Piss & Moan Table

[MeanGreen86]

I am a mechanical engineer in the manufacturing industry. Our company deals mostly in custom automated solutions for packaging companies. I really enjoy it and make great money but some days I wish I had a simple job that didn't require so much thinking! I get burnt out at the end of the day and its challenging to create custom, one-off solutions for things. Sometimes I wish I could go back to my high school job unloading truck tires from tractor trailers for a mental sabbatical. It was physically tough but required the mental capacity of a rock.

 

[TJ Jim]

I am a mechanical engineer in the manufacturing industry. Our company deals mostly in custom automated solutions for packaging companies. I really enjoy it and make great money but some days I wish I had a simple job that didn't require so much thinking! I get burnt out at the end of the day and its challenging to create custom, one-off solutions for things. Sometimes I wish I could go back to my high school job unloading truck tires from tractor trailers for a mental sabbatical. It was physically tough but required the mental capacity of a rock.

I feel ya brother. I retired at the age of 57 so sick of the political bull crap. I was an industrial mechanic which I loved turning a wrench or troubleshooting in an electrical panel, but they wanted me to lead and train folks. All I wanted to do was lose myself in a greasy bit of heaven.

 

[Squatch]

The news is so crappy these days. I’ve completely quit watching the news and my head is firmly buried in the sand.
Now my real piss and moan about this is…… I cannot get my wife to quit watching the news and then telling me about it. Damn quit watching the news. Gonna put my fingers in my ears and go nah nah nah nah nah loudly.

My wife immerses herself in all things conspiratorial and Pro-Trump. While our politics do align just fine, I don't feel the need to constantly surround myself with all the negativity. Since retiring, the only news I watch is the weather report, and that's just because the weather-gal is a hottie. It's gotten so bad at times that I have just jumped in my old truck, and gone for a drive. It's a safe haven: the radio doesn't work.

 

[freedom_in_4low]

My wife immerses herself in all things conspiratorial and Pro-Trump. While our politics do align just fine, I don't feel the need to constantly surround myself with all the negativity. Since retiring, the only news I watch is the weather report, and that's just because the weather-gal is a hottie. It's gotten so bad at times that I have just jumped in my old truck, and gone for a drive. It's a safe haven: the radio doesn't work.

Same. Have you heard the fires in Maui were an attack by the USAF using "directed energy weapons" aka lasers to move some native Hawaiians off some land for the developers that want it?

A couple days ago she threw away my Cinnamon Toast Crunch because some doofus on tiktok said one of the ingredients is paint thinner (trisodium phosphate). Maybe it is but it's in like half of our food so why focus on the cereal???

 

[freedom_in_4low]

here's my piss and moan for the day.

Getting old SUCKS. I'm not even really "old", more middle aged? Turning 40 in a couple of weeks.

Flying a desk for most of my career, with lots of computer work, intensifying to exclusively computer work over the last four years, has done a number on my spine. After 4 years of chiropractic care with only short-term success, in 2018 an MRI revealed "large, broadbased posterior disc osteophyte complex" with "moderate to severe foraminal narrowing" at my right C8 nerve root (between C7 and T1, medicalese for bone spurs protruding into the hole that the nerve is supposed to come out through). When it's acting up, I get pain and/or tingling down the ulnar nerve which runs down to the little finger, and the damage caused some lost grip strength. In 2019 found a PT that taught me some "nerve flossing" exercises that when done promptly at the first sign of a flareup, prevent it getting worse and I have no problems for 6-12 months.

Then, a couple weeks ago I had what seemed to be a muscle strain in my right trapezius. It was spasming and every time it spasmed, would kick off that nerve pain BAD. Like couldn't sit still, just pacing around the house bad. Like how you know when it's time to take the family dog to go "live on a farm" because he's in so much pain he just walks around the house all day and night. A couple days of rest, a week of tylenol, flexeril and prednisone and the muscle seemed to mostly calm down, but the nerve pain stayed. Nerve flossing makes it worse. Doesn't seem to bother me if I'm active, but gets cranked up when I'm sedentary. Thought maybe the activity was making it worse but not showing up until the evening, so I try resting a couple of days and then it gets WAY worse.

