Weird Weekend for me

Well this is just going to be a weird weekend for me. My 13 year-old, computer geek, grandson is visiting this week and today he and I are off to the computer history museum to geek out for awhile. Then I promised to show him how to write a program in python and promised to buy him a C++ book. Sadly I've totally failed to get him interested in the wood shop and he only seems to remember that I am a software engineer and not the world's greatest wood working grandpa. Fortunately I have other grand children that buy into my skewed world view and love to go into the workshop and "make things."

The tomorrow I've got to prep for my colonoscopy on Monday. Not really looking forward to that and am a bit concerned that it's a bit too soon after my radiation treatment. But I've been having some rectal bleeding the last couple of months and I am long over due for a check. I had colon polyps removed in 99 and retested in 04 and should have been retested a couple of years ago.

So part of my weekend will be fun and the other part a pain in the backside.

Doubt I'll get much shop time in any case - hope you're all finding something enjoyable to do.

Andrew

If you really want to geek out, show him how to write code in Assembler, RPG, and COBOL.

Goodlife

Andrew,

Good luck with your grandson and with the colonoscopy. A word of caution on the colonoscopy -- I had one 8-9 months after my salvage radiation and while I was having occasional rectal bleeding. My R.O. told me to tell the colonoscopy team NOT to take any biopsies in the lower 6-8 inches of rectum because of the increased chance of perforation and possible serious infection. My R.O. had personal experience with a patient who had serious complications. He said if they saw anything suspicious in those 6 or 8 inches, he'd refer me to a specialist for follow-up. -- Though my case doesn't exactly parallel yours, because my radiation was SRT, which I believe has some greater risk of damage to surrounding organs than primary RT.

As for the grandson -- my oldest grandson is 9 -- approaching 10, and has shown no interest in my work shop. I build acoustic guitars, ukuleles, and currently a mandolinetto--an instrument that was popular a hundred years ago, but went pretty much extinct by 1920. However, he does like building plastic model ships and planes, so I've built a few of those with him. But, whether thinks he's ready or not, we will build the next model entirely from balsa wood and tissue paper--a WWII Avenger torpedo bomber. I figure it's time he learns to do something that requires actual skill, patience, learning to interpret a blueprint, figuring out how to improvise solutions, etc. I learned to build models with balsa wood and paper when I as a kid, thanks to a school-mate's father. I figure that probably had a lot to do with my instrument building obsession. And I really think kids should develop obsessions with something more than video games and television. I guess that makes me an official old fogey.

Jim

sounds like you've had an enjoyable weekend. Good luck with the scope. Someone at work showed up for the colonoscopy and they screwed up her appointment. They worked her in. I can't imagine anything worse than drinking all of that stuff and spending half the night in the bathroom and not have an appointment.

Yesterday we had a good time at the museum. We stopped by a book store and I bought him a book on programing on the condition he read cover to cover. He promised but we'll see if that really happens.

Well, I now go from that fun to the prep. Oh joy. I'll not post updates on that process. Your life will be better without those details.

Enjoy your day!
Andrew

Andrew,

Perhaps its a bit much to expect the young "geek" to share your woodworking love at this point in his life. I tried to get my granddaugther interested in my world of stamp collecting to no avail. Even bought her a kid's starter album, gave her a ton of stamps to get started, but since Christmas, she has never touched the stuff.

Not everyone is interested in whatever interests someone else, kids included. Glad that you have such an intense "hobby" to keep you busy, and to keep your distracted from the "C" word.

David

Andrew,
Good luck with your colonoscopy. I have had several of them in the last 20 years. I hate the prep for them especially drinking that awful stuff.

Final update - the procedure went well. The doc found one small polyp that's been sent off to the lab (wasn't near where I got RT). He confirmed I've got a small hemorrhoid but other than that everything looks health. He didn't see much radiation damage but I am only six months out. I should get the lab results on the polyp in about 10 days.

So now it just getting over the annoying procedure and life is good.