Today was both invigorating and melancholy.
The wife's hospital bills are mounting up, and while I don't yet know what
the final damage is going to be, it's a sure bet it isn't going to be
cheap. We're at $25,000 so far, just for the hospital itself. Not the
surgeon, the anaesthesiologist, the radiologist, the ultrasonologist, the
ER attending physician, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, and
anyone else who will see fit to mail us a bill before this ordeal is over.
I'm guessing it's going to hit $50,000 before it's all over. Ouch.
I'm not sure what my piece of this action is, but it ain't gonna be cheap.
Thus I must needs come to terms with the fact that my termite-infested,
half-rotten, undersized corner of heaven is going to be my home for years
to come. I can't afford to build a new shop for 5-10 years. It thus
behooves me to make the most of what I've got, to gut it, re-evaluate it,
and see what else I can do to make it a more suitable working space.
And so I come to my point at last. My workspace is reasonably well refined
from the doors to the area on the far side of the line between the far side
of my drill press and the back of my table saw. The space behind the saw
has been a, well, a fuster cluck for years. I had a tool cabinet lined
with pegboard which I brought with me from our last place. It was situated
in such a way that it left about an 18" square area in one corner that was
utterly useless for any purpose. I couldn't even store things there
effectively, because I couldn't get to them without a lot of effort. To
the right of this cabinet is an area that has been occupied by various
irksome bits of machinery. A horizontal bandsaw that needed plenty of
feeding room, a router table, a table saw. Most recently this space has
become the outfeed for my new contractor's saw, which is really too damn
big for my shop, but is a true joy to use anyway. It was occupied by a
shop vac, a collection of hoses, some odd little piles of random scraps,
and some thus and such.
So anyway, the fateful day finally arrived today. The tool cabinet, one of
my first projects, and my most successful and functional large project,
simply had to go. The door wall is all door. The roof slopes down to meet
walls about 4' high at the sides, so the only place it could go was along
the back. It was situated very badly in relation to everything else. I
had two huge multi-drawer bits and bobs organizers attached to the outside
of the doors, and these added another 6" or so to a cabinet that was
already about 13" deep. 19" of depth about 4' long, mostly to hold a bunch
of air and odd bits of things that I hardly ever use.
When we moved out here, I nailed that thing up but good. I used sixteen
buttloads of spiral nails across the top and the bottom. In the process of
attempting to extract it in order to move it somewhere else, somewhere
outside the shop, I completely obliterated it. Every board is shredded to
the point where I could only get usable odd bits of lumber out of the
wreckage through the use of a bandsaw, or a monumental planing effort.
Seeing as how the whole thing was just jummywood anyway, I elected not to
bother. So a source of pride and joy that has served me well for the last
decade has been reduced to a pile of splinters stacked up to be the Beltane
bonfire in a few months.
It brought a little tear to my eye when I finally got the back away from the
wall. D. Michael McIntyre 6-20-95
Rest in pieces old friend, rest in pieces.
I'm going to put pegboard and shelves on that wall, and get much more
storage out of far less depth. I'm moving the DP away from the workbench,
moving it to the back wall, where I will be able to put wider stock on it
without hitting anything. I'm moving the lathe where the DP used to go,
and I'm building an outfeed table/machine table behind the TS, which can be
used to host either the Norm table or the crawl saw.
I'm also seriously contemplating building a new workbench, even though it
pains me to think this after I just spent the last four shop days
reorganizing the old one, and hanging tools on the pegboard behind it. I
have 2' at the door end that used to be a metalworking station. I don't do
metal much anymore, and I could live without the anvil and pipe vise, I
think. Put the vise on a board to mount in my face vise. Use the anvil on
the floor when I need it. I can't use the space for anything because all
that stuff is in the way anyway, so I wouldn't miss the width. I could
build drawers underneath to store some of my more unwieldy bits and bobs,
like my saddle square, my pencil sharpeners, dovetail markers, and sundry
other things that don't lend themselves to hanging. I could also build
cubbies or drawers to hold all my portable machinery, so I could utilize
the whole vertical space underneath. It may be more cost effective to
doctor the bench I already have again, but I'm tempted to build a new one.
I'm still thinking and planning. First I have to figure out what to do with
all the stuff I have now made homeless. I want to try to work through this
mess without moving everything five times.
So anyway, it's a sad day because I completely obliterated an old friend,
but it's also a happy day because I have solved a problem that has been
annoying me for months, and I feel like I have a world of potential for
innovative ways to squeeze just a tiny bit more utility out of my tiny
little space. I'm trying to work toward giving the monster saw a little
more feeding room, so I can actually work on furniture-sized projects. I
almost had a kickback doing that 30" tall printer stand because I
inadvertently wedged the feeding end of the board against my lathe, and I
went into the blade cock-eyed. I need to spread things out more, or else
get a smaller saw. The small saw just ain't happening though.
Once I get it all sorted out, and cleaned out, and spiffed out, and tricked
out, I'm going to go through with Mom's new digital camera and put together
a compleat shoppe toure to show everyone my pathetic, termite-infested
corner of heaven. I guess I'll keep using it as long as it's still
standing. The bright side is that while it has definitely been damaged by
bugs and moisture, I can fix the damage a lot easier than I can build a new
building from scratch. Only one end of it is sitting directly on dirt, and
that's the only end that's well and truly rotten.
Hell, at this rate, I might actually get through all the
cleaning/sorting/arranging, then get back to my on-going sharpening/tuning,
and then finally I will be ready to actually build a real project out there
for the first time in what will then be almost two years. Right in time
for it to be gardening season, I expect. Sigh. Oh well, the up side there
is that I am a lazy gardener, and I have planted a lot of self-sustaining
perennial stuff. I only have one little annual bed, and all my regular
stuff eventually grows taller than the weeds, so I don't really have to
maintain much for long.
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/
Larry Jaques wrote:
>>I'm not sure what my piece of this action is, but it ain't gonna be cheap.
>
> Just remember NOT to make any repayment contracts with the hospital.
