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Update At 1515 Easy, sadly, was having nothing of it, and I had to pay her. Ahem. Yesterday, I went to the doctor (my doctor's office said "well, we can see you, along about Monday after next." Yes, and by that time my epidermis might well be nonexistent, in medical terms). The urgent care doc talked to me about the rash starting on my fingers - which turns out it didn't, it's a dermatitis thing related to stress. Why it breaks out in January, I dunno. But I got some pills, some other pills, and some cream. "Here, put this everywhere you itch." "Uh, can I bathe in it?" "Uh, no." So I've got a steroid cream, pills, and also Zyrtec and Benedryl. I'm pumped with rage, ready to tear the limbs off of anyone who looks at me wrong - so long as I don't go narco and drop into deep REM sleep in about three nanoseconds. So that's fun. What else have I been up to? Not much. Ann's birthday was yesterday, today and tomorrow she is off (convenient, as there is a bus strike and she rides the bus every day, and there's a snowstorm tonight that may dump as much as six inches on us. Since our snow is almost completely gone, that would be not good). So we're just hanging out.
[Link] I managed to get teamed with two kids (I'll skip their last names) who were brothers, and yet in the same class (birthdays were close enough - yes, it happened). Sadly, between them they had half a brain, if that. They were farm kids, which was obvious enough - they'd apparently trudge through cowshit each morning to get to the bus, and boy, would their boots stink. Or maybe it was just them, I don't know. But through the course of the year, I, the guy who hated disections, didn't really care if it was Kingdom-Phylum-Class-Order-Family-Genus-Species or Phylum-Kingdom. I just fought to survive. We had to memorize the various "systems" of the human body. I seem to remember ten being the operative number, but I'll be damned if I can get to Ten today - there's the skeleton, the musculature, the circulatory, the respiratory, the nervous, the digestive, the lymph, and I think the skin. But I could be wrong on the last one. I burst out laughing at the Science Museum Gift Shop on Saturday, because they had taken the old "thigh bone connected to the kneebone" joke and gone from tongue to the rest of the system in fine print on a tee shirt. But I do recall there being a bit of a fuss when we did blood typing in class. I didn't honestly remember if it was the work I'd done on a classmate or if it was about me. So, Saturday, when we're standing there looking for the kids, Ann suddenly says "hey, they're offering free blood typing over there. Let's get you typed." "Uh, OKay" says I, and we trot over. It's a three-person crew. One lady supervising, answering questions, one professional-looking guy, with a name patch that says "Kevin". One lady with, I swear, a flowerpot on her head, and no discernable name patch. I grab the clipboard and start filling it out, stalling when I get to phone number and social security number. I look at Ann. "No way am I giving them my Social." "That's OK" says the woman right next to her - whoops, the "helpful" lady chose that time to pop out of the woodwork. Great. My punishment was swift and terrible. "I think you'll have more success in that line" she says, indicating Ms. Flowerpot. It just keeps getting better, I think to myself, and move over to the other line. There's a young African-American lady just being seated, behind her are two ... well, to me they're kids, but the odds are pretty good that they managed to drive to the Science Museum, so I guess we'll call them adults. For all I know there could be a baby hanging out somewhere with grandma and grandpa. We tuck into the back of the line, and suddenly, the two in front of us discover they're supposed to be filling out paperwork before the pricks - er, before the nurses prick their fingers. So suddenly the line shortens. I figure I've caught a break - the lady in front of us is full of questions and the typing seems to take a while. Sadly, it's not to be. Ms. Flowerpot capably swishes the slides back and forth, watching for signs of "clumping". Big, big whoop. She finally decides it's not going to work, and writes down something (A negative, I think) and the lady is on her way. I plop down in the seat and present my form. Mind you, I'm not intimidated by blood, or pain, or that sort of thing. I do recall my fingers being fairly tough, and know I'm in for a good bit of poking before enough comes out to type. I keep my mouth shut, though, because Ann wants to know. I hold out my left hand, and start with the jokes. "I apologize for flipping you off - it's unintentional" I tell Ms. Flowerpot. "Oh, you'd be surprised how often it happens" she jokes back - clearly, she hasn't heard this joke a million times yet. She assembles her "kit". A short stick for mixing - she breaks it in half. A bandaid (the worthless round-dot sort). An alcohol towlette. A