Shattered Fence, Fallen Tree - 23 November 2021

This is actually an experiment to see if I can embed movies in a post.  It does show the fallen tree that broke the new fence in the windstorm around Halloween 2021.

<pause>

Well, it did some sort of upload, but there is no image here. 

Next experiment - upload to YouTube and link to there.

The video is here: https://youtu.be/423yL75Lkp0

It seems one must click and follow - the video is not embedded.

Oh, look - there is one button to upload images and one to upload videos.  Let us now pause to upload the video.

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I am not looking at the final version, but the original portrait image has been truncated to landscape.  Not sure how Blogger determines this.

Excitement in the Backyard: Septic extension - 23 November 2021

This work was done a while ago, but I am documenting it today because I only just pulled the photos from the camera (phone?).

When the septic pumper was here, he pulled out the filter in the septic tank that protected the lines in the leach field.  He was very careful, warning me in advance, but the filter moreorless fell apart upon removal.  I think I noted that there were three plastic (nylon?) rods that heald together the individual stack plates of the filter.  The nuts holding these failed.  The guy offered to install a $500 replacement filter, but also described the repair process.  I went for the repair. I got three "all-thread" rods of stainless steel with six of those nylon locking nuts.  The idea is to replace the failed plastic rods with steel rods that will last.  

After I got back from the hardware store, I hosed down the filter in an effort to clean it.  I was mostly successful, but let us be real - there is no way to "clean" this thing.  I wore gloves to remove the failed rods and install the new ones.  I had put three of the locking nuts on the three rods in the kitchen (when everything was clean from the store).  That was a challenge because - no surprise - the locking nuts locked up.  As you might imagine, this foreshadows the trouble I was about to have in the backyard, assembling the repair for the filter.  I tried and tried, but could not get the bottom locking nuts on the rods, so I went back to my stash of nuts and bolts, grabbed four and used them.  I double-nutted one of the rods as a safety and then put the reluctant on the bottoms of the rods as best I could as a double-safety. 

In the photo, you see the repaired filter insert to the left, the receiving column inside the septic tank in the center, and the silo lid on the right.  For sanitary reasons, I used a loop of rope to lower the filter core back into the filter housing in the tank.  Once it was all settled, I put the lid back in place and screwed it closed.

For future reference:  the screws in the lid are Robertson, likely #2 or #3.  There are four at about the cardinal points. 

Working with Medicare and Social Security: Follow-up - 23 November 2021

I got back on the phone to Social Security Bellevue this morning and was on-hold for about 20 minutes.  I retraced my (verbal) steps of yesterday, and the woman on the phone confirmed that the delayed start of Part B into July 2022 seemed odd.  From what she can tell, all the paperwork is in-place to justify a "special start" now rather than the open-enrollment start in July.  The case is under review and she added a case note for the responsible individual.  She was very reluctant to provide a case number or contact, so I am "in line" somewhere.  When the review is complete, I will be issued a new card with new dates and be able to sign up when that happens.  Until then, she said there is nothing for me to do - Part A is automatic and in-force, and any enrollment in the other Parts, including Advantage, are gated on the new date.

Sigh.

Working with Medicare and Social Security - 22 November 2021

After filing the right paperwork, I received notice from the Social Security Administration that I was confirmed as eligible for Medicare.  Medicare Part A (hospital) started April 2021, Part D (prescriptions) started (no date - but "can enroll"), and Part B (medical/out-patient) starts July 2022.

July 2022.  Wait a minute.  Why so late when Parts A and D were active?

About noon, I called the number in the letter, the 1-800-MEDICARE number.  I was on-hold for a while and then spoke to a nice woman; I did not catch her name.  She was generally helpful, but the computers were down, so she could not check any specifics.  She advised that I call back later, when the computers were back up.  OK.

About 2pm, I called 1-800-MEDICARE again.  After a long time on-hold, I was able to speak with Wanda.  Wanda was rather the opposite of the first woman.  Wanda was not very helpful.  In summary, she said that I had called Medicare and needed to call Social Security.  She did not accept that the letter had me call Medicare - that was not going to be her problem.  As the computers were back up, I asked for my Medicare number.  She said I had to have a reason.  I told her that I had not received my card with the number and we were in the midst of the enrollment period, so I needed my number.  That seemed to satisfy her and she put me on-hold.  I eventually connected with Greg.  Greg was very helpful and gave me my number.  It took a while, but it worked.

About 2:30, I called Social Security at 1-800-772-1213.  I spent my time on-hold and was connected with Sarah.  She listened to my story and looked at the records.  To her assessment, I had been put in the general enrollment for Part B in July 2022 rather than special enrollment for new Part B people.  She said that I needed to call the Social Security Bellevue office.  I needed to ask them to put me in the special enrollment category.

About 3pm, immediately after I got off the line with Sarah, I called the Bellevue Social Security office at 1-866-574-2323.  I was on hold for about 28 minutes and SS-Bellevue dropped the call.

