It’s a Guy thing, I swear.
Ya feel guilty for not doing anything, even when you really don’t want to.
Off and on over the last few months I have actually got a few things done out in that garage.
Some I already posted about.
Last week at work was a killer but we finally got shit back together and running Thursday evening. Me and another guy plus two outside Millwrights who specialize in Cut To Length Steel flattening machines put the finishing touches to a big Gear Box and Mandrel that holds the big coils of steel so they can be unwound. We wound up working late and the other two worked even later than us to make sure it actually worked after we tested it.
Friday thankfully was pretty chill because I was pretty much wiped out.
When I got home Friday however, I was still pretty much wiped out and I pretty much went to bed after trying to sleep in my recliner for an hour or so.
I slept about 16 frikkin’ hours too.
I also felt like warmed over dog shit when I did wake up.
A couple of cups of coffee and a couple smokes later, I texted my buddy from work and let him know what was going on and to ask him if he felt alright. He said he was good but let me know that one of the two Millwrights, the one I worked next to, had been sick earlier in the week.
Fuckin’ great.
Nice of someone to mention that before we were working right next to each other.
I don’t feel sick, I am just wiped out tired and my whole body hurts.
I took a pain pill, washed it down with coffee and started in about noon.
One of the smoke alarms in the bedroom had started chirping about 5:30 this morning and the wife was forced to flee to the Kid’s room so she could sleep.
I slept right through it.
That meant I had to dig out a ladder, a bunch of 9 volt batteries and go around changing batteries in all of those fuckers, first thing.
After putting that away, I had to go put gas in the wife’s car because she had some running around to do and when I got back from that, I threw some Freon in her beastie like I do every Summer to get her A/C working again.
She’s too cheap to get it fixed and there’s no fucking way I can do that job anymore. Front wheel drive nightmare.
Gotta get some more of that Freon too.. I have to go to Portland now because the Commies here in WA. State outlawed the little cans.
Can’t have the Peons being able to put Freon in their own vehicles now.
Think of the environment!
Cock Fucking Suckers anyway.
So I got that shit done and took a break.
Still felt like death But Wait! There is More!
Decided to go out in the garage for a while.
Fixed a donated Dewalt angle grinder. I had 2 that were dead.
One donated a set of brushes to the other then went in the trash so I got a free angle grinder out of the deal for twenty minutes of messing around.
As I was sitting there resting and looking around, that Mill Drill I bought last year and have used a whopping 3 times since, as a drill press, jumped in front of me.
I had done some work around it recently but had never really cleaned that thing up.
It was rusty and dirty as hell.
So I started cleaning it up.
A couple weeks ago I had installed an air/oil misting system and had bolted a back screen down plus bolted the electronic speed control box for the mill to it too.
The little Air Brush compressor I bought off Flea Bay. It isn’t strong enough so I have to upgrade it soon.
The oil/air mist mixing system that got donated when a monster band saw got scrapped at work.
Originally it had an electric control solenoid but I yanked that and put a Ball Valve in instead.
All going to a small nozzle on a flex arm I bought two years ago off Amazon or Flea Bay.
I was going to put it on a lathe at the time but never got around to it.
All this while really not feeling too great.
My legs are so bad now that after an initial burst of energy getting something done, I run out of steam pretty fast and have to rest. The more I do, the longer the rest periods are and the less actual work gets done. Last weekend when I was doing yard work, it got so bad that I could only work about two fucking minutes before I had to sit down.
Still waiting on fucking doctors after over a fucking year now. I’ve been anemic since the first of the year at least. They won’t do a fucking thing about that until I have a colonoscopy to rule out internal bleeding. I finally have, GET THIS, a fucking ZOOM appointment on Monday. I have to take half a fucking day off, to do a damn pre screening question interview, over the fucking internet, before they will schedule an actual colonoscopy.
Something that could be done on a piece of fucking paper!
Hand me the questions, I fill it out and hand them back. But No, that’s too fucking easy and we can’t justify the outrageous amounts we charge for insurance that way. Plus we get to hire another flunky.
So SOMETIME this Summer, MAYBE, I will finally get some damn surgery done and some stents put in. HOWEVER, there’s always at least one of those, the surgeon WILL NOT TOUCH, any of the blocked arteries in my legs. Way too much risk of stroke they say.
In total, from just above my belly button down to my ankles, I have EIGHT blocked arteries.
Both Femoral arteries are 100% blocked at mid thigh.
What they want to do is go in at the creases in my legs at the abdomen, go up where the Aorta splits in two and eventually turns into the Femoral’s, and clean all that out. There are multiple blockages there and the hope is that by opening that area up, more blood will be able to magically find it’s way into my legs.
