Back in the saddle (Page 1 of 2)

I was gonna say, like wow and can I have some of your energy?

I don't know if this will help, but you might want to call in favors. This is the situation where calling on help and owing a couple friends makes lighter work.

If that isn't possible, then remember that ibuprofen is your friend too :-)

Oh, and I don't think I could justify asking anyone to deal with a decade and a half of dust under, behind, and between things.

Behind my stereo table is a steel frame my father and my cousin made back when Dad had the iron shop.  It's made of square steel heavywall tubing., welded with feet sticking out in front for stability and uprights behind, carrying two outrageously heavy steel plate shelves, each holding two CD cabinets.

A litttle earlier I measured, drilled, and tapped two holes in the mid-low crossbar to take 6-32 machine screws, on which I slid the keyhole-slotted power strip for the stereo.

They want the wires neat and non-threatening.

I broke a drill bit (1/16th, used for pilot holes) and had to open the holes from 7/64ths to 1/8th to get them tapped.  I should have bought the full set of bits, number-sizes as well as fractional sizes.  Oh well.  The plastic keyhole slots bind the screw shanks enough to keep them from working loose.

Not nearly as much fun as setting a bone or pumping a stomach.

If you can't tell the difference, you've either eaten way too much of them, or not nearly enough.

How can you make the stomach pumping less miserable, except perhaps by heavy sedation?

Yes, my father worked for one miscellaneous iron shop and started his own when his employer retired.  He and his (then) partner assembled the travelling crane, I-beam tracks and all, with nothing but a man-portable crane called a roustabout and a hose-type water level.

Take a look at the roof of 20 Exchange Place.  See that framework for the microwave relays?  I held the other end of the tape measure when he took the measurements for that framework.

Miscellaneous iron means both structural and ornamental work, in projects too small for the big structural and ornamental contractors.  He had a lot of work in the World Trade Center, including the structural core of the 'grand staircase' in Windows on the World and the 'brackets' that supported the landing between the escalator runs in the main entry/exit to the PATH station.

It also means a lot of alterations, where the drawings for the building are either missing or unreliable, where you have to cut your parts and weld them back together so you can get them into the space, and where you have to work around the building occupants.  Ever see photos of the NYSE trading floor?  He put the frames in for some of the overhead monitors.  When the exchange closes at 3PM the floor is three inches deep in flammable paper.  That had to be completely cleared before they began work, and everything had to be out before 7AM--the place had to be cleaned and spotless for the next day's trading.

Oh, and third shift and weekends get the union workers triple-time.

It means going in for surgery and realizing that you installed the tracks that the heavy machinery hangs from.

And in NYC it means seeing your work torn out, just as you tore someone else's work out.

One day I was discussing a programming problem with him and he said, "Microseconds and nanoseconds--I can't even get my mind around that."  I replied, "And I can't really grasp what 100,000 kilopounds means."

Okay, I've got a some numbers on the hall bookcases, which I've been rearranging t hold more paperbacks.  I've got nearly all the paperback space filled and I still have about seven shelf feet of books leftover in the hall and another three to five on living room shelves.

In addition, I'm going to lose about twenty feet of paperback space in the living room.  I might be able to take four feet from other books.

Meanwhile, I've got at least a dozen shelf-feet of larger books that have to go back from the hall.  There's probably about five feet available for them in the hall, and another nine to eleven shelf-feet I opened up in bedroom bookcases.  I might be able to buy a little more.  And I have to give up about nine shelf feet in the living room, though I might be able to find three or four to use.

I've already designated a few duplicates for Book Garden as well as a copy of Jane's Dictionary of Aircraft.  It's about twenty years out of date, but still a beautiful book.  But I'll never make full use of it, and I'm sure I got it at a remainder table for less than seven dollars.

AND I've got one hell of a lot of other cleaning to do.  The dumpster for lumber and such was gone over the weekend and I've only started to get that hundred pounds out.

... ... ... .

And I can't really grasp what 100,000 kilopounds means."
This is the moment that I'm sure of how great a communicator you are, New Jersey :-)

You asked:
How can you make the stomach pumping less miserable, except perhaps by heavy sedation?

1) You have the patient trust you enough to cooperate
2) You keep them calm
3) you explain what you are going to do
4) you numb up the back of their throat
5) You ice the tube to make it go past the curve of their nose more easily
6) you put your hand on the back of their head so they don't pull back (and let them know this is a normal reaction)
7) you stop right after passing the curve of their nose and before you hit their epiglottis (so you avoid the gag reflex)
8) you calm them down again, reassure and get their head in the right position (chin tucked to chest)
9) you have a glass of water with a straw available and have them drink as you advance the tube to the right measurement.
10) you applaud them after they endure this and the tube is in place.

I've never had to sedate any of my people, though many have asked for it. It's like the dentist. They don't enjoy it but they survive.  I've had cystic fibrosis patients (with bowel obstructions because they don't make mucous in their gut as well as their lungs) who have cried when they heard they needed a tube. I put it in and they were stunned that it didn't suck.

Like I said, it's all about taking ownership. If I order it, I look to see if the nurse if uncomfortable with inserting the tube. If that is the case, she gets me to do it for her, but she has to watch so she learns from the experience.

I may be able to generate another 76 inches of paperback space, and a 19 inches of higher space.

And I'm looking to transform some of the bedroom shelf space.  That requires white melamine-coated shelving.  The shelves are supported by bent wires in grooves rabbetted into the shelf edges, but I'd have to use pegs.  The holes are too small for standard pegs, bug might, just might, fit 4d common or 6d finishing nails.

The things I'll do for another 28+1/2 inches of shelf space ...

You have a library, and now THIS.  That is an awesome story!

Not as awesome as the guys who climbed up there and put all those parts together!  I was on a scaffold-floor under the roof.  Quite safe as long as you stayed away from the elevator machinery.  The high-voltage electrical parts stick out this way and that, exposed.