Zen and the Art of Cabin Maintenance
How many things can I work on today? Right now I'm waiting for the caffeine to kick in for that second wind I need to shelve all my books. (The problem is that they need to be put in a sensible order. I won't create my own database with call numbers - like I did in seminary - but some minimal amount of organization is required.)
The day started at 7:30, since the man from the phone company said he'd be here first thing in the morning. So I read from Charles Rosen's The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven while I drank my coffee. The loons were having their own breakfast nearby on the lake, so it appeared to be a good start to the day.
After my wife woke up, I showed her my work from the previous day (running a ground from the circuit breaker to the phone company's box outside - apparently DSL requires a ground, so I ran it myself to save on installation costs). She mentioned that she'd like a DSL line in her workshop, so - still on an electrician's high from the previous day - I began brainstorming on the best way to do this. To make a long story short, I soon found myself in the attic, mapping out the cabin's entire wiring system (well over fifty years old).
The lunch hour came and went, with still no representative of the phone company. So we began to make lunch, the final touches of which (adding parsley to ramen) were interrupted by our long-awaited guest.
He appeared to have a chip on his shoulder. Was he unhappy that I had run the ground wire myself? Or had he perhaps spent the morning learning how to install DSL, since we're apparently the first people in the county to subscribe? Whatever the case, he wasn't happy to be here.
To make another long story short, we argued over whether his company had shipped a modem in advance...and, much to his chagrin, I turned out to be right. They hadn't.
To make yet another long story short, the phone company changed the phone number that they sent to us weeks ago - which we included in postcards to over forty friends and family members. There is nothing we can do about it, though, since the number they gave us is in a completely different locale.
After that everything else seemed to go wrong. But it's now 3:15 AM. My aforementioned coffee kicked in during the previous paragraph, so I spent about four hours getting about a quarter of my library organized.
Tomorrow morning I'm going to the hardware store for more electrical supplies.
I should just create another blog for cabin maintenance.
How many things can I work on today? Right now I'm waiting for the caffeine to kick in for that second wind I need to shelve all my books. (The problem is that they need to be put in a sensible order. I won't create my own database with call numbers - like I did in seminary - but some minimal amount of organization is required.)
The day started at 7:30, since the man from the phone company said he'd be here first thing in the morning. So I read from Charles Rosen's The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven while I drank my coffee. The loons were having their own breakfast nearby on the lake, so it appeared to be a good start to the day.
After my wife woke up, I showed her my work from the previous day (running a ground from the circuit breaker to the phone company's box outside - apparently DSL requires a ground, so I ran it myself to save on installation costs). She mentioned that she'd like a DSL line in her workshop, so - still on an electrician's high from the previous day - I began brainstorming on the best way to do this. To make a long story short, I soon found myself in the attic, mapping out the cabin's entire wiring system (well over fifty years old).
The lunch hour came and went, with still no representative of the phone company. So we began to make lunch, the final touches of which (adding parsley to ramen) were interrupted by our long-awaited guest.
He appeared to have a chip on his shoulder. Was he unhappy that I had run the ground wire myself? Or had he perhaps spent the morning learning how to install DSL, since we're apparently the first people in the county to subscribe? Whatever the case, he wasn't happy to be here.
To make another long story short, we argued over whether his company had shipped a modem in advance...and, much to his chagrin, I turned out to be right. They hadn't.
To make yet another long story short, the phone company changed the phone number that they sent to us weeks ago - which we included in postcards to over forty friends and family members. There is nothing we can do about it, though, since the number they gave us is in a completely different locale.
After that everything else seemed to go wrong. But it's now 3:15 AM. My aforementioned coffee kicked in during the previous paragraph, so I spent about four hours getting about a quarter of my library organized.
Tomorrow morning I'm going to the hardware store for more electrical supplies.
I should just create another blog for cabin maintenance.
posted by Andy at 5:37 AM
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