THE UTTERANCE HAS MOVED. ALL FURTHER (until i decide to change it again) WRITS MAY BE FOUND HERE, THUSLY:
(previously titled, 'how to maintain your pellet stove')
for randomly updated photos of sites around golden book mark the Golden Life Photo Gallery.
(first entry at bottom, most recent at top)
2.18.8
interesting past few days. today i took a loooong hike up the mountain behind my house. and believe it or not, somehow john denver is singing 'rocky mountain high' in the cafe i am sitting in writing this. that is going it make it really difficult to sincerely say how good it felt and how beautiful the view was. lets just say it was. and you can imagine me walking along w/ that song playing in the background.
beyond commenting on my material-reality exploits, i've begun to process other thoughts elsewhere in writing and now it seems relevant to comment on them here. i wrote several pages the other day documenting my life (not the entire thing mind you). this then is a kind of 'meta-memoir'.
very difficult to summarize one's life story in a couple sentences, so i won't try (and i haven't finished it yet) but i want to express what could be a key theme throughout my adult life; the search for self (and the lack thereof). in this matter it is significant (and somewhat paradoxical) that i once 'found myself' in the art of acting. not content w/ the paradox of this self/not-self i searched elsewhere (w/ varying degrees of success. more on that later).
i found something significant today, just now. for reasons unknown i picked up a book i hadn't read since my last year of college, 'How We Became Posthuman' by Katherine Hayles. This book had a profound effect on me at the time, introducing me to cybernetics and integrating into my studies some (what i thought to be 'out-there') sci-fi books i had poured over in depth in my years before attending school. Posthumanism as its called, is no easy thing to decipher in these glib, brief paragraphs.
to understand posthumanism you must know what humanism is. humanism comes from what is called the 'liberal human subject' and is the free-thinking, enlightened persona that came out of the renaissance (basically). the foundations of modern science, politics and philosophy are based on this - a free thinking mind that lives in a bag of meat, 'objectively' makes 'free' choices about an environment in which it is suspended and is PRIMARILY SEPARATE from the environment in which it lives.
so says humanism. POSThumanism now, follows upon the experiments of an interdisciplinary group of folks back in the 1950s who discovered that feedback-loops play a role in a variety of differing fields (like biology and electronics). the study of these feedback loops became cybernetic theory and lead to, among other things, the field of ecology, systems theory and now posthumanism. to hayles, posthumanism is a way of understanding our cultural identity as reflected through contemporary literature and modern cybernetic ontology. if you want to know more about posthumanism read hayles book or check out the wikipedia entry: posthumanism
perhaps i'll write more about it later. for now, let me just add this quote from the wikipedia entry linked above. perhaps i'm assuming another identity again but i swear this suggests i am, in fact, an archetype of the emerging posthumanity.
"The posthuman, for critical theorists of the subject, has an emergent ontology rather than a stable one; in other words, the posthuman is not a singular, defined individual, but rather one who can "become" or embody different identities and understand the world from multiple, heterogeneous perspectives."(from wikipedia's entry on 'posthumanism').
this has given me food for thought. 2.17.8
met a friend at 'the mineshaft' on friday night. for those who aren't familiar, the mineshaft is a bar in madrid (pronounced like mad rid), the nearest town from golden, about 8 miles up the road. madrid is just barely a town. no gas, bank, city hall or any of that. just a bunch of art galleries and a town filled w/ hipster freakers and some old cowboy types. i once described this combination as a mix of the east village and north dakota. strange mix. anyway, the mineshaft is the sole eating/drinking establishment in town, and as i said, the nearest to where we live.
anyway, dani was in colorado for the weekend so i made plans and met up w/ a buddy up at the shaft to see a cellist i know who plays the meanest cello i've ever seen. we're finishing our buffalo burgers and beers when a crowd starts to gather around some fella that just came in. we check it out. turns out he's bending silverware. now, i've seen this on tv before and i'm actually kind of a fan of uri gellars but i never really knew what to make of the spoon bending thing. welp, after witnessing it right in front of my eyes i am pretty well sold on it. i guess he could have faked it but i really don't know how. i watched it bend right before my eyes. even have the forks to prove it. and i couldn't even bend them back as hard as i tried. so there you have it. strange things afoot in madrid.
