Saturday, April 19, 2008
My Simpson
So after seeing it on someone elses blog I decided to "simpsonize" myself (http://www.simpsonsmovie.com/). I probably could have spent more time on it, well I really couldn't spend the time that I did. But oh well.
Friday, April 18, 2008
The Adventure of a Physicist and an Engineer
Well, here we have it again. I am a physicist and my neighbor is an engineer. It seems that whenever one of us asks the other a question of some sort it ends up being some day long project that prevents either of us from doing whatever chore our wives originally asked us to do. Last Saturday, the unimaginable project of the day was fixing the leaky spillcock on the front of my house. When I first thought of the title of this entry I thought about doing in the style of the "Walrus and the Carpenter" for those of you who remember Alice in Wonderland. Anyway, given that my newborn baby is still in the NICU and I am extremely tired I'll just relate what I can remember of it at this point.
So it all starts with the fact that for the past 4 years the spillcock on the front of my house has dripped. For the past four years I've provided water (the spillcock) and a litter box (my kids sandbox) for the stray cats of the neighborhood. Those days had to end. While I don't really know how to end the litter box issue (aside from letting my great dane roam the yard as much as possible) I knew I could fix the spillcock which would also save some money. I was a little reluctant to do this because I knew that the drippy exterior faucet was doing it's part to keep global warming in check, but darn it, scientists are just going to have to find another way!
So I started to disassemble the spillcock and when it didn't come apart as I expected (or at all for that matter) I began to wonder if there was something I didn't know about how they are put together and decided to ask my neighbor P, the engineer.
It turns out P was not having the best engineering day that day... Earlier in the morning at P's house he had been refilling his something like 30 gallon, industrial strength, hospital quality humidifier that somebody else thought was a good item for DI because it had a broken valve. Well, a broken valve is easy enough for any engineer to take care of I'm sure P would tell you. What P forgot to tell himself was that the huge tank he'd just filled up and left in his bathroom has a simple bouyant lever arm that opens or closes the valve depending on its orientation. So when P noticed water dripping down into his basement the last thing on his mind was the great jug of liquid he'd left so simply upstairs. It did however come to his mind after he'd ensured that the kids hadn't been forcing water through cracks in the foundation of his house. By that time, his kids had vowed to never touch a hose again under the pressure of the inquisition and inches of water had been retained in the bathroom. P had just finished taking care of that and was bringing his wet vac outside to empty when I approached him that morning. It was a simple problem he told me. Of course, it would be for an engineer I told myself.
Well, if I'd known how P had started out the morning I might have left it at that. But with P digging out all his toys that we like to play with (including walkie-talkies and head strap flashlights), I was too excited to worry about that. We decided that the spillcock should have dissasembled how I expected it too, and therefore probably was not a "freeze-proof" model like I thought it was. The idea now was to very carefully clamp onto the pipe inside the house while turning the spillcock outside the house so as to remove it without busting any joints that had been swetted or breaking any pipes that might be brittle. Well, the first quarter turn brought a loud "pop!" I said that can't be good into my walkie-talkie. "It's probably just an old crusty pipe thread starting to turn," said P. Yeah, we popped the swetted joint inside the wall, and it was by the way a freeze-proof spillcock.
No biggie. I'm a physicist and he's an engineer.
So this prompted a tour of P's basement and exterior wall where we examined what he had done when installing his own outdoor water access and then came up with a war plan to replace mine. The war plan was based around going to the "candy store". For people like P and myself the name of the "candy store" is Harbor Freight. We're waiting for them to start ice cream truck routes, but in the meantime they're only a 10 minute drive away. We actually didn't have to go to the candy store for this specific project, but we had to go to Lowe's for it anyway so we might as well have and our wives were too tired to point that out.
Our wives did however make us eat lunch first. While P was on his lunch break he went to clean up the bathroom from that morning and as he was pivoting his chest cavity on the edge of the tub he heard a very familiar loud "pop!", just like the one we heard from the pipe on my house. Except this time the pop came from P's rib. Thank goodness it was just his rib, another other bone and he would have had to go to a doctor to get it set. Since it was his rib there was nothing he could do but continue on to the candy store with me.... darn it, nothing he could do about it at all.
