Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

[Posted about 12 hours later because Lisa's father's internet service was offline this morning when I went to collect my computer equipment and I didn't have enough time at PDX this afternoon to get online again.]

Last night was extremely clear and getting cold, just below freezing. Lisa and I went out for a 2-3 km walk after dinner, walking down Ferry Road in Mehama, back to her father's place so she could see the photo-essay about our work yesterday, and then across the bridge to Lyons. There we watched an electrical crew working on hooking up a pole line that we assume must have blown down during the storm. One of the workers in one of the two bucket trucks was working on live lines with a long pole. We know the lines were hot because you could see the sparks and hear the *bzt* as he poked the lines into place.

Heading back to the trailer, Lisa had a look underneath the remnants of the wrecked tarp covering the old porch. Lisa yelped, "The window's broken!" On the right of this photo along the wall of the old house, beyond where the rake and shovel are leaning against the wall, you can see a window. That window consists of a bunch of panes of glass. What we hadn't noticed during all of the excitement of the past two days is that the branch that first fell on the shelter must have hit that window and broken some of the panes.

One pane was smashed out completely, and one was cracked but was holding in place. Another pane had fallen out but not broken. That will be handy, because we can take it to a plastic shop and order panes of clear plastic cut to exactly that size. But in the meantime we needed to do something now. The room onto which that window opens is one of the semi-habitable spaces, and includes computers, electronics, video equipment, and books. Fortunately, the heavy curtains appear to have prevented glass from flying all over the room and kept the worst of the wet out over the past couple of days, but we needed to do something to prevent further damage.

Lisa got out a large roll of plastic sheeting and a heavy-duty stapler. I held the ladder -- the site in question is actually quite awkward to reach with the ladder due to there being no firm level ground handy -- and Lisa stapled heavy plastic over the entire window structure. It should hold until we can do something better.

The plastic sheeting that Lisa installed on the roof of the old house mostly blew away in the big storms of Christmas and New Year. Getting back up on that roof is problematic -- we need to get the carnage on the opposite side of the house cleared away first, and there simply isn't enough time or good weather for it. Therefore, somewhat in desperation, Lisa decided to go up into the attic and see if there was much that could be done from the inside. It's been over a year since she's last been above the ground floor, and she feared the worst.

As it happens, things aren't quite as bad as we feared. While there is lots of water on the ground floor, the damage on the upper floor and attic (it's a full-height attic; basically a third floor of the building) is less than expected. However, standing in the attic, you can see daylight through holes in the roof. Lisa sprayed lots of expanding foam into the holes in the hope that it will fill them up and sort of discourage the wet from getting in. (Stopping it entirely is too much to hope for.)

The foam merrily filled up cracks and went out onto the roof. The results from the outside are somewhat amusing-looking.
( Attack of the Deadly Roof Fungus )

It's a pity that there isn't a hatch from the attic to the roof; if there was, it might well be easier to get at the roof and do the repairs than by the pair of ladders we've been using.