Plans

I've mentioned our intention to build a shell room over our garage, with access from our bedroom, to serve initially as storage, then as our bedroom, converting the existing one into a sitting area, closets, and possible terminus for an elevator. The elevator thing always makes me feel a bit queasy -- first, because it implies getting really old and infirm, and I hate that image, and second, because I just don't trust that it can be -- well, I was going to say 'elegantly done', but I suppose thats pushing it, for this house. Let's just say 'well done'. I mean, these are workers who, so far as I know, just got out of the VoTech, rehab, or McDonalds. Letting them punch big holes in my house is a scary prospect.

That last is why something else we've had in mind is also attractive/scary, and thats putting solar collectors on the house. I'd like to put them on the roof on the back of the house, where they wouldn't be visible from the street, but the house is aimed the wrong way to get lots of sunlight back there -- we'd have to put it on the front, where they can look awkward. An article in the latest issue of Fine Homebuilding mentioned a company that makes solar collectors which look like skylights, instead of being propped up as collectors normally are. That isn't quite as efficient as the normal installation, but the house doesn't give the strange image that the collectors tend to generate (though I would imagine that as things go on, they'll become more common, right now they make me feel the way that the first dish antennas did -- looking, in their massive splendor, as if the occupants planned on contacting Mars routinely). An article here mentions, too, that the solar industry got its own little boost from that massive bailout package, and that adds to the likelihood that we'll do it -- probably in conjunction with the shell room. I'm not really sure how much good solar will do for us -- something to find out before the first hammer hits the first nail -- but I want to believe that it'll do a significant amount, without taking a decades-long period to recoup the investment. Frankly, I don't think we have decades left in the house.

Speaking of time left - does anyone else think it's odd to see lists such as '100 places you must go/100 books you must read/100 foods you must eat....before you die'? I know, all they're saying is 'hey, these are really good, you should see them/read them/eat them', but the juxtaposition with the 'before you die' strikes me as quite odd. He's failing...do you want us to resuscitate? Oh, yes, he's only on book 23.....

I wonder how many people subconciously feel that the day after Obama's elected, everything will get better? And be mad when they realize it isn't, that he doesn't even get sworn in for two months after that, which is plenty of time for the Bushman to screw things up even further? Lets take all the toilet paper out of all the White House johns when we leave....and superglue the keyboards on all the computers (giggle) Oh, and remember to attack Iran. And yes, I know I'm tempting fate by putting it so declaratively that Obama will be elected. I'm just tired of thinking of the alternative. Tired of, and tired by.

Interesting article in the last Economist on the technology of touch-sensitive screens. I smile when I realize that I sometimes press harder on them to get them to move faster. I know that they can't detect that. Only now, it appears, they can. Wonder if that 'accelerate' feature will ever get put into elevator call buttons? Press once to call the elevator.. press hard to get the damn thing here right now.

Glancing through the articles in today's Business/Financial section. Lots of Don't worry, your money is insured and Of course, maybe not. The one that caused me to smirk: Whats the biggest mistake investors make? And I think: giving their money to people who earn hundreds of thousands of dollars for themselves, but can't reliably do that for you. In other words, exactly what I do.

Chilly today. Bright, but chilly -- what I once heard called 'Radcliffe Days'.