The Inspector And Me

So as with any legitimate house-building project these days, inspectors need to inspect things. This we were ready for. Or at least thought we were. The day the inspector was to come, Dad had to go run some errands. He said, "When he comes, just let him in, tell him to phone me if he needs to." I figured it sounded simple enough.

The inspector pulled up in his truck sometime around 1 in the afternoon. I said to him as he got out, "are you the inspector?" His reply was, "Is that bad?" I told him that it wasn't, and showed him into Phase One. This seemed all right to me. But then he started asking me various questions about the house, questions that I wasn't fully confident in answering. I did my best on them, but I felt like a relative idiot. At one point I said, "These things would make a lot more sense if you discussed them with my dad." He seemed to agree, but then continued asking me questions, and I started thinking that I had essentially just told him I know nothing, but he was continuing to try and get information from me.

Eventually, he left, saying he'd phone my dad in the morning because he wasn't sure on some things. I decided that was best. I'd briefly thought of suggesting he stick around until Dad got home, but that proved to be about an hour later, and I was glad I hadn't!

The next day, he came by again. As he got out of the truck, I said, "My dad is here today. You can speak to somebody who knows what he's talking about."

That story is pretty indicative of how Shack life has turned out these last couple days. We have some things that need fixing, so the building is going slightly slower than we anticipated. However, that works out well for me because now I am able to volunteer another week at camp.

In other exciting news, Dad and I experienced a great field trip to Morden to learn about cellulose insulation. We first toured the plant where this stuff is made. It's quite simple, really, a whole bunch of newspapers are shredded into an unrecognizable mass, then this stuff called "boric acid" is added, which is completely environmentally friendly, plus it's a fire retardant and rodents hate it. Bonus. We then traveled to a house being built (still in Morden) to see how exactly this stuff is put into walls. Basically, a mesh is stapled onto the studs, and this stuff is blown in through a large hose that's kind of like a reverse vacuum cleaner. A very educational trip indeed, which also yielded an impromptu lunch with local friends! We get to do this insulation thing ourselves once the things that need a second look have had that very second look.

The Shackblog is going to be down for another couple of weeks, due to my being at camp then going out west for a family reunion. So essentially, there will be no interruption to my sporadic posting!