Orb Designs

Author: bilborg

  • Summer Arrives in Force

    Yeah, we’re making mid-90’s and up this time of year (both temp and humidity), although that storm gave us a couple of nice days in the mid-80’s, Friday and Saturday.

    Marcia news: She’s mostly tapered off her pain meds, with a plan to be fully off by week’s end (or earlier), and driving, too! She got fed up with the walker by Friday, and put it to the side. Now she’s using the cane everywhere, which is much better for her in several ways. Her gait is better, and she leans less on the cane than she did on the walker. More mobility, the faster the recovery will go. Yay!

    The week in pictures:

    From the garden
    From the garden – first of the summer.

    So, those were yummy. But then there was the Fourth of July, and the day after that …

    Lexi disagrees with bangs
    Lexi disagrees with bangs

    The noise was still going on the day following the Fourth, so she walked into one of my cabinets and looked like she’d prefer it if I closed the door. Then today (Sunday), the heat came back … in more ways than one:

    Spicy grilled chicken
    Spicy grilled chicken

    We had spicy grilled chicken. The prep was in a habañero/pineapple marinade, then I grilled all of the chicken. I dressed mine with lots of happy, happy jalapeño.

     

    *      *      *

    No new casualties were announced by DoD in the last week. So that’s good.

  • At the Edge of the Woods

    We’re not out of them yet, but there’s more scrub brush at the edges, right? Stuff that needs pushing through before we can be out of the woods? Yeah, that’s it. Overall, Marcia’s doing well. We got here home midday on Wednesday, and had formal outpatient PT on both Thursday and Friday. We managed a lot (relatively) of exercise yesterday, including a couple of walks up and down the sidewalk on our block. So she’s improving rapidly. Today: blood test (for effectiveness of blood thinner) and PT.

    Me? By the time I was done with all the chores plus the Marcia-care, I was wiped. That’s my reason for failing to post last night. Sorry about that. This week I’ll be working from home as many hours as I can manage, starting in just a couple of minutes…

    *      *      *

    Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

    • Staff Sgt. David H. Stewart, 34, of Stafford, Virginia, died June 20, while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
    • Lance Cpl. Brandon J. Garabrant, 19, of Peterborough, New Hampshire, died June 20, while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
    • Lance Cpl. Adam F. Wolff, 25, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, died June 20, while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
    • Sgt. Thomas Z. Spitzer, 23, of New Braunfels, Texas, died June 25 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

  • Another Marcia Update

    As of this evening, she’s still in hospital. All of the Occupational and Physical Therapy goals have been met, but her hematocrit number remains low (but not alarmingly so). So they decided to keep her another day. Excellent day of movement, up and down stairs plus lots of walking about. That’s all I’ve got for you, now. Ciao!

  • Hip Replacement Update(s)

    Update 1130 EDT:

    We were up at 0430 this morning, and left for the hospital at 0520. Got her into pre-op by 0630, with surgery scheduled to begin at 0840. Lots of paperwork and people coming in and asking Marcia what her name was, and why she was in the hospital. I *still* think she should have made a list, and given a different answer to each questioner. The staff might not have found that amusing, however. They wheeled her back into the OR at 0830. I went into the waiting area, and … waited.

    At 10:15, Marcia’s surgeon reported that all went well during surgery. They were 10 minutes away from wheeling her into recovery when I spoke to him. I came home to walk the dog and get a spot of lunch. I’ll be back at the hospital by 1. Marcia should be in her room by then, and I’ll hang out with her for a few hours.

    More when I know more, but possibly not until late. No AT&T cell service, at least in the lower levels of the hospital.

    *      *      *

     

  • Ready for tomorrow

    Marcia gets even more bionic tomorrow early, with a full (left) hip replacement. They’ll have her on her feet in the afternoon, walking around and doing stuff on Tuesday, and presuming everything goes dory and hunky, home on Tuesday evening. Wow! We expect wonders from Dr. King and the great staff at AAMC. Wish us luck.

    *      *      *

    I’m glad to note that DoD has reported no casualties in the last week.

  • What a week!

    To give you just a sense of what it’s been like, here’s the email I sent to my group at $FIRM early on Thursday morning:

    Subject: Not going to be in office today

Multiple appliance fails.

Hot water heater wasn't making hot water, assumed pilot light fail.
No, no, a partial containment fail instead, with leaking to carpets,
yay! But most of the water went to the sump, and left the building 
appropriately. Cleaned up some water until time to feed and walk the
dog.

Heading out to do that, the garage door opener played up, badly.
Repeat of winter problems that we tolerated until they went away. 
Need a working garage door opener. Bought one and installed it last
night.

Went downstairs late to check on sump, because of flickering lights 
indicative of sump still running ... odd since I shut off the water
on the water heater. Hmmm, heat from the pit, and continuous 
humming. Sump pump lunched itself yesterday. Okay, that I can deal 
with today, since things are dry and there's no rain in the 
forecast ....

Sigh. The overnight thunderstorm had me downstairs and bailing 
for about an hour, and checking the pit through the rest of the 
night, with occasional bails.

Next, I'm going to go get a new sump pump and install it, then 
rest a bit while waiting for the plumber to get here to see what's 
next with the water heater.

Text me if you need me for something, I'll check email a few 
times today.

    The good news is that we now have working hot water, and non-cold water showers (yay). Yes, cold water is way better than NO water, but … First World Problems. The story I’m going to be sticking with is that the house got jealous that Marcia is getting upgraded next week (hip replacement), and decided to jump into the game.

