Dog Days

I don't believe any of the houses I grew up in had air conditioning.  A few of the apartment's I lived in during and after college had it, but I wasn't in those long enough for that to become the norm.
Admittedly, in Michigan where I grew up there are more cool nights than there is in a place like Tillman's Corner, Alabama, but summer's heat could still be oppressive with its evil friend humidity.  My parents always said the best thing to do was to put a fan in the window at night, either blowing cool air in, or warm air out overnight.  I always wanted the thing directly cooling me off.

We're in the midst of the dog days of summer.
dictionary.com defines the Dog Days as:
"The sultry part of the summer, supposed to occur during the period that Sirius, the Dog Star, rises at the same time as the sun: now often reckoned from July 3 to August 11."  Sultry...  Reckoned...
I've always been partial to the definition from the William Armstrong's Sounder, even if it is incorrect:
"the heat is so bad the dogs go mad"
I'm not sure if she's mad, but my dog clearly lets me know when the walk gets too long during the dog days.  She knows where the shady spots are along the road and what to do when she gets there.

This past week has had a brutal combination of heat and humidity.  Lows overnight were around 70.  And while highs were only around 90, humidity was almost tropical in nature with dew points above 70 degrees at time.  The hot and humid days can be ugly, but the nights can be near hateful - I'm reminded of the first few years after moving to Southern Ohio.  If my memory is correct, I moved into my house in February, with the huge opposing furnace heating and drying the air.  As that first winter transitioned to spring to summer, the area showed what we were in for.  The dog days of summer were unpleasant.  Getting home after work to a house that never felt like it dried out.  My parent's counsel to use fans in the windows was augmented by fans blowing over the bed.  The house sat in a holler, so humidity would often pool in the slightly cooler, lower air.  The effect was cooler soupy air was pushed around overnight only to be turned into hot soupy air during the day.  Overnight thunderstorms would bring a separate set of problems.
I tried to remain stoic about it, "I've never had air conditioning."
"Well, how was sleeping last night?" Janet asks, smugly.
I didn't admit it, but it was miserable.  At that time, I probably could have afforded a window air conditioner, but it would have been a stretch.  And I wasn't sure how much additional cost would come with actually using it.

Eventually, Bill gave me his old air conditioner as he got his central system fixed as preparation for selling his house.  This was an enormous window unit - thankfully the house had large windows.  It was loud and shaky and it seemed to want to give up overnight, but the slightly cooler and drier air it created in the evening allowed sleep to come less fitfully on most nights.  For some reason, paper wasps loved to make nests in that window air conditioner.
That free unit was eventually replaced with a far more efficient window air conditioner upstairs and a second larger unit downstairs.  I've always hated window air conditioners though.  No matter how well they are secured, much of the construction of modern units is plastic and they seem a desperately weak security risk.  In my case, the risk was probably minimal for the second floor, but despite doing what I could to secure it, the ground floor always made me nervous.  And since getting really good sealing around a window air conditioner isn't easy, I always assumed it was a convenient entry point for bugs as well as burglars.
At some point, discomfort and anxiety made getting central air conditioning a better solution.  Quite frankly, it didn't cost all that much and by getting a heat pump it helped with winter bills as well.  But as the house was well over 100 years old, with several retrofits from what was likely the original fireplace and coal furnace heating system, all cold air returns (that did anything) were on the first floor.  Some cooling reached the second story helped by a fan at the top of the stairs.  But a window unit was still needed upstairs might have been helpful on the worst days.  I didn't know it at the time, but I was only able to enjoy the central air conditioning for a couple years until I ended up moving.

I'd like to believe I'm not soft, but I'm quite sure returning to a lack of air conditioning would be painful.  Childhood tolerance is long gone.  Still, not only have I lived for most of my life without air conditioning, but people have for millennia.  If there was a drastic change in circumstances, I could try to resurrect the stoic tolerance of my ancestry.
As Mark Chesnutt sang in  1990:
"These old dog days of summer
Lord, I'll be glad when they're gone..."

American Eclipse (1878 and 2017)

I just finished reading American Eclipse by David Baron.  It chronicles the path of three notable people as they prepared for and viewed the eclipse of July 29, 1878.
Thomas Edison is known as an early American prolific inventor.  He ventured west in 1878 to test an invention which was supposed to be a very sensitive heat detector.  While his experiments were largely inconsequential and his "tasimeter" a footnote at best, the theory behind its use was sound and perhaps ahead of its time as it may have been one of the first instances of searching the cosmos using radiation outside of the narrow visible spectrum of light.
James Craig Watson viewed the eclipse hoping to find the existence of a planet inside the orbit of Mercury.  He found an unknown object that he determined to be the planet "Vulcan" which he was looking for.  Dying a few years later, before his planet discovery was debunked, his legacy remains one of setting up an astronomy award which bears his name today.
Maria Mitchell went to research the eclipse with a female contingent.  Plagued by the misogyny of the era, her eclipse viewing didn't result in any immediate consequence, but her legacy lives on as an early female pioneer during America's ascendancy in science.