2.15.8
yesterday got up and dove into the GRE test book i picked up. may not have mentioned that previously but i have decided to make use of my time by preparing for grad school (just in case). felt good to get the ol' noggin cranking again. meanwhile, dani worked outside on a project. when i went out to help her i couldn't believe the weather. sunny and warm. boy did that feel good. 2.12.8
today i came up to santa fe for an anticipated interview w/ an AV outfit called 'alliance av'. they were looking for a manager. i thought something was kind of odd when there main office is in albuquerque but the interview was in santa fe. well, it turns out they are 'expanding' into the santa fe market. from what i gathered from the interview, they would seem to be a major competitor to my employer of several months back, SFAV. i liked my old job and the people that worked there. in fact, it was difficult for me to leave. it seems that this new position (were i to get it) would involve actively pursuing clients which would mean actively competing w/ my old company.
it seems...icky. not that i really think i stand a chance of actually getting the job (oh don't even start w/ the 'positive thinking' crap please). you never know, and for sure i would have to think long and hard if i did get the position. it seems pretty corporate. for instance; not only did i submit a resume, but after the interview they gave me an 'application' to fill out. good grief. it felt like i was in high school again. what is the point of even having a resume if you haven't fill out a hand written form detailing all past work experience and putting you into the boxes on a page? ugh. utterly.
but there is a point to everything. and what this left me with is wondering about my future as an AV tech. i am so totally over qualified for this kind of work. why on earth would i want to pursue a career in it? setting and running technical equipment requires, in my opinion, the bare minimum of genius. the higher arts, that require and tap into the creative energies are of a much subtler dimension.
still, it is so much easier to rely on our tried and tested talents than it is to attempt what we do not know if we can do.
2.6.8
last night i worked up in santa fe, running sound & camera for an interview / performance of african drummer & healer onye onyemache (sp?). radio personality bob keaton was doing the interview and the drumming was accompanied by santa fe's fabulously virtuosic cellist michael kott. pretty cool gig. they usually are at 'body', the venue that remains my only continuous source of income. which brings me to what crossed my mind last night...
yesterday was kind of a funk. as has been my habit of late, driving into town (sometimes with a few hours to spare before an evening gig) and picking a random wifi enabled cafe and looking for jobs. this is a depressing experience as anyone should know. meanwhile, the internet tends toward distraction and there is certainly more to look at, read about and download on the web than there are hours in a day...so anyway, i was kind of down when i finally made it into to work. the event was cool though and in the interview onye was talking about healings and some very spiritual stuff. all typically santa fe-ian. it becomes pretty standard after seeing so much of it. but it felt good to be there as it usually does to be around such positive energy. meanwhile, i was thinking of the movie industry that i have been aspiring to tap into. having met a few people who have worked it for years i have been warned about what it is like. long hours are one thing, that is expected. but several folks have gone further, telling me how dark and nasty people in the industry are. so i began to think about this seeming dichotomy. i came to new mexico specifically to get into the movie biz. meanwhile life happened (ie. those things we do while we are waiting for what we think is going to happen) and i found myself running sound for these events of a very positive spiritual vibe while being warned of the darkness of what i was pursuing. perhaps i'm reading too much into this. still, it seemed significant enough to write about anyway.
and of further note:
Time Travellers from the future could be here in weeks
2.4.8
well well well.
went up to santa fe today to rally w/ my union brothers and sisters at the roundhouse in protest of a bill that would cap the incentive package for films coming to new mexico and (so i have been informed) cripple if not completely shut down the movie business here in new mexico. i cannot truly speak to the validity of this claim but, regardless, if i want work i need to support any action that will bring more movies to the area. so.
there i was. standing in the sunny snowshine (a particular santa fe experience) outside of the 'Round House' (the name given to new mexico's kiva-esque capital building), looking to make some connections. any luck you ask? well...we'll see. i did talk to mathew halbert, a prominent sound guy in 480. i discussed doing other work besides sound with him. he does some grip work so who knows...maybe i'll get a call some day.
