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").



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decay & ruin
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got that wrong
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Like my brownhouse:
   greeted by a snow squall
Wednesday, December 22 2021

location: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, NY

I worked from home today, and because the problematic tax import I'd done yesterday was generally sound, I could relax and mop up little issues with the importing program ("the Taxinator"), including something I'd never seen before: "The query has been canceled because the estimated cost of this query (639) exceeds the configured threshold of 300. Contact the system administrator." I'd taken a 150 mg recreational dose of pseudoephedrine, so I was in a good frame of mind for finding solutions to tricky (but small-scale) problems.
I'd arranged with Alex to work from the cabin tomorrow, and had hoped to be driving there tonight after work. I hoped to be bringing the floor tile for the upstairs bathroom with me. It was supposed to have arrived today at Cabinet Designers out on Route 28, but nobody from there ever called and when Gretchen called, nobody answered.
Meanwhile, the weather was looking like it would allow me to drive to the cabin in a two-wheel-drive car, which would save a lot on gasoline expense. I'd decided to take Powerful's Prius, since Gretchen would have the Bolt until after 7:00pm and the Prius seems to handle snowy conditions better. There wasn't much cargo to drive to the cabin except tub and sink hardware, an end table, and that huge 30 by 48 inch slab of bluestone, all of which easily fit in the back of the Prius (though I had to put down the seats and put a dog bed on top of the bluestone for the dog that wouldn't be riding shotgun).
My first destination after getting off the Thruway in Amsterdam was the Home Depot, where all I wanted to do was return an unused toilet flange. Down in Washington, DC, it seemed nearly everyone had gotten the memo that there is a new, maximally-transmissible variant of the coronavirus going around and that we should all be wearing masks. That was most definitely not the case at the Amsterdam Home Depot. It was encouraging to see signs on the door saying masks were required. But once inside, a good half the customers and even some of the employees weren't wearing masks. I'd thought maybe I'd be doing some shopping there, mostly for six-foot shelving planks, but when I saw that aisle was cordoned off, I returned to the Prius to leave.
There hadn't been any precipitation during the whole drive, but the moment I'd parked at the Home Depot, a powerful snow squall blew through, leaving a thin layer of blowing snow that kept forming interesting patterns in the parking lot. This had me fearing I might have problems in my two-wheel-drive car should such squalls continue. But by the time I left the Home Depot, the snow had nearly stopped. So I felt safe taking a little extra time to get an Impossible Whopper at the Burger King across Route 30. I was the only person in the drive-thru line and somehow it only took then about a minute to assemble my order (Impossible Whopper with no mayonnaise and two large orders of fries). Ramona had been riding shotgun for most of the drive, but after the Home Depot stop, she swapped places with Neville and he really liked the smell of whatever was in my Burger King bag.
There was a little snow falling for the rest of my drive to the cabin, though it was never enough to cause any problems.
Based on the communication we'd been having with the solar installation guys (which was really with Gretchen and which she'd been forwarding to me), I'd assumed all the solar panels and associated equipment was all installed. But when I got to the cabin, I could see lots of boxes and such indicating that it was all a work in progress. Down in the basement, I saw that conduit had been run from the northeast corner to the northwest corner, where the beefy inverter and disconnect switch had been screwed to the concrete wall. There was also a large 18 kwh battery on casters, though little of this equipment had been hooked up. In the darkness I couldn't really see what had been done on the roof, but none of the solar panels had yet been installed.
The reason I'd gotten two orders of fries was so I could share one of them with the dogs. I waited until they were no longer begging (they gave that up quickly) before giving them any.
I'd re-upped the cabin's booze supply and ended the evening with a couple gins with tonic.


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http://asecular.com/blog.php?211222

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