snow

it snowed last week. schools were closed for a couple days (some districts more). this place comes to a near stand-still in bad weather. we always get a kick out of the southerners and their closing of schools and businesses for a few inches of snow. but, the black ice is nasty.

so, still nothing to report on the dome front. work has all but stalled. decent weather and weekends just haven't coincided and, to be honest, we're fair weather people. the idea of working outside in 40 degree or less weather is not appealing. we do have wood ready for framing up the opening you see in this photo. i've got it planned (for the most part); we're just waiting for a warm sunny day. maybe this weekend.

from our dome to your home...

merry, merry!

no tree in the cat house

so this isn't about the dome. i realized with lack of work going on with the dome that i'd need other things to blog about. well, i have no lack of cat stories. in fact, i entertained my niece and nephew with many off-the-wall cat stories while in tulsa a couple weeks ago. and, surprisingly, none were even embellished! i guess off-the-wall cat is an oxymoron, anyway. and since i have no idea how many people even read this thing, who cares if it's not all dome? in fact, i only know of 2 who read it regularly. ReBecca and Anna - this is for you!

this is not our house but could be if we had a tree.

photos

hmmm... memory is full on the camera - maybe i better upload the photos. what!? haven't done that since august? whoo-boy.
ok, time for a photo post! in no particular order ...


the top "skinned"












yours truly on the scaffolding nailing joist hangers

hiking and cycling went by the wayside this summer but i stayed in shape with "scaffolding repeats"

the first finished skinned pentagon!

the opening (someday to hold a window) between the 2nd and 3rd finished skinned pentagons

note the hi-tech tarp holders in foreground -
the wind can actually lift those in a storm. we had the tarp blown around quite a bit a few weeks ago.



from the front










workspace inside

now, isn't that just too cool? when i finish the inside, i want to show the geometry of the dome with wood. no sheetrock - i want wood, like tongue-in-groove flooring





victory!

other domes

i'd been looking for information about other domes, the how-to's and the people who built them. at first i had no idea how to find them (internet searches sometimes bring up the weirdest things!) and i was picking al's brain about different ways to frame up the openings, skylights and such. (al is the guy we bought our dome kit from - and in case you're interested, here's a link to his site - www.albatadomes.com) after awhile, he sent me a link to one guy's group, which lead to another, and to another... you get the picture - now i'm joining dome groups like mad. yahoo groups - there's a whole world there!

i've spent the past hour or so looking at photos and reading some posts - my head is spinning from all the info. some of these folks have HUGE domes - 2 floors or more, cupolas, linked together domes and building sections. some have built from kits, some from just figuring out how to do it. these domes are gorgeous. i am in awe.

a funny thing - at first, seeing photos of all these different domes intimidated me. i've seen some photos of guys on ladders that make me feel pretty silly about how i've talked about us on the extension ladder; photos of a dome with radiating floor joists that was - oh wow! - an incredible work of art; ones with custom windows to fit the triangles. but then, that intimidation turned around - seeing what others have done and how the planning and building of their domes have just become a way of life. and the advice they so willingly give along with words of encouragement. domeheads, as i've found out we're called, enjoy a unique way of life - definitely thinking (and living) outside the box. it sure has done wonders for my motivation.

a friend asked me sometime ago what artwork i was creating now and when would i post photos of it. my artwork right now is my dome and i can't wait to get back to working on it.

slowly but surely...

we're getting there!

working just a day a week on the dome makes for slow going. tooooo slow for this impatient person. it is frustrating but i gotta keep it all in perspective. we are getting it close to the point where i can work on it myself - or at least hope i can.

over the weekend we put up the final 2 hexagon pieces. we had left those and went on to the pentagons since we knew those pieces in particular would be odd sized and we were out of full sheets of plywood from which to cut them. tweaking of the shell this way and that way made that particular hexagon more problematic than others. we were right - they were off in size - but now they are up! yay! ed is especially glad to be done with them - it means no more balancing on the extension ladder. at least until we shingle. we also got the top plywood pieces on the last pentagon. not a bad work day - it is looking more and more like a dome.

again, the forecast held a slim chance of rain so we didn't put all the plastic back up. yesterday it was to be in the upper 50s, partly cloudy, 10% chance of rain. i had been talking of a return to running and yesterday was going to be the day. ed emailed me in the morning and said it was great running weather. i replied and asked him how long it had been since he looked outside (the health room doesn't have any windows) - i told him it was quite windy and looked like it was going to snow. not long after, i stepped outside to ferocious looking skies, rain and HAIL! 10% chance, my ass. the return to running could wait one more day.

30%

weird post title. i suppose anyone who really knows me won't think much of the weirdness, though.

30%. 30% off would be a good deal - almost 1/3. 30% of the population doesn't sound like so much, although i guess that depends on the issue. 30% wrong on the test wouldn't pass you for a driver's license. 30% black in a color would make it pretty dark. 30% has a great range.

30% chance of rain. in gj, if the forecast was 30% chance of rain, we'd laugh. rain, yeah - bring it on. a friend of mine would always say 4" of rain there would mean 4 raindrops, an inch apart. of course, if we had gotten 4" of rain in gj we would have though the world was going to end! here in the mid-south, it's a whole different story. we've learned that 30% chance of rain means bring anything in you don't want soaked.

one day in the past month the forecast was for a quarter inch of rain - got 4. another time the forecast was for up to a half an inch. got 5. i keep buckets out now to catch the rain just for measurements. forgot to empty one once and found it overflowing - and that was from just 3 or 4 rains. that's more than the annual average rainfall in gj! it's so different here - green and lush and wet. very wet.

the reason i'm rambling on about this? we worked on the dome this past weekend and removed one of the tarps, thinking to replace it with a different piece of plastic. but the chance of rain was so small, i thought it would be great to let the dome air out - the tarps and plastic make it kind of stuffy inside. chance of rain was 20% on monday. was a nice day. chance of rain was 20% on tuesday, then it changed to 30%. ok, no time to put the tarps up before taking the cat to the vet. no problem, it's just 30% chance. the score? 30% = 2".

enough blathering about percentages. except to add that we are more than 30% done with the pentagons!

the pentagon plywood pieces go up so much more quickly than the hexagon pieces for several reasons. one, they are smaller and easier to handle. two, the pentagons got the least amount of tweaking when moving the walls in and out and held their shape more. last, but not least, we are not as high up on the ladders and that is a good thing.

it is going to be so cool. it IS cool now.