Good morning!!!!

[RedNeckGeek]

Glad you made it through to see another Christmas, Rich, and sorry to hear that you were sick. I went through a lot of hand sanitizer yesterday, and had a mask on whenever I was out of the truck, but still felt like I was shooting dice. I guess the next two weeks will tell how well I did staving off the virus.:confused3:

Pretty sure no one ever complained about having too much shop space. Something about the mess will expand to encompass all the room available? I used a CAD program on the computer to lay out the garage, but ended up making lots of changes when the solar stuff took over the back wall. Mostly just cramming stuff closer together, now to the point it's a pretty big PITA moving stuff around to get anything done. Maybe if it gets bad enough, I'll finally have to break down and build that shop building I keep dreamin' about?

Do your chestnuts have very fragrant blooms in the spring, Eric? What we call horse chestnuts here do, before dropping their leaves and going dormant for the summer months.

That's one very well fed squirrel, Ron!

No Cornish game hens at the store yesterday, but they did have a pile of frozen ducks, RS. Never cooked a duck, but the one I tried was pretty greasy and had an odd flavor, so I left them for someone else. I'm thinkin' a nice New York Strip will work just fine for Christmas dinner. Do those Bourbon Balls get baked in the oven?

Glad the chainsaw fix was an easy one, Don.

This'll be a Christmas your boy'll never forget, Kyle. Way to go!

There's a hot spring resort south of here where the only water on site is the spring. They have an elaborate and crazy looking set of pipes they run the water through to cool it enough to drink. But with that much mineral in it, it's probably not that good for you. :yuck: The water in the plastic holding tank here gets warm in the summer, to the point that it doesn't take much hot water in the mix to wash your hands.

Noticed that yesterday's wind brought down a 40' limb off one of the pines, and that the rest of the tree is leaning way over now, too. Looks like it's at or slightly beyond the limits of my easement over the neighbor's property, so likely I'll not do anything about it just yet. It's very steep to get to it, and won't be much fun to get out of there even if it does look frightful...

Maybe that vendor is just overwhelmed by holiday orders, Paul. It still sux, but more and more that just seems part and parcel of the Holidaze. Or whatever other excuse, like Covid, people can latch onto.

 

[daugen]

Tonight we have a candlelight service. It was by reservation and limited seating to keep the social distancing, and mask worn.
They also are having two services to space people out more.

Nice to see churches figure out a way to make this work without becoming a super spreader event.
This Christmas is first year in over 60 years my church has not had a Christmas carol sing. We we all know singing
is bad news for spreading Covid, so that I understand. At least Treasurer confirmed with me that we have now bought four
HEPA 13 air purifiers in anticipation of opening in late January or February. Our Nursery School was fully booked and that has been on
hold for awhile now, as the church continues to pay part salaries to the staff with no income coming in. That won't last much longer...

 

[PJSprog]

22°F and partly cloudy this morning with some light snow, going up to 27° today. Low tonight might get into the single digits.

Got home a little early from work yesterday. Boss sent everyone home early. I didn't complain. Tried to stop at Walgreens on the way home for a card, but no spaces in the parking lot. I'll have to try again today. Wife's oldest son's cousin has a special needs daughter who wants to learn to play piano. Wife told her to come and get her old digital piano that's been in storage for years, so her and her fiance picked it up last night. Nice couple. Went to New Baden to pick up Chinese food for dinner, and tried to stop at Dollar General to pick up some food storage containers for The Wife, but they had apparently closed at 5pm. Took the food home, ate, then went back out to the one in Trenton, which was open. Weird.

Still planning on Wife's family getting together for Xmas this evening. She found out yesterday that one cousin won't be there, as her husband who owns a construction company fell through a second story floor and landed in the basement of a house he's working on. No word yet on how serious the injuries, but in true tough guy fashion, his sister had to shame him into going to the hospital.

Kyle, you are truly an awesome dad. Your son will always remember that bike. I still have fond memories of the Yamaha Trial 80 I learned to ride on back in the '70s. Great little bikes.

Hope everyone has an enjoyable holiday.

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

Locking casters .. are your friend. All my WW tools are on large bases with big locking / swivel casters. I can place them easily to handle large material and easy hookup to my shop dust collector.