Well, by the time we got back and assembled and installed the spillcock it was past dinner time and the day was long gone. But hey, that's what happens when you cross a physicist with an engineer.
So it all starts with the fact that for the past 4 years the spillcock on the front of my house has dripped. For the past four years I've provided water (the spillcock) and a litter box (my kids sandbox) for the stray cats of the neighborhood. Those days had to end. While I don't really know how to end the litter box issue (aside from letting my great dane roam the yard as much as possible) I knew I could fix the spillcock which would also save some money. I was a little reluctant to do this because I knew that the drippy exterior faucet was doing it's part to keep global warming in check, but darn it, scientists are just going to have to find another way!
So I started to disassemble the spillcock and when it didn't come apart as I expected (or at all for that matter) I began to wonder if there was something I didn't know about how they are put together and decided to ask my neighbor P, the engineer.
It turns out P was not having the best engineering day that day... Earlier in the morning at P's house he had been refilling his something like 30 gallon, industrial strength, hospital quality humidifier that somebody else thought was a good item for DI because it had a broken valve. Well, a broken valve is easy enough for any engineer to take care of I'm sure P would tell you. What P forgot to tell himself was that the huge tank he'd just filled up and left in his bathroom has a simple bouyant lever arm that opens or closes the valve depending on its orientation. So when P noticed water dripping down into his basement the last thing on his mind was the great jug of liquid he'd left so simply upstairs. It did however come to his mind after he'd ensured that the kids hadn't been forcing water through cracks in the foundation of his house. By that time, his kids had vowed to never touch a hose again under the pressure of the inquisition and inches of water had been retained in the bathroom. P had just finished taking care of that and was bringing his wet vac outside to empty when I approached him that morning. It was a simple problem he told me. Of course, it would be for an engineer I told myself.
Well, if I'd known how P had started out the morning I might have left it at that. But with P digging out all his toys that we like to play with (including walkie-talkies and head strap flashlights), I was too excited to worry about that. We decided that the spillcock should have dissasembled how I expected it too, and therefore probably was not a "freeze-proof" model like I thought it was. The idea now was to very carefully clamp onto the pipe inside the house while turning the spillcock outside the house so as to remove it without busting any joints that had been swetted or breaking any pipes that might be brittle. Well, the first quarter turn brought a loud "pop!" I said that can't be good into my walkie-talkie. "It's probably just an old crusty pipe thread starting to turn," said P. Yeah, we popped the swetted joint inside the wall, and it was by the way a freeze-proof spillcock.
No biggie. I'm a physicist and he's an engineer.
So this prompted a tour of P's basement and exterior wall where we examined what he had done when installing his own outdoor water access and then came up with a war plan to replace mine. The war plan was based around going to the "candy store". For people like P and myself the name of the "candy store" is Harbor Freight. We're waiting for them to start ice cream truck routes, but in the meantime they're only a 10 minute drive away. We actually didn't have to go to the candy store for this specific project, but we had to go to Lowe's for it anyway so we might as well have and our wives were too tired to point that out.
Our wives did however make us eat lunch first. While P was on his lunch break he went to clean up the bathroom from that morning and as he was pivoting his chest cavity on the edge of the tub he heard a very familiar loud "pop!", just like the one we heard from the pipe on my house. Except this time the pop came from P's rib. Thank goodness it was just his rib, another other bone and he would have had to go to a doctor to get it set. Since it was his rib there was nothing he could do but continue on to the candy store with me.... darn it, nothing he could do about it at all.
Well, by the time we got back and assembled and installed the spillcock it was past dinner time and the day was long gone. But hey, that's what happens when you cross a physicist with an engineer.
A.C.E.
HE'S HERE!!!! He's finally here! After nine months of eternity we finally have a baby boy with us. And believe me it was 9 months of eternity with the last month being just as long as the previous 8. At 7:02 in the morning K delivered a 7 lb 14 oz, 20" long ball of joy with the longest black hair I've ever seen on a newborn (the longest hairs are around 2" long!). He is the biggest kid yet with nearly a full pound over his other two siblings at birth.
