Devauld.ca

Rarely does a weekend come across where the balance between work and play can be struck so perfectly. A great deal was accomplished, and time was still found to play.

Saturday morning we went around town and picked up a new tent and sleeping bags to help facilitate our backpacking adventures, and our upcoming trip to Europe. No longer will we need to hump a tent with double digit mass up a mountain, the new tent weighs in at less than five pounds everything included. The sleeping bags are duck down, and compress reasonably well, so no longer will half my pack be half filled with bedding. Instead, perhaps I can bring some more luxury items, like food.

The afternoon was spent fixing a chunk of fence that has been in disrepair since I dropped the bobcat bucket on it last year. The gate was falling apart and skewed to a degree where it took three hands, two feet and an elbow to open or close it. It took very little time to rip out the old gate and section of fence, and as expected, considerably longer to put it back together. I went away from the original manufacturer's nail fastening and put the equivalent of another gate of screws into the aging woods. I splurged on a gate latch that is self adjusting, and now have a wonderfully greased, functional gate.

After the work was completed, we went out to take in Pixar's newest movie: Ratatouille. I really enjoyed the tale and would recommend it to anyone, young or old. Not to let the fun stop, we spent Sunday afternoon floating down the Elbow River. It was a wonderful way to spend a hot afternoon, but it wasn't without it's perils. It appears that if you raft down the Elbow without a life preserver you face receiving a $500 fine. Funny, because if you walk down the river, knee deep in the water, you are no longer rafting so you are no longer eligible for the fine.

Now, I'm just waiting for the 204th day of the year to roll in and I return to the grind.

I took today off of the daily grind in order to attend the Photoshop Creativity Tour which was instructed by Bert Monroy. I wasn't sure what to expect; I have attended a few conferences/seminars before but they were usually more technical in nature. This was my first session which was attended mainly by artists, and people who make the majority of their income by being creative under under the direction of a client that does not really know what they want.

I was quite early arriving at the Telus Convention Centre, and I meandered around checking out what was for the taking. After loading up on all the swag I could get my hands on, I went in to grab my seat. I surveyed the mass, and I couldn't help but think that these people were a little bit cooler than the usual technical conference goer. I watched as Blurr and Quicksilver clad artists circled around, shmoozing and card swapping, until the announcement got things underway.

After that moment, I was blown away. The presentation was equally geared to the illustrator (people still use Photoshop to illustrate, here's proof) and the photographer. There was a few sessions about planning perspective and using patterns that will not be as useful to me as some of the others, but the information on masking and channels was definitely worth the money spent. It was amazing to watch Bert do his thing throughout the day. It took him less than a minute to remove red highlights from a woman's hair, probably about two minutes plopping an orangutan into the middle of a wheat field. These are skills that I have, and I could have performed the same operations, but they would have taken me an order of magnitude of time longer. Then he started moving some wine glasses around, and putting reflections, liquids and highlights on them and I don't think I ever would have been able to pull that off until I learned a couple dirty little secrets. I was still stunned when he started generating wood texture for floors, and moving paintings between walls. In the end I realized that with all the tricks I know in Photoshop, I still have a great deal to learn.

At least I'm still on the enlightenment path, and am working to improve my knowledge.

Adventure once again struck the Bermuda household, and between a busted laptop, a motorcycle needing wheels, building new websites and household maintenance, I've been busy. But, again, when am I not?

This latest adventure started when my glorious mother came down for a quick visit, some shopping and a delivery of Alberta's finest Angus beef. Early in the morning I was having my shower, and my ma was in the washroom downstairs doing whatever it is that mothers do in the washroom. After I was dried and ready for action she told me, in a rather matter of fact way, that I had a leak. I believe she said that water was pouring from the ceiling but I don't want to misquote. I trudged downstairs and sure enough there was still some water leaking from the ceiling into the bathtub downstairs.

Awsome.

I debated for a while, but in the end couldn't nail down where it was coming from, and I needed to get to work. I was graced with visions of busted copper pipe, leaking faucets and walls filled with green and black mold all day until I returned to determine to what extent I was going to have to destroy my house before putting it all back together again. The difficulty is that I either needed to pull tiles off one wall, then regrout, or cut holes in a finished wall. Since drywall and mudding is much easier than waiting for grout to dry and cure, I went with the drywall approach. I knew that as Murphy was handing me my saw, I would be cutting a hole in the wall about as far away from the leak as possible. I decided to cut just a little above the faucet on the other side, and with several careful measurements, I plunged my screwdriver into the drywall to get the party started.

It doesn't take long to chew through drywall, and very quickly I had a 1 foot square hole into which I could look for my plumbing demon. With flashlight in hand, and water flowing on the other side, I peered into the hole, braced for the worst. Was I ever surprised to find out that everything on the other side of the hold was bone dry.

Something wasn't right, and I went downstairs, and sure enough there is still water coming from the ceiling. Back to the bathroom, I had to proceed with the other option, and I pulled a tile off the wall below the top of the tub, and could see a small trickle of water flowing down next to the tub, right towards the floor. Where was that water coming from?

I started inspecting the silicon connecting the tub to the tile, and it appeared to fine. I sprayed water straight into the bottom of the tub, and the water slowed and eventually stopped. I was on to something, but what? After some more shower head inspections, I finally stumbled upon what was causing the water in the basement.

The cracks in the grout were the culprit. My bathroom is against an outer wall, and when in the shower you can gaze out the window to watch the traffic going by. The cool window, hot water, and poorly sanded grout all colluded to hairline cracks in the tiling under the window. Cracks so fine you'd have to carefully look at the grout to even find them. Could that much water be coming from the cracks? As it turns out it, yes.

Because the tile is sealed to the tub by silicon. The water that made it past the tile was stopping at the cement board and then gravitating towards the tub. Once it hit the tub it out start to pool, kinda like a 1/8 thick tank or water, and start filling up and overcoming the grout in neighbouring tiles. Slowly the water level would rise, and eventually would make it to the low end of the tub, where it would run down the side between the tile and the cement board. Once the cement board ended, it would pool on the floor under the floor tiles and eventually penetrate to the ceiling below. I looked at the tile, and realized that I would have to grind out all the grout, and then re-grout, cure and seal every spot where there was the slightest hint of a crack. I was looking at a front end load of a labour with over a week of waiting, spritzing and sponging until I could use my shower again.

And, was I ever excited that I didn't have to do any plumbing.

Over two days I spent many, many hours grinding out grout with my dremel (they even have a bit for it). Following was a cleanup of epic proportions before we could head to Rona and pick up the much needed supplies. We stocked up on some high sand grout in hopes that it would better survive the bigger crack; that is what it is intended for, after all. It didn't even take a half an hour to complete the grouting, but then we started the constant spritzing to ensure that it would not dry to fast and crack. We religiously sprayed the grout and examined it to validate that no cracks were forming, and after many moons of spray bottle madness we had well cured, non-cracked grout. Next we started sealing, and again we went with a high gloss in the shower, and a matte finish on the floor. Apply, dry, apply, dry, apply, dry, etc. Our last application of sealant went on Wednesday night, and this morning was the first time in over two weeks that I could use the shower upstairs. It was glorious.