I read the book as I am preparing to head out to see the 2017 eclipse in a few weeks.  My upcoming eclipse viewing is strictly experiential, not scientific.  I've done as much preparing as I can at this point, which means I am now free to worry as the date approaches.
Like most people, my chosen location is based on a mix of where I live, where it is likely to have minimal clouds and where the amount of people will be tolerable.
In February of 1998, I went down to camp on St. Johns in the US Virgin Islands.  An eclipse was passing through that area but the eclipse was more of an excuse to go on a rather exotic vacation for a couple weeks.  Camping on the beach near a bizarre cast of characters and wild donkeys was quite an experience.  St. Johns was in the 80%+ band of the eclipse, and it was interesting, but anticlimactic.  If anything, the crescent shadows cast by the sun obscured by the moon were probably the most interesting feature.

I want to see totality this time.  And I'm a chronic worrier, so I have several weeks to fret.
I worry about the weather.  As much as I plan on going to an area that is likely to have minimal clouds, even the driest areas in Eastern Oregon have some probability of all-day cloudiness or torrential rain during the actual event.  I am aware that I can do nothing about this, and while minor adjustments can be made, major changes will be difficult within the time frame of accurate weather forecasts.  My preparation has essentially locked me into the general area I've chosen.  More out of curiosity, I looked at major destinations on the path of totality to see what, if any, hotel rooms were still available.  Few are, and they are all really expensive; in the most egregious example, a 1-star hotel with bad reviews in Casper, Wyoming is still available ... at a cost of nearly $1200.

I worry about people.  I plan on going to a less-populated area of the country, but will thousands and thousands of other people have the same idea.  Intuitively I think not; a small subset of the population will be going to great length to see the eclipse and a larger subset will make an effort near where they live, but I don't believe the entire path of totality will be crawling with people to view an event which is to last only a few minutes.  Still, I'd rather not view the eclipse while stuck in some traffic jam which is historic for the area I'll be in.

While I enjoyed reading American Eclipse, I'm not sure it was wise to do so.  David Baron writes of the inability of people to find boarding rooms in 1878.  There are a lot more people around with a lot more ability for information 139 years later.  In some sense, being in the right kind of crowd may be fun for an event like this - I just hope to have a few square feet for me and my tripod.
He also writes about terrible weather leading up to the eclipse.  But in the end, the eclipse day was clear and weather forecasts have come a long way in 139 years.

I guess as with any kind of travel, the anticipation is part of the experience.  Forty-nine days and counting...

Terra Mediterranean Vegetable Chips

Actual Headlines
From USA Today:  Desperation Sets In While Homes Sit For Months With No Offers
From CNN:  Home Prices Post Record Decline
From The Atlantic: After An Ugly 2010, The Housing Market Won't Look Much Better In 2011

Selling my house was objectively not very prudent.  I tried to tell myself that buying at the bottom of the market made everything even out.  I can still make that argument, but I spent a frightening amount of stressful time in 2011 holding my breath.
Action does not always need to be prudent - or inaction for that matter.

I also told myself that as a small community, the area I was living in would be largely immune from the big-city and suburban housing market sickness.  Since I was so deeply involved in the buying and selling process, I started keeping track of the market in my township.  The chart below shows how much of a glut there really was even in that small community five years ago - and what a bad financial decision moving might have been.

With the market overloaded, and with many of them foreclosures, prices were seriously depressed.  If there was a bright spot, it was that as a house with improvements made under the assumption I would never move again, the house showed well compared to some of the foreclosures in the area.  Still, foreclosures in the area now are about 10% of what they were five years ago.

As expected, the harsh edges of real estate have softened over the last five years, but I still vividly recall the two lowest of the low points.
Taking care of two houses was very painful, and it seemed after every showing someone would leave a window or door unlocked.  On one afternoon with a threat of rain, I went to the house to check on it and mow the lawn.  I was done with the front yard as the smell of ozone preceeded a thunderstorm.  While trying to finish the back yard, the skies opened up with a deluge of water.  I only had a relatively small section in the back of the back yard to finish so I kept at it.  Then the lawn mower quit.  Kaput.  The unmowed square got relatively more expansive as I had to finish cutting the now sodden lawn with the push mower while light rain continued to linger.  I drove home wet, cold and defeated.
At one point, there were three realistic potential buyers showing interest.  Things were looking up as I was convinced one of these would work out, one of them had to.  Inability to buy during a divorce and inability to get financing in the new reality of lending forced two of the three out.  I was eating Terra Mediterranean Vegetable Chips when the Realtor called to say the third would not be buying the house due to family squabbles.  "So we're back to square one," was all I could say  after a long pause.