So I go into a chiro that my mom recommends. Take some x-rays, my cervical spine is shaped like an S instead of a C, and wouldn't you know the part that's bent wrong is right where I have the bone spurs. So now I'm doing 2x a week adjustments and I think I'm getting better, until the night before I'm supposed to leave for a wheeling trip in Colorado and I go get a haircut. Lay my neck down in that sink with my head cantilevered off of it to get my hair washed and I'm back almost where I started before the chiropractor. Can't even think about 40+ hours in a Jeep and sleeping in a hammock for 3 nights so trip is cancelled, and chiro is only open M-W so I've got 5 days before any hope of relief.

Oh, and my truck needs a battery.

Update: 5 weeks of this and I teeter between "maybe a little better" and "not better at all". Still can't spend hours in a car, shoot rifles prone, play basketball, ride a bicycle, or sleep more than about 5 hours in a night.

Chiropractor still convinced he can fix me. I can't decide whether he's keeping me hurting or keeping me FROM hurting even more. I feel better when I leave but the next day it seems like all my gains are gone. Got a refill of Flexeril and MRI one week from today, so I guess I'm gonna see what conventional western medicine has to say about it.

 

[Squatch]

Same. Have you heard the fires in Maui were an attack by the USAF using "directed energy weapons" aka lasers to move some native Hawaiians off some land for the developers that want it?

A couple days ago she threw away my Cinnamon Toast Crunch because some doofus on tiktok said one of the ingredients is paint thinner (trisodium phosphate). Maybe it is but it's in like half of our food so why focus on the cereal???

I feel your pain, brother. We'll just leave it at that...

 

[red02tj]

Update: 5 weeks of this and I teeter between "maybe a little better" and "not better at all". Still can't spend hours in a car, shoot rifles prone, play basketball, ride a bicycle, or sleep more than about 5 hours in a night.

Chiropractor still convinced he can fix me. I can't decide whether he's keeping me hurting or keeping me FROM hurting even more. I feel better when I leave but the next day it seems like all my gains are gone. Got a refill of Flexeril and MRI one week from today, so I guess I'm gonna see what conventional western medicine has to say about it.

We’re about the same age (41) and I ride the desk for work but active otherwise (hand full of marathons / cycling / wrenching) picked up a 25lb dumbbell and 2 hrs later I was crawling to the bathroom I couldn’t move and it hurt so bad. 2 best things were Tramadol for the pain so I could sleep and function and I found a really great sports med / PT person. Tailored the exercises to what hurt / what I needed + stretches I could do anytime I felt that twinge.

 

[Zorba]

My wife immerses herself in all things conspiratorial and Pro-Trump. While our politics do align just fine, I don't feel the need to constantly surround myself with all the negativity. Since retiring, the only news I watch is the weather report, and that's just because the weather-gal is a hottie. It's gotten so bad at times that I have just jumped in my old truck, and gone for a drive. It's a safe haven: the radio doesn't work.

I pretty much could have written this, except for watching the weather which I get online. Wife lives and breathes politics, and I have to say that she's been right so far - but I don't need to wallow in it.

 

[TJ Jim]

Conspiracy theories are fun and thought provoking. I believe there’s a bit of truth in most of them. Just can’t get too wrapped up in them.

 

[freedom_in_4low]

Conspiracy theories are fun and thought provoking. I believe there’s a bit of truth in most of them. Just can’t get too wrapped up in them.

I agree. I'd even buy that the Maui fires could have been intentional to encourage the sale of that land to the developers that want it. But they lose me with the Air Force starting the fires with lasers fired from aircraft miles away.

It's possible to believe both that Neil Armstrong landed on the moon AND that Epstein didn't kill himself, but it seems like people want to go all or nothing.

