Let's visit on the Porch II (Vietnamese, instructions, permission)

[Muck Boots Lady]

Are you map oriented? Seems I need a map/diagram/drawing to figure out where things are. DH fell off the roof and is in the hospital. About seven broken ribs and a punctured lung among other things. Hopefully no brain damage
But anyway, I can't seem to find things once I go through those big sliding doors (into the great unknown sometimes called the hospital). Does anyone else have this orientation problem? I know if I walk straight ahead, step into the elevator, go up one floor, step out the other side of the elevator, turn left, then right?? I'll get to his room. But that puts his room out over the parking lot which it ain't. And when you look out his window, you see a house to the north, but somehow I feel like I'm looking south.
Getting out of there is the scary part. I go out of the room and all I can see is a long hallway and have no clue which way to go, there are no signs, so I panic every time. Have been doing this every day this week. Plus learning how to drive his big @ss 4 wheel drive truck and get it in and out of 4H to 2H??? Should have it all down pat by now, but sheesh!
If I could just see a drawing of the hospital layout I know I wouldn't get lost.
Meanwhile, Dufus is making friends with all the staff, getting them to sneak him ice cream and other goodies. He's doing okay, just can't come home until they can get him off the lung suction contraption.

[Reziac]

Sounds like the brain damage happened before he fell off the roof... How the heck did he get so stove in, did he land on something lumpy? or was it a lot further down than it looked? Well, hopefully he'll recover none the worse for wear, and as a bonus learn to not jump off the roof. Threaten to gearstrip his truck, and he'll be outta there tomorrow.

You aren't lost. Hospitals were all designed by Escher. That's why you can't get there from here, and when you do get there, you're somewhere else.

[ElkHunter]

My stepmother was so challenged. She would give directions like:: "go out highway 44 to where the Johnson barn used to be.". I'd say, " I don't remember a Johnson barn," and she say, "well, you wouldn't, they tore it down in 1928, but you don't stop or turn there, you have to go a few miles further.". So now we have to drive down the highway, looking for a land mark that sent away in 1928, but ignore it and go a few miles further.

One time my dad had a quad bypass in Arizona. My brother and I drove over. He was laying in bed, half proper up with tubes coming out. He was awake when we walked in, big. smile on his face and he said, " did you have any trouble finding this place?". I said, "no, Ardith gave. us directions.". His heart monitor doubled the rate of beeps, he gritted his teeth and very strained he said, " you're damn lucky you found Arizona". Heart monitor brought the nurses in to. investigate what was going on.

My dad was a truck driver and never carried a map. He kept his maps in the closet and would get them out and look them over, put them back in the closet and then take off in his truck to make a 3 week, 10,000 mile trip and not. need his maps. Stepmother, on the other hand, would stop to get directions to the place she worked at for 27 years. My brother and I kinda hoped she would get lost coming home and not get directions.

[Muck Boots Lady]

OMG!!! This is so funny!
Glad I'm not the only dingbat out there!
Well lookout; Dufus is getting up and walking now. Kept bugging the nurses all day to unplug him from the lung suction machine so he could "try walking some more". He took nurse Cindy on his arm down the hall and would stop to critique each piece of art with her while I tagged behind. He told me he's buttering her up cause she knows all the good fishing holes around here. Only Cindy's not so dumb; she dropped a comment about going wild mushroom picking. Dufus nearly went nuts when he heard that. Somehow I don't think he's going to find out much.

[Reziac]

Uh-oh, pretty soon Dufus is gonna be on the loose! Hide the ladder!!

My mom and my former tenant both are so horrible at directions, they've kinda learned if they turn one way when they come out of a store, it's a sure thing the car is the other direction. If my mom ever traveled by herself, gods know where she'd end up. I'm more like Elk's dad -- I carry a map in my head of everywhere I've ever been, and generally know which way to go.

[Reziac]

So what's the best treatment to preserve a wooden trailer deck? It's mostly ordinary 2x6s tho the first two feet look like that fir that's as dense as oak.

Cuz I dragged home a new toy, and I want to get it all purty for winter:



7x18 foot deck in pretty good shape, 3" and 4" angle iron frame (the good thick stuff), looks like 3500 pound axles with grease nubs. No brakes, but has the mounting plates. Wiring needs to be redone, tho the lights work when they feel like it (and I've got good stick-on lights, so I don't care). Could use better tires (some cheapskate put car tires on it, tho they're fairly new), but same wheels as the Ugly Alaska Trailer (which has new D's) so I can swap 'em around if need be. Jack works but could be better. Has a back hitch plate. Not bent or rusted anywhere, which is amazing cuz it's around 30 years old.

Anyway I thought $700 wasn't bad, and it's the size I've been looking for, so off we went together. Follows real nice and doesn't bounce much.

The Ugly Alaska Trailer (cuz it came from Alaska) is a low-end 16' flatbed with this leaky ramshackle 4' high plywood box built over it. It's probably 40 years old, and it's been rolled and the frame is bent two different directions (tho the deck is like new), but it backs and pulls nice as can be... and best of all, it was free!

Now, I warned you it was ugly, so don't blame me if your eyes bleed...



And there's also the stock trailer, and the travel trailer, and the really ugly little junk trailer... do you think I have a trailer fetish?

