Posted By RichC on July 31, 2015
While waiting outside on a beautiful afternoon for Brenda’s surgery to be finished, I will try a blog post from my phone. The reconstruction of her shoulder/arm was scheduled for 11am, but she was not wheeled away until 12:45pm. Hopefully all will go as planned in the scheduled 3 hours?
Last night I took a panorama photo of her very nice room at UC Medical Center here in Cincinnati.
Posted By RichC on July 30, 2015
The above is a pretty innocuous photo: pine trees, a tree trimming pole and a ladder on the ground. It was the beginning to a difficult week as my wife Brenda started to trim a couple larger white pines (as she often does with magnolias and other smaller trees and bushes around our home). She enjoys yard work on her days off and particularly likes to get out early in the morning before it gets too hot … Tuesday was no exception for her.
I was fortunately still at home after changing my work/travel schedule due to my father being taken to the hospital in the morning due to shortness of breath (that’s another story). After getting the details and texting my brother, I went outside to update Brenda. There she was laying on the ground under the trees. She had placed the ladder up one of the pines and was proceeding to lop off a higher branch … the ladder slide and down she fell. My chest hurts even repeating this story.
I ran over listening to her moaning in pain and unable to move more than her arm or her head … although never losing consciousness. She could semi-talk with me as I looked and moved her gentle around even wondering if I should move her? Eventually she convinced me to help (I had to cradle carry her) into the house and laid her painfully down on the bed thinking at the moment that I was going to need to get her to at least an urgent care. While icing her and I wondered how I was going to even get her in the car (she was in terrible pain whenever she moved), so I (we) decided it was time to call the rescue squad (a first for everything … and hopefully last!)
They came and we headed off to the hospital and the 11 AM Tuesday. It was the start of a long day (of course it already started at 4:30AM … she was up to swim her laps). When relaying the “fall” to the emergency room, I could tell they were all wondering how a fall did all the damage … shoulder, arm, hips, back. Unbeknownst to both of us, she actually landed on the ladder … and only after seeing the damage ladder a day and a half later, I realized why her upper Humerus fracture was so severe. The X-Ray is not pretty … below is a comparison of the undamaged right shoulder to the damaged left shoulder (look at the ball and top part of the humerus in the below right image).
Image on Left is the right shoulder (good) and image on the Right is left shoulder (bad)
By far the arm/shoulder is the most significant damage and will require Orthopedic surgery at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. Thankfully they have an excellent shoulder surgeon and he is currently studying the imaging (took additional CT scans) and coming up with a repair plan that will give her the most mobility and strength after recovery. It is going to require some expert work and he does not want to rush into the procedure – so the surgery is scheduled for Friday.
Unfortunately this was not the extent of the injuries. Most of her pain is currently from the pelvis and sacrum (tailbone area) fractures. It is not comfortable to sit, lay, move or even “think” about putting weight on the femur pushing up on the hips. The good news is that they do not plan on surgery … the bad news is that the physical therapy for these fractures is going to be excruciatingly painful. She experienced a taste of that today with PT trying to figure out how they are going to work to get her to sit up and “pivot” on the right leg (better of the two) so she can use an elevated toilet seat or get into a wheel chair. As you can imagine, once the shoulder/arm surgery is finished, the recovery for all injuries is going to take a long time.
Please pray for my wife Brenda and her surgeon on Friday and keep her recovery in your prayers over the next few weeks. I suspect I’ll probably update at some point.
Posted By RichC on July 28, 2015
More video and info – Washington Post Link
Posted By RichC on July 27, 2015
Small business owners who regularly collect sales tax on their goods and services might not be quite as enamored with the “economic rebound” being boasted about in Ohio. While I do support Gov John Kasich and realized he does not have direct impact on counties needing to find more tax revenue, the tax shifting in our state has not gone unnoticed by small business.
It may be a small gripe, but over the years the sales taxes levied each county continues to climb (previous administrations too). There was a time, not that long ago, that consumers paid sale taxes that averaged between 5-6% in most of Ohio … now in many counties it is over 7% (that’s a 25-30% increase in sales taxes in the years I’ve been in business). It’s no wonder customers shop online instead of purchasing locally– avoiding sales tax on big ticket items is often less expensive than shipping. Don’t counties know that they need small business and that a high sales tax make them less competitive? Someone in Ohio needs to get on the stick.
Posted By RichC on July 26, 2015
How old is this utility lawn and garden trailer? If you haven't been reading along, it's 40 years old. Of course close inspection would indicated that their was rust, but all in all, my father-in-law's old trailer came back to life nicely … and the green is much more in keeping with our old John Deere 330 from the 1980s.
Posted By RichC on July 26, 2015
One of the projects coming together this past weekend was the disassembly, wire-brushing the rust (a lot), and painting of my late father-in-law’s old red Jackson lawn trailer. As mentioned previously, it was about 40 years old, well used, and had quite a bit of rust. Nevertheless, it was well made with quality steel – better than the newer ones at the big box stores (although I haven’t really compared them).
Since we have a John Deere, which is about the same age as this trailer, I decided to change the color. The white components are now black (above) and the red wagon box is now green. I think the new looking lawn trailer should last another 30 years … at least!
Speaking of “old” … I’ll include an updated photo of Tootsie … our 17 year Australian Cattle Dog (below).
After wire-brushing and treating with Skyco’s Ospho just as I did on the Mercedes.