The night before the delivery K and I dropped the kids off at G & G's and then had our last little date for a while at Tepenyaki (Sushi and Hibachi place). Then we came home to find a message on our answering machine telling us that the delivery had been bumped up, and we had to be at the hospital at 4:45 am. We spent until 11 or so cleaning the house and then went to bed. Well, I went to bed. K fell asleep for about 30 minutes and then was back up for the rest of the night.
The delivery went off without a hitch. They let me go with K to the OR to get her spinal, and then they began the operation. The Nurse Anethesthitist (heaven forbid you should call him an Anesthesiologist.... apparently the difference is anesthesiologists "don't care about people") happened to be from K's old home ward, and we actually had met him when we were living in California during K's first pregnancy. We also had a very chatty nurse in training who told K all about her personal life and why she didn't have kids yet and then she went on to speculate about what she would crave if she were pregnant. I guess it's easy to talk to people who are strapped to a table with their gut split open.
When they first opened K up there was a sudden ball of hair that popped up out of nowhere. He got stuck there for a little bit because the doctors underestimated how big his head was (cabezon!). He came out swinging and pretty darn angry. He sounded good and had was screaming pretty hard at people. Finally one of the nurses got close enough for him to land a kick on her stomach. He's a pretty strong little guy and he certainly got her attention. She didn't give him another chance.
Anyway, I got to carry him back to the nursery. After about 30 seconds he was still taking very shallow, very rapid breaths so he got moved back to the "Special Care Nursery". I didn't really like that until the nurse explained to me that it wasn't "special" in the same sense as some kids getting to ride the "short bus". He needed an oxygen hood because he couldn't keep the oxygen levels in his blood high enough and he was taking about 150 breaths a minute (about 3 times more than you like to see a newborn taking). His blood sugar was getting low (54 with 60 being normal) which was indicating that he was using a lot of energy just trying to breath.
Finally, a full blood test and x-ray was done. His lungs were completely lit up with infection in the images. He was born with congenital pnemonia, most likely due to either the high fevers his sister had a couple of weeks ago or an ear infection that his brother had about the same time. The good thing (really) was that he already had the infection and was in the healing stage when he was born. He just needs a little help. Uncle T and I were able to give him a blessing and then he was carted off to the NICU.
K was a basket case after coming back from the OR and finding out that her son wasn't coming back to the room also. We kept her updated on A's condition as much as possible, but it was a very difficult moment. Finally, her nurse took her down to the NICU 5 hours before she was supposed to be moved at all. Seeing him and knowing he was okay finally put her soul at rest and she was able to calm down a little.
We are very grateful and appreciative of all the concern from family and friends yesterday. It was a very emotional and hectic day so we didn't get to talk to many people and we kept conversations short with the ones we did talk to. We hope nobody felt shutout or putdown, but please understand we had other things on our minds besides entertaining visitors and people would not have been able to see the baby anyway if they had come. Apparently the rumors flew fast though as we got reports that K's ribs had been broken during the delivery and that I was barring people from entering the hospital. For the record, K's ribs are completely intact and the Utah National Guard was able to talk some sense into me. (Apparently we weren't the only people who had a baby here yesterday. Who knew!?)
Both Baby and Mom are doing just fine now. A will be in the NICU until next Thursday or Friday and K will be in the hospital until Monday morning at least. The doctor claims that A should have spent the last month working on developing his lungs instead of worrying about his looks and growing hair (his lungs were fully developed... that was a joke for those of you who haven't picked up the "subtle" running sarcasm).
Both B and Little K have been very excited and cute and have come to visit several times. They both want to thank A for the gifts he brought and hold him. They sang a little song for the video camera that we played for him in the NICU and he definitely responded to it.
As a last note, if any of you want to come visit K while she is still in the hospital, you are more than welcome to if you do not have a sick family member who you live with or have been sick yourself within the last week or so. Since K and I are constantly entering the NICU we really can't even have contact with people who have had contact with sick people. Please understand that you won't be able to see the baby until he comes home, but we appreciate your love and support, and can't wait to show him off to all of you (not through pictures!)!
