Dec 1 2015

New home builders have a safety code to follow. One of the rules states there must always be a railing around stair well openings even if only temporary. If you think about it, there is always a moment between finishing the subfloor sheathing and the installation of the guardrail. This story is about one of those moments. You're probably thinking, "Oh, no!" Ed fell over  the edge. Well of course I did. It is amazing how fast the brain reacts to moments like these. The number one priority is to keep the skull from suffering any impact so it starts barking out orders to the different body parts. My right hand took first contact, placing itself on the first tread, a hard back twist and leg drive planted my left foot on the third tread. Physics follows Albert's equation unfortunately and the mass, (my body) and the velocity, ( the speed at which I was falling) produced too much energy for my poor knee to handle and it quickly buckled. I grabbed the hand rail, oh yeah, it hadn't been installed either, so. Continuing my descent, my right elbow hit the next tread, the brain barked out "back flip". Yeah sure. Almost though, my right heel caught the edge of the eighth tread but slipped off. "Splay! Splay!" was the next order. Good idea actually, my right hand touched the concrete first, then my right toe, a simple twist brought my left toe to the floor and my left palm came to rest next. Ha. In a perfect plank position. Nadia, in her prime, would have been impressed with the landing. The drywallers looked in awe at the disaster averted. So...I did a pushup...just to show off.

Have a great day
Loved

November 1st 2015

The bottom shelf of the tiny hallway closet has been painted in place. My head is tucked underneath, my shoulder wedged up against the door jamb, my right hand and arm are crowded inside as I try to cut the laminate underlay in place. The stuff is as tough as buffalo hide so it's no surprise when my knife blade snaps and flashes by my neck. I think. "Whew. That was close." I realise it was closer than I thought when I see the stream of blood making it's way down to my elbow. My brother Leonard is trained not to panic, he'd have the wound dressed and half way to the hospital in under 5 minutes. My brother Tony, panic? Man, he'd just call an ambulance (they're on his speed dial), then he'd finish cutting in the closet. Of course, I am one of the Antonini brothers, and, perhaps I may have felt faint the first half dozen times but by the time I was five I was well accustomed to the sight of my own blood. So, I don't panic either. I have a rag or a roll of duct tape. The rag is soaked in solvent, if I hold that to my neck I'll be dancing with pink rhinos on the rings of Saturn before I get to my truck. Duct tape it is. I hang my arm out the window, don't want to stain the upholstery. Little kids are screaming and crying in cars when I pass. Pedestrians are fainting on the sidewalks, they're dropping like black flies in a cloud of Deep Woods Off. I look in the rear view at my neck and think to myself, "they should make duct tape in flesh tones".

Have a great day
Loved

October 1st

So, I'm dieing. Oops, that should read dieting. Spell check didn't pick it up because it realises it's the same thing. Actually what I should have said is, I was dieting. I was all gung ho! The first three days went great, I had lost a pound and a half. It was the fourth day that did it, I should have picked up on the clue when I hardly had the strength to lift my leg out of bed in the morning. The day's diet consisted of a thermos of peas, I know, you're waiting for the rest of the menu, but , that's it. It was some kind of "cleansing diet" as well. Talk about jumping in with both feet hey. I do have to say here, these were great peas, you know, the green ones, not the grey ones we poured out the can when we were kids. Anyway, we're hanging granite slabs on the exterior of the Mormon Temple here in town, so we're burning calories at an exponential rate, besides that, we're also on edge because some Mormon elder is slinking around the site looking to kick you off the site if caught swearing. So, it happens. Did you guess?Yep. You drop a slab of granite on your pinkie. So now, you have to bite your tongue, don't you? After three days of dieting, it's the first piece of meat you've tasted and it's game over. It's pizza and Cinnabons all afternoon. I gained four pounds that day.

Have a great day

Loved

Sept 1 2015

Happy September first to everybody.

I like to watch old westerns, but I get carried away sometimes. You know the scene where the cowboys gather around the chuck wagon to have some stew, they get it in big plates and eat it with big wooden spoons and a loaf of bread. Once I see that scene I just have to try it myself, so I built a little fire pit out back, no worries, I have a big metal cover to drop over it if the fire starts to get out of control, you know, Lenny told me to put a fire out you just have to take the oxygen from it, my metal cover will do that. So, anyways, I heat my stew over the fire, put it on a big plate and go at it with a loaf of bread and my wooden spoon, just like out on the range, except it's real hard to find a chuck wagon, even harder to get it in the back yard. That's one thing, I also have to try a gun fight. Now, I don't own a gun so I have to rig up a holster and use my hammer as my gun, I got a pretty good imagination. After about a dozen draws I have to give it up though, the hammer and holster just aren't compatible, Billy the Kid would have emptied his six shooter before my hammer cleared the holster. The last thing is the barber, shaving guys with that little soap brush and that long razor, I have Deanie's dad's old soap brush, so lathering is really authentic, I don't have a long razor but I have this really sharp bread knife an Italian friend brought me back from Maniago. Oh boy! Never mind this was a really bad idea.

