(no subject)

My brother wants to leave the country and join a cult with a woman who owns a kennel.

Bernard is autistic and he has a chronic and fairly serious ailment which has caused him to go to the hospital at least twice a year (he's bad at the whole "taking your meds" thing) and pretty much requires constant monitoring by my parents (who can be overprotective, but first-hand accounts suggest that Bernard actually needs it). And while I am polite and courteous when people come to my house to evangelise, because all life is hard and door-to-door evangelising doubly so, I am not fond of organised religion and a religion which discourages the use of medical science is right up there near the top of the list of Organised Religions I Am Not Fond Of, Especially When My Brother Wants To Join.

Even setting that aside I could probably tell him to follow his bliss were it not for the fact that I really believe 1. he would die before his time from untreated Crohn's, probably through his own self-neglect and 2. the stress of watching it happen would literally kill my mother. She doesn't handle stress well; I've long been of the suspicion that she's a very high-functioning autistic herself, and some forms of Asperger's Syndrome can make it difficult for people to process intense emotions.

She called me this morning, utterly wigged out by the email she got from Bernard, who is currently at university. An hour on the phone with her at an ungodly time of the morning seemed to calm her down, and I just sent her an email pointing out how incredibly expensive and difficult it is to immigrate, especially with a chronic medical condition.

Not to be a narcissist about it, but this is not the stress I needed five days before opening a show.

I really hope I can get out of rehearsal before eight and get to the concert I want to go to. I could use a little performance in my life and a pint of high-quality beer wouldn't go astray either.

(no subject)

I am adventuring aboard the SS Geronimo with Jack again today. In attempting to determine how many screw-propellors a late 19th-century steamship would have, I stumbled across the life of Oliver Evans:

Evans's life was fraught with soul-chewing combat over patent rights and other business dealings. In 1805 he published a second book -- this one on steam engines. He saw the book wasn't coming out to his own satisfaction, and -- at the last minute -- he angrily added two words to its title. The book comes down to us as The Abortion of the Young Steam Engineer's Guide. In the Abortion we read the words:

He that studies and writes on the improvements of the arts & sciences labours to benefit generations yet unborn, For it is improbable that his Contemporaries will pay any attention to him.

Happy ending though, Oliver Evans died a rich man.

I still don't know how many screw propellors would have gone on a cruise ship. It has to be at least two, since twin-propellor boats were used on the Great Lakes for passenger travel around the same time, but those were fairly small. On the other hand, the Titanic only had three, and the Titanic was fucking huge:

Titanic contained two reciprocating four-cylinder, triple expansion, inverted steam engines and one low pressure Parsons turbine which powered three propellers. There were 29 boilers fired by 159 coal burning furnaces that made possible a top speed of 23 knots. The ship could hold a total of 3,547 passengers and crew. The ship offered an onboard swimming pool, gymnasium, a Turkish bath, library and squash court.

Perhaps fatal to the design of Titanic was its triple screw engine configuration, which had reciprocating steam engines driving its wing propellers, and a steam turbine driving its centre propeller. The reciprocating engines were reversible, while the turbine was not. When First Officer Murdoch gave the order to reverse engines to avoid the iceberg, he inadvertently handicapped the turning ability of the ship. Had Murdoch simply turned the ship while maintaining its forward speed, Titanic might have missed the iceberg entirely.

History is fun and interesting! At least once you poke around in the bits nobody wants you to poke around in. Thankfully, the internet is for poking (not Porn, as is commonly believed).

(no subject)

Home from the concert! It was awesome, Paddy Keenan was definitely worth the cover, though the quesadillas Martyr's serves are not worth what I paid for them.

I had a great time and it was nice to unwind for two hours, though as soon as I got home all the shit I have to do came swirling back. I wanted to take R along, but I have not actually seen him since Friday -- he's been here, there is evidence of his passing through, but I've been either asleep or gone whenever he's awake, and when I'm home he's already gone out for the evening.

Work continues apace on the set. There's a lot of last-minute tweaks, but everyone agreed tonight that it looks awesome, so at least there's that. If I have a total nervous breakdown right now, they will all hate me but they will have a set. And hopefully, after tomorrow, some props. Fucking props. Next time I design a show I demand to have a props master.

One of the actors took something from my injured hand this evening -- there's a clear dressing on it -- and said "What did you do to your hand?" I told him it was stigmata. Then the stage manager quoted everyone's favourite theatre aphorism: "Get down from the cross, we need the wood."

It's going to be a long two days. But we're on the downhill slope now, at least.