we are the plastic generation, and i dont mean just credit cards.

Writing at Night 

  a dry bear w/ fish just finished

     It seems the opportune time to write, to wait until the eve of day when you are all relaxed. Where your thoughts could lazily escape your mind’s confines and magically appear on the puter screen. In theory, maybe that is right but I would tend to disagree with the notion it is any easier. In fact my hands and my eyes are tired but I feel I have need to grudgingly give up some thought as  to what I may say. Noting is pouring out except dribbles of days gone by.

     It is harder to write at night, but after watching my readership die when I am not writing is disheartening to me in the least. So I need to start writing on a 5x weekly schedule, and it should include some of my daily adventures with the house addition. I intend to chronicle and take pics of work, either I or someone under my direction has produced as a result of my effort to make my life easier.  And to that extent, I intend to update daily my progress with the addition as lately I have been able to work on it daily at least a couple of hours.

     Today I was working on the S.W. corner of the house. This is the farthest corner on inside of house. This end needs to be built first. A wall designed to hold back the hillside needs to be built; also I need to be able to pick up any water either coming down hillside or in the floor pad area of new house. I have checked for level and was able to get an idea of where I need to fill yet. I need to get all lines of the addition laid out so I can see the spatial arrangements of all components of the house.  My main accomplishment was to dig out more the soil to make way for reinforced concrete block wall, behind this wall at the surface of the footer I need to locate a drainage system to reduce the water buildup and possible failure of the wall due to intrusion of water.  As I go along I will try and detail the wall showing all components of the reinforced wall and its drainage system so that any who would think about doing the same could take my drawings and experience and use it as a means to develop their own plan.

     I think sometimes we put too much faith in builders who do shitty jobs and then cover up their mistakes. The building process is way over done with materials and building practices designed to only last 30- 60 years and then the building needs torn down to make way for a newer technology. I intend to make this addition last 100 years or more with the right construction process being utilized in the complete process of building. Making houses last longer that are thermally efficient and utilize proven building methods should be the standard building practice but disposable homes are the norm instead. Plastic and technology have created living spaces based on technology that utilizes man made materials that degrade and lose their luster over time. Heating and cooling systems based on current availability of petroleum based or electrical generation methods of heating and cooling based on coil , natural gas, or nuclear,are used making inhabitants dependent on a grid of utility companies to provide the majority of their comfort. Neglecting and refusing to incorporate even the most minimal amount of passive solar or wind generation to supplement the power needs of the average home.

     With increased focus on green technology to offset climate change predictions and global warming, more attention is being paid to eventually wean one’s housing needs off the grid and make themselves independent of utility companies.  This allows the homeowners freedom to reduce their overall cost to care for themselves and also to reduce their ecological footprint. Through careful and calculated use of our resources we move into an era of technology based on saving our planet and reducing our need to exploit all resources. To reverse the trend of mass degradation based on new resources and focusing on renewable resources based on past usage of materials.  The aluminum can is an example of renewable resources. Yes it has to be remanufactured into another can requiring more energy but not nearly as much as when the materials were originally mined and bauxite was smelted to derive the first round of aluminum.  Copper and other metals are recycled as a norm  and in turn this reduces our need to deforest and degrade our environment.

    Plastic is increasingly becoming a commonplace occurrence in our ecology as recycling efforts are not keeping pace with the amount of plastic being generated. Plastic is being worn down in our environment when it is not recycled and ends up in the bellies of animals and restricts their ability to digest anything, with fish and birds, dying of malnutrition due to large amounts of plastic being disposed of in a careless manner. With the onslaught of climate change and increased intensity of storms we find tornados and hurricanes ripping and shredding vinyl siding and scattering plastic of all types contaminating even farther than before into parts of our environment we never thought they would reach or even expected them to.  Even on top of Mt. Everest the highest mountain in the world, plastic under those conditions carried into the mountains by climbers fails to degrade and is presenting itself as a problem nuisance that is spoiling the environment at even such a high level.  There is an old adage about how shit rolls downhill. Even from the tallest mountain in the world, the problem with plastic seems to snowball the closer to the sea it gets, and then becomes worse once it enters our oceans.

     Plastic is a degradable form of oil by product that requires energy to make and depends on its fuel source as a means of its very existence. This doubling down of energy usage is what is driving our global warming, and climate change. Yet we shield our houses in it and make our cars out of it and it is found in so many facets of our everyday life, which one could hardly ever think of a time when we had no plastic, or if we could ever live without plastic again. Yet it is probably our single most nuisance polluter we as humans could ever have invented. It occupies space in our landfills and is not necessarily the best recycled product due to its many forms and its widespread use in society including being used just recently as a micro bead additive to toothpaste where its remnants that didn’t become embedded in your gums was allowed to be washed down our sewers to end up in the ocean in the bellies of fish and other aquatic wildlife. Why because it was a good filler and reduced the cost of a tube of toothpaste by increasing the bulk of the product and stretching out the quantity without actually increasing the effectiveness of the product. It helped the bottom line by increasing profits while creating another market for plastic products.

      Instead of recycling we just make more product as it is cheaper to make new instead of reusing old product. Also it is dirty business reusing and reheating old product to make new plastic. Instead more research effort has been generated at combining plastic materials by means of epoxies and using beads of recycled plastics for this purpose to make a variety of products that does replace some natural products. Plastic nonskid decking and lawn chairs made out of recycled plastic are the latest use . The need for recycled plastic is far less than the need to use new ingredients of crude oil to make more. This increases our need to explore new areas and develop new methods to extract oil from places we never thought of before. Houses should be made of natural materials and should be designed not with profit in mind but instead for longevity of the structure. Again we as humans have a need to live within the confines of our planet , to not exploit for profit any part that will in the future cause consequence to come back and haunt us. This is much like coal and oil are doing to us today.

    We are still in an industrial age and it is that age where machines made possible mass exploitation of natural products for profit that is still fueling our economies and upon which war is still being waged today. When and only if we ever realize the importance of saving our hide from our own destiny with death, will we ever start to learn how to fully enjoy our intelligence. Oh by the way I fell asleep and kept nodding off while writing last night. Morning thoughts are much better for writing.