danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

A couple weeks ago, after the plumbing nightmare, and the air conditioner failure, I silently wondered what the next house horror would be.  I incorrectly guessed something related to the wiring.  Last night, in the middle of the night, my hateful house answered my question.

At first, I thought the puddle of water on the bathroom floor was the result of my having not closed the shower curtain.  But I felt around the tub and it was dry.  When a drop of water hit my head, my heart sank.  A leaking roof was the last thing I expected, and the last thing I want.  The ceiling was saturated, the plaster breaking off in chunks.  So, before the sun rose this morning, I was up on the roof, in the high wind and driving rain, laying tarps over the roof.  Lord, was I dismayed!

But my preliminary survey of the attic was encouraging: there are no visible signs of water intrusion over a wide area of the sheathing.  Rather, I suspect that the leak is occurring where the vent stack comes in contact with the asphalt shingles. I will know for sure soon.  Meanwhile, I’d just like it to stop raining.

Stay tuned.

Filed under: House, Meteorology on May 20th, 2009 | 3 Comments »

Yesterday was an exciting day for Gainesville sports fans.  The Gainesville Roller Rebels played at home against the visiting Bradentucky Nuclear Bombshells.  And won!

GRR is back at the Alachua County Fairgrounds after several months of being relegated to Skate Station, way out on the west side of town.  But the Fairgrounds just feels like home, even though it is a sweltering warehouse.  And yesterday it wasn’t even that hot, thanks to a torrential downpour shortly before the bout began.

Miriam coached her lungs out: I could hear her shouting from across the room as I took photos.  But GRR started on top, and stayed on top almost the entire game.  Most of the GRRs played noticeably better than ever before.

After the game, the team partied at Brophy’s Pub downtown.  It’s a surprisingly pleasant place, spotlessly clean and open, and the jukebox played some decent tunes.  There was ample pizza, and I chatted with Robin, Karla and Andrew before I headed home.  I’ve had a head cold the last few days.

Filed under: Sports on May 18th, 2009 | No Comments »

My school schedule has prevented me from hosting the Give Away and Request Program for more than a year.  But Agnes is away this week, and I don’t have class on Friday afternoons this summer, so I did it.  The requests are generally consistent (Holst’s Planets, Saint-Säens’s Organ Symphony), and today the CD we gave away was better than average: Leon Fleisher playing Mozart.  Today, I made up my own trivia question.  Test yourself:

In a famous 1763 portrait, a six-year-old Mozart is shown posing with a gift given to him by Empress of Austria, Maria Theresa.  What was the gift? Read more »

Filed under: Music, Work on May 15th, 2009 | No Comments »

This week, the New York Times published a front-page article about a town in Germany that was designed to be car-free.  Today, the Times‘s website asks a panel of experts what it would take to make Americans less dependent on the automobile.

I regularly drive an automobile, and I wouldn’t want to not have access to one, since it is a big drag to go grocery shopping without a car.  I ride my bicycle all over, but, due to weight considerations, I can only buy a few things from the store at a time, and ice cream can not be one of them.  Plus, without a car, I couldn’t go anywhere more than about ten miles distant and expect to make it home.

But, the cost of owning a car is high.  I estimate that we spend around $500 each month on car-related expenses, from the loan itself to gas, insurance, and parking fees.  In just a few months the car will be paid off, and that will be a relief.  But I do sometimes dream of living in a place where I can easily catch a bus–or, better yet, a trolley–and get to work quickly.  On the plus side, Gainesville is generally bicycle friendly, if you live in the right place.  But far too many people have moved out to developments west of the Interstate, where the buses don’t go, and the traffic and distance preclude cycling.  I have, by and large, designed a lifestyle that doesn’t require I go anywhere near those places, and I would never live out that way again.  It isn’t worth spending an hour in the car twice a day.

I only live three and a half miles from campus, but I dream of living even closer.  If we can one day buy a house in the Duckpond, I can foresee doing away with the car for many of the things we now use it.  I would still bike to work, but we could walk to the restaurants we love, and the park, and the library and so on.

Don’t get me wrong; the car is great when you want to go on a trip, or it’s raining or cold, or you need to get to work without being drenched in sweat.  But I’d love to see more communities planned around public transportation and with bicyclists in mind.  It would be better for everyone.

Filed under: Gainesville, Transportation on May 13th, 2009 | No Comments »

When I graduated high school in 1995, the best hope I had for keeping in touch with my friends was to know their phone numbers and mailing addresses.  Nobody I knew had email.  In fact, I only knew a few people who had ever been online.  So, I had many notes in my senior yearbook from friends and classmates that included a telephone number, and for a while I did stay in touch.  Indeed, I used to get actual letters from my friends off at college.  Life being what it is, however, I had, by 2000, lost track of many of those who had once been close to me.

Social networking websites have wrought much evil, but they have reintroduced me to several friends who had, for all intents and purposes, dropped off the face of the Earth.  Facebook has done more to counter the diasporic effects of time than anything else, and on Monday I experienced a rich reward: I had dinner with Erin Alvarez.

It had been almost ten years since I had seen her last, and until we found one another on Facebook, I couldn’t have guessed she lived here in Gainesville.  But she does, and she has a nice boyfriend, and we had a great time at Big Lou’s, and I am looking forward to spending lots more time catching up and hanging out.

Now if I can just persuade my friends Dan and Burt to move to Gainesville I’ll be set.

Filed under: Friends, Nostalgia, Technology on May 12th, 2009 | 1 Comment »