A project complete

This week, amidst the trials and confusions of the family, Blaine and I finally got a couple of days of "project building" in. The first project took us only about 6 hours in which Blaine "sweated" 68 copper joints. The first lesson, however was mine. I have been going along through life blythly, picking up pennies now and then, but once in a while deciding that it wasn't worth the effort to bend over. I had been operating on the "a penny saved is a penny earned, but a penny found is better than work" philosophy. However after reaching this ripe age, I had decided that it may not be worth the effort.... So I went to buy the copper for the project and found that copper prices had zoomed up while I wasn't looking. (Yes, I realize that pennies contain considerable zinc to save on copper.... but that's been going on for years.) Once we got the blade changed in the miter saw, we were off and running. We reduced 70 feet of 3/4 and 1/2 inch rigid copper tubing to 1.5 and 2 foot sections, smoothed the burrs and Blaine commenced to sweating joints as I was his "flux man", nursing my recently repaired right hand (carpal tunnel release surgery). After approximately 6 hours of work, including 4 trips to the hardware for more parts and 2 reconfigurations of the geometry of the project, we ended up with this work of art to hold up the wisteria over our back door. Here are some close up views of his joints. The first is of some of the first joints and the second is of one of the later ones. Problem here is that I didn't realize that the camera was focusing on the house rather than the joint until too late, but you get the picture of the improvement. The really great thing is that most people use this method to join copper pipe for water supply in the homes and businesses. On his first day, not only did he demonstrate considerable improvement in the appearance of his joints, but pretty well passed a "plumber's test. Before we set it up, we laid it on it's side and ran water through it, plugging end holes until we were assured that water filled the entire structure. We found only 3 small drips coming from those 68 joints. I'll bet most apprentice plumbers don't beat those odds.

So that was the first day of our "project session". The second day was devoted to a wood project. I had seen this little table with a drawer in Newport Oregon at an oceanside B & B we stayed in and took pictures for future reference. We modified the legs but hopefully it will be "better" than the original. Having designed the size of the project in our heads, we put together a "shopping list" the nite before. We went to breakfast, then to Lowes to sort through piles of "Top Choice" lumber. The problem is, I had left our shopping list in the other car, so we picked out lumber by memory (plus a bit more cause we didn't have time to go back for more on this day.. besides, you can always use a board or 2 in the garage for "just in case". We took it all home and started making sawdust fly. We cut and shaped and edged, the started assembly. Here is a pic of the parts of the first table (minus the top). Since we only had part of a day, this is as far as we could go as we had to wait for glue to dry before proceeding to the next step. We'll have to cut the profile on the top and finish assembling it on the next session.

One thing I learned long ago was to make 2 sets of parts so that after you assembled the first version of a new project, you had patterns for the next. Because of time, we didn't cut the profile on the legs for the second set of parts, but here it is ready to make patterns for more should he or I decide to make more of these tables. I have little groups of boards like this all over my "shop" just in case I decide to make another of something. If not, I guess the grandkids will have patterns to go with the pictures of things I have made (found in my "projects done" folder). After working on finding time for a "building session" such as this, we finally accomplished one. Probably not the most opportune time due to my recent hand surgery, Grandma Bea's injury, and the loss of the mother of our nephew (by marriage), but at least we got a start. And I must say that at this point we are proud of the fruit of our labor. Sure hope these table parts fit together when we try to assemble it?????

Another Mystery Solved... aarrgghh!!!

