Rush, Rush, Rush, Sleep...

Hi gang,

Seems like all I get done these days is study and sleep. Very little of the later.

Even now, I'm posting this in a hurry because I've got a dozen things I need to get done today and it's already mid-afternoon.

I do miss blogging and chatting with everyone. I think about it every day.

I wrote some stuff last semester and over break that I never did get around to posting. If I can find what I did with it, I'll try to put it up one of these days.

Even now I'm trying to fight off the urge to take a nap... ZZZZZ.

Dead Battery

Gramma turns the key, nothing. Lawn mower won’t start. Not even a grunt. Battery must be run down again.

I look behind the seat and sure enough the terminals are corroded. The negative doesn’t look too bad. Just dull gray lead with a rusty bolt holding the wire to the post. The positive however is covered with a thick jacket of whitish yellow gunk. I’m going to have to do some serious cleaning before hooking up the charger.

I tell Grams she might as well go read her book. Nothing she can do to help. I head for the workshop to get Granpop’s old toolbox. After he passed away, his tools were a mess. He didn’t take very good care of them in his waning years.

I remember cleaning up that old Craftsman toolbox, sanding the rust down to the metal inside and out. Then giving it a new coat of red enamel. It almost looks new again. Not exactly a factory paintjob, but you’d have to look close to realize it was repainted.

I even cleaned up his rusty old tools. Some of them were beyond salvaging. But most of them cleaned up pretty well. A few of the wrenches are missing. Should buy replacements one of these days.

The toolbox is heavy and pulls me off-balance as I carry it out to the old garage.

Metal scrapes against wood as I set the box down on the oil stained pine floor. The latch makes that old familiar click-clunk sound as I lift up on the lever to release it. That sound alone always brings back memories of Granpop and me fixing something around the old place.

Granpop was one of those guys who could fix anything.

Opening the lid I peer inside searching for the right size wrench for the job. The chrome sockets and extensions are cool to my touch and I try to sort them back into their proper positions. Gramma’s been in here and she never puts them back where they belong.

I notice several of the smaller wrenches are missing. I can’t remember if those were the ones I couldn’t save. I make a mental note to ask her if she lets the handy man use these tools or not.

Fortunately, I find a 7/16th box end wrench and proceed to loosen the negative terminal first. It’s easier to reach than the positive. Of course, the bolt just turns and I have to enlist the socket wrench to hold the other end as I loosen the nut.

Once the negative wire is free, I take a small wire brush and clean the rust off the bolt and washer until it’s shiny again. Next, I do the same to the lead terminal.

To slide the red rubber cap off the positive terminal and pushing it up the wire out of the way requires reaching my arm between the seat and the plastic gas tank. There’s not a lot of room to work on this one. Be nice if the seat would tilt forward out of the way.

With the same two wrenches I loosen the nut on the corroded terminal. The wrench clink clinks against the back of the seat with each turn of the rusty nut. Once I get too close to the negative terminal and there is a buzz of a spark as the two terminals briefly short. At least the battery isn’t completely dead. I try to be more careful and reposition the wrench so it doesn’t touch the terminal again.

Finally, the pieces come off and I can set them aside. I take the wire brush and knock the bits of corrosion off the terminal and polish it until it shines.

My back grows stiff from leaning over to reach behind the seat. There’s a tinge of gasoline in the air. It’s a beautiful fall day. Warm for this time of year.

The bolt cleans up fine, but I have to walk back to the workshop for a new washer. The corrosion has eaten away most of the old one. The red and brown leaves litter the yard and crunch under foot as I trudge back to the workshop along the gravel drive.

The old gray cat is sunning himself on the driveway and I stop and give him a rub.

Baseball

I feel the hot sting on the palm of my hand as the baseball strikes my glove. There is the whiz of the ball through the air and the loud pop as the ball smacks my thinly gloved hand. My hand is going to be sore tomorrow.

I don’t like playing catcher. My brother always throws too hard. I try to catch the ball properly, in the web pocket, but it sometimes still strikes my palm. There’s never enough padding in the palm. We don’t have a catcher’s mitt. I have to use my regular fielder’s mitt. I bet a catcher’s mitt would have more padding in the palm.

I can smell the tanned leather with its slight tinge of glove oil. I roll the hard slightly scuffed white leather ball with its red stitching in my hand. I’m squatting down in the catcher’s stance so I rise to throw the ball back.

I’m no good at throwing the ball. I can’t throw very far. I’m bigger and stronger than most of the other kids, but I can’t throw the ball very far. It’s embarrassing. When I play left field, and they always stick the worst players in left field, I haul back and throw it with all my might and it always falls short. I shrink inside and my face feels hot from the jeers and the groans of my playmates.

It will not be until years later that I will learn that the secret is not in the strength of your arm or your shoulder, but in the snap of your wrist. “It’s all in the wrist,” they’ll say.