About 3:30pm, I called SS-Bellevue back.  I was on hold for about 25 minutes and I got a recording announcing that they could not connect me to an agent, advised me to call back again, and hung up.

The Bellevue office closes at 4pm.

So I spent literally hours on the phone to get nothing.  Well, OK, I finally have my Medicare number, but that was not the main purpose of the day.

I wil lbe back on the phone tomorrow at 9am to the Bellevue office to fix this.

Excitement in the Back Yard - 16 November 2021

Well... the excitement is papable.  I think that is a word.  Two big bits of excitement in the back yard, and maybe three bits if you count differently.

A tree fell down and broke our fence in a windstorm around 1 November.  I took some photos, but the weather has been so crappy that I only just got back there to do some clean-up.  It is (was) a sweetgum tree in our neighbor's yard that snapped off at about the six-foot level, and almost twenty feet of tree fell on the corner of our newly installed fencing.  Other names for the sweetgum are liquidambar and American storax.  Unfortunately, besides the cleanup, about three panels of the new fence are damaged.  

Under WA law, we are responsible for repairs - this is an agreement common among insurance companies.   Metropolitan just sold our policy (the whole business) to, I think, Farmers or maybe State Farm, so I have to find the new insurance information to make a claim.  In the mean time,  I went back to do some initial clean-up.  I am hoping that I might get a 4x4 board out of it, maybe 12 feet long.  Looks like nice wood, but we shall see.  I am concerned that an otherwise healthy-looking tree snapped, so the wood may be diseased or otherwise not useful.

Second bit of excitement - we had the septic tank pumped for the first time in about 5-7 years.  We are pretty careful with, uh, what we put into the tank, so seven years is about normal for us.  We had the silos put in (towers?) last time, thus no digging this time, just pumping.  When he went to clean the filter (between the septic tank and leading to the leach field), there was a bit of discovery.

The filter fell apart when he pulled it out.  Not surprising that 30-year-old plastic fails.  As I understand it, the filter is a stack of filter plates that are held in a column by three plastic rods and capped by three plastic nuts.  The filter serves to protect the leach field from solids in the tank (liquids only).  The plastic failed, probably the nuts but perhaps the threading on the rods.  Anyway, the operator got the filter out, but barely.  He offered a replacement at $500 but also told me how I could get some replacement rods to repair the filter for another decade or three.  I chose the latter option, but now I have to go to the hardware store, get the replacement bits, finish cleaning the filter, and replace the filter (inside the septic).  I am not entirely thrilled by this option, but I am less thrilled by the $500 option.

In the meantime, I have ripped the first seven seasons of MASH to the family media server and Handbrake has only crashed twice.  I am now completing seasons 8-11 and then the movie.  Then on to House, Seinfeld, and some miscellaneous DVD movies that I have not yet ripped.  I also have some French DVDs to rip, but they are a different Region (EUR rather than US), so I have to look into MakeMKV. 

COVID Booster Received - 11 November 2021

I did a lot of misccellaneous things yesterday, but the significant one was a trip to get my COVID vaccine booster.  The vaccine is quite available - if you qualify - but it is not easy to get.  Let me explain the three parts of that statement.  

There are several web sites that will allow you to find places that are dispensing the COVID vaccine boosters; I think Google even provided some tailored search results.  I knew I could get a booster at a pharmacy, so I did a search at the site for Bartell Drugs, a regional chain.  No problem, it is easy to find the appointment page, but they do not offer walk-in or same-day appointments and the appointments for the next couple of days were already booked.  Because of my travel to DC, I booked about a week out for 11 November.  

To qualify (as I write this), one needs to have special needs such as a compromised immune syste, working with senior citizens, etc., or be 65 years or older.  By now, the doses for kids 5-12 should be available, but that was still only a promise when I booked.

Finally, distribution of avaiable appointments is lumpy.  I would normally go to Bartell Drugs in Redmond, or in Bellevue, but I had to go to Factoria, about a 25-minute drive.  Not a big burden, but I was hoping for a 25-minute round-trip trather than an hour.  I know. #FirstWorldProblems 

Google Maps took me to the wrong "Bartell Drugs Factoria".  I asked for my destination verbally and Google Maps took me to a Bartell Drugs store in Bellevue so I had to redirect when I got to the wrong destination.  This would have been a real problem on mass transit, but I was driving, thus no big deal.

Once in the right place, I had arrived a bit early, so I wandered around after I checked-in.  I had no particular shopping list, so I looked for some general needs.  I was both surprised and not-surprised by the stocking problems.  I found everything I needed (looked for), but maybe not exactly what I was looking for.  Maybe I wanted gel-cap ibuprofen and they only had tablets or I wanted the 500mg and they only had the 200mg -- that kind of thing.  There were some sections that looked depleted but I did not make note of what they contained.  It is not like the shelves were bare, but some of the sections had gaps.