Yep... that is what I purchased the castors for (previously mentioned), everything is on locking castors. Your setup sounds great with the outfeed tables. When I had this saw setup before (back East), there was a 4x8 outfeed table that doubled as an assembly table and underneath was the cutoff / drop scraps storage.... worked great. Unfortunately there is no way to do a table now... I just use 2 of the adjustable roller stands.

We just developed another problem.... pellet stove worked all night, now won't ignite.... of course the tech service line / customer service won't answer......
NUTS!

 

[check]

They don't call them storms any more. Now it's a RAIN EVENT.
pouring now, 14 hours of solid rain ahead followed by a 30 degree drop in temp and tornado warnings.

Other than that Mr Lincoln, how did you like the play?

We might het the same conversion. We are just South of Looking, but about half the time the snow storms just barely miss us and hit him hard.

So far, they are still forecasting snow after this rain event is over tonight, which we will enjoy, because there’s nothing like a white Christmas!

Meanwhile, all the small turkeys were spoken for at the meat shop, so we got a big, honkin , 17-pounder for just the three of us. So, we are going to take a bunch of it over to Neighbours who, for the first time in many years, are not heading south to Florida for the winter. I will jump into the truck and take the hot carvings and gravy over to them, so they don’t have to have a chicken for Christmas dinner! They have lots of kids between the two of them, but none of them are coming up of course, because of Covid.

Merry Christmas and happy new year to everyone!

 

[Dftodd]

Nice and cold morning at 35° and windy. Was pretty miserable when out walking our dog.

Then went over to my Daughter's house. Let their dogs out for a romp in the yard. Then found their leashes and took them for a brisk walk around their neighborhood. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment today.

Little Dawson was born at 1:14 this morning so we got a Christmas eve grandson Weighed in at 6.9 lbs.

Will be a couple days before our daughter can come home. Not sure about Dawson. He's premature, so he's gonna spend a little time in the NICU at the hospital just to make sure everything is good before he's able to come home.

Daughter is a NICU nurse and doesn't seem to be worried, so that eased our minds considerably

My plans for Christmas got derailed yesterday. Wife is still on covid rotation till Wednesday. So I was planning on going to our son and daughter in laws house to have breakfast and see what Santa brought the grandkids.

Daughter in law had a friend of hers take the boys to their dentist appointment on Monday. Well the same friend tested positive for Covid yesterday.

So instead of breakfast with the kids, I'll drop off their gifts and visit for a few on their porch.

I'll take a can of lysol with me over to my daughter's house and fog their place just before they get home as a just in case measure as well

 

[Rich B1]

Well, breakfast is over and I can taste bacon...another win!

This may get long...who knows.

I was definitely feeling awful for several days. My wife took me to the emergency room Nov. 21 and was diagnosed positive, given fluids and sent home. I wasn稚 sick enough to be admitted. I simply never getting better, only worse. Morning of 11-30, I told her to take me to the emergency room, I was having trouble with even walking I was so weak. And I had been unable to eat pretty much before I was diagnosed. Tiny amounts, but nothing of substance.

Odd thing is, I never had a headache, not even much of a fever, but I did have a cough off and on.

I was admitted as a case of Covid pneumonia that had gotten severe. By the night of 12-1, they realized I had far worse issues than the pneumonia. It was determined my GI tract was shut down and my stomach was full of undigested food and bile. I was put on a suction tube to clear my stomach. That was miserable and remained there for 2 1/2 weeks. On 12-3, a woman doctor who specializes in internal medicine was brought in and asked to review my case. Not only did she review it, she decided to put me into her program

Covid is not a simple respiratory virus, it is capable of attacking multiple organs. I had also been lucky enough to get Covid intestine. Your stomach shuts down, the small intestine shuts down due to swelling and forms blockages, and your large intestine/bowel becomes temporarily paralyzed. This attack can also cause issues with the kidneys, liver, and spleen. It is also far more lethal than than the pneumonia, as of November, there is only a 44% survival rate.

12-4 was my worst day, it was the peak of the pneumonia, liver, and kidney issues, I was moved to one step below ICU.

It was a rough weekend and I remember almost none of it.

