecting -- whether wireless in the gazebo or dial-up at their house, and could send/receive email, but not access any web sites.

I thought that she might be having a problem with Internet Explorer, so I installed Firefox and at first it seemed to work, but then didn't. I ultimately found that it was the Ontera web accelerator that seemed to cause the problem. With that disabled, her machine worked well ... while she was at our place. When she went home, however, she was unable to dial-up. It was giving her userid/password errors on dial-up. I'll go over this morning and see if I somehow deleted her access information ... but I don't think so ... not sure what the problem is. Many of her problems stem from slow access speeds.

What else did I do ... well, I helped Sandy with some gardening for a bit, turning the soil in a couple of the beds. It was bothering my back using this twisty tool though so I quit after 2 or 3 beds. I'll do some more today. It's cooler so that will help, plus she wasn't ready to plant anyway so there's no rush.

Oh yes, 4 hours of my day was taken up with the road tour. We met at the junction of 522 and Smith's Bay Road -- Art, Susan and me (Trustees), two reps from MTO (Ministry of Transportation, Ontario), reps from the Ministry of Natural Resources and the logging company. We inspected / discussed / swatted flies at the logging operation and then most dispersed, leaving the MTO and Trustees to do their road tour.

We toured Osprey Road, Laing Road, Stumpy Bay Road, Lost Channel Road, Forest Access Road and Smith's Bay Road. Those are the roads administered by our roads board. There are other roads, but while the taxpayers have to pay taxes, their roads are self-administered, not covered by the taxes. Many of them would like to have their roads covered by their taxes, but their roads are not up to Ministry standards. The cottagers would have to first get their roads up to Ministry standards before they could come under our domain. For many, that would mean $10,000-$20,000 apiece and they are not willing to foot the bill. That means that they have to engage a contractor themselves and do any roads work ... and it means that their roads are not plowed during the winter, unless an enterprising person wants to kill their truck doing some plowing. It's one thing to plow a driveway ... quite another to plow a kilometer of road.

We checked almost every culvert, made notes on where to dump loads of gravel, where roads needed repairing ... it was thoroughly un-exciting. It is a one-a-year thing though, the roads tour, so I guess that's not so bad. Art is really into it ... Susan too, as far as Smith's Bay Road goes, since that's where she lives. SB road has fully half, if not more, of the kilometers administered by the Roads Board and in many places is in rough shape. It's better now than when Susan and I toured right after the snow melted ... but still ...

The roads will be graded next week, which will be a huge improvement. That's an annual affair after the frost has gone out of the ground and it's settled again. Later, the Ministry will come in and dump their 46 loads of gravel (our budget) in all the discussed locations, replace culverts, regrade etc. etc. Those are the predictable parts of our budget. Snow plowing is variable, obviously.

The budgeting / money management process has a flaw -- we're not allowed to carry a surplus. Ok, I take that back -- we can carry a surplus of tax monies, but not the Ministry matched money -- so basically that means that any surplus is taken back by the Ministry. Ideally we could carry a surplus so that we could cover variances in slow plow work, but they've taken away that option. Running a deficit is also not an option. Hmmm ... I came up with a solution that the Ministry guy said is ok -- any surplus monies at the end of the year can be used to buy gravel at the suppliers pit to be used in the following year. So ... surplus gravel is ok (difficult for the Ministry to take back) ... surplus money is not ok. I guess that surplus gravel, hauled to Queens Park in Toronto, would not be welcome ! Queens Park is the location of the provincial government in Ontario, fyi. Such games we play !

On our trip around we came upon a dump truck seemingly doing some work on the road. Wait ... anyone involved in or approving such work is right in this vehicle -- who is this guy ? Mike (the senior MTO guy) jumped out and asked him what he was doing -- spreading some gravel that had inadvertently come out of his truck -- is he carrying a full load -- no, a half load -- ok, I'll check, says Mike -- he climbs up and sure enough, the truck has a full load. Well, their are signs posted at the roads that require half-loads at this time of year -- the roads are too soft for full loads and damage will be done to the road beds and culverts. The guy says "I'm just the driver" -- later I commented to Mike -- what if I said to the cop when I was speeding -- I'm just the driver -- and Mike's response was "or if you were drunk and said I'm just the driver" ... ha.

Anyway, Mike told him off (could have fined him) and told the guy that he had to turn around and get off the road. The guy instead went 100 yards up the road and dumped half of the load at the gravel pit located there, before proceeding to whatever his project was. On the way out of the road, there was Dale Brooks with a float -- he made excuses -- none of which are believable since these rules have been in place all of his lifetime working in this area. The bottom line is that it was a 1 in 1,000,000 chance that a Ministry truck would see them running a full load of gravel down one of these roads and he got caught. Interesting.

So, that was our roads tour. Perhaps after I've been at this a while I'll find it more gripping ... but it is serious business. Currency units are loads of gravel and number of culverts. Like anything else, there is a skill involved which depends on your interest level ... focus, focus, focus ... that's what is required. I'm just not there yet. The Dale incident provided a little insight into local small-town issues as Art and Susan then started griping about Dale. Small town living has both its joys and drawbacks ! When you get right down to it, local "politics" are not much different than the infighting and back-scratching that goes on in local and federal government -- just add zeroes to the dollars involved. Let's see -- that one load of gravel translates into a billion loads of gravel ... no.

We snacked so much on cheese and crackers that the fish that Sandy had brought out stayed in the fridge. I had a bowl of cereal and a few more crackers and that was it for the evening.

Today ... hopefully a bike ride. It's supposed to get up to 18C and partly cloudy. Next week I have the 300k ride; week after that, 400k; week after that 1200k ... yikes !!!!! What kind of progression is that ???!?!?!