Entasis

A delicate and almost imperceptible swelling of the shaft of a column (OED). The process of making something curved to make it look straight. On my trip to town I had to stop at the courthouse and have a look, using a signpost as a sighting tool. I wonder about the math necessary to calculate the curve for a given height. I had to get to town, despite the massive snow melt and possible flooding, because zero temps and another foot of snow is forecast. Warnings of various sorts on the radio. Messy walk down, and the runoff threatens to wash across the driveway. The roads are fine but I don't dally in town as the temps are falling and there's beginning to be some ice in the rain. Get what I need and put together my pack for the hike back in. I got two bottles of whiskey but left one in the Jeep, cigaret papers, a large red pepper, onions, pound of butter, two pounds of good cornmeal, cream, frozen juice, a pound of dried garbanzo beans, and a hunk of salt-pork. Since D brought me some interesting sausages, I'm very well set for food. When I was unloading I found another acorn squash beneath the island. I have twenty gallons of very clean snow-melt water. I've battened down and covered the last dozen rounds of firewood out in the woodshed, dumped the piss-pot, the compost, and the ashes. The physical exertion of walking in and out has been good; the trip in today, even with a fair-sized pack, was much easier. Probably lose power for a day or two, because I'm already seeing rain with sleet and snow, which means the snow will stick to everything and there's supposed to be a lot of it. Downed trees and power-lines in my future. They're already canceling everything for tomorrow. I stopped on the way back in because a couple of the engineers for the reconstruction of the dam and overflow were down at the lake, looking things over. This was a large and expensive project and this is the first test of it. The lake is full again, for the first time in six months, and the outflow, Turkey Creek, is running spate, it's violent and loud. I point out to them, ever the smart ass, that they didn't allow for the depth of overflow in their calculations for the elevation of the little fishing dock they built at the boat landing. They shot the elevation from the top of the dam, and today six inches of water is flowing over the dam, so the top of the dock is six inches under water. If I was the boss, and I was paying somebody a lot of money to figure this shit out, I'd be pissed. Otherwise the system works beautifully, they reinforced the zone where the overflow cascades down twenty feet, they reinforced the knee-wall (which I'm sure has a specific name in hydrology) which breaks the flow of the water, and built a heavily reinforced shelf beyond that. They also built massively reinforced side walls for the first hundred feet on both sides. This project must have cost millions, and I'm sure millions were made, but I don't really care about that, except in a rather abstract way. I just look at it as a problem, and a solution. The kind of thing Kim and I might talk about, or any one of a number of friends, for that matter, who might weigh in on certain aspects of the problem and what the various solutions might be. Glenn calls me back on the company dime, I had to share with him the dock being under water. He appreciated the call. We've shared cold digs before. Changing over to ice. I'd better go.