Tag: Ciphering
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Dialing in Details
Allow me a morning meditation (minus constructive conclusions.) A wandering wonder. About process. About creative risk. About composing, crafting, constructing, carpentry,… Allow me a moment to meander from brainstorming and “ciphering” to dialing in details. Because details matter. But how we discern details, how we wend our way to destinations can be circuitous. Maybe even…
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Planks to Pickets
Plenty of “ciphering” on the details of the privacy enclosure recently. True, the team has been juggling multiple concurrent projects, but designing an executable construction plan for the screening fence behind the carriage barn combines several distinct challenges from steel structural skeleton to stump-to-lumber (aka tree-to-timber) pickets. I’ll save the specifics of the steel skeleton…
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Deciphering Ciphering
I first heard the term “ciphering” in 2005 when we were renovating the Lapine House. Context offered some clarity: “ciphering” was used to describe job site problematizing, brainstorming, tweaking and tuning a step-by-step action plan, and generally massaging blueprints and construction schema into completable carpentry. From a linguistic perspective, describing the process of analyzing plans,…
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Screening
Still “ciphering” on the particulars of the enclosure screening south of the icehouse terrace. Four days ago I riffed whimsical on the subtleties of decision making for the privacy fence that will conceal the unsightly but essential infrastructure located behind Rosslyn’s historic carriage house). A mid morning meditation on enclosure inspired by ongoing deliberations on…
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More Real than Realism
What, you ask, is more real than realism? Perhaps nothing. Or, perhaps plenty. Poetry, for example. Also art, stories, and so many other creative and curatorial initiatives. “Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.” —…
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Flashing Flashback
Weather reminds us that autumn will inevitably yield to winter. Frost. Flurries. Cooold nights… Probably soon-ish, at least for short intervals. And yet the threat of colder, wetter, even snowier and icier days ahead is 100% less concerning than it was a year ago. We’d only just begun our foray into Rosslyn’s icehouse rehabilitation. And…
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Fallen Maple Secret
Do you remember the magnificent maple tree that came crashing down to earth late this summer? At the time I alluded to a secret of the ancient maple. Today I’m ready to share yet another confidence concealed by this lofty giant for well over a century. This ancient maple — wise for the century plus…
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Morning Dew
After weeks of rain, we’ve enjoyed two glorious August days. Summertime splendor all the more apparent for the contrast with two months of incessant drizzle-to-downpour conditions. Sunny. Bluebird skies. Hot. Light breeze. Lower humidity. And morning dew on the decks and lawn when I take Carley out in the morning and when I wander up…
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Loft Guardrail
Three and a half weeks ago I extolled Rosslyn’s perennially perfect poppies as a timely analgesic to the inconvenient-but-overdue termination of an habitually untimely, underperforming (I’m being generous!) subcontractor who had been charged with custom cabinetry, stairway railing, and loft guardrail. Here’s a snippety flashback. Let’s assume that “cocky pop” is the body double for…
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Coving Complete
More good news this morning: the icehouse coving is complete! It looks so seamless, so simple now that the woodwork is joined, the discrete elements have coalesced, and the paint has dried. Integration. Cohesion. Hurrah! Only a few months ago, this vision — more mirage than meaningful map forward — danced in my imagination. It…
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Ciphering on Icehouse Coving
Let’s start with ciphering (before introducing my current coving challenge). I first heard the term “ciphering” used to describe job site problematizing, brainstorming, and generally massaging construction plans into completed carpentry in 2005 when we were renovating the Lapine House. From a linguistic perspective, the idea of describing the process of analyzing plans, troubleshooting an…