Trippin in St Pete

[2tallbill]

Tuesday 11/22/2022

Note: I don't recommend that others share all the personal stuff that I am sharing.
There are too many freaks out there in cyberspace, that get off on causing people
grief.

I very much appreciate all the well wishers and those sending positivity my way.

They bolted my head to some sort of plate (they don't want you moving during brain surgery)
and hacked out the tumor in a procedure that took over 8 hours. Then they transferred me into 
a bed in the ICU and that's when I started my charm campaign to get out of the hospital and
back to my home.

Obviously, I wasn't ready yet. They were busy feeding massive amounts of drugs through my
system through IV lines into my body. I was on steroids to keep my brain from swelling, and
anti seizure medications. The hospital is probably the best place on Earth if you are seeking
to catch a gnarly infection. So they were pouring antibiotics in me as well.

I was intubated during surgery, which is not nearly as sexy as it sounds, now my voice sounds
like a 92 year old man with emphysema.

I have some new scars that qualify me for immediate consideration for Hollywood acting roles
where dystopian mutants take over the world. If I can find a midget to ride on my back, I could
play in the next Mad Maxx Thunder Dome sequel.

I needed this like I needed another hole in my head........................ but guess what?!?!
I actually HAVE ANOTHER HOLE IN MY HEAD!

My wife loves me, and I am getting stronger every day. I estimate my strength right now
as being able to beat most 6 year old girls in arm wrestling without cheating. I am strictly
forbidden from head butting anyone if I do lose and I have been advised not to sleep directly
on the new hole in my head.

[Chelseaboy]

Really sorry to see what's happened to you Bill.


You're one of the good guys so hang in there for your family and for yourself,and your family will give you the strength you need to do that.


Wishing you all the best.

[Hammer2722]

Glad to see you got through your surgery Bill, and with your sense of humor intact!!!! Get well....

[2tallbill]

Really sorry to see what's happened to you Bill.


You're one of the good guys so hang in there for your family and for yourself, and your family will give you the strength you need to do that.


Wishing you all the best.

Don't feel sorry for me, I am living the dream. My wife loves, loves, loves me.
The big 1/2 baseball sized toad stool is level one benign. There is some level
two stuff, I Googled that like a madman but I won't know more until the
oncologist passes out their prognostications.

[Grumpy]

 Did they remove any of the stubbornness? Listen to the docs and your wife, get well fast.

[Chelseaboy]

Don't feel sorry for me, I am living the dream. My wife loves, loves, loves me.
The big 1/2 baseball sized toad stool is level one benign. There is some level
two stuff, I Googled that like a madman but I won't know more until the
oncologist passes out their prognostications.

My dad had a benign tumour at the back of his Brain in his fifties.


The operation to remove it was a success but left a hole in the back of his head.


He was offered the chance by  the surgeons to then have a metal plate inserted to cover the hole .but he never bothered to have that done.

[Trenchcoat]

Don't feel sorry for me, I am living the dream. My wife loves, loves, loves me.
The big 1/2 baseball sized toad stool is level one benign. There is some level
two stuff, I Googled that like a madman but I won't know more until the
oncologist passes out their prognostications.

Good to hear you got through the surgery and all went well Bill, I'm glad that it did for you. Any remaining issues I'm sure they'll sort out, luckily more stuff they can do these days than years ago. I was surprised to see a quick recovery so far. Odds are the surgery has given many more years to you so good for you on that. For now on the plus side you'll likely be able to enjoy Christmas with your family so look forward to that. Happy holidays

[2tallbill]

My dad had a benign tumour at the back of his Brain in his fifties.


The operation to remove it was a success but left a hole in the back of his head.


He was offered the chance by  the surgeons to then have a metal plate inserted to cover the hole .but he never bothered to have that done.

A titanium plate in my head was the original plan, but once they found tumor growing into the bone
they changed plans on the fly and used a titanium mesh (think screen door) to cover the new hole
in my head and screwed it off. See the attached artist drawing, NOTE: He is a better brain surgeon
than he is at drawing portraits. 

