The Russian and the Mexicans

As promised The Russian and the Mexicans. For me the worst part of home ownership is there is the owner is expected to take care of his/her property which is a lot of work and expense. Once again if I were able bodied, I think I would and could do a lot of this basic home maintenance by myself. I have to admit I have been somewhat neglectful of our home. Luckily, I have DD in my life who only lets me skate so long before she will intervene and assist me make a decision like home improvement. The last couple o years we have developed a major leak in the roof of our master bathroom. The drip falls—cascades-right over the sink where I shave and get ready for my day. About five years ago, right after the leak started (maybe longer) we had my brother Carl come over and try to find and fix the leak and when that did not work we even had professional roof repair guys over and they too failed in stopping the leaks. After these professional roof repair guys failed we sort of became discouraged and started ignoring the problem and procrastinating the solution and the solution was a complete new roof! We found out the roof which was on the house was one for about four which was two more then is legal in our fair city. I sort of think we procrastinated as long as we did also because Utah has been in a multi-year drought. We had a few leaks when the snow would melt and when the rain did finally fall we would have the leaks but the leaks would stop right after the rainfall. But this year has been different, much more snow it seams and rain fall this Spring changed everything. I could have gone on but DD had had enough.

In my family wee did all that kind of stuff ourselves, my dad would have never hired someone to do such a thing. So, my dad and my brother an myself were on the roof laying down the shingles. I have a brother, nephew and cousins here in Salt Lake I know I could call on and would call on when the time came. DD comes from a family of all girls and they never did such things as roof the roof. So, we started getting bids and they ranged anywhere from 5,000 to 16,000.00 all or which scared me to death. I do not do well spending big money. I drug my feet and stalled but DD did excellent research and compiled great data. DD has some money in her 401 K and I had a lot, by my standards but not enough to live on as a pension but enough which could make a difference on something like a remodel or a roof project. I began to thaw to the idea of having strangers up on the roof putting shingles down. We ha working capitol.

Last Summer my son had his roof replaced and spoke quite highly of the fellow who did the job. Ziam. Ziam seems to have done a good job at a good price and we started seriously considering the fellow. DD has been mostly working with Ziam and indicated he had an accent but seemed OK. In the past hen we had done some building projects one was fairly large and we were naive and half way through the project we were red tagged and had to tear the whole project down since wee did not have papers, i.e. building permits, etc. So now we were being through. We had not made a decision on Thursday night and so we were a little shocked when about 6:30 on Friday morning Ziam called and wanted to know where to park the dumpster to put the roof tear down in. We were to meet with Ziam later that morning to go over all the arrangements an to be sure Ziam had all his papers in order. This is when realized just how significant Ziam's lack of understanding the English was. DD finally got Ziam to understand we wanted to have one last meeting at our local Beans and Brew.

The meeting at the B&B as my first meeting with the large Slavic who I am fairly certain is Russian. I am not sure even at this meeting how much Ziam understood what was being said. Ziam has sad almost childlike eyes and has a strong desire to please. Ziam just nodding his head and saying 'sure, sure sure” to everything said. We decided to go with Ziam. With in an hour Ziam had his crew Mexicans up on the roof tearing at least thirty years of shingles free down to the boards.

Ziam, drives a nice “contractors” truck late model something with a four door cab. He seems to have four or five jobs going at any given time. His cell phone is always ringing and his eyes always seem on the move. The whole event of the re-roofing of our house was almost surreal Ziam barely speaks or understands English and I think even less Spanish. But here he I wrangling a force of four to five some just kids, like twelve or so years old. I really doubt any or documented but these guys worked hard and long and fast. I really thought they might have the job completed by Saturday night, but that was too much to hope for. The weather was warm and I was outside reading and watching the project there was one moment when the workers were sitting down and some sort of negations were taking place—finally I heard one of the Mexican men say something about $100.00 and Ziam grunted and the whole crew went back to work.

Ziam was in and out of the job, really only actually being on site a small portion of the time-but the job got done and we paid in cash to Ziam and the Mex's delight I am sure.

