Good morning!!!!

[wroughtn_harv]

Drinking first cup of coffee. 67ｰ with clear skies this morning. Heading to 92ｰ with mostly sunny skies. Got a few small projects do before heat settled in. Then some patio time. Same plans for today.
RS, glad to hear from you. Nice fish pictures.
Drew, had a big willow in our backyard 40 years ago. Trunk was over 4' around. It's roots were in everything. Leaves and branches always on the ground. Best thing we did was cut it down. Do miss the shade it provided.
Good Morning All.

I once had a willow root plug a four inch sewer line. Going through the line it was like a piece of electrical tape. Inside it did what willow roots do. This photo is of some exposed willow roots on the Verde River Camp Verde Arizona.

 

[PJSprog]

46°F and rain this morning, clearing later and going up to 66°. Drove through a pretty heavy thunderstorm on the way to work, but it was over by the time I got across the river into St. Louis.

Wife made corned beef and cabbage for dinner yesterday. Yummy. :licking: There were actually leftovers, which will be consumed for lunch today. We also celebrated the youngest stepson's 18th birthday, which is actually today, with a homemade chocolate cake (you guys on diets just ignore that part ). It was also delicious. He got the celebration started early by wrecking his car on the way to school yesterday morning. Again. Says he was run off the road - again - and put it through the ditch and out into a field about 1/2 mile from the house. No injuries other than the car, his excessive pride, and our checking account. She picked him up and took him to school, and called a local repair shop to tow it and give us an estimate on the damage. On her way back from the school, there was a sheriff's deputy at the scene arresting the tow truck driver. When she stopped and asked why, the deputy got belligerent with her, and wanted to know where her son was. He told her he would be getting a ticket for leaving the scene of an accident, and the tow driver was being charged with felony tampering with evidence. :shocked: I kid you not. The boy left school early and she took him to the sheriff's office, where he was indeed ticketed. The deputy was less belligerent by that time, and told her the tow truck driver's charge had been reduced to a misdemeanor, stating that he had been doing this for 27 years and should know better. Unbelievable.

Then there is that strange story that unfolded yesterday morning about 8 miles from our place outside of Highland IL, where an early morning report of a vehicle's headlights seen in Silver Lake turned into a bizarre story. A firefighter dove into the icy water and pulled an infant out of the sinking car, gave it CPR on the roof of the car, and saved it! The mother's body was found a bit later near the dam. At the same time, her ex-husband was found dead in his burning house in another nearby town, and six other children were rescued there. The infant will reportedly be released from the hospital today.

A very odd day around here yesterday.

 

[rswyan]

RS your ejection fraction was lower than mine after the heart attack. Mine was 35. Yesterday was my 6 year anniversary of the day I got another chance.

Congrats ! ... :thumbsup:

I hit my 9 year anniversary back in December.

The heart does heal itself after it is damaged from lack of blood from a heart attack. The damaged heart muscle repairs itself. 3 months after my heart attack my ejection fraction was back up to 55.

Yeah ... what's interesting is that my EF was so low at 5 year mark ... but has improved in the 4 years since ... so I dodged the bullet, at least for now, as far as having to have an ICD implanted.

I think part of it is attributable to the fact that I'm no longer driving commercially and am not on the road. That ended up being a very sedentary lifestyle, to say nothing of the stress involved in driving for really long distances.

Be careful, what you are not seeing is if the plaque is still forming. My brother went all the way to 90% occlusion in three main heart vessels with no intervention or symptoms (that he mentioned) till his heart couldn't provide enough blood circulation and he had heart failure and died at age 56 after just feeling like he had a flu for 3 days. He, sadly, like many did not think diet really mattered. He was on no medication. In the Century heart study I'm in, I get Pet scans and my heart circulation is improving so I'm at least comfortable in saying that I am not going down the same road he was.

Yup.

I had a friend call me yesterday ... he's likely going to be going in shortly for OHS (aortic valve stenosis) That's mostly a hereditary thing as he tells it, but it's good that he was proactive and sought out medical advice - including a 2nd opinion, after the first told him he was fine - after experiencing only minor symptoms.

Good luck and stay hydrated this summer.

Thanks ... yup I will.

I was thinking of your aquarium when I put a bubble machine in my swimming pool to get the alkalinity and ph in line.

LOL ... that's a very big aquarium ...

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Through the window it looks like spring. Step outside and it feels like winter, with Stella crossing the Atlantic and today set to drag down colder air for us.

Interesting auction yesterday. Most of the cat 1 sized machinery had been retired long ago and all but rusted away, the bigger stuff was out of my league. There was the usual assortment of well used tools, but nothing that caught my eye. Even so, it was worth going to see the wide variety of farm buildings of all ages. Many had been constructed well originally but little money had been spent on repair since. None quite as bad as this one.
View attachment 502449
The owners are not allowed to demolish it because it is a listed historic building, so it looks like they are waiting for nature to slowly do it for them.

It is not often you see a sale of farm machinery lined up against a moat.
View attachment 502450
The house in the picture has obviously been converted from a thatched roof in the past, but we guess it as also been built onto/over an even older property.