[BC]

With some luck, you might be able to hear to your local radio station without a radio.  I hope it's one you enjoy

[2tallbill]

With some luck, you might be able to hear to your local radio station without a radio. 
I hope it's one you enjoy

I still need a radio to hear the local stations, I am still allowed to be a butthead,
but I have been forbidden from head butting. Hopefully, I can remember to keep
the two of them straight.

ne sejchas = not now

[BC]

2tall,

I suspect frequent collision with door jambs is more of an issue, maybe the culprit.  Were they able to sand down a couple of inches to give a bit more headroom?

[2tallbill]

2tall,

I suspect frequent collision with door jambs is more of an issue, maybe the culprit.  Were they able to sand down a couple of inches to give a bit more headroom?

They didn't sand my head, but you are correct, door jambs, door closers, ceiling fans and
chandeliers, have all cracked my head a couple hundred times each. I've left blood and fur
(hair) on too many garage doors closers to count. I used my head as a battering ram while
wearing a football helmet countless times as well. 

[ML]

By code, upper door jambs are supposed to be 6 foot 8 inches.

[2tallbill]

By code, upper door jambs are supposed to be 6 foot 8 inches.

Older houses, carpeting and a pad on top of the hardwood floors and
back in the days before I began chasing Russian women, I wore shoes
in the house, I usually ducked but sometimes I didn't.

[Bee Farmer]

By code, upper door jambs are supposed to be 6 foot 8 inches.

What about the lower jambs?  What if I measure from the top of the jam to the floor?  Is that considered the lower jamb?

Door jambs are the 2 vertical sides of a doorframe.

[BC]

Door jambs are the 2 vertical sides of a doorframe.

I've often heard of the horizontal part at the top being referred to as a "head jamb", or "header".  Both are appropriate names I reckon.

[ML]

I read in a construction book that if a person can correctly build steps, they can probably correctly do anything required to construct a house.

Well, I did it.

As I recall . . . there were several 'tricky' steps . . . three of which were:
1) realizing that the top step was different from others because you were (at that point) stepping up onto tongue and groove plywood rather than another oak step.
2) similar for stepping from last step down onto plywood rather than another step.
3) determining where to stop the flooring above the steps.  This is where  the same code requirement came in that there must be 6 feet 8 inches from the critical step up to the flooring (or whatever) above.
A crew was framing up and kept bugging me to tell them where to stop the flooring above the future steps to lower level.
I kept furiously calculating and told them of the 6 foot 8  inch rule.  The head guy said: "how many 6 foot 8 inch people are going to be using these steps?"

Later one of the workers told me privately, that they always had to call in a specialist to determine how to build steps (rise and run) and solve this overhead problem.

Subsequently . . . as I entered friend's homes, I always looked at the head clearence going up or down steps.    Many of them did not meet code.

[2tallbill]

I read in a construction book that if a person can correctly build steps, they can probably correctly do anything required to construct a house.

Correctly building stairs is advanced carpentry for sure. A complicated roof where you
had several pitches that met at different places always looked difficult.


In the window factory I worked in. Windows with compound radii especially where they
had compound radii meeting different compound radii. Those were considered difficult.


I was never good enough to frame that roof or build one of those windows. I knew my
limitations and would defer to those who knew their trade better than I did.

[krimster2]

when I lived on the East Coast, a lot of the 19th/early 20th century houses
were build by ship-wrights in the off boat building season

they built with an amazingly high level of woodworking skill (and all with hand tools)
as machines do more and more, people are gonna know less and less about this level of craftmanship...
and instead of craftmen being highly paid,
they'll instead be a laborer with little human capital to leverage

this is what America's owners want!
the commodization of all labor
and mass production of all products

[Trenchcoat]

I've built my own stairs and also constructed pre-cut ones. Building your own stairs, mine was a straight flight, is pretty tricky. Fortunately both stairs finished at floor level with all the risers of equal height. Even the pre-cut ones were tricky as again I needed to do exacting measurements to get it in to fit right, that included working out the number of treads. Turned out there was only one combination that fitted in ok, any other way and it be a banging head/screwing up room space moment.

