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From the cottage-weekend department:

Ever since I was a wee lad, I’ve always liked breaking things.

I went to the cottage this weekend. Two words: demolition. Fun.

THE COTTAGE

My cottage is an interesting place. The “front door” is this small door over by the kitchen. It gets used approximately twice per cottage trip: people bring in their stuff, people take their stuff home.

The rest of the time everybody uses the back door. The back door is a sliding door. It leads out onto the back deck. The back deck leads down to the water, the dock, the sauna and all the fun stuff. The back door faces the waterfront.

THE DECK

The back deck was built many, many years ago out of Cedar. But even Cedar cannot withstand the test of time. You know those old, decrepit farmhouses you see, with the siding that’s turned all black instead of wood-coloured? That’s what this deck looks like.

I thought that it would just be a matter of replacing the decking material. I thought that the joists and framework underneath were fine. So I recruited Scott, who likes to help with construction projects, and loaded a bunch of deck wood into the trailer. (I ended up getting pressure-treated SPF instead of cedar, (a) because I didn’t know what the current deck was made of and (b) because I thought the joists and framing underneath were OK, that I could get SPF now and get cedar when it comes time to redo everything)

THE DEMO

SATURDAY
Step 1: Run up and down hill carrying 4x 5/4″ × 2″ × 8′ boards, 12 times
Step 2: Break for burgers ‘n’ beer
Step 3: Smash deck with sledgehammer
Step 4: Imagine reed in wind; switch to hammer and crowbar
Step 5: Watch Crazy Man Scott attack railing

Rail Relief

Step 6: See pieces of joist come apart along with deck
Step 7: Take apart non-deteriorated wood; discover it’s cedar
Step 8: Regret earlier decision not to buy cedar since whole deck needs replacing and was cedar originally
Step 9: Say to self, “It’s almost 16h00. The lumber yard probably closes at 17h00 or 18h00. Why would they close at 16h00?”
Step 10: Decide to leave trailer attached to car since store will surely be open
Step 11: Get to store. Kick self for steps (9) and (10)
Step 12: Beer
Step 13: Return to demolition
Step 14: Start cleaning up mess
Step 15: Realize that the only way cleaning can be fun is by using power tools; provision circular saw as cleaning assistant
Step 16: Burgers ‘n’ beer
Step 17: Start FIRE

Burnfireburn

It’s always good when you end the day with a fire.

SUNDAY
Step 1: Go to lumberyard; buy 24x 2″ × 6″ × 16′ joists
Step 2: Watch Lumber Provisioning Technicians Lumberyardsmen two goofballs load 16′ boards into 8′ trailer with wood sticking out the back
Step 3: Notice back of car seems less down to earth than usual
Step 4: Drive back to cottage at 40km/h
Step 5: Beer
Step 6: Repeat Saturday’s Step 1 with different boards
Step 6: Back to town

Here’s a picture of what used to be a deck:

There Is No Deck

Here’s a link to some more pictures from this cottage trip. When in the gallery, you don’t get to read my amusing (?) captions unless you click on the photos (hint: use the arrows to flip throug them). Don’t worry, you won’t get the full monster-megabyte-sized photos, just nice medium-kilobyte-sized ones:
Cottage Deck Repairs Gallery

NON-COTTAGE STORY

I bike to work when I can. Unless it’s supposed to be rainy, I usually bring my camera with me. Why? (a) for exercise; (b) for biketographing; (c) because I love my camera (my picture is in the dictionary under Gadget Lover). Most of the time I don’t take any pictures, though I hope for stuff like deer, hot naked chicks, plane crashes, riots. The usual roadside attractions.

Then there’s moments like this (click for larger version):

Go Sens Car

I passed by this car in Kanata Hockey Traffic on the way home on Monday. It was slowing down for a red light. I saw that the light was about to turn green. I pulled over, whipped out my camera, and fired off three frames.

Considering the camera was on full automatic mode (no locked exposure, no locked whitebalance, etc.) this panorama turned out OK (that is, it isn’t the pea soup of random bits I thought it would be).

PS: This post shoulda been up this morning as per my habit of writing blogs at night, reviewing and posting them the next morning. Blogger was up and down like a strip club pole dancer having technical issues this morning.

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