Apex, NC

This morning we got up at our regular time, 6:00 am, and I took a quick shower.  We got into the car and left to go to Bob's appointment at UNC Hospital.

We stopped at Chik-Fil-A so that I could get something for breakfast and then we were off to the races.  We went west on US-64 to Chatham County.  We drove north up 751 to Martha's Chapel, then west on Martha's Chapel Road to Farrington Road.  We took a right turn, crossed Jordan Lake, and continued north into Orange County.  We arrived in Chapel Hill at US-15-501 and took a right turn, crossed the James Taylor Bridge over Morgan Creek and headed up to Manning Drive where we took a left turn and headed to the hospital.

I dropped Bob off at the NC Women's Hospital where he checked in.  Then we headed to the back of the Children's Hospital where the Pre-Op area was located on the second floor.  We checked in and waited to be called.  We were taken back and we got Bob dressed in the typical hospital gown and socks.

Bob had a procedure done today on his kidneys.  He had kidney stones that needed to be removed and one of the stones and some stone fragments had blocked his right ureter.  The doctor threaded a scope into his penis, up the urethra into his bladder.  From there he found the entrance to each ureter and continued up to the obstruction.  He broke the blockage up with a laser that was also on the scope.  He took samples of each stone for composition analysis.

Before he backed out of the right ureter, he installed a flexible plastic stent to hold the channel open so that urine and other stones may hopefully pass down to his bladder.  Next he went up into the left ureter and broke up all of the stones he could see in the left kidney.  Again he installed a stent into the ureter to hold it open.

As he withdrew the scope he left trailing black threads hanging out of the end of Bob's penis.  These threads are attached to the stents in his ureters.  The doctor wants the stents to remain in place for five days.  After five days Bob may pull the stents out by pulling on the strings.

He is in some pain this evening and he is peeing a lot of blood and clots.  He has oxycodone for the pain and he got a prescription for one (1) Cipro tablet to be taken on the day he pulls out the stents.

This too shall pass.

I went over to Wal*Mart to have the prescriptions filled.  While waiting for the pharmacy, I browsed the store and picked up a few more things that we need.  I got an aluminum flag pole bracket to mount on the house.  I picked up an American flag to fly on Flag Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Veteran's Day, etc.  I got a 25-foot-long garden hose for the front yard.  I picked up some drinks.  I got a new shirt.  I also picked up a small jar of Calcium Chloride that is usually used when canning pickles.  My intended use for this quick lime is to mix 1/4 cup of it in one gallon of water and apply it to my tomatoes to correct a calcium deficiency in the soil.

At home I hooked the garden hose up to the hose bib on the front of the house and then connected it to the sprinkler we bought a couple of months ago.  It took a few minutes of fiddling with the settings, but soon I had the sprinkler only watering our yard.  I just knew that if I got a garden hose we would have some rain this evening.

Sure enough, about an hour later some strong thunderstorms moved into the area.  We were watching WRAL TV 5 local news when we heard something loudly hitting the roof.  Large balls of hail were falling!!  I went downstairs, grabbed the car keys, opened the garage door, and started the car.  The car was partially sheltered by the balcony, but the hood was still getting hit.  I had to quickly push some items out of the way to make room, but I was able to quickly move the car into the garage.

Some of the hail stones were over 1-inch in diameter! 

It hasn't rained here in over a week and it has been very hot.  We really needed the rain for our grass and other plants.  The storms that came through were just surprisingly strong!

Benchtop Progress

After dinner I watered the plants and then headed down to the basement to continue working on my new work bench.

Yesterday I scraped as much of the glue squeeze out off of the top and bottom as I could.  Then using the belt sander with 60-grit paper in it, I sanded more wood and glue off.

This evening I set up the planer on the folding table and prepared to run both halves of the bench top through it.  I ran them through bottom-side-up first and I was very pleased with how flat they came out after just one pass!  

I turned the top halves over and ran them through three times each, dialing the cutter head down 1/16 inch each time.  The top is now exactly 3 inches thick and all of the glue squeeze out is gone.  I am very pleased with how it looks now.

Tomorrow I plan to drill 9 holes in the front half of the bench top and then drill 9 matching holes in the back half of the bench top.  I will insert 5-1/2 inch long, 1/2 inch diameter dowels into these holes to align the two halves, spread glue into the joint and clamp it tightly closed to cure.  

