A reader sent me a rather critical note yesterday, taking me to task for wanting to build a large walk-in shower for our master bath. The note went to the idea of “What about the environmentally sensitive, resource-conscious deep thinker image?”
Let me explain by explaining that we live in what’s euphemistically called in the South a ‘modular”. People up North would call it a mobile home while the hoi polloi would call it a ‘trailer”. Since it was made out of chewing gum and 2-by-3′s in 1989, I figure we’re already consuming less resource that most Americans. Why, think of the environmental impact of having roof joists every four feet…why deck it over with thin plywood and it’s argued that it’s functionally as strong as heavier construction. But that’s why ‘modular roofs’ tend to sag.
There has been – oddly enough – a strategic reason for remodeling the house rather than building a new one. Two reasons: Resource conservation and a pay-as-we-go accounting approach since I’m a great fan of living below one’s income and leveraging up living space by doing your own work.
The key point here is that one of the current bathrooms has a ‘mobile home sized’ shower/bath which is too small to effectively bath in unless you’re one of those Firesign dwarves. And it’s only 23 5/8th’s inches wide – assuming the shower curtain doesn’t intrude – which it does.
The second design program is that both bathrooms presently have tubs – which means stepping up and over. All of which wouldn’t be so bad except that East Texas water is incredibly soft…when our kids visit they invariably come out of their first encounter with hand-washing wonder “Do you ever get all the soap off your skin here?” This slippery water makes a fiberglass tub treacherous and neither Elaine or I are fans of shower mats which are just one more thing to clean.
I’m willing to live pretty reasonably, but I’ve always in some dark recess of my brain measured my lifestyle by the quality of things around me: When I bought a brand new house (1974) up in the Pacific Northwest, it had a roughly 3-foot by 5-foot shower with sliding glass doors and tile walls. Nice.
Even our sailboat had a bigger shower, although on the boat, the midships head/shower/vanity took longer to clean up than the shower process.
So when I talk about a ‘large walk-in shower’ I’m looking at something roughly equivalent to my 1974 lifestyle. have I thought about something larger? Oh, sure, you bet. My dreams have gone as large as 4-foot by 6-foot, beyond which I reckon silliness sets in.
Another thing to think about is this: If you have one shower nozzle, the size of the enclosure doesn’t have anything to do with ongoing operating costs. You can use the same amount of water in a ‘large walk-in shower’ as you can in the 23 5/8th’s inch wide one. Less maybe, since the water wouldn’t be so prone to making a run for it, down the tub sides and one to the floor which gets us to another engineering point that I’m sure is becoming boring by this point.
I’m not terribly worried about water use, in any event. We’ve had 41-inches of rainfall, plus or minus a bottle of water this year. Our little place in the outback measures around 1,254,528 square feet, so with 41 inches of rain, that’s 25.56 gallons per square foot which means we get (this is amazing) 32,063,780 gallons of rainwater landing on the property each year. Sooner, or later, I figure government will find a way to tax that windfall….
Meantime, it makes me think about adding a second shower head. But thanks for asking.
Rewriting AID/HIV
Something you might want to catch: House of Numbers – a new film which rethinks the pharmaceutical industry’s definitions of HIV/AIDS. Trailer here… Goes on my must watch list.
Hearing The End of the World
Decided to build up a extremely low frequency radio so I could listen to the local ‘natural music’ or magnetosphere music. Read “Auroral Chorus III“, too. www.northcountryradio.com for their ELF radio kit.
Damn, I wish Heathkit was still around…
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Send your comments, electricians, and dwarves to george@ure.net
The UrbanSurvival Mall:
Peoplenomics This Week
“Economic Island Theory”
While we wait patiently to see which big commercial real estate outfit will be the first to hit banko, what the public reaction to the Obama declaration of national medical state of emergency and so forth will be, we’re at a fine point to consider one of my pet economic theories. I call it “Economic Island Theory” and it works with countries, states, cities, neighborhoods, and people right here on your block. If you want to understand who has power, Economic Island Theory is the ticket…no fancy formulas needed. Job, home, and Life counseling – all in one byte-sized theory.
“Live on $10,000″ Updated
With another round of layoffs due to start later this month…a round which will start to axe many of the middle managers who have managed to avoid the HR grenades…might I suggest a preemptive tactical move? Voluntarily dropping your lifestyle back a bit, since we’re all being marched down that road by either circumstances or some out-of-control-PTB types who write checks to Washington lobby and to anti-reformers in California! A good starting point, at least if you’ve still got $10-bucks is my e-book “How to Live on #10,000 a Year…or less!”
It’s an automatic download. It’s written in an information dense style: The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the cheap, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you have a little hustle left… Click here for the index and details.
MyGroPonics
My commodity broker JB Slear and I have written a simple book to get you started on high density hydroponics. It’s an example of how someone with a little creativity, access to a few ‘dollar stores’ and willing to try out some new farming techniques can grow an amazing amount of produce sin a very small space – like even an apartment balcony (if it gets some sunlight). Sound interesting? It’s just $10 bucks here…
No, when you tell your browser to ‘empty your cookies’ of web sites you’ve visited, it probably won’t get them all. Why? Because there is a whole class of ‘browser-independent’ cookies that will gobble up space on your hard drive, but more important is they will sneak out information about you without you being aware of it. Ever week I get emails like this one:
“Thanks again for the Maxa Tools recommendation, I never knew how much additional garbage gets attached every time I browse. “
Test drive it free by downloading it. To upgrade to full functionality will be $35 bucks. Is your privacy worth it?
Once you try it out, click the upgrade button (!) on the upper right hand side for the $35 unlock to get it to remove even those nasty and highly intrusive ‘non-browser specific’ cookies. Bonus: You computer may run faster. I’ve taken 1,000 37,970 41,837 cookies off my machine now. It’s just amazing. (I might ask their CTO to add one more digit to the “Total deleted till now” window…)
Attn: Mac Drivers: MCM does support the Safari Browser, but that does not mean it is compatible with Mac OS. Maxa-Tools only support the Windows world….so far. Given Jens and the other engineers time…
Feeling Thorny?
Want to be a thorn in the side of the Old World Order? Simply click here and send a link to this site to everyone on your distro list…Nothing more dangerous than sharp, clear-thinking upstarts who ask a lot of questions, eh? Unless you believe WTC-7 fell over on its own, of course….
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Last week’s report is here. For back issues of this site, click here. (Goes back to 1997!)