I wish my dad (or someone) had taught me how to throw a ball. My dad had no interest in sports and I grew up with very little interest in them, either.

Starsky and Hutch have been watching the World Series on TV. It occurs to me that I don’t even know which teams are playing. Doesn’t really matter. That’s the thing about sports. It doesn’t really matter. They tell us that people are starving in Africa, but all anyone seems to care about is, “Who won the big game?” It doesn’t really matter. There will be another big game tomorrow, or next week or next year.

Still, I wish my dad had taught me how to throw a ball.

On the job training

It occurs to me after reading over my last post that I failed to explain that I work as a carpenter building houses.

I originally got this job because the guy I was rooming with at the time was a full-time carpenter. I didn’t know much about building houses, but he assured me that the only skill I needed to know was not to shoot myself in the foot with the nail gun.

Since then I’ve learned that that isn’t exactly so, but I’ve been able to pick up a lot by way of on-the-job training.

I’ve worked for the same building contractor the past four summers. Last summer I even had my own crew, which meant I was able to make more money. This summer however, I’m getting a late start and won’t be able to work but a couple of months so I’m working for one of my former guys on his crew.

I don’t mind switching roles with him. He’s a sharp guy and knows his stuff. Pay cut is no fun though.

Naturally they nicknamed me “Doc” the first summer when I made the mistake of telling everyone I was pre-med.

And of course, everyone just assumes I’m going into gynecology. (Turns out to be the construction worker’s dream job.)

I get the usual ribbing like today during lunch break Bubba (who weighs about 300 lbs.) asked me if I would take a look at his hemorrhoids. Just as he feigned like he was about to drop his trousers right then and there I told him, “Hang on, I’ll do you one better. Let me get a blowtorch and heat up this screwdriver and we’ll just cauterize that bad boy.”

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Sorry I haven’t been posting as much lately. I been working the past couple of weeks (when the weather cooperates) and I haven’t felt much like doing anything except sleep when I get home.

I considered doing a research project this summer, but figured this will probably be the last opportunity to save up some extra mad money to get me through the rest of med school.

I work construction and the physical labor along with the hot sun really takes it out of you by the end of the day. Especially if you’re a pasty soft med student whose been sitting on his duff all winter long.

I’m starting to get back into the swing of things now. I’m not nearly as tired this week. The first two weeks my tail was dragging.

It’s a good job but I wouldn’t want to do this for a career. It pays really well and beats a lot of other summer jobs out there. I definitely wouldn’t want to do this in the winter.

New Speakers

If you read my previous post, then you are no doubt fully aware that Neumed is not getting the FDA's recommended daily allowance of melodic content. The end result being that Neumed's life is woefully audio deficient.

And although that post was 90 percent jest, it did not fall too far from the truth.

I actually have a stereo in the living room. Only trouble is, the dual cassette deck died months ago and my CD changer died a couple weeks ago. So what little time I spend listening to that unit, I'm reduced to listening to FM radio. (Bleh...)

My iPod also died a while back and I'm not sure I'm going to bother replacing it. Probably will eventually, but these days when I want to listen to music, I find myself going straight to online music videos.


(Didn’t know you could hook a widescreen up to a Commodore 64, did you?)

So anyway, Monday I got tired of listening to cheap computer speakers (lip reading would actually be an improvement) and started looking into ordering some new ones. After pricing several and not finding anything worth buying, it dawned on me that I would be better off to just get a small bookshelf stereo and feed the computer's audio output into that.

So off I went to Best Buy to check out what they had. Sony had a nice sounding unit for about $200 that came with a subwoofer. (Neumed like subwoofer.)

I was tempted to buy it, but careful shopper that I am, I came home and checked online reviews and prices just to be safe. Good thing I did. Most of the reviews agreed with me on the sound, but several had a problem with the CD changer. Apparently it breaks after a year or so. Not good. I have enough audio equipment that's broken, I didn't need to buy something cheap that I knew wasn't going to last.

As I was wondering what I could get to drive some speakers I remembered an old stereo receiver I had in the basement. Don't know why I didn't think of it before. Anyway, I cleaned it up and patched it into the computer's sound card. Next I used some old car speakers just to test it out and make sure it was working and boy what a difference! I could actually hear the bass and kick drum! Everything sounded better.


I could probably get by with the car speakers, but they aren't that good. And I'm so excited about the sound improvement thus far, that I decided Tuesday night to order real stereo speakers through Amazon.

They are supposed to arrive today. I'm anxious to hear how the videos will sound through halfway decent speakers.

Oh, by the way, if you're wondering why I didn't just use my living room stereo? The speakers are too big. There's no room for them in my little study area. Besides I want that unit where it is. I intend to someday fix or replace the broken components and get that whole system back into operation.

Update: The speakers arrived about two hours ago. They sound good. Very crisp and clear. Different from my big speakers, but so is the room acoustics. Overall, I’m happy with them. They are definitely a step up from the car speakers and a world of difference over the cheap computer speakers.