When I take the clamps off on Friday, I will only have to do a little sanding to clean up the top and reduce the very minimal snipe on the ends of the bench top.  After that I can begin assembling the legs, aprons, and stretchers.

Hopefully, I will be able to complete my work bench project this weekend.

Work Bench 2019

Front half of bench top.

I continued working on my new work bench yesterday and today.  It has been so hot here and it is very hot in the garage.  I have an oscillating fan running in the garage and it helps, but it is still uncomfortable.

Right now I am gluing up the bench top.  It is made by laminating 2x4s together with glue and screws.  There are pockets in the top where the legs come to the top.  There is also a tool till in the back to hold small tools and round things that might roll off of the top.

Both halves of the top have been glued up.  The second (back) half is drying in clamps.  I will unclamp it tomorrow after work and scrape the glue squeeze out off with a chisel.  The first (front) half was scraped off today and I will use the sander on it tomorrow.

Back half of bench top in clamps.

Probably on Wednesday I will run both halves through the thickness planer and then drill holes in the middle for dowels.  Finally I will apply glue and clamp the two halves together.  It should only need a little sanding after that.

Later the bench top will be put top down on the floor, and I will drive the legs into the pockets.  The apron will be screwed to the legs and be in continuous contact with the bottom of the bench top all the way around.  Then I will put the stretchers on about 12 inches from the end of the legs.  Doing this will give me enough clearance to slide milk crates under the bench.

With the assembly completed, I will turn the bench over onto its legs, flatten the ends of the top with an edge following bit in the router, and then apply a thick clear epoxy finish to the top.

Memorial Day Weekend

Eating in Jill Kuzo's garage.

This week was very hectic.  We finished Step 2 of Vetoquinol, rinsed out the reactor, and began Step 3.  I observed Jessica doing the front run for Edesa.  We were supposed to run a 500 gram batch of Twelve Hundred Pharma Compound 3, but the catalyst never came in.  We found out that the materials never shipped because the vendor had not been paid.

During the upcoming week we have to run the rest of Vetoquinol Step 2 in the 50-liter reactor, and we have to run the process for client Edesa in the 100-liter reactor.  If the materials come in, Tom wants us to do the 500-gram THPH run too, but that process is our lowest priority.  I honestly think that we are setting ourselves up for failure by trying to do too much at the same time.

Here is the kicker - Joe Moore is out this week on vacation, so all of this has to be done by Vince and Stephanie.  Yes, we really need to scale back our ambition and be a little conservative.

I started my new work bench this week.  I am following a plan published by Family Handyman that only uses 2x4 lumber to build the top and base.  I purchased 24, 8-foot-long, 2x4s, brought them home in the Fiat, milled them down to 3-1/8" tall to get rid of the rounded over sides, and have clamped them together to do the layout.  I am ready to begin glue up.

Planing the lumber created a huge pile of shavings and dust.  I swept this up and bagged it.  It could go into the trash, or I could take it to Jill Kuzo's house and let her use it as chicken bedding.

We were invited to Jill's house for a Memorial Day barbecue.  Bob made two strawberry ice box cakes.  We took the cakes in one cooler and iced drinks in another one.  We also packed up the bag of wood shavings, and the honey extractor that Jill bought from us in April.

It was hot.  The air conditioning was running inside the house, but the house became crowded and very loud.  We ended up outside in the garage.  Although we only knew Jill, we made friends with her step-mother, her new boyfriend, her mother, her father, and her neighbor.

We planted our tomatoes last Sunday and the plants are thriving.  We have 11 small tomatoes already!  However, one of the little tomatoes is showing blossom end rot, so I purchased a 1% calcium solution at Lowe's to help combat this.  Next year we will fortify the soil with our used egg shells to supply the needed calcium.

Hopefully we will get some time to relax before the hectic little work week begins.  It will be short for me because I have to take Friday off to take Bob to UNC for his kidney procedure.

Weekend Tasks

On Friday evening we watched RuPaul's Drag Race and found out who made it to the top four - Silky Nutmeg Ganache, Akyria Davenport, Brook Lynn Hites, and Yvie Oddly.  That was our Friday night highlight for the past 14 weeks.

Bob at Highway 55 Diner.

On Saturday we went McDonald's for a drive-thru breakfast and then we went over to the BJ's Warehouse in Cary for our monthly shopping trip.  We spent about $250 and got a bunch of meats, canned goods, and some toilet paper.