1.25.8
although i feel at this point that i am pouring forth my words into a void, i never really had a point to begin with anyway. so, despite my lack of any apparent content i will tally forth w/ only the eloquence of my verbiage to carry me along. therefore i have retitled my narration 'mellifluous euphony' which sounds nice enough and actually fairly well elucidates the near quixotic value of this text. but enough of this meta-meta rambling. i have had few things on my mind of late.
the town of golden is increasingly intriguing. for various reasons the idea of making a documentary about the local folk has begun developing in me. for one, the simple size of the town (under 50? 30?) would be enough to make any town interesting (think 'vernon, fl', errol morris' first documentary). in my research of the town online i have been unable to find out much, mostly brief comments or very short blog postings. there is an old church that was revamped 15 or so years ago that gets a lot of attention (we are the closest house to it), and then there was the bar, the golden inn' that was apparently quite a joint back in the day (pre-1982). one post said it was the last of its kind, describing bikers, pig roasts out back and a double barrel shotgun under the bar. a few fairly big bands even played there (the ventures, leon redbone, the last mile ramblers). it finally burned to the ground back in 1982. somewhere i read that the owner of the bar actually still lives in golden.
aside from this, there is the 'mayor' who claims his right to office is the result of running unchallenged (i'm not sure if anyone voted). i learned just last night that another person in town claimed ownership of the entire town until some of the other residents challenged him. beyond these two i suspect there is a mix of artists and locals whose families have lived here for a long time (maybe still working gold mine claims). finally, the sprawl of albuquerque continues to encroach upon golden. just south of golden is the PAA Ko Golf Club and residential community, so you never know...
so there it is. possible documentary? a good way to get make some friends? or get shot? to be seen...
then there is ***IDEA X***, another film project that can't be discussed in this open forum. i will say that anyone interested should contact me to talk about it (i'm thinking of you B.P.).
1.11.8
ah well.
what has become of our humble narrator? did he finally fall against the railings of his rustic environment? shall we not expect word from him until the spring thaw? did the narrow bandwidth finally asphyxiate the cybernetic longings of his cyborg being? well, not exactly.
holidays being what they are my attention turned to other things. also, the final nail in the coffin of the Battle of the Stoves put to rest much of the material that drove this log. but the story continues...
briefly; my parents drove down w/ Orson a few days before Xmas and we all had a fine time. Even stayed mostly warm. It was a joy to have Orson of course and it really charmed the house to celebrate and feast together. a few days after the holiday i drove back w/ my the family (while dani remained....shed had to work) to visit my brother family and spend the other 11 days of Xmas at the Farm (for those of you whom i may have missed while in the kc area, i apologize).
now i am back in the sw. settling back into the groove (as much as i can w/o regular work). the most interesting change now (and one that will certainly effect my ability to post here w/ any regularity) is that i am now shackled to even more technology. namely, an iphone. i know, i know, it is an horrific fate. but i'll explain further because the situation is a bit odd actually.
well, as you may or may not have known, our old cell carrier did not work at our house. furthermore, high speed internet is not available where we live either. so, we had to get a land line and dial up (hence the subheading above). well, getting iphones for xmas (i guess they ran out of coal) ended up offering a surprise. our new carrier works at our house and w/ this interesting little devices we can surf the web and get email. but (For now anyway) not ftp files or post to websites. so, as we are dumping our phone and dialup service any postings will be from my laptop, 'in the field' as it were (as i am right now). in seedy cafe's of santa fe, abq or madrid.
so thats the scoop folks. as always, thanks for your attention.
oh and btw, i can actually update photos (odd, that) and have puts some of our house up here:
Golden Life Photo Gallery check here and there for semi-regular updates.
