Firstly, there is a lot less room up there than I expected. I was low on my hands and knees for most of it. I think the last time I was in a roof the entrance was more in the middle of the roof, while ours is right on the edge of the roof slant where you have to crouch.
I shot a lot of photos, but I couldn't really aim because I couldn't really see. My favourite shot would be the old electric hot water system we had replaced recently but left up in the roof. It's a LOT bigger than I expected.
Next time I'm up there I'll try to get a better shot of that warranty sticker. I particularly like those black exhaust marks... I'm so glad we had this thing turned off and drained.
That darn thing taking up most of the middle of the roof space is the main reason I had to crawl through the roof.
Anyway, on to the rats... I could see where they had been. A few little rat poos here and there and some little nests dug into the insulation. I threw down four throw packs and two open packs. You're supposed to remove "soiled" packs so I guess I'll be up there again tomorrow to see how they went.
While there we also decided on paint for our flaky fence (charcoal) and windows (a very dark blue).
We must inform our lovely neighbour of the colours before diving into it though, our only concession to a "body corporate" in our two unit strata, other than the common land insurance nightmare.
The only real issue is the garage door, which is currently green. It might not go so well with the blue we're going to paint the windows (and gutters). We don't really intend to paint the garage door. We'll probably just leave it.
The rats haven't taken the bait I left in the bit of inner-ceiling I can get to from the garage. They were particularly noisy last night, so I intend to leave early today and climb into the roof with some more bait directly above the bedroom.
While up there I hope to take a million photos (to avoid a return trip as much as possible) and not get eaten by a spider (or rat) and scope out the ceiling for possible storage space (I've never been up there).
I've been thinking cutting a door into the ceiling from the garage might be a great idea. Easier baiting, and possible storage space.
I liked it, but I couldn't make myself love it.
It coined the term "catch 22". The passages that deal with the term were at the time, I'm sure, very clever and funny, where as now, with "catch 22" now in common usage, they just read as funny, and a little naive.
The absurd humour that fills the book appealed to me, but again seemed so natural as to loose it's edge. Perhaps my steady diet of Adult Swim cartoons has blunted the shock value? The absurd is no longer all that absurd.
When I originally attempted to read Catch-22 about a decade ago, I gave up. It's a very fast passed book that repeats itself often. It must be read quickly or you'll lose the plot and get bored.
I loved the non-linear structure, the mostly humorous dialog about horrendous topics and the occasional horrific realism. The journey into madness and how any organisation can look organised from the outside, but a horrible mess when each individual's personality is analysed...
But it is very often, particularly in the first third or so, very very frustrating, for all of the reasons above.
I assumed the movie would be told in a linear structure but Wikipedia tells me it's not. I'm interested to see. Contrary to most opinions I think it would make a great movie.
Perhaps I just couldn't read fast enough to truly enjoy it.
I tried.