Hell no. Here's your $10. I'll pay you more next month if I feel like it.
I've been around this bush before. With the kids. I loved how they would
send a reminder every month that I could help lower the cost of medical
care for everyone by putting the full amount on my Visa or MasterCard
today. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
> And make sure to ask for a discount since 2/3 of that cost was to
> repair the damage he accidentally caused to your wife during a simple
> operation. That should take your bills WAAAAY down if not completely
> away. Best of luck on that.
I think this is what the -$9,000 "adjustment" was for. I should try to
badger them into reducing it even more.
>>And so I come to my point at last. My workspace is reasonably well
>>refined
>
> You had a point? When did THAT start? <gd&r>
I promise not to make a habit of it.
> Speaking of which, I should build a storage bin beneath Dina's right
> wing. She could shelter more tools and/or cutoffs under there.
I'm thinking about putting the shop vac under there, and completely
re-thinking the out-feed area. First I have to figure out where to put all
the stuff that doesn't have any place to go until I can make some place for
it to go. What I need is another shed. Or a bigger shop. Or maybe the
dining room. :) Hrm.
>>outside the shop, I completely obliterated it. Every board is shredded to
>
> Now you know what drywall screws are for, huh?
On the bright side, spiral nails hold very well.
> 3/4 hunting for tools and 1/4 woodworking. I got 1 open-faced cabinet
> up and stocked it with Stanleys and billdrits, but there is a bit more
> to be done.
I really need to cook up some tidy way to organize my various billdrits,
vises, flungums and plantablats for the drill press. Maybe one of those
chests.
>>stuff eventually grows taller than the weeds, so I don't really have to
>>maintain much for long.
>
> Gardens which outgrow the weeds are heaven-sent things, aren't they?
Indeed. It looks like crap until about June, and then who cares? :)
I have some kind of praire coneflower stuff that grows 8' tall, and some
kind of perennial sunflowers that do the same. A bunch of tough as nails
hybrid "floral carpet" roses. Everything is kind of wild and out of
control, but I like that look personally. I like anything that requires
almost zero maintenance. I did the manicured thing at the old place, but
then I moved here and got introduced to nutgrass and ground ivy. It is not
possible to win a battle with nutgrass or ground ivy, both of which will
re-sprout a new colony within three days if you leave 1/3 of a stray root
cell in the dirt, but it is possible to plant things that grow taller.
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/
mac davis wrote:
> So, how is your bride? recovering well I hope!
I'm betting they'll yank that tube out of her when she goes back for her
second post-op visit on Tuesday. She's doing much better. She's starting
to eat with some enthusiasm again, and she's moving around. I've taken her
with me every time I've gone shopping and such, and let her get out of the
house and walk around. At least this should be the end of the months of
problems that lead up to the surgery, and she seems to be tolerating life
without a gallbladder just fine.
> It's hard to part with things that you put time into making and
> emotion into remembering that time as you're using it... but as your
> needs change, so must your storage, tools, mind set, etc...
Yup.
> Since you're rearranging almost everything in the shop, I'd suggest
> putting everything possible on wheels or making it somehow mobile.. I
Not really useful in my shop. The floor is too irregular to roll anything
anyway, and there's no "out of the way" to move things to, except for the
yard. :)
> used often can be rolled out of the way.. and in better weather, a lot
> of it gets rolled outside to the driveway to use, especially the CMS
> and belt/disk sander... true dust control. *g*
I used to do more outside than I do now. There's a commercial building
across the street from my shop doors. Lots of traffic. I try to keep a
low profile. If I ever do build a new building, it will have doors facing
some other direction.
> Anyway, houses go up and down in value, tools, projects and shops
> change, but IMHO, what holds everything together is family... and
> you've got a mom back for the kids...
Almost back. Not quite fully wearing the mantle of Mommy just yet, but at
least I don't have to do the laundry too much longer. :)
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/
patrick conroy wrote:
>> The wife's hospital bills are mounting up,
>
> Sounds like she's on the mend. The *most important thing*, isn't it?
Well yes, yes indeed. Don't get me wrong here. I'm not sweating the
medical bills, and I'm not whining about it. I'm grateful that she came
through this alive. Maybe as little as 50 years ago and this would have
killed her.
I was just musing about changing gears, I guess. For whatever reason, this
is the path before me now. I had been thinking of the shop as a waypoint
on the road to building a good one in a year or so. Since it is no longer
a temporary thing, but my home for some considerable time to come, I am
merely addressing some of the deficiencies I have let stand too long. It's
not much of a place, but it's what I have to work with, and so I'm making
the best of it. I was just in a bit of an introspective mood after taking
a sledge hammer to one of my first successful projects, that's all.
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/
mac davis wrote:
> Great! Sounds like she'll be back to SWMBO status in no time at all..
> life is good..
Yes, in fact SWMBO has officially ceased to be "the wife" and has
proclaimed, in her own words, that "swim-bo," as she calls herself, is now
officially back.
Hah, then just when she's up for laundry duty, the damn dryer breaks! Woot!
That turned out to be an interesting adventure. There was a leak in a duct
inside the dryer. A manufacturer's defect. Improperly installed gasket.
It filled the space inside the dryer with lint. Eventually enough sticky
lint paste grunked up the motor enough to stall it out, and SWMBO kept
pushing the start button over and over until she smoked it but good. It
didn't work. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. No, it still didn't work.
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. No, it's still not working.
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. Maybe if I hold the button in
until the 50A breaker actually trips it will start working then.
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.
Nope. Better call Michael.
With all that lint in there, I guess I'm lucky she didn't manage to let ALL
the smoke out of the dryer. The motor is definitely too questionable to
put back in there.
Oh, and I destroyed a $90 blower assembly too, trying to figure out how to
disassemble everything. Oops. Nothing like a $90 part that's made out of
recycled soda bottles. Quallllllllllity.
So, $200 in parts, $400 for a new dryer. Sigh. Planned obsolecence in
action.
Well, I guess she knows what she's getting for our 11th anniversary
tomorrow. Well, actually, later today. Wow. 11 years. It seems like
about two.