Ziam's bid was the lowest and we seemed to have gotten everything we wanted. We have a thirty year warranty which I am sure I will be long dead before the warranty is up. Its nice to know the water is going to stay off my head this coming winter when the snows melt.

Slacker!!

Last week our front desk person, called me a slacker. I was first astounded then taken aback but I have been thinking about the comment all weekend long as i watched the workers, the real workers Gabe and Albert work on my ramp. i like to think of my self as a real worker but i don't think that i am. When I could really get involved in physical labor, i think i enjoyed physical labor--or certain kinds of labor for instance I loved splitting wood but hated milking cows. I liked shoveling coal but hated pitching hay or digging ditch. Lawn mowing was OK but not a favorite.

Now Gabe works, my DD works hard--i don't think I work hard. DD and Gabe actually enjoy hard physical labor--even on their days off like on the weekends. DD is a also a major worker, she loves to work and work hard if she had a project. She likes to crank the music hen crank the work. I would rather sit in the shade or sun (if cold) and read or just look at clouds. I like working on the computer but I don't like computer work. I could be a slacker. I talked about this with my buddy JJ the famous writer fr the Deseret News and he said he was a slacker by definition and that he was fine with that. As a writer that is what he does slacks off and thinks and messes round( he calls this research) and i know exactly what JJ means. He can deliver on his deadlines whether its a deadline for one of his columns or deadline for a book-JJ produces and that makes the difference.JJ does not do much physical stuff unless it pertains to one of his projects. JJ still says he is a slacker and he would know. I know I am a slacker, it fits, its why, I guess, I seldom go back and correct spelling or capitalization. I guess one just has to be a slacker with class to stay ahead of all the workers who make the world turn... I am still trying just to make the wheels on my chair turn...

Working Weekend

Its been one of those weekends, a weekend lost in remodeling or rebuilding, a project where I can I can only watch, maybe fetch water or make a sandwich or two but not even that another weekend where I am Captain Dunsil.

I have been batching it the last couple of days. Dianne has gone to Louisiana to visit mother and sisters and I have stayed home partially cost and questions of access on the other end. Truth to tell I have been a little nervous regarding the trip and the issues I have been having with my butt but miracles of miracles , I stayed home from work three days last week and the wounds closed and I have been fine ever since. I am being careful and watching how much time I am up, doing my pressure releases. I am excited being wound free for the time being.

The Spring has been long and wet and we have suffered with the roof leaking torrents. We decided to get a new roof but to do so we had to get creative with funding and made the hard decision to rape our 401 K's. We figured we should use the funding now while we are young enough to enjoy it and when the funding is needed and really over the long run there is not enough funds in the 401's to make a hell of a lot of difference. So we did it. I will be writing more about the Russian and the roof in posts to come but we had a little money left over so we decided to paid attention to the ramp leading up to the front of the house. We wanted to do it while we still had the financial fortitude and Dianne worked with Bridget and Gabe to come over and do the remodel while she was gone and the weather was good and over the weekend.

Gabe started the project Saturday afternoon. I had been warned to get what ever wandering I wanted out of my system Saturday afternoon because once the ramp project started I was going to home bound. Gabe started the project yesterday afternoon and the project started slow but steady during the tear down phase. Bridget and Asher brought over KFC for dinner and Gabe left around nine o clock.

The project resumed round 8:00 this morning and to my surprise my great neighbor Al came over and has been assisting all day long. Steady work, hot sun an focus has brunch the ramp to about 65 percent completion. Bridget, Asher and Auni came over for lunch—Bridget made sandwiches from the deli selection Dianne bought before she left ansd we had a great feast. I rented a movie last night which turned to be a “chick flick”and me and the girls watched that together and let Al and Gabe work. The movie was dreadful but dfun to we watching with Bridget.

I am exhausted now, I just sent Gabe and Al home—those guys worked their butts off but I am the one who feels exhausted. We fished the floor of the ramp. I can get to work in the morning. There's still work to be done but the worst is finished—I have a solid surface. Rails and painting and sealing to come this week or the weekend. Two major goals done.Thanks.

