butchering an old friend

Silvan · 2005-01-12T05:55:09+00:00

Today was both invigorating and melancholy.The wife's hospital bills are mounting up, and while I don't yet know whatthe final damage is going to be, it's a sure bet it isn't going to becheap. We're at $25,000 so far, just for the hospital itself. Not thesurgeon, the anaesthesiologist, the radiologist, the ultrasonologist, theER attending physician, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, andanyone 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 yearsto come. I can't afford to build a new shop for 5-10 years. It thusbehooves 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 refinedfrom the doors to the area on the far side of the line between the far sideof my drill press and the back of my table saw. The space behind the sawhas been a, well, a fuster cluck for years. I had a tool cabinet linedwith pegboard which I brought with me from our last place. It was situatedin such a way that it left about an 18" square area in one corner that wasutterly useless for any purpose. I couldn't even store things thereeffectively, because I couldn't get to them without a lot of effort. Tothe right of this cabinet is an area that has been occupied by variousirksome bits of machinery. A horizontal bandsaw that needed plenty offeeding room, a router table, a table saw. Most recently this space hasbecome the outfeed for my new contractor's saw, which is really too damnbig for my shop, but is a true joy to use anyway. It was occupied by ashop vac, a collection of hoses, some odd little piles of random scraps,and some thus...

Jan 12, 2005 22 Replies

Rate this thread:

Silvan 21 years ago

(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. :)

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.)

Vote

Larry Jaques 21 years ago

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 11:41:54 -0500, the inscrutable Silvan spake:

Not here. It just went up to $7.25/hr.

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.

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.

formatting link

Kansas: $2.65/hr?

-- Life's a Frisbee: When you die, your soul goes up on the roof. ----

formatting link

Comprehensive Website Development

Vote

Silvan 21 years ago

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.

Vote

Join the Discussion

Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.

Didn't find your answer?

Ask the community — no account required