"Keep a Journal: How else are you going to get a good look at who you were?"

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

I know, I know...I'm cutting my "one per month" deadline a little close here.

What be up?

Lessee...I'm currently suffering from "a touch of concussion". A 150lb box fell on my head at work. I had no immediate effects then, but MAN is my head feeling funky now! I also discovered the static grounding on the new Hyster clamp truck(s) HBC has acquired is somewhat less than 100% effective. My fingers are STILL tingling...

All in all, minor misfortunes aside, it was a most productive day. Our lead hand Grant G prooved he can be quite a disturber when he came by the container Michael and I were working on to claim than Sunni and Satnam were "kicking you guys @sses!". Uh-huh. Guess who finished their container FIRST? Yep...we did.

Sunni is a good driver. He's not accustomed to driving the clamp the way we use them in Xdock - yet. I figure it will take him a couple of days to get up to speed. As for me...well, I pretty much have the new machine in hand; but I still have to focus rather intently on what I'm doing. The Hyster control system isn't as precise as the Raymond, so it takes a little more "fiddling" to get the truck where you want it. The control also requires a pretty light touch: any inadvertent hand movement on the throttle can result in the machine and/or load doing something unintentional...and possibly unfortunate. (ie: the lift control is activated using the X-axis and the throttle is activated on the Y-axis of the stick. Do Not get the two confused.)

My Father In Law Bob.

He's awesome.

Give ya the shirt off his back.

Remember how I mentioned previously that Bob had noted that our tub needed to be re-caulked? He was right about that; and I got it done in a timely manner, thanks to his warning. He also helped me move about a TON of junk (much of it Granpa's) out of our garage and shop. We have now achieved the Impossible Dream of every Canadian homeowner: we can actually park our car in the garage. No, it's actually true! I may have to post pictures...

One of the last things Bob did as we wrapped up the garage clean-up was to check out the north shop wall. This is the wall directly below the join between the garage roof and the deck. This is where all the water was coming down from the leaky garage roof; before we had Brad and Classic Wood Restorations replace the garage roof as part of the deck repair job. At the time, Brad pointed out that there was probably enough water infiltration to cause the wood to rot, and he warned us that we shouldn't wait too long to check the wall for damage.

Well, we finally did.

We found dry rot...lots of it.

I start hyperventilating when I see stuff like that. I thought for certain that we were going to have to call Brad again and drop a couple of Gs on getting that wall torn out and replaced.

Bob and I got it done for about 50$. Took two days. I now know that I could have undertaken this project myself...but it would have taken ME forever to finish. Bob doesn't like to putz around with a project. He prefers to get things done. He also has a lot of really GREAT toys...

Nailing up all that framing would have taken a lot longer...so we didn't use any nails. Bob owns all of the following:

-A compressor (portable).

-A wire brad nail gun.

-A heavy staple gun.

-A light staple gun.

-A high torque screw gun.

Boy oh BOY! Did all that save a lot of time! We found that about 4ft of the beam supporting the deck and the garage roof had rotted away. The beam was cobbled together by the house's original owner, Mr Fred Biollo. Fred used a 12' 2x8" plank for the facing of the beam on the garage side...and 2x8 scraps nailed to the face plank with 4" framing spikes on the shop side. Those scrap pieces were what rotted (thanks to Fred's masterful job of roofing the garage), and Bob and I found five joists across the deck which were sagging because the joist ends had NO support. We cut out the rotted sections of the beam, and replaced them with fresh 2x8" plank. The wall header was 3 2x4" s, which we replaced with a section of 2x6". A single 2x4" header and two 2x4" bases formed the top and bottom of the new wall. All the framing is held together with 2 1/2" deck screws. The joists were re-hung with new hangers and 2" deck screws. I did the joist hangers myself just to save Bob the trouble. I had only one good #2 roberts bit...so I had to be carefull: I started each screw with the ratcheting driver...sunk it almost all the way with the drill...and tightened each with a 1/4" ratchet wrench. 50 screws...took me only 90 minutes. I WISH Bob had left me that screw gun...and some extra bits.

I snorted a lot of dust during the two days of that reno project.

It bit me on the ass come Monday.

I had some minor sinus and throat irritation on Monday.

It progressed to sinus infection, cough and mild bronchitis on Tuesday.

Today is ear infection and laryngitis on top of the previous.

I'm still going to work tomorrow...why? Because I have the week of May 7th off. Call me crazy, but I would feel...stupid...taking sick days 1 week before a paid vacation. I'm fully medicated at the moment, and coping adequately. However, I'll still bail out of work and come home if I start getting feverish. I should be so lucky...