As my previous very short post referred, I'm in Dublin awaiting Nel's arrival. I left her this morning in HUll and headed for the 7.33, not to Leeds, but this time to Manchester Airport, where I took a flight to dublin.
For reasons that are entirely consistent with our evergreen ability to make life absurdly complicated, Nel left home an hour later, headed up to Newcastle and took a seperate flight. Also to Dublin. From here, we are picking up a car, driving down the coast to Greystones where my parents honeymooned, then driving across country to Cork where we meet Little Bunny Foo Foo, and his family for a short holiday.
For reasons that are very Irish, the directions we have from Bunny Foo Foo is "Just drive to Oven, outside Cork, and ask where the Sheehans live. If you get lost , just go to the pub. Someone'll probably call us to let us know you've arrived. But we'll probably be there anyway"
So, as soon as Nel arrives, that's it, we'll be off. That is if I am allowed to hiure a rental car on the out of date license I have.
Monday, 8 September 2008
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
The Credit Crunch
Although it may sound like a breakfast cereal, Credit Crunch is actually Journalese for The Huge Big Massive Recession that Britain (Best Country in The World tm) is plunging into quicker than you can say 'Don't put a Wind Turbine in my Back Yard, I want a Nuclear Power Plant Instead'. While Gordon Brown, the Labour Leader, and David Cameron, his Opposing Conservative Leader, are busy giving interviews about the brilliant Olympic success (and it is a great series of achievements) of the Scottish, Afro Caribbean and Scouse athletes who represent Britain, the Housing Market, which as far as anyone can tell is the only industry left in the UK, (apart from the Financial Services Sector, which does not count as in industry anyway because no-one actually makes anything) is crashing through the floor, apparently determined not to stop until it reaches Australia, a country that Britain(as we quickly tire of hearing) roundly thrashes in the medals table at Beijing.
We are treated to a series of interviews which show our politicians in their worst light. Worst that is, if, in respect of a very, very long list of infinitely negative personal, moral and ethical attributes, the laws of Physics allow an absolute worst. Interviews that would verge on the enigmatic, if the interviewees were not so repulsive. The problem with these interviews, is that our politicians, in common with the androids that inhabit JobCentre PlusOne, are responsible for nothing, not even success. In the case of the Olympics, this results in our odious Prime Minister, smugly basking in the success of the team, and sportingly refraining from specifically saying that if the Other Lot were in charge we'd have absolutely no sailing medals at all. He does manages to imply it by repeating the line "this is not a day for politics, it is about Team GB", but magnamity prevails and he absolutely refuses to be obviously seen claiming the success as a Party success.
Among the press, the sportsmen and women, and commentators, there is broad agreement that the Investment In Sport referred to by the various politicians comes from the millions and millions of pounds generated by the National Lottery(created in 1994) and pumped into British Sport is beginning to deliver results. Indeed, the consensus goes, the previous laissez faire attitude of Governments to sport, an attitude now in practice in Canada, delivers nothing, as the poor showing of the Canadians, where The Right Miserable Steven Harper has cut sports funding, demonstrates. Left to the 'market' your country's Sport collapses but if you invest in facilities and training then, even in the aggressive, cut-throat, multi-billion dollar industry that is global Sports, you will succeed.
British politicians return from Beijing to the official start of what has been called "the worst recession in 60 years" or the Credit Crunch. True to form, no-one calls it a recession, it is instead 'a global downturn', a 'market correction', a 'set of difficult circumstances', and indeed a 'Credit Crunch'. Apparently, like the Olympics, no-one is responsible - even the Opposition call this a Global Crisis and speak only of how their policies would have just mitigated the circumstances that ordinary people will soon be finding themselves in - while the Labour Government speak gravely about 'helping Britons through these difficult times' as if their last fourteen years of Government have had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that soon there will be millions of ordinary people on the dole, loosing their houses, cancelling vacations, taking below inflation pay-rises and struggling to pay for necessities such as heat, water and light. I wonder, vaguelly, battered by all the bad news, whether an investment (such as the MILLIONS that have been poured into sport) might, in the past, or even now, have been in order. After all, it worked for sport, but the question is answered by the Labour Chancellor who tells us that it is up to the markets to put their own house in order. Effectively, the message is, it is the responsibility of Governments to do nothing.