> ahh.. but she's home.. if you've ever been hospitalized, you know how
> damn nice it is to get home...
I was only 10 years old, so I can't quite remember.
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/
Larry Jaques wrote:
> I heard that one when I took a neighbor to the hospital. They didn't
> have a CC and I sure as hell wasn't going to put mine on the counter
> and let them rape, sodomize, and mutilate it. "Sorry, no CC here,
> either. I'm just dropping off a friend."
Yeah. :)
> Right. And since that $50k stay didn't cost them more than a few hours
> worth of supervision and a few hundred in medical supplies, $45-50k
> sounds about right for the deductions. <eg>
Well, $7 an hour for the nurses, $497.63 per bag of salt water, $11,275.06
for the little pink tray with pitcher, $79.32 each for 50 styrofoam cups,
and $47.72 each for drinking straws. $64.43 per minute for the electricity
used to raise and lower the head of the bed every time she clicked the
button. To say nothing of the meter they put on the remote control. It's
a wonder it didn't cost $50 million.
> There ya go. You eat at the couch in front of the TV anyway, right?
Not if I can help it. I actually try to force the kids to get their eyes
away from the idiot light for twelve and a half minutes to eat dinner.
OK, OK, so we eat at the dining room table just about six times a year. The
rest of the time is spent in front of the idiot light, but I read a
magazine or something dammit. I refuse to watch Tummy Fummy Yummy Yoomy
Yum-Yum.
> I have half my meals here in front of the computer in my office and
> the other half in front of the TIVO, fast-forwarding through the
> bloody commercials so I can watch the program in half the time. I
> really love it.
A lot of people don't realize they have a Linux box right in their own
living rooms.
> I just made a drilled block for the LVT forstners and clinched it in
> the WW vise on my drill/mortise/sanding table, right next to the huge
> and heavy duty HF 5-speed 1/3-hp drill press. Vroom, vroom, vroom!
> I hung Dina's blades on the wall and need to move the
I had a drilled block for sundry sundries, but it wound up just being the
holding area for all the bits I never really use.
> replaced it--all of the seeds finding my yard and overgrowing the
> field grasses. I wanted to kill the guy. The Top 40 never needed
> mowing until that, and there were a dozen different delicate flowers
> out there, between the fine blades of the self-leveling grass. Bah
> freakin' humbug.
I feel your pain.
> <g> I've never done the manicured thing and hate lawns, but I'm
> keeping this place up a lot better than I did the LoCal yard.
I have 1/3 acre, and I have 57 trees planted on it. Eventually they will
produce enough shade to kill it all.
In the short term, however, moving my yard SUCKS. I have to re-string my
weed eater every week, and I have to buy a new weedeater every other year.
I probably have 3 miles of edging.
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/
Nate Perkins wrote:
> It usually takes 9-18 months to get it all sorted out. Hang in there.
Yeah, I'm hanging in there. Maybe if they dole out the stupid little
intermediate bills in small increments, I can keep everything paid as I go.
I'm managing to do that so far.
> Go for it. I finally made my first real workbench, a beech one with a
> front vise and an end vise. Once you have an end vise you will wonder
> how you ever got by without one.
I think I've decided just to add some truss rods to it to try to tighten it
up, and leave it be. It's not bad. It could be better, but I really don't
have room to build a better bench without getting rid of the existing one
first, and I need the existing bench to build a new one. There's nothing
like the classic catch 22.
I'm keeping my eye out for another good face vise to throw on as a tail vise
though. I've shuffled things around to where I could install one, since
the DP column is no longer smack beside the right end of the bench.
> BTW, glad to hear that the wife is recovering and that things are
> getting back to normal. Gotta keep the important stuff in perspective!
I'm kinda hoping they might yank that last hose out of her belly Tuesday.
She's had it clamped off since we came home from the doctor two weeks ago.
No problems at all. It's probably ready to come out. Getting that out of
her will make her feel a lot better. Then she can bend over and scrub my
floors like a proper wimminz should.
(Yeah, right. Like she ever scrubbed a floor in 11 years of marriage. :)
Or mopped for that matter. She's convinced that since a mop has moving
parts, it's my bailiwick. She didn't think it was funny when I bought her
one of those string mops either. :)
It's good to have SWMBO back. She's definitely getting there.
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/
Duane Bozarth wrote:
>> In the short term, however, moving my yard SUCKS. I have to re-string my
>> weed eater every week, and I have to buy a new weedeater every other
>> year. I probably have 3 miles of edging.
>
> That's the problem, there's not <enough>...we've about 19 A around the
> house, outbuildings, feedlot/corrals, machine lot, etc. so there's so
> much you don't feel obliged to edge... :)
So yer sayin' I need to plant a few dozen more trees, and maybe make some
more of those really brain damaged flower beds with the "organic"
amoeba-like edges?
My landscape designer needs to be fired. Except since it's me... Sigh...
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/
Larry Jaques wrote:
> I hope none of those prices is true.
(Yeah, well, duh doofus. If you think for a minute any of those prices are
actual figures, you and I need to do some dealing. I have something to
sell you. I just haven't figured out what it is yet. :)
> I wouldn't want a minimum-wage
> nurse watching over me, and I sure as hell wouldn't pay $500 for
> saline.
Oh, I meant to say $50. That's a much better price for a bag of mildly
salty water.
And $7 an hour is well above minimum wage. :)
(Just for the record, I wasn't trying to convey a feeling of incompetent
minimum wage nurses, but one of grossly underpaid professional nurses. The
earning potential in this corner of the world sucks. Though not as bad as
it sucks in, say, South Carolina.)
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/
Silvan wrote:
...
> I have 1/3 acre, and I have 57 trees planted on it. Eventually they will
> produce enough shade to kill it all.
>
> In the short term, however, moving my yard SUCKS. I have to re-string my
> weed eater every week, and I have to buy a new weedeater every other year.
> I probably have 3 miles of edging.