On 12-6, my case was taken over by a house doctor who did wonders for getting things to happen and coordinate my care. She was somewhat abrasive at times with various staff, but things happened. She was very nice to my wife via phone and myself. It was obvious she was in charge and was being my advocate. things immediately started to improve. The doctor assigned to treating my actual Covid infection was also very good. All the while, the internal medicine doctor held to a very rigid course as far as my treatment. Nothing by mouth, no external feeding, just wait. When nurses and doctors are the only ones you see, they become 吐riends for lack of a better way to say it. I had one charge nurse frequently during the 2nd week into the 3rd. I finally asked her why even though I was feeling better, other than abdominal X-rays, why nothing else was being done. She told me my internal medicine doctor was very unorthodox in her treatment of Covid intestine, but far more successful in her outcome than any other doctor.

I finally complained to weekend doctor who works for my internal medicine doctor about my weight loss (45#) and lack of nutrition on 12-12. He said the plan is to address that next week. Which to me was Monday. Nothing happened Tuesday, I was incredibly weak. A special IV was put in my arm and I was connected to a feed bag. Oddly, within about 2 hours, I could tell a difference. This is the week my internal medicine doctor visited daily and I got daily X-rays. I also had my iPad (wife was able to deliver it to the hospital), so I could view my charts online. Spent a lot of time learning things!

I had a blockage due to swelling in my small intestine that was largest on Wednesday. On Thursday, the X-Ray showed it shrank significantly., I got a visit from my doctor, late in the day, about 6:30, she was in her surgical scrubs still. She apologized for how late it was, but she had news she wanted to deliver in person. I said you are going to attempt a start up of my GI tract. She said how do you know, told her about following my charts. She thought it was funny and said yes, that was the good news.

She then proceeded to outline the steps and plan, said there may be rough patches but she had a detailed plan for each one. Thursday was the end of her shift for the week, but she had a specific doctor assigned for the weekend. They were both briefed on the plan and knew what she expected to be done for each 途ough patch? I was also put on a clear fluids diet.

The med to restart my small intestine was given within the hour. And every 4 hours after until something happened, it took about 8 hours and things started to move, slowly at first then quicker as time went on. There was a lot of material being discharged....I will leave it at that. I was immediately removed from that drug. This continued into Saturday until Saturday evening when I was put on another drug to control the speed my bowel was running, it was too fast and needed to be slower. By Sunday afternoon that was under control.

I was also moved to a full fluids diet. And got a visit from my doctor assigned for Sunday/Monday. Very nice guy. We talked for quite a while, and he told me the restart had been completely successful and based on everything he was seeing, I was only going to improve by going home. He wanted me to spend the night and review everything on Monday morning. About 10 Monday morning, my charge nurse (who had most of the prior week) came in and told me it was very likely I was being released, but was not yet official. At 2 she said the order was written and needed a visit by the doctor to be official. He showed up shortly after and said it was signed and I was free. He said being home was the only way I was going to get better. I thanked him. He wished me a Merry Christmas, told him he had just given me my Merry Christmas, he left the room. Called my wife for a ride while they got me ready to leave. Oddly, my 2 favorite nurses aides took my to the door being used for discharge where my wife was waiting. There were a lot of thank you from me to the aides, and asking them to be sure to thank those I couldn稚 thank in person and wish all of them a Merry Christmas. Got a huge hug from the wife, got in the truck, and headed home with only 2 prescriptions.

Yea, Monday was the best Christmas gift ever. Lots of things to reflect on and think about. Been a struggle getting muscles to work right, but getting better and stronger each day. Food portions are increasing a little bit at a time. Still have limited taste, found some odd flavors I can taste....bacon this morning, snuck some chocolate chip cookies yesterday and could taste chocolate, strawberry, orange, cranberry, and a few others barely. Onions are incredibly powerful.

Sorry this is so long.....but just got out of hand recapping it.

This Covid is no joke, and until you see the strain the health care workers are under, you have no idea the stress they are under. They truly are hero痴 and deserve everyones thanks. I know I am thankful for these hard working people, I owe my life to them.

This is going to be the best Christmas ever for me.

 

[Looking4new]

Glad to see you are back among the living.:thumbsup:

 

[farmeratheart]

Welcome back Rich!! You are truly a Christmas gift for all of us. Your witness, alone, should be enough to convince each of us get vaccinated as soon as possible. Happy New Year to you and your family.

Frank

 

[toppop52]

I think most folks can't even imagine what 3 weeks in a hospital would be like. Glad you're out now and I hope all is well.

I spent three weeks to the day in the hospital summer of 2019, it’s not fun being poked and prodded all hours.

Rich, I sympathize with you and I’m glad you beat it.