Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



links

decay & ruin
Biosphere II
Chernobyl
dead malls
Detroit
Irving housing

got that wrong
Paleofuture.com

appropriate tech
Arduino μcontrollers
Backwoods Home
Fractal antenna

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Like my brownhouse:
   until I stressed the box
Thursday, January 3 2019
There had been a little snow overnight, though not enough to keep me from driving to work. At this time of year, overcast conditions are always welcome in the morning because the alternative is the sun in my eyes, which is terrible on parts of Dug Hill Road, Wynkoop, crossing the Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge, and heading southbound on 9G.
The Bubby's opened today after being closed for a week or more, and I was there at noon to get my customary Thursday vegan burrito with brown rice, which I always eat with enormous amounts of gelatinous green jalapeño sauce.
Work went better today than it had been going, mostly because a large number of efficiencies I was able to make in my new Javascript code that weren't present in the original Python. Also, the meeting with Alex (and an older developer named Jonathan) was lower-stress than feared. They're getting impatient with the pace of my work, but they're also understanding of the enormity of the job.
Meanwhile back at the house, the new granite countertops were installed today by a largely Hispanic team working for that Indian-owned stone yard. I got home today and had my first look at the countertops in their natural habitat. They were more beautiful than I'd expected, though Gretchen seemed slightly disappointed with how dark and austere she found them. I liked the way the individual details, some as wide as an and a half, caught the light at different angles. The stone was mostly purplish-black, with some small light greenish-grey details.
While Gretchen had a long conversation with one of her former prisoner-students about masters degree programs, I dealt with more immediately practical matters. With the countertops in place, I could begin to get the kitchen sink back to functionality. The first task was solder the old valves back onto the cold and hot water pipes, which had been cut off and capped before the cabinets went in. This was done so that the holes around the penetrations into the cabinets would be small and neat. First, though, I had to remove the caps that Colin (or one of his colleagues) had installed on the stubs of existing plumbing. Googling "solder-free plumbing fittings," I found pictures suggesting that the ones I was dealing with were manufactured by SharkBite (which I then remembered using at the Brick Mansion so I could connect pipes without first having to drain them). My internet search then led me to a YouTube video showing how to disconnect SharkBite connectors. It looked easy, so long as one had the little arc-shaped plastic tool designed to push a plastic ring backward into the mechanism to disengage the little teeth keeping everything secure. Fortunately, Colin had also left me that SharkBite disengagement tool It worked great on the 3/4 inch cap on the cold water pipe but struggled a bit with the half inch one capping the hot water. With the caps removed, I could then solder in the old ugly valves.
I would've then continued with installing the PVC drain system. But the demolition team had thrown out all the old PVC and I didn't have the two inch fittings I needed. (I have lots of fittings, but they tend to be either much bigger than 2 inches or significantly smaller.) So I turned my attention to finishing up the north end of the wiring for the just-in-time boiling water system. The box I was wring to was a plastic old-work box with two romex cables already entering it. Adding a third would've been impossible had the box not had a little extra room to one side, hidden behind the drywall. That annex in turn had something I didn't know about until I stressed the box a bit too much: a little lid that could be popped off, allowing easy access to all the wires, junctions, and wire nuts needing to be stuffed inside.
Meanwhile Gretchen had taken the Prius for its annual inspection today at Van Kleeck's Tires in Lake Katrine (it passed!). While there, she'd gotten a couple sandwiches from a nearby Bread Alone, and had half each for me. They didn't sound too exciting from Gretchen's description of them, but they were delicious.
Well before bed, I took 100 milligrams of diphenhydramine, so I slept very well tonight.


For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?190103

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