It is hard to find anything "good" about the selling process.  But in retrospect, it does sometimes help to bring some perspective to difficult situations, and perspective is needed all too often.

This too shall pass.

And it did.

Eventually the house was under contract.  I'm pretty sure that once that happens, the buying and selling process is designed to extract as much money out of the sale as possible.  I'm also pretty sure that once under contract, the real estate professionals push things through as hard as possible, while the finance and government bodies do everything possible to stop the sale.  Both buyer and seller are merely along for the ride at that point.  I'm 100% sure that I'm fine with how everything worked out.
The actual closing was suprisingly anticlimactic, it was dark outside once the closing was finished.  I went to the bank to deposit the closing settlement and the teller had to get it approved since it was such a large deposit.  I ate Kroger sushi (always disappointing) and grilled steak that night.  The sale was an amazing gift.

I have one picture of the house from around the time I bought it that helps me remember how great it was to move there.  Whether it is nostalgia or rose-colored glasses really doesn't matter.  I even miss aspects of the house - I miss living in an old victorian sometimes; I miss living in what might be considered a commmunity, albeit somewhat less frequently.  I have surprisingly few later pictures of the house.  That may not be an accident.
It no longer feels odd to drive by it.  I barely even wince when I see the basement light has been left on.  Someone else has lived there now for 1/3 as long as I had.  Allowing things to come to an end peacefully is a gift of getting older.

The sale of the old house was really the conclusion of the purchase of the new house one year previous.  Five years after that finality, I can say without hesitation that while not objectively prudent at the time, it remains one of the better decisions I've ever made ... even in a really bad housing market.

Derelict Houses

There is a house I frequently go past that has been vacant for a few years.  It is much newer than my house, larger and the property even has a pond.
From the little I know of its history, its build wasn't very rapid, likely due to the unique and customized log-cabin style architecture.  A couple years after occupancy, the couple that owned the house prepared for divorce and abandoned the property to the creditors.  While the cost may have been prohibitive for one of them to hold on to it, it was unfortunate that there did not even seem to be an attempt to sell it first.  Perhaps in the face of a personal and emotional failure, it was just one more thing which was too much.

Empty buildings make me sad - this isn't entirely complete.  Empty buildings make me sad as they deteriorate.
I'm not naive in this.  I realize that in some cases, the expense of keeping a structure outweighs its usefulness or cost to keep it up.  But empty houses take on an aura of depression, and this depression grows to an overwhelming pitch as buildings atrophy.

Houses develop a personality, a psyche, over time.  Walking into a freshly completed structure is probably intensely exciting to new home owners.  I've never lived that, and the feeling from other's new houses has always been one of intense sterility - akin to walking into a hospital, or furniture showroom.  The overwhelming smell of new paint and carpet; the saccharin look of all the unused fixtures; lack of scuff marks showing where people's lives have intersected with chairs and doors, with the floors and counters.  When redoing windows in my previous house, then well over 100 years old, I found mischievous etchings in the wood, archaeology and anthropology meet in real, every-day form.  The feeling was similar to when I found an old rifle with "Stoby" inscribed in the stock.

I love the feel of an old house.  The walls breath with its history.  Peoples lives are written in every nook of an old house.  And that is part of the reason why seeing houses fall derelict is so depressing.
Pausing in front of an old, empty house, it is possible to imagine all of life's little happinesses that may have happened there.  But as the house deteriorates, the happiness seems to slip away, leaving only life's evils.  I think that is why old empty buildings are so frequently described as "creepy" - the buildings lose their upbeat spirit, and what is left is fear, anger, and anxiety.

I took refuge from a sudden rainstorm once in an abandoned building.  The floor had given way in spots and there was overwhelming evidence of years of animals taking up residence.  I looked around and wondered what events had happened in the very spot I was standing.  As the rain pattered on the roof, and through it in some places, it almost sounded like voices of the past, a reminder that things weren't always like they are now.

I often wonder what transpired to transform a home into a shell no longer worthy enough to maintain, especially in and around areas that remain populated?  Fire and severe damage due to weather leave scars that explain catastrophic devastation.  Termites and other insects can render a building dangerous over time.  Poor maintenance, particularly as it pertains to weather fastness can be destructive.  Yet these issues build slowly over time.  Many empty properties are left more in a state of suspended animation.  They stand a testament to history, and as a reminder that at one time, the structure was once not only someone's house, but someone's new house.