The night before the delivery K and I dropped the kids off at G & G's and then had our last little date for a while at Tepenyaki (Sushi and Hibachi place). Then we came home to find a message on our answering machine telling us that the delivery had been bumped up, and we had to be at the hospital at 4:45 am. We spent until 11 or so cleaning the house and then went to bed. Well, I went to bed. K fell asleep for about 30 minutes and then was back up for the rest of the night.
The delivery went off without a hitch. They let me go with K to the OR to get her spinal, and then they began the operation. The Nurse Anethesthitist (heaven forbid you should call him an Anesthesiologist.... apparently the difference is anesthesiologists "don't care about people") happened to be from K's old home ward, and we actually had met him when we were living in California during K's first pregnancy. We also had a very chatty nurse in training who told K all about her personal life and why she didn't have kids yet and then she went on to speculate about what she would crave if she were pregnant. I guess it's easy to talk to people who are strapped to a table with their gut split open.
When they first opened K up there was a sudden ball of hair that popped up out of nowhere. He got stuck there for a little bit because the doctors underestimated how big his head was (cabezon!). He came out swinging and pretty darn angry. He sounded good and had was screaming pretty hard at people. Finally one of the nurses got close enough for him to land a kick on her stomach. He's a pretty strong little guy and he certainly got her attention. She didn't give him another chance.
Anyway, I got to carry him back to the nursery. After about 30 seconds he was still taking very shallow, very rapid breaths so he got moved back to the "Special Care Nursery". I didn't really like that until the nurse explained to me that it wasn't "special" in the same sense as some kids getting to ride the "short bus". He needed an oxygen hood because he couldn't keep the oxygen levels in his blood high enough and he was taking about 150 breaths a minute (about 3 times more than you like to see a newborn taking). His blood sugar was getting low (54 with 60 being normal) which was indicating that he was using a lot of energy just trying to breath.
Finally, a full blood test and x-ray was done. His lungs were completely lit up with infection in the images. He was born with congenital pnemonia, most likely due to either the high fevers his sister had a couple of weeks ago or an ear infection that his brother had about the same time. The good thing (really) was that he already had the infection and was in the healing stage when he was born. He just needs a little help. Uncle T and I were able to give him a blessing and then he was carted off to the NICU.
At the NICU A was fitted with a nasal CPAP (continous positive airway pressure) which helps to keep his lungs constantly inflated. He also has an intraveinous umbilical line, an IV in his left hand, and a multitude of electrodes stuck to his body. Being the fighter that he is, the nurse was left with no option but to put socks on his hands, and then to swaddle his arms across his body. Well, he wasn't going to let her forget that he wasn't happy with that, so he would move around as much as he could to dislodge the CPAP. She was finally forced to give him a little sedative. That's my boy!!
K was a basket case after coming back from the OR and finding out that her son wasn't coming back to the room also. We kept her updated on A's condition as much as possible, but it was a very difficult moment. Finally, her nurse took her down to the NICU 5 hours before she was supposed to be moved at all. Seeing him and knowing he was okay finally put her soul at rest and she was able to calm down a little.
We are very grateful and appreciative of all the concern from family and friends yesterday. It was a very emotional and hectic day so we didn't get to talk to many people and we kept conversations short with the ones we did talk to. We hope nobody felt shutout or putdown, but please understand we had other things on our minds besides entertaining visitors and people would not have been able to see the baby anyway if they had come. Apparently the rumors flew fast though as we got reports that K's ribs had been broken during the delivery and that I was barring people from entering the hospital. For the record, K's ribs are completely intact and the Utah National Guard was able to talk some sense into me. (Apparently we weren't the only people who had a baby here yesterday. Who knew!?)
Both Baby and Mom are doing just fine now. A will be in the NICU until next Thursday or Friday and K will be in the hospital until Monday morning at least. The doctor claims that A should have spent the last month working on developing his lungs instead of worrying about his looks and growing hair (his lungs were fully developed... that was a joke for those of you who haven't picked up the "subtle" running sarcasm).
Both B and Little K have been very excited and cute and have come to visit several times. They both want to thank A for the gifts he brought and hold him. They sang a little song for the video camera that we played for him in the NICU and he definitely responded to it.
