This week is time for my first business trip in a while, and yesterday found me heading out of Cedar Rapids for Washington, DC. While here I’ll be participating on an industry committee that will be developing guidance for Synthetic Vision and Enhanced Vision Systems for aircraft. While I’m not in meetings, I’m hoping to do some sightseeing, since this is my first visit to Washington. Most of the museums and stuff are closed after 5 pm, but at least I’ll be able to walk the Mall and see the memorials and such.
My flight made it in to Reagan National airport on time and I rode the Metro up to my hotel. As I was nearing the hotel, I was thinking it looked a little dark… when I reached the hotel lobby, I found out that the power was out for this and a few nearby blocks, and would be out until midnight. Sigh. They checked me in with pencil and paper, and sent me with a couple of glowsticks to my room. I dropped off my stuff and then went down and asked for directions to a restaurant that would still have power. I ended up at Pizzeria Paradiso, where I had a very tasty “Atomica” pizza and read a book for a while. Then I walked back to the hotel, sat in my room in the dark, and had just enough laptop battery left to watch a couple of hours of Battlestar Galactica. As BSG was wrapping up, the lights came back on, so I was able to really check out the room (very nice!), iron some clothes, and head for bed.
The combination of a late night and an unfamiliar bed made this morning come a little bit too soon, but the complimentary breakfast was tasty. In a few minutes I’ll be headed out to walk the five blocks over to RTCA for the meeting. It’s supposed to be up to 50 here today, so it should be nice for walking after we’re done today. I’ll take lots of pictures, but won’t have any way to upload them until I get home… so keep coming back here and eventually you’ll see some!
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Have I mentioned lately how much I love Jonah Goldberg? Brilliantly obvious thoughts on TV “censorship”.
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Links to lots of cool desktop wallpaper.
Last night I used a jigsaw to cut two small notches, pulled the garage door opener up about another inch, reconnected everything, and it worked! So, 9 days, some very cold fingers, and one broken thumb later, we have a functional garage door and can park the vehicles in the garage again.
This opener has three working remotes, which means one for each car and one for the house… no more cold, late-night, barefoot trips outside when we forget to shut the garage door! The only thing still not working is our van, which is supposedly equipped with the HomeStar system, and thus should be able to be programmed to open the garage door from a button on the overhead panel. So far, no luck. But even if I don’t get that figured out, I can live with it. 
It feels good to finally get that project finished.
It seems like I always need a project of some sort to work on… so today I assigned myself another one. After checking out Geof’s fantastic update to derekwebb.net, I checked and realized that andrewosenga.net was available and hey, AO needs a good fan website.
So I snagged the domain name and I figure that I’ve got a business trip coming up where I’ll have a bunch of time to do design, when I’m not out walking around Washington.
It seems like I always need a project of some sort to work on… so today I assigned myself another one. After checking out Geof’s fantastic update to derekwebb.net, I checked and realized that andrewosenga.net was available and hey, AO needs a good fan website.
So I snagged the domain name and I figure that I’ve got a business trip coming up where I’ll have a bunch of time to do design, when I’m not out walking around Washington.
It’s true, I love free food. A little too much sometimes. I’ve had a plethora of free food this week. Yesterday my team lead took us out to Biaggi’s for lunch. Then today my boss took us out to Ruby Tuesday for lunch. I had the smokehouse burger, which has BBQ sauce and fried onions on it… soooo good! Now tonight our project is having a celebratory supper and drinks at Carlos O’Kelly’s Mexican Restaurant.
I’m sure this can’t be good for me. In addition, the time I’ve spent eating out at lunch is time that normally I’d have spent at the gym instead. So it’s a double whammy: no exercise, too much food.
Next week I’ve gotta get back in the workout groove. And try to keep it up when I travel the following week.
Yesterday morning we got a guy out to fix the garage door, so it now goes up and down like it should. So last night I spent most of the evening trying to get the garage door opener installed. Close, but no banana. The rail on this opener is a bit taller than the previous one, and with the limited space between the garage door and the rafters in the garage, it’s just too tight. So my next step will have to be to use a jigsaw and cut a small (1/2″ max) notch in the right spot in a couple of rafters. Slowly but slowly, it’s coming together.
Today was lining up to be a fairly unadventurous Saturday. I had a church basketball game in the morning – we got beat by a team who must’ve shot 85% from the field for the game. They were on. It was scary. Then we took the family to Hy-Vee for a late breakfast, and a few of our friends joined us. Finally, we headed home. My remaining task for the day was to install a new garage door opener. Our old one is probably 30 years old and has been slowly dying for a while now. We found a nice new one on clearance at Lowe’s last week and bought it. So, I was all set.
I got the new opener unpacked and assembled. Then I took down the old one. So far, so good. However, I noticed as I was taking down the old opener that the torsion spring for the garage door, normally attached by two lag bolts to the frame of the garage, had pulled out one bolt and was in the process of pulling out the other one. Here’s an example of a torsion spring:
No problem, I thought. A quick trip to Lowe’s procured two larger lag bolts, and I set about installing them. It was a bit tricky – I had to put some weight on the spring to hold it down into place, but I managed to get the first bolt in. Then I came back up to tighten it, and the whole thing let loose. I didn’t see exactly what happened, but my left hand was bleeding and swelling. So Becky called Janice who was a life saver and came over to stay with the girls, who were napping. Then we went to the urgent care clinic.
One hour and three x-rays later, the doctor decided that I had fractured the last bone in my thumb (the one at the end of my thumb). No stitches were necessary, they just used some pressure bandages on my thumb and index finger to get the bleeding to stop. And I’ll have to wear a splint on my thumb for 4-6 weeks until the bone heals. Here’s what it looks like now:
So, this will put a damper on a few activities. No more basketball for the rest of the season. I will probably be able to play the piano enough to lead worship at church next Sunday as planned, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope for the Bach fugue on the pipe organ for the talent show. It has been a bit of a challenge typing this post, too, but I’m starting to figure out how to type without my index finger and thumb on my left hand.
Mostly I’m thankful that it wasn’t any worse; it sure could’ve been. The Lord was watching over me, even in my poor judgment of what I could manage. I’ll be calling an overhead door company on Monday, and will gladly pay them to fix the torsion spring and finish the opener installation. Some things, I guess, are just better left to the professionals.