Over the years it was empty, the house I frequently go past started to look more distressed.  Exterior wood needing treatment turned prematurely grey, and wooden clapboards began to fall out of place.  Vines started to grow ominously up the side, the chimney was left askew after a windstorm, and trees began standing sentry, blocking the front door.
That vacant log house has recently started to be cleaned up.  If other similar properties are any guide, it will go up for sale soon for a fraction of the value of other similar houses in the area, with the caveat that it is strictly sold as is.  The house will be set to be transformed back into a home, ready to create more history.

I Wonder if my Aunt Listens to Guns N' Roses

There was a family reunion this weekend.  Normally I wouldn't even consider going to one of these things but I perseverated about it for several weeks.  As recently as a few days before I was still leaning toward going.  But inaction is the easy default and I stayed home for the three-day weekend.

As part of the reunion, there was a pig roast - which was quite an appealing draw.  It has probably been decades since I have been to a pig roast.  When I was a kid, the church I went to had an annual pig roast.  Living across the street from the church, I would always wander over there shortly after the pit master (I'm not sure if they were called that yet in the 1970's) would get there with the roaster and pig.  The pig would be roasted, complete with apple in mouth.  I would hang around and sometimes get meat presnacks.  But maybe I didn't.
There were several pictures posted on Facebook by a few relatives at the reunion.  I'm glad there were no pictures of a brown roasted pig; that would have increased the angst about not going.

Last weekend there was also a reunited Guns N' Roses concert at Soldier Field.  Slash and Axl back together again.  Unlike the reunion, I never even considered going, even for a picosecond.  I almost went to a Detroit GNR concert in the late 80's.  I didn't go and it was cancelled anyway.  As I recall, the late cancellation caused a near riot.

The Independence Day weekend was a productive one, if slightly dull.  I was able to treat some wood around the house that needed attention and fix my pole barn.  I had one panel of siding on the barn that was slightly mangled in reinstallation haste earlier in the year after replacing some wood that had rotted due to the barn builder's omission of a few pennies worth of caulk; this allowed water to get to the wood above the overhead door, rotting it to structural worthlessness in less than five years.  I was also able to put a small patch over what I am quite certain is a bullet hole in the back of the barn.  I don't see it daily so I'm fine with the patch.  The bullet hole is a little troubling, but I guess someone can hit the broad side of a barn.  In reality, I'm not completely sure it actually was a bullet hole, and even if it was, the projectile had to have come form a very long distance away.

Some of the other reunion pictures posted on Facebook were a good reminder of some of the reasons I didn't want to go to the reunion.  I cringe at the thought of the awkward conversations with uncles and aunts.  I don't suppose most neural-typical people see these family conversations as awkward, but I do.  While I have some fond memories of my slightly judgmental relatives from childhood, at this point they are more like strangers I barely know and have little in common with, other than a few chromosomes.  Perhaps that is because I don't go to the family reunions.

I wonder if any of my uncles listen to Guns N' Roses.  Almost certainly not...

I likely would have enjoyed catching up with some of my cousins - and seeing them as they are today as adults, probably with their own children.  In my memories, they are still the lurchy teenagers we all used to be.  It actually could have been quite unsettling.  My cousin's children look more like my memories of the cousins themselves.
The weather was actually much better seven hours away at the reunion location than it was at home.  It would have been a great excuse for a lot of motorcycle time.  The motorcycle ride home would have been quite wet however, and I am in need of new tires on the Triumph.
I was, quite frankly, wanting a simple weekend after an exhausting week of work, where my job has completed a five month transition.

I'm not sure if not going to the family reunion was the right decision.  But it was a decision.  I rarely look back with regret, but sometimes with zelfmedelijden.

"Just as ancient insects that led full productive lives disappeared without a trace, and those that bumbled into amber and died are still around in tangible form, so our personal failures remain, sharp and clear, long after the day-to-day routine and minor victories fade into nothingness." - Neil Steinberg

2015: Saudade

Somewhere around late August, too early, I started looking for the end of 2015.  Not that 2015 was a bad year ... overall.  I didn't use my vacation time too well, but that which was used appropriately, I enjoyed.  Planned trips worked out and the impromptu ones were a brief hoot.  Some longer term issues at work have (largely) improved, and my work hours allow me to leave when I want more often.
I may have even been pushing for the end of the year, but it was like pushing on a rope; time will pass at its own rate.  Never faster, never slower.