Have a great day

Loved

August 2015

So I'm back from Scotland, we had a great time while we were there. Lots of sightseeing, eating and visiting. I wanted to meet Margaret while we were there, Louise arranged it and when I finally met her, she told me to go fly a kite. So I built this kite at Dave and Louise's and went back to get Margaret and we headed down to the East Sands. The winds blow heavy in Scotland, in fact they have a saying, "If it's nae wind and nae rain, it's nae golf". I don't know about the rain, but if there's nae wind, there's nae kite flying .Any way we needn't worry about there being nae wind. The kite went up easy, real easy, that's when I felt it start to pull me across the sand. Margaret sensed the situation and grabbed the sleeve of my jacket, too bad it was an old one and ripped right off my arm. So Margaret was standing with the sleeve of my jacket and I, being a sleeve lighter, picked up speed toward the North Sea. I thought if I could just hold on until I hit the water, it would help slow me down. My brain reminded me this was the North Sea, just a few degrees warmer than being able to walk on it. I had to let it go and lost my footing, I ended up head first in the sand, I don't know how the ostrich does it, it is really hard to breathe in there. Margaret ran up and grabbed my other sleeve and ripped it off as well, I've got a vest now. Hey. If you ever hear of a kite found floating in the North Sea or washed up on one of her shores, it's mine and Margaret's.

Have a great day

Loved

June 1 2015

HOLY MOLY!! I MISSED MAY!
I'm like the absent minded professor, without the professor part.
Well here's June.
I do have a little story. I'll set it up by telling you that when installing hardwood floors, when you get close to the walls you have to put the cleater aside and use a nail gun to fasten the boards close to the wall. It just so happens that every once in a while one of the nails will hit a knot or something and ricochet upward. I found out the hard way and it deflected right up through my finger, yeah, ouch!  Wait, that's not the end of the story. My finger was now nailed to the floor, I was unable to free myself and Pat had just left to pick his daughter from the airport,  I was on my own. Hey! what happened to my font. Deal with it. As I was saying ,I was stuck to the floor, I couldn't even reach my tool box for a pair of pliers. So I was sitting wondering what to do when this crazy little spider crawls up and starts webbing my finger, I'm thinking "What the...". This little guy's life isn't going to last long enough to choke all of me down. That's when I saw the rest of them, a huge swarm coming to help their buddy. Now I'm thinking I'll just grab my mallet and smack a few of them. I can't reach it, so I stretch my leg out to get it and the rubber end grabs the floor and it flips over just like a garden rake and smashes my shin. The webbing is getting a bit furious so I devise a plan to make a loop with the air hose and lasso the mallet. I'm not much of a cowboy so by the time I get it the little buggers are webbed right up to my elbow. Still, I'm not worried, I'm not a real big guy but they're going to need Spiderman to hold me down. With my mallet I can wipe out half their population in a couple of swings, but, I can't do it, the little buggers are so industrious I feel sorry for them. I come up with a new idea, I grab my pry bar and pry the board off the floor, now I'm on my feet, albeit, I have a three and a half foot board nailed to my hand. I have to go to emergency, I feel a bit like an idiot so I pretend it's my cane. I finally get to see the doctor, I say "Hey, doc, I'm thinking about making this piece of wood a cane, and would like to get measured for the proper length before I start shaping it, and while you're at it,think you could get this nail out of my finger?"

Sorry about May

Have a great day

Loved

April 1

How do you like that, 4 months in a row. Almost wasn't to be though. The knees are claiming it's all on the feet. The hips just wanted to get out of the way, so as not to hit first. The hands, the hands actually thought about letting go of the compressor, flying backward to soften the fall, and getting back to the compressor before it took out a rib or two. I'm pretty sure we would have lost that gun fight, even Billy the Kid wasn't that fast. The feet were blaming the eyes, ya know, they might have a point, I'm wearing these progressive lenses now and my eyes are progressively getting worse. My shoulders have been carrying too much weight lately to try to take any more impact. So, the brain thought, oh,oh! just before it blacked out.
There I was laying on my back at the foot of the Pearly Gates, but I gotta tell ya, they didn't look so pearly. I was hoping that wicker burns because these looked in too good of shape to be the entrance to that place. I was hoping to lighten the mood so I said, "Hey Pete, your gates don't look very pearly". The reply was, "Well Edward Francis, you're at the west entrance, Peter is at the south, I'm Andrew, besides, you're early, rise up and go back." ( A bit dramatic, don't you think) " My hair is stuck in the blood frozen to the concrete," I said. "You only have 3 strands back there, they'll pop out." Easy for him to say, he had hair down past his shoulder blades. It took me two months to grow those with the snake oil I bought from some guy. He assured me it really was snake oil. Deanie scolded me when she found it in the cabinet. She asked how many species of snakes did I know of with hair. I did get up, there were a couple of construction guys standing around, some apprentice had fainted at the sight of the blood. Ya, I'm thinking he might of chose the wrong career path.
I'm back now, the ice has melted so I should be ok for the next few months.

Have a great day
Loved

March 1, 2015

Here I am, first of the month, ready to do my duty.
No incidents to report. Knock on wood.
In like a lamb, out like a lion, I think that's what they
say, hope they're wrong.

Have a great day
Loved

February 1

Happy February.  Two months, two entries on the first day of each. Wish me luck for the rest of the year.

Have great day
Loved

JANUARY 1 2015

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Have a great, great year.

Loved