Over at Large Villas, something snaps. My radio station of choice while rebuilding the property has previously been BBC Radio Four, a station that used to be close in tone and content to CBC's Radio One, but the Olympics, then the Credit Crunch, are the final straws. Where there used to be interesting afternoon plays, and penetrating interviews with feisty politicians, there are now interesting afternoon plays, ceaseless documentaries about Global Warming, Money Box(a financial affairs programme which has recently be entirely about how bad the forthcoming recession is going to be), Women's Hour (mostly about date rape and cervical cancer) and a periodic interviews with our current crop of politicians, people who are as far from feisty as it is possible to get. While Britain used to boast fine orators from all sides of the political spectrum, Churchill, Powell, Tebbit, Heseltine, Hatton, Heffer, Castle, Wilson and that Welsh guy Bevan, there now exists a drab collection of Sociology graduates, asexual clones who seem to speak without opening their mouths at all. I imagine Churchill's famous wartime "We will fight them on the beaches" speech (which if you have not read it, you should because it is brilliant. It can be read here:http://www.presentationhelper.co.uk/winston_churchill_speech_fight_them_on_beaches.htm) in the mouths of one of our modern politicians. Depressingly, in the hands of Blair, Brown or any of the new breed, the modern version of the speech would be more like:
"You now, it really is too much. As Stakeholders in British beaches, and indeed in Britain, per se, the British public, including the Welsh, I have to say by the way that our beaches are the best in the world, and no-one wants to see them messed up any more than I do, or do not, but, we, as a Government, are going to set some pretty stiff targets for the Nazis of where they can and where they simply cannot go, and - if I may finish, no you asked the question, so let me finish please - if, and I say again, if: if the Nazis fail to meet those targets, which we are going to call Beach Accretiation Lesser Landfall Strategy, or BALLS, If they fail to meet those targets, we'll think about installing speed bumps on those beaches, in consultation, of course with the local, and non-local interest groups, including the Royal Society for Protection of Birds (obviously we cannot have speed bumps where cormorants are nesting). I think that strategy, taken as whole, will send a pretty clear message to the rampaging Nazi hordes that this whole Global Domination thing simply will not do."
The language, syntax, tone, message(s), are all just horrible and amount to absolutely nothing being said at all. Which is why I have switched to Radio LIncolnshire. AFter all, if you are going to listen to nothing, you may as well do it comprehensively. Lincolnshire is the county directly south of Hull. It includes the flattest parts of this island, and is mainly rural. Nothing has happened in Lincolnshire, practically ever, and there are no signs that anything is about to happen there. It's cricket team plays in the minor leagues, it has one football team, Lincoln City, who play in soccer's minor leagues and the only exciting thing ever to happen there - the adoption of Lincoln Green by Robin Hood as his gang's colours, happened so long ago that it does not cause a stir. Radio Lincoln provides a soothing mix of mid-Eighties AOR, programmes about Lincolnshire geneaology, and very frequent traffic reports on the one road passing through the county. It is a pleasant reminder that so many of the crises, emergencies and other calamities that are reported on a daily basis in the serious media, are in fact, hyped up by the media who seem to want us to live in continual state of alert, vicariously following every story and requiring us, through phone in shows, to have opinions, and get outraged, and shout that 'something must be done' about all these important 'issues'. The feeling that I get from Radio Lincoln is that it will all go away, and they are probably right.
We are treated to a series of interviews which show our politicians in their worst light. Worst that is, if, in respect of a very, very long list of infinitely negative personal, moral and ethical attributes, the laws of Physics allow an absolute worst. Interviews that would verge on the enigmatic, if the interviewees were not so repulsive. The problem with these interviews, is that our politicians, in common with the androids that inhabit JobCentre PlusOne, are responsible for nothing, not even success. In the case of the Olympics, this results in our odious Prime Minister, smugly basking in the success of the team, and sportingly refraining from specifically saying that if the Other Lot were in charge we'd have absolutely no sailing medals at all. He does manages to imply it by repeating the line "this is not a day for politics, it is about Team GB", but magnamity prevails and he absolutely refuses to be obviously seen claiming the success as a Party success.
Among the press, the sportsmen and women, and commentators, there is broad agreement that the Investment In Sport referred to by the various politicians comes from the millions and millions of pounds generated by the National Lottery(created in 1994) and pumped into British Sport is beginning to deliver results. Indeed, the consensus goes, the previous laissez faire attitude of Governments to sport, an attitude now in practice in Canada, delivers nothing, as the poor showing of the Canadians, where The Right Miserable Steven Harper has cut sports funding, demonstrates. Left to the 'market' your country's Sport collapses but if you invest in facilities and training then, even in the aggressive, cut-throat, multi-billion dollar industry that is global Sports, you will succeed.