"Certainly a measure of this reactionary navel-noodling can be attributed to the standard metaphorical casting of autumn as the season when winter's deathly breath first fogs your rose-colored glasses, but on a more fundamental level I think it has to do with the reaping of gardens and good intentions, both of which tend to come in well below spring's predictions." 

Michael Perry (Truck - A Love Story)

Christmas came with the winter solstice behind it and the new calendar waiting to be hung on the wall, but Christmas morning woke up to 50 degrees after a Christmas Eve bike ride warm enough to wear shorts.  

On a rational level, I enjoyed the uncharacteristically warm December; my heating bill certainly has.  The warm weather made for more bike riding and some of the most comfortable deer hunting I've had.  Yet, the lack of winter was bringing with it a sense of prolonging a year that needed to end, the warm weather behaving as a nagging sense that something is unfinished, the epoch won't advance until some beastie somewhere is set free.

For the fourth year, I've time lapsed daily pictures of my back yard.  I very likely have the most photographed back yard in the township.  Proof that the year started and is over.

Bronnie Ware's Top Five Regrets of the Dying is repeated all over, so it isn't included here.  But it is worth rereading occasionally.  The last regret is one that seems to request attention after 2015.  Happiness is a choice.  It sounds so easy, and it probably can be.

There are already things to look forward to early in 2016.  An annual trip south is actually quite close.  A trip west, very far west, to scrawl a few difficult check marks on of the bucket list is being planned.

Since Christmas, winter does seem like it may have arrived.  With winter winds and daily highs nearer freezing, the calendar can be changed.  I'm not sure if the beastie has been slain or set free; only time will tell.

Looking back over the four years of time lapsed video brings with it a sense of hope.  Winter, in some form, will always come.  Winter will relent to spring, bringing green and good intentions.  Summer will bring the deliciousness of muggy mornings and evening walks watching the Queen Anne's lace and chicory grow.  Fall will bring the hopefulness of the treestands.  And winter will come, yet again, with the right mindset, accompanied by happy reflection since happiness is a choice.

Thanks for everything.

Life Is Not a Choose Your Own Adventure Book

On Friday, I did something that is slightly discomforting.  I went grocery shopping on Friday night.
I'm sure there have been times I've grocery shopped on a Friday night in the past, but the entirety of the situation is where the discomfort lies.

The normal Saturday routine is up early, pay bills, buy food for the week.  During the day on Friday, the weather forecast was dynamic - changing from a little snow, rain, and sleet to several inches of snow and most falling overnight but lingering through Saturday.  Weather has rarely, if ever, interrupted the contentment of the Saturday routine.

Compared to the casual Saturday morning grocery shopping, Friday night was a cacophony of people, carts, milk-buying moms (pre-storm) and beer-buying college students (also pre-storm).  It probably doesn't need to be said that it was unpleasant.

Saturday, indeed, came with several inches of snow before dawn.  The radar suggested more snow was going to continue, but the bulk of it was past.

Maybe I should embrace the decision to avoid the 25 mile round trip to grocery shop on intemperate roads since the routine can sometimes be too comforting.  Yet last weekend, I made a 700 mile round trip to Michigan, enduring a much more serious snow storm in Michigan and a smaller, but still difficult one closer to home on the return.  The fact that this is really the first significant snow storm in the immediate locale shows how mild the winter has been.

It is hard to argue that the unspoiled Saturday morning snow scene looks amazing.  But, that postcard scene is easier to enjoy on December 23 than it is when our average high should be solidly rising and in the mid-40's; winter should be slowly relenting to spring.

Two people I've worked closely with for years are retiring next week.  I can only imagine their thoughts as they look ahead to a time in the very near future where the need to get up and traverse treacherous roads is replaced by less urgency.  Their retirement is creating a reduction in workforce, without a clear reduction in work.  That is not something to be contemplated on a Saturday morning though.

The decision to grocery shop on Friday presents an interesting life dilemma.  We almost never know if a decision we made results in eliminating a catastrophe.  Life is not a Choose Your Own Adventure book where one can make a decision and then look to see what an alternative choice would have resulted in.  A bad decision that results in a car crash or permanent injury can be easy to identify in hindsight.  It is impossible to look back and say that the decision to grocery shop on Friday to avoid bad roads on Saturday prevented something terrible from happening.  Chances are high that a grocery trip on Saturday would have meant a slower than average drive and safe return home.  But, maybe, just maybe, the decision to not leave the house on a snowy Saturday morning meant that a slide off the road, into a ditch and bouncing off of a tree was avoided.  It isn't likely or even probably; it is, however, possible.

The trivial trade-off of a minor weekend disruption with eliminating the improbable accident seems to be about contextually correct.