At home I split up the pork chops, pork loin, and hamburger into smaller packs and squirreled these away in the freezer chest.

Later we went out for dinner and stopped at Panda Express, but then we changed our minds, got back into the car and headed over to Mister Dumpling.  We wanted to try this out because Tom Lovelace had recommended it to us.

Mister Dumpling is a short drive over to the Lowe's Grocery Shopping Center.  As soon as we stepped inside I saw Tom and Deanna Lovelace seated at a table!  LOL!!!  We were seated and I walked over to their table to say, "This is our first time in here.  We came in because Tom recommended it to me."  Their dinner guests were heartily nodding their agreement!

Bob ordered the Seasame Chicken and I had the Pork Spareribs.  We also got a couple of dumplings and two eggrolls.  Tom and Deanna came over to ask Bob how he was feeling and to tell us they hoped we enjoyed our dinner.  We will probably go back to try other menu items.

After dinner we went over to the Home Depot where I picked out three Bush Goliath determinate hybrid tomato plants.

We finished the evening by watching RuPaul's Drag Race Untucked supplement.  "Gurl, if aren't watching Untucked, you're only getting half the story!"  This is a behind-the-scenes show that supplements the regular weekly show.  It usually shows the drama and conflict of the queens when they are backstage while the judges are deliberating.

This morning I made scrambled eggs for breakfast.  After I got the dishes cleared I began to bring the tomato plants and the potting soil up to the balcony from the garage.  I laid everything down on a tarp to hopefully keep the dirt under control.  We mixed up composted manure, peat moss, and pearlite into a potting mix and filled the planter.  Then we put the tomato plants in and began watering them.  It took 5 gallons to fill the planter!  This planter has a compartment under the soil that holds the water.

After I got the mess from this cleaned up I went to the basement and located the studs in the wall of one of the closets so that I could put wall hooks into the wall studs.  With the hooks in the walls I was able to hang the walker, the rollerator, and the hand cart.  Now there is more floor space for stuff that needs to be stored in there!

Now I was a sweaty mess.  I went upstairs to shower and clean the shower stall with Dow Tub and Tile Cleaner.  With the shower clean and me clean, I put on clean clothes and we went out to lunch.

We drove over to the Highway 55 Diner on (coincidentally) Highway 55 in Apex.  We both had the double cheeseburger with fries.  The burger was very juicy!

After lunch we popped over to Wal*Mart to pick up Bob's prescriptions.

Bob on the deck with plants.

Next stop:  Home Depot (again) where we picked out Sweet Basil, Rosemary, and Marigold plants for potting at home. Bob walked through the store and we got a roll of window glass paper that we intend to put on the front door to enhance our privacy.

Now we headed over to Food Lion for our weekly grocery trip.  We didn't get anything that wasn't on our list and we managed to keep the total down where it usually is.  We took this loot back home and put it all away.

When the sun was over the building and the balcony was shaded we went out to pot the plants that we got at Home Depot.   I packed the bottom of the terracotta pots with newspaper and then shoveled the potting mix in.  The pots are in the iron stands and on the deck in plastic saucers.  We just have to water them everyday now.

After a quick shower I went back out to Lowe's to get some 2x4's to build my work bench with.  I am going to plane the dimensional lumber down and laminate it together to make a thick and heavy top.  This should be a very heavy and stable bench.  I got twenty-four 8-foot studs, but I am going to cut them down to 6 feet.

I had to put the seats down in the Fiat and push the front passenger seat way forward and lay the seat back forward.  Then I covered the seat head rest and the door window sill with a furniture pad before I began stacking the lumber inside the car.  I carefully drove home and stacked this wood in the garage.  I will probably begin planing them down this week.

These weekends go by so fast!  Back to the weekly routine in the morning.

Apex, NC

These past couple of days have been a little hectic for me because Tom expects me to follow a front run being done in Room 400, and Joe has moved forward on the Vetoquinol process in 414.  Fortunately, Stephanie has mostly run the Vetoquinol with me just popping in to help while I pop back over to 400 to watch Jessica run the front run for Twelve Hundred Pharma's Compound 6.