Eric, do the English auctioneers talk faster than humanely possible? If so, I would not be able to understand much if any.
How would you know if they were talking weight or money telling of pounds of any item?


Today is my son's 7th birthday. He's also a St. Patty's day baby. I took off, and was trying to plan a play day, but my recently acquired Dell speedster is acting up and it's at the end of the warranty. dellauction.com warranty has a 30 day return policy. So I need to get that cleared up. There might be chocolate cake with green icing. I say "might" because I don't want to incriminate.

PJS- not sure what to say about the deputy. He might have been cut off from his coffee? Was there any collateral damage to a fence or something? Here in Austin, you can have a freeway fender bender, and if both parties can exchange insurance information and drive off, the cops ddon't even come. Here in Giddings, a very old man slid off the road a couple of years ago during an icey day in front of our place. It was very cold and I went to ask him if he would like to come inside while he waited, turns out he lives down the road and wanted to wait for the sheriff to come. He had pushed a fence post over a small amount. I gave him a cup of coffee that I had fixed for him. That's about as honest as it gets.

 

[rswyan]

... RS nice fish and nice to have you back :drink:

Thanks mg

I never got a heart ejection rate after my echo stress test. They just called and said no real problems. Doc did mention a murmur at the initial screening, but keep doing "what you are doing".

My echo was not a stress echo ... but the machine was pretty slick.

Basically just a glorified $20K laptop computer ... even calculated the EF automatically. (The cardiologist estimated it visually at 50% before they pulled up the machine-calculated estimate ... which was reassuring.)

My cardiologist says they now have pocket versions (around $10K) that a lot of them are going with, since the size makes it so convenient.

Not quite as accurate/detailed as the more expensive laptops, but it allows them to get initial look easily and cheaply, and determine whether further testing with higher end equipment is called for.

Hit 1000 miles on the bike last week, last year did not hit 1000 until first week of April.

That's very impressive ... keep it up ! :thumbsup:

I am on 20mg simvastatin, and 100 mg CoQ10 and no joint side effects so far, about 1.5 years. Started with Qunol, tried cheaper, and went back to Qunol.

I'm on 40mg of Simvastatin ... think I was on Crestor originally.

 

[rswyan]

... I was on Simvastatin but changed to Crestor, because of pains. ...

Interesting ... it was the reverse for me.

 

[rswyan]

Purty fishy !!

Thanks Irv ...

I just went to my doc today, I need to get way more serious with the sugar.

Yeah ... that's probably something I need to do as well.

Those Reese's peanut butter eggs are just killin' me ... :laughing:

Everything else seems ok, but no more ice cream, pie, or candy....all the good stuff!

Sounds like a pretty good report then ... :thumbsup:

 

[rswyan]

... RS, you like having lots of fish around the house - you should consider a moat too

LOL ... :thumbsup:

No moat ... but I have started a "fish room" ...

 

[rswyan]

... RS, how's your grapple doing...such an impressive project you accomplished.

Thanks Billy.

It's doing just fine, stored over in the barn presently ... but I do need to do some work on the tractor side QA adapter. It appears that the material Titan supplies is a little on the thin side. Ended up tearing.

 

[PJSprog]

Today is my son's 7th birthday. He's also a St. Patty's day baby. I took off, and was trying to plan a play day, but my recently acquired Dell speedster is acting up and it's at the end of the warranty. dellauction.com warranty has a 30 day return policy. So I need to get that cleared up. There might be chocolate cake with green icing. I say "might" because I don't want to incriminate.

PJS- not sure what to say about the deputy. He might have been cut off from his coffee? Was there any collateral damage to a fence or something? Here in Austin, you can have a freeway fender bender, and if both parties can exchange insurance information and drive off, the cops ddon't even come. Here in Giddings, a very old man slid off the road a couple of years ago during an icey day in front of our place. It was very cold and I went to ask him if he would like to come inside while he waited, turns out he lives down the road and wanted to wait for the sheriff to come. He had pushed a fence post over a small amount. I gave him a cup of coffee that I had fixed for him. That's about as honest as it gets.

Happy Birthday to your son, Kyle!

Apparently, in Clinton County IL, if there is damage over $1500, a report is required. There was no property damage other than his car. Having seen pictures of the car, it will definitely be over $1500 ... on a car we got for $1200.

My assessment of the deputy after hearing the story was either a) someone was having a bad day, or b) he was determined to get everyone to "respect his authoritaaay!" I have no idea who this guy is, but most of the local and county guys are pretty decent guys.

Speaking of which, the guy behind us to the east listed his property for sale this week. He's the a-hole who called the cops on us a couple of years ago for shooting on our property, saying our bullets were "whizzing over his head." When the local, county, and state police showed up and saw our range, they shook their heads. After we gave them the back story on the guy, they went back and had a talk with him. He's also the guy who about 10 years ago tore out the existing fence line and moved it over 8 feet. Wife's G'ma sued, and he got slapped pretty hard by the courts for that, and I guess the financial strain finally got the better of him.
Not going to miss that guy. :drink: