2018 November 4

Another week has passed quickly. On the health front, I have stopped going to physical therapy as of last Monday. I can just continue doing what they have taught me. I have been doing it this past week and I hope to continue as I just add it into my regular exercise regiment that I do every day.

I am now back to work full time and not just 8 hours a day. This means that I am back on call. Normally I am on call every third week, but it was extended by a few days. We have a company phone that we affectionately call either the “Football” or the “Brick”. It is where all of the alerts go when we have an interface that is not working. I will not say that is antiquated, but I found them on eBay for $11. I was surprised that they were selling for that much.

We have been using the same model of phone for the 6 years that I have been on call at the hospital. They have replaceable batteries and also have a flashlight in them. They also have a Walky-talky mode in them. Other than that, they are “Dumb Phones”.

After going out to dinner last night, I noticed that the “Football” was not on. I could not find the “On” button. Somehow it got either turned off or ran out of power. After trying to find the “On” button in vain, I had to look up the manual on line. It was the RED End button that was the “On” button on the regular key pad. I was successful in bringing it up after that.

I had to change my password at work this past week which I have to do every 6 months. Last time I tried to figure out what password to use and I had a hard time coming up with something and to be able to remember it. YRMC requires a good password which means at least one upper and one lower case character, a number, and a special character of some sort. It can be a word or a phase. I finally realized that I could use a scripture reference for it. My expired password was Matthew5:14. All I had to do was remember the phase “Ye are the light of the world.” I will not tell you what the new one is. I suggest that this would be a good way of keeping track of a password and it will burn it into your mind as you use it.

New hobbies:

I was drying the wood that I turned last week so that I could put it into a project. Wood is normally usable in projects when it is between 8 to 12 percent water. It needs to be close to 0 percent when used with the Alumilite resin. The only way to determine if it is dry is to weigh it before it goes into the toaster oven and then every so often weigh it again. When it stops losing weight, it is out of water.  I ended up heating it in my toaster oven for about 30 hours.

Next, I had to figure out how much resin I needed to fill the mold. The easiest way that I have discovered it to put the wood in the mold and then fill it with rice. I then take the rice out and measure how much space it used. This then tells me how much resin I need since I do not want to waste it or not have enough. It is about $100 a gallon. It took 20 ounces to fill it.

I finally remembered to put the mold release into the mold before I put the wood back in. I mixed up the resin, added some coloring dye to it, mixed it and poured it into the mold. I had 7 minutes to get it into the pressure pot and I was happy that I got the pressure pot and the air compressor ready before hand. Finally, in about 5 minutes I had it in the pressure pot and it was pressurized. I opened it 4 hours later and it will be ready to turn next weekend. It should wait a day or two to cure before I turn it. I did not have any bubbling of the resin, so it was dry. Pictures next week when It is turned.

These are from the card I sent my sister Pat.

I hope that you all have a good week.

Randy