|
|
|
wanting to slump
Saturday, September 11 2004
Yes, it's September 11th again and thus time to remember once more what Nixon's henchmen did to the democratically-elected Allende government of Chile.
I started patching some of the more seriously-damaged parts of the house's foundation wall today. There were scattered scars here and there from where large rocks had evidently been allowed to drop against the wall as the backfill was being put in. (one of many examples of construction tasks undertaken with insufficient care). I used grout as my repair material, but it proved too coarse to effectively repair cracks; it was only good for big holes. One such hole was near the top of the serious crack near the south end of the western wall. Here a Sparfill block was so badly fractured that I easily removed a four inch by three inch chunk while I was cleaning the crack. That left a huge cube-shaped void. Completely filling it with grout was enormously satisfying, though it wasn't easy. The grout kept wanting to slump out of the place I'd selected as its permanent home, so I had to fashion a dike out of wood to keep it in there.
This evening the Meatlocker People came over for an evening social call. Ms. Meatlocker told us about the adolescent drug treatment bootcamp where she works (it's only about two miles away on Dug Hill Road). Oddly, though the kids there aren't allowed to listen to music or drink coffee, they are allowed to smoke five cigarettes each day. The rationale is that the hip hop music they would be listening to (if allowed to listen to music) is chock full of drug references and thus temptation, whereas cigarettes, in the strictly regimented way they're allotted, provide some relief from the physical and psychological consequences of drug withdrawal. As for coffee, the reasons for its prohibition are not clear, especially considering the debt our civilization owes to that drug.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?040911 feedback
previous | next |