That's the problem, there's not <enough>...we've about 19 A around the
house, outbuildings, feedlot/corrals, machine lot, etc. so there's so
much you don't feel obliged to edge... :)
Silvan wrote:
...
> So yer sayin' I need to plant a few dozen more trees, and maybe make some
> more of those really brain damaged flower beds with the "organic"
> amoeba-like edges?
Yeah...once there's so much it's <absolutely> overwhelming, then you
don't feel so bad anymore... <VBG> <TIC> :) etc., etc., etc....
> My landscape designer needs to be fired. Except since it's me... Sigh...
:)
In actual fact, I'm not really kidding that much...w/ all the
outbuildings, corrals, equipment lot, etc., there simply is so much that
to trim is, in fact, a practical impossibility so I don't even attempt
it. Once a year of so I do an extensive cleanup of the tumbleweeds from
the cedar windbreaks, etc. That usually takes a week or so. In the fall
I'll spend two or three days after harvest to clean up all the overgrown
stuff around the rosebeds, etc., in the yard and around the house in the
"inner" yard as we call it. I then over the winter will use the
flamethrower to burn out the old weeds along the corral fences, etc.
Then we're good for the following summer. During warm weather with the
farm work, thre simply isn't time to do more than mow the yard w/o the
trim work. SWMBO does garden and keeps her beds in check as well as
most of the veggies.
"Silvan" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
SNIP
>
> So anyway, the fateful day finally arrived today. The tool cabinet, one
of
> my first projects, and my most successful and functional large project,
> simply had to go. The door wall is all door. The roof slopes down to
meet
> walls about 4' high at the sides, so the only place it could go was along
> the back. It was situated very badly in relation to everything else. I
> had two huge multi-drawer bits and bobs organizers attached to the outside
> of the doors, and these added another 6" or so to a cabinet that was
> already about 13" deep. 19" of depth about 4' long, mostly to hold a
bunch
> of air and odd bits of things that I hardly ever use.
SNIP
Workshops, like lives, are works in progress. The shop that's organized to
the level of filled tool silhouettes on the pegboard, clean benches and
floors is ready for viewing - "doesn't it look like itself?"
Every cluttered corner is a bit of yesterday to be revisited like a memory,
every brief cleaning or rebuilding shows confidence in the future. Sounds
like it's time to do some cleaning around the edges to make room for the
life you and the wife will be living. Just don't destroy the core clutter
of what you have.
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 00:55:09 -0500, Silvan
<[email protected]> calmly ranted:
>Today was both invigorating and melancholy.
>
>The wife's hospital bills are mounting up, and while I don't yet know what
>the final damage is going to be, it's a sure bet it isn't going to be
>cheap. We're at $25,000 so far, just for the hospital itself. Not the
>surgeon, the anaesthesiologist, the radiologist, the ultrasonologist, the
>ER attending physician, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, and
>anyone else who will see fit to mail us a bill before this ordeal is over.
>I'm guessing it's going to hit $50,000 before it's all over. Ouch.
>I'm not sure what my piece of this action is, but it ain't gonna be cheap.
Just remember NOT to make any repayment contracts with the hospital.
Pay them on your own terms and don't let them bully you into anything.
And make sure to ask for a discount since 2/3 of that cost was to
repair the damage he accidentally caused to your wife during a simple
operation. That should take your bills WAAAAY down if not completely
away. Best of luck on that.
>Thus I must needs come to terms with the fact that my termite-infested,
>half-rotten, undersized corner of heaven is going to be my home for years
>to come. I can't afford to build a new shop for 5-10 years. It thus
>behooves me to make the most of what I've got, to gut it, re-evaluate it,
>and see what else I can do to make it a more suitable working space.
There ya go!
>And so I come to my point at last. My workspace is reasonably well refined
You had a point? When did THAT start? <gd&r>
>feeding room, a router table, a table saw. Most recently this space has
>become the outfeed for my new contractor's saw, which is really too damn
>big for my shop, but is a true joy to use anyway. It was occupied by a
>shop vac, a collection of hoses, some odd little piles of random scraps,
>and some thus and such.
Speaking of which, I should build a storage bin beneath Dina's right
wing. She could shelter more tools and/or cutoffs under there.
>When we moved out here, I nailed that thing up but good. I used sixteen
>buttloads of spiral nails across the top and the bottom. In the process of
>attempting to extract it in order to move it somewhere else, somewhere
>outside the shop, I completely obliterated it. Every board is shredded to
Now you know what drywall screws are for, huh?
>Hell, at this rate, I might actually get through all the
>cleaning/sorting/arranging, then get back to my on-going sharpening/tuning,
>and then finally I will be ready to actually build a real project out there
>for the first time in what will then be almost two years. Right in time
I understand that multi-year thing, Mike...erm, Silvie. I'm going on 3
years here and still haven't built enough cabinets for the tools so I
can actually see what I have to work with, so project time consists of
3/4 hunting for tools and 1/4 woodworking. I got 1 open-faced cabinet
up and stocked it with Stanleys and billdrits, but there is a bit more
to be done.
>for it to be gardening season, I expect. Sigh. Oh well, the up side there
>is that I am a lazy gardener, and I have planted a lot of self-sustaining
>perennial stuff. I only have one little annual bed, and all my regular
>stuff eventually grows taller than the weeds, so I don't really have to
>maintain much for long.
Gardens which outgrow the weeds are heaven-sent things, aren't they?
==========================================================
Save the ||| http://diversify.com
Endangered SKEETS! ||| Web Application Programming
==========================================================
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 20:57:25 -0500, Silvan
<[email protected]> wrote:
>patrick conroy wrote:
>
>>> The wife's hospital bills are mounting up,
>>
>> Sounds like she's on the mend. The *most important thing*, isn't it?
>
>Well yes, yes indeed. Don't get me wrong here. I'm not sweating the
>medical bills, and I'm not whining about it. I'm grateful that she came
>through this alive. Maybe as little as 50 years ago and this would have
>killed her.
