Pointe-Claire 100th Anniversary Celebration - Pointe-Claire Days

It's 100 years since the incorporation of Pointe-Claire as a city. And the city is having a bash this weekend. Most of the activities will be in the Village. This is the original area settled, locally called the Pointe-Claire village and is actually 300 years old as a settlement.

This is the announcement flyer put out by one of the merchants in the village. The merchants association is actively participating in and promoting the event as well as a volunteer citizens committee (That's actually been organizing this since 2009.)

Saturday the street will be closed and filled with antique cars. The nearby park will be filled with children's activities and amusements. A band stand will be erected and there will be a variety of performers all day. The swimming pool will be open (free) and there will be pony rides in the afternoon. Fireworks will begin at nine PM.

That's only Saturday, it really begins Friday afternoon and evening, and finishes up Sunday afternoon.

For the full itinerary and all the event locations as well as the shuttle bus stops, go to the city website main page and Click on the Pointe-Claire Days Programme .

Don't miss all the fun or the Smoke Meat Pete's specials.

For anyone in the Montreal area this weekend, especially the West island, this is one of those you'll regret missing.

For those who don't know, the Pointe-Claire village is the original area of the pioneering French farming village that developed this end of the island. Around this the modern city of Pointe-Claire has grown, but the character, many of the structures, lots of the 'families' have remained.

This is a real village. It has charm, identity and lots of interesting shops, stores and businesses. (No chain stores here).

Boutique Lois Butler, where the sale is, is just one of them, but it's one that should not be missed.

This Canada Day weekend has lots of events, great food variety, children's events and fireworks in the evening. Enjoy your shopping and your 'finds' and don't miss the parade, it's the real thing.

PLEASE DO NOT MOVE DRYER CLOSER TO REAR WALL. (Part 1)

I believe that says it all. But you must ask, why. Well. a quick glimpse behind the dryer reveals all (photo below).

There you can see the plastic flexible duct that will crush if the dryer is pushed any further.

It looks like the home owner has used pipe strapping to hold the flex duct up off the floors so it wont be folded over itself or squished side ways like a 'slinky' toy could be.

This ducting is little more than a 'slinky' type coil that has been skinned over with plastic, so it is notorious for folding over on itself, sometimes more than once.

Obstructed: When this happens it is no longer a functioning duct and your dryer is going to take a long time to dry the clothes, basically baking them dry.

The other thing these ducts excel at is collecting lint. Sometimes the barely pass any air for years worth of lint in there. All those ribs make it easy for dust and lint to catch onto.

Now factor in the warm moist air and you have all the ingredients for mold proliferation.

Lovely! But that's not the most serious problem.

What? You say, could be more important than the dryer not drying the clothes or creating conditions conducive to mold?

Thats easy: fire!

Dryers that can't vent, overheat and can cause mechanical failures that will produce sparks. That metal drum spins at a high speed.

Then of course thee's always electrical arcing to set it off. Loose plugs, electrical motor bushings and short faults.

And some dryers are heated with gas. You get the picture.

It should not come as a surprise the fire codes address this problem directly.

In short, they ban the plastic flexible duct use and require that the first 3 feet from the machine be rigid metal ducting. This will be the hottest zone and will tend to collect the greatest concentration of lint.

Home owners need to install the attachment ducts in such a way so as to make the final connection after the dryer is pushed into place.

Wise dryer installers will place removable caps and 'T's in appropriate positions to make it possible to open and vacuum lint out of the ducts.

This is something progressive builders will plan for too.

So don't bake your clothes, grow mold or burn your house down for want of a little ducting. Look for part 2 on how to do the duct well.

A Milestone and a New Benchmark For Me..............Thanks To Active Rain.

Today I reached a new milestone in my Active Rain participation.

I've crossed the 75,000 points mark !

That's a big deal for me. Even though I'd been a member since 2008, I had not been active until this past 6 months.

I had 3 blogs prior to this past December. Now I have over 100 that I've written myself. (Others are AR re-blogs).

I've learned to blog with the help of many friends and great examples here on AR. Thank you Active Rain.

When I started I could not conceive of the seemingly astronomical point levels some members have earned. But my web presence needed a boost.

I'd been on line for years but never got any direct business from it. Now it's happening and when I want callers to see how knowledgeable and passionate I am about the subject I refer them to my Active Rain blog:

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Robert Butler Home Inspection Blog

I'm number 1 on the leader board (i.e.featured) in my city, Pointe-Claire, number 5 in the Montreal area and province of Quebec. I've had a few featured posts.

But I have more to do. I have to really up my invitation rate. Active Rain is still an undiscovered country here in Quebec. This is in large part due to the fact that the majority work in the French language.

The other part is the perception that AR is not local ( and real estate is nothing if not local) and the bloging would not be about the local market. But of course we know that's the wrong way to think.

That's the genius of the AR environment because locals looking for listings and services in their area will find you. Your fresh content will make you visible to the search engines.

So even though you become part of a growing community of professionals that is over 200,000 you have a very local presence and visibility to your client pool.

So I will be emphasizing and educating local agents and other potential Ar members, of the benefits that they can have access too.

So thank you AR. A milestone passed and a new benchmark for my AR experience.

A Man's Home Is His Castle, Right?

Well that's the old school way of saying it. Saying "One's home is ones' castle" may be grammatically and politically correct (gender neutral, for all that.) But it doesn't 'ring' true. Doesn't sound right.

So, I say 'a man's home is his castle'.

While for a few days there have been these runes painted on the street and sidewalk outside my 'castle'.

Yesterday I came home to a 'moat'.

There were barricades and the whole sidewalk was gone, with a six foot wide trench where the sidewalk and curb used to be. That's definitely a moat in terms of urbanites who don't want to get their shoes wet.

Today we came home to see the new sidewalk formed, poured concrete and draped in wet burlap. There was a guard on duty too. He complained about the dogs walking on the fresh cement and got out his trowels to smooth out the tracks.

He was actually the cement finisher, part of the crew that pours the cement, who stays around to control the curing with the burlap covers and water and to trowel it smooth at critical degrees of hardness known only to those with the experience.

You can hire them and they do the job perfectly but they can't tell you how they know 'when'. It's just experience.

To get to each property they'd laid a steel scaffold deck to walk across over the wet cement moat at each driveway, for all intents and purposes a 'drawbridge'.

They say when they finish the curb, they're going to rip up the whole street and replace it. So it looks like we'll be barricaded in here for a long siege.

Is this mans home his castle?

It's beginning to feel like it.

I just don't know what to do. I mean, should I sign up for that archery course or light the fires under the cauldrons of oil.

Chess anyone? Backgammon?