British politicians return from Beijing to the official start of what has been called "the worst recession in 60 years" or the Credit Crunch. True to form, no-one calls it a recession, it is instead 'a global downturn', a 'market correction', a 'set of difficult circumstances', and indeed a 'Credit Crunch'. Apparently, like the Olympics, no-one is responsible - even the Opposition call this a Global Crisis and speak only of how their policies would have just mitigated the circumstances that ordinary people will soon be finding themselves in - while the Labour Government speak gravely about 'helping Britons through these difficult times' as if their last fourteen years of Government have had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that soon there will be millions of ordinary people on the dole, loosing their houses, cancelling vacations, taking below inflation pay-rises and struggling to pay for necessities such as heat, water and light. I wonder, vaguelly, battered by all the bad news, whether an investment (such as the MILLIONS that have been poured into sport) might, in the past, or even now, have been in order. After all, it worked for sport, but the question is answered by the Labour Chancellor who tells us that it is up to the markets to put their own house in order. Effectively, the message is, it is the responsibility of Governments to do nothing.
Over at Large Villas, something snaps. My radio station of choice while rebuilding the property has previously been BBC Radio Four, a station that used to be close in tone and content to CBC's Radio One, but the Olympics, then the Credit Crunch, are the final straws. Where there used to be interesting afternoon plays, and penetrating interviews with feisty politicians, there are now interesting afternoon plays, ceaseless documentaries about Global Warming, Money Box(a financial affairs programme which has recently be entirely about how bad the forthcoming recession is going to be), Women's Hour (mostly about date rape and cervical cancer) and a periodic interviews with our current crop of politicians, people who are as far from feisty as it is possible to get. While Britain used to boast fine orators from all sides of the political spectrum, Churchill, Powell, Tebbit, Heseltine, Hatton, Heffer, Castle, Wilson and that Welsh guy Bevan, there now exists a drab collection of Sociology graduates, asexual clones who seem to speak without opening their mouths at all. I imagine Churchill's famous wartime "We will fight them on the beaches" speech (which if you have not read it, you should because it is brilliant. It can be read here:http://www.presentationhelper.co.uk/winston_churchill_speech_fight_them_on_beaches.htm) in the mouths of one of our modern politicians. Depressingly, in the hands of Blair, Brown or any of the new breed, the modern version of the speech would be more like:
"You now, it really is too much. As Stakeholders in British beaches, and indeed in Britain, per se, the British public, including the Welsh, I have to say by the way that our beaches are the best in the world, and no-one wants to see them messed up any more than I do, or do not, but, we, as a Government, are going to set some pretty stiff targets for the Nazis of where they can and where they simply cannot go, and - if I may finish, no you asked the question, so let me finish please - if, and I say again, if: if the Nazis fail to meet those targets, which we are going to call Beach Accretiation Lesser Landfall Strategy, or BALLS, If they fail to meet those targets, we'll think about installing speed bumps on those beaches, in consultation, of course with the local, and non-local interest groups, including the Royal Society for Protection of Birds (obviously we cannot have speed bumps where cormorants are nesting). I think that strategy, taken as whole, will send a pretty clear message to the rampaging Nazi hordes that this whole Global Domination thing simply will not do."
The language, syntax, tone, message(s), are all just horrible and amount to absolutely nothing being said at all. Which is why I have switched to Radio LIncolnshire. AFter all, if you are going to listen to nothing, you may as well do it comprehensively. Lincolnshire is the county directly south of Hull. It includes the flattest parts of this island, and is mainly rural. Nothing has happened in Lincolnshire, practically ever, and there are no signs that anything is about to happen there. It's cricket team plays in the minor leagues, it has one football team, Lincoln City, who play in soccer's minor leagues and the only exciting thing ever to happen there - the adoption of Lincoln Green by Robin Hood as his gang's colours, happened so long ago that it does not cause a stir. Radio Lincoln provides a soothing mix of mid-Eighties AOR, programmes about Lincolnshire geneaology, and very frequent traffic reports on the one road passing through the county. It is a pleasant reminder that so many of the crises, emergencies and other calamities that are reported on a daily basis in the serious media, are in fact, hyped up by the media who seem to want us to live in continual state of alert, vicariously following every story and requiring us, through phone in shows, to have opinions, and get outraged, and shout that 'something must be done' about all these important 'issues'. The feeling that I get from Radio Lincoln is that it will all go away, and they are probably right.
