More Dog Days
Weather: The thunderstorms finally rolled through in the evening.
The Question of the day is: What is demylinating polyneuropathy as in chronic inflamatory ?
Answer: An auto-immune disease that attacks the sheaths covering the nerves. Exposed wiring, whether in a building or a body is not a good thing.
Discussed whether to waste energy putting in a concrete ramp to the basement. After some discussion, decided that a better solution would be to put a ramp from the front porch to the driveway. Looked on the internet for ramps. Found skatebored ramps, which were interesting, but not exactly what we were looking for. Found ramps to load ATVs into the backs of pick up trucks, showing a guy driving one at a 45 degree angle into a short-bed truck. Didn't exactly look plausible. Found a illustrated caution about using ramps to drive a backhoe off the back of a truck. The caution was that it would flip over and the guy driving the backhoe would be injured.
Found some aluminum suitcase ramps, as in, they fold & have a handle, so are portable, but only 5 to 6 feet long, at best. T said, what about those things they use to get into ships... I said, "Gangplanks?" So we went meandering through Cyberia looking for gangplanks. Once I saw a picture, close up, I realized that for all the world a gangplank looked a lot like an extra-wide aluminum extension ladder with decking and wheels on one end. Which got me to thinking....
(always a bad and dangerous pasttime)... the distance to span was 20 feet, and the drop was somewhere around 36", give or take a few, so something .... like... a... 28-foot aluminum extension ladder... Eureka! We have one around here somewhere, no doubt. I have a distinct recollection of seeing it with the remains of a tree growing up through it that had been attacked by the Buzzsaw Man, who, for reasons known only to himself had decided that the proper height to top this particular tree was 13 feet up. The Busssaw Man, tired of looking at pictures of ATV ramps, had left to go return some DVDs and get the last volume of Season 5 of America's favorite dysfunctional crime family. So I decided to leave Cyberia as well.
The ladder wasn't where I last remembered seeing it, so I went and looked behind the shed. Not there, either. A glint in the woods drew my attention, and sure enough, there was the extension ladder, halfway down the gully, leaning on the remains of a sweet gum. What th' f---? So I waded through the brush, and carefully stepped from one pile of branches to another until I had worked my way down to the ladder. I stopped. I looked at the extension ladder. I looked at the tree. I asked, "Why would Buzz drag this damn thing all the way down here ? The tree was only 6" in diameter, maybe 30 feet tall-- not even a big tree. The ladder was angled upward from the ground over the four-foot-high stump to rest on the tree, six or so feet past where the tree had been cut. There was only one possible interpretation for the ladder's position-- he had dragged the 28-foot extension ladder into the gully and propped it up against the tree and then cranked up the chainsaw and cut the tree down, instead of throwing a rope around the tree and tying it off in the direction he wanted it to fall. He had, it would appear, used an extension ladder to "push" on the tree, while he was cutting it, with a chain saw. Now, did he do this when there was anyone around to call an ambulance if anything went wrong (as in the ladder falling on his head?) No, of course not. He did this when I was a thousand miles away. When he got back with the DVD, I asked him about it. Sure enough, he had dragged the ladder down in the gully, propped it up against the tree and then cut the tree down. But it wasn't to push the tree over; it was to keep the tree from falling uphill, that he had propped the ladder against it. When asked if he had considered what would happen if the ladder had fallen on his head, he pointed out that unlike some people he knew, he didn't run into curbs. Stumped, it took me a couple of hours before I realized he was referring to my scraping the bumper of my car on the low curb at the doctor's office on Friday. I don't think they fall quite into the same category.
But I digress.
I dragged the ladder up out of the gully and around to the front porch and laid it on its side and propped one end of it on the porch and the other on the driveway, and decided that it needed to be extended a few feet. Twenty-five, to be exact. But, as a gangplank, I could see that it had definite possibilities. Would need to be stabilized, and floored, but would be certainly a contender for a means to get the Buzzsaw Man from the car into the house on a short term basis (after surgery) for a minimal expenditure of cash, assuming that he wouldn't be able to walk up the steps. These days, that may not even be the case. Real ramps to cover that distance run into the thousands, and take weeks or months to have installed. Buzz thought it had possibilities, but wanted to see a drawing of how the pipe would work.
Always comforting to have a project to focus on, instead of the real horrors of life.
The Question of the day is: What is demylinating polyneuropathy as in chronic inflamatory ?
Answer: An auto-immune disease that attacks the sheaths covering the nerves. Exposed wiring, whether in a building or a body is not a good thing.
