36. Free waffles! + Tiny houses

Previous -  35. Painting

Who are these people?

I'm at the Bank Cafe as the contractors work on restoring the trim in the unit, rather than anything I'm interested in. CapitalOne is having one of their special events -- a guy is here making waffles which people are standing in a long line for since you don't have to pay. Everyone in the line looks like they could pay, but instead they seem to have time to wait in a long line instead. There's a huge container of batter sitting next to the single griddle, so I expect this will continue for some time. There are a number of noticeably over-weight people in the line, so there's that, but I'm unclear on the motivation or even on how all these people knew about this. I think there were signs posted for several days, but who pays attention to signs like that? Quite a few people, obviously.

Since I don't much like standing in line, and since waffles are not as compelling as bread pudding for me, I am waffle-less and expect to remain so.  

The contractors are going to grind another notch in the cement floor, to try to drain the area of old pavement that is currently dammed by the new pavement. I've seen no indication this latest crew is any more familiar with the basic principles of water drainage, so I'm not optimistic. I've indicated where the notch needs to run to be effective but I would be surprised if they follow my guideline. We are in agreement that the low spot behind the washer needs to be raised rather than notched. Or at least I think we are in agreement -- Juan's English isn't the best.

There is also a scheme to repair -- or really to cover up -- damage to the back door where the bottom of the door was sawed off so it would clear the protective layer of plywood over the hall carpet. I liked my plan a little better, but the contractor's plan is easier and should work fine. No one will ever notice this but me. 

I'm already thinking about the re-painting of the public spaces to follow as soon as the retrofitters are finished. The painters who painted the entry before -- who I would like to hire put it back in order but who have been less than eager about the job -- have responded to my email with the very vague reply that they will be by to take a look "this week," no day or time specified. This is really just due diligence anyway since I'm sure the bid we already have will be lower and that they will do an adequate job -- the upstairs still looks great and they painted that 12 years ago (I just looked it up. Yes I have records of everything like that stashed in the Cloud... leave me alone!)

The good thing about having few owner occupants is that (again) no one but me has probably noticed what a beating the tile floor in our entry has taken during the retrofit process. There's an entry in our Reserve Study for replacing the tile floor which I always laughed about, because tile floor. I hadn't anticipated the weight of debris and materials and equipment that have passed up and down our tile steps and across the tile landing below. Something else to add to my list of things to not think about until at least next year. (Dealing with the rear "yard" is also going on that list and if anyone complains I'll put them in charge of seeing to it.)

Hours later...

Wow, did I call the drainage right. I finally had to take over as they were grinding seemingly random notches in the floor. That isn't quite fair, if the drain had been placed at the low point instead of at a high point, their notches would have made perfect sense. I always knew my childhood spent building dirt dams and waterways would pay off in the future (not!). By pointing (here to here) I got the center of the floor mostly drained. When the floor gets flooded I may need to sweep that last bit of water into one of the notches, but it is no longer a big problem. 

They haven't started addressing the place in the floor that needs to be built up (as it's below the drain). Maybe tomorrow. 

Tiny houses

What is it about Tiny Houses that I (and so many other people, evidently) find so compelling? You could spend weeks on YouTube just watching tours. One of the Tiny House people I subscribe to on YouTube is using his own Tiny House to do all the electrical work he's ever dreamed of. He's an electrician and his house is wired like a space ship. There are circuits for everything. He's his own dream client and his house will offer everything electricity can offer.

In my head, I'm designing my own Tiny House and with me it's a process of subtraction. I have the advantage of having lived in a tiny apartment for 23 years, so I know all the things you think you need (or want) that you can really do without. For starters I would dispense with the otherwise almost mandatory loft or lofts. RVs and boats are similarly tiny habitations and they never have lofts so why does everyone think a Tiny House needs a space you can only access by ladder or with steps that take up a lot of room? I can only think of one tour I've seen of a Tiny without a loft and that was one of my favorites.

And the amount of wood that goes into most of these houses is insane. Sure, wood construction is easy for DIY people, but the weight and labor required for all this is massive. For me the ideal would be to construct the basic structure out of the SIP equivalent of Quonset hut components. The outside would probably be steel (maybe fiberglass) with steamed plywood (maybe) on the inside and insulation sandwiched in between. There would be no windows or wiring or pipes in these long sides (and roof). All the doors and windows would be at the ends. All the pipes and conduit would rise out of the floor. (The floor would be quite thick including an insulated space for pipes and wires and other mechanical systems that would be accessible, to some extent, like in a boat.) The only interior walls would be around the water closet and shower room. Aside from basic kitchen cabinets and counter, there would be few if any built-ins. Storage would be in conveniently sized modular units that could be stacked, moved around, and bolted to the floor or each other when necessary.