[Clark Fork Fantast]

Originally Posted by Muck Boots Lady

Are you map oriented? Seems I need a map/diagram/drawing to figure out where things are. DH fell off the roof and is in the hospital. About seven broken ribs and a punctured lung among other things. Hopefully no brain damage
But anyway, I can't seem to find things once I go through those big sliding doors (into the great unknown sometimes called the hospital). Does anyone else have this orientation problem? I know if I walk straight ahead, step into the elevator, go up one floor, step out the other side of the elevator, turn left, then right?? I'll get to his room. But that puts his room out over the parking lot which it ain't. And when you look out his window, you see a house to the north, but somehow I feel like I'm looking south.
Getting out of there is the scary part. I go out of the room and all I can see is a long hallway and have no clue which way to go, there are no signs, so I panic every time. Have been doing this every day this week. Plus learning how to drive his big @ss 4 wheel drive truck and get it in and out of 4H to 2H??? Should have it all down pat by now, but sheesh!
If I could just see a drawing of the hospital layout I know I wouldn't get lost.
Meanwhile, Dufus is making friends with all the staff, getting them to sneak him ice cream and other goodies. He's doing okay, just can't come home until they can get him off the lung suction contraption.

Glad your Dufus is doing better. I can absolutely relate to the Escher-designed () hospitals. My dad was in the hospital some years ago, and I had spent all day and all evening at his bedside. Went home that night all groggy and worried. Came back next morning, to the ultimate nightmare: I rode up in the elevator, turned down his hallway, stepped into his room--and the bed was empty! No sheets or anything! You know what that means, from all those movies...Then I realized that I didn't recognize the guy in the other bed, and they'd even changed the view out the window ! Then it dawned on me that I'd taken the opposite elevator up, and turned left where I should have turned right, and I was in another section of the hospital. So I backtracked, came down the right hallway, and there he was in his room, safe and sound, sitting up in bed and feeling better! I almost cried from sheer relief.

[ElkHunter]

I would?LD use a regular deck stain like a Dr k on your house. There is a cabin, just like mine right next to me. The guy moved out so the landlord bought this special paint to do the deck. She got it at Home Depot and its almost like a rubber coatjing with sand in it. Being rubber, it sealed cracks a and the sand texture makes it a non-slip. Don't know how it holds up cause she just did it on Wednesday, but it looks nice and if it holds up like it says, it should be pretty good.



Years ago, I did my Dads deck for him, the same way we did decks on the ships in the Navy. Prime it, then tape off where you want walkways. Then lay down a coat of paint and sprinkle sand blasting sand on it. Let it dry and then sweep off the loose sand. Another coat of paint and sprinkle sand again. Repeat the process until you have about 4 coats of sand down? Put a final coat of paint. down. We. called it nonskid and it was outstanding. With a wet deck and the ship tossing in 40+ foot seas, you could walk on it and not slip. The nice thing is we could use regular paint, nothing special. Dads deck lasted about 10 years and then all he had to do is lay another coat of paint on it.

Are you going to make a kennel out of it?

[Muck Boots Lady]

Cuz I dragged home a new toy, and I want to get it all purty for winter:

And there's also the stock trailer, and the travel trailer, and the really ugly little junk trailer... do you think I have a trailer fetish?

OOO!! Sure is purdy!
We have a similar one. No you can't have it, SLAP! SLAP!

[Reziac]

Yeah, it was love real quick! I looked at it and thought, the frame and axles and planks would cost more than that just for the parts, never mind welding it all together, and I wanted an 18' with the wider deck and the little wraparound keep-stuff-from-sliding-off rack (what's that properly called?), and then when I hemmed and hawed a bit the price went down a hundred bucks... I can put brakes and better tires on it and still be ahead... last one I looked at new, basically the same trailer but without the rack thing, was $2200. (And my truck can stop a trailer with 3 ton of hay on it and no brakes, so that's hardly an emergency.)

I knew a guy who worked for a company that makes the rubber-and-sand deck stuff. I'm not sure I want it nonslip, tho -- makes it harder to drag stuff on and off the trailer. I used leftover fence preservative on the stock trailer's planks, but it's got mats over the wood, not to mention a roof that doesn't leak (much).

Some people use a mix of diesel and motor oil, but I'm not sure how good an idea that really is. With the beehives we used a mix of linseed oil and paint thinner to make it soak in better, and it made the barn paint stick a lot longer. (Honey is corrosive; it eats paint and concrete, and isn't all that good for wood or metal either.)

Oh, I mentioned the really ugly little junk trailer... it was a freebie. Homemade by a lunatic back around 1980. Has an ancient Chevy?? truck axle under it (the narrow kind that drops down in the middle) and super-heavy springs, and the box frame looks like it started life as a metal bedframe, with falling-apart plywood bolted on, and the bed is 3.5x7 feet with 32" high sides (what the hell kind of size is that??! The axle set the width, but couldn't they have made it the same length as a sheet of plywood?) And it has the screw-down type of hitch that's a wonder it never comes loose. And it won't back up to save its life -- you have to unhook it and move it by hand (it's light enough for even this 9-stone weakling to pick up and move). But I've gotten more use out of this piece of crap!! mostly hauling firewood, and it can handle as much weight as you can pack into it.