Preventative Maintenance

6FPS V6#3: March 11, 2024

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Welcome to the new issue of 6FPS.

The weather has gotten wintry, and we ended up with a couple of inches of snow, but it all melted off in about a day. Despite our neighbors saying snow never happens here, it looks like this has become routine once or twice a winter, and when La Niña is in full bellow, we can get significant white stuff. I’m kind of getting used to it.

I do have to keep reminding myself that when I go out and about in 40 degree weather yes, I do need to put my stupid gloves on. I’m being a slow learner about that.

Oh, and we had one bit of fun: the water heater decided to die. The good news is we were able to get it replaced with effectively no chaos, so we’re good for another ten years or so…. The missing part for the generator has finally arrived, so it should be online by the time you read this as well; fortunately, we haven’t needed it this winter, but… figuring out it’s bad when you absolutely need it is a bad thing…

Vertigo Update

In the last couple of weeks I was able to meet with the Neurologist about possible migraines triggering the vertigo. That was a very productive discussion, although as he noted, there is no test to diagnose a migraine, especially the kind I think I’m having, which are called Migraines with Aura, or also Ocular Migraines — migraines that don’t cause pain.

He outlined five standard steps of treatment for migraines, each step being, effectively, more powerful drugs with more enthusiastic side effects. I’ve started on the first phase, and I have to say, things have gotten a lot better. Way better.

That said, I don’t have a formal diagnosis yet, so I’m waiting for next week’s followup discussion before I claim we know what the issue is. But I’m very hopeful. I’ll go into more detail on this once it’s confirmed and I know what he suggests in terms of long-term management.

Before I started this round of treatment, I started rating each day (1 = “just shoot me”, 10 = “perfect) so I’d have a baseline to compare against, and I’ve been continuing that rating as well. Before I started the new treatments, my average was 6.8 (“meh”). Since, it’s 8.

Needless to say, my energy levels and attitude have both improved a lot. I’ve spent a lot of the last month digging into the garage and shop and rounding it all into shape, and it was nice to spend extended time out there without feeling off whenever I bent over.

More later, but I think we’re on the right track.

Shop Update

Since last month I’ve been putting a lot of effort into the shop and garage. I started by doing some minor re-organizing in the shop, and, well, 20 hours later, I more or less moved everything around. Some of that was improving how things are stored, but I also moved my work desk and work table around and pulled my C-stand out of the hidden depths and set up the work table so I can pull it out and move around it when I’m working on a project, and also use the C-stand and lighting for desktop photography again, which I’ve wanted to set up for a few months. I also ended up doing that first “post move” purge of stuff that got put into the garage in case we needed it, and some 20 boxes of stuff has now headed off to Goodwill so someone else can give it a second life.

The shop itself is taking shape; I’ve got another 10-15 hours into it this last month. That built in workbench I needed to remove has, in fact, been removed, which allowed me to start moving around the tools and get things into their “proper” location. The workbench is now under the window, so I can look out when I’m working on it, and I have the various power tools in places where I think they make sense, and I’m happy with the way I can move around the shop. I have also bought a couple of new tools, a jointer and planer, and once I get them set up, until I decide I am ready to bring in a lathe, the shop is complete.

First project is a work table that I’ll build the table saw into, so I have something I can use for assembly and project work, and which will act as an outfeed table for the saw. I also will probably built a router table into it, but likely not right away. I have some basic plans drawn and it’ll be an interesting first project to work on,.

Glad to have finally gotten over the hump here; removing that built in workbench intimidated me, but in practice, it wasn’t all that hard. I’ve left one corner in place since that’s useful for things like my battery chargers, but it may come out someday as well. All of the reorganization helped me find and pull together about nine different projects where I’d bought materials but never actually finished them; seven of those are now done, and one of those still pending required me getting the table saw set up and aligned, so I hope to finish that off soon. Feels nice to not have so many of the “ought to do” staring at me with sad, empty eyes….

Possible Tripping

The trip I’ve been hoping to happen hasn’t happened yet, because with everything else going on, it really didn’t make sense (hint: don't travel when you’re changing the drugs you take until you know how you’re going to react to them). It’s getting late to go do winter birding at the refuges, but I expect to take a few days in late March, after my next talk with the neurologist, to do some birding and perhaps head down to Bandon and Newport for a bit of exploring and relaxing.

Free Prints Delayed

I am running months behind in getting the free prints out. My apologies for the delay; everything from printer issues to the vertigo has gotten in the way. I’m going to try to get them all printed and shipped before the April issue of 6FPS comes out.

Making Things

When I retired, one thing I started thinking about were things I wanted to do to keep busy, but were which I could do here at the house and not need to go running around or be in the shop. Idle time amusements. I kept coming around to model making — I did a lot of building plastic models as a kid, as well as having things like Lincoln Logs and an Erector Set.

I’m old enough that my chilldhood making time mostly predated Legos, and so I have to admit I’ve never worked with them — until now. Trying to find a plastic model kit I wanted to build, I just never found one I really cared about, so ultimately, I ended up asking for (and getting) a Lego kit and a kit from Rokr to try out.

The Lego kit is their bonsai tree kit, and the finished version is below. I found putting it together fun and a bit of a challenge, but it wasn’t super complicated, and the bonsai ties back into my younger days as well, because at one point in my life I had four bonsai (including a beautiful black pine) I took care of; I also ended up killing them from neglect during a crazy work period at Apple, of course.

So getting myself another bonsai has been in the back of my mind for a long time as well, but I’ve waited until I was sure I was ready to not neglect them again. I’m still pondering whether I want to dive back into live bonsai, but until I do, at least now I have this to sit on my desk and stare at when I’m pondering life’s deep issues.

There will be more Lego builds in the future, I think.