12.22.7
DO NOT i repeat DO NOT wait until the biggest snow of the year to put up xmas lights.
12.21.7
went to albuquerque today to finish xmas shopping and pick up the couch that dani and i picked out yesterday. while there, the weather worsens, unexpectedly. first a pretty heavy rain then turning to a snowy blizzard. luckily it wasn't cold enough for it to stick though. i put of picking up the couch as long as i can, waiting for the storm to die down. finally aound 5 it does. turns out the couch is wrapped in plastic anyway. which is good because the snow is picking up again.
on my way out of town dani calls. apparently the storm has now hit santa fe and as it is now later in the day and santa fe is 1000 or more feet higher the snow is sticking and the roads are getting nasty. so i drive up to get her...when we finally get home it is 10:30. golden has gotten more snow than santa fe or abq. roads are pretty bad to. it is dark, cold and the winds are whipping the snow all around as we back the truck up to the front door. dani is really unsure of her part of the carrying bit. to me, it is like gravity - the couch is bound for our living room. we just have to help the process along. so, the couch is wrapped in plastic. very difficult to hold onto and indeed, it is not very light. i did take measurements before picking it up so i new it could fit through the door (although just).
our first attempt resulted in us dropping the couch on the threshold, dani stairing back at me saying, "why did you think i could carry this?" i didn't tell her the bit about gravity. now, this next part is difficult to put into words. if you have ever moved furniture that 'just' fit through a doorway then you have some idea. now add snow, darkness, wind and fatigue (not to mention being married to your moving partner). there were several points when we both probably doubted our chances of success although if we did, neither of us said anything. for we knew there was no turning back. the couch was NOT going back into the truck and it certainly couldn't stay here on the porch.
basically, we wiggled it, back and forth, the plastic and carboard packing making all kinds of bad noises that sounded as if the couch itself were destroyed in the process. finally, we got it through...the first door (suspensful isn't it?). the second doorway was like the first except we had less room to wiggle....oh the horror. anyway, i'm dragging this out. the couch got in, we unwrapped it and set it in place. i then took a nap on it.
it looks lovely and is all too cozy. (and it wasn't damaged a bit!)
12.20.7
---Revelations----
the odor continues...
feeling more and more frustrated, at my last limb with the upstairs stove, i posted to an online discussion board (hearth.com) with my problem. (in case i haven't proselytized the wonders of online user discussion boards for solving all technical issues far better than manufacturers or technical service folks, insert soap box speech on said topic here: "___________!"). my posting and the subsequent responses can be read at: this link. interesting, if somewhat frightening, stuff. enough to make me feel gung ho about diving back in to work on the damn thing. while i'm at it, steve (the caretaker) is here fixing the drain from the downstairs bath and then adding on an outside vent to the upstairs stove, in hopes of reconciling the smell issue. while he does, i make another call to the manufacturer (Kozi) of the stove, by now an all to familiar voice (though the technician sounds like he is from india, his english is quite good, so i am compelled to think my call is being received from within the U.S.). i am explaining to him (again) my continuing issue w/ this smell, as well as questioning the actual design of the stove itself, which by now i have become all to familiar with. "sir," he says, "it is not for your or i to question the design of the stove." the way he says almost makes me think he has in fact questioned the design but was told to drop it by his superiors. regardless...then i go into my rant, "i have this stove in my bedroom and we are smelling this..." he interrupts, "sir, this stove is not authorized for bedroom use." ??? "well, why doesn't it say that in the manual?" i reply. "it does, sir."
though he cannot tell me the correct page, he takes my number and has someone else call me to tell me the page number. sure enough, there it is. plain as day. somehow all 3 of us (steve, dani and i ) all missed this obvious note. furthermore, both he and this other person inform me that not only is this stove not authorized for bedroom use, none of the Kozi stoves are. even furtherermorer, they tell me they don't think
unbelievable. lesson: TRUST YOUR NOSE.
we should have baseboard electric heat by tomorrow or the next day. steve is at home depot as i right this giving them a piece of his mind. gives a whole new meaning to 'breathe easy'.
