"But, you're a nurse now!"

It was said jokingly. I'm not really a nurse yet, but a health care provider nonetheless. It was said by my brother while I was working on a project at home here. We have a chimney in our garage that was built along with the first half of the building (before the addition), long before my days. It has been standing empty and unsused all of this time, and has always had a metal plate laying on top to keep it closed. Since we cleaned out the newer half of the garage recently, I figured now would be the best time of all to fix up that old chimney and put it to good use. After all, January= cold= now. After much deliberation, and explaining exactly how I wanted to do it, and some feedback of better ideas from my Pop and brotha's, I finally got the "OK" to fix it up. The chimney was built with chimney block only, and no flu liner or anything else whatsoever. We don't want anything to rust away, because it would be a major hassle to replace any parts, so we decided to use stainless steel for all of the pipe and other parts that are inside of the chimney. When the chimney was built, it did not stand quite as high as the peak of the garage roof so it needed to be extended, on account of not getting as much backdraft down the pipe. I wound up extending the chimney a total of 4 feet.

The project brought back some of the days in my former life when I did masonry and built pole barns. Everybody here kept warning me to be careful on the roof, and I kept telling them that I "used to build pole parns, and crawled around on lots of roofs almost every day." When my bro came over to help me out up on the roof, he made some comment about me knowing how to do masonry, and I said something about still having some mud-boy in me from days gone by, and I still know how to use a trowel & jointer, and that I can still carry chimney blocks and mortar up a ladder, monkey around up the roof, and slap stuff together into something recognizable as a chimney. That's when I was told, "But you're a nurse now!" Yeah, ok, but my blood type is still 10W-30. I might not have made a permanent career of being a mechanic, or doing masonry, or building pole barns or silos, or doing roofing & siding, but at least I learned a little bit of something back in those days. I can still get it done. Building a little chimney addition might not be a big deal, but it reminded me of many days of slaving away like a horse in all kinds of weather, mixing mortar, and slinging blocks around like Leggo's.

I did, however, just about turn green when the roof started getting slippery. When we were up on the roof finishing up the masonry for the chimney extension, it started to flurry. We decided it was time to get off of the roof immediately, so I started throwing all of my tools down to the ground. Like a fool, I threw down the broom too. Should have kept that to sweep off where we needed to walk. We were OK standing on the peak, but snow and metal roofs are not conducive to traction. As soon as we started coming down the side to the ladder, it got really slick. We were both down on all 4 paddles (or pseudopods, or paws, or whatever ya' call 'em) and still almost slipping. That could have gotten ugly. If things had gone a little better earlier in the day, I would have been done sooner, and this wouldn't have been a problem, but it wound up being dark till I finally was at the point where I was ready to do the masonry up there. I knew there was snow on the way, and I had already gone to the bother of hauling up all of my block and flu liner, and didn't want it just laying up there getting covered in snow. I didn't want to have to deal with that later, so we drug a halogen light up there and tried to finish everything quick after it had already gotten dark. In all of our clambering about to get down off of that roof after it started to get slippery, we wound up leaving the halogen light up there. There's no way anyone is going after it now; not until the roof dries off. I don't yet have any pictures of the chimney on the outside, but here is a picture of what it looks like now on the inside of the garage:



The pipe that is standing up with a dome on top still needs to be attached up on top of the roof, but that will also have to wait until the roof is dry enough to walk on. This picture shows nothing fancy, and it wouldn't look good in your living room, but just for the garage I think it all turned out ok. I found out how hard it is to drill through stainless steel.

I got to chatting with one of my fellow firefighters today after a rescue call for a fall victim. Aparently, this guy (the firefighter) recently came home from being in the Marines or US Army or something, and had a little bit of medical training there. He was asking about possibly signing up to drive for the ambulance crew too, and we got to chatting about what it's like compared to doing emergency medical work in the armed forces. It told him you have to think a little bit like a firefighter, a little bit like a cop, a little bit like a physician's assistant, and a little bit like a truck driver at times, but yet you act as a civilian.

With the economy the way it is, and the unemployment rate probably higher now than it has ever been during my lifetime, I have to wonder how many people are out of work because they are not willing to try something new. Not that I think everyone would have a job if they would try something else, but maybe a few would. I just wonder how many people went from high school straight into college, and got a degree in something that is now not doing well because of the situation with the economy, and now they are out of work because they can't use their college degree and have no other experience. Or, maybe there are some folks out there who have only ever worked in one job, and now that they are laid off, maybe they are thinking that they wouldn't want to try learning a new trade. I know, good jobs aren't easy to get, especially not right now, and I don't have all of the answers, but I still can't resist wondering. How many of the unemployed would be able to get a job right now if they would just give in and try something new? All I can say is that I'm very grateful for the job I have. Working in health care is a little bit like working for a feed mill; the mill must stay open because animals don't stop eating, and the hospital must stay open because people don't stop getting injured or sick.