>
>I was just musing about changing gears, I guess. For whatever reason, this
>is the path before me now. I had been thinking of the shop as a waypoint
>on the road to building a good one in a year or so. Since it is no longer
>a temporary thing, but my home for some considerable time to come, I am
>merely addressing some of the deficiencies I have let stand too long. It's
>not much of a place, but it's what I have to work with, and so I'm making
>the best of it. I was just in a bit of an introspective mood after taking
>a sledge hammer to one of my first successful projects, that's all.
Interesting that you put it like that (shop being waypoint)
We've been looking for a smaller home on a larger lot, so I could
build a shop and we'd have RV parking... (yeah the "golden years"
approach)
so, for at least 3 years, all my plans, fixtures, storage, etc. has
been temporary..
We just decided that the money would be better spent on my wife's
education and a vacation home, so I'm right where you are... "wow..
this IS my shop!"
mac
Please remove splinters before emailing
Silvan <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:
...
> The wife's hospital bills are mounting up, and while I don't yet know
> what the final damage is going to be, it's a sure bet it isn't going
> to be cheap. We're at $25,000 so far, just for the hospital itself.
> Not the surgeon, the anaesthesiologist, the radiologist, the
> ultrasonologist, the ER attending physician, the butcher, the baker,
> the candlestick maker, and anyone else who will see fit to mail us a
> bill before this ordeal is over. I'm guessing it's going to hit
> $50,000 before it's all over. Ouch.
>
> I'm not sure what my piece of this action is, but it ain't gonna be
> cheap.
Some friendly advice from a guy who's been there:
1. Keep detailed records ... all the bills, all the correspondence, all
the payments.
2. Get to know your healthcare insurance policy very well. Get on a
first name basis with your "service" representative at the insurance
company because you will probably be spending time straightening things
out with them.
3. The hospitals/docs/butcher/baker/candlestick maker will probably
bill you simultaneously with the time they bill the insurance company.
Don't freak out at all the zeros. The insurance guys will pay most of
it, make sure you don't pay more than your deductibles and copays.
4. They have a vested interest in getting you to pay more than your
fair share as early as they can. Don't. Insist on written explanations
of benefits provided ... make sure they are billing it right.
It usually takes 9-18 months to get it all sorted out. Hang in there.
...
> It brought a little tear to my eye when I finally got the back away
> from the wall. D. Michael McIntyre 6-20-95
>
> Rest in pieces old friend, rest in pieces.
>
> I'm going to put pegboard and shelves on that wall, and get much more
> storage out of far less depth. I'm moving the DP away from the
> workbench, moving it to the back wall, where I will be able to put
> wider stock on it without hitting anything. I'm moving the lathe
> where the DP used to go, and I'm building an outfeed table/machine
> table behind the TS, which can be used to host either the Norm table
> or the crawl saw.
It's okay ... I've been at it for a shorter period of time than you and
I've also redone my shop a couple of times. What you build will be
better than what comes out. You can always keep the board with your
signature on it as a souvenier :-)
> I'm also seriously contemplating building a new workbench, even though
> it pains me to think this after I just spent the last four shop days
> reorganizing the old one, and hanging tools on the pegboard behind it.
Go for it. I finally made my first real workbench, a beech one with a
front vise and an end vise. Once you have an end vise you will wonder
how you ever got by without one.
BTW, glad to hear that the wife is recovering and that things are
getting back to normal. Gotta keep the important stuff in perspective!
Silvan <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:
<snip>
> MMMMM. Nope. Better call Michael.
>
> With all that lint in there, I guess I'm lucky she didn't manage to
> let ALL the smoke out of the dryer. The motor is definitely too
> questionable to put back in there.
>
> Oh, and I destroyed a $90 blower assembly too, trying to figure out
> how to disassemble everything. Oops. Nothing like a $90 part that's
> made out of recycled soda bottles. Quallllllllllity.
>
Been there. Done that. Got the t-shirt. $104, but then, I bought the
warranty on the parts. Remember, I've seen this movie before. Got a
plumber's snake, and snaked out the dryer vent pipe. When I hooked up the
exhaust of the shopvac in BLOW mode, we had most of a bushel of lint come
out the vent in the side yard.
The clothes were dry in half the time thereafter.
My wife got the new washing machine last year. I was just glad that there
were no fires.
Patriarch
On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 02:59:35 -0500, the inscrutable Silvan
<[email protected]> spake:
>Larry Jaques wrote:
>
>> I heard that one when I took a neighbor to the hospital. They didn't
>> have a CC and I sure as hell wasn't going to put mine on the counter
>> and let them rape, sodomize, and mutilate it. "Sorry, no CC here,
>> either. I'm just dropping off a friend."
>
>Yeah. :)
>
>> Right. And since that $50k stay didn't cost them more than a few hours
>> worth of supervision and a few hundred in medical supplies, $45-50k
>> sounds about right for the deductions. <eg>
>
>Well, $7 an hour for the nurses, $497.63 per bag of salt water, $11,275.06
>for the little pink tray with pitcher, $79.32 each for 50 styrofoam cups,
>and $47.72 each for drinking straws. $64.43 per minute for the electricity
>used to raise and lower the head of the bed every time she clicked the
>button. To say nothing of the meter they put on the remote control. It's
>a wonder it didn't cost $50 million.
I hope none of those prices is true. I wouldn't want a minimum-wage
nurse watching over me, and I sure as hell wouldn't pay $500 for
saline.
>
>> There ya go. You eat at the couch in front of the TV anyway, right?
>
>Not if I can help it. I actually try to force the kids to get their eyes
>away from the idiot light for twelve and a half minutes to eat dinner.
>
>OK, OK, so we eat at the dining room table just about six times a year. The
>rest of the time is spent in front of the idiot light, but I read a
>magazine or something dammit. I refuse to watch Tummy Fummy Yummy Yoomy
>Yum-Yum.
>
>> I have half my meals here in front of the computer in my office and
>> the other half in front of the TIVO, fast-forwarding through the
>> bloody commercials so I can watch the program in half the time. I
>> really love it.
>
>A lot of people don't realize they have a Linux box right in their own
>living rooms.
