One year ago today: November 22, 2015, Zuse, purged from history.
Five years ago today: November 22, 2011, get a piano!
Nine years ago today: November 22, 2007, rare photos.
Random years ago today: November 22, 2013, statistics on sidecar travel.
MORNING
No way I can cut those logs with my existing equipment. But coincidentally, I think I cut some of the stumps to nearly the correct length to act as jack stands for the floor. You see, safety aside, I cannot wait for help to arrive. I made a small ground pallet for the Zephyr jack shown here. That’s 4x4” strapped together with 2x4”s. The posts sticking out from the plate are safety blocks, in case the ground decides to settle or something.
I’ve looked at several gutter options, but none of them are in character with the building. I’ve heard of rain diffusers, so give me time to investigate that. The jack was missing the handle when I bought it meaning I’ll need time to find something strong enough for that, too. Maybe a tire iron. I’m also going to put another wooden plate across the top of the jack so it isn’t lifting the entire wall at that one point. Better safe than sorry.
My plan is to lift this section tomorrow morning. It has to go up an inch by measurement but this is the first time I’ve measured such a thing. I’ve hesitated too long on this step which was planned for both JZ and I to work on it together. He did say last day he’s going to get another used truck, but the trip out here is a major event this close to Thanksgiving and Xmas. No, I’ve best proceed by myself.
Let’s pause here for a moment. The casual onlooker might think what’s the big deal? Slide a jack under the house, crank the thing up. Well, sunshine, it does not work like that. You cannot see the hours of planning and contemplation it took to get this far. This is my retirement cottage, not the farm shed. Every step is planned through in advance because there is nobody to ask. Because everybody was an expert until I needed some real answers. On the other side of the wall, the subfloor has been removed so I can get at the joists from inside. I won’t cut the new sill plates until I can make the interior as flat and level as possible. I’m no longer conerned with the exterior unless something looks funny, but it doesn’t.
California border fence.
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NOON
More shelves. I put up two more, which is finally getting things up off the floor so I can get more work done. The same welder the old robot club uses is going on sale this weekend for $84, that $25 less than we paid for the first one. It got left behind in the move. Don’t forget one of the prime directives of the club was to learn things and this time I know exactly what I’m buying. I’m getting impatient about that shed I want in the back yard.
But I do identify with how he went back to Spain after his wife died, and became a recluse. I know what it is like to re-enter a world where you know there will never be another love like the last one. Recluse? Or simply saying enough of the petty crap, take the shallowness of your world and go away. That part, I understand. Except for the distraction only young pretty women can provide, it is often better to be let along.
Of course, suffering is always better when you can do so in comfort. Being a celebrated artist and millionaire has fewer downsides than going it alone any other way. Yes, I would like to get married again, but just what do you think the past twenty years has been all about? Find that one good woman, they say, like the forest is full of them and you are just being fussy. What have you got to lose? Besides your house.
NIGHT
Our scumbag real estate lady is back, the one who always pretends to mistype the last zero. Here is a place she is advertising for $39,000 when it should obviously be $390,000. Mr. Trump, please make a law about this, and ramp up the definition of bait-and-switch to include colleges and universities for a start. And establish painful fines for anyone who uses the word “free” on-line. A 30-day trial or requiring a membership means it is not “free”. Clamp down on these bozos. Free means anonymous help yourself.
Thus, tonight was extra grand because it was what I supposed retirement would be. What an immense difference it is to own a place. There is no background worry of mortgage or maintenance costs, no concern for an uncertain future. Yes, it makes a big difference but it takes some time to adjust to that difference pace. I picked up the book I want to finish, “The Name of the Rose”, for it is getting tedious. I grabbed a woolen blanket and sat on the sofa to read at 7:30 PM. I didn’t notice the silence. No television, no radio, no stereo, not even a fan.
I dozed off until 1:37 AM, book in lap. I realized it was still silent and what a luxury that is. We live in a world of constant din, always noise in the background. The last time I had such silence was nearly 25 years ago, but it was not my silence. I would have given a lot more for it back then. Yet, there was always that creeping knowledge that the world and its contrived paperwork and expenses could still catch up with you. Now, that can’t happen in the sense I’ve already described—that by the time I even get worried, others will be beyond desperation.
I asked myself why I was thinking about all this now? It must be the silence. Ah, but is my silence, and I certainly had to wait long enough for it.
ADDENDUM
The book has to wrap it up fast. There are not enough pages left for it to drag along at the same pace without resolving something. I now recommend against reading this book. It just does not deliver unless one has a fascination with serpents and mystical properties of gemstones, all perverted to prove one side is right and the other side is not wrong, but possessed by evil spirits who need to be freed by death.
The book isn’t over at just solving the murders. There’s another fifty pages on the aftermath and I’m in no hurry. It was poison on the book pages after all. But a special book that the librarians over the years have kept secret because it was by Aristotle.
This is not in the book, but the theories of Aristotle held sway over Europe for a thousand years. I always attributed that to interference by the Church, who dictated that his writings were scientific truth. In fact, most of what he said was easily overturned by simple experiment, had that been permitted. If there were Dark Ages, it is clear to me who caused them. Then, in this book, there is a single sentence near the end that suggest Aristotle wrote a book later in life that contained facts that contradicts his earlier theories.
But this book was not discovered until long after the Church had declared his other writings to be dogma. It would not do to have such a book suddenly appear in 1342. Again, the plot does not say this, I’m speculating. But the murderer appears to be the blind monk. He’s the only suspect still left alive at this point.
I say again, don’t bother reading this book. It is boringly overlong and takes up time that is better spent reading something worthwhile. It’s mainly a presentation of worn-out Catholic arguments that I doubt one Catholic in ten thousand could comprehend. It’s doctrine for nodders. It’s concerned with issues that don’t make any difference to the layman and as full of Latin quotes as a 1950s high school sex manual.
Last Laugh
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