We arrived home from Oregon in April amidst a very wet spring. The sump pump was running almost continuously, to the point it was drowning flowers around our deck. After a week or so, I realized that it wasn't going to stop soon, so rigged an extension on the sump drain so I could deposit the water further from the house into the yard which would better drain into the lake. The problem is that by the time I decided to make a move the standing water had killed much of the thyme that I had laborously nurtured between the flagstone in the little sitting area by the pondless fountain I had built. See "before" and "after". Now I have to figure out how I want to tackle reseeding the thyme.
As time went on (after the thyme went away), I was amazed that the water kept flowing after I thought the rain had slacked off enough that it should have stopped. (unravel that sentence if you like).. I also was amazed at how clear the water was. I would move the hose from the sump around to different places so I wouldn't drown other flower patches or make it too "soupy" to mow. I must say that at this point our back yard is the greenest it has ever been. I commented to Georgia and several neighbors that I was worried that there might be a leak because this water flow was really strange. I looked around the house and found no evidence of a leak.
Chapter 2:
It was SATURDAY, August 9, 2008. Georgia was away on errands and had asked me to take some stuff to the basement. (It had set there a couple of days waiting for me to have another reason to go to the basement, so I wouldn't waste a trip)...Hey, at my age, you don't waste trips up and down stairs. Well, I decided to be a good dooby and take the stuff down. I opened the door to the "Christmas room" (where we keep the unused decor items in the "off season") and heard a funny sound. I went back to where the water softener is and saw that water had run down the wall from a crawl space which was covered by a piece of 1 inch styrofoam. The only thing in that crawl space is a bunch of boxes I was saving (in case we needed to send stuff back) (Been there since 1998) and the water meter. I took down the styrofoam to be sprayed in the face by water that was spewing out of the "pipe" just before the first valve at the water meter... Notice I said BEFORE the first valve. I looked all over for a shutoff... inside and out. Found none. So I then unwrapped all of the water soaked fiber and cellophane that had been put there to protect the pipes from freezing, grabbed a roll of duct tape and started wrapping, while dodging spraying water.. I wrapped and wrapped. The only thing I accomplished was to cover the pipe with a really large wad of duct tape. I don't think I slowed down the water one bit. In the meantime, all the boxes were soaked, a bunch of dirt had washed away in the crawl space, and I was soaked and muddy. Oh! I was supposed to meet Georgia in town, but when she called, I said, "I'm not going anywhere." She got home and we started on the telephone. It took 3 sessions with automated answering machings to reach the guy to come and shut off the water at the street. It took 4 sessions to reach a plumber who was available. When we finally got to talk with people, they were really nice, reasonable guys. In fact the plumber showed up wearing an STL cap... (Now is a good time for you to check out the score of the Cardinals/Cubs game on August 9.... They knocked Zambrano's ears off http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/chi-10-cubs-cardinals-chicagoaug10,0,352160.story Oh, you probably already know.... I'm not watching today cause I know that revenge is hell. Back to the issue. When I wrote the really large check (remember, it is a Saturday emegency). . he saw the DVM and started another conversation. As it turns out, he used to participate in calf roping with Charlie Hartman, who I had known from the vet school and who married Ruth, a family friend. Small world again.
Let's consider that really large check. There was a time when I would have kept wrapping duct tape til it was gone or I had felt I had slowed it down somewhat, then either dived into it myself or waited til Monday. In this instance, that probably would have been a stupid move because the increase in leaking had to have increased significantly over the past couple of days. After the fact, Georgia remembers that during the night, she had noticed a strange sound in the kitchen, but decided it was just the sump pump. Now she realized it was the leak. Another issue is that I work Monday and get my second carpal tunnel surgery Tuesday. Hardly a time to mess with getting this fixed.
So, what was the problem? A connection just before the water meter was the site of the leak. Apparently there was a "burr" on the threads, which over the 12 years or so, allowed enough water to escape to enlarge a hole which sometime this spring was large enough to keep our sump pump running essentially every 3-5 minutes. The leaking water ran along the foundation and found it's way to the foundation drain, to the sump pit. Fortunately, before we left for Oregon, we had a super duper sump installed. Some time in the last few days the hole enlarged to the point that it was spraying water against the styrofoam "wall" I had put up to block off the crawl space, as well as make enough noise that we could hear it. Although the problem was most likely caused by faulty installation, it didn't surface til this year. I don't see how any warrantees would apply. (as long as you own the house) which is the typical "lifetime" warrantee doesn't even apply since we are the second owners... So what are we left with? First the bill. Secondly, the dead thyme (not to be confused with the dead time we spent waiting for people to return our calls). Number 3, today, we have to deal with all of the wet boxes, etc in the crowded Christmas room. I noticed that even the plywood boxes I had built for storing the Christmas reindeer were wet and warped, so who knows what the deer are like. Oh, and Number 4.... The Cardinals creamed the Cubs!!! Today is another day. (and another game)...