Old Ties

Today has been a bit of a ho hum day. I have been doing my comments to my personal performance evaluation(PPE). Doing my PPE has been on my “to do” list for a month or more. I got around the task for a couple of weeks when the State applied new software to the server which really did mess up my ability to access the server and add the information needed. I held on to this excuse far too long and soon I was getting emails from the boss indicating I needed to get this in soon as possible because after a certain time she as going to be out of town and this whole project—my boss’s part must be done no later then the end of June. So, I have been head down and computer focused hammering out responses to my evaluation. At one time this project would have been intimidating but anymore I don’t care. I wonder if this is an age thing, I am not sure but the attitude sure helps with sleep.

But I got the initial project done a little before lunch and as I was closing my comment I got a call from my old buddy KC. KC and I go back almost forty years. We went to University together, actually spending part of that time as roommates. KC works at a hospital here in Utah and we have re-made contact in the last year.

We did not talk long—KC actually needed a little bit of information was able to assist with. Allowing me to count the call in my daily stats. But it was good to connect with the lad and to know KC was still out there and that he had “my back” if needed. Mwe always say we are going to gether but we have not as yet but maybe.

Its’s almost hot outside my window on the West and I have been carrying a couple of checks I have been going to cash all week and have not been able to get out of the office for one reason or another—but today looked like the perfect day to get out of the office and head to the bank. So, when Bonmie got back from her walk I too off. I cashed the checks and headed next to the drug store to spend a few buck just because I could and as I turned the corner to the candy section my buddy JJ is standing there. JJ is again one of those people who have been important to my life. He is a professional writer and works for one of the local papers. JJ writes a couple columns for the paper plus he writes books—JJ is sort of what I would like to be in another life. We shook hands, kinda hugged and talked about the usual stuff. JJ is still working part time at the paper and has a book coming out. It was great to connect. We renewed our friendship, and set a lunch date.

So today was the day for renewing old friendships...it was a good day.

It Hurts Just a Little

Betsy

I got a card from m old friend and mentor Mac. Mac is short for Mc Intyre an MD who took a chance on me years ago and hire me to be the psych counselor for a new medical delivery project he was organizing in South East Idaho back in the early 70's. Mac is a work of art, Mac is a whole book waiting to be written Mack is a national treasure who is now waiting away in a long term care facility in North Carolina—but all this is another blog entry, if not a book which I hope is written at some point in time but not right now. Mac is the person I write to each week, Mac is my commitment. I wrote my mom weekly before she passed and I decided to keep the practice up with my old friend. Anyway, in his response from last weeks letter mentioned a nurse practitioner who worked with our project. Betsy was young and attractive and from Vanderbilt. The Clinics were staffed by young idealists all trying to make a difference, some professionals like Betsy, we had VISTA's and me hired on some Idaho work program.

I did some searches for Betsy in hopes of being ale to give Mac an update on the beguiling Betsy. I of course found her right off. She is still in Boise, still in medicine a certified flight nurse, which I think is pretty cool—actually I sort of thought she would be a physician by now. Anyway, my research kicked out a 1973 article describing the project with images and names. I was excited to see this document, this document is the closest thing I have seen to a history of project. I am so glad that the piece is written but with some hurt I noted there is no mention of their counselor, affectionately know as Shrink.” Like I never existed on the project like I never was. It's really not a big deal, I am not that insecure. I know I was there and I know I contributed and I know that Mac and Jose our Physicians Assistant know I was there—I rode shotgun everyday, week in and week out for fifteen months. I don't know if the others will attest to my being there but it doesn’t matter. It's just weird to be so invisible.

This link will take you to the article...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1616027/pdf/healthservrep00043-0013.pdf

Money Pit !!

Last week we over a $1000.00 on the van and now its safety inspection time and of course the vehicle will not pass inspection and so back to the bank account and this week we are spending almost another $1000.00 just to bring the beat legal. I really do autos—I wish I could do with out. Hope gully the piece of junk will be ready sometime this afternoon.I think I have just enough power in my batteries to go down and get the van—so at least we'll have the vehicle for the weekend.

Time slipping away into the furture...

Long day, long week--I m ready to go home. I just had a call from someone who wants to organize people to battle the local transit authority but she doesnot want to rub shoulders with true advocates to bring this about. I want to write more about this tomorrow--time has just slipped away from me today.