12.18.7
i think i forgot to mention the tub. probably if i had we might not have guests comiing next weekend. anyway, a few days ago the downstairs bathtub starting filling with water. it wast really interesting to look at as there was a spider we had seen in the tub before who had, apparently, been submrged while it slept. it looked just like it was standing on its legs, on the bottom of the tub, except there was about 3" of water above it. peculiar looking. well, yesterday steve came by and figure out it was just the drain pipe running from that bathroom (terrible design. somehow it is above the tub and actually runs outside the house almost uphill!) well, steve cut the pipe open and found it frozen solid. ha! must have be from letting the faucet drip to keep the pipes frmo freezing...hahahahah. so he gets some electric pipe warmer and i come home to find it all plugged in and "warming". only tub is still full. no different. steve said he couldn't come back until friday. i told him we have guests coming. he has to work.
this morning i wrote an extended email to the real landlord, who lives in france, explaining al the details of what is going on here. we'll see what happens
12.16.7
a period of relative calm (i still smell something odd coming from our upstiars stove - jut when its putting of heat though!).
12.13.7
finally got this posted correctly to the web. unforseen headache has finally been circumvented. amen.
12.12.7
last night our biggest snow storm yet and the roads were glazed w/ ice on the late night drive back from santa fe, dani and i in the blue truck. all went smoothly and we were grateful for a vehicle to get us home safely.
in the morning, a continuing learning lesson. both stoves ran out of fuel while we slept (i had a hunch they would) so when i awoke i loaded the hoppers full of pellets and reset the stoves and kicked up thermostats. then went back to bed. an hour or so later....i notice the stove in our room is still kicking back off and...no flame. damn. then i recalled the necessary instructions for 'stating your stove for the first time'. need to help the auger load the firebox to get a big enough flame. upstairs that means pushing the auger button a few times, downstairs (it was off too) it means pushing the reset button in the back. but hte downstairs had issues of its own. i had learned the necessity of cleaning out the firepot from past experience. so, since it was cool i opened it up and pulled the pot cleaning rod severeral times. nothing fell and the pot was still looking ful. i dug around in it w/ the tip of an antler lying next to the stove. once i loosened it up i it became clear some 'clinkers' had formed. probably from the damp sawdust that had fallen in w/ the pellets the day before. once that was emptied i refilled the pot by pushing the reset button, made some tea and waited for the fire to starrt. it did. i went back upstairs to check on the other stove.
12.11.7
awoke this morning to a blanket of white across the land. both stoves are now working fine. house even felt somewhat 'warm' when i came downstairs for to make tea this morning. more snow is expected today and tonight. guess we'll take the truck into town for work.
in other news, i've reformatted this for html and figured out a way to upload it to the web (fingers crossed). if you are reading this then i was successful.
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12.10.7
huh. more stove efforts today. called company, not much help. cleaned out the ashes from the upstairs stove though. a lot. hopefully that helps. now i'm starting to think its my imagination.
the adventure tonight: making cookies! seems harmless enough, right? well, i forgot to mention that the stove had been putting out a kind of 'odor' when i mad a frozen pizza last week (odors are becoming a theme aren't they?). the smell: kind of soury sweet. sickening. not sure if it is a chemical, grease buildup or something dead. (regardless, i at the pizza anyway). well, while dani worked on cookies (which is no small affair for her) i dove into the stove. looked like someone left some oven cleaner in it. ugh. so, i'm scrubbing and sponging away...almost got it all...just that little bit back by the light...BOOOM!!! whoa. the light bulb shattered, of course. ah, fun fun fun. now dani's holding the flashlight while i pick up glass and use my leatherman to unscrew what is left of the bulb. some might have given up at this point or earlier, but they obviously have never tasted dani's cookies.