piece of gauze. Two glass or plastic slides. A business card to write the type down. A "prickette" - a little plastic thing to prick my finger. Rubber gloves. On with the gloves, she swabs my finger and readies the pricker. Ms. Flowerpot, obviously an adherent to the "cause greater pain so the lesser pain will be a relief" school of sadism, squeezes my finger. I've slammed my fingers in car doors. I've caught them in many, many painful situations. This woman was bound and determined to squeeze my finger until it shit a buffalo nickel, I'm fairly certain. After that, she'd put the squeeze on the nickel, looking for the five pennies. But for now, she was practicing on my finger. I didn't realize she'd pricked it until she said "uh-oh". I look down, expecting to be gashed from palm to fingertip. Nope. The smallest dot of blood on my finger indicates two things - one, that she's in, and two, that she's liable to have to do it again. Unwilling to give up so easily, Ms. Flowerpot begins squeezing my finger. I drink lots of milk, but am nearly certain that she's turning the bones in my finger (the tarcels? Metatarcels? Some of Ms. Hansen's work stuck, unless those are my feet - then again, that would be utterly appropriate for me to mix them up) to powder. I decide to get funny. "I don't mean to be rude, but have you ever milked a cow?" "Oh, yes, just once. The mother wouldn't feed the baby calf. I had to milk her, and she kept whacking me with her tail, or walking away." "Ah. Can't imagine why that would be." "I'm sorry, I'm going to have to do this again." She hands me a piece of gauze, "encourages" me to put direct pressure on the spot she pricked me - like I'm gonna bleed out from that - and starts muttering. I think to offer her my ring finger - but no, she goes right for the defenseless, vulnerable pinky. Before I could say "Holy Crap, lady, not the pinky" I'd been swabbed, stuck, and was bleeding appropriate to Ms. Vampyria Flowerpot's needs. About six drops of blood later, she says "here" and hands me yet another gauze square and goes to work with her chemistry kit. I now have two fingers (fortunately, on my left hand) which are so abused they're protesting hours later. Blood type? AB Negative. So I got that going for me, which is nice...
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Update At 0630 I came downstairs (without my glasses) to gell Rhiannon to turn off her alarm. "Why?" "You got another snow day." "Get out!" "I'd advise agsinst it. At least until you get snow stuff on." And now, I'm going back to bed.
[Link] Probably explains, at least in part, why I'm feeling lower-back spasms...
[Link] Some, I am sure, will accuse me of enjoying someone else's discomfort. I have three words for them. Deal with it. Screw politically correct, screw sympathy (for the devil, to quote the Rolling Stones). If John Ashcroft had died four years ago, it is likely that Bush would have found someone else similarly out there to push forth his agenda. He picked Ashcroft - therefore I do not like Ashcroft. It's a simple equation, really. It works for me. And should he die of this sort of thing? Well, I'd personally like to see written on his tombstone "Lost to a dead man in a state-wide election." A fitting epitaph for him, for sure.
[Link] One of my puny little shrub trees lost a branch over the fence, so I knocked some snow off the other branches just in case. The rest seem to be doing just fine. I, on the other hand, have spent nearly the entire day AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD. Strange, I know, but stranger things have happened. I was in quasi-production mode in the garage for a while today. First, I finished off a pen for a friend who we're seeing tomorrow. At Ann's encouragement, I used "Dymondwood" - which is, from my research, anyway, simply veneer impregnated with resins and dye, pressed together, and then cut at an angle so that a block 3/4" square and six inches long would have some eighteen to twenty strips on two sides - and lots of stripes running diagonally on the other two. Once turned, they become a bit of a wave, I guess. Yesterday I bought two blanks, and the pencil turned out excellent - in fact, I finally nailed the finish. One, perhaps two coats of the high-gloss wax (light colored Hut Wax, their "step II" finish), and then rough it up with 1500-grit sandpaper - then apply the Crystal-coat polish. Boy, that thing STILL glows. When I was doing the pen, however, the usual characteristics of Dymondwood came out to bite me in the nipple - literally. I had been milling the end (necessary to make the end of the wood square to the pen - otherwise you'll have a gap on one side of your pen at the end), and a big chunk of dymondwood broke off. Being one to never admit failure the first half-dozen or so times, I cut down the splintered block and evened the wood all the way around the tube. I then took down a thin piece of maple, cut it to size, and drilled a hole in the center - since there was no way on