Discussed whether to waste energy putting in a concrete ramp to the basement. After some discussion, decided that a better solution would be to put a ramp from the front porch to the driveway. Looked on the internet for ramps. Found skatebored ramps, which were interesting, but not exactly what we were looking for. Found ramps to load ATVs into the backs of pick up trucks, showing a guy driving one at a 45 degree angle into a short-bed truck. Didn't exactly look plausible. Found a illustrated caution about using ramps to drive a backhoe off the back of a truck. The caution was that it would flip over and the guy driving the backhoe would be injured.
Found some aluminum suitcase ramps, as in, they fold & have a handle, so are portable, but only 5 to 6 feet long, at best. T said, what about those things they use to get into ships... I said, "Gangplanks?" So we went meandering through Cyberia looking for gangplanks. Once I saw a picture, close up, I realized that for all the world a gangplank looked a lot like an extra-wide aluminum extension ladder with decking and wheels on one end. Which got me to thinking....
(always a bad and dangerous pasttime)... the distance to span was 20 feet, and the drop was somewhere around 36", give or take a few, so something .... like... a... 28-foot aluminum extension ladder... Eureka! We have one around here somewhere, no doubt. I have a distinct recollection of seeing it with the remains of a tree growing up through it that had been attacked by the Buzzsaw Man, who, for reasons known only to himself had decided that the proper height to top this particular tree was 13 feet up. The Busssaw Man, tired of looking at pictures of ATV ramps, had left to go return some DVDs and get the last volume of Season 5 of America's favorite dysfunctional crime family. So I decided to leave Cyberia as well.
The ladder wasn't where I last remembered seeing it, so I went and looked behind the shed. Not there, either. A glint in the woods drew my attention, and sure enough, there was the extension ladder, halfway down the gully, leaning on the remains of a sweet gum. What th' f---? So I waded through the brush, and carefully stepped from one pile of branches to another until I had worked my way down to the ladder. I stopped. I looked at the extension ladder. I looked at the tree. I asked, "Why would Buzz drag this damn thing all the way down here ? The tree was only 6" in diameter, maybe 30 feet tall-- not even a big tree. The ladder was angled upward from the ground over the four-foot-high stump to rest on the tree, six or so feet past where the tree had been cut. There was only one possible interpretation for the ladder's position-- he had dragged the 28-foot extension ladder into the gully and propped it up against the tree and then cranked up the chainsaw and cut the tree down, instead of throwing a rope around the tree and tying it off in the direction he wanted it to fall. He had, it would appear, used an extension ladder to "push" on the tree, while he was cutting it, with a chain saw. Now, did he do this when there was anyone around to call an ambulance if anything went wrong (as in the ladder falling on his head?) No, of course not. He did this when I was a thousand miles away. When he got back with the DVD, I asked him about it. Sure enough, he had dragged the ladder down in the gully, propped it up against the tree and then cut the tree down. But it wasn't to push the tree over; it was to keep the tree from falling uphill, that he had propped the ladder against it. When asked if he had considered what would happen if the ladder had fallen on his head, he pointed out that unlike some people he knew, he didn't run into curbs. Stumped, it took me a couple of hours before I realized he was referring to my scraping the bumper of my car on the low curb at the doctor's office on Friday. I don't think they fall quite into the same category.
But I digress.
I dragged the ladder up out of the gully and around to the front porch and laid it on its side and propped one end of it on the porch and the other on the driveway, and decided that it needed to be extended a few feet. Twenty-five, to be exact. But, as a gangplank, I could see that it had definite possibilities. Would need to be stabilized, and floored, but would be certainly a contender for a means to get the Buzzsaw Man from the car into the house on a short term basis (after surgery) for a minimal expenditure of cash, assuming that he wouldn't be able to walk up the steps. These days, that may not even be the case. Real ramps to cover that distance run into the thousands, and take weeks or months to have installed. Buzz thought it had possibilities, but wanted to see a drawing of how the pipe would work.
Always comforting to have a project to focus on, instead of the real horrors of life.
posted by Merrrrde at 3:17 PM
2 Comments:
You wann hear something terrible? I came *this* close to leaving you a comment that read "Ken is in my prayers." Until I remembered that (A) I don't pray and (B), Even if I did, you're pagans, so you wouldn't appreciate them. What you'd appreciate is me going out into the forest, dancing around a campfire, and doing a healing chant for Ken.
Know any healing chants? We've got tons of woods in the hills right next to downtown that I'd love to go prancing in.
I miss y'all. I hope Ken's ok. How's he getting throuh from day to day if he can't work? What's he doing to stay occupied?
All My Love.
--Andrew
So you haven't updated in a while, and neither have I. This is making me sad.
How is Ken doing? How are YOU doing? How is the weather? How are the dogs? How is anything and everything?
OH! And my phone broke, and I had to get a new one. My new number is 503-927-9466. Call me sometime, since I'm apparently incapable of calling people myself.
It would make me so happy.
All my love.
--Andrew
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