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12.9.7
while heat is established all is not quite kosher w/ stoves. had to patch the downstairs stove and it now seems to be...working correctly. it was venting some campfire-ish smell (ie. smoke) which, while it didn't smell bad, certainly wasn't good. the upstairs, though, now is permeating a smell very different from the, now familiar, smoke smell. what is it? kind of an exhaust like smell. much worse than than the smoke if you ask me. and only seems to be happening when the convection blower comes on - so it is blowing out into the room w/ the heat, not seeping out through some crack in the exhaust system. very odd. today i will call the manufacturer to see what i can find out.
after work i spsed down to abq to try to catch the end of the iron and wine concert that dani was attending. right as i pulled up to the theater the crowd starting filing out. it was only 10:40!!! new mexico is very strange. most concerts in other cities don't even begin until 10:30... oh well, i found dani, she bought me the record and we went and grabbed a couple slices.
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12.8.7
days later and the heat is still hasn't gotten completely fixed. steve, the guy who is taking care of this place for landlord, a friend of his - as a favor, is beginning to resent the process. puts us in a bit of a pinch. steve is a good guy and we get along well. he came over thursday and friday to fix a busted pipe and work on the stoves. pipe in downstairs bathroom fixed. he replaced my shoddy caulkwork on the stove venting in the upstairs. fingers crossed in hopes of getting at least one stove up to speed. after running it for a while i no longer smelled the same campfirey smell from the fixed vent leeks. unfortunately, i now smelled something more familiar, a kind of CO smell, like exhaust. damn. don't get where that would be coming from. not good.
downstairs stove is still completely out of commission. just doesn't light. appears to be some kind of vacuum fan not working. obviously out of his league, steve made an appoitment w/ someone to come out and service it. earliest they can come is monday the 17th...good grief!!!
in other news, we now have internet. 56k is not as slow as i remember it. still, it represents enough of a burden to keep me from browsing incessantly.
also, my office is now officially unpacked. sitting at my desk right this moment. all boxes unpacked.
weather changes swiftly here. for a while a little bit ago it was sunny enough for me to explore the nearby ruins and open up the house for a bit. didn't last long though. increasing cloudcover and a cool breeze coming in the window in front of me made me close up the windows and bring a space heater into my office.
...
later on i fix the stove (!). ended up being user error (isn't it always?). anyway, so now its heating, but apparently it is now a little smokey. i think steve must have jiggled something loose or left something unsealed when he replaced the pipe the other day. oh well, i'll just patch it in the morning. heat. ahhh. and none too soon as the weather seems to be shifting (several times a day). now it is sleeting. probably turning colder now.
dani just got home. time to cook.
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12.5.7
Lights in the Sky
Since we were wondering, Dani asked someone at work what our street name translates as (Luz del Cielo). The response, "you know, 'lights in the sky' like UFOs." i laughed long and hard when i heard that. most i have told have laughed as well. seems too perfect. i did see several shooting stars the other night. beautiful sky. pretty awesome.
still unpacking and setting up rooms. meanwhile, both of our pellet stoves (main source of heat) are on the fritz. downstairs model does everything but light (fan kicks on, pellets load). manual seems to suggest a new igniter is required. when searching for someplace in santa fe that might carry parts for this particular model (a quadrafire "santa fe") i ran into a particular conundrum. can you guess? the upstairs model was installed just before we moved in. runs fine. BUT as mentioned before, there is indeed a leak in the ventilation, allowing smoke into our room. no bueno. so we stopped using it for a couple nights. finally, yesterday i was able to contact the manufacturer and was told where a common leak point is (where it connect to the chimney) and what i could do to fix it. i have heard many say this is not my responsibility. well, inasmuch as my life is my responsibility, making sure i don't die of asphixiation (or freezing), it is. luckily enough, the weather has been warm during the day (around 60).
