Gradumacation

The alchemy majors all wanted to know how much money they'd be making after graduation. "Just give us an approximate figure," they'd say, and the professor would shake her head and cover her crystal ball with a little cozy given to her by one of her previous classes. When it came to our futures, she drew the line, no matter how hard we begged--and, I mean, we really tried. I was as let down as the next guy, but, in retrospect, I can see that she acted in our best interest. Look at yourself on the day that you graduated from college, then look at yourself today. I did that recently, and it was like, "Yikes! What happened?"

The answer, of course, is life. What the hag chose not to foretell--and what we, in our certainty, could not have fathomed--is that stuff comes up. Weird doors open. People fall into things. Maybe the engineering whiz will wind up brewing cider, not because he has to, but because he finds it challenging. Who knows? Maybe the athlete will bring peace to all nations, or the class moron will go on to become the president of the United States.

--David Sedaris
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
Back Bay Books (2008), p. 78

Before and After (and the return of photos!)

After various technical difficulties and constraints on time, I am once again capable of posting photos on the blog. And what better photos than some before-and-after's. I always loved these--maybe for the same reason that I preferred the Mr. Rogers' episodes where he visited somewhere outside his house and explained how something worked. When he went to the crayon factory, for example. I think behind-the-scenes is endlessly fascinating, and that includes finding out what's under your carpet.

Which leads to the pictures. After a few months of "funky smell" in the basement, my parents pursued it. Long story short, it turns out a heating duct installed under the house had rusted through. A pool of water had collected and grown things, and those things were blowing into the basement.

This precipitated filling in the heater vents with cement, and while they were at it, an update on the basement. So this is what we started with:
And here's the same view without the kitchen cabinets, carpet (I remember tap dancing on that floor when I was little), ceiling:
Drywall and paint:

And at the other side of the basement: