[at-l] "Why I wuz not in accounting today..." Re: Okay, I'll say it...

[Tom McGinnis]

So whut wuz I dune today? I wuz taking a 60' limb off my house before it went THROUGH my house. It leaned quietly against the roof (3 stories up) on Saturday, then leaned in a bit harder on Sunday, actually getting within range of the ladders (but poking around like that on one skinny piece of aluminimumniimnum up there like that can get a fella nervous -- especially when you're pulling on a chainsaw starter)... At 11:oopm last night, I heard another thumpy-donky sound, and thought it *had* to be something else, cuz it was too quiet. Well, 7:00 this morning, I discover that it had come down further, landing on the front porch.

Now all of this travel has been done with *amazingly* *little* *damage* to the house! This sucker should've folded the entire house in half! I would estimate that a 4' section of it runs a hundred pounds, and SHEEESH but there was more than a couple of branched pieces in those 60 feet! TONS of lumber, and half of it at any time being supported by my house! But it didn't damage the roof when it hit (and 18 year old shingles!); it poked a hole in a storm window, BUT DID NOT BUST THE HUNDRED YEAR OLD WINDOW WITHIN; it slid down the pitch of the gabled roof and took out the edge shingles, but the damage doesn't appear to have hit as far in as the interior walls of the house (18? inches from the edge?), so more WAY luck there; and in looking at the porch, it looks like ZERO damage -- HOW DID IT NOT TAKE THE ENTIRE PORCH OUT? CRUSH IT LIKE MATCHSTICKS?????

Amazing freaking house.

Anyway, I completed the 10 hour take-down of this sucker at 5:30, just before what looked to be a nasty storm arrived. (It turned out to be quiet rain, but I've been watching the radar these past few days, so as to not let this barked Sword of Domacles hang across my house in a violent wind, to busily sawing through roof and wall and floor!) Seeing red blobs rushing towards Indianapolis with this thing hanging over the abode did not bode well.

So what have *I* been doing? Lumbering. Demolition. Engineering. Playing patient, giant-sized Pick-Up Sticks. Trying to step-by-step take this sucker down in such a way that I did not *create* damage that the dang thing had somehow avoided making in the first place!!! Quite the solo project. (I keep going out on the porch and looking out and saying in a quiet, quiet voice "Holy shit! No damage! Whoa!")

And now I'm beat. I am taking an 8 week Accounting course at Ivy Tech Community College -- a hoot for me, as a lifetime user and sometime auditor of accounting products, but who's never actually had accounting -- but as I sat down for dinner (still covered in saw dust), my legs and arms started folding up involuntarily. I think my body is quietly saying "Stay home, Tom. You done good today." 

I'm listening to that. I'm staying home from school tonight... Might soak in a hot tub of water. (But for the record, I'm copying my accounting teacher, too. Just proper, no?) Hey, did I mention I love my chainsaw?

sawyertoe

(And pass the ibuprofen)