faits divers

I just took a 4-day long weekend which which was a welcome break from the routine. It's a sign of the times that I now look forward to such breaks as an opportunity to get stuck into some DIY project around the house, rather than some jet-setter weekend getaway.

WALT IN THE MIDDLE

Have reached the end of Season Two of Breaking Bad. I cannot recommend this show highly enough! Bryan Cranston (who you may remember from such t.v. roles as the father as Malcolm In The Middle and jewish-convert dentist Tim Whatley from Seinfeld) is brilliant as Walt White. Season Two picks up right where Season One left off and just gets better from there. Looking forward to Season Three which starts later this month. 

ALSO ON THE IDIOT BOX...

On a lighter note, two other shows I've been enjoying recently are "30 Rock" and "The Big Bang Theory". 30 Rock covers very familiar sit-com territory: set in a tv studio in New York (30 Rockefeller Plaza), it follows the life and career of Liz Lemon (played by the show's writer Tina Fey). The show's other main character is her boss Jack Donaghy --- a career-reviving role for Alec Baldwin. As I say, it covers the well-worn (though seemingly inexhaustable) terrain of single thirty something Manhattanites, but brings enough quirks to keep it interesting. 

The Big Bang Theory is kind of like Friends for nerds: instead of 3 three good-looking guys and girls we get 4 super-nerdy guys and one normal girl (who is reluctantly dragged into their geek-world by dint of living in the apartment across the hall). Once again, the show deals largely with the usual light-hearted sit-com cliches, but the novelty factor comes from the geeky themes and one-liners dotted through the show -- some of which are impressively nerdy. 

RICHARD DAWKINS @ SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE

On Sunday afternoon we went to see RD give a talk at the Opera House as part of the Sydney Writers' Festival (or something..). He spoke very well and the talk was well-received (not unexpected given that anyone prepared to pay the ticket price is likely to be a fan). The format of the talk was basically a walk-through of his latest book "The Greatest Show On Earth", in which he gives an overview of evidence supporting the theory of evolution by natural selection. He went chapter-by-chapter, explaining the basic point and reading several key passages. I was surprised at the effectiveness of this "reading aloud" approach -- it really brought the writing to life. However, I was a little disappointed because it effectively limited the scope of his talk to what was already in the book (and, therefore, already familiar to those diehards who have already read it -- viz. yours truly). There was a book signing immediately after the talk, which resulted in a queue about 100 metres long (I despondently gave it a miss).

Probably the highlight of the talk was his reading from Chapter 9:

"It is almost too ridiculous to mention it, but I'm afraid I have to because of the more than 40 per cent of the American population who, as I lamented in Chapter 1, accept the Bible literally: think what the geographical distribution of animals should look like if they'd all dispersed from Noah's Ark. Shouldn't there be some sort of law of decreasing species diversity as we move away from an epicentre – perhaps Mount Ararat? I don't need to tell you that that is not what we see.

Why would all those marsupials – ranging from tiny pouched mice through koalas and bilbys to giant kangaroos and Diprotodonts – why would all those marsupials, but no placentals at all, have migrated en masse from Mount Ararat to Australia? Which route did they take? And why did not a single member of their straggling caravan pause on the way, and settle – in India, perhaps, or China, or some haven along the Great Silk Road?

Once again, I am sorry to take a sledgehammer to so small and fragile a nut, but I have to do so because more than 40 per cent of the American people believe literally in the story of Noah's Ark. We should be able to ignore them and get on with our science, but we can't afford to because they control school boards, they home-school their children to deprive them of access to proper science teachers, and they include many members of the United States Congress, some state governors and even presidential and vice-presidential candidates. They have the money and the power to build institutions, universities, even a museum where children ride life-size mechanical models of dinosaurs, which, they are solemnly told, coexisted with humans."

THE MONEY PIT

We finally got the gutters cleaned. The two-man team that came out seemed a bit of an overkill to me, but they did a good, quick job and quite helpfully pointed out a few issues with our roof ("whoever did your roof should be horse-whipped" was how one of the guys summarized it). Basically, there's nothing too serious, but some of the pointing (the cement along the sides) is broken, there are a couple of broken tiles, and there are one or awkward corners where there are no tiles at all (almost as if the builder had meant to come back to finish it off but never got round to it --- there are now some "nesting animals" in there). So, no big deal, but will require a roofing contractor to come out and fix up. Will try to get this done sooner rather later since it will only get worse if left unfixed.

MEANWHILE, UNDER THE HOUSE...

We had a plumber out on the weekend to take a look at our drainage issues. It was quite useful (and reassuring) to get his take on the situation under the house: basically, he didn't think there's a problem, but just suggested to keep the drain (in the bottom corner) clear, and possibly stick a hose down to clear it out a bit. We verified that it is currently draining out onto the street as it should. For the back corner (where the stormwater drain meets the downspout), he suggested installing a big pit which will not be easily blocked. So I will probably get this done, along with a similar thing for a couple of the other downspouts.

We got some rain last Friday night, and I took the chance to look again at the water coming under the house. I was surprised to find that the water wasn't coming from the vent holes but from lower down, through the ground. In other words, the "overflowing stormwater hypothesis" was something of a red herring. We had an interesting chat with a neighbour from across the street who built his own house and seemed pretty cluey on the issues of drainage. His opinion was that since our house is "touching rock" it is inevitable that we will have ground water getting under the house after heavy rain. He recommended that we should get an open drain installed to more effectively get rid of the water and, most importantly, to prevent it ever reaching the brick walls of the house (he also suggests getting the hot water tank raised up to head height to prevent it getting wet and facilitate accessing the corner more easily). This makes a lot of sense, and I'm now wondering if this would be something to get done. It wouldn't be trivial: to put in a drain at the bottom would require sawing/jackhammering into the slab, so it would almost certainly be something I'd get done: despite my burgeoning handyman credentials, I think this is a case where Harry Callahan's motto applies ("a man's got to know his limitations").

My current working hypothesis is that the amount of water coming under the house is still more than it should be, because of the way the water "ponds" in the patio during/after rain. It seems likely that this water would be finding its way underground and forcing its way through under the house. If we can get this water draining away quickly, that should reduce (if not prevent) the water coming under the house. So, my idea is to install a drain of some kind in front of the retaining wall, and link it up with the pit (to be installed by the plumber).