Monday, 1 September 2008
50 and 9
Very briefly, we went to my sister's 5oth birthday party this weekend. It was tremendous fun, and a great chance for me to meet up again with one of my favourite people, Thomas, my nine-year old nephew. Thomas is a great kid, and has started writing - fiction, non-fiction, poetry, diary, anything really, he just loves it.
In consultation with my older brother, Thomas' dad, we set Thomas up with an e-mail account so that me and him(or he and I) can swap stories, writing ideas and discuss writing generally. It is very exciting, and I am very keen to help encourage the lad, although I realize that as soon as he becomes a teenager he will turn into a sullen, uncommunicative monster. In the meantime though, I have about four years to encourage, cajole and steal ideas from this bright kid.
Our first item for discussion has been the continents (by the way, I asked Thomas if it was ok that I write this about our conversations and he ok'd this report although he said I'd have to ask him about future conversations we have), and whether writing that includes pictures is valid or not . Thomas is of the opinion that the work should stand on it's own, an opinion that we've already had some vigorous debate over. I'm not patronising the lad here, he is, without being precocious, or precious, an interesting, engaging conversationalist.
These are exciting times. The house is going full tilt. I'm in the middle of an adult sci-fi novella, that Joey Mac and I sporadically work on, and now I'm working, with Thomas on some ideas and concepts that only kids could generate (for example, I was telling him about human migration across the globe, and how the First Australians arrived about forty thousand years ago, when Thomas started asking questions about how the kids felt about these migrations, and did they take their toys, pets and friends, and did the kids have to work. The answers to these questions are fascinating, not least because humans forty thousand years ago were not just Modern Westerners with less stuff, they organised themselves very differently).
In consultation with my older brother, Thomas' dad, we set Thomas up with an e-mail account so that me and him(or he and I) can swap stories, writing ideas and discuss writing generally. It is very exciting, and I am very keen to help encourage the lad, although I realize that as soon as he becomes a teenager he will turn into a sullen, uncommunicative monster. In the meantime though, I have about four years to encourage, cajole and steal ideas from this bright kid.
Our first item for discussion has been the continents (by the way, I asked Thomas if it was ok that I write this about our conversations and he ok'd this report although he said I'd have to ask him about future conversations we have), and whether writing that includes pictures is valid or not . Thomas is of the opinion that the work should stand on it's own, an opinion that we've already had some vigorous debate over. I'm not patronising the lad here, he is, without being precocious, or precious, an interesting, engaging conversationalist.
These are exciting times. The house is going full tilt. I'm in the middle of an adult sci-fi novella, that Joey Mac and I sporadically work on, and now I'm working, with Thomas on some ideas and concepts that only kids could generate (for example, I was telling him about human migration across the globe, and how the First Australians arrived about forty thousand years ago, when Thomas started asking questions about how the kids felt about these migrations, and did they take their toys, pets and friends, and did the kids have to work. The answers to these questions are fascinating, not least because humans forty thousand years ago were not just Modern Westerners with less stuff, they organised themselves very differently).
Saturday, 30 August 2008
The Real Macoy
Smarty-pants, boffin head Large managed to get the image of our future tiled floor/mosaic bathroom uploaded in the correct colours in about three seconds flat. It is worth a post of it's own, otherwise I would never hear the end of how simple it is to do. So here is the first stages of design for the bathrooms, the colour palette we intend to use
The other bathroom is a 'new' colour for us, namely blue:
Cats HAVE been advised that the floor is not a scratch pad.
Renovation update - Phase Five
 |
| House renos updates |
This album will be the one we use for keeping a record of our ongoing renovations. Progress has been good, steady and above all, to the required quality. The female future occupant of Large Villas is somewhat of the opinion that we are doing too much of the work ourselves, and I agree.
We are trying to plan to get the extension built by others, and I have engaged an architectural draughtsman to draw up plans, after struggling valiantly for a couple of weeks.
I have already shown the 3-D representation of our plans from the outside, so I will not repeat myself, but while we are still struggling valiantly to get basic stuff done, like get the garbage removed from the yard, we are pressing on with design, as the example on the left shows. Because of the problems of converting files created in Corel Draw to Photoshop and then to a jpg, the whole point of this example is, I'm afraid, rather lost, because the colours represented here bear absolutely no relation to the colours we intend to use in the bathrooms, but the basic idea perhaps translates, which is to use a mosaic effect in small areas of the walls and a mixed palettes of linoleum floors tiles.Linoleum floor tiles ! You mean that horrible material from the Seventies? Yes, I do - the exact same stuff, except that it has been rebranded as Marmoleum. We are trying to be as environmentally conscious as possible, but as recycled rubber was just too expensive, vinyl is oil based, after some research we discovered that linoleum is made from Linseed Oil and flax. You could practically eat the stuff.