Save Me

My spider senses are tingling. Something's up I m not sure what but I am sensing from the “force” I bet be looking both ways, up and down and behind my back because something's definitely in the wind. When I get these feelings I start cleaning my office-not packing- just cleaning. I clean my office and then if I nee to go to the next level I do. So now I am jut cleaning m office.

We had another “Save meadowlark meeting” this morning which included a director type from a think tank from up north. This person also has control of lots of money and she and her comments can directly impact the flow of river of money. I do not think the meeting was all that productive except to have those sitting round the speaker phone realize the tree we had been barking up for funding was not really a productive quest—which brought us back to focusing on the funding we had and developing and refining out current project. We have funding in place now for the next year—which is good, for me. Now we/me are trying to build some sort of sustainability for the project now. This part is hard, the hardest part of all because all these funding source are crying for data. Data I do not have primarily because I do not have the calls coming in to count. I have poor software which always fails me one way or the other and my equipment is getting more and more faulty each day, with no hope of financial infusion to up grade the systems.

This whirlwind of confusion was rolling round in my mind as I boarded the train this morning, a good morning, new and warm and full of promise. As we pulled out of my station I pulled out my new MP3 player and began messing with the pile of music Dianne downloaded onto it last night—then I whipped out my cell-phone camera and started “sharking” for my next image for “train person” of the day.I took a couple of snaps and was about ready to return to my frets about the save “meadowlark” project when we pulled into the 33^rd south station when a raggedy man pushed his shopping cart loaded with what looked like his entire life. Raggedy then pushed his cart right next top me and too the seat next to mine and began talking to himself as these “shopping cart cowboys” so often do. What I think was most remarkable with Raggedy an his shopping cart was a handmade cardboard sign with “Jesus Saves” written boldly and defiantly. This guys face was wonderful I startd working my cell phone into place to take his image. I clicked a coupe of images when Raggedy asked :hey. Would take my picture?” “Sure I said,”No problem” what luck. We were working on get him in frame when suddenly he stops and ways wait and adjusted “Jesus saves” so it faced the riders on the train. Raggedy smiled and winked at me saying, “These folks just hate it when I do that...praise the Lord”. This guy was not nearly as crazy as I thought—just an undercover agent for God. He made me feel good and smiled a lot thinking of him today especially in my survival meetings.

Battery Closure

I just returned from a run up to 7-11 up on the corner to test the new batteries(yes, I got them and that drama is the stuff of todays post). I was pleased with the way the batteries preformed –I left with the batteries at 98 % and returned with the batteries registering 79% and that was a walk round the neighborhood with the whole family especially with Asher in the new perambulator. What a sight to see us all marching proudly down the street. This was one of Asher's first out bound excursion. This was a considerable walk too going Al round the hood Almost all the way up to the “7ve” so this was quite a load test to place on the new chores.

I would like to report the trip to the battery store Standard Battery went off without a hitch but that would not be true so here is the rest of the story. Yesterday was a good day, not only was the day quasi warm acting as the gateway for warmer weather which is starting today but the day was also Mark A's birthday—once again Happy birthday Mark—know that you are loved. I copped out this year and sent him an “e-card” for Amazon—Mark seemed to like the card so I wass left off the hook easily. No lunch, dinner just a e card and a call that's All.

I was up early, showered and dressed and ready to go for my second PT Appointment at the University Out Patient Rehab. I purposely scheduled the appointment early on Fridays so I would be up and out of the house early and its working. The workout was good, lots of good stretching and a minimal cardio vascular work out. I was driving th van and I did not want to be too exhausted as I drove cross town to Standard Battery. Hopefully, After I get the batteries using the van will be s none issue since I'll be using my chair for the ride back And forth to PT meaning I will be using the bus and train to get back and forth.

Following my work out I was going to buy lunch at the hospital cafeterian was shocked to wallet was not in its usual space in my backpack—luckily I found this out before I had loaded a tray and was at “check-out”. I also new the rest of my planned morning was a no go if I did not have my purse and credit and debit cards. Luckily when I returned dto my van I found the wallet on the foor when I had tipped the back pack upside down when I was getting out at the PT unit. I set off for the batter store.

