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butch and femme pizzas
Friday, February 6 2009
Today I managed to get some heat tape up the center of the southern valley on the western roof. I used a piece of plastic pipe to push the tape's end far up into the snow pack, draping over the mass of the ice dam. The heat tape was about thirty feet long and I had a lot left over, so I coiled the remainer on the ice mass down near the gutter and insulated it from the atmosphere using bubble wrap (a handy translucent insulated vapor barrier). If the sun were to break through the clouds, it could shine through that wrap and provide a solar assist.
Over the course of the next several hours, I watched the heat tape gradually melt a channel up the center of the roof valley through the ice dam. During this time the channel cut to an inch or so of depth, but the deeper the tape went the more insulated it became from the atmosphere, melting the ice around it with ever-increasing efficiency.
This evening Gretchen made two pizzas for our semi-regular Friday night pizza and beer ritual. Gretchen also invited over two couples: Penny and David and our new friends Jen the photographer and Chris the artist. The latter couple had just signed documents to purchase their first house, a three-building compound just north of Woodstock. Though giving lie to those claiming that the real estate market has ground to a complete halt, they'd managed to get a $100,000 discount.
Gretchen had made a butch pizza and a femme pizza. The femme pizza featured Gretchen's favorite toppings: fake ricotta cheese, tomatoes, olives, and pesto. The butch pizza featured mine: mushrooms, vegan sausage, and hot peppers. Unfortunately for me, the butch pizza was a runaway favorite at tonight's pizza party.
As for beer, I've never seen anyone who could drink microbrew like Chris the artist. He must have downed six bottles, yet he never seemed the slightest bit drunk.
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