The updates to the album this week show the massive bay windows of the front bedroom. The plan was to strip the wall of plaster, build a simple frame, stick some insulation in, then drywall the bay. Quick and easy. Unfortunately, I found an unacceptable amount of rot in the original frames (they are 100 years old), so to the above list has been added 'rebuild the frames from the inside'. As the frames all supported eachother this has been a slow process, forensic in detail as each sill, jamb and supporting pieces has had to be individually removed before being replaced with new wood. Add to this that the timber that the original frames were not constructed in off the shelf sizes. This has meant milling each piece of wood to a unique size. This kind of work requires attention to detail, patience and above all, the carpenter has to be interested in doing this. None of the tradespeople I have currently met seem interested, or were capable of doing this work. Opinions expressed were
a). Stick some mortar in it - 'no-one will know'
b). Get some new plastic frames - 'much easier'
c). Paint over the problem
d). "It's impossible".
All this means is that we either have to use specialist craftsmen, which we cannot afford, or do the thing ourselves. Which is why we are doing so much ourselves.
Elsewhere round the house the vision, given the time it will take to solve these problems, is to be as simple as possible and not to create the kids playhouse that we created in Nova Scotia. We'll see.
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
Carpenter, plumber, cat-wrangler, student
It is administrative day at Nickson Mansions, so I take my carpenter hat off and sit my Project Manager hat firmly on the old noggin. The renovation project at Large Villas is well into the second phase, and we will shortly begin Phase Three (Operation Taj Mahal). In truth, I am not exactly certain how many Phases this project will be divided into, although hopefully no more than five as follows:
Phase One; Tear-out and final Planning (Operation Focus)
Phase Two : Rebuild, insulate and make good existing structure (Operation Fishkettle)
Phase Three : Tear down existing 10ft by 4 ft structure and build new 15ft by 9 ft structure (Operation Taj Mahal)
Phase Four : Amalgamate old structure (Fishkettle) with new structure (Taj Mahal), including joining electrical, plumbing, heating and flooring elements into one Harmonious Whole (Operation Feng Shui)
Phase Five: Complete decoration of all (Operation Seven-Hours-in-Home-Depot-dithering-over-Paint-Samples-for-one tiny-room).
Phase Two and Phase Three run concurrently, and we are also finding that Phase One, Four and Five also have to run concurrently so every week, I take a day away from site to assess the Project and wrestle it back into shape so that it makes some kind of logical sense. English houses are very complicated pieces of engineering, much more so than the traditional North American built wood frame house. To build a wooden frame house, the process is simple - tear a great big hole in the ground, fill it with concrete, throw a bunch of wooden sticks together as a frame, nail some plywood to it and drywall the inside. If, in the course of this process, you discover that you've put the holes for the windows or the doors in the wrong place, you just cut a new hole in the side of the house(not particularly accurately) add a few more sticks or wood to frame out the new hole and fill any gaps with caulking or expanding foam. It is the way house building should be. Once built attaching
English houses are an entirely different matter. Take the outer walls for example. These consist of an inner leaf, made of things called blocks, and an outer leaf made of bricks. The inner and outer are separated by an air space, or cavity but are tied together by small stainless steel clips embedded into the mortar(mortar is the glue which is between bricks and is a different product for the outer leaf and the inner leaf) of each respective leaf. Not only this, but the cavity is also partially filled with insulation, and has a damp proof membrane. It does not help that the blocks and the bricks are different sizes by several order of magnitude, and that there are a myriad of different specifications within each category. Additionally, where windows or doors are required in a structure, a separate material - either structural steel or concrete - is required by code to act a lintel. Just to build a wall requires amalgamating five different materials together seamlessly. It is, I have to admit, a good solution in a deforested country, but as we are running this whole project ourselves instead of employing a building contractor, it is a massive learning curve, a curve that I've only just grasped, and one that has involved several false dawns. Local building suppliers will, I have discovered, sell you anything you ask for without providing advice, so the research has to be thorough and the results of that research accurate, as well as regionally specific (the soil type determines which materials you can use, how deep your foundations have to be and when you can build).
