OSHA, the well house, tidbits

I am glad to have last week behind me. By the time I had made the trip to the University of Texas Arlington OSHA Outreach Center twice last week, I got to feeling pretty comfortable with navigating the route. It was never less than 90 minutes to get there. It was never less than two hours to get home. Tuesday and Wednesday nights, I worked in the office until about 8:30 getting a presentation ready for peer and instructor review Friday. The presentation needed to be 30 minutes in length and cover one of the topics spelled out in the OSHA 1910 regulations. The information was not a problem to gather. Making the presentation interesting was the challenge. Fortunately, we had been split into small groups in the class and one of the students in my group had chosen the same general area of the regulation as I had. So, we coordinated the presentations to avoid too much overlap. That impressed the instructor.

Tuesday and Wednesday, I looked closely at the lecture material and the notes I had taken and was a bit alarmed that I could not see fifty questions worth of material that could be extracted from the lectures or the class handouts. I asked the instructor about the test material and he promised to look at the test to see if we had covered the material sufficiently. When he came back to class Thursday morning, he told the class that he had looked over the test and was going to spend the next several hours pitting the three groups against each other in a game that would help us review some old material relevant to the upcoming test. It was a good thing he gave us the time to refamiliarize ourselves with the material we had been tested on in the class that was a prerequisite to this class. We took the test first thing Friday morning. Everyone passed. Several, just barely. After lunch, the instructor wrote the scores over 90% on the board – all four of them. Mine was a 100%. I was shocked. I had called Mama right after I finished the test because she was praying for me knowing I was anxious about the test. I had told her that I would be happy with a passing grade because there were six questions I was completely unsure of. But I prayed about each one. God did the rest. With that behind me, I have the last test in FBI tonight and the Christmas Cantata Sunday night. After those two items are completed, I will feel like I can finally relax.

Saturday, I woke to serious issues with my colon and had to spend the morning resting. As I sat, I worked through the questions for the test in FBI tonight. By about 10:30 everything had settled to the point that I felt like I could go outside and work in the well house. I put some wall stiffeners in at critical areas and cut down one wall to fit in a window that Mama had requested be left with us when it was replaced Tuesday. (Yes, the installer finally got all the windows properly installed.) Having the window in the north wall really adds to the look of the well house. Saturday when Mama looked it over she called it “cute”. Mission accomplished. I will have pictures when it is done – maybe next week,

Victoria has three of the five pups sold so far. I am very pleased with that.

Norman came by Saturday to look at the fireplace. I have put it off because I am not ready to fool with it, but Mama wants a working fireplace by Christmas. What Norman discovered is that the damper had been welded shut to accommodate the gas logs now sitting in the fireplace. He is going to update the logs, plumb in the propane and have it operable by the end of next week. Mama is thrilled. I am pleased to know that I will not have to redo the chimney to accomplish Mama’s desire to have a fire. In light of that discovery, I am going to tear off the bulky old chimney and seal it with a concrete cap. That is on my list of projects for the home.

On the fun side of things, Alex Chen is going to give us cooking lessons. We are all excited about that.