Next - 37. Tod

29. Chatty

Previous - 28. Random

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Bad Swifty

One really should confess ones shortcomings, both to others and to oneself, so here goes: The other day I discovered a cache of longer versions of Glee covers (with lyrics) on YouTube. I finally made it to Santana's (Naya Rivera's) cover of Taylor's Mine and it was a revelation. I've heard Taylor Swift's version of her song many times and there are some great parts, but Naya's version was so much stronger. 

Mine is a classic Country song. This tune is from earlier in Taylor's career when she was still in Nashville, and it shows. But I never noticed just how good, and Country good, the song was until hearing Naya's version. Now, the virtue of Glee is that they most often framed their covers in an emotional context -- in this case the troubled relationship between Santana and Brittney -- so some of that rubs off on my reaction to Naya's singing. But I really don't think that's the key ingredient. It could also be that I'm just hearing the song with fresher ears in this new version. But, again, I doubt it. 

On We Found Love, Naya does an amazing job of capturing the little vocal things that Rhianna does that makes that song so memorable. I can't speak to her cover of I Love You Like a Love Song, because I don't know the original version, but Naya's cover, in its long form, is now one of my favorite Glee songs. 

Here's Naya's Glee version of Mine for your consideration: 

Faust

Really, Doctor Faustus. I'm re-reading my blogging of this book from February of last year. This is the first time I've reviewed this material since reading The Brothers Karamazov, and especially Ivan's dream sequence. I might as well say that it's the first time I've re-read it since the last time I read it, as you always bring that to a re-reading as well.

I envy my friend who is into the double digits of her re-readings of Proust, both because she started before me, and so can recall what it was like to first encounter this world as a quite young woman, but mostly because she can read it in French. 

Am I at four readings? I'm not entirely certain. But I can't imagine getting into it again for at least a decade. I'm much more likely to re-read Parade's End (almost certain, in fact) and even The Magic Mountain. I was thinking, after Doctor Faustus, that I didn't need to go back to TMM, but now I'm thinking it would be interesting. That was the original plan after all -- to tackle Goethe's Faust and Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy before blogging TMM. And instead Doctor Faustus and The Brothers Karamazov turned out to be even more important. 

I just realized I haven't blogged Parade's End, either. And that would be especially challenging as I would want to talk about Tom Stoppard's screenplay as well as Ford Madox Ford's original text. Just the other day I was thinking about some of the things Ford did in his final book that revised or undercut assumptions from the earlier books. And as wonderful as I think Stoppard's screenplay is, it couldn't capture the literary marvels of the text. What's compelling about Parade's End is both the story and the way it is told. 

My aunt, who passed away last year at 94, never read a book twice. She saw it as a waste of reading time. I could see going the other way and only reading books I had read before. Not that I would, there are still too many important books I've yet to read. But I do think that would be a reasonable plan. For one thing it would guarantee that you weren't wasting your time on books you wouldn't end up liking.

And, as long as I'm reflecting back on earlier blogs, a friend is traveling around the south of England and today posted photos of Exeter cathedral on Facebook. I immediately thought of the fictional Henry Ryecroft and his snug cottage not that far from Exeter. I really should go back and add links to my later posts about disease and genius in Doctor Faustus (what I was reading last night) and autism and genius in Thinking In Pictures. George Gissing and Mann, I suspect, would have gotten along just fine, but it's hard to imagine what Gissing would make of Temple Grandin, in her Western outfits, designing more efficient (and more humane) slaughterhouses in America. Would either Gissing or Mann have been receptive to her science based interpretation of her world? That is hard to imagine.

Tiny 

After attending my only boat show, in the mid-1960s, I became enamored of sailboat interiors. I still look at mid-size boat tours on YouTube, but have added RV tours and, more recently, Tiny Houses.

I think what appeals to me, beside the intimacy and efficiency of these spaces, is the attention to detail. In larger spaces you can waste space or not pay much attention to entire walls or even rooms. In a tiny space every cubic inch has to justify itself.

Of course I've also argued that often these spaces I see on YouTube are in fact over-designed. Intensely planned and crafted fixtures often mean that there is only one way to use the space. A Lamborghini is a thing of beauty and perfectly designed for its purpose, but if you need to pick-up a purchase or take friends to dinner, a Tesla X is far more flexible and -- dare I say it -- practical.

If I ever had the opportunity to design a tiny space (I forgot to mention container conversions, which may be my favorite) I would start by subtracting as many of the features you commonly see as possible. I would try to introduce functional minimalism as well as aesthetic minimalism (the decorative details of many of these designs would make the Victorians blush.) I could even demonstrate this concept in my own tiny apartment except that making marginal improvements in such an awkwardly small space simply isn't worth the bother. And so I read Dwell magazine instead.

Next - 30. Less chatty