Shoulder wrecked :-(

Comments (11)
Billions of Versions... (Mike) wrote " My ortho guy has been saying I need a shoulder replacement for 20 years now. So far, I’ve beat the system and held out." I may (have to) do that too. Not expecting 20 more years anyway.
Doug (Canada) wrote " Damn. I’m sorry to hear that Stu. I recently tore the tendons in my left rotator cuff (while asleep apparently) and need painkillers too. Growing old is not for the weak of heart (bad pun I know)." For how long does one need painkillers?
John (UK) wrote "Bad luck about your shoulder - too old for arm wrestling? Perhaps you can explore hands-free blogging with voice recognition. " Tell Vic that I'll be selling my motorcycle :-(
Jenny (Ibiza) wrote " Get well soon." Thankyou.
Anke (D) wrote " Well, I looked at the MRT of the shoulder... there is nothing left to repair, but one would have to discuss whether the relief of the joint effusion and the removal of the small free bodies in the joint could not bring more peace to the joint and thus less discomfort... practically for once. Have 'House cleaning' (flushing) done in the joint." I'll discuss that with the Ortho doc on friday.
Cop Car wrote " I’m sorry about your shoulder, Stu. Weighing the recovery time following shoulder replacement surgery against the decade of use that you could be gaining must be difficult. I would say, 'Hang in there!' , but under the circumstances I guess that’s the option that you are stuck with for now. (Bad sense of humor!). Bummer on the bike riding. (You may not know that Cheryl gave up her bike a few months ago - lack of use while working from home and her eyesight.) You are being practical, though, which I applaud. Best of luck!" Ortho-doc's current advice is physio-therapy and doubling the dosage of pain-killer. If it doesn't self-improve, I could go for an artificial shoulder replacement. There is a specialist shoulder clinic about 70 miles away, so I'll get their opinion too. My statistical life expectancy is (much?) less that the decade you kindly suggest, so if pain decreases it may not be worth the bother.
Schorsch (D) asks "Does the arm flop about, or can you hold it steady?" There is one stable position, held like a Tyrannosaurus Rex forearm ;-)
Kate (UK) wrote " Sorry to hear about your shoulder ,it must be horrible for you. Noel did the same thing some years ago tore off his rotator cuff and damaged other ligaments and tendons plus taking a chip of the bone off The orthopods chose the conservative route and he had 4 months of physio 3 times a week. I must say it helped tremendously and now he has all the movement back but that took a couple of years. So there is hope but you need to work at it!! . . . " Good to hear that, and that your own OP went well :-)
Hackwhackers wrote " Very sorry to hear about your shoulder injury. I hope something can be done over time through therapy or other means to mitigate the situation. Keep us posted." Thankyou Bro(s). I'll mention it again when I recover.
Ed (USA) - used to exorbitant health prices in the US - asks "Wow. What did all that cost you?" Orthodoc €168, the MRT cost €420, and the ongoing physiotherapy will cost €250 for a batch of 10 sessions (I may need several batches as Kate implied).
Astrid (N) asks "Any other effects besides no more motorcycling?" Yes. No more archery because I can't draw the bow any more. Nor can I shoot because I cannot hold a pistol stably, and I won't try a rifle or shotgun lest the recoil damage my shoulder even more. Old Uni friend and blogreader John (UK) has an allotment, I couldn't do that either now.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on April 20, 2022 permalink Comments Email

Ghoughphtheightteeau

The Americans mostly cannot spell English correctly. So this is an example of English spelling using correct English pronunciation. Please pronounce each letter as shown below :-

GH as in Hiccough

OUGH as in Dough

PHTH as in Phthisis (= tuberculosis)

EIGH as in Neighbour

TTE as in Gazette

EAU as in Plateau

Therefore Ghoughphtheightteeau is the correct way to spell Potato ;-)

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on April 15, 2022 permalink Comments Email

---

Sunday, April 10, 2022

Schroedinger's Mailbox

We have a traditional German mailbox, attached to the house wall and lockable, for stamped mail, bills etc. However we also have a US-style box with no security features down the garden path at the front fence next to the sidewalk. It is for advertising, unstamped mail, newspapers etc etc. My understanding of the red signal arm on such boxes is that a horizontal red arm tells me (still in the house) that it is (still) empty and a vertical red arm means there is something in it, not automatic, the delivery person has to raise the red arm 90 °.

The new mail-lady doesn't seem to know this, because she leaves the red signal arm at 45°, if she raises it at all :-( Schroedinger's Mailbox.

So I have to traipse down to the fence, even in inclement weather, to see what is in that box. Exactly half the time I expect to find a dead cat in there.
Don't they teach mail delivery people quantum physics these days?

