Dorval Island Reconnaisance

Let's see, what happened this weekend? Friday I went to bed early so that I could get up early to drive my aunt to open her cottage on Dorval Island. Saturday was spent driving there, checking things out and visiting neighbours for about an hour and then driving back to Ottawa. Fine driving weather too on Saturday, sunny and not too hot or cold. Quebec traffic was weird, with lots of people driving under the speed limit. Yup, 90km/h in 100km/h zones. One bunch even passed me (I was going 110) and then dropped to 90 in front of me. Coincidently we passed a police car shortly after, giving a ticket to a pulled over driver. I noticed two police cars with pulled over people on the way there. Guess there must be a crackdown on speeders this weekend.

Why did we stay only an hour? The rotten bathroom floor repairs were in progress at the cottage, with a trail of brown dust tracked from the bathroom, through the kitchen, to the outside door. Apparently the wind from the lake blows under the house and blows the rotten wood brown dust around when the wood is cut. There was a stack of face masks on the stove, the repair guy (actually a retired engineer neighbour) isn't stupid. There was just a big hole in the floor with a pipe sticking out of it where the toilet used to be. The water was also not hooked up to the house, and even if it was, it wouldn't work because the supply pipe had sheared off furthur on. That's because the house had shifted a bit more over winter, making the gap in the kitchen floor increase to 1.5cm from 1cm and that corner of the house tilt even more. Yup, a fine old wreck.

Sunday Archaeological Digs

Sunday was spent shovelling dirt, this time excavations revealed the first step in an underground stone stair, but no sign of the great wall. I hope to get a bit of C programming done this afternoon too, and maybe finish up the January issue of Dr. Dobbs.

- Alex