To make matters even more hectic, the Huber repair technician has been in these past two days.  He is trying to get the small Huber chiller in 413 running.  He asked to have the fire alarms disabled while he was doing some hot work in the room and we made that happen.  Later, I found spent matches on the floor from where he lit his torch and just threw the match down.  I had to have a talk with him about that.  "Cannon, you cannot just toss matches down on the floor in here.  If Tom comes down here and sees this, he will be very upset.  If Tom's boss, Ken, comes in here and sees this, he will start firing people!"

Later, while he stepped out to his car, Cliff and I were watching the control panel on the Huber as it ran.  The setpoint temperature was 30 °C and the internal temperature was 1 °C.  A few seconds later we noticed that the temperature was going DOWN!  We would expect to see the temperature rise toward the setpoint in this case.  I told Cliff that I was not sure what was going on.   Since there were two laptop computers on top of the cabinet, maybe he was using the computer to control the process.

The Huber heater/chiller that Cannon is trying to fix was a machine that the Facilities Department ordered off of an eBay auction.  This particular unit came from the United Kingdom.  That is fine, but electrical machinery that comes from Europe usually has different electric requirements than units sold in the United States.  When this unit arrived on our dock, we discovered that it requires a 408 volts, 50-Hertz electric supply.  To supply the power it needs, Facilities Department ordered a variable power supply for it.  The power supply unit was installed in my glass storage room, and it is almost as big as the Huber it supplies power to!

Late in the day, Cannon came to me and asked me, "Is this Huber used to heat or chill?"  I replied simply, "YES".  He said, "No, no, no!  Are you using this machine as a heater or a chiller?"  I told him, "Cannon, this machine has to do BOTH!"  He said that we have a problem.

Evidently, when the compressor AND the heaters run at the same time, the Huber draws more power than the power supply is capable of providing and it trips out.  When used as a chiller, the heaters are used to limit how cold the refrigeration system goes.

I walked up to the office and relayed to Tom what I was told.  He just tossed his head back and laughed heartily!  This isn't going to be fixed quickly.

Tonight I will be paid!  I am glad.  I can pay some bills tomorrow.

I finished applying Thompson's Water Seal to our deck yesterday evening.  This morning I stripped the tape off of the trim next to the house, and this evening I carried all of the deck furniture and planters out to the deck.  Maybe we will plant some tomatoes and herbs this weekend.

Apex, NC

I left work at 2:30 pm on Friday afternoon.  On my way down I-540 to the house I encountered tree branches in the left lane and then a whole tree in the middle lane!  I guess a landscaping truck lost some of its cargo on the highway.

When I got home I realized that Bob had already left to travel to Chapel Hill for his appointment.  I changed clothes and then headed up to Chapel Hill myself.  I filled the gas tank at the Shell station in Chapel Hill, and then continued over to the physical therapy center.  There is a Lowe's next to the PT site, so I popped in there to get a can of acetone and a set of metric hex wrenches.

Bob was finished with PT when I walked into the waiting room.  We got into the car and headed back to Apex.  I got the ladder and tarp out and continued working on the stain and sealer.  I used the roller to cover the big flat areas of the glue-lam beam and then got up onto the deck to start rolling out the decking.  I got one coat on it, but it needs another coat because the color is a little spotchy.

We had stuffed peppers for dinner and then we watched RuPaul's Drag Race.

This morning we drove down to Wilmington to visit my Mom for Mother's Day.  We went out to lunch at Max's Pizza in Topsail Beach.  I figured we would have a better chance of getting a table on Saturday instead of waiting until Sunday.

We left around 2:30 because we wanted to get back home before the storms and showers that were forecast for the afternoon got into the area.  We had leftover peppers for dinner this evening.  Then we watched the RuPaul's Drag Race Untucked show supplement.

It is raining now.  It is supposed to rain more tomorrow afternoon.  I will probably put the second coat of stain and sealer on the deck on Tuesday after the wood has a chance to dry well.

These weekends go by so fast!

Stain and Seal

I continued applying Thompson's Waterseal to our deck, railing, and glue-lam beam this week.  I have been using a brush to get all of the handrail spindles and to get the stain and sealer into all of the corners.  Today I went around the decking and cut in all of the corners next to the walls of the house.  The next thing I need to do is get the roller and roll the sealer over the flat surfaces of the beam and then roll out the deck itself.