well, yesterday i finally got a new igniter and some high temp masonry caulk (among other items in a 4 hr hardware store extravaganza). needless to say, at this time (over 12 hrs later) upstairs stove still smokes (though less) and downstairs stove still doesn't work. so frustrating when you put sooo much effort into something that feels like it has to work and then...it doesn't. basically, the igniter attaches to the stoves wiring w/ some wire nuts (how professional...egad. this is actually what it says in the manual. why not some standardized plugs? i have no idea.) well, in the act of removing the old igniter, the wire nuts - obviously attached for years - would not release. one of them ended up w/ a bunch of wire stuck in the end. now that particular one will not do its job. so humbling to be halted when so near success to be stopped by such a small item. (btw, its a ceramic wire nut as it gets hot in there. so i couldn't use e-tape or one of the many plastic wire nuts i have lying around.
as for the upstairs i have patched, repatched and post-patched but as of now it still smells smokey. main issue in troubleshooting this is that the smoke is only visible when the stove is just getting lit (i imagine perhaps because the heat hasn't yet begun flowing outside, drawing the smoke out). anyway, basically there are a few different places where the vent pipe attaches to a different size. as of now i have sealed 3 (or is it 4?) different seals. there is only a brief moment when the stove is starting when i can see smoke and can caulk it right then. thought i had it (again and again and again). so, i'll try again later today.
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10.2.7
new home in golden. moving is an experience that can take years off of your life. as i have said before, it may just be the physical act of having to touch every single one of your possesions. something about associating w/ matter, or at least moving towards the gross end of the spectrum.
so here we are. on the first night, i unloaded the truck( of stuff and a one ton pallet of wood pellets for the stoves) as it rained. once i was able to close the garage door i began to notice small pools of water coming in underneath. it soon became obvious that we would need to move all the boxes we had unloaded away from the door, either inside or on top other furniture or plastic bins - who knew how long it would rain or how far the water would run...
i made a conscious intent NOT to look at the time over the next few hours, or even when we finally turned in. it continued to poor rain and the wind whistled and pounded the house. the stove in our room put off a fair amount of heat but it was much louder than we expected. whats worse is that it seemed to be smelling like a campfire. dani's nose doesn't really work (sparatically at best), and in the absence of having a bird in a cage to test the air, i kept waking up all night worried that the room was filling w/ exhaust from the stove. finally i turned it off. we were warm in bed anyway. needless to say, i haven't had such a poor nights rest in a long time. dani, on the other hand, slept like an angel (except for the times when i woke her up by getting out of bed to investigate the stove. later in the night it turned to sleet and hail and in the pre dawn hours i was startled to see what looked like a fire flickering over the hill next to the house. moments later, a snow truck, lights flashing, moved down highway 14. well, thats good, i guess.
in the morning we were surprised to see a blue sky outside our window. i stept outside on our veranda to find it felt like it was nearly 60 degrees. wow. new mexico. go figure. we made our way into madrid for breakfast and to use our cell phones on top of the hill in between here and there. found out there is wi fi in madrid...hmm.
i had to go to work so dani was left to herself to begin the great settling into our new abode....
i got home late. downstairs cold. upstairs, smells like campfire. dani tells me the downstairs stove stopped working. apparently the starter quit. new wick? she spent several hours trying to figure it out. ugh. sheesh. we are both now learning the idiosyncracies of pellet stoves (like they don't always work!). we have some portable heaters around so we set one of those up for the night and cozy in. slept like a rock.
today dani is at work and i am get to continue embedding our stuff into the new home. its windy but chilly so i'm dressed warm. going to have to dig into that stove today too.
