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Wednesday, April 24, 2013

What an excellent system


Things have been a bit chaotic around here lately and I have been neither writing nor reading blogs.

Cate and I are both as crook as Rookwood and are struggling along as best we can. Melissa arrived to day and is in no better shape than we are.

We are only one day out from the air freight shipment and – in between panic attacks –  Cate and I are throwing things into boxes. This was going to be a well planned and executed campaign but will of course end up as one of those goat things.

I am really going to try to get the removalists to pack things that belong together in the same box – so that we don’t have a computer in one box and the keyboard underneath some pillows in another.

We got the inspection report on the house in Indianapolis and there are about 60 things that need to be done – but the owner has agreed to do most of them.

I now know about Radon  - which is a gas which apparently abounds in Indiana and gives you cancer.

We have high levels in our basement but everyone says I do not need to worry about it as you can apparently have Radon remediation which sucks the air out of your basement and blows it onto other people so that they die instead of you.

This seems like an excellent system so we are doing it.




9 comments:

  1. Radon is wonderful stuff. I think it can accumulate in certain chemical processes too, its been awhile since I have studied it. I saw that radon itself has a relatively short half and its decay products are solid radioactive elements that can accumulate in dust which can be a worse inhalation hazard.

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  2. Badger: Your radon remarks astounded me. I had imagined remotely a certain number of negative aspects of your obligatory move from Vienna to Indianopolis, but I was unaware of the theme of cancerous gas in the basement of your huge historic house. It's fine to joke about all this. Maybe you and Cate might take up smoking. At least you might derive some pleasure before the cancer sets in. Seriously, all I can hope for you is that Indianopolis will be a short stop on your way back home to Australia. Meanwhile, have a happy relocalisation.

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  3. Now I have to go and google Radon in Australia and make sure I'm not being nuked.

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  4. esbboston: I hade never heard of it until we looked at houses in Indianapolis.

    William: Well - apart from radon gas. rattlesnakes and black widow spiders - the USA has far fewer hazards than Australia. In Vienna the most dangerous creature is the hedgehog.

    hits: I think you are safe where you are

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  5. Badger: Once you've emptied your crates and filled up the Wishard Mansion (Nature abhors a vacuum) with furniture and objects that you've amassed during your Vienna years, you'll get around to inviting along your new neighbors for dinner. Inevitably, you'll inform them of the existence of an extraordinary specimen of early 21st-century European net-based literature entitled Vienna for Dummies, and your guests will wobble back home (combined effects of liquor and radon) clutching a piece of paper with a precious address: phillipprideaux.blogspot.com. Now, I've heard that declaring publicly the non-existence of a divinity is frowned upon (to put it mildly) in God's Own Country. I take the liberty of warning you therefore, my Europo-Australian friend, that you are seated fairly and squarely on the notorious and painful Horns of a Dilemma. Wishard Mansion neighbors might well be gobsmacked (I've been waiting for an opportunity to employ that ugly Aussie verb) by the following blogposts:

    Why are these men afraid of me?

    Nope to the Pope!

    No - he was a Catholic - like you!

    Sticks and Stones

    Why are these men afraid of me?

    Which church do I go to in Vienna?

    The Kookaburra is still there

    Give or take 100 million years

    Stand up and be counted

    It would be a pity to simply remove these 9 blog posts. I hope you'll decide, on the contrary, to augment and enhance the courage of your convictions.

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  6. Your next steps in becoming Americanized:

    1. Start drinking gallons of pop
    2. Start eating processed foods
    3. Watch TV all day & all night
    4. Gain 100 pounds
    5. Get diabetes
    6. Blame the president

    ;)

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  7. William: I shall not retreat one step but I shall..ahem... be more circumspect when dealing with the good Burghers of Indianapolis in the flesh. And I shall certainly not be removing any blog posts - even if it does mean having a burning cross on the front lawn on occasions.

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  8. We have radon here in Michigan also, not in my area, and yes there are companies that make vast amounts of money mediating the radon.

    I once saw a man pulling a huge 30 foot cross down the middle of a busy street in Indianapolis. I would worry more about him than the snakes and spiders. Though the copperheads and corals are not to be messed with either.

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  9. SK Waller: You did not mention Pray to the Lord!

    fmcgmccllc: Copperheads and corals? I must look them up!

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