Comments (1)
Billions of Versions... (Mike) wrote " In the US if you have a mailbox like that, the red arm is to tell the mail person that there is outgoing mail in the mailbox. If the arm is not up, they won’t take anything. It’s also a signal to identity thieves that there may be good info or a check in the mailbox. It’s the number one identity theft problem." So I've always misunderstood that :-( Bummer. Mailboxes in Germany are incoming only, have a one-way slot and are locked. Only the owner can unlock them to get at the mail. UK mailboxes are often just a slot in the door, so the mail falls into the house. In both cases you have to take outgoing mail to a public postbox yourself, which has a one-way slot. The mailman empties the postbox using a key twice daily. There are 4 in our village, one just 100 yards from our house. Parcels have to be submitted at the village post office. More secure than the US system.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on April 10, 2022 permalink Comments Email

---

Tuesday, April 5, 2022

Spelling Mistake :-(

For nigh on 78 years, or at least as long as I could spell, I have been spelling the word as Butcher.

But after watching the news on TV last night, I learned that Russian soldiers those atrocious barbarians refer to it as Butscha :-(

And we are told that some of the bodies of the 340+ civilians massacred in Butscha were mined, to kill even more Ukrainians!!!

It will be hard to identify the culprits let alone find and convict them, but WTF?

Is it time to reintroduce the death penalty for war crimes?

Comments (1)
Billions of Versions... (Mike) wrote " It’s amazing how vicious humans can be towards one another." Sadly, so true.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on April 5, 2022 permalink Comments Email

---

Monday, April 4, 2022

Quax Hangar reopens :-)

The Quax hangar is a club for owners of historic airplanes; a collective of people who share the same workshop, staffed by expert mechanics for vintage aircraft technologies. Due to Covid-19, the workshop has been closed to the public for 2 years, so this was our first opportunity on sunday to see which planes have been restored over these two years and which (like the Junkers 52 trimotor) are still work-in-progress.

Entering the first hangar, for work completed, we see a Messerschmitt Bf 108. Not just any Bf108, this one belonged to Elly Beinhorn and she is famous for the long-distance flights she made during the early 1930s. I met her in the late 1970s when she landed at our local airport EDLP just before she handed in her pilot's licence at age 72. She lived to be 100, dying in 2007.

Another well restored vintage plane there was the only Bücker Student still in flying condition. Only 23 were built, five, I believe survive, but this is the only one restored to flying condition. It dates from 1937 and was an underpowered (60 HP) low wing open-cockpit monoplane. I've never flown one but have several hours on the Bücker Jungmeister and their Jungmann too, both from the same era. Blogger friend Cop Car tells me she was also part-owner of a Jungmann, an aerobatic biplane trainer from the 1930s.

Moving over to the work-in-progress hangar, we saw a Taylorcraft probably of 1946 vintage, I'm not sure. I liked the simple design of the cockpit panel so much that I took this photo. Taylorcraft had a chequered history, being sold and resold, going bankrupt and being revived in the seventies.

Most famous plane in for restauration is a Junkers 52/3m, bearing the traditional registration number D-AQUI although it is now registered as D-CDLH. It is a 3 engine low-wing monoplane made of corrugated aluminium, dating from 1930 (the prototype). There were nearly 5000 built afaik, one of which was used as Hitler's personal transport pre-WW2 (later he used a 4 engined Focke-Wulf FW200 ). Here the wings are off as are the engines. You can see the radial nose-engine in the bottom left of my photo.

I had mistakenly believed it had wet wings, but as the wings were open for work, I could see there were three cylindrical tanks inside each wing. As you can see in my photo, there is a separate header tank for the nose engine, also fed from the wing tanks. My photo of the tail assembly shows the corrugated aluminium construction rather well (after restauration). They've been working on the JU52 about 2 years now and still have a lot of work to do before it is returned to Lufthansa in flying condition. I've flown in it as a passenger for a short hop over to Hamm before work started on her.

This is Wikipedia's photo of exactly this JU 52 in flight.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on April 4, 2022 permalink Comments Email

---

Friday, April 1, 2022

All Fools Day

So today is THE meme day for fools, here are five, ranked by idiocy.

Those of you who can speak Welsh will know that the welsh word "moron" means carrot, which may explain the colour of tRUMP's skin ;-)

Then there's this gal at the gas station :-(

Or these chinese 'lovers' on the subway, who would rather play with their mobile phones than talk to one another . . .

Or vengeful american gun-owners who write targets' names on the ammo . . .

Or the average women's glossy magazine . . .

And here's an extra note, for my readers in Russia . . .

Passed on by Ole Phat Stu on April 1, 2022 permalink Comments Email

---

Link to the previous month's blog.

---