Less than 0.5% of patients experience problems with LASIK surgery. :D

Got LASIK surgery a week ago Monday (Sept 19th).

I was not one of the very many folks lucky enough to wake up the next morning to clear sight and a trouble free experience. I'm putting that down here just so I don't forget the experience after things get better which I am quite sure they will.

Tuesday was bruised, scratchy and painful. And everything was blurry.

Wednesday was more bruised, scratchy and painful, coupled with eyelids stuck together from the meds. The right eye was seeming to get a bit better.

Thursday was like the hammer falling on the hinges of hell. Ended up going to my local eye guy (Surgery was in Denver at Icon Eyecare) who informed me that there was a tear in the flap. He was also surly and grumpy. Called Crys to let her know I'd be driving to Denver on Friday to see the docs at ICON for probably some reparative surgery. It's her busiest week of the month and I didn't wanna interrupt her work. It literally felt like something was loose and twirling around under my left eyelid.

Crys postponed her PhatFiber box till next week and drove me up to Denver. I felt kinda bad about that. The doc said there was a small separation in the flap and that it was beginning to heal. Doc #2 confirmed. They came up with a treatment plan that included more steroids in the eye for a longer period. The twirling thing under my eyelid seemed to have put itself back overnight, this is always a good thing.

Pablo put us up for the night and we proceeded to go out and enjoy our evening. He and his brother Mark are always good to hang with and helped us forget our troubles.

Saturday morning was much better than Thursday. Right eye was starting to see things, left didn't cause me to hunt for a pickaxe to tear it out with. We drove home, it took a good while since it was high time for aspen viewing in the high country.

Sunday was, yet again, better. Still not settled on the vision thing. Putting in the drops on schedule, trying to be hopeful

Monday: right eye seems to be seeing far pretty well now. Got a different pair of reading glasses for close up as I'll probably always need them. Left eye is sporadically better in sight. I'm cynical at this point but trying to be hopeful. Crys is always a soothing balm to my inherent insanity.

Tuesday (today) eyes are feeling more normal overall. Sight seems to be creeping toward clarity in the left as well as the right. I'm cautiously a bit more hopeful.

Updates as conditions warrant.

More Prep, why is there always so much prep?

This weekend Crys was at the Great Basin Fiber Fest makin money and visiting her long time friend Sarah.

So I did a little bit around the place. Our running joke is that Crys will never know what she finds when she gets home. :D

So I mowed the chicken yard, which involved some pretty involved repairs on the mower. I also prepped for about 10 yards of concrete work. I wanted to pour a parking pad at the east end of the house and a pad for the brick kiln for pottery. I never order less than a full truckload of concrete. I just make up a bunch of forms so we can be sure t empty it. :D

In this case I prepped the parking pad and and the kiln pad is easy. In that case I made sure to make a way to form up a 2' sidewalk along the garden bed. That should take care of any extra concrete. :D

It's always a bit of a challenge to find enough to keep myself busy on a home-alone weekend. I think I did good this time.

Parts On Order.

This week I ordered the final assembly parts for the dome greenhouse. We got the 8mm polycarbonate panels a good while ago and then got busy with survival things like solar installation and drinking.

To put the panels onto the dome takes either a willingness to do regular maintenance or a commitment of capital for maintenance free parts. We almost always elect to work overtime and buy things we won't constantly have to mess with. It tends to leave more time for important things like gardening and drinking.

So I went here: http://www.gemplers.com/product/171485/8mm-Polycarbonate-H-channel
to get "H" channels, "U" channels and neoprene washer installation screws. They also sell the 8mm Polycarbonate. It was a significant chunk of change but the idea of having to scale the outside of the dome every few years to reinstall greenhouse taps to the seams irked me.

They have a bit of a lead time, not scheduled to arrive until about 3 weeks after placing the order but we always have plenty to do, so why not?

This left the question of how to properly weatherproof the hubs (where the polycarbonate sections come together). What we settled on is to purchase enough round electrical box covers (steel) with a center hole and a 4" diameter and put cut up yoga mats under them for insulation and to stop air/water ingress/egress. The inside of the plastic hubs we used for assembly have a center hole so I can use a 4" bolt with appropriate washers to attach them. I think it'll work well.

The nice place, Gempler's, that I got the channel from does ship by truck, and often has a coupon to save 10% to 15% off their already decent prices.

I also ordered a couple of temp activated vents to install. With our rather impressive winds I didn't want to go with a vent that lifts off the surface. I got them here: https://www.amazon.com/ShelterLogic-11300-Automatic-Shelter-Vent/dp/B00HF4CQHE
because Amazon does a decent job of carrying lots of stuff.

Of course this is motivating us to put up my old/cheap hoop greenhouse. It's made from hog panels and rail road ties. :D I think I might go to FarmTek and get some of the decent plastic greenhouse panels they sell along with the appropriate H and U channels for that. It'll be our starter and test bed.

One thing always leads to another.

Summer fun.

At the beginning of summer we prep the hammock area for fun and frolic.

For Crys' birthday she got an enduro, Suzuki DR200. Used of course. 

Here's our brother Daniel, enjoying the fire pit.

Then we found a Honda CRF230, so we can go riding together, used as well.

Here are mom, dad, Crys, Autum and her friend hunting geodes by the house.

This would be Autum and Crys and I out hiking around our neighborhood.

This is Autum on our big hike up the drainage from our house. 

This is Crys, on our walk to the old granite quarry in Limekiln rec area.

So this is the new inverter set up. Sexy huh? From left to right: Main battery bank disconnect/rapid shut down breaker; just above that is the solar panel rapid shut down breaker; just below that and a smidge to the right is the charge controller; and the rest of that huge thing is the actual inverter stack. 