Posted By RichC on July 25, 2015
After spending a lifetime working on cars and 30 years dealing with printing press wash-up chemicals and hand scrubs, one would think I would know a little bit about cleaning my hands?
Well I do know a “little bit” but still haven’t figured out how to clean dried paint off my hands (in particular Miracle Paint). It is obviously not ink. So much for cleaning with normal hand scrubs, printing chemicals or even my variety of paint solvents.
FYI … the project I’m currently working on is my father-in-law’s well loved and used, rusting, lawn mower trailer. I decided it might be worth stripping it down, repairing the rust, corroded bolts and nuts and repainting. They made these trailers a little better 40 years ago (he had it as long as I was in the family as I recall) … so it is worth fixing up … besides, it was a great memory of my father-in-law.
The “red” trailer being used by Brenda and her sister Chris – August of 2008.
If you are interested in a great DIY PDF Guide about paints, primers and solvents, check this out from do-it-yourself-help.com.
Posted By RichC on July 24, 2015
Brenda and her sister Chris spent last weekend together at the family Farmhouse in western New York. They sorted through what was left from their mom and dad’s lifetime of “stuff” separating into garage sale, trash pick-up, donations and items they might still want. The later “group” grew far too large, in my opinion. Some things were easy to sell while others were memories. I know for Brenda it was tough to finally give up on her father’s original model C Ritter dental chair. For the right person, it was a “man-cave” item (video below); for others who were interested, it may have been a prize collectable (they are listed on eBay for a pretty penny). BUT … they are heavy and full of oil … yes, she wanted me to bring it back to Cincinnati. No thank you. 
We still ended up with a variety of old stuff. The instrument lubricants in old bottles, plaster molds, a “Fort Knox” grinding “gold” (???) dust box – family joke. Dad Howard did much of his own lab work particularly in the early years (a skill not practiced by most new dentists). The good news is that the farmhouse is ready to hand over to a new owner … and they are a couple who will appreciate a restored home build well over 100 years ago (180 years if my mother-in-law remembers correctly).
Posted By RichC on July 23, 2015
Wow … 10 years ago I bought my first “original” Slingbox. I thought this gadget was the coolest thing and even upgraded it in 2012 (has it been that long?) I used it regularly on the road with the laptop or Palm Treo (photo below) and “sling-ed” 
our home TV video (or just audio) signal over the Internet and “new” fast 3G network. 
Times have changed and now I see a lot of millennials “cutting cable” entirely; my son is one of them and streams all his content to his TV with Sling TV. I’m starting to see the merit in his decision after a long 45 minute phone call hassling with Time Warner Cable … I’m ready to join him.
If it were not for Brenda being hooked on certain programs or me addicted to the cable news channels (CNBC, FoxBusiness and FoxNews), I think we could manage with an over-the-air-antenna and a NetFlix subscription like we had in 2009. Unless I get some resolution regarding being billed for components we do not have AND a more reasonable “package deal,” I’m tempted to cut the service for at least 6 months! (FYI … then and only then are we eligible for new customer packages. It is so nice they appreciate their long time customers by tagging another $40-$50 on the monthly bill – #sarcasm).
Posted By RichC on July 22, 2015
Chuckling at the “miss” from Applefalling short of their guidance, but they continue to build their bankroll of cash … now above $200 Billion! Profit margins are so far above most tech equipment makers and they are still cranking out the iPhones (47.5 Million in the 3rd quarter).
Unfortunately for shareholders use to $AAPL blowing away the numbers, afterhours traders sold shares after the disappointment. I watched the chart take a nose dive and drop 10% to $120 … but also suspect buyers will soon be back purchasing Apple shares. Frankly, even at $120-130/share they are probably one of the better medium to long term investments.
| CNBC with Susan Bennett, voice of Apple’s Siri (MP3) July 21, 2015 |
Apple sold 47.5 million iPhones, a 35 percent gain, in the period that ended in June, the company said in a statement Tuesday. Analysts had anticipated 48.8 million shipments. The company forecast revenue of $49 billion to $51 billion in its fiscal fourth quarter, which ends in September, short of the average estimate for $51.1 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Any indication of slowing demand for iPhones could spark concern that Apple is going to have a hard time selling more smartphones in the final months of the year, after the September debut of the latest version fueled record profits. A new model is expected to be released later this year.
“It’s going to be running up against really hard comparisons,” said Abhey Lamba, an analyst at Mizuho Securities USA Inc. “A lot of people jumped to the larger-screened iPhones, now that we’ve gotten to the point where the innovation in the next release is not going to be as massive as we had last year.”
…
Net income in the fiscal third quarter, which ended in June, was $10.7 billion, or $1.85 a share, while revenue rose 33 percent to $49.6 billion, the Cupertino, California-based company said. Analysts on average had forecast third-quarter profit of $1.81 a share on sales of $49.4 billion. The gross margin was 39.7 percent, topping the company’s outlook for 38.5 percent to 39.5 percent.
Total revenue from greater China more than doubled to $13.2 billion, even as the Chinese economy weakened.
Apple didn’t release unit sales of the Apple Watch, which was introduced in April. It included the results for the smartwatch in a broad category called “Other,” along with items such as Beats headphones and iPod sales. Revenue in the category rose 49 percent to $2.64 billion, the company said. Analysts predicted on average 3.4 million sales of the Watch with an average selling price of $499, according to the Bloomberg survey.
More at Bloomberg Business