This morning i made my way into to santa fe for a union meeting. this was the day. the day i i was to be sworn in as a member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists & Allied Crafts, its Territories and Canada, IATSE Local 480. Kind of a mouthful. union meetings are interesting though my vow of secrecy keeps me from disclosing our proceedings i can tell you this much; there is a vow of secrecy! who would have guessed that the first secret society i would have gotten into would be a trade union! (no signs, gestures or handshakes though...not yet anyway). many congratulations were made and many continue. i say, hold onto them until i get my first job.
later, i stop off at 'BODY', where i am currently (though not as regularly) employed. i had offered to help string up some candelarias on the roof. well, first off 'canderlaria' are usually referred to elsewhere as luminaries. i say 'string' because these are not real paper bags w/ candles in them (which would be difficult to manage on a roof). no, these are xmas tree lights string through these little plastic brackets w/ brown plastic tubes you stretch around them to simulate the candelaria/lumniari effect. sound like a good idea? wrong. the quality of product you get for $3 per 15' stretch is not so good. regardless, at 3pm we are up on the roof, a massing sprawl of ice and snow with a network of piping continuously underfoot like the paths of a tron lightcycle wasteland. at the front of the building were are scratching our heads trying to figure out how to get these little plastic wickets to attach to the galvanized flashing that lines the roof. the owner had bought us some caulk for the job (and had made it soud so easy. unfortunately, i was the only one to read the label on the caulk; 'do not apply in temperatures under 40'F. did i mention the temperature? i'm guessing around 25'F. it was sunny and the day had warmed. when i had checked the temp before leaving the house in the morning it said (17'F - feels like 3'F). so cold pretty much covers it. it was cold. and the caulk is not going to work. howabout a staple gun? nope, not in that steel flashing. screws? uh, hmmm. don't seem to be going in. finally we get some nails. the sun is now setting. and there we are, stretching out these strings of plastic wickets w/ lights inside, meanwhile, underfoot are last years wickets, lightbulbs and all. all crusted and weatherworn and mixed w/ ice and snow. totally surreal. oh, and the pigeons. apparently we have a disturbed a major pigeon condominium complex as they are fluttering all around us, making me watch my back in constant surveilance. but those piles of old lights, frozen in the snow, bulbs crutching undefoot w/ the ice...how many years worth? i assume our work would soon join this mess. the sun sets as we struggle on atop this frozen tundric xmas wasteland.
some kind of freeze/frost did a number on the car doors overnight. dani woke me up a 5am to tell me she couldnt get in either car. i dressed and attempted them both. hurrumph. they should have been in the garage but weren't. lip to the garage had been dug out for the new propane line and didn't get filled in cmpletely. about a 5" drop.
later in the morning, after catching more zzz's, i go out to a beautiful sunny day. snow is melting and temp is probably near 50. i clean out the garage, organize trash for a dump run and then spend a couple hours fashioning a couple small ramps into the garage. dug them into the dirt and graded it up. seems to work, for now...
lots more cleaning and putting away things around the house. took a walk up to the church next door to watch the sunset. (sigh).
i need to get a job.
it was going fine. all seemed good. an hour passed while i at breakfast and further worked on getting this posting uploaded to a viewable web page. downstairs stove smelled more smokey than normal. in fact...there's smoke coming out of the front of it!!!! open the windows & doors and dani runs for the extinguisher. hmmm. i'm perplexed at first. then a little voice in hte back of my head comes clear. ' you should have emptied the ash pan you idiot.' i start to realize that their could have been unburned pellets w/ the clinkers. since the fire was burning good and hot it was probably lighting them and smoke was coming from the uninsulated ash pan. ugh. hate it when its my own incompetence to blame. house is full open and stove is out. i pull out the pan to reveal, sure enough, a pan of burning soot and pellets, all afire. i run the pan outside and dump it in the snow. at least the snow made that easy i suppose. pan cleaned i reset the stove and started it back up. all seems kosher as of now. touch wood.