Quote of the day: "you want to do research? Find a solution to problems."

Aches everywhere heralded a new day; one more day spent pursuing the star dream.  Today's tasks included putting a water-repelling putty in the cracks identified the day before, I promptly hopped onto the roof, removed the old filling and laid the tooth-paste like substance across the full length of the panel. It looked like those ice-cream dispensers at Pizza - Hut or Nandos, the ones which we left so far from us, in a place called home, a full seven and a half floors and a stretch of road.

 

The next task was to better secure the head cushioning on the door entrance. After using half the tape available I finally got a homogeneous cushioning fastened on the ceiling. Head aching days are over. I later bought an iron-filed brush and proceeded in removing the rust from the circular metal ring on the inside of the dome. Prior to this, Malcolm worked for a while on the lights and informed me that for the moment they would not work. Not that it ever bothered me, but having same lighting without having to open the guillotine would have been agreeable.

 

The next task was to turn a grey chair into a blue chair. This can be done by magic, paint or just by a lot of scrubbing. I depleted half a centimetre of oxidised plastic and polished the iron work. There were no major highlights to the day apart from it starting to rain. I rushed outside to sit like a little Buddha while the rain came down. The rain continued. It was a never ending rain, a hard and fuming rain, a rain which was sweat, a cavalry charge, a deluge, a downpour of water, an unceasing clapping to the eyes, a subtle traction to the submerged calves, a rain which drowned any other rain, and with it the memory of all other rains. Malcolm came with an umbrella and smirked, asking if I was enjoying traditional English weather.

 

After discussing what to do next we concluded that the dome had to be turned into a small lecture theatre and if possible place a cocktail bar at the top of the roof. While vacuuming the dome I hear knocks coming from the outside, I pop my head out to see three men from security, all grinning menacingly at me. I began the Django-like conversation with the man whom I presumed to be the leader of the party;

 

'Hello my good man, how are you today?'
'What are you doing?' he replied in a defiant manner, probably boasting more authority than was capable of exerting.

 

To that I was really quite baffled: what could a guy with shorts, boots and white socks with a mop in one hand and a vacuum cleaner in the other possibly be up to? I doubt that there was any real knowledge of quantum mechanics flying through the air, hence I will stick to the classical interpretation of my appearance as being; a cleaner. The encounter was brief and pretty much ended just as unceremoniously as it had begun.

 

It was a Monday; and everyone between the ages of 3 and 80 knows that the only good thing about Mondays is Game of Thrones which is a fitting way to take a break and enjoy work. Totally useless information; Malcolm was still on Season one at the time this entry was written. The main task following the morning cleaning session was to dismantle two windscreen motors from their mechanisms; took about an hour to do so and around another half an hour to test their rotation, it would have taken another hour or so to scrape the grit from under my nails, but I was never Da Vinci anyway. These motors hardly looked powerful enough to be able to move a chair, let alone a full size dome. I was hoping that the right gearing might allow this to happen. After dismantling and cleaning the cogs I realised there were two sets of vertical wheels just opposite the main horizontal wheel onto which the dome was sitting. The use of these two horizontal wheels remains a mystery to this very day.

 

Malcolm had to finish marking papers and today's catch phrase was: 'Edo, figure something out, you want to do research? Find a solution to problems.'

The main problem, which was to reveal itself as an unresolved conundrum for months to come was a way to open the hatch and get the dome rotating, we fixed the latter... but the former... partly. The easiest way was to use a gear and timing belt. A toothed cog would be connected to the belt and the dome would rotate with it. It was never going to work. Two windscreen wiper motors were never going to move the dome, it was a gargantuan task. Records showed that it had previously been done, but those missions were always carried out by the Youtube Special Forces, they knew what had to be done, we were clueless. Working on the hatch was not profitable to our enterprise that day as well, no significant progress had been made, either practically or theoretically, the only idea which seemed mildly acceptable was to attach a rope to both panels and allow one to slide on top of the other.

 

Every other idea was smothered in an ocean of ridicule and impossibility, including lifting the dome and installing ball bearings, or using some sort of mag-lev device. I have to stop reading Asimov.