A friend asked a question today: "Who would win in a fight between Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl?"

A thought provoking question indeed. My response follows...

"Dr. Seuss would win, hands down. While Dahl's Matilda like characters were fooling around trying to act all proper a Suess character would get all butter-side-down on their candy asses. Seuss was in the army's early version of the psychological warfare unit. He'll mind fuck his enemies to death with bits like Green Eggs and LSD enriched paper. "Are... Read More those eggs Green?", Dahl asked. "No" replied the good doctor as he beat the man to death with a frumpsicle. Besides, Dahl was in the air-force. They're pansies. ::ducks and covers::"

Who do you think would win?

"Every person's life is theirs by right. An individual's life can and must belong only to himself, not to any society or community, or he is then but a slave... It is treason against mankind to hold a knife to man's throat and dictate how he must live his life. No society can be more important than the individuals who compose it, or else you ascribe supreme importance, not to man, but to any notion that strikes the fancy of that society, at the never-ending cost of lives. Reason and reality are the only means to just laws; mindless wishes, if given sovereignty, become deadly masters."
-Terry Goodkind
Sword of Truth, Book 6: Faith of the Fallen

Clever title. Really clever system.

Shelf Reliance makes a FIFO canned food storage system. It's heavy duty and I really want to pick one up for my place in Queens. Unfortunatly, they're around $500. Thankfully, the nice folks at shelf reliance are giving them away in a contest. This blog entry is a shameless plug for said contest to up my chances of winning the system. Don't let that detract from the fact that it's a great system though. Take a look for yourself. Here's a youtube video with the system.

Live life, love life, and love will come into your life.
-Me

So five years ago my family was fined for having an illegal apartment in our basement. Apparently they thought a tiny sink and stove, usually known as a summer or canning kitchen, made the basement it's own apartment. This was discovered after an inspector forced his way in past my grandmother's caretaker saying they had received complaints... abut what I don't know. We were never allowed to confront our accuser.
Well bottom line was we were fined $1600 and told that we had to restore the basement to it's original condition. Problem was that no one had the plans for the building on file... so how could they have no we changed anything? Well, turns out we never did. The stuff was all original to when the house was built. We appealed. That was 5 years and $1600 ago.
Today we received a notice in the mail saying our appeal was granted and that the violations were removed from the property. Huzzah for efficient government! Wait, where's our check reimbursing us the $1600 with interest? god damnit... here we go again...

If knowing is half the battle, what's the other half?
( Answer below the cut )

But man, the hotel I'm at charges 10 Euro's an hour for net access, or 20 euros for the day. That's way to expensive considering this is a high-end joint and net access really should be free here.
Ah well...

After walking the property at the cabin and seeing that there is quite a lot to do this year, I figured on making a list to keep things organized and get some input.

The main thrust of this year's activities will center around... the Lumberjack.
You see there was a lot of wind and ice damage this year and there are close to 20 trees that need to come down, get sectioned up, split, and stacked in the wood shed. There is also a huge amount of mulch that was dumped on the property this year by the local road cleaning crew. Free mulch is awesome. Free mulch is heavy and needs to be moved from the middle of the lawn.

So, what to do, in rough order...

• Purchase some cinder blocks Find some pallets and build compost, leaf mold, and mulch storage bins. Three separate bins in one area.
• Get some field stone from the bulldozed walls and create a raised, flat area next to the wood shed to store non-split wood.
• Extend the woodshed's roofline a bit further and make bins for kindling.
• Use either a brush hog or riding mower to clear a trail wide enough for the truck to get near the downed trees.
• Get the chainsaw working on low branches, badly leaning trees, any fallen trees, and the area where the orchard will be planted.
• Get all the lumber sectioned up into 1 foot chunks for firewood (seems a shame but I have no room to store whole logs where they won't rot before I use them).
• Load said lumber into the truck and dump it next to the wood shed on the new anti-rot pad.
• While all this is going on, empty out the wood shed, re-level the floor and ensure good rot protection. Re-stack all the firewood.
• Get to splitting. Maybe rent a log splitter since there will be a ton, literally, of splitting to do.
• Haul any bodies loose brush to a rented chipper in front of the mulch bin and chip everything.
• Mulch around the base of all trimmed trees (really eases mowing issues and promotes moisture and nutrient retention).

There are also some non-lumberjack things to do up at the cabin this year.

• Get a survey of the land done. Friend Nick may help with this, but man renting survey equipment is expensive.
• Throw out more garbage. It seems there's a never-ending supply of crap up there.
• Maybe build an open carport off of the north wall of the garage... Maybe...
• Have a BBQ Party with some friends. Stay for a few days eat beef, chop wood, shoot stuff, have good times.
• Plant a winter rye cover crop to start soil improvement this year.

Thoughts?

"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." - Mark Twain

If you could design a vault/archive to last the ages, how would you do it?
Criteria:

1. Must be able to hold a large Book/Record/Curio/Gun collection
2. Must be inexpensive to maintain
3. Must be secure
4. Must be able to last for a 2 week length of time without power
5. Designed for Upstate New York (cold winters, warm summers, medium humidity)

General thoughts:

• Passive design elements are critical to 2, 3, and 4
• Humidity must be controlled
• Stability of temperature seems to be key
• Could be attached to or part of an existing structure or complex.

More specifically now:
It would seem that an underground vault would have the advantage of temperature stability, but due to high water tables this is out. That temperature stability could be tapped with a geo-thermal heat-pipe system though. A geo-thermal system like this would require some power to keep the thermal medium flowing in the piping so alternate power becomes desireable. Further, having a large thermal mass to act as a temperature buffer should power systems fail is a solid idea, so the building should be made of thick stone or concrete walls. Now a big question that I still haven't found an answer to; how do you passively control humidity in such a structure? Sure the problem is minimized by temperature stability and reduced airflow in/out of the building, and I suppose you could use desiccants as buffers or run dehumidifiers via alternative energy, but is there a more elegant solution?

Some useful links:
www.getty.edu/conservation/science/climate/paper_toledo.pdf
www.padfield.org/tim/cfys/musdes/musdes.pdf
www.calintec.com/uploads/Passive_Storage.pdf
www.natmus.dk/cons/tp/arnemag/arnemagn1.pdf
www.padfield.org/tim/cfys/ppubs/getty_tenerife_tp2007.pdf
www.library.cornell.edu/librarypreservation/meolda/management/passiveclimatecontrol.html
www.padfield.org/tim/cfys/mm/shiner/shiner.pdf