2019: We Are Making a Difference!
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Pam--That is hilarious. I'm stealing it for Facebook.
The Cruze celebrated its 3rd anniversary with me by taking me to get a cortisone shot, Lowes, and then topped it off with its tire rotation, oil change and state inspection. Back to the ortho in March but the Cruze is good until May unless something unforeseen happens. One of us is in better shape than the other. Stopped at the Vet to get Midnight's prescription dry food. Can't leave him out!!0 -
I had to look twice to see the cat in the statue’s lap. She looks right at home. I was scheduled for PT at 4. Just before noon, I got a call about a cancellation at 12:40 and was asked if I wanted to switch. Didn’t have to ask twice. They probably called me first since 4 was the last appointment of the day. I’m just down the street so it worked out for m. I used the time I would have been hanging around to go off island for a haircut, lunch at Panera and a bit of shopping.
DH has a hearing appointment tomorrow so we’ll be off island again. I’ll see if I can work in a manicure then. My nails are so long I’m afraid they’ll break if I don’t get them done soon.
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I loved the look on the dog’s face, lol!
Helene, since I started doing the dipping powder nails, my nails just don’t break anymore. I have never liked very long nails, so I go about every 3 weeks because by that time they are getting so long I can’t do much without feeling like they are getting in my way. I really like the dipping powder. I think my nails are healthier than they were with the gel process, and they are definitely more durable.
This is a slow week for me. I’m meeting a friend for lunch tomorrow and having friends over Friday afternoon to work on knitting projects. I guess I’ll have to clean house before they show up, too, so I guess I do have a few things to do. I’m not an expert knitter by any means, but I am more experienced than my friends who are coming over. Our friend who is an expert knitter is still in Michigan taking care of her parents who are in their 90’s. She’s been there since last June with no end in sight. We all miss her so much, and I know she would like to come home, but doesn’t feel she can leave her parents. They have help that comes in during the daytime to help them, but she has been unable to hire anyone to help them at night. It’s a small community with very limited resources, so she’s stuck. At this point, she doesn’t even feel they could handle being moved to assisted living, even if they would agree to go. When they brought that up a year or so ago, her father said if they made them move he would stop taking his heart medications, so she and her sister gave up on that idea. It’s a classic no-win situation. I hate that she’s missing time with her grandchildren who all love here, as well as missing all her friends and life here. She certainly deserves the good daughter award. The other sister comes occasionally, but apparently lacks the patience to deal with them long-term, so it falls to my friend to take care of everything.0 -
What a sad situation your friend is in with her parents. Has she been able to come home for a visit? She definitely deserves the good daughter award. What are you knitting? I tried to take up knitting a few years ago unsuccessfully.
DH has a hearing aid appointment today. The audiologist tweaks it each visit. She explained that she increases the sensitivity of the aids gradually with feedback from the patient. It would be too stressful to set them at maximum amplification when a patient hasn’t been hearing certain tones for many years. She gradually brings back the missing tones. I’m hoping to get a manicure on our way back home. I usually go 4 weeks before a redo. I.m a bit beyond that because of having company. As Pam says, they are very durable and healthier than they were with the gel finish. But they are too long now for typing.0 -
Helene, I don’t think she’s been home since she went up there last June. Her husband comes and goes, spending a few weeks up there, then going off on trips with friends all over the country. Her daughter and family have been up a couple of times and her son and family went once. Her son and daughter run the family business, so getting away can be difficult for them. I really think her parents have been very selfish in not recognizing that they wouldn’t be able to stay in their home without live in help, and realizing that in their small community that it would be difficult if not impossible to find such help. Refusing to move in spite of these obstacles to me is very selfish on their part.
I currently have 3 knitting projects on my needles. The one I am in a hurry to finish is a baby cocoon or snuggle sack that I am knitting for a neighbor’s daughter. The baby is due in about 3 weeks, so I’ve got to get it done. I’m close to finishing it, and may have time to make a matching hat and mittens. I’ve also got a scarf going on another set of needles and a poncho on another. The last two projects were started more than a year ago but I just haven’t been really motivated to finish either one. I noticed a mistake on the poncho that I think will require me to rip out a few rows in order to correct it, so I’m not eager to go back to that one.0 -
Pam - your friend certainly does win the good daughter award.
My paternal grandmother took my dad and uncle aside at one point and told them that when she needed to go into a home they were to just do it, whatever she said. They did what they could to keep her in her home (they both lived in the same small town she did) but when the time came they did what needed to be done.0 -
Helene - here's some information on exercise and high blood pressure: https://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/fitness_articles.asp?id=7010
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65 degrees yesterday; 35 degrees right now.
It is more difficult to find a responsible person to take care of someone than people think. Some of the highly touted services are not available in rural areas. My mother and I discussed this issue long before it was ever needed. She knew that I would be unable to handle it and having gone through it with my father, she didn't want me to do the same.