Something old -Something new

As I wind up my last day of locum at Purdue, there is more reminiscing to do. During this week, I found my way through the newer portions of the Purdue University Veterinary School to the original anatomy lab where we spent hours pouring over formaldehyde impregnated corpses to learn all of the little parts of the wonderful mammalian body. I also found the lecture room that we called "sleepy hollow" and the theatre style ground floor classroom where we listened to the instructor read "Guyton" to us and we struggled with classification of all of the known medications of the time. My first week here as I asked students assigned to imaging where they were from, I found that one of them had worked for 2 of my classmates who practice in the Indy area. He had told her that the only drug we had at that time was penicillin. Maybe close compared with today, but not quite true. As an aside at this point, there was a group of veterinary technician students assigned to imaging and I found that one of them grew up in my home town of Silver Lake. Back to the track. In my last post, I mentioned the different route I had to take. I modified it a few times and ended with a pretty nice entrance and exit from the vet school to the country. This route took me past a place called the "Frozen Custard Igloo". It seemed familiar to me, so the next evening I stopped and looked at the menu. Among many tempting treats, I found Pineapple Sherbet. That struck another memory, so I bought it. Bam! So to speak. I was back to somewhere between 1963 and 1968. To tie this together, I have to take you back to our trip to Gas City via Lafayette. As you may remember, we took 26 out of Lafayette. That took us past Home Hospital, the birthplace of our first-born. Here is a pic of him and his grandpa Kneller at Purdue "married student housing". For an update, go to Briarcliff Connection and sort through the pics on the "what's a pickup truck" post looking for the "I'm Local" T-shirt. As we passed the hospital, Georgia said, "there is that park we used to go to and we went to that great ice cream place." (Pointing across the street from the hospital.) The park was (and is) called Columbian Park and includes a zoo. http://www.lafayette.in.gov/zoo/ Adjacent to the park was the original Frozen Custard where we used to get those great treats (and I got their pineapple sherbet). Talk about a flavor re-awakening. Wow. (Since then, I stopped by each evening for a pineapple sherbet cone that lasted me almost to Frankfort. Here is a post describing the original Frozen Custard that we used to frequent. http://www.originalfrozencustard.com/ Lots of history here. Now there are several Igloo Frozen Custards and Snowbear Frozen Custard in Lafayette/West Lafayette. That was the something old. Now for the something new.

One of the Purdue radiologists took a couple of us to lunch last week to a place that was unfamiliar to me. Another Irish pub similar to Claddagh where we ate in Michigan. This one, however is not a chain. It is a family run business called "Nine Irish Brothers". http://www.nineirishbrothers.com/ Fantastic. If you are ever down by the levee that separates West Lafayette from Lafayette near the lunch hour, be sure to stop in. I can attest that the Guinness Stew and the Fish and Chips are really great. If you want something with a little more spunk, you can go a couple of blocks south to a nest of restaurants at the base of the relatively new State Street Towers and venture into the Bombay Indian Restaurant. That's tasty too! So that's the something new!