>
>> I just made a drilled block for the LVT forstners and clinched it in
>> the WW vise on my drill/mortise/sanding table, right next to the huge
>> and heavy duty HF 5-speed 1/3-hp drill press. Vroom, vroom, vroom!
>> I hung Dina's blades on the wall and need to move the
>
>I had a drilled block for sundry sundries, but it wound up just being the
>holding area for all the bits I never really use.
>
>> replaced it--all of the seeds finding my yard and overgrowing the
>> field grasses. I wanted to kill the guy. The Top 40 never needed
>> mowing until that, and there were a dozen different delicate flowers
>> out there, between the fine blades of the self-leveling grass. Bah
>> freakin' humbug.
>
>I feel your pain.
>
>> <g> I've never done the manicured thing and hate lawns, but I'm
>> keeping this place up a lot better than I did the LoCal yard.
>
>I have 1/3 acre, and I have 57 trees planted on it. Eventually they will
>produce enough shade to kill it all.
>
>In the short term, however, moving my yard SUCKS. I have to re-string my
>weed eater every week, and I have to buy a new weedeater every other year.
>I probably have 3 miles of edging.
==========================================================
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--Socrates + Web Application Programming
Larry Jaques responds:
>>> Right. And since that $50k stay didn't cost them more than a few hours
>>> worth of supervision and a few hundred in medical supplies, $45-50k
>>> sounds about right for the deductions. <eg>
>>
>>Well, $7 an hour for the nurses, $497.63 per bag of salt water, $11,275.06
>>for the little pink tray with pitcher, $79.32 each for 50 styrofoam cups,
>>and $47.72 each for drinking straws. $64.43 per minute for the electricity
>>used to raise and lower the head of the bed every time she clicked the
>>button. To say nothing of the meter they put on the remote control. It's
>>a wonder it didn't cost $50 million.
>
>I hope none of those prices is true. I wouldn't want a minimum-wage
>nurse watching over me, and I sure as hell wouldn't pay $500 for
>saline.
>
Don't bet on it. Most of us don't question hospital bills--and we should. Many
years ago, my mother was hospitalized for a few hours with a bee sting. She
questioned one $10 charge (Mom was both an RN and child of the Depression so
when it came to bucks, everything got a question). It was a "donation" to some
hospital fund! They pulled this on a person who had just retired as acting
administrator of a small hospital where she had designed and run a campaign for
raising money to build an entirely new hospital.
And that was before our local medical octopus took over this particular
hospital.
Silvan, you got Carilion up on B'Burg? And that's their misspelling, not mine.
Charlie Self
"One of the common denominators I have found is that expectations rise above
that which is expected." George W. Bush
Charlie Self wrote:
> Silvan, you got Carilion up on B'Burg? And that's their misspelling, not
> mine.
Yes, in Radford. We had a lot of trouble for years over that. SWMBO's
insurance would not touch anything except Carilion, and all the Carilion
stuff isn't even in this county, let alone over the hill from here. We
refused to go to Radford, so we had to settle for insurance that would only
pay 60% instead of 80% for several years. That seems to have settled down
now.
I'm not quite sure what's going on. When my daughter was born, about seven
years ago, it was Columbia Montgomery Regional Hospital, and everything was
branded CMRH. Most recently, it's back to plain MRH. I have no idea what
that signifies, if anything.
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/
>
>
> Workshops, like lives, are works in progress. The shop that's organized
to
> the level of filled tool silhouettes on the pegboard, clean benches and
> floors is ready for viewing - "doesn't it look like itself?"
>
> Every cluttered corner is a bit of yesterday to be revisited like a
memory,
> every brief cleaning or rebuilding shows confidence in the future.
Sounds
> like it's time to do some cleaning around the edges to make room for the
> life you and the wife will be living. Just don't destroy the core clutter
> of what you have.
>
George -
I hate to sound mushy but your post is the most poetic post I have ever read
about woodworking and I say that in all seriousness. It made me pause a bit
and think.
Thanx,
Vic
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 20:51:14 -0500, Silvan
<[email protected]> wrote:
>mac davis wrote:
>
>> So, how is your bride? recovering well I hope!
>
>I'm betting they'll yank that tube out of her when she goes back for her
>second post-op visit on Tuesday. She's doing much better. She's starting
>to eat with some enthusiasm again, and she's moving around. I've taken her
>with me every time I've gone shopping and such, and let her get out of the
>house and walk around. At least this should be the end of the months of
>problems that lead up to the surgery, and she seems to be tolerating life
>without a gallbladder just fine.
>
Great! Sounds like she'll be back to SWMBO status in no time at all..
life is good..
>
>> Since you're rearranging almost everything in the shop, I'd suggest
>> Anyway, houses go up and down in value, tools, projects and shops
>> change, but IMHO, what holds everything together is family... and
>> you've got a mom back for the kids...
>
>Almost back. Not quite fully wearing the mantle of Mommy just yet, but at
>least I don't have to do the laundry too much longer. :)
ahh.. but she's home.. if you've ever been hospitalized, you know how
damn nice it is to get home...
mac
Please remove splinters before emailing
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 20:39:34 -0500, Silvan
<[email protected]> calmly ranted:
>Larry Jaques wrote:
>
>>>I'm not sure what my piece of this action is, but it ain't gonna be cheap.
>>
>> Just remember NOT to make any repayment contracts with the hospital.
>
>Hell no. Here's your $10. I'll pay you more next month if I feel like it.
>I've been around this bush before. With the kids. I loved how they would
>send a reminder every month that I could help lower the cost of medical
>care for everyone by putting the full amount on my Visa or MasterCard
>today. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
I heard that one when I took a neighbor to the hospital. They didn't
have a CC and I sure as hell wasn't going to put mine on the counter
and let them rape, sodomize, and mutilate it. "Sorry, no CC here,
either. I'm just dropping off a friend."
>> And make sure to ask for a discount since 2/3 of that cost was to
>> repair the damage he accidentally caused to your wife during a simple
>> operation. That should take your bills WAAAAY down if not completely
>> away. Best of luck on that.
