The Drama of Desire, Homeownership in the Digital Age, and the seemingly infinite variety of ceiling fans in yet another post which may be of only marginal interest to readers who have nothing else to read and of absolutely zero interest to those who do.

Finally finished The Genius. Final five chapters managed to rescue the book from what was beginning to look in the ones just prior like a long slide into sentimental oblivion. Dreiser was obsessed with and possessed by all things concerned with human desire. And specifically how desire for love, money, status, luxury, fame, manifested itself in America circa 1900. But what sets The Genius apart from his other major novels like Sister Carrie, Jennie Gehrhardt, An American Tragedy, The Financier and The Titan is that in The Genius he is painting his own portrait. Wherein the other books he moves freely from character to character and setting to setting to create a broad canvas of diverse humanity, in The Genius he sets himself firmly to the task of exploring the mind of his alter-ego Eugene Witla --though thankfully not in the first person. And the reader (this one at least) comes to feel a sense of claustrophobia and frustration as Dreiser struggles and struggles to work his way through an endless maze of internal battlefields where the wars going on in the outside world take a distant back seat to the war that Witla is waging within himself. It’s a long slog and I’m kind of amazed that I made it all the way to the end, but as I said previously, Dreiser, despite his crude skills and inability to rein in his tendencies to repeat himself and indulge in enervating elaboration, still has the power to compel by virtue of his deep philosophical and psychological insight into the human animal. The childbirth scenes and the exploration of the tenets of Christian Science at the end are riveting. The world of obstetrics has come a long way in the last hundred years, and if you want to know how far, just read those three or four chapters culminating in the Angela’s Cesarean procedure. And perhaps it’s a testament to Dreiser’s passionate prose, but I actually found myself drawn to the wisdom of Christian Science a bit and if wasn’t for all the biblical stuff I might have become a convert.

The Internet hasn’t changed the world. It has changed everything. Okay, that’s a bit hyperbolic, but I am a copywriter—and trying to wake you up from the nap you took in the preceding paragraph.

Ellen had a boiler/heating guy come over to the house to do a routine inspection. He determined that we had a dangerous Carbon Monoxide level in the boiler and shut the system down and gave us a $7200 estimate for putting in an all-new system. Well, if I’m given a diagnosis that says I need a $7200 operation, I’m getting a second doctor’s opinion. Went online to try and learn a little for myself and first thing I learned is that Carbon Monoxide leaks are most often caused by Flue and Chimney problems. So I got a Chimney guy to come in and he said all was well in that regard and that if my carbon monoxide alarm didn’t go off when running the system, then I was probably safe—and that it’s altogether possible that the boiler guy only shut us down in order to get me to buy his $7200 new system. So I got a new CO alarm and mounted it in the basement and we turned the system back on and no alarm sounded.. So…what to think? Was I getting the run-around? Ellen said she saw the guy do the Carbon Monoxide test and his meter was beeping a lot…whatever that means. So back online again and try to learn more. Now I learn that you shouldn’t measure carbon monoxide emissions immediately after turning on the boiler/Heater –and especially not if it hasn’t been on for a long time—like an entire summer. CO levels are bound to be high initially as the fire burns off accumulated gunk and grime and other stuff that builds up. Like a BBQ grill you gotta burn off the old stuff before you get a clean fire. So I call the original Boiler guy who shut us down and run this all by him—and he says he shut us down because he didn’t want it on his head if a squirrel or some other animal got stuck in my chimney and all that CO backed up into the house and killed us in our sleep. I asked him if he thought that could happen if I had a CO detector/alarm, and he said that sometimes they don’t work or the batteries die . I was steamed. Now he’s saying he shut us down to protect us from roaming animals on the roof (who cannot get into the chimney cause we have a cap) and faulty CO alarms (which when the batteries run low actually begin beeping loudly to alert you to that fact). So do I or don’t I have a dangerous CO leak? My alarm says no, the chimney guy says no, the internet site experts say no and only the guy who wants to sell me a new system says yes. And BTW—you can simply call your local fire dept and they will come over lickety-split and test your CO levels at no cost.

Given the time and the energy and the willingness to work at it, one can become a virtual expert in just about any field via The Internet. Maybe not a brain surgeon, or other such expert whose training requires hands on practice and experience, but certainly a better informed homeowner with a enough knowledge to prevent you from spending $7200 on something you don’t need.

So now I want to know more, especially with the house in the Springs just now getting to the point where some of this information can prove useful.

I spent some time yesterday at a web site called Energy Vanguard:

http://www.energyvanguard.com/about-energy-vanguard/

The site is a University of Home building scholarship. I’ve read four or five articles and learned (among other things) that the attic fan that I’ve always believed was a good thing to have is actually a useless thing and an energy drainer.

So many fans so little time. And I don’t mean fans of this blog.
Trying to select the right ceiling fans for the house. Go online and discover that there are only a few hundred thousand to choose from. Then try and figure out how to make the best decision in regards to performance, energy efficiency, style, blade number and length,brand, price, lighting fixture, color, wood v. metal v. other etc. etc. etc. Just as I’m thinking how the internet has saved me time, money, labor and freed me from the chains of ignorance, I now find myself drowning in a sea of information that is making me waste time and probably money too in the long run…and I just tell Ellen and fellow drifters that I’ll abide by whatever they decide as long as I can be spared having to look at one more ceiling fan.

The internet giveth and the internet taketh away.