I love the sound of jackhammers in the morning. It smells like…masonry!
Monthly Archives: February 2012
Ain’t Got Nothing
Ex nihilo, nihilo fit. From nothing, nothing comes. That’s a basic principle of Aristotelian metaphysics: nothing comes to be from nothing. It’s the basis for one of St. Thomas’ Five Ways of proving the existence of God: everything that comes to be, that has a beginning, must have been brought into being by something else—because nothing comes from nothing. And that will lead us to an infinite regress, unless there is something that has no beginning, something that is, but was never brought into being, something that is, in the metaphysical sense, necessary, rather than contingent.
Recently this principle has come under a certain amount of attack from folks who don’t understand it. Lawrence Krauss has parlayed his misunderstanding into an entire book, called A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing. (H/T to Michael Baruzzini at The Deeps of Time.) Others have made the same attack, notably Stephen Hawking.
It seems that in a perfect physical vacuum, pure nothingness from the standpoint of atoms, molecules, and so forth, there is still activity at the quantum level. Virtual particles pop into existence and evaporate again. If this happens enough, you can get a Big Bang, and creation begins. And thus, from nothing something has come, and so no God is necessary. All you need is nothing.
Well…nothing but a perfect vacuum manifesting quantum activity according to the laws of quantum physics.
And, see, that might be nothing from a physical point of view, but it isn’t nothing from a metaphysical point of view. In fact, it’s quite a lot of something.
Krauss might well be right, as to how the Big Bang came about. But he’s proven precisely nothing so far as God is concerned. So I guess he’s got nothing after all.
D-Day Plus One
So the kitchen is mostly demolished (though there is much left to do); we have a refrigerator set up in our temporary kitchen ($175, used, with free delivery), the initial recriminations are at an end because it’s simply too late for that; and tomorrow we might actually eat all of our meals at home. Plus, Jane transferred her cold to me, so she’s feeling much better. This is a Good Thing.
D-Day: We Cross the Rubicon
The Contractors arrived to day, Joe and his crew of merry men; and the end result is that we have no kitchen. Yesterday, we had a dispirited, disheartened, forlorn kitchen; today we do not even have a dead kitchen. After the work that was done there’s nothing left but the kitchen sink, and that’s disconnected.
Demolition is about half complete, I’d guess; and what was uncovered wasn’t nearly as interesting as I’d hoped, despite the jackhammers. Seriously—jackhammers. When your kitchen cabinets are made of bricks and mortar, you need jackhammers to take them out.
Seriously—bricks and mortar. It’s—it was—as picturesque as all get out, but not especially practical. I’ll try to get some pictures up later.
Forlorn
All humor aside, it’s somewhat heartbreaking to see the old kitchen looking so empty and forlorn.
That sounds odd, I’m sure; but our kitchen isn’t just a kitchen, it’s also the dining room, and it’s really the heart of the whole house. And it’s looked more or less the way it does now—or, rather, the way it did last week—for virtually all of my life. Now it’s empty, and I’ll never eat in the old kitchen again. It’s sad.
D-Day Minus One, 6:10 PM
We have had our first meal in the “temporary kitchen,” a simple affair of bread and cheese. I have called this remodel an adventure, and so it seems fitting that we begin with adventure food. I have no idea where the horses have got to, nor when the orcs and trolls will be showing up.
Meanwhile, the old kitchen is nearly empty: only empty bags, an umbrella or two, and a few stray bits of what’s-all-this-then remain. Oh, and the refrigerator and some coolers to receive its content tomorrow morning before the contractors move it.
D-Day Minus One, 11:20 AM
The Marines arrived at 9:15 AM and established a beachhead. Much packing and toting ensued. We begin to see the daylight at the end of the tunnel…unless that’s an on-coming train.
D-Day Minus One, 8:37 AM
The gnomes didn’t come and finish packing up the kitchen while we slept.
Time for Plan B.
D-Day Minus Two
Bad craziness and much chaos. Progress, however, has been made, with attendant back pain. Tomorrow is the final push.
D-Day Minus Three
Today is D-Day minus three…which is to say that on Wednesday, bright and early, the contractors are going to be here to demolish my kitchen, which I love, the kitchen which is engrained in my bones, the kitchen of my earliest memories, the kitchen with impractical, unusable cabinetry, the kitchen with no place to put a dishwasher, in order to replace it, in the fullness of time, with a kitchen of beautiful tile, a kitchen of soapstone counter-tops and decent lighting, a kitchen with significant cabinet space, a kitchen that looks like it has always been here even though it hasn’t, a kitchen that will make my wife happy, a kitchen with a dishwasher.
Oh, and a powder room.
All this is to note that my “deep thoughts” might not be quite as deep over the next week; or perhaps they will be even deeper, depending on what kind of depth you’re thinking of.
On the other hand, perhaps I’ll have more time to write after the next few days, because it’s not like I’m going to be spending my time, you know, eating.
The View from the Foothills 