Hazel Is Not Retiring

I am in my retirement countdown but Hazel McCallion mayor of Mississauga at age 90 is in her 12th term and has no plans to retire.  Here is a Rick Mercer report about "Hurricane Hazel."

Career Decision Flowchart

I found this flowchart I got when I first started university.  It should enlarge if you click on it.

Trach Anniversary

It is 4 years now since I was in hospital with respiratory failure from high CO2 retention.    It was February 24 2007 when I was back in the hospital for the third time and in critical condition in intensive care.   I was intubated to help my breathing with a ventilator and then on February 28th I had surgery to put in a trach tube.  I have continued to use a  ventilator at night which has helped to stabilize my CO2 level. 

I recently had my 35th trach change which is hard to believe. At first I was back for a appointment to get my trach tube changed every 4 weeks.  Then it was lengthened to every 6 weeks.   It is done at ambulatory care by a respiratory therapist (RT).  Elaine has assisted with every one of those trach changes  including at the beginning when it was done by a ENT specialist.  Once the doctor got Elaine to do the trach change herself but she would prefer to assist.   After 35 times they are becoming fairly routine but I am a difficult customer due to the extreme bend in my trachea caused by kyphoscoliosis.  I have custom Bivona silicon hyperflex trach tube that can follow the curvature of my trachea.  

I also recently had a checkup with a respiratory specialist and he was quite pleased that my lung condition is remaining stable.   So I have a lot to be thankful for.    Again I thank God for his goodness and everyone for their prayers.

Family Day

We have a holiday today here and we are just having a quiet day at home.  Family Day is a provincial holiday in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Ontario.   In Manitoba today is Louis Riel Day and in Prince Edward Island it is Islander Day.   All other provinces have a regular work day.   I think the idea was that we need a holiday to break up the long cold winter.  Places like BC have nicer weather so they don't need a holiday :)

We thought our basement crew would be here today to finish the steel bracing but they are taking the day off and should finish tomorrow.   Then we won't have any more work down there until spring after we get the outside grading fixed and make sure water is not coming into the basement.  We are also needing the front sidewalk and driveway redone which is badly disintegrated.  We tried to call contractors about the driveway last year but they were all way behind in their work due to the amount of rain we had.  The dollar signs are adding up but the work needs to be done.

We are getting ready for our first polio group meeting of the year on Thursday.  I am the treasurer so I will be presenting the 2010 financial statements.  This is not a large group (about 60 members) so I just keep track of the memberships, donations, and expenses in a spreadsheet I built that generates the financial statement in the format the government wants.  This is my second year so once everything is set up it goes quite easily.

So for my day off I am not really busy but enough to keep me out of trouble ...  

Jackhammers in the Basement (If we didn't already have headaches)

The crew arrived this morning to start the work in our basement to put up steel bracing along the south wall and on each side of the window on the west wall.  The steel braces are 5" C channel and the bottom has to be cemented into the floor.  So today they were using jackhammers to make the holes in the basement floor.  It was very loud and vibrated the whole house.

I was working from home today due to the weather.   It was blowing snow today and we are headed back down to around -30C for the weekend, after being up above 0C for a while. (At the risk of another comment that I always talk about the weather.)  Anyhow I was working from home reviewing a report and writing up my comments with the jackhammers going right below my office.   Elaine said it would be nice to go out somewhere if the weather wasn't miserable.

After the crew was done for the day we went downstairs and looked around and took some pictures.

  There are a total of 12 braces to be done and they have jackhammered 7 1/2 holes so far. They have 3 jackhammers and two can be seen along the wall in the picture.    They will be back tomorrow to do the other holes

This is one of the steel braces set into a hole made in the floor and leaning against the side wall.  When completed it will be put up against the wall and bolted to the floor joist above.

After this work is done we will continue with our plans for how we want to finish the basement.  To be continued ....

Updates

It has been a couple weeks since I posted on my blog so thought I would do some updates on what's new around here. 

Weather

 

As usual most of the news around here is about the weather.  Back on January 20 I posted about Weather Ups and Downs.   We have continued the swings between the -30s and then up around 0C.  Being the "thoroughly quantitative fellow" (as one of my bosses called me one time) I decided to plot the highs, lows and median temperatures since the beginning of the year to illustrate this.  After being down close to -30C most of the week we are up to +2C today.   I worked from home Monday to Thursday and then was able to go to the office Friday with the milder weather    

Basement

My last post was about the basement foundation inspection.   I now have the report from the structural engineer recommending the steel bracing of the basement walls.  I will take this down to the city next week to apply for the permit and then have the contractor do the work.   In the mean time we are looking at different ways to lay out the basement when we get it redeveloped.  

Retirement Planning

The time is getting closer for my retirement May 31  (107 days now according to my retirement counter.)  I have received pension estimates with the options to decide on as well as summaries of other pension benefits. I am in what is termed the "old plan" which is a defined benefit plan and there are options depending on how much you take before 65 versus after 65, and what percentage your survivor will receive.    We are advised to meet with a financial  planner which we will do this month and then next month we will attend a retirement planning seminar.   The positive is  that on pension with lower deductions, and pension splitting reducing taxes, as well as some other payouts for 5 years in lieu of accumulated earned days off, we will actually be as well  off or better than when I am working. 

Egypt   

As everyone has been seeing the world news is all about Egypt.  Today's newspaper here had the headline Mubarak Resigns:  Sask weather contribution factor.    The connection they are making is that wet weather in Saskatchewan last year, together with factors in other areas,  have caused soaring world food prices that sparked violent protest in the Arab region.  With a corrupt and oppressive regime the soaring food prices were the "last straw."   I work with a man who is from Egypt.  His wife and children went to Egypt in December to visit family.  Then he went there in January.  Last week I saw that he was back but since I was away from the office I did not have a chance to talk to him until Friday.   They had come home 4 days sooner than planned since it was getting very dangerous there.  He had just gotten the news that Mubarak had resigned and he was very pleased about this. I asked if he thought the situation will improve in Egypt. He said it has to improve since no matter who is the new leader it has to be better than what they have had.  But he watches the news with great concern because both his and his wife's family are in Cairo.  This brings world events right close to home.    

Well  after not blogging for 2 weeks I have made up for it with a long post in 4 chapters.  I better sign off now ....