The pharmacist called me, I got my shot, and they gave me a bale of paperwork.  Totally free.  No questions about payment, costs, or insurance.  I could probably go back tomorrow for a fourth shot (I am not recommending that - I state it simply to suggest that suppies are ample).  I got a third Pfizer dose; I could have mixed it up with another version, but the pharmacist said that the general recommendation was to stay consistant, so I did.   My physical reaction was nil - nothing.

Next morning, there was a little bit of soreness at the injection site, but only when I poked at it. And now, 24 hours later, even that is barely noticeable.

As of 5-Nov, I received notice that I am registered in Medicare, and I await my number so that I can book an annual physical and get a flu shot.

 Kayak Construction, Day Six, completion - 31 October 2021

This is written on 4 November and the kayak is resting in the garage.  I am trying to get the Blogger layout commands to put the photo to the side of this text, but with severely limited joy so far.

Reconstructing, on Day Three, we had a separate deck (top) and hull (bottom) that fit, that had some edge glue to hold the panels together, and a lot of copper wires holding everything together.  Although the kayak has enough strength to be able to move the hull parts about, it must be done carefully.

On Day Four, we expanded the fiberglass work.  We used a thickened epoxy mix to fillet (two l's rather than one) the hull pieces.  This fillet is to fully set the deck and hull shapes that the prior tacking had begun, and the fillets give structural strength to the halves of the kayak.  To provide a continuous fillet, all the wires must be removed.  We are talking hundreds, probablly 200 or more.  There remain a handful in the bow and stern of the hull to retain the proper shape because there is notable twist and stress in the plywood.  Eventually, the few remaining wires will be clipped and sanded flush (fortunately, while copper is strong enough to hold the stresses, it is also soft enough to work with sandpaper).  To do the filleting, I clipped the wires at the deck-hull joint, laid the halves of the boat side-by-side with the (to be) interiors facing up, and clipped the remaining wires.  This gave easy access to the interior for stem-to-stern fillets.  I  prepared the filleting epoxy mixture and used the clipped end of a sandwich bag to apply long fillets that were then smoothed to a gentle curve.  The curves were pretty flat in the bottom and got sharper (smaller radii) toward the bow and stern.  I also applied fillets to the bulkheads, preparing them to be waterproof.  We left this to set for a bit and started taping the seams with 3-inch fiberglass to reinforce the strength of the joints.  We put extra layers of glass in the bow and stern, and then put a sealing coat of epoxy on the inside of the lower hull.  

To start Day Five, I glued one of the hatch fixtures in place.  This goes on the inside to hold the previously cut hatch covers aligned with the deck and to create a waterproof assembly.  I had to shape the hatchh assemblies to fit the slope of the deck at the sides; I also needed to adjust the fillets to seal the waterproof chambers.  I taped the underside of the deck seams and put a sealing coat on the bottom, then it looks like I glassed the underside of the deck and rejoined the halves.  Somewhere in the day, more sanding cleaned up the puzzle joints, removing the surface epoxy and leaving the joints.  Late in the day, I started work on the Kokopelli accents by the cockpit.  Inlay was not really possible due to the complex outline of the figures; to be honest, inlay is the way to go for simpler figures such as circles.  I put a stripe of epoxy on the deck to give the Kokopelli fitures something to stick to (yes, I also put epoxy on the underside of the Kokopelli figures).  Then I laid down a heavy coating of epoxy, taking care to fill in the figures as much as I could. 

This worked well.  The green tape that you see is simply holding the halves together.  Again.  

I came in on Day Six to cut the extra fiberglass from the remainder of the cockpit and hatch openings and trimmed up the edges. Today was challenging for a couple reasons.  I applied a top surface of fiberglass to the deck and later spread a fill-coat to smooth out the weave (make it less visible).  This will create a problem later in the day because of the curing delay in the cool, Autumn temps -- therefore the heater that you see in the photo.  I also filleted the joint between the hull and the deck.  Around the cockpit, I applied 3-inch tape and epoxy, then the rest of the seam got 1-inch tape and epoxy.  The 3-inch tape is very hard to handle when working in the limited access through the hatch holes, so the 1-inch tape was a welcome relief.  While I waited for the epoxy to cure, I helped apply glass and epoxy to the outside hull of several other boats.  Finally, at about 6pm, it was declared that the epoxy was ready for travel.

I already had a roof rack on the car, so I added some foam padding to protect the kayak.  We threw some straps over the top and padded them with old towels and plastic wrapped around the straps.  As a general rule, shiny plastic will not adhere to the epoxy, therefore the straps and towels were kept unglued to the car and straps.  We took the ferry home and arrived without incident.  Well, except for the deer that tried to cross the road as we were leaving Port Townsend - able to stop in plenty of time to avoid entanglement.  The canoe is now resting the garage and I am acquiring tools and materials to complete the work.