Full Circle

At this point, I'm doing another locum, at Purdue University. I did one here last summer before we started blogging, so like the Michigan State trip, this second trip gets the description. So why the title of "Full Circle"? Purdue University is where I learned that veterinarians x-rayed animals. Now, I'm doing a locum here at the "cradle of my awakening". When I went to veterinary school in the fall of 1964 my view of veterinary medicine was the country vet, pretty much like James Herriot, only with the farm portion. A dog or cat at our place was something you honored and enjoyed, but never did you spend money on them. My second year in vet school, I got a work study job in radiology. During the next few years, I not only learned that people paid to have their dogs and cats x-rayed, I developed an interest in this mysterious craft. Last year while I was here, I had a Deja Vu experience while getting a drink from this fountain. I realized that during my time as a student in the large animal clinic, I drank out of this very water fountain. Several things here are just as they were those 41 years ago. (We celebrate our 40th anniversary of graduation for the class of 1968 this year.) However, the overall layout of the veterinary school has changed drastically. There have been some great upgrades since I wandered these halls during the Vietnam era. I believe we were the smallest class ever to graduate from Purdue as Veterinarians. Of course those of us who made it through have become super vets. (in our opinion). There are 2 classmates working at the vet school, one of which is a radiologist who has been the "main" radiologist at Purdue since about 1970 or 71. One point of interest is that although there are probably 10 or 12 veterinary radiologists who recieved our DVM from Purdue, there are 2 from our class and 2 from the class of 1969, 4 of us from 2 consecutive years. So I'm enjoying this locum as I did last summer from 2 standpoints; first just the fun of working "somewhere else" and secondly, getting to rediscover my veterinary beginnings. Because Purdue is relatively close to home and to Gas City, IN where Georgia's mom and sister live, rather than staying in a rented room, I am driving from home or from Gas City (about 2 hours). If you go back to "Perspective" (Feb 20), you will see a reference to Mulberry, Indiana, a small town that I traveled through last year as I drove from Gas City. I went this way because of serious roadwork on 26 east in Lafayette. That was about a year ago. I assumed they would have this finished, so expected to do a straight shot down 26 from Lafayette to Fairmount (where cool was born). In going to Gas City from home, we decided we should go via Lafayette so I could check the roads between Lafayette and Gas City. A really good thing we did. First of all, the work coming out of Lafayette on 26 is still in high gear and most likely will be so for another year. When we discovered this, I made the decision to go through Mulberry again. Perhaps I would run into Amanda Overmyer (american idol). As we drove on east on 26 we neared Russiaville and found another of what appears to be the most common sign in Indiana this summer, accompanied by these really interesting orange and white cylindrical pieces of roadside art. We were detoured all the way up to 22 which was good because it runs right into Gas City. The down side is that it runs through the whole of Kokomo. Because of this, I decided to go a proven, but longer route by going south on 31 to 28, then across to 52 and back up to Lafayette. About 20 miles out of the way. But it works. Being basically a morning person, I rather enjoy the drives to Purdue in the mornings, however a few mornings have been a bit testy because of fog. The worst was my first day. Others have been tolerable and some have been really mystical as patchs of woodland and farmsteads rise into sight out of the mist as I approach them. It's interesting to see the fog gathering around these larger parts of the landscape. One little aside was that while we were traveling from home to Gas City, we came on an area that appeared as fog, but really had an odor. Just before that, I had pointed out a low flying plane that was dusting bean fields.... It wasn't fog, the dust had drifted over the road. We haven't noticed the twitching of organophosphate poisoning yet. This picture is of true fog. Kind of neet! Before I forget it, another great place to eat. In the little town of Linden, Indiana, just north of I-74 on 231 is a tiny place called the Lindy Freeze. Great Ice Cream products and monster breaded tenderloins..... mmm good. http://web1.userinstinct.com/17053235-lindy-freeze-inc.htm

