Today I was at a client site attempting to troubleshoot what could generously be called the worst piece of commercial software I’ve ever looked at. It turned out that I couldn’t do anything to solve the problem, but what made the trip worthwhile was the location: a bombed-out looking collection of stone and brick buildings, decidedly 19th century architecture, surrounded by fields of junk and a mountain of steaming mulch. Many of the structures looked fascinating and practically begged for further exploration, but discretion won out over curiosity and I elected to shoot from a distance (mostly).
My Google-fu reveals the origins of this strange wasteland: it is the remnants of Daniels, MD, a mill town dating back to the 1840s, which was laid waste by Hurricane Agnes in 1972. The cupola in the photo above is the bell tower of the St. Albans church, now bricked up to prevent vandalism.
For train nuts, this is a tour of the old B&O Main line, which cuts right through the heart of what used to be Daniels. This site is notable for the excellent aerial photo of the mill in 1956.
This is a shot of some excellent signage in beautiful downtown Columbia, Pennsylvania, an old foundry town on US 30 outside of Lancaster.
Here’s an excellent (if not opinionated) article on the work of Shepard Fairey, the ma responsible for Andre The Giant Has A Posse. I was aware he appropriated artwork for some of his pieces, but I had no idea how far he went.
Perhaps, dear interwebs, you can help me figure this out. And let me just apologize up front if my ignorance offends anyone.
What, exactly, besides sharing a four-year-old girl and four years of marriage, entitles the ex-Mrs. Paul McCartney to $50 million dollars? I don’t understand how this rich people divorce thing works, exactly.
According to this CBS News article, the judge ruled that Paul has to provide the daughter $70K US annually. On top of that, he pays for tuition and nanny services. I understand this completely, and were I the judge, I’d probably have upped it a bit to help pay for bombproof round the clock security, given the frequency of nutjobs coming after the Beatles and their families. So the child is taken care of. CNN reported:
Mills said she was unhappy with that amount because it isn’t enough for school tuition, private security, or first-class airfare.
From what I read, she has custody of the child. Isn’t part of that her responsibility?
Then I read, “Mills had sought almost $250 million”, while Paul was offering a $30 million settlement, “including her own assets, which the court assessed at $15.6 million.” When is $15 million dollars not enough? And what kind of mental patient believes $250 million is a fair settlement for four years of marriage?
Pardon me for being blunt here, but I don’t think she worked for that money. I seem to remember it was Paul doing the world tours, writing the songs, and producing the albums, before he met this woman. It could be that he is a tyrant and a bully and a bastard to live with and be married to, but I kind of doubt it. From what I’ve read about this, it seems like the ex is coming off as a money-grubbing bitch.
What do you think?
I took up an offer of help today to demo and haul away the remainder of the drywall in the exam room. Hopefully I didn’t drive away my generous benefactor for the remainder of time.
For those that have been in the side bathroom, this is where the big white cabinet thing used to be. The cabinet itself is now in little pieces in a landfill. After pulling down the nasty reddish paneling behind that, this is what I found. That makes two doors in the same wall. This is the one we knew about previously (that’s my new electrical box in the lower left). The moulding and drywall you see here is all gone now.
This is looking towards the bathroom. All of the drywall and insulation on the outside walls is gone, a portion of the dividing wall into the bathroom is gone, and the ceiling is completely gone.
Alternate view. We hauled over a half a ton of debris from the room out to the dump in two trips. Words cannot describe my gratitude.
The ceiling was never insulated, which explains why the atrium upstairs lost so much heat, and why the doctor eventually had a drop ceiling installed. We threw the flouresecent lighting out, because the tubes were the old single-pole design (impossible to find replacements for) and the ballast in one of the units was leaking black goo into the housing.
Next, I’m going to shut the plumbing off and pull the sink and toilet in the bathroom so that I can gut that entire space and frame it out from scratch. And then I have to figure out a way to get the air conditioner, which is as large as a fridge, out of the window and down to the ground without killing myself or anyone else.
This morning, waiting for coffee to brew, I was sleepily cleaning the dishes in the sink when I spied the first three dirty yellow male finches of the season on our thistle feeders, munching away. By the time I was able to get to my camera and put the long lens on, they were gone.
I knew there was a reason I had this guy’s big green sign on my lawn last year. I’m looking into what I can do to help fight this legislation; it has the potential to hurt my business significantly (and I’m already worried about the economy.)
I took a break from the day job today to do a little demolition in the old exam room.
This is so I know where to get replacement cartridges for my mask. (It’s better than hunting through Lowe’s aimlessly for a half an hour).
This is the shared wall between the house and the exam room. I figured the chimney would be in good shape when it finally appeared, and I was right. It’s covered in eighty years of dust, but it’s in great shape. The horizontal boards on the right side cover over the original doorway that used to open out into this space when it was a screened porch. Also note the original shingles at foot level, still nailed to the sheathing. Back in the day, instead of Tyvek, they used tarpaper, or in this case, heavy brown paper. Not very efficient.
I did a little exploratory digging under the floor sheathing and found some pretty good-looking pine. I’m leaving the sheathing down until the bulk of the heavy demolition is done, and then I’ll pull it up to see what we have. This is very promising.
Here’s the entire west wall minus drywall. I found a label on the back of a few of the sheets which patents it in 1919—much earlier than I’d ever thought—so the writing on the wall is definitely from 1928.
This is the shared wall between the bathroom and the exam room. I decided to pull both of the interior walls down first so I wouldn’t have to deal with insulation just yet, but there’s some up above the bathroom ceiling.
Now I’ve got to figure out a way to haul the drywall out of the middle of the floor and up to White Marsh, where there’s a sanitary landfill (they won’t let me dump it at my usual go-to location, right down the beltway from the house).
Where last week was a blur of focused energy and productive creativity, this week seems to be a shapeless, formless blob of fog. My attention span is scattered across several fronts and I’m finding it hard to concentrate. Perhaps more coffee will help.
This is skewed towards the information-is-free mindset but the basic information is excellent: Tips for Getting Bloggers To Write About You, written by one of the five editors of BoingBoing.