This was solar panel installation day. We went from 9 panels to 24. My mom and dad helped that day, it was fun. I started pulling the old panels down before the sun came up and we finished up at about 5:30 PM. 

All installed and damed glad of it.

Now we have 6,250 of solar panels up. 6 parallel strings of panels in series strings of 4. Even on cloudy days we get more solar than we did out of the old setup on the brightest day. 

When it's not all in the planning it's all in the recovery

I've spent much of this last week prepping the new inverter stack for the solar. Last December I got the thing home. It's HUGE. It took 2 strong folks to drag the thing into the shed. This presented a problem for installation. I solved that by removing the two 80+ pound inverters from the panel. I carefully mapped out what went where and have a process map for reinstall after the panel is mounted. Then I finished prepping the panel by selecting where things would come in and doing at least the preliminary hole drilling/knockout set process and putting in fittings where I could. Following that I installed the Automatic Generator Start (AGS) module. This means finding a place within the panel raceway that will accept something that size without getting in the way of the cabling that'll be put in there and allow me to get to it well enough to still wire it in after setting the panel.

After that I started on the combiner box prep. With the new higher voltage panel strings I"ll be running I had to get a 12 place combiner box that ends up accepting 6 double breakers. Equipment manufacturers have discovered that the original solar DC breakers tend to explode at the higher voltages even if they're rated for that voltage and the solution is this double breaker thingy. It's weird when one is used to the old way. The wiring both enters and exits on the top side of the breakers and there's this giant buss bar you have to assemble. That and I needed a larger knock out than the pre-made knockouts allowed so I had to remove one neutral bar (only needed one, not two) so that I could drill a hole and use my knockout set to make the right size hole on the right side (correct side, it was actually the left side) of the box.

Now comes the battery box DC disconnect. Yes, the double stack inverter setup from Magnum Energy has a set of disconnects in the panel. 2015 National Electrical Code requires a rapid shut down system  be installed on roof top mounted solar for the purpose of safety for fire first responders. That and I like being able to completely kill out the feed to the panel if I need to get in there and work on stuff. This one was the easiest one to set up . The knock outs are already the right size. I did have to swap out the Midnight 250 amp breaker for one that will accept the Rapid Shutdown System (RSS) breaker. It looks like I can also wire in some din mounted breakers for various low voltage stuff later on if I like. The breaker has a spot for a ground so I drilled a hole for that and it also has a ready stud for the neutral from the battery box. No, I'm not running double 4/0's into the breaker, they'll run directly from the battery box to the inverter stack. I will run a nice little #4 or #6 from the battery box to the stud for later. It's always good to do it now, not later. Later you have to back up 3 freakin miles to undo stuff so that you can re-do what you need to.

Then I had to map out how to run the piping. This is no small thing. Into the inverter stack come two 2" battery feed pipes carrying two 4/0 wires each. Then there is an 1 1/2" carrying the house power feed. Then an 1 1/4 from the combiner box, another 1 1/4 for the generator power feed, a 3/4" feed for the generator control wiring (can't run control wiring and power in the same pipe (NEC again). Then you have your ground wire (#4 copper) and various lan cables.

I have a map for that. :D

Hopefully this weekend we'll be able to throw the dang thing up there. Crys will help as we can now handle the weight of the stripped panel together. I sure hope I've pre-measured everything right.

When that's done I can start getting the rails up for the new solar. We're going from 2 KW in panels (9) to 6 KW in panels (24). It'll cover the roof and should take care of things nicely for us. The old system will go into a building I've already set in place to supply Crystal's fiber studio when we get that built.

I keep thinking if I was just retired I would have time to do all this stuff much quicker.

On another note, Crys gets home today after being gone for a week fetching our niece, Autum. We're looking quite forward to our summer.

Maybe I'm just getting lazy.

Didn't get any physical work done on anything today.

That's beginning to be a habit.

Crys is out in LaJunta taking care of Nana. That's a good thing. Yesterday was a Denver trip day for me . I left at 6:30 AM and got back at 11 PM. I got a little done. Dropped off a friend from work to pick up a car in Denver, then got to my meeting, and the lunch before hand. I like lunch. I'm sitting there with people I respect that share the same fight I make every day. Generally we're the taken for granted bunch that do it day in and day out for free for our fellow employees. I really needed it this month, I'm dealing with an employee that I have trouble understanding. I'm pretty sure it's a generational thing, and I'm really tryin my best but it's leaving me pretty exhausted with the process. Perhaps exhausted enough to finally take a step back and let someone else do the work. If I'm not going to be effective it's time to step aside.

But the main, good, point is that I get to hang out with my fellow organized labor warriors. I'm proud and honored to know each and every one. And they like and respect me. It feels pretty good.

Then leaving town I tried to stop by the distillery that I took a gift distilling class from. The gift was from Crys, the class was at Downslope Distilling in SE Denver/Centennial. They were closed, so I picked up fiber from Kitty Mine Crafts in Highlands Ranch and dropped off some stuff as well (for Crys). Then it was on to Costco where I got loads of stuff for high energy, low calorie snacks.

That's cause we're on a health kick. We're walking 10,000 steps a day and we've curtailed our diet and drinking. It's feeling good, and we're making some health progress. It's good.

From there to home was a long ride and then the days chores and then bed.

Today was a nice long walk, dishes, chores, research on fixing some stuff and pre work for the new solar system. Now I'm in a bath with some rum.

Still missing the girl and really glad she's coming home tomorrow.