Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"yes, the brain is a muscle, but if you show it to people it's usually because part of your skull has been torn off and that doesn't impress the ladies -- unless the ladies are ZOMBIES! Where did this paragraph go?" -- Joss Whedon, 2007-11-07

"We're talking about story-telling, the most basic human need. Food? That's an animal need. Shelter? That's a luxury item that leads to social grouping, which leads directly to fancy scarves. But human awareness is all about story-telling. The selective narrative of your memory. The story of why the Sky Bully throws lightning at you. From the first, stories, even unspoken, separated us from the other, cooler beasts." -- Joss Whedon, ibid.

[Happy Birthday to silmaril!]

"yes, the brain is a muscle, but if you show it to people it's usually because part of your skull has been torn off and that doesn't impress the ladies -- unless the ladies are ZOMBIES! Where did this paragraph go?" -- Joss Whedon, 2007-11-07

"We're talking about story-telling, the most basic human need. Food? That's an animal need. Shelter? That's a luxury item that leads to social grouping, which leads directly to fancy scarves. But human awareness is all about story-telling. The selective narrative of your memory. The story of why the Sky Bully throws lightning at you. From the first, stories, even unspoken, separated us from the other, cooler beasts." -- Joss Whedon, ibid.

[Happy Birthday to silmaril!]

The troubleshooting step, "Check to see whether it's plugged in," applies to the Ethernet cable as well, idjit.

The troubleshooting step, "Check to see whether it's plugged in," applies to the Ethernet cable as well, idjit.

A brick fell off my roof. Flapping was audible from indoors. With the aid of tramadol, I dragged myself back up on the roof, where I saw that the western edge of one sheet of plastic was lifted up, flopped over, and flapping -- and the ballast that had been on that part had either gotten nudged to the middle or rolled partway down the roof. While I watched, more of it slipped out from under its ballast.

I hauled more brick-pieces up (this time I'd brought an extra rope to avoid dragging the bucket o' bricks up the ladder, but it was too heavy for me to trust myself to haul it all the way up from the ground so I carried it up the stair part of the fire escape and used the rope to get it the last stage.

The owner of one or more of the vacant houses pulled up as I was going up the fire escape. Getting out of his car he drew his cell phone. I paused and looked his way, and he said, "Who are you?". I explained the situation and he said, "I guess that's all right then," and put away his phone. When I came back down his tone had shifted all the way over to friendly. (And in between, on one of my brickbucketfilling trips, he confirmed that the broken bricks I'd guessed were trash are in fact trash.) He was working on his windows while I worked on my roof.

It's too windy to work solo with a sheet of plastic that's not already held down on a couple of edges, so I'll wait for calm before trying to attach the next sheet.

I did take a few minutes to stand atop the chimney for a bunch of snapshots with the digicam. (I should drag the tripod and a film camera up there at some point, but not today.) One really feels the strength of each gust, on such a small perch.

When the dripping started last night, quite some time after the rain got more serious than a sprinkle, it was noisy but ultimately totalled maybe a half gallon. I'm guessing that that was just after the top sheet of plastic shifted enough to expose the uphill edge of the second sheet. Last night's rain was nowhere near as heavy as that last storm that kept me up all night, but during that one I was seeing in excess of eight gallons per hour pouring through the ceiling. Methinks the plastic is helping.

And now it's time to waken the cat, who finally stopped pestering me for having left her alone for an hour or two (oh, the horror, the poor neglected kitty!) and fell asleep on my lap while I wrote this. But I need me some lunch, and I have to check on the laundry, before I too fall asleep.

Finally, as I mentioned in a comment elsewhere, if I had to spend a night without power during a February when I'm relying on electric space heaters for warmth, I suppose the night leading into the absurdly unseasonably warm day was the night to do so. By the time my electricity came back on it was warmer outdoors than in any but the warmest room in my house.

A brick fell off my roof. Flapping was audible from indoors. With the aid of tramadol, I dragged myself back up on the roof, where I saw that the western edge of one sheet of plastic was lifted up, flopped over, and flapping -- and the ballast that had been on that part had either gotten nudged to the middle or rolled partway down the roof. While I watched, more of it slipped out from under its ballast.

I hauled more brick-pieces up (this time I'd brought an extra rope to avoid dragging the bucket o' bricks up the ladder, but it was too heavy for me to trust myself to haul it all the way up from the ground so I carried it up the stair part of the fire escape and used the rope to get it the last stage.

The owner of one or more of the vacant houses pulled up as I was going up the fire escape. Getting out of his car he drew his cell phone. I paused and looked his way, and he said, "Who are you?". I explained the situation and he said, "I guess that's all right then," and put away his phone. When I came back down his tone had shifted all the way over to friendly. (And in between, on one of my brickbucketfilling trips, he confirmed that the broken bricks I'd guessed were trash are in fact trash.) He was working on his windows while I worked on my roof.

It's too windy to work solo with a sheet of plastic that's not already held down on a couple of edges, so I'll wait for calm before trying to attach the next sheet.

I did take a few minutes to stand atop the chimney for a bunch of snapshots with the digicam. (I should drag the tripod and a film camera up there at some point, but not today.) One really feels the strength of each gust, on such a small perch.

When the dripping started last night, quite some time after the rain got more serious than a sprinkle, it was noisy but ultimately totalled maybe a half gallon. I'm guessing that that was just after the top sheet of plastic shifted enough to expose the uphill edge of the second sheet. Last night's rain was nowhere near as heavy as that last storm that kept me up all night, but during that one I was seeing in excess of eight gallons per hour pouring through the ceiling. Methinks the plastic is helping.

And now it's time to waken the cat, who finally stopped pestering me for having left her alone for an hour or two (oh, the horror, the poor neglected kitty!) and fell asleep on my lap while I wrote this. But I need me some lunch, and I have to check on the laundry, before I too fall asleep.

Finally, as I mentioned in a comment elsewhere, if I had to spend a night without power during a February when I'm relying on electric space heaters for warmth, I suppose the night leading into the absurdly unseasonably warm day was the night to do so. By the time my electricity came back on it was warmer outdoors than in any but the warmest room in my house.

Hmph. Wind died down, but my guess is that it didn't die down quite soon enough. Because in contrast to last night, rain is pouring, not dripping, out of my ceiling already. Feh. Still better than the 8gal/hr mess, and I don't see any in the doorway in the wall that channelled it to the server room before, so the effort may not have been a complete waste, but still discouraging.

Hope it doesn't keep raining long enough to require dumping a bucket, 'cause raising my arms hurts rather a lot right now.

Rehearsal iffy. Will try ...

Hmph. Wind died down, but my guess is that it didn't die down quite soon enough. Because in contrast to last night, rain is pouring, not dripping, out of my ceiling already. Feh. Still better than the 8gal/hr mess, and I don't see any in the doorway in the wall that channelled it to the server room before, so the effort may not have been a complete waste, but still discouraging.

Hope it doesn't keep raining long enough to require dumping a bucket, 'cause raising my arms hurts rather a lot right now.

Rehearsal iffy. Will try ...