As it developed, she had a medical issue, went into the hospital and was in a coma for two weeks and then went into a skilled nursing unit. I had previously put my name on a waiting list for a respected and highly touted nursing facility
As it turned out, the day the hospital notified me that she would have to be released as Medicare would no longer pay as she was exceeding the permitted days. The nursing facility called me on the same day and she was transferred where she stayed for a month until she died.
Having been through this with two parents, I know that there will be no one to take care of me so the only hope will be a nursing home....and those differ so much in quality and care.0 -
Pam, you must be a good knitter to make those kinds of things. I only tried a scarf. My problem was it got narrower as I got down several inches. I was knitting tighter as it went along. I headed south so I couldn’t go to the group anymore. It seemed like a good place to stop. So I have a half finished skinny scarf. LOL
I agree those parents are very selfish. Your friend must be pretty stressed over being away from her home for so long. I’d be surprised if she wasn’t getting resentful of their demands. Many caregivers end up sick themselves from stress of taking care of sick or elderly relatives. Her sister ought to step up and give her a break so she can go home for at least a week. She needs to step it up and do more to help. If the parents have daytime help, the sister only needs enough patience to get through dinner until bedtime. Plus her parents must have had plenty of times when the sister was growing up when she tried their patience.
I have PT in an hour so I’ll stop here0 -
I’m probably somewhere above a beginner at knitting, but below intermediate level. There are a lot of skills I still want to learn, such as how to knit cables, and shaping a garment, such as armholes and sleeves, etc. However, my friends that I’ll be helping are pretty much complete beginners, so I think I can help with their projects.
My friend’s parents require some help with medical issues at night, so that makes it more complicated to find a person who can stay with them. She is a retired nurse (she was a Director of Nursing at our local hospital when she retired) so she is qualified to provide the care they need. I think that also makes her very particular about screening and training any potential candidates for the job. The sister does come and help out but apparently isn’t able to come and stay long term as my friend has done. She and her husband own a house across the street from her parents, so she does have her own space during the daytime, but she has been sleeping at her parents’ home at night. I think she will be home for a couple of weeks sometime soon to take care of medical appointments, which at her age of 71 years old, is important. Realistically, as long as 1 or both of her parents are alive, I think this will be her life.0 -
I have visited more than one family member in a nursing home and the scenes haunt me still. I will not go into a nursing home. We have several guns in this house. Connect the dots.0
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All the school districts surrounding us are on a two hour delay because of the cold and icy roads. Are we? No! Oh well! I so dislike Winter because of its danger!0
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That’s crazy that your district didn’t delay for icy conditions. Where I’m from, school canceled a few times on the prediction of heavy snow. They have to decide to go or no at 5 Am. The superintendent explained if they waited until things got bad, children would be on the road by then. Most times they made the right call but a couple times the snow didn’t come. But better safe than sorry.0
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It turned out that the school made the right decision. The superintendent personally travels the roads to make the decision by 4:30 so the notifications can go out when she returns. The roads weren't that bad in our area but I couldn't see them in the dark and since the other counties were delaying, I decided to play it safe.
I did take advantage of the day to take care of the will and power of attorney changes as he called this morning and asked me to come in today if possible as he would be in court tomorrow.
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Good to know the superintendent tested out the roads and was making a good decision. And you made good use of your time after you decided to stay home.0
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Waiting for the snow to move in tomorrow, a day I had scheduled an appointment in the city. There are two sections of that road that have construction going on because of collapse so the berm has to be used. So much for the hair color and cut. Did I mention I hate Winter?0
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We are expecting snow tomorrow, too. Not a blizzard or anything so hopefully everything will be dug out by Monday morning when people need to go to work.
I'm hoping to take my best friend to dinner this week (assuming she's still off work) to hopefully lift her spirits a little. She says this may speed up her retirement. I suspect it's going to cost the government a lot of good employees. You just can't treat people like this when employers are so much in need of workers and not expect many of them to move on.0 -
Maryanne--Good move on your part to cheer up your friend. People should not be used as bargaining chips. This will have wide spread consequences that those in charge have not considered.
I'm really afraid to go to the city tomorrow. The road I have to take has one section that wass damaged by oil and gas equipment and then the non-stop rains washed out part of the underlying support. They are repairing it but the equipment is sitting on most of the other lane. As a result, traffic has to use a soil and gravel berm. That isn't my idea of something safe in snow.0 -
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Jean - uh really????0
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Today is Alexander Hamilton's birthday and Hamilton opens tonight in Puerto Rico. They are hoping to raise millions for relief efforts (which they'll need if the orange cheeto manages to steal disaster relief funds for his wall).
