Random Smells

There is something especially unsettling about unexpected unpleasant odor. 

A loud noise may wake you from a peaceful sleep and trigger several hours of insomnia. A bright light may make you wonder who's coming up the driveway.

Taste and touch are usually applied to items under your control and so an unpleasant experience there is generally brief and well understood.

Smell is different. There can be great mystery in smell.

One such mystery is at play as I write, although the evidence has diminished greatly for the past two days.

In my bedroom, about three days ago, an odor reached its zenith. For intensity and area, I'd rate it an 8 of 10, with 10 meaning I'd have to sleep in another room. For pungency and foulness, again, 8, for it had a vigorous and repulsive presence like some of the fancier cheeses. But like those cheeses it had a quality about it that you might admiringly call "boldness" and maybe a faint chord of sweetness that may make you a bit curious as to the taste. 

I have a wary admiration for cheese. It is clear to me that bold and delicious flavors are to be found among the great cheeses of the world. Yet to eat many of them for their flavor would be, for me, much like bungee-jumping for fun. Just more than one of my constitution craves.

To return to the mysterious odor in the bedroom, I will say that at first I assumed the blame entirely for myself. It is entirely within the bounds of reason that I should suspect myself of having left something "perishable" laying about for far too long in some forgotten corner of my room. I've lived with myself long enough to know this. That is why I asserted to Heidi that it must be the shirt that I had overworn and left in the corner.

This explanation being wholly believable, we hit the lights and went to sleep.

The next day, however, the smell was more intense than ever. Enough so that Heidi decided to take action and removed the offending garment at once to the laundry room along with several others which might also have been suspected of creating the olfactory caucaphony.

Still, with the obvious culprits removed, the smell grew intense by an order of magnitude. 

You may suppose that I am going to carry on and explain how I solved this riddle and wrap this entry up in a tidy bow. Should you suppose that, you will now be treated to a rude surprise.

As yet the source of the odor remains undiscovered. The intensity has flagged remarkably in the past two days and leaves open the possibility that this mystery may go unsolved for quite some time due to lack of available evidence. 

Should the facts reveal themselves, dear reader, you will be the first to know.

Indie Music

When I first subscribed to eMusic.com I wondered if I would be able to find enough high-quality records to justify the subscription. 

I've subscribed for about 6 months now, and I'm starting to feel like I'm just scratching the surface of a deep gold mine.

Recently, because of a subscriber's poll ranking it the best album eMusic has, I downloaded In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel. I was not disappointed. At all. That album is ridiculously good and unique. You will not hear music this interesting on radio.

Other artists that I've been very pleased with:

Artist Album

Neko Case Live at Austin City Limits

Radiohead In Rainbows

Zbigniew Preisner 3 Couleurs : Rouge

The Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs

Elliot Smith New Moon

The Decemberists Picaresque

Belle and Sebastian If You're Feeling Sinister

Arcade Fire Funeral

The National Boxer

Flooding and Rooftop Adventure

Was it last year, or the year before that we had epic floods that closed I-5 and Mt. Rainier National park?
Well, we're at it again. In Clark County there are two road closures and a warning because of water over the roadway, all within just a few miles of my home, which I affectionately refer to as Fort Bale. See map below for closure locations.

Not only have the roads flooded, but as a result of the record snow we had in December, our roof has never been more compromised. The plumbing vent over the laundry room has been snapped off at the roofline, and the stove pipe has suffered enough that a small leak became apparent after yesterday morning's torrents.

I left work at 1 PM yesterday to come home and deal with the leaks, having no interest in tearing into our walls with the custom plaster job to fix water damage.

For supplies, I bought some roof sealant tar that touted the ability to go on wet or dry surfaces, two 75' ropes that looked like they could support my weight, two carabiners, an LED headlamp with a nice bright and focused beam, and a pair of flyfisherman's felt-soled boots.

The rope I tied off, each to it's own hook on the south roof. These are the hooks Heidi hangs her geranium baskets from. I'm glad now that I oversized them.

The felt-soled boots proved insufficient to walk up the wet metal roof on the north side; it's just too steep. So, I walked and crawled while tugging my way up both ropes and intermittently adjusting the Italian hitches on my caribiners, so that, should I start to slip, I wouldn't build much momentum before the ropes grew taut at my beltline.

Not finding the caulking gun I believe I had in the laundry room, I was forced to go primitive and I brought my needle-nose pliers and a spackle blade with me. I used the pliers to pull the nozzle off the caulk tube and later to squeeze the last bits out of it. With the spackle blade I smeared the tar over every seam I thought could plausibly be the source of the leaks we observed.

Luckily, as I worked I discovered that wet denim grips sufficiently to wet metal roofing.
However, that also meant that by the time I was done, I was shivering from cold.
Getting back off the roof was a little nerve-wracking because of how stiff my legs had become. They proved flexible enough though, and I was soon in the blessedly warm shower, shedding the evidence of my adventure.

For the first time in days, I slept well and completely through the night.