Standard battery is a solid operation. Blue collars hanging round, smoking and doing their jobs of replacing dead cores with new ones. Mostly young guys, dressed in gray service shirts with their names sown into the shirt above the left hand breast pocket, waiting for closing time or any other diversion to take their minds off the heavy, itchy burning batteries they handled all day long. I was that diversion.

I pulled up to the service bay with the doors open And Tyler, sundered out and got stuck me. I coached him though the opening of my automatic doors, deploying the lift tipping the seat back of my power chair—the lad was a quick learner. He struggled a bit with getting the from off the battery box but eventually prevailed-- mind you Tyler had already found the batteries which had been “brown trucked” in from Boise. The seacond we had the batteries out we could see--as the week before-- the replacements were to large for the battery box.

Tyler scratchezd his head and backed away calling Todd to come over, Todd was a slightly obese guy who had worked at Standard for years and “knew everything” especially how to be lonely. Todd was a genius one glance at the battery spectacle developing in my van and said, “them's too big” duh?!! We gots some which will fit though fifty ampers.They're in the back.”

Sure enough, the batteries I had been driving for two years were 50 amp batteries much small then I had realized—no wonder my ranging abilty seemed severely compromised. At this point I wanted to be done and out so I said “put'em in” and they did and I was gone.I am a little disappointed the cores are as small as they are but the size has not been too bad. I just have to treat the batteries better and know I will wear them out quicker. But, I am also going to see if there is anyway of getting a bigger battery box in hopes of increasing my ampage and there for my distance. The best part is the smaller batteries have smaller cost and that is mighty fine by me.

Power Up!!

Every once in a while fates turns it's head and smiles on you or in this case me. I have been fretting about having to get new set of batteries for my power chair. I have been considering a new set of batteries for some time—since I found out my insurance will no longer do their once a year purchase—which was one of the main reason I opted to buy a power chair new. I was led to believe if one does buy a power-chair new with their insurance the batteries are always provided by he insurance. Wrong!

So, I have been putting off having to purchase a set of batteries as long as I could, but, this is becoming less an option. The batteries I have now drain more and more quickly. Thankfully I have not be stranded as yet but I must be vigilant and charge at every chance I get. Even if I charge all night and my batteries register at 100 percent when leave the house I am now down to the mid 80's by the time I get to work and if I don't plug in with my “at work” charger, I best not be going anywhere for lunch and I had better get my charger on the batteries a good two hours before I leave for home or have my phone be ready to call Dianne when I get to the train stop for her to fetch me in the van. This kind of living has been do able but is getting to be a real pain and the fact remain I still need new cores.

So last week I actually started my physical therapy regimen at up at the University and decided I might as well to 'bight the bullet' and buy the batteries since I was out anyway. Dianne was occupied when I started calling round to different battery houses and I mystified to see there was almost $100.00 difference in price of one batter and I needed two. I knew if I were able to buy a set of batteries somewhere I could get my friends at Utah Center for Assistive Technology do the install saving me some money. I finally found three places where I could but the batteries for les then $200.00 a piece more like $150.00 which is strikingly high but compared to $250.00 much more palatable. One place I called did no have any the size I needed and would take a week to order the batteries and the other place one battery and would take an hour to have someone bring another from the warehouse and then yet another who had two cores in house but these batteries cost two dollars more then the lowest cost but there were in stock and I swooped over and picked them up.

An hour later I was over at UCAT dismayed and tired. The batteries were too large for my battery box—the batteries would not work. So, now I has to shag ass back to the battery store return the cores and have them put the money back in to my account and get over to the hospital for dinner with the family of the new born. Which I did.

yesterday I spoke with my friend, the director of UCAT, who gave me the name of the person he goes to when he needs batteries for the wheelchairs he works on. I called and found I was eligible for the State's cost of batteries since I was a state employee-sweet--. I have an appointment for friday afternoon following my physical therapy. So $300.00 for a set o batteries is far less then $500.00 but still way uncomfortable especially since one of the reason I went for a new chairs was the battery perk but that was then and this is now and I gotta power on.