    ALL of the plumbing/HVAC companies are busy, busy, busy – this was the first “hot” week of summer, and the AC business is booming. Our regular folks (a smaller firm) couldn’t get us on the schedule until next week. So I turned to Angie’s List, and got onto Jiffy Plumbing in Hyattsville. They sent around one of their mechanics, Bawla, yesterday afternoon to check the system and give us a quote. He did, we got two others which didn’t please us as much, and scheduled for today. He arrived today within the scheduled window, installed a State Water Heater, and we’re very happy.

    Oh, yeah, and it was a good thing that I purchased and installed that new sump pump on Thursday morning. On Thursday afternoon, we got the better part of an inch of rain in about an hour, and that pump survived its trial by fire … err, water.

  • Lay-Flat toaster

    I just picked up a lay-flat USB3 SATA docking station from Plugable Tech. Works like a champ in my cabinet configuration. See …

    Lay-flat SATA toaster
    Lay-flat SATA toaster

    This let me move my in-system SATA front-load slot over to the other system for whole-disk backups of the Windows system, and to play with other OS loads in a less impactful way. I like it a lot, and it works just fine.

     

  • Painting the Town Red

    Not exactly “the town”, eh? In my case, it was the shutters on the second story front of the house that I painted red. And by “red”, I mean Classic Burgundy, a Benjamin Moore color. Six windows, twelve shutters, 6 hours total time on Saturday spent alternately crouching on, and stretching up from the porch roof. Didn’t fall, #FTW!

    Shutters, faded, "Before"
    Shutters, faded, “Before”
    Shutters, shiny, rich, "after"
    Shutters, shiny, rich, “after”

    Today: shopping, started the laundry, cleaning, mowing. We went out for an early supper at Mi Hacienda.

    *      *      *

    Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

    • Spc. Terry J. Hurne, 34, of Merced, California, died June 9, in Logar province, Afghanistan, from a non-combat related incident.
    • Staff Sgt. Scott R. Studenmund, 24, of Pasadena, California, died June 9, in Gaza Village, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered while engaged in a combat operation.
    • Staff Sgt. Jason A. McDonald, 28, of Butler, Georgia, died June 9, in Gaza Village, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered while engaged in a combat operation.
    • Spc. Justin R. Helton, 25, of Beaver, Ohio, died June 9, in Gaza Village, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered while engaged in a combat operation.
    • Cpl. Justin R. Clouse, 22, of Sprague, Washington, died June 9, in Gaza Village, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered while engaged in a combat operation.
    • Pvt. 2nd Class Aaron S. Toppen, 19, of Mokena, Illinois, died June 9, in Gaza Village, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered while engaged in a combat operation.

     

  • Lexi Being Cute

    Instead of running off when I approached her in the back yard, Lexi decided to deploy her Massive Cute Attack. It works, too …

    Lexi Massive Cute Attack
    Lexi Massive Cute Attack

    For me, this was just another a warm, chore-filled weekend. When does Winter start?

    *      *      *

    Our condolences to the family and friends of these fallen warriors:

    • Capt. Jason B. Jones, 29, of Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, who died on June 2, in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, of wounds received from small-arms.
    • Pfc. Matthew H. Walker, 20, of Hillsboro, Missouri, who died on June 5, in Paktika province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his unit was attacked by enemy fire.

  • Five Down, Seven To Go

    Months, that is. The year, it flies by too quickly. We’re approaching the heat and humidity of the year, sadly. The upside of the unpleasant months is fresh veggies out of the garden. Soon, soon:

    Garden - Late May 2014
    Garden – Late May 2014

    Things are going well … I cleaned house yesterday. No, really. With a car wash mitt and a few buckets of soapy water, I cleaned everything I could reach on the front of the house. Doing it that way was a pain in the ass, and frankly exhausting, but the method did a much more consistent job of cleaning than using a pressure washer to draw pictures in the dirt and oxidized paint. Originally I was just after the trim and gutters (off-white and white) to spruce things up. But it became quickly clear that everything needed attention. I’m very happy with the results. After I finished that up, I weeded out the garden beds.

    Today, shopping, laundry, restructuring the garage entrance to the shed, and mowing. Of the four tasks, only the third is mildly interesting. The shed floor is about 14″ up from the level of the garage, and when we moved in, it was configured as one 14″ step. I move assorted wheeled equipment in and out of there, and it made sense to me early on to construct a short, steep ramp there. It was bolted to the ledger, and I used tapcon screws to attach the ramp to the concrete floor. Sturdy. In addition, at the shed back door, leading to the back yard, there is a concrete step.)

    The problem with the ramp is that it is (errr, was) adjacent to Marcia’s driver-side door, which means the ramp has been rarely, but painfully in the way for her. A few years ago, I built a portable ramp, and started moving some gear in and out through the back as well. Eventually (this year), I figured that I could use that ramp when needed on the garage side as well. So today I deconstructed the 11 year old ramp, and re-used the materials to make a single step there, splitting the 14″ difference. That step will support the portable ramp as necessary, and Marcia now has more/better maneuvering room when entering and exiting her car.

    *      *      *

    Our condolences to the family and friends of Pfc. Jacob H. Wykstra, 21, of Thornton, Colorado, who died on May 28, in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained as a result of an aircraft accident.