In fairness I was aided by the company I bought my stairs from in the UK, Stairbox as they have an online tool where you can adjust tread & riser sizes and can do top and/or bottom winders, left/right, etc Still takes a lot of working out, one oversight and you risk ordering stairs that may be useless/a big problem to install, so would be a potentially expensive mistake.

Those windows are interesting Bill, I have some knowledge of basic geometry, did a little Stonemasonry training a number of years ago. Never really went into it but was useful for other stuff. The roof & windows aren't as difficult as they might first appear. For instance to get the rafters to meet at the centre point just but a level beam across on the wall and put a post up on n the centre, then just measure the top of the post down to the out edge. Much the same with the windows, just mark the centre point drawn up to desired height and then an arch over to the bottom of where you want the arch to go both sides.

A lot of drawing stuff like that or anything geometric is much the same process over and over. It's all just splitting it up by marking off points, centre points so you've find a point to work from to draw it all out

[Daveman]

Damn Bill.. I missed this... glad you came through this surgery ok.  Are you out of the woods now?

[krimster2]

Bill now has one of those stained glass windows he's shown above in the back of his head...
to keep the bright sun off his brain and the wind and rain out
cuz frankly, Bill would need those things, like he'd need another hole in his head...

I'm sorry Bill, too soon???
hey, anyone here from Jersey?
don't forget to get your parking comped at the bar!

[2tallbill]

Bill now has one of those stained glass windows he's shown above in the back of his head...
to keep the bright sun off his brain and the wind and rain out
cuz frankly, Bill would need those things, like he'd need another hole in his head...

I'm sorry Bill, too soon???
hey, anyone here from Jersey?
don't forget to get your parking comped at the bar!

Always enjoy your humor Krimster!

[2tallbill]

Damn Bill.. I missed this... glad you came through this surgery ok.  Are you out of the woods now?

I've got radiation coming down the pike still. Hopefully, I won't glow in the dark, it will be
too hard to sneak up on my wife at night.

[krimster2]

which has less side effetcs, radiation or chemo, why do they treat you one way and not the other????
you weren't in the military right, so you don't have VA or Tri-care?
what's the insurance hassle like?

BTW, almost 3 yr ago my wife had emergency chest surgery in San Jose, Costa Rica...
Closest hospital was the main municipal one and my driver almost drove through the front lobby to get there...

until she was stable, my wife spent a week there
then moved to the second biggest hospital in San Jose, Costa Rica, a private one, where I could buy her a private room + treatment for like $2k per week
until she improved enough to fly her back to the USA and into a USA hospital straight from the airport
and she used the health insurance she bought as a group plan for her chain of skin care salons

in the municipal Costa Rican hospital everything was free!
both ICUs were just like in the USA
staffed by very HQ doctors, some from US medical schools and so spoke PERFECT ENGLISH
they SAVED MY WIFE'S LIFE
but my wife is also INCREDIBLY STRONG!!!

BTW, many of you don't believe the above story is true, so here's the DEAL...
I GOT ALL THE RECEIPTS to prove it, but they're in Spanish of course!!!
but you can easily read the hospital reports... comprende?

so I put my receipts against, ummmm, what, what are you offering?
if nothing, then YOU don't get to challenge my story
and it stands AS FACT!

otherwise, if I'm willing to "show you mine"
why you ain't willin to do the same?
huh Willis???

any takers?
cuz I'm gonna call BS on all the people calling BS on ME!
but "without having skin in the game" like I'm willing to do...
you ain't even gonna be allowed to play
so either play or fold...

but I GOT the receipts and cards
and only a total fool would bet against it
and shheeeeettt, that's at least HALF ya'all