 

[Zorba]

I agree. I'd even buy that the Maui fires could have been intentional to encourage the sale of that land to the developers that want it. But they lose me with the Air Force starting the fires with lasers fired from aircraft miles away.

It's possible to believe both that Neil Armstrong landed on the moon AND that Epstein didn't kill himself, but it seems like people want to go all or nothing.

There certainly is a shit ton of suspicious circumstances surrounding those fires - including strange actions by the local authorities. We'll see.

 

[bucky]

What’s so strange about inept public officials?

 

[Squatch]

I just spent a full eight days with a case of vertigo so bad that I was waking up in the middle of the night to vomit. I hate that feeling of constant dizziness. I'd much rather deal with pain than that helpless feeling of having zero control. Thankfully, I woke up on the nineth day with absolutely no symptoms, and have been feeling great the past two days. Good thing, too, as my daughter's minivan just crapped out, and is in need of repairs.

 

[freedom_in_4low]

I just spent a full eight days with a case of vertigo so bad that I was waking up in the middle of the night to vomit. I hate that feeling of constant dizziness. I'd much rather deal with pain than that helpless feeling of having zero control. Thankfully, I woke up on the nineth day with absolutely no symptoms, and have been feeling great the past two days. Good thing, too, as my daughter's minivan just crapped out, and is in need of repairs.

Dude that sucks. My mother and my mother in law have both had bouts of that. Is this the first time for you?

I was just talking to a close childhood friend the other day who is my age...he's on the tail end of a gout flareup and has to use medical MJ for chronic back pain because he's torched his liver and kidneys with 20 years of drug/alcohol abuse so his doc says he can't take any pharmaceutical pain meds. As much as my neck thing sucks I wouldn't trade places with him for a million bucks. He's on his third or fourth trip "on the wagon" that I know of. I hope it sticks this time.

I realized the other day I'm at the age Peyton Manning was when he retired. He'd already had 3 neck surgeries by that point.

 

[Squatch]

Dude that sucks. My mother and my mother in law have both had bouts of that. Is this the first time for you?

No, it's not the first time. About twenty years ago, I went through a period of it (though the symptoms weren't as severe) that lasted for...get this...a year and a half! They did so many tests on me that I felt like a lab rat. Never could figure out what the cause of it was, but they did say that less than 5% of the male population experiences long-term symptoms like I was going through. It sucked. I used to drive the 31.5 miles to work with my head resting against the door-glass to stabilize myself, and only move my eyes, rather than turn my head. They ended up prescribing an anti-depressant, of all things, as one of the benefits of them was that it curbed dizziness in patients who suffered from vertigo. It's a small daily dose, but I still take that medication to this day. I think what happened to me this time was unrelated, as the severity was the likes of which I'd never experienced before, and it stopped as suddenly as it started.

 

[mxz800]

I just spent a full eight days with a case of vertigo so bad that I was waking up in the middle of the night to vomit. I hate that feeling of constant dizziness. I'd much rather deal with pain than that helpless feeling of having zero control.

When you want to "Wash that gray right out of your hair" don't use the blonde version.

 

[mxz800]

So no F'ing house yet. They were supposed to set it up in June then August 29th, now???

 

[Squatch]

Daughter's Mazda MPV (minivan) has a defunct starter. Transverse-mounted Ford V6 stuffed into the engine compartment. The starter has to come out through the top. Took me an hour and a half just to get to the starter!

*First-World problems, I know. Still irritating, though.

 

[reddvltj]

Daughter's Mazda MPV (minivan) has a defunct starter. Transverse-mounted Ford V6 stuffed into the engine compartment. The starter has to come out through the top. Took me an hour and a half just to get to the starter!

*First-World problems, I know. Still irritating, though.

It's the same way with the stupid Escape SUVs... I agree, 1000% irritating!!

 

[mxz800]

I remember the Yugo had the starter sitting on the frame the motor had to be tilted to remove.

One of the garages we sold parts to had one to do. What a horror show rusted motor mounts, removing manifold etc.