Not much more politics and a futon

Its worse that I thought. Turns out Lorne's astute negotiations managed to get the province from zero liability for cleanup to $70 million. Man that was one masterful piece of negotiation - what a genius you are Lorne. I'm sorry I ever doubted your ability. So in exchange for taking on a $70 million cleanup liability and paying Domtar $100 million we the people get a money losing pulp mill complete with a radical union that doesn't want to work. This is after all the same union that pioneered the "wobble" as an alternative to an out and out work stoppage. Don't know what a "wobble" is? That's probably because it started at the P.A. pulp mill and maybe you never worked in a union shop. A "wobble" is where everyone sits on their lunch pail and wobbles. Don't believe me? You think I could actually make that up?

From one disaster to another - I have been rushing to get my newly built futon into the bus. I should have remembered my first rule. I am a carpenter, not a cabinetmaker. Remember the last time I thought I was ready to put it in the bus I discovered that my redesign had created the feature that the seat bottom didn't actually reach to the rail that it was supposed to rest on. So I made just a fine bed but, when you folded it up into a couch, the seat fell on the floor. But Thursday night I was finally ready - the last coat of finish was hard enough to move and assemble. I had the old futon torn apart ready to take out of the bus. Everything was good to go.

We dragged the pieces of the old futon out and carried the frame for the new one in. As I had hoped it fit neatly through the door but then .... oooooooppppppss. It was about 5" too wide to fit between the two cabinets on either end. I can't imagine how I managed to make that critical an error. I distinctly remember measuring that and it would have been dead simple to adjust the drawings for that dimension. Whatever the reason, I clearly didn't make the adjustment. So then everything has to go back out to the shop & I have to come up with a plan for a redesign AGAIN. This one, despite making me almost physically sick at the time, wasn't that big a deal. A couple of strategic cuts with the Skilsaw and some glue put everything back together at the right size (I hope). Along the way I was able to clean up some of the boogie fixes I had done to increase the seat depth so that wasn't all bad. Today we will find out if my fixes have worked.

We need to get the oak futon in the bus so we can move the metal futon that was in the bus to the house. We don't have a double width guest bed presently. Karlos Juan and Adrianna arrive Wednesday & we would like to be able to put them up in the house for the few nights that we are going to be home while they are here. We're going to put the metal futon in the spare bedroom/office so that we have a bed in there that doesn't take up the whole room for the 99% of the time that it isn't being a bed.

There are some CropLife meetings in Saskatoon this coming week so we are going to go to Saskatoon on Tuesday in time for a reception that evening. I can then catch some of the meetings on Wednesday before we pick up the Lopez Diaz Wednesday evening. We'll spend the night there and come home Thursday morning. There's also a "Train2Invest" seminar in Saskatoon Wednesday night. I'm not sure what to make of that outfit - they have been getting really good reviews in Grainews & I have talked to a couple of people who have been through their program who gave it really high marks. It still smells like snake oil to me but we're going to attend their seminar anyway and see what they have to say.

Karla is taking her parents to Waskesiu for the weekend - Marilyn & I will stay home and work to make up for some of the time we will be away the next week. Then we'll leave for Regina on Monday, spend all of Tuesday in Regina and head west on Wednesday morning for the great Banff adventure. Time to go find out why the futon won't fit this time. If it ever does fit I will post a picture of it in its new home. Later. (maybe much later for the photo)