My dear Calculus Students,

Allow my to introduce myself. My name is Aloysius Ludwig Thumbs, a free-lance Home Repair and Maintenance Technician. You may call me Al--"Al" my friends do! I work in the home repair line, in what you might call a start-up venture. Business has been a little slow so far, seeing as how I haven't managed to sign on any clients yet, but I prefer to see this as an opportunity to showcase my skills on my own place of residence. I am constructing a magnificent greenhouse attachment on my own domicile, and I figure that when it comes to construction, there's no place like home!

Speaking of this greenhouse attachment, your exceedingly kind professor mentioned you might be able to help me. I stopped by her office about a week ago to ask her professional opinion on a little matter of design, and she was quite insistent that I consult with you instead. I am not quite clear on the reasons she referred me to you, as we were cut short in our conversation. (I admit rather sheepishly that I accidentally placed a fish tank I was carrying on her laptop computer. Perhaps I got carried away with my gestures; after the fish tank got knocked over, we had a rather difficult time rescuing my smallest guppy from between the "U" and I" keys. Fortunately, all of the other guppies were unharmed. I would have stayed to discuss my greenhouse further, but Dr. Crannell most kindly and firmly urged me to take my guppies home to see to their safety).

As I mentioned, this greenhouse has a most magnificent design. It is also cost-effective, thanks to my brother (Alvin), who gave me a large pane of glass, 15 feet by 12 feet wide. Since glass is the most expensive part of the greenhouse, this makes the project extremely economical! The only other expenses will be the concrete for the flooring, the wood for the side paneling, and the material for fastening the greenhouse to the south wall of my home. I can't wait to start planting gladiolas, Aloe Vera, tomatoes, rhododendrons, rose bushes, carrots, . . . soon you'll have to call me "Green!" (Get it, Green Thumbs?)

At the end of this letter I included an architectural diagram to show you what the greenhouse will look like. I have to apologize for the roughness of the diagram, which I had to do by hand because last month my drafting papers caught fire&emdash;somehow I placed them on top of a lamp when I moved them from the sofa (I didn't want them to get stained with the coffee I'd dropped when I had to answer the telephone, which was lost in that pile of laundry I keep there), and it turns out that 75 watt bulbs are hotter than I thought.

Here's something I thought of. Sometimes when I'm going down my cellar stairs, which have a low ceiling, I bump my head. My brother Albert doesn't have this problem because he's shorter than I am. He's only 5' 3", and I'm 6'. So Albert doesn't think about things like ceiling height, but I do. Just the other day, in fact, I was running downstairs and hit my head so hard I was knocked out cold for 3 minutes. Hurt like the Dickens when I came-to, too!

This actually relates to my greenhouse. I know there are going to be places in the greenhouse where I'll have to bend over to tend the plants--maybe that's where I'll keep my cactus&emdash;but I'd like to make sure that there's a lot of space to walk around in without banging my head. That means that I shouldn't have the pane of glass too steep, because there's no room to walk around if it's nearly up-and-down. But I know I shouldn't have it too shallow, either. Perhaps you could tell me how much floor space I could expect to get. I mean, your professor said you could. The folks who pour the concrete come on February 14th, by the way, so I really need the answer by then.

I can't tell you how excited I am to start this project. I've had my whole family look over my designs. My brother Alcox (who is such a doofus) was the only one who wasn't impressed. He said, "why don't you make a rectangle greenhouse instead of a triangle greenhouse?" I said, "Alcox, you doofus! Do you know how valuable a huge sheet of glass like that is? Do you really want me to cut it into pieces?" Alcox is just high on himself because he's taken trigonometry and no one else in our family has. But the rest of my family appreciates my creative design. They all loved the plans!

Maybe when this is all constructed, I'll invite you over for dinner. Well, I guess that's "Al" for now!

Al L. Thumbs