The process has been amazing and fascinating, and I'm now knowledgeable, if not expert in structural load calculations for type 4c soil, and have all sorts of ready facts available about the load bearing properties of all sorts of bricks (in Newtons per cubic metre). The cats have been useless in helping with this research. During any learning process, there is for me a cusp, a pivotal moment, when struggling with a complicated three dimensional puzzle. Suddenly the solution to the problem you are trying to solve becomes clear, lucid and you just grasp it. But the moments before these epiphanies are the most dangerous - the problem floats just in front of you, tantilizingly just out of reach. You know however that this is the moment of discovery and just a little bit longer in silent contemplation will give the solution. Usually at this point, Tosh jumps up on the desk, rubs my chin with his head and goes "MIAOW!!!", driving the solution away like a frightened bird.
THe best thing though is that these admin days are how I anticipate my student days - problem solving, writing essays, discovering information. If this is the next three years, I'm a very lucky carpenter.
Phase One; Tear-out and final Planning (Operation Focus)
Phase Two : Rebuild, insulate and make good existing structure (Operation Fishkettle)
Phase Three : Tear down existing 10ft by 4 ft structure and build new 15ft by 9 ft structure (Operation Taj Mahal)
Phase Four : Amalgamate old structure (Fishkettle) with new structure (Taj Mahal), including joining electrical, plumbing, heating and flooring elements into one Harmonious Whole (Operation Feng Shui)
Phase Five: Complete decoration of all (Operation Seven-Hours-in-Home-Depot-dithering-over-Paint-Samples-for-one tiny-room).
Phase Two and Phase Three run concurrently, and we are also finding that Phase One, Four and Five also have to run concurrently so every week, I take a day away from site to assess the Project and wrestle it back into shape so that it makes some kind of logical sense. English houses are very complicated pieces of engineering, much more so than the traditional North American built wood frame house. To build a wooden frame house, the process is simple - tear a great big hole in the ground, fill it with concrete, throw a bunch of wooden sticks together as a frame, nail some plywood to it and drywall the inside. If, in the course of this process, you discover that you've put the holes for the windows or the doors in the wrong place, you just cut a new hole in the side of the house(not particularly accurately) add a few more sticks or wood to frame out the new hole and fill any gaps with caulking or expanding foam. It is the way house building should be. Once built attaching
English houses are an entirely different matter. Take the outer walls for example. These consist of an inner leaf, made of things called blocks, and an outer leaf made of bricks. The inner and outer are separated by an air space, or cavity but are tied together by small stainless steel clips embedded into the mortar(mortar is the glue which is between bricks and is a different product for the outer leaf and the inner leaf) of each respective leaf. Not only this, but the cavity is also partially filled with insulation, and has a damp proof membrane. It does not help that the blocks and the bricks are different sizes by several order of magnitude, and that there are a myriad of different specifications within each category. Additionally, where windows or doors are required in a structure, a separate material - either structural steel or concrete - is required by code to act a lintel. Just to build a wall requires amalgamating five different materials together seamlessly. It is, I have to admit, a good solution in a deforested country, but as we are running this whole project ourselves instead of employing a building contractor, it is a massive learning curve, a curve that I've only just grasped, and one that has involved several false dawns. Local building suppliers will, I have discovered, sell you anything you ask for without providing advice, so the research has to be thorough and the results of that research accurate, as well as regionally specific (the soil type determines which materials you can use, how deep your foundations have to be and when you can build).
The process has been amazing and fascinating, and I'm now knowledgeable, if not expert in structural load calculations for type 4c soil, and have all sorts of ready facts available about the load bearing properties of all sorts of bricks (in Newtons per cubic metre). The cats have been useless in helping with this research. During any learning process, there is for me a cusp, a pivotal moment, when struggling with a complicated three dimensional puzzle. Suddenly the solution to the problem you are trying to solve becomes clear, lucid and you just grasp it. But the moments before these epiphanies are the most dangerous - the problem floats just in front of you, tantilizingly just out of reach. You know however that this is the moment of discovery and just a little bit longer in silent contemplation will give the solution. Usually at this point, Tosh jumps up on the desk, rubs my chin with his head and goes "MIAOW!!!", driving the solution away like a frightened bird.
THe best thing though is that these admin days are how I anticipate my student days - problem solving, writing essays, discovering information. If this is the next three years, I'm a very lucky carpenter.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