As a last note, if any of you want to come visit K while she is still in the hospital, you are more than welcome to if you do not have a sick family member who you live with or have been sick yourself within the last week or so. Since K and I are constantly entering the NICU we really can't even have contact with people who have had contact with sick people. Please understand that you won't be able to see the baby until he comes home, but we appreciate your love and support, and can't wait to show him off to all of you (not through pictures!)!
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Can You Tell the Difference Between Aspen White and Aspen White?
Okay.... so the baby is coming and K has been hinting for some time that there are things that need to be done before the baby comes. Great, no problem. Until I get this list of 16 major projects 2 weeks before the delivery. Top of the list: Paint the doors in the house.... ALL the doors. That's right 16 doors (luckily the basement apartement didn't get added to this list). See, the thing is, well you may or may not have noticed when you were over, but not one single door in our house was painted for quite some time. A little while ago K tried to paint some of them by hand, but that is so slow and tedious that not many doors get done. On a side note: one of the exterior doors on our neighbors house is primed only and I never knew.... so why paint? Because the woman said so...
I spent an entire evening dismantling and cleaning doors, bought the paint, and got myself a neumatic spray painter out of the chore. Then rain was forcast for Saturday so I came home early Friday, lined the side of the house with plastic, set up the doors, and went to work. Or so I thought. It turns out that my new spray painter is a little too much man for my air compressor to handle. On top of that I had to spend a chunk of time figuring out the right amount to thin the paint for it to work optimally with the sprayer. Luckily my neighbor had a compressor I could borrow that could manage 5.7 SCFM, and I was off again.
With clouds threatening overhead I sprayed like a mad man. Finally, by the light of my motion activated back flood light I finished painting the 16th door. I stayed up late enough for the paint to dry so I could bring the doors in before the rain started, and felt pretty good about the whole deal.
Saturday morning..... clear. It did not rain even a couple of drops THE ENTIRE DAY. Fine, I like pretty days, so that was okay. I spent my time listening to conference and reassembling doors. That was when K made a startling observation.
So a couple years back when K painted all the trim and wainscoat and a couple of doors she went to Kwal and bought "Aspen White". A nice white color. So when I painted the doors I bought Aspen White from Kwal, same finish even. Now, when painting you always try to mix your paints of the same color together because it can be "slightly" off from can to can. Well apparently over the course of a few years slight differences turn into entire shades of color! Just check out the pictures. The trim and the door are both painted semi-gloss Aspen White. But they are entire shades off from each other. Now if it was far enough away, it would look like we meant it to be that far off, but no, it looks stupid. Great...... the birth of another major project in the future.
I spent an entire evening dismantling and cleaning doors, bought the paint, and got myself a neumatic spray painter out of the chore. Then rain was forcast for Saturday so I came home early Friday, lined the side of the house with plastic, set up the doors, and went to work. Or so I thought. It turns out that my new spray painter is a little too much man for my air compressor to handle. On top of that I had to spend a chunk of time figuring out the right amount to thin the paint for it to work optimally with the sprayer. Luckily my neighbor had a compressor I could borrow that could manage 5.7 SCFM, and I was off again.
With clouds threatening overhead I sprayed like a mad man. Finally, by the light of my motion activated back flood light I finished painting the 16th door. I stayed up late enough for the paint to dry so I could bring the doors in before the rain started, and felt pretty good about the whole deal.
Saturday morning..... clear. It did not rain even a couple of drops THE ENTIRE DAY. Fine, I like pretty days, so that was okay. I spent my time listening to conference and reassembling doors. That was when K made a startling observation.
So a couple years back when K painted all the trim and wainscoat and a couple of doors she went to Kwal and bought "Aspen White". A nice white color. So when I painted the doors I bought Aspen White from Kwal, same finish even. Now, when painting you always try to mix your paints of the same color together because it can be "slightly" off from can to can. Well apparently over the course of a few years slight differences turn into entire shades of color! Just check out the pictures. The trim and the door are both painted semi-gloss Aspen White. But they are entire shades off from each other. Now if it was far enough away, it would look like we meant it to be that far off, but no, it looks stupid. Great...... the birth of another major project in the future.
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