>
>I think this is what the -$9,000 "adjustment" was for. I should try to
>badger them into reducing it even more.
Right. And since that $50k stay didn't cost them more than a few hours
worth of supervision and a few hundred in medical supplies, $45-50k
sounds about right for the deductions. <eg>
>>>And so I come to my point at last. My workspace is reasonably well
>>>refined
>>
>> You had a point? When did THAT start? <gd&r>
>
>I promise not to make a habit of it.
Tendjewberrymud.
>> Speaking of which, I should build a storage bin beneath Dina's right
>> wing. She could shelter more tools and/or cutoffs under there.
>
>I'm thinking about putting the shop vac under there, and completely
>re-thinking the out-feed area. First I have to figure out where to put all
>the stuff that doesn't have any place to go until I can make some place for
>it to go. What I need is another shed. Or a bigger shop. Or maybe the
>dining room. :) Hrm.
There ya go. You eat at the couch in front of the TV anyway, right?
I have half my meals here in front of the computer in my office and
the other half in front of the TIVO, fast-forwarding through the
bloody commercials so I can watch the program in half the time. I
really love it.
>> Now you know what drywall screws are for, huh?
>
>On the bright side, spiral nails hold very well.
Yabbut...oh, never mind.
>> 3/4 hunting for tools and 1/4 woodworking. I got 1 open-faced cabinet
>> up and stocked it with Stanleys and billdrits, but there is a bit more
>> to be done.
>
>I really need to cook up some tidy way to organize my various billdrits,
>vises, flungums and plantablats for the drill press. Maybe one of those
>chests.
I just made a drilled block for the LVT forstners and clinched it in
the WW vise on my drill/mortise/sanding table, right next to the huge
and heavy duty HF 5-speed 1/3-hp drill press. Vroom, vroom, vroom!
I hung Dina's blades on the wall and need to move the
>I have some kind of praire coneflower stuff that grows 8' tall, and some
>kind of perennial sunflowers that do the same. A bunch of tough as nails
>hybrid "floral carpet" roses. Everything is kind of wild and out of
>control, but I like that look personally. I like anything that requires
I had a pristine California Prairie going in my upper yard in Vista
until the total arsehole in the apartments above me decided to kill
off the iceplant on the slope above me (by never replacing broken
sprinkler heads) and start weedeating the gone-to-seed grass which
replaced it--all of the seeds finding my yard and overgrowing the
field grasses. I wanted to kill the guy. The Top 40 never needed
mowing until that, and there were a dozen different delicate flowers
out there, between the fine blades of the self-leveling grass. Bah
freakin' humbug.
>almost zero maintenance. I did the manicured thing at the old place, but
>then I moved here and got introduced to nutgrass and ground ivy. It is not
>possible to win a battle with nutgrass or ground ivy, both of which will
>re-sprout a new colony within three days if you leave 1/3 of a stray root
>cell in the dirt, but it is possible to plant things that grow taller.
<g> I've never done the manicured thing and hate lawns, but I'm
keeping this place up a lot better than I did the LoCal yard.
==========================================================
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Endangered SKEETS! ||| Web Application Programming
==========================================================
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 00:55:09 -0500, Silvan
<[email protected]> wrote:
Please forgive the top post, but this is a LONG post)
So, how is your bride? recovering well I hope!
Change for the sake of change is a bed thing, I've heard... but change
for progress and improvement is reportedly a good thing...
It's hard to part with things that you put time into making and
emotion into remembering that time as you're using it... but as your
needs change, so must your storage, tools, mind set, etc...
Since you're rearranging almost everything in the shop, I'd suggest
putting everything possible on wheels or making it somehow mobile.. I
do this as a reflex now, nothing gets built or added that can't be
moved around...
This not only saves time when you get a new tool that always seems to
call for rearranging the shop, but in a limited space (I share the
garage with a washer, dryer and family junque) it's very handy...
I find that since everything rolls around, the stuff that doesn't get
used often can be rolled out of the way.. and in better weather, a lot
of it gets rolled outside to the driveway to use, especially the CMS
and belt/disk sander... true dust control. *g*
Anyway, houses go up and down in value, tools, projects and shops
change, but IMHO, what holds everything together is family... and
you've got a mom back for the kids...
Everything else is just money and stuff, which somehow we used to be
able to be happy without, right?
>Today was both invigorating and melancholy.
>
>The wife's hospital bills are mounting up, and while I don't yet know what
>the final damage is going to be, it's a sure bet it isn't going to be
>cheap. We're at $25,000 so far, just for the hospital itself. Not the
>surgeon, the anaesthesiologist, the radiologist, the ultrasonologist, the
>ER attending physician, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, and
>anyone else who will see fit to mail us a bill before this ordeal is over.
>I'm guessing it's going to hit $50,000 before it's all over. Ouch.
>
>I'm not sure what my piece of this action is, but it ain't gonna be cheap.
>Thus I must needs come to terms with the fact that my termite-infested,
>half-rotten, undersized corner of heaven is going to be my home for years
>to come. I can't afford to build a new shop for 5-10 years. It thus
>behooves me to make the most of what I've got, to gut it, re-evaluate it,
>and see what else I can do to make it a more suitable working space.
>
>And so I come to my point at last. My workspace is reasonably well refined
>from the doors to the area on the far side of the line between the far side
>of my drill press and the back of my table saw. The space behind the saw
>has been a, well, a fuster cluck for years. I had a tool cabinet lined
>with pegboard which I brought with me from our last place. It was situated
>in such a way that it left about an 18" square area in one corner that was
>utterly useless for any purpose. I couldn't even store things there
>effectively, because I couldn't get to them without a lot of effort. To
>the right of this cabinet is an area that has been occupied by various
>irksome bits of machinery. A horizontal bandsaw that needed plenty of
>feeding room, a router table, a table saw. Most recently this space has
>become the outfeed for my new contractor's saw, which is really too damn
>big for my shop, but is a true joy to use anyway. It was occupied by a
>shop vac, a collection of hoses, some odd little piles of random scraps,
>and some thus and such.
