Month: February 2008

2008-02-23 21:16:23′, ‘

Even though he did not get to race his car in the finals he still got 3rd place for Show (For some reason the Scouts call it Concourse). The reason we probably did so well was that you get a couple extra points if you have a Scout theme on the car. So we had glued an old patch to it. Otherwise it was totally an Eddie design from how it was cut to the color scheme. Next year Eddie wants to make a car that will win both the Race and the Show prizes.’, ‘Eddie took 3rd Place for Show in the Cub Scout Bears PineWood Derby District Finals’

2008-02-17 14:16:50′, ‘2008-02-17 18:16:50’, ‘

In our back yard, there was a pine tree that grew ThisClose to another tree. It died about 10 years ago and for the last 4 years has been leaning over more and more. So I decided that I needed to cut it down. I got my electric Chain saw plugged in and was working on cutting the wedge of wood from the tree so the tree would fall in the right spot. After some cutting, I saw the wedge break free from the tree, and I pulled the chainsaw out. The tree cracked and leaned over and pinched the wedge into its slot. The tree did not fall down. The wedge would not come out. I was bummed. I tried a crowbar on the wedge. I tried to knock it out with a sledge hammer and a long bar. The wedge was wedged. My tree felling instructions really wanted the wedge removed so that the tree would fall in the right direction when I did the cut on the back of the tree. So I started to cut at the wedge with the chainsaw. As I cut at it, the tree would make a little crack, I would step back with the chainsaw and the tree would not fall. This happened a couple of times so I cut at the wedge a little deeper. This time the tree did not warn me with a little crack noise when it shifted. It also pinched my chainsaw in the the slot with the wedge wedged on top of it with the whole tree on top of that. I was bummed. I yanked at it, wiggled it. It would not budge. If the tree fell now it might fold my chansaw bar right over. Which is why I did not go get my brand new Christmas chainsaw to try and rescue it. I went to my wood shop and got some long wood chisels and started chipping away the wedge above the chainsaw. I discovered that trying to watch the tree, the end of the chisel, the base of the chisel, the hammer and planning my escape route was too many things to watch and think about simultaneously. The end result of which was the hammer striking my hand a number of times. Like ouchie. After about 15 minutes of this. I was able to pull the chainsaw out. I decided to forget about the wedge and go for the backside cut. The tree fell right where I wanted it to. Yay! This little 3 minute adventure only took me about an hour and a half to complete along with a sore hand. I hope that all my future trees are much simpler.

2008-02-05 03:55:00′, ‘

Nick had a problem this morning. He heard a thumping about 6am and went to yell at Chris who wasn’t up yet. It was coming from the bathroom where Brenda was banging the trashcan on the floor because she was too weak to yell. And for some reason Brenda feels a need to lock the bathroom door at 6 in the morning. So anyway Nick has to go find the key to unlock the door and found her lying on the floor hugging the rug. According to the Appendicitis entry at Wikipedia, if she had an inflamed appendix which lies on the psoas muscle then the patient will lie with the right hip flexed for pain relief. She tells him to call 911. Nick takes her to the Hospital in one of his snow plow trucks with the lights flashing. The doctors there decide that she has broken her Appendix. So hers probably looked something like this. I don’t know much about what happened next but She underwent surgery and seems to have survived. She will be allowed to go home on Tuesday afternoon to experience all her post surgical pain. Nick has asked the Doctor to save the video of the operation. When he gets it, you will be able to watch it here. There is also a good chance that she will be able to take the little black piece of appendix finger home in a jar so they can display it over the new Television. That would be cool.