Cupolas and Crowns
2005-08-30, 4:39 p.m.

Day 373 Ouch

Slow night last night. Caught up a bit on the havoc Katrina was wreaking down south. I read a journal or three written by folks from Baton Rouge; Huntsville; Atlanta and even Monroe, La. Wondering how all those folks are faring. To a person, they all say they�d rather face a hurricane once every 5 years or so than face snow every winter. To them I say: 3 feet of snow never blew my roof off and covered my house in 12 feet of water. Three feet of snow I can move out of my driveway in two hours. I pay property taxes so that my town is prepared to move that snow out of the roadways. If we get 3 feet of snow, I MAY miss one day of work. Probably won�t lose power. Wind rarely exceeds 40mph during these events. Life returns to normal in a day or so.

When will normal return for the folks in the path of Katrina? How will normal have to be redefined to make it fit? Give me 3 feet of snow once or twice a winter. I can deal with that. I can�t deal with my house floating down the Mississippi. Or the only bridge to the mainland being taken out by a rogue oil derrick. Or a 40 ft live oak redecorating my family room.

The west coast has it�s drawbacks too. But I�ll save that rant for after the next big quake or something.

Made minimal progress on the cupola project last night. Figured out how to cut the main roof supports and got 2 of them done. The other 2 are laid out at least. Need to settle on a vane mount and how to bring the supports together at the top center of the roof. Think I�ll need to assemble and paint the roof of the cupola up on the garage roof. This is going to be one heavy unit.

Main concern is in the vane mounting. Want it vertical, secure and water tight. Also has to be integral to the roof framing. Curious problem. I at least have the advantage of knowing what didn�t work well in the last effort. Hope I can learn something from that.

One of my 2 temp crowns came out last night. 2:30am last night. Managed to not swallow it. Had to down a 800mg ibuprofen to quiet down the nerves in the area. Dentist sent me home with a self help kit in the event something like this happened. Got the crown cleaned out � brushed my teeth, even the stump left for the crown. Did a dry fit to make sure everything fit OK. Put the cement in and popped the crown back in place. Man, that hurt! Tried to apply a little (very little) pressure to help the crown get seated. I think it�s in place ok. Maybe it�s a pH thing between my tooth and the cement, but holy cow, that hurt. Took a while to subside. Gobbled down another 800mg ibuprofen before I left the house. That was 3 hours ago, and I can feel it already starting to wear off a bit. Hope it settles down this afternoon. Can�t be taking all that ibuprofen every day for the next week. Can�t be good for the liver.

Not a lot else going on. Aerobics tonight, maybe a little cupola work to fill time. Got lazy and skipped my workout this morning. Crown issue affected that decision a bit. Need to get in tonight to keep the progress rolling along. plus, I�m this close (><) to hitting the next level in out FitLinxx progress monitoring system. Think I get a fancy YMCA custom work out towel. After this one, it�ll be probably 4 months to the next step.

Need to wear a longer t-shirt to aerobics tonight too. Wore my �YMCA Activate America� shirt last week. That was a gift for getting 24 visits in some specific time period. Anyhow � found out that shirt is a little short. Kinda rode up and showed off my 12-pack abs when we did jumping jacks. Not a pretty sight.

Our instructor, Lisa, also chides the class a bit while we�re exercising. She�s usually trying to encourage those of us that have been going a while to try to include the arm motions with all the steps. After she says that, I look in the mirror and survey the class. I�m the only one not going at it with the arm motions. Hmmmm. If she mentions it again tonight, I may just stick my tongue out at her. She�s not doing it to be mean or single me out. We chat before class, she�s a very nice person. She�s even commented on my weight loss and offered compliments & encouragement. She�d just like to see us get more out of the class. I�m bordering on adding a step (to make it a 10 inch step) to get a little more work out. Maybe throwing in the arm motions would help. Lisa says it will. I just get to feeling so self conscious about it. It was a big step just getting through the first class (way back in February). Now I gotta do the arm thing too!?!?! I�ll try, I�ll try. Sheesh.

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Just got out of a work meeting that presented managements view of our market strategy and product roadmap on out to 2008. Not saying any of us will still be working here by then, but at least there�s a plan. Guess that�s some small comfort. Our job is to execute the plan so well management looks like geniuses. As a token of their appreciation, they�ll keep us around for another 3 years. Yay.

Time to get back to work now. Got some geniuses to create.

373 days down.

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