freedom from the gasoline engine

OK! My guess is that you have already misjudged the intent of this post. Although I would appreciate it if gasoline didn't cost so much, I have to relate a couple of figures. Although the grandkids may consider it the dark ages, I do remember buying gas for 23 cents/gallon. However at that time, I was bucking hay bales for 50 cents/hour. (And I weighed about 135 pounds.) So, I could work my butt off for an hour to buy enough gas to drive about 25 miles. That would be a drive to Warsaw to go to the movies. (Another hour of work would by the movie ticket.) In this regard, I don't see today's gas prices so bad. So why am I at war with gasoline engines? Although I think we could be a little kinder to our environment, that isn't my motive. At this point, I have replaced my string trimmer and my "leaf" blower with electric models (Not battery powered cause I spend enough time recharging my drill batteries.) The only small gasoline engine I have left is the lawn mower. This brings me to the reason for this post. I have come to the conclusion that small gasoline engines and I don't work well together. I'm sure my neighbors have enjoyed watching me stand in the driveway pulling that blasted rope. Well, I have finally reached the age and body type that I am concerned with these little monsters actually killing me. Or visa versa.... visa versa??? As I was contemplating this post, I heard Paul Harvey Jr. reporting on Milwaukee's Keith Walendowski. You see, last week, Keith was about to mow his lawn. He seemed to prepare himself by raising his blood alcohol level. Problem is, his Lawn Boy mower wouldn't start. Well, Keith got the last lick in. It seems he went into the house, got his sawed off shotgun and shot the mower. I went to the internet to see what I might find to support this post and found Keith all over the web. You see, his sawed off shotgun was illegal, so now he is facing jail time for shooting his own lawnmower in his own yard. Boy did he touch off a firestorm of righteous people condemning him, gun laws, and booze.... everything but the lawnmower. Although I don't drink or wield a shotgun, I have had those moments when his actions seem perfectly justified. You pull and pull, then it sputters and you pull some more. You set it down and sometimes when you pick it up and pull it again it starts and sometime it just burps at you. I swear I can sometimes hear it chuckling at me. You see, I don't want to be pushed by these evil machines to the point to pull a Walendowski... So I got rid of them and feel so much better for it. I am much less likely to fall over dead while tugging on a little rope. As a side note, Lawn Boy apparently voided the warantee on Keith's mower. You can read all you want by simply putting walendowski into google, however, there is a blog that I especially enjoyed at: http://freedomeden.blogspot.com/2008/07/keith-walendowski-and-his-lawn-boy.html The moral of this story is simple. If you don't know much about small engines, don't own them. That's me. Don't let an inanimate object control your emotions. I really learned this when I was about 10 years old. We had a very large tree in our yard with a very long rope swing. One day I was swinging and jumped out while swinging. Somehow the board on the swing hit me. I grabbed one of the ropes and kicked the swing as hard as I could... Guess who got in the last punch... When you hold one rope and kick the board attached to it, the board will swing around and hit you... I guess you knew this, but my anger had blinded me to the reality. Having come close to heaving my small engine appliance across the driveway, I have decided that as long as I remember to check circuit breakers I can rest in the reliability of the old fashioned household outlet. Now that I have a power cord that will reach all corners of our property, I'm good to go. Keith.... take a hint.

It wasn't a cold

My last rant about the noble handkerchief was stimulated by a "cold" that caused my nose to flood and overflow the morning after my sleep study. I thought it was strange that it only lasted 2-3 days and didn't follow up with the usual ropy mucus stage and 2 -4 weeks of coughing. That's because it wasn't a cold. I met with the respiratory therapist to get my cpap mask yesterday. In my sleep test, I favored the "Swift II" version of mask, which I now understand is more likely to cause nose and sinus irritation. Ahah! Here is a picture of the Swift II on a model. She said that sometimes if you use one of the "nosecone" types for a while, your sinuses can get used to the air blowing, then you can switch to the Swift II if you want. So, here is the plan. I got the ResMed Mirage Activa mask. http://www.resmed.com/en-uk/products/masks/mirage_activa_nasal_mask/mirage-activa-nasal-mask.html?menu=products I will use it for a couple of weeks, then try the Swift II to get away from the big aparatus. If that works, then I will stick with that, but if not, I can go back to the Activa. I have been hearing of all the people using cpap who have newly discovered energy. Thinking back to 50 years of being yelled at for falling asleep, in class, in movies, in church, etc. as well as catching myself falling asleep while performing ultrasound exams as well as while dictating reports, I obviously am looking forward to this part of the future. Although I haven't yet met with the medical specialist for my total report, I did find out that during my test, I stopped breathing over 90 times/hour. An incident is described as over 10 seconds without breathing. So, my situation is described as severe sleep apnea. I hope this doesn't turn out like the whale sighting hopes because I am really looking forward to the change. Last nite was my first nite with the machine. Got to do some adjustments on the humidity because my mouth got really dry. My nose was slightly runny this morning, but is much less than after my test. So the grandkids don't freak out when they see me in bed in the future, here is a picture of me in my mask. Darth Vadar style????

