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Posts by Joe Wingenbach:
Understanding M Homes
“I really love the internet. They say chat-rooms are the trailer parks of the internet […]” – Carrie Fisher Whether it is fair or not, mobile homes and trailer parks are objects of derision and mockery. More than one comedian has made a career out of trailer park based humor. After all, if a […]
Well-Oiled Hinges
“The agent kicked aside some garbage with his shoe and, after a quick look around, stepped up to a solid oak door set into deep shadow beneath the porte-cochère. It seemed to Nora as if Pendergast merely caressed the lock; and then the door opened silently on well-oiled hinges. They stepped quickly inside. Pendergast […]
Don’t Settle on a Wet Basement
I’m willing to bet that most of your associations with settlement aren’t that great: settling a disagreement, settling for second place, and settling down is, for 20-somethings still on their parents’ insurance plans, something only slightly more appealing than prison. The verb to settle, in fact, comes from the same root as the verb to […]
The Alabaster Albatross
Virginia Dwelling has no mission statement. Sadly, we lack the water coolers, coffee-stained carpets, and cubicle-to-cubicle quarreling to support one. One day, perhaps, we’ll gather around a worn-out conference room table and spend hours hammering out a phrase that has all the appearance of meaning but is also conspicuously void of it. Virginia Dwelling: Improving […]
Concrete Counter Tutorial
It truly is the small things in life: like having a kitchen sink! With running HOT water! It’s been months since our kitchen was in working order, and we’ve been microwaving most meals and doing dishes in a tiny wet bar sink which only had ice cold trickling water! And I thought I hated […]
Pipe Problems
“It’s a lead pipe lock” What on earth does this saying mean anyway? It is, of course, a common idiom for something that is assured. It seems to me that it comes up most often in the context of sports prognostication. On a radio show out of Washington just the other day, the commentator said, […]
Making sense of our space
There is no shortage of space at the old gray house. With almost 3200 square feet, we have room to do most anything you can think of indoors. This is not me bragging, because with all of this glorious space comes the task of figuring out what to do with it (and cleaning it). […]
Cold Spots
“There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart” – The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe It is a staple of horror stories and movies for the unwitting protagonist to feel an eerie chill that foreshadows a spooky threat to come. In ghost-hunting shows, investigators often have some […]
AMONG THE CHIMNEY TOPS
“A cheyer byfore the chemné, ther charcoal brenned, was graythed for Sir Gawan”[1] Writers have long understood how palpable the image of the fireside is. Who doesn’t love the feeling of sitting down in front of a hot fire on a cold night after a long day? Arguably, the appeal of these specific circumstances is […]