Apparently Starbucks is doing a special promotion today. Whoever Starbucks hired to write their twitter feed is a hoot
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I can't believe that person would take Puerto Rico's immediate need funding to help build a wall that will take 20 years to build. Puerto Rico was wiped out in a day. He is a dictator, a tyrant! He make think he is acting out of the nation's need for security but this is not well considered. When he first piped up with this idea and said Mexico would pay for it, common sense would tell people that a country could not force another country to pay for something like that.0
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4 hrs and 51 minutes of exercise so far this week. As usual when I increase exercise, I gain weight as I'm up a pound.0
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Jean, I agree with you about the current White House occupant. He’s behaving more and more like a third world dictator. As far as the wall, I read an article yesterday written by an expert in the field of structural engineering who discussed the many problems involved in building a wall such as he wants. She stated that the design plans thus far have not included any structural analysis, which is required for many reasons, chiefly safety as well as feasibility. She also pointed out that within 10 years, drone technology is projected to have advanced enough to be able to lift a person over a wall and deposit them on the other side. Failing that, she states that all a determined person needs is a 32 foot ladder and a way to cover the top of the wall as they climb over. She made many other points about the ridiculousness of this proposed wall, but those were the ones that stuck in my mind. There were also many points about the cost of this idiocy, which if he succeeds, will far exceed 25 billion dollars.0
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This is long, but here’s the complete post I was citing above.
Howdy.
To recap: I’m a licensed structural and civil engineer with a MS in structural engineering from the top program in the nation and over a decade of experience on high-performance projects, and particularly of cleaning up design disasters where the factors weren’t properly accounted for, and I’m an adjunct professor of structural analysis and design at UH-Downtown. I have previously been deposed as an expert witness in matters regarding proper construction of walls and the various factors associated therein, and my testimony has passed Daubert.
Am I a wall expert? I am. I am literally a court-accepted expert on walls.
Structurally and civil engineering-wise, the border wall is not a feasible project. Trump did not hire engineers to design the thing. He solicited bids from contractors, not engineers. This means it’s not been designed by professionals. It’s a disaster of numerous types waiting to happen.
What disasters?
Off the top of my head...
1) It will mess with our ability to drain land in flash flooding. Anything impeding the ability of water to get where it needs to go (doesn’t matter if there are holes in the wall or whatever) is going to dramatically increase the risk of flooding.
2) Messes with all kind of stuff ecologically. For all other projects, we have to do an Environmental Site Assessment, which is arduous. They’re either planning to circumvent all this, or they haven’t accounted for it yet, because that’s part of the design process, and this thing hasn’t been designed.
3) The prototypes they came up with are nearly impossible to build or don’t actually do the job. This article explains more:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.engineering.com/amp/17599.html
And so on.
The estimates provided for the cost are arrived at unreasonably. You can look for yourself at the two-year-old estimate that you see everyone citing.
http://fronterasdesk.org/sites/default/files/field/docs/2016/07/Bernstein- The Trump Wall.pdf
It does not account for rework, complexities beyond the prototype design, factors to prevent flood and environmental hazard creation, engineering redesign... It’s going to be higher than $50bn. The contractors will hit the government with near CONSTANT change orders. “Cost overrun” will be the name of the game. It will not be completed in Trump’s lifetime.
I’m a structural forensicist, which means I’m called in when things go wrong. This is a project that WILL go wrong. When projects go wrong, the original estimates are just *obliterated*. And when that happens, good luck getting it fixed, because there aren’t that many forensicists out there to right the ship, particularly not that are willing to work on a border wall project— a large quotient of us are immigrants, and besides, we can’t afford to bid on jobs that are this political. We’re small firms, and we’re already busy, and we don’t gamble our reputations on political footballs. So you’d end up with a revolving door of contractors making a giant, uncoordinated muddle of things, and it’d generally be a mess. Good money after bad. The GAO agrees with me.
And it won’t be effective. I could, right now, purchase a 32 foot extension ladder and weld a cheap custom saddle for the top of the proposed wall so that I can get over it. I don’t know who they talked to about the wall design and its efficacy, but it sure as heck wasn’t anybody with any engineering imagination.
Another thing: we are not far from the day where inexpensive drones will be able to pick up and carry someone. This will happen in the next ten years, and it’s folly to think that the coyotes who ferry people over the border won’t purchase or create them. They’re low enough, quiet enough, and small enough to quickly zip people over any wall we could build undetected with our current monitoring setup.
Let’s have border security, by all means, but let’s be smart about it. This is not smart. It’s not effective. It’s NOT cheap. The returns will be diminishing as technology advances, too. This is a ridiculous idea that will never be successfully executed and, as such, would be a monumental waste of money. 🤷🏻♀️
This is set to public. Have a blast sharing it.0 -
Thanks for that information, Pam.
I also read that Texas landowners are already geared up to fight him in court. There is no public land at the border. No strip of public land where a wall could go. Someone owns the land. That means the government would have to try to assert eminent domain.
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