Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I think I've found something that explains the number of Pagans and mystics among hackers:

Thoughts give birth to a creative force that is neither elemental nor sideral. Thoughts create a new heaven, a new firmament, a new source of energy, from which new arts flow. When a man undertakes to create something, he establishes a new heaven, as it were and from it the work that he desires to create flows into him. For such is the immensity of man that he is greater than heaven and earth.
     - Philipus Aureolus Paracelsus

Well, I can see that this is going to be an unfun day ...

Any recommendations for favourite plumbers in Baltimore before I hit the Yellow Pages? (Gotta bug Mom for money to pay for this, too.)

In brighter news, john_tangent dropped by with cookies (and to offer a warmer place to spend the night, but last night was far warmer than the night before and I was already tired), and I got him to help me move the piano from the landing where it's been since I moved in here a few years ago, to the third floor where I can actually play it. I didn't play it much last night after I lugged the amplifier up, because I didn't want to disturb the neighbours, but if I have any time today after dealing with the car and the plumbing and a new project and bills, I'll wander back up there and see what comes out.

I don't actually play piano, but I find it useful when transcribing/composing/arranging. And I must admit that the motion of the keys feels seductive to my fingers. (This is a Fender-Rhodes. For anyone here too young for that to be familiar from the 1960s and 1970s, it's an electric piano, not an electronic instrument; in every mechanical sense it's a Real Piano; instead of long strings and a sounding board, it has metal tines and coil pickups, but it's got the hammers and the dampers and produces its sound as a piano does. The electronics merely amplify, not generate, the sound. This also means it's heavy.)

That landing looks a lot larger now.

I may have a different problem than I thought I did. I just checked the water in the basement (which Perrine is absolutely fascinated by, though she did make a miscalculation at one point so that she had to slosh through centimeter-deep water to get out of a location she'd jumped to). There's a second puddle trying to merge with the first, and a third starting. The second one is under the washer/dryer, so it could conceivably be a drain there backing up, but I hadn't used any more water since I first posted about this. (I hope I didn't have anything that'll be hurt by water in the bottom box of the stack there ... and that the double layers of plastic bags are enough to protect the TRS-80s. The boxes of books, fortunately, are on pallets ... I am so not looking forward to the cleanup phase of this.)

One clue was that the water level of the toilet in the basement was normal when I found a stick to reach over the puddle and lift the lid. If the problem was a backed up sewer line causing flushes upstairs to come out in the basement, the bowl should be full to the brim in the basement, right?

The third puddle starts at the wall.

Maybe the basement next door is flooded? My first thought was that a pipe had frozen and burst in the vacant house, but I was trying to figure out which direction the water was moving, when I noticed the water coming from the wall ... on the side where I do have neighbours. Time to throw clothes on and ring their doorbell.

Have I mentioned that I am not enjoying this day?