Whatever, just do something for crying out loud.
I can barely walk 100 feet at one shot before having to sit down.
It gets shorter and shorter after that.
So anyway’s this is already way too long but there is a brief glimpse into what’s been going on with me.
I do what I can do.
Even when I feel like shit.
I will remain ornery until the day I die.
I promise.
What kind of refrigerant do you need, Phil? Since I yanked the A/C off the Supra, I have a couple of cans of R-12 I can send you. Kevin has my email address, or email me through my blog.
Buddy if you still have some R-12 you need to hold on to that for dear life.
That hasn’t been available here for over fifteen years.
Everything went to R-134 a long time ago and now they have even started replacing that!
I didn’t know what year car the Wifely Unit drives, so I took a guess it was an older car.
Do you want or need (same difference) any of those articulated oil feed thingies that go on mill equipment? I happen to know where there are a few cases of them stashed and can get them for peanuts. Just let me know.
That would be awesome.
Yes sir, I could probably use 3 of them eventually.
You are so kind and generous!
Thank you!
I don’t know how you manage to keep going. Pure stubborness, which comes with being a cranky old fart, and I get that for sure.
Fucking telemedicine. And so many other things – it’s everything on a phone now, banking, shopping, job interviews… this is what the youngsters consider “normal” now.
There’s other ways to find evidence of an internal bleed – very simple “at home” visual inspection, prior to flushing.
Heh. Reminds of the old joke about the best pickup line at a gay bar – “May I push in your stool?”
I still can’t believe it’s taking this long to get you that surgery.
I had a urology appointment the other day, got to the hospital and was told that they’d sent me an email to tell me I was having a telephone appointment instead. They had: I’d read it wrong. This being a urology call, I did wonder whether I would have to shove my phone up my arse when the doctor called . . .
Urology is not proctology, unless the urologists over there do the piss and bung holes? I would think it would be more effective to cram your phone up your wanker past at least the prostate…
What do urologists do in the US? UK urology – as well as piss sampling – usually involves a digital prostate examination. Then, if you REALLY want to lose your dignity you go in wearing Crocs . . .
Actually urologists in the US do not preform a digital examination of the prostate as much as they use to. They rely on the PSA, Prostate Specific Antigen test to confirm a diagnosis. I was yanking your chain about the phone up your arse comment you made. Here, if a phone went up, that would be in a proctologist specialty and they are a dying breed around here. I had a female Nurse Practitioner as my primary and she requested a PSA and I said she needed to do a digital exam and she refused, I insisted… I didn’t get it, but my PSA came back in the normal range, so no cancer.
Yes, PSA test every six months here. That’s what the phone call dealt with. Mine is in the lowest quarter of the acceptable range and has been for five or more years, so I’ll survive a bit longer.
I worked as a millwright for 10+ years. Wound up a General Foreman. Went to work on aeroplanes. No more muddy boots or weeks out of town. Now, I retired with a shitpot of tooling but too broke down to use them. Fuck…
I’m there with all my mechanic’s tools too.
Some of the really heavy stuff I have been giving to younger guys who can still get some use out of it.
Medical industry has bought up globalist bs hook line and sinker. That is the humans are to populous. One way to reduce the population is slow down medical procedures that have life extending out comes.
Hope you keep cooking till they get your stents in.
Search round tuit
A Zoom colonoscopy? That must be even less painful, right? You just sit in the special chair, and wah lah!
I may be recalling wrong, but are you not a veteran?
My son got me to start going to VA for all my healthcare at the San Juan PR hospital about 20 years ago. I could not be happier and highly recommend it to all my shipmates and fellow vets.
Summer of 22 I started having what I thought was severe heartburn. My son took me to the ER and they found it was heart blockages. They put me in hospital for 10 days. Long story short, they did an exploratory cathertization in the hospital then sent me to a highly rated private clinic for 3 stents in 3 operations.
Followups for this and some other issues have been great.
I have a rash that won’t go away and the VA dermatologist was booked up so they made an appt with me at a non-VA dermatologist.
Everything I hear abut VA is bad. But when I’ve talked to others, I think it may have more to do with particular center than the VA in general. Some have great experience like me, others not so good.
Anyone who served honorably is eligible. You don’t need service connected injury, don’t need to be retired. They do charge though now they are getting it from Medicare. I used to pay $50/visit but that might include a lab, xray, tests, generalist and specialist all on the same day so $50 total. Medicines, $8/month.
As I say, your milage may vary depending on the center but you, and any other vets, should check it out.
I’m 76, still doing industrial consulting 3-4 days a week. When I assume room temperature, I will think about retiring.