sun, 14-sep-2008, 19:12

New shed

the new shed!

For the last month or so I’ve spent the majority of my time outside of work working on our new shed. It’s a sixteen foot by sixteen foot building with full eight foot walls, a nice high ceiling, a pair of small windows, and a large barn door. All of the materials came from Northland Wood here in Fairbanks, and except for the plywood and some sundries, the wood is locally harvested and milled white spruce.

I got the barn door hung last night, and today I built the ramp and added some window trim. All that’s left is a layer of tar paper on the back wall, installing a locking mechanism for the door, and doing the electrical work. It’s certainly the biggest project I’ve ever completed, and I can’t help but smile whenever I walk past it.

I took a lot of pictures during the construction process; some of the better ones are at this web page.

tags: carpentry  house  shed 
sun, 31-aug-2008, 08:09

Cow moose out west window

cow moose out the west window

With hunting season about to start in the Interior, we got a great view of a cow, calf and bull moose from the comfort of our large windows. Last night I chased a solitary cow away from the dog yard, and this morning a different pair showed up. The cow and calf grazed on birch leaves and fireweed next to our west window, then wandered down the dog yard fence toward the road. When they got to the trees near the far side of the dog yard, a small bull showed up and briefly chased the calf. The bull wasn't legal (and it wouldn't be legal in our yard anyway), but it's the first male moose we've seen at the house.

tags: bull  calf  cow  house  hunting  moose 
tue, 12-aug-2008, 18:51

Zak Smith, 49

zak smith, gravity’s rainbow illustrated, p. 49.

I’ve started reading Gravity’s Rainbow, Pynchon’s masterwork. I tried to read it many years ago, and gave up after 100 pages. This time around, I’m familiar enough with Pynchon’s themes and style of writing that I don’t think I’ll run into the trouble I had before. I’m reading it with Steven Weisenburger’s Companion as well as Zak Smith’s page by page Pictures, which are helping to make it easier to discern the narrator and location of the action in each episode. Smith’s illustration for the following quote appears to the right. Page 49 of the book, which takes place during the Nazi V2 rocket attacks on London:

All over this frost and harrowed city…as once again the floor is a giant lift propelling you with no warning toward your ceiling—replaying now as the walls are blown outward, bricks and mortar showering down, your sudden paralysis as death comes to wrap and stun…and the sight of your blood spurting from the flaccid stub of artery, the snowy roofslates fallen across half your bed, the cinema kiss never complete, you were pinned and stared at a crumpled cigarette pack for two hours in pain, you could hear them crying from the rows either side but couldn’t move.

So far I’m really enjoying the book, despite the investment I’ve decided to make in trying to understand everything I’m reading. Pynchon, as always, writes like a brilliant madman.

Here’s a brief conversation, overheard on the Pynchon-L mailing list, for those of you on the fence about reading GR:

M.R. I am a new member to this list, and in fact to Pynchon’s writing. What would folks recommend as my first read?

K. You don’t want to die without having read Gravity’s Rainbow, so why take chances?

sat, 02-aug-2008, 16:07

Piper, Atmospheric Disturbances

piper, atmospheric disturbances

After reading Richard Powers’s Capgras Syndrome novel The Echo Maker, I figured I should read Rivka Galchen’s take on the same disorder. The main character is hilarious (he believes his wife has been replaced by an imposter and frequently refers to her as “the simulcrum”):

Sleep did not visit me, but stray strands of of the simulacrum's hair gave me the continual illusion of fleas mutely festivaling on my body.

The book is written in first person, from the perspective of the person with Capgras, and it’s a particularly effective technique for the story. We know that his wife hasn’t been replaced, but we experience the rationalizations and logical contortions required for the main character to believe his delusion. If the book were longer, or if Galchen wasn’t such a good writer, it might have gotten tiresome, but I found it to be a very entertaining and refreshing read.

Probably a good book to read in advance of Gravity’s Rainbow

sat, 02-aug-2008, 14:59

Blueberries

two pints of blueberries

The blueberries on the left cost $8 at the Farmer’s Market this morning. The blueberries on the right cost me two hours of hiking around the trails with Nika and Piper. We’ve got a lot of blueberry bushes on our property, but it’s been so cloudy and wet that ours didn’t get enough sun to produce very many berries. So I had to go farther afield.

It was a grand time, except for when Piper refused to cross over a two-foot wide area of deep water. She’s extremely food motivated, but no amount of coaxing would get her to jump across once she’d discovered there was deep water in between her and the treat. All the while, Nika kept jumping in and swimming around while Piper looked eagerly at the treat in my hand, trying to figure out how to get it without jumping or swimming. I finally had to step into the deep water (filling my left knee-high rubber boot with water) and help her across. She could have jumped the gap easily, but I don’t think there is a treat large enough to overcome her dislike of water.

Along the way we saw a flicker, four spruce grouse, gray jays and lots of smaller birds I couldn’t identify. I’ve still got the wonderful smell of Ledum palustre on my clothes.

Tomorrow morning: blueberry pancakes!


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