Hanky Panky

As this subject came to mind, the lyrical masterpiece of the song from my youth by Tommy James and the Shondells came to mind. I really didn't even realize that a more gross version with that title was popularized much later. (Not giving you lead on that).

So why this subject?
Earlier this week, I did the sleep test, and it appears I will be wearing a cpap to bed. It's a plus and a minus. I'm looking forward to the fact that I might not be so sleepy during the day, but we'll see. On the negative, it will most likely inhibit spontaneous romance after bedtime, with me wearing this mask on my face. Well, after the test, I noticed that my throat was sore and dry and my nose was stuffy. The technician said the humidity of the airflow could be adjusted to reduce the dryness. I was also asked if I felt more rested than before since at least part of the night, I wore the cpap mask. The answer was, "no", which of course was disappointing to me. A couple of hours later later, there was a faucet running from my nose... Aha! It wasn't the mask, it was the perfect timing of a cold that I had contracted. In about a half hour, I had soaked my handkerchief, so since I had come straight to work from the sleep test (after dropping off payment for yard mowing to our grand-daughter in Urbana) I decided to go pick up a package of handkerchief's at noon. Here's where the Hanky Panky began. I finally found men's handerchiefs at the third store I visited at the mall. I was beginning to panic about getting back to work at a decent time. I about flipped out when the second store told me that they carried them at Christmas time... This really set me off. I'm thinking, "if not enough people buy these during the year to carry them, then why would they make good Christmas gifts?".. Hmmmm. Guess that makes them a pretty meaningless Christmas gift. The other concept that was rushing to the forefront of my thought process was, "What has happened to the hanky?" In my 66 years, if there was ever a time when I did not have a hanky, I felt naked and unprepared. You never know when your lady friend may have a crying spell. Your responsibility is to have a hanky to hand her. What if you cut yourself? You don't want to take off your sock (if you're wearing them) to tie around the wound to stop the blood. Then of course what do you do with the products of your nose? One of my frustrations of raising our boys was trying to get them to carry a hanky. The reason was, "I don't want to carry my snot around in my pocket"... Right??? How gross?? Well, these same boys were not hesitant to blow "snot rockets". Here is a video to demonstrate this to the uninformed. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://thumbnail.search.aolcdn.com/truveo/images/thumbnails/FA/09/FA09BF9F1E4F4D.jpg&imgrefurl=http://video.aol.com/video-detail/snot-rocket/4258792842&h=90&w=120&sz=3&hl=en&start=16&um=1&tbnid=AaA3ASol7ALxhM:&tbnh=66&tbnw=88&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsnot%2Brocket%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-US

And besides, for those of us who work and live indoors, this really isn't an option. (Unless you're Rosie-http://cooterpunch.blogspot.com/2006/09/rosie-odonnell-blows-snot-rocket.html
The other choice, I guess is the blessed "Kleenex", or other similar tissues. I have to say, that when you have a good heavy mucous flow going, you might as well blow it in your hand, because that is where it usually ends up unless you have a handfull of tissues. Then what are you going to do with the tissue. I can't believe it is any more gross to carry a cloth in your pocket than to leave used tissues lying around for others to pick up. Who has time to run to the trash can every time you blow your nose??? You can see in the video that the guy blew snot rockets at least 3 times in the length of the video.
Obviously, I'm nearly alone in my opinion here. If not, I wouldn't have had such a difficult time finding them. I did find it interesting that there is still some controversy as attested to by the following post.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080618081519AA0RRoy
Well, I did find what I needed, in fact, they were on sale. What a deal. Here's to those of us who know how to handle our excrement.