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emergency massages Monday, August 14 2006
Now that there is a solid, fully-insulated wall between the garage and the shop I can start speaking of them as separate rooms. The garage lies beneath the laboratory, but the laboratory also juts out over a little less than half of the shop. The entire weight of the laboratory's north wall rests on a six inch wide girder (made of four ganged two by twelves) spanning the ten foot width of the shop. To the south of this wall the shop has a flat ceiling. To the north, it has a sloping shed-style ceiling which rises above the level of the laboratory floor. My drywalling today focused on the flat part of the ceiling, which is lousy with electrical junction boxes and supports two large tube-style fluorescent lamp rigs, the kind that used to illuminate your creation science textbook back in public school. One of these rigs needed a new ballast and while it was off the ceiling I took the opportunity to replace it. I don't really understand the world of fluorescent lamps with their ballasts and pairs of color-coded wires. This might be one of the few fields of knowledge where I'd really rather not know what's going on. I can content myself with following the instructions for how to wire the ballast and call it a day.
Something about the job of lifting and attaching today's drywall had a bad effect on a muscle group in my back, and I had to seek out Gretchen a couple times for emergency massages. Later when I sat down at the computer I found that clicking the mouse with my right index finger was painful. I think I must have pulled a few muscles when teetering atop a step ladder footed on an uneven surface of clutter. Other opportunities for "panic response - I'm falling" muscle injury came when I clambered over wood scraps leaning against a wall. These are all things we are warned not to do, but I'm a firm believer in taking shortcuts, even when the cost is greater risk.
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