Christmas came early

I wasn’t expecting this until tomorrow or Monday, but having it now is still good. “This” is my stuff I bought with my part of the stimulus check. And this is a picture of “This”.

Boxes usually have things in them, and while the one box was mostly empty space there was something interesting in there making the space “mostly” and not “entirely” empty.

There was also a T-shirt in the smaller box with the roll of fender material. And yes those are actual catalog numbers in that graphic.

There is also a roll of HDPE sheet in yellow but that was visually uninteresting so no picture. You’ll see it when I show the stages of building the fenders.

Speaking of the fenders, I have finalized the design for the rear fenders, but building them will have to wait until I get the frame built. That’s because I don’t know how much rear overhang I have yet until I get the rear axle and the fuel cell or tank I’m using. I’m pretty sure I’m using this fuel cell or this same capacity fuel cell . Those are just for driving around between races but this cell is for racing with. The big tank gets pump gas, the little tank gets E85 and a more aggressive tune on the controller to make full use of the octane and charge cooling effect of the fuel.

I’m about to mock up the radiator and use that to mock up the nose to the right width. That means I’m going to cut some two by fours and nail them up in a rectangle the size of the radiator and use that to figure out how much to cut from either side of the center part of the nose. I’m going to do woodwork, pray for my survival. 😂

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Picture post from Wapsicon 2015 and other things

I mentioned a while back that I spent a Saturday mid-day celebrating a certain web comic with others of a similar bent. One of the things we exchanged was something called a Munny World, a blank figurine with some wipe-off markers to decorate it. We were requested to use the markers to create a version of a Wapsi Square character and post it to the Internets.

The character I picked was Phix the Sphinx Librarian.

Also I finally got around to downloading some of the pictures from the State Fair. Here is Denny Hamlin’s show car.

I will be back tomorrow with my regular Sunday post.

PSA, Opus

Still not ready to deal with the Feed, so an update on my surgery instead

I got sliced and diced yesterday, but I got so dehydrated waiting for my surgery that I got held up from leaving post-op until I was hydrated enough to pass urine which was about 2 hours and 2 liters of water and IV fluids later. As I wrote, part of the issue was I was restricted from food and fluids from midnight before the operation but did not get into the OR until between 1130 and 1145. The last thing I remember was transferring out of the gurney to the operating table and then getting woozy from the pre-op drugs. Next thing I remember is waking up in post-op from the nurse shaking me gently.

Anyway, getting back to the dehydration, I was denied fluids for 12 hours before the operation so that I wouldn’t throw up during the operation, and I was given very dry O2 during the operation that dried me out even more. After the operation I had about 1500 cc of oral fluids (water and coffee) and 500cc of IV fluids and I managed to get a trickle of urine about 2 hours later.

After I got home I had iced tea and water pretty much solid for another 4 hours, until I was passing urine normally. Then I just hung out with my Peeps.

Mrs. the Poet was able to get a good picture of “Chris Christie” after removal.
I should tell you that this doctor does not have small hands, if anything they are larger than normal.

I was told that there would be a dent left behind when Chris was evicted from my neck, but I was not expecting anything like this dent.

That is a friggin huge dent, especially when you compare the “before” shot.

And a lump that large takes a large incision to remove.

With all that the relief in pain was immediate, from about a 2 or 3 to maybe a 1 on the 0-10 scale. And that was with no post-op pain drugs. I was forced to take 1 Hydrocodone after the operation because maybe I would have some pain after the shock of the operation wore off, or the last of the anaesthesia wore off or something like that, but I haven’t needed anything for pain at all. I feel less pain now than I have in months.

The only thing I regret is I will have to miss the Ride of Silence tonight because I can’t let the incision area get sweaty.

PSA, Opus the unkillable badass Poet

My ears are freezing on a Wreck-Free Sunday

I’m writing this post today looking a lot different than I did yesterday. For one thing I changed shirts 😉 For another thing I got my head shaved for Spring. Also yesterday I buffed my old Warlock7 with a few new magical items from the new campaign, one of which was a stole (like a priest would wear) that upped my Eldritch Blast from 4d6 damage to 6d6, and the new group also added 3 to all my stats retroactively, because one of the treasures they got added 3 to all party members’ stats. This raised my dex to an outrageous-for-humans level of 21 (the max for normal humans not magically enhanced is 18) as well as enhanced all of my saves because some of my saves were pretty abysmal before the upgrade (it’s a wonder Sparrow survived long enough to reach level 7). Also group rules required me to reset my HP to maximum based on the +3 upgrade I got from their treasure. This was a major help because my HP went from 37 before to 63 after the upgrade. Again, it is a wonder Sparrow ever survived to reach level 7. I was playing Sparrow way out of my pay grade. Or his, at any rate well above what his stats should have allowed him to survive.

At any rate we had another Searing of the Sheep ritual to banish Winter this morning. I’ll let the pictures tell the story.

It was a grey overcast at the start of the ritual.

Lighting the chalice and the god/dess candles.

Protecting my clothes from tiny bits of cut hair.

The first cut is the deepest.

My “barber” is having fun while my arms are trapped.

A “mow-hawk”

And now the beard is gone.

Making the final buzz

The hair piles up.

Nobody wants to see my lip

And once again we have banished Winter from Texas for another year.

PSA, Opus