I have retreated to my man-cave again, deep in the frozen north of Wisconsin near Hayward. The lack of internet, cell phones, or human companionship makes for good writing.
The downside is the same as he upside. It wouldn’t be real isolation if I could flip it off with a switch.
That means on a day like today, when I want to check my e-mail and post a quick blog, I’m forced to extreme measures. The library is closed on Sundays here, so their computers are out. The local coffeeshop closes at 3:00, so I’m similarly boned. Deprived of both my life-giving caffeine and life stealing wi-fi.
So instead I’m next door, in the laundromat, typing on the mini that my dad gave me for Christmas. If I sit on this bench against the west wall, I can catch the edge of the coffeeshop’s wifi. My great manly hands are too big for this keyboard, so I’ll ask you to be forgiving of any tyops that slip through.
The details of my LA trip are still forthcoming. But for now I just wanted to mention a Reading/Q&A/Booksigning that I’ll be doing in Central Wisconsin in just a week or so.
University Wisconsin Marathon County
February 3, 2009 – 7:00PM
Terrace Room
518 S. 7th Ave
Wausau, WI 54401
It’s open to everyone, so if you’re in the area, feel free to swing by….
Battery low, gotta go.
pat
Another brilliant idea: brought to you by Elodin Enterprises
Okay, I’ve been thinking about this for years, and I need someone to explain it to me.
Here I am in Wisconsin. It’s winter. It’s cold outside. I will be spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars to heat my house despite the fact that I keep the thermostat at a relatively conservative 62 degrees. The air in my house is chilly and dry as a bone.
Then I go down into my basement, put a load of laundry into the drier, and for the next hour I run a big machine that vents hot, moist, delicious air through a tube and out the side of my house. Presumably so that the local squirrels can enjoy a sauna.
Does this make any sense? Is there some good reason why I don’t have a second tube that runs from the drier directly into my ductwork of my forced-air furnace? Free heat, free humidity, and as an added bonus, my house would smell like Snuggle fabric softener.
I mean, I could understand why this idea wouldn’t be a big deal in, say, Texas. As I understand it, in Texas the winter weather is relatively clement, and the summer weather is like being beaten with a burning shovel until you are on fire, then having someone extinguish you by wrapping you in a thick, wet towel that is, somehow, also on fire.
But here in the north, it’s cold for about half the year. And for a couple months centering around nowish it’s an amazing flavor of cold that you really can’t appreciate unless you experience it firsthand. Night before last, up here in Hayward, it got down to twenty-six below zero (Fahrenheit), not counting wind-chill.
That’s the sort of cold where, if a young gentleman tries to enjoy the unique privilege of manhood and write his name in the snow, he will end up with a pee stalagmite instead. It’s the sort of cold where you go outside and realize that if you aren’t careful, you will fucking die.
So I go back to my original question: Why isn’t this done? I’m not an engineer, but I’m pretty sure we have the technology to install what amounts to a valve. One side would be labeled “make my house warm” and the other would be labeled “squirrel sauna.” You could adjust it according to the outside temperature, your mood, and how you feel about the local fauna.
I can’t be the first person to think of this, so I’m assuming that there has to be a good explanation for why it isn’t already commonplace. Can anyone think of what it is?
Anyone?
pat