Random thought exchange

We’ve nearly completed all the landscaping projects we had.

The front is 100% completed, and the back is about 90%. All that’s left to do in the back is wait for the tree to come and be planted, and then put in the 2 bushes that we’ve ordered – those will be coming at the same time as the tree. The bushes are going in front of the landing for the stairs coming down from the deck.

The tree and bushes we ordered from www.yourleaf.org – They’re a great organization…

This is all very exciting! It’s been on our project list for the last 2.5 years and we’re very pleased that it’s nearly wrapped up.

Here are some photos for you to enjoy… Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

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It doesn’t matter who Rosalee or I voted for. That’s not the point of this article.

The situation

No, this has nothing to do with Jersey-shore characters.

Back in 2007 we received the keys to our brand new house in the brand new sub-division we bought in. We officially moved into the house in mid-January 2008, and shortly afterwards we both updated our addresses for our passports (they needed renewal anyways), OHIP and Driver’s Licenses.

We both knew about the By-Election that’s happening today – from media coverage, mass mailings we’ve received and all of the phone calls from the various candidates offices asking for our support.

Earlier today I had a thought – I wondered why we hadn’t received a voters registration card or any details in the mail, so I went to this page to lookup where to vote.

Once Rosalee came home, we both headed over to the venue. Immediately we were greeted by a gentleman who asked if he could assist. We told him that we never received a card in the mail. He pointed out a booth to his right for us to walk over to.  We went to the booth, and gave our driver’s licenses. The lady flipped through her binder, and found Rosalee’s name, but it had the wrong address. It had an address that’s one street behind ours – but it had the right house number and the right postal code! I don’t get it! From everything that I can find, our postal code is valid for only even numbers on our street, and odd numbers on the street behind us.

When she went to look-up my name, I wasn’t in the book at all. My cousins are – they moved into the area within the last year, and we’ve been here nearly three.

How can the municipalities have our details right and not the fed’s? We received all the information for the municipal election without any problem. There is absolutely no reason why I wasn’t on the federal list for today’s vote.

My opinion on the solution

There needs to be a unified connection and communication between database systems and storage procedures. Once someone updates or applies their address for a vehicle registration, health card, driver’s license, tax submission, marriage license, etc it needs to trigger other updates to happen. The government MUST start a system to gather census details, and merge it with the appropriate areas. Yes, that’s a very high-level overview as to how the systems should run, and yes, there are a lot of technical details and processes that would have to be ironed out. And yes, it will cost some serious cash to make it happen. but it’s a one-time deal. Once the system is up and running, it should catch nearly all of the changes, and make for a more customer-focused experience for all Canadians.

Conclusion

No system is perfect. There will always be someone who has a strange exception and won’t be put through.

The time to start on it is now. The population growth is increasing at such a rate and the cost of services are increasing, it only makes logical and financial sense to get started on it now.

Want to know how the electorial race is going? Visit the Elections Canada website for preliminary results.

Follow-up

What do you think?
Can the government get something like this going?
Should they invest the money to get it going?

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We never really liked what Primont Homes had done in our family room. They created a bulkhead for the vents, but on the left-side of the fireplace it was about 11″, and on the right-side it was about 27″. It never really made any sense, and it always looked off. In addition, the fireplace was about 24″ deep, and stuck out of the wall like a sore thumb.

For about 2-years Rosalee and I debated what we should do in the family room to make it look more polished. We drew up at least half a dozen ideas, and we finally figured out exactly what we wanted to do. Our initial idea was to build cabinets on both sides of the fireplace, and then bookshelf the other wall. But then we moved the television off the fireplace and put it on a folding table along the other wall. We lived with it there for about 4-months and decided that we liked that layout much better. The TV wasn’t so high, and we were utilizing the floor space better. It also allowed us more room to play Wii!

So we were off to find two things. 1, a person to build what we wanted; and 2, a nicer tv stand than a folding table.

I was in contact with Black Diamond Construction (Facebook fan page) regarding landscaping and patio, and found out that Colin, the owner, also does home renovation projects. We hired him to do the construction, and we couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. He took our vision, and made it happen. The framing and drywall that Primont Homes had done was uneven. Colin had to do a lot of repair and fixing to get the shelving to look right.

Colin built the shelves off-site, brought them in and attached them, then did a lot of framing to make both sides of the wall the same width, then he did the drywall and a ton of plastering to be able to bring the wall on the left-side out to the same depth. Applied the trim, and then painted.

The work kicked up quite a bit of dust, but we’ve since cleaned all that up.

As this was going on, Rosalee and I started the search for the perfect media console. We ended up at The Country Store near Bayview and Eglinton. They have a company they contract in northern Ontario that custom manufactures furniture. We were happy with one of the styles they had in their showroom, and ordered it. They told us 4-6 weeks, and it turned out to take about 12 weeks. Having said that, we’re VERY happy with the unit we ordered.

You might also notice that we removed the ceiling fixture and put in pot-lights. We did that about 16-months ago through Alex Moldings. As well, the 2 chairs in the original photo are now in our living room, and we bought the new chairs from HomeSense. We also took down the paper “blinds” and put up California Shutters from Jeffrey Paul Home Improvement Co. (416.436.3926, jeffsap@aci.on.ca).

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The last month has been completely chaotic. We’ve taken posession of the new digs, moved, unpacked nearly everything, had a ton of trades come and go, had a bunch of people come in to give us quotes for things that we want done, and whatnot.  Pretty crazy if you ask me…

I should have some pictures to post soon…

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We went by the house, and noticed that the bricklayers continued their great work. We’re nearly completed with that part of the construction.

Here are some pictures.

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Finally. Nearly a month of waiting for the bricks to be put to use.

We almost have 2 full walls completed, and they’ve only been working on it for 2 days. Amazing! At this rate, they should have it finished by the end of the weekend.

Check out the bricks, and tell me what you think.

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So I just came back from checking on the house. The door from the garage into the house has been removed!

Apparently there isn’t enough room (according to the city inspector) to park a car because of the amount of space the stairs would take up.

BAH! Totally sucks. I guess I’ll install one afterwards.

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