>
>So anyway, the fateful day finally arrived today. The tool cabinet, one of
>my first projects, and my most successful and functional large project,
>simply had to go. The door wall is all door. The roof slopes down to meet
>walls about 4' high at the sides, so the only place it could go was along
>the back. It was situated very badly in relation to everything else. I
>had two huge multi-drawer bits and bobs organizers attached to the outside
>of the doors, and these added another 6" or so to a cabinet that was
>already about 13" deep. 19" of depth about 4' long, mostly to hold a bunch
>of air and odd bits of things that I hardly ever use.
>
>When we moved out here, I nailed that thing up but good. I used sixteen
>buttloads of spiral nails across the top and the bottom. In the process of
>attempting to extract it in order to move it somewhere else, somewhere
>outside the shop, I completely obliterated it. Every board is shredded to
>the point where I could only get usable odd bits of lumber out of the
>wreckage through the use of a bandsaw, or a monumental planing effort.
>Seeing as how the whole thing was just jummywood anyway, I elected not to
>bother. So a source of pride and joy that has served me well for the last
>decade has been reduced to a pile of splinters stacked up to be the Beltane
>bonfire in a few months.
>
>It brought a little tear to my eye when I finally got the back away from the
>wall. D. Michael McIntyre 6-20-95
>
>Rest in pieces old friend, rest in pieces.
>
>I'm going to put pegboard and shelves on that wall, and get much more
>storage out of far less depth. I'm moving the DP away from the workbench,
>moving it to the back wall, where I will be able to put wider stock on it
>without hitting anything. I'm moving the lathe where the DP used to go,
>and I'm building an outfeed table/machine table behind the TS, which can be
>used to host either the Norm table or the crawl saw.
>
>I'm also seriously contemplating building a new workbench, even though it
>pains me to think this after I just spent the last four shop days
>reorganizing the old one, and hanging tools on the pegboard behind it. I
>have 2' at the door end that used to be a metalworking station. I don't do
>metal much anymore, and I could live without the anvil and pipe vise, I
>think. Put the vise on a board to mount in my face vise. Use the anvil on
>the floor when I need it. I can't use the space for anything because all
>that stuff is in the way anyway, so I wouldn't miss the width. I could
>build drawers underneath to store some of my more unwieldy bits and bobs,
>like my saddle square, my pencil sharpeners, dovetail markers, and sundry
>other things that don't lend themselves to hanging. I could also build
>cubbies or drawers to hold all my portable machinery, so I could utilize
>the whole vertical space underneath. It may be more cost effective to
>doctor the bench I already have again, but I'm tempted to build a new one.
>
>I'm still thinking and planning. First I have to figure out what to do with
>all the stuff I have now made homeless. I want to try to work through this
>mess without moving everything five times.
>
>So anyway, it's a sad day because I completely obliterated an old friend,
>but it's also a happy day because I have solved a problem that has been
>annoying me for months, and I feel like I have a world of potential for
>innovative ways to squeeze just a tiny bit more utility out of my tiny
>little space. I'm trying to work toward giving the monster saw a little
>more feeding room, so I can actually work on furniture-sized projects. I
>almost had a kickback doing that 30" tall printer stand because I
>inadvertently wedged the feeding end of the board against my lathe, and I
>went into the blade cock-eyed. I need to spread things out more, or else
>get a smaller saw. The small saw just ain't happening though.
>
>Once I get it all sorted out, and cleaned out, and spiffed out, and tricked
>out, I'm going to go through with Mom's new digital camera and put together
>a compleat shoppe toure to show everyone my pathetic, termite-infested
>corner of heaven. I guess I'll keep using it as long as it's still
>standing. The bright side is that while it has definitely been damaged by
>bugs and moisture, I can fix the damage a lot easier than I can build a new
>building from scratch. Only one end of it is sitting directly on dirt, and
>that's the only end that's well and truly rotten.
>
>Hell, at this rate, I might actually get through all the
>cleaning/sorting/arranging, then get back to my on-going sharpening/tuning,
>and then finally I will be ready to actually build a real project out there
>for the first time in what will then be almost two years. Right in time
>for it to be gardening season, I expect. Sigh. Oh well, the up side there
>is that I am a lazy gardener, and I have planted a lot of self-sustaining
>perennial stuff. I only have one little annual bed, and all my regular
>stuff eventually grows taller than the weeds, so I don't really have to
>maintain much for long.
mac
Please remove splinters before emailing
"Silvan" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
>
> Today was both invigorating and melancholy.
<snip of "life">
> The wife's hospital bills are mounting up,
Sounds like she's on the mend. The *most important thing*, isn't it?
On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 11:41:54 -0500, the inscrutable Silvan
<[email protected]> spake:
>Larry Jaques wrote:
>
>> I hope none of those prices is true.
>
>(Yeah, well, duh doofus. If you think for a minute any of those prices are
>actual figures, you and I need to do some dealing. I have something to
>sell you. I just haven't figured out what it is yet. :)
>
>> I wouldn't want a minimum-wage
>> nurse watching over me, and I sure as hell wouldn't pay $500 for
>> saline.
>
>Oh, I meant to say $50. That's a much better price for a bag of mildly
>salty water.
>
>And $7 an hour is well above minimum wage. :)
Not here. It just went up to $7.25/hr.
>(Just for the record, I wasn't trying to convey a feeling of incompetent
>minimum wage nurses, but one of grossly underpaid professional nurses. The
Ah, gotcha, and I agree. But reducing the cost of things by reducing
the level of corporate greed would be MUCH better than upping
everyone's wages. The latter would result in a net loss for the poor
as the greed hit the higher wages with higher retail pricing.
>earning potential in this corner of the world sucks. Though not as bad as
>it sucks in, say, South Carolina.)
Wow, you're still at $5.15/hr in Vag^H^Hirginia? That IS depressing,
but SC with no MW is horribly behind the times. Maybe that's why the
apparel industry stays there. An interesting link follows.
http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm#2 Kansas: $2.65/hr?
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