A week and a day after the layoff. Finally got signed up for unemployment after a friend said I need to sign up for it in the state where I worked, not where I live. Compared to the Ohio web site, the WV web site actually worked.
The last few days I have been recovering stuff from the little storage building. Other than a couple of boxes of books and some ancient computers I saved from the dumpster where I used to work, there is not much damage.
The books I probably have in pdf. Funny how books you spend hundreds of dollars for a college class aren't worth 10 bucks by the time the semester is over.
The two metal shelves I have are going to need new wood shelves cut to replace the sawdust shelves that expanded to 10 times its thickness and crumbled like... well, like sawdust. I will use dryply for round 2 of shelving. That stuff is very near waterproof.
What I don't understand is why I can't sit a box or bag down without it flipping upside down and spilling everything out. Comeon, just once I need to get a break.
But today I am working on the 12 foot wide shelves for the green house. I am calling the big southern facing plastic window on the end of my workshop "The Greenhouse." Sounds classier than whatever it actually is.
I plan on just having a couple of big shelves about three foot deep by 12 feet wide right in front of the window. With space underneath for my big water bottles to act as thermal mass to keep the plants warm at night until it stops frosting at night in about 3 months.
This is ohio after all, we could still get 3 feet of snow, or it could be 120 degrees tomorrow. Only state where I have had to run a snow blower and lawn mower on the same day.
It is great to have the workshop now. I was planning on being this far along about 6 months ago. But I had the stroke and it took months for me to heal. Still feel the weakness when I work hard all day long. I am a very tired puppy by the end of the day.
I had to drive the company box truck down to Cincinati, pick up a bunch of big copiers and then drive back. Had to drop one copier off, and pickup the one I replaced. That is about a 10 hour day with no lunch, with my day starting at 4 am. Mid-afternoon I had made the prison stop and began feeling my entire right side start to tingle. I didn't have a clue what to do so I pounded down 4 aspirins from a truck stop and drove another 2 hours back. Immediate went to the ER and they admitted me.
A bunch of scans and they found the stroke after they did an MRI with constrast. Or something like that. It was 12x7x7mm. All my numbers were within range, except sugar was 126 that day. But my worst number is the long term sugar number that came out at 9.
I lost 30 pounds and started eating a lot of salads. Just had to cancel my next appointment because I have no insurance now. Isn't it awesome that if you don't have a job you can just die and nobody cares? Heaven forbid we don't have a single payer system that is not associated with work and covers everyone, even when they are between jobs or self employed. This from a life long Republican and former enlisted and officer in the US Air Force and US Army. Former nuke bomb loader. Nuke'm til they glow!
Funny thing happened in the hospital. After mom saw me in the hospital she gave out my phone number to everyone she knows. My unlisted number. Thanks mom. My older brother tried to call me, and texted me. Said he was coming over to visit. I told him I never wanted to see him again even if this was my last day on earth. Never talk to me again for the rest of my life.
Lots of reasons why that I might go into later, but the last straw was several of my family members telling me to my face that my dead Muslim wife was burning in hell because she didn't convert. Great family cookout. My devout Muslim wife. Who would have burned to death before she gave up her religion and who never judged a Christian once in her life.
If you tell me my dead wife is burning in hell, don't be shocked when I no longer come around.
I am an atheist, so I don't care what you believe, just don't tell me that someone else is wrong for believing something different than you. Especially when you have jack shit for proof.
Another problem I have noticed lately is I can be standing in the same place, set something down and lose it. It is just gone. Just now I was looking for a little bag of ends for a multimeter to put flat pin connectors in it. I know I had it yesterday. No clue where it is now.
And I keep losing my leatherman wave. I had to go back to two different customer sites after work to pick it up. And I have lost it a dozen times in the workshop. I spent an hour looking for my dewalt screwdriver last night. Found it on the table I was sitting at most of the day yesterday. Under a bag of stuff.
I don't know if I have been like this for a while, or it is because of the stroke, but it sucks. I know if I can't find those multimeter terminals I will lose the thing I wanted to put in the bag by the time I run across it again.
When radio shack was going out of business I spent paychecks on parts. Not big paychecks. It was both awesome and sad, because they were going away. They are still clinging on as part of another chain of stores. Not the same at all.
I really hated them when they became a mobile phone sales company. The writing was on the wall at that point.
So, it has warmed up. Going to see how long it takes me to find a tape measure, a speed square, a pencil, and my power saw. Wish me luck.
Next day.
Got the shelving all built. Got 6 planters filled with dirt. Had to tear apart 3 more ply board pallets.
Stay tuned for chapter 3 where I continue my meanderings and answer the age old question of why I no longer work on computers anymore.
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