This week has been a little busier at work.  I cleaned the 50-liter glass reactor on Monday and then did the acetone boil out on Tuesday.  Next I began disassembling the 100-liter reactor, gave it a major clean and then reassembled it.  I did the boil out on it on Wednesday.  We have paused on the Twelve Hundred Pharma project and we started a process called Vetoquinol today in the 50-liter reactor.  Vetoquinol is a flea and tick medicine intended for domestic animals.  Also, Complexa signed a new contract today and we are going to start another batch of Complexa in three weeks. 

The work in the labs is starting to heat up!

Now that our Shop has been emptied out, the Hazmat Satellite Waste area will be moving back there.  Then work can begin on remodeling the waste room into a new Shipping and Receiving Room.  Meanwhile, Shipping and Receiving is moving to Room 700 (a storage room), and the existing Shipping and Receiving room is being converted to GMP Manufacturing storage.  Are you following all of this?

To make room for Shipping and Receiving, we have been cleaning out Room 700 over the past few days.  A ton of stuff is just going into the dumpster.  I managed to take home about 40 pounds of aluminum blocks, a small electric vacuum pump, and a set of casters (still in the box!).

Bob had PT in Chapel Hill on Wednesday and he has PT again tomorrow.  He takes an Uber ride to his appointments and then he waits for me to get off of work and I drive to Chapel Hill to pick him up and drive home.

I have no shortage of tasks and things to do now.

May The Fourth Be With You!

Staining and sealing the railing.

Wow.  What a long week!  

The week started by getting the 100-liter glass reactor ready to run a 3.5 kg batch of Compound 2 on the Twelve Hundred Pharma project.  We mixed, we heated, we cooled, we did some separations, and we have run some distillations.  Hopefully we will drop the batch into a Buchner funnel on Monday, filter it, and then tray it up and pop it into the oven to dry.

Jeff came to the room and told me to look at the ISO 5 clean room gowning procedures on Youtube.com and to discuss it with Stephanie.  I came home and I looked at a training video for this and came to realize that this gowning is no joke.   At work the next morning I told Tom that I was not sure that I could do this and do it properly.  I told Tom that I would tell Jeff.

I found Jeff in the hallway and told him that I looked at the video.  He told me that he thinks I would be great for this because I have good attention to detail.  I told him I was not so sure.  He said, "Vince this is a great opportunity to get some cross-training and to help another department while we are a little slow in manufacturing right now.  You need to think about it over the weekend and let me know on Monday."  Oh boy.  He just doesn't want to hear me say "No".

I sent a text message to Luigi, the site office manager and asked him who the person was on-site that handled environmental monitoring and clean room services.  He told me it was Sharayah Garcia.  I then looked her up in the Outlook directory and got her phone number.  I sent her a text message asking her if she could be available to talk about her work.  She agreed to meet me in Lab 199 at 09:30.

We talked for about two hours.  I learned a lot about what she does when she visits with a client.  Right now we only have one client in the area, and management does not want to increase head count in this department until more clients come on.  She needs someone who can cover for her when she is sick, on vacation, or in Agawam doing her semi-annual recertification.  The gowning is only one small part of it.  She does air particle counts, she lays out plates, she does cleanliness swabs.  The work is not limited to the clean rooms either - sometimes the monitoring happens in the gowning rooms.

If I had to do this, I think I could, and she is pleasant to work with, but I am afraid that I would not be doing this frequently enough to maintain proficiency, and it would only be a temporary thing.  I think Stephanie would be better at this since she has a certificate and has done it for years.  Sharayah said that the gowning training can happen in just one day in Agawam, and she can do the training on the equipment and testing here in Durham.

The house next door to us has rented.  A black woman and her three kids moved in during the week.  Sometimes our neighbors are a little loud - you can hear them running on the stairs in their houses.  And we can hear Sunny running her washing machine very early in the morning.

Yesterday I told Joe and Stephanie, "On this day in history (May 3), in 1993, I flew out of RDU airport to Florida to start my boot camp in Recruit Training Command, Orlando."  They were amazed.

Today I began working on applying Thompson's water seal and stain to our deck.  I started with the railing.  This was in the hot middle of the day.  It was about 90°F and there wasn't a breath of wind.  Bob helped me for about 15 minutes and then he had to go inside.  I continued working until the railing was done, then I went in, showered, and took a nap.  When I get back to it I will be spending a few hours up on the ladder doing the outside of the railing and the glue laminated beam that spans the garage below.  The last thing we will do is roll out the stain and sealer on the decking.

A thundershower is going through tonight.  Tomorrow, Cinco de Mayo, should be cooler.