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Confession
Friday and Saturday it rained for the first time in several weeks, and it is probably for that reason that a colony of ants under our back yard decided to move. I noticed that many of the ants were carrying larvae, and they were carrying them into our outdoor water heater shed. I opened the shed and discovered, on a horizontal board, a mass of ( Read more... ) -
Seismic Retrofit - Phase I
For a building to perform well in an earthquake, it needs to provide continuous load paths from the roof down to the foundation. There's a science to this, especially to construction of adequate shear walls. But I'm just doing a retrofit, and there's not an easy way to upgrade walls. Fortunately, the greatest loads are at the base of the house, and ( Read more... ) -
Archaeology
One of the reasons I wanted to buy a house rather than a condo was so that I could take more direct charge of our home's earthquake readiness. Toward this end, I've been spending spare time over the last several weeks trying to decide how to anchor our home to its foundation. My first tho't was to throw money at the problem. I got one bid (from a ( Read more... ) -
Cube with a view
A few weeks ago, I switched cubicles at work. From my old cube, I could see a small portion of the East Bay by looking through a hole in the wall I shared with my neighbor. The new cube, with two panels removed, opens onto an uncluttered walkway with floor-to-ceiling windows. This is on the eight floor, and on a clear day I can see a bike trail, ( Read more... ) -
Ariolimax Columbianus
Gadzooks! It's already been a month since my last entry. This journal writing can be burdensome ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
Good Lord! Dudley has a baby??
Now, had I been reading his livejournal regularly, I would have been gently introduced to certain facts. Like "Dudley is dating" or "Dudley is seriously interested in a specific woman."
But a baby? Excuse me while I rearrange my internal model of the universe.
...
Okay.
Wow.
And congratulations Dudley!
Now about this ( Read more... )
