Nap Time

Everyone seemed to have a good time last night at the Splinter Group Meeting. The final head count was 18, and I didn’t run out of drinks or hor'devours, so I’ll say it was a success. The members of the group are from two different neighboring towns and so we meet at different members houses in the two towns. The pot luck dishes are split up so that people who travel bring desserts and salads, and the locals bring hot dishes. It works out so that you don’t have to do a lot of coordinating to ensure that you don’t end up with 10 salads, 3 cakes, and only one hot dish.

Everyone arrived around 7:00 and the last of them left around 10:00. I’m not really sure how long I spoke but I would say it was about an hour. I spoke about the house and recent projects, but most of the time was spent on the 19th Century production and distribution of electricity and gas for lighting. I started researching all this in a very casual way a few years back when I found the old gas pipe in the ceilings while I was rewiring the house, so it wasn’t like I had to spend a lot of time over the last few weeks gathering this information. I just had to review it and print up some things.

I had copies of ads for carbide gas machines and compressed gas machines for generating gas for lighting. I also had schematics for coal gas plants. On the local angle I had the advertisements for the retail establishments for places that sold gas and electric lighting. In 1893 you could have wire run to your house for $1.50 per 1000 feet and this was equivalent to running pipe for gas. I also found the location of the old coal gas plant in the city on a 1902 Panoramic map and I printed up a copy. I had a good time.

I have never had good study habits. I printed everything up last week and it had been sitting in a stack on top of the TV ever since. About an hour before everyone arrived last night I reread everything and then just winged it when it came time to speak. It went well, I think, and the few glasses of wine I had with dinner helped immensely.

Right now, I am just whipped, though. I worked my ass off the last few weeks and what little bit of my ass I didn’t work off was seriously dragging today at work. I was in full zombie mode. I got home around noon and promptly slept for about 4 hours. I’ll probably be up until 2 AM now, but I don’t care, it felt good to sleep.

Plans for the next 4 days are to do absolutely nothing. I will be slothenly and slug like around the house. I will not work on a project. I’m going to lay on the couch, eat junk food, drink red wine, and watch rented movies. That is it. No working on the house…..unless I got bored, then I may install a copper sink on the marble top island. We’ll see.