Friday, November 16, 2007
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Beating the frost south
My immediate goal is to get south of the encroaching cold weather before my tanks freeze. The fresh water tank should be no problem - it's nestled inside under the kitchen counter - but the gray water and black water tanks are hung under the floor and I'm afraid they might freeze and burst. The last couple of weeks I've been keeping an eye on them and so far so good even though we've had a few nights in the low twenties in Red Rock there seems to be enough thermal mass to keep them from freezing.
On toward Ikea
Friday took me as far as Clarion PA, on my way to visit an Ikea store. The nearest along my route southward is the store near Pittsburg PA. I'm looking for some light weight cabinets to serve as a pedestal for the desk top I've built in the back living area of the Lazy Daze.
Night camp: Wal-Mart parking lot in Clarion PA
Skepticism is Helpful
If you want to notice things that seem wrong, you'll find a degree of skepticism helpful. I take it as an axiom that we're only achieving 1% of what we could. This helps counteract the rule that gets beaten into our heads as children: that things are the way they are because that is how things have to be. For example, everyone I've talked to while writing this essay felt the same about English classes-- that the whole process seemed pointless. But none of us had the balls at the time to hypothesize that it was, in fact, all a mistake. We all thought there was just something we weren't getting.
The Age of the Essay, Paul Graham, September 2004