God's green earth I was going to get the grains to match exactly, why bother, stick an obvious break in there. So I inserted that, and then took a small chunk of scrap (The Dymondwood blanks are typically something in the near neighborhood of five and a half inches, and I need about four and three-quarters for a pen - leaving me a small chunk of scrap which I hold on to for potential future projects), drilled it out, and mounted it to the end of the block. I reinstalled the thing in the lathe, sharpened my tools, and fired it up - things were looking quite well until the maple split like a shot, ending my hopes there. So this morning I picked up another dymondwood blank and cut only one piece from it, and finished the pen. They look nice. I then spent much of the day alternating between a cigar pen made out of some form of Elm Burl that had been dyed a deep, dark gray, and the tray I was making for my mother. The tray looks pretty nice, but I need to put a coat of finish on it - then that'll be done. The pen? Died a nasty, horrible death in the press. The very last stage of assembly, and the wood cracked. It's a pocket pen I'd use in the shop, or "hey, look at what I can almost do" - but not a "finished, salable product". That'll larn me but good. Tomorrow, fortunately, is another day... Not one I can do anything with, sadly, because I'm fully booked, but it's another day. We'll try again on Monday...
[Link] Good job, that. I was just informed that the IP address I had been using was listed on a black hole. Conveniently, the black hole URL was included in the bounce message, so I went to have a look. The IP address was first listed in April - of 2002. Um, sorry, I've given up profanity for Lent (and I'm doing pretty well, so far), but that's "effing stupid". I hit the router, hit the DHCP Release - pounded that sucker two or three times, then renewed. My IP moved from a 63.something to a 12.something. And the e-mail that was stopped went through. Oh, the last report of spam from the 63.something address? August. 2003. Yeah, that's me, all right. Duh. The problem is there are idiots relying on black holes rather than doing something useful. Because they won't get off their duffs and do something about it, we'll be treated to Bill Gates' plan to pay him a penny per e-mail. Oh, sure, it didn't start out like that, but I'm sure it'll end up that way. This is Microsoft, after all. Feh. Enough. I'm too tired (and still need to put down a coat of stain/varnish on Mom's tray) to get into this one. I'll just say this - if you're relying on a black hole to block spam, get a clue - start using message inspection. Yes, it's going to take a lot more cpu cycles than "oh, it came from him - trash it" - but it's also going to be much more effective than following around a list which is reactive, rather than proactive. |
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Update At 1715 Lessee. When we last left off, it was Friday - late-ish. Moving forward, I got up Saturday (er, that'd be yesterday, then), and put a quick coat of spar varnish on my mother's "walker tray". After that, I puttered about in the garage and made my second "cigar" pen. Frankly, folks, I do dearly, DEARLY hope the cigar pens turn out to be my biggest sellers - because I can charge a whole lot more for them - they're huge. The drawback on these things is that there are more parts to them than some imported cars. In a standard "slimline" pen kit, counting tubes, there's about eight pieces. In the cigar pen, there are nine visible pieces - and another five or six - seven if you count the little tube that holds the ink. So there's some fiddly bits there. The first cigar pen died a rather horrible death - it cracked as I was pressing it together. The second looks awesome. I need to get a better camera to do close-up work, because this thing is beautiful. After that, we ran to St. Cloud, where I acquired a miniature table saw, a router table and a dozen bits (and the router to go with them), and a dovetail attachment. Hush, you. Then over to a friend's house for birthday celebrations, and more foolishness. She loved her pen-pencil set, and gave me a couple of ideas which you will likely see - if you're at a farmer's market someplace nearby, if I can get a table set up. If not, well, we'll be running a web site... After that, we came home (in the rain - yes, rain - in March), fell into bed, and then I arose this morning, shaved, showered, and Ann hauled my backside down to church, where I met two other gentlemen, and two of the three were inducted - more than that I'd rather not say, because I'm still sorting through the significance of it all. And I've still got to organize the garage AND look at the Want Ads. No rest, sadly, for the wicked. Or I. And soon, the family will return home, and it won't be peace and quiet, either. Maybe I should take a nap... Sure enough. With that very thought, I hear a key in the lock. Later...
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