Next project: Hooking up a subwoofer to the old Gramophone.

Oh, and here’s the type of music I really listen to…

Finally Getting a New Roof

Well, it looks like we’re finally going to get a new roof. They delivered the shingles today and if the weather holds the roofers should be here tomorrow to start tearing off the old one.

None too soon I might add. I was afraid I was going to have to find new roommates. If this is your first time here, I mentioned how our roof has been leaking for years in an earlier post, The Joy of Living in Abject Poverty and how difficult it's been to get Slumlord to do anything about it.

Just to give you an example, here’s a picture of the ceiling in my bedroom.


Here’s a picture of Starsky’s ceiling.


Speaking of Starsky, he’s currently outside with Hutch waiting for the pigs to fly over in close formation.

How was your day?

My brain is fried.
I need a haircut.
My sock has a hole in the toe.
The roof still leaks.
I don't know what to get Mom for Mother's Day.
Blogger seems to be on the fritz.
I have BO.
I should go run...

I think I'll just take a nap...

So, how was your day?

Introducing Starsky and Hutch

I believe I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I currently have two roommates. They probably wouldn’t appreciate my using their real names on the Internet, so I’m going to refer to them simply as Starsky and Hutch.


This didn’t take too much thinking on my part. I secretly nicknamed them the first time I met them.

Hutch is of average height and blond. He is the better looking of the two though that isn’t saying much and he’s the quiet reserved one of the pair.




Starsky is shorter than Hutch and dark-haired. He’s very outgoing and makes friends easily. To say that he’s butt ugly would be a kindness. In fact, he’s so ugly that clowns are afraid of him.

I’m kidding; of course, the truth is he is strikingly handsome. So much so that he could probably be a model or an actor if he chose to go that route. People often remark that he looks like a young Tom Cruise although I have to disagree. Except for the hair, I don’t think he looks anything like Cruise.

(He doesn’t see the resemblance, either.)

Both of my roommates are very musically oriented. I can’t carry a tune to save my life, but both of these guys can sing. However, Hutch is the real musician of the two. He not only sings, but also is a songwriter and plays piano and drums. One of the reasons he moved in with me was so he’d have a place for his drum set. Before they were living in a small apartment and he had to leave them at home.

Both of them are outdoorsmen and love hunting, fishing and camping. I on the other hand can take it or leave it. I’ve done my fair share of playing woodsman over the years, but living with these guys reminds me of summer camp when I was ten, minus the basket weaving and leather crafts.

When I have more time, I promise to recount a few of our more colorful exploits.

###

Photo Credits: Photos courtesy of the real Starsky and Hutch, Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul from the 1970’s television series.

Ah, the joy of living in abject poverty

It’s raining again today. Seems like it’s been raining forever.

Wouldn’t be a problem except that the roof on this dump has been leaking for several years now and it’s steadily getting worse.

At first it was just water spots on the ceiling, but lately it’s started coming through and we have to keep buckets in strategic locations to catch the drips. Fortunately, nothing of mine has been damaged. My roommates haven’t been so lucky and they are threatening to move out if things don’t change.

Can’t really blame them.

We’ve told Slumlord (indirectly) about the problem, but nothing ever seems to get done. We have to go through a management company and they keep assuring us that he’s aware of the situation and intends to fix the problem. Can’t contact him directly because we don’t even know his name.

Twice roofers have come out to make estimates, but then we never hear from them again.

I would move out except this place is the cheapest thing I could find and it is the only place I know of that allows pets. (I have the dubious honor of having been adopted by a cat.)

So far today, it hasn’t rained hard enough to start dripping.

Getting in Shape for Spring

On Spring break this week. Trying not to think about school too much. Going to have to crack the books starting tomorrow, however.

And since we’re on the subject, Spring has me thinking I need to get in shape.

I’m not really overweight, but my BMI is not where I’d like it to be. I’m having trouble getting rid of the spare tire I developed during my undergrad years.

I run a couple times a week weather permitting, but it isn’t enough. I’ve started riding an exercise bike and climbing stairs on those days when going for a run isn’t convenient.


Also I started lifting weights again this week after several months of letting it go. Used to lift regularly during high school and tried to keep up with it during college, but these past few months of first year it totally fell by the wayside. I just felt I should be using the time more wisely.

I think that may have been a mistake. I feel so much better after a workout that I believe it will help improve my motivation and overall state of mind.

Besides, I don’t want to become an out-of-shape doctor. I feel like if I’m going to be one day counseling patient to lose weight, quit smoking and take better care of themselves, I better set the right example.

Worked back, legs and abs Tuesday and my upper back is nicely stiff and sore the today. Legs and abs not so much except for hamstrings and calves. They are just a teensy bit sore. I think all the running and the exercise bike has kept my legs in shape and that’s probably why they aren’t feeling the weights like my back is.

Have to work them harder next time.