I did do some curls and ohp this past week, but nothing great. Just had some time on my hands so what better way to spend it?
So I tig welded (melted into submission) some aluminum today for the first time since welding school, just for practice before I actually make some stuff.
Then unceremoniously beat it to death. It was pretty strong!
Happy new year!
It looks strong! I have never tried Aluminum. My dad could braze aluminum, but I never learned.
Happy New Year!
It wasn’t bad. I folded it forward over itself, then opened it up and bent it backwards to pull through the weld. It broke right through the center, so fusion was so-so.
I’ll play with the settings a bit and get it figured out. I’m pretty sure I had the argon turned up Way too much, which I kinda noticed when I was breaking it down for the day and discharging the lines. 
You’ll get it. Just need to play around a bit.
We shall name this cat mashed potatoes
Kitty!!!
Haven’t updated my log much. Not sure lot happening. Work, freezing, and our standard array of seasonal sicknesses.
But I wanted to tag @EmilyQ to see how you’ve been. These things are important to me.
Remember chatting about wondering how unconventional deadlifting would affect our conventional deadlift maxes? I recently joined a new gym and, in preparation for four months of the Simple Deadlift Plan, tested my conventional deadlift max last week. After 4.5 years of only doing light-ish deficit deadlifts, Smith machine low rack pulls, and manual labor (pushing wheelbarrows of gravel, carrying boxes of tile, etc.) I pulled 385, which is a 10-pound, lifetime PR. It appears gym lifting isn’t the only way to get stronger 
I’m good! Getting back on track after the holidays (and the 8 months that preceded them). Nothing new in terms of the syncope, I finished with the monitor and see the cardiologist in a couple of weeks. I assume the monitor didn’t show a problem given that the appointment wasn’t moved up. So echo good, monitor good. Which leaves me with benign hypotension. But I’ll let the doctor weigh in on that.
Awesome!
And healed up from the fall?
Yes, mostly. I can feel the break if I tap on it or let my glasses come down too hard, and the scar is still pretty prominent, but eh. It’s fine. It’s so close to the nose piece of my glasses, people don’t notice it. My only worry is having to be PCR tested if (when) I have upper respiratory symptoms. It’s been six weeks, but I still can’t imagine having the thing shoved up my nose and twisted right where the break was. But working for the hospital system puts me in the way of “protocols.” And PCR tests are most definitely The Protocol.
I haven’t noticed any health updates for you. Are you hanging in?
Pretty much, yeah. No great strides forward, but no great losses of ground either. I’ve been getting intermittent bouts of angina for a while now, but I’m pretty sure that’s just something I’m going to have to learn to live with.
So that seasonal bug I had turned out to be covid.
I got it first, then wife & kiddo in quick succession. It was pretty bad. I didn’t go to the hospital, but did have the car keys ready a couple times.
I’m pretty much out of the woods now but for a lingering malaise, and we’ll see if anything else pops up.
So the swab test was different from the brain scrape that I was expecting. It was just on the inside of each nostril.
Hope you & yours are well and healthy.
Hope everything is on the up for you all.
And thanks for easing my anxiety. I have to get tested tomorrow for the first time in almost a year. I think it is a swab test, which I had never taken before.
Thanks!
Kiddo very characteristically shrugged it off in a couple days. It hit my wife pretty hard initially, and pretty much whooped my butt.
.
I’m a pretty good sport about a lot of things, but getting a pugal stick jambed up my nose is a bit much even for me, so I hope you get the nice one too.
That was not a fun experience. I apologized to the test administrator for my reaction, but she insisted I did much better than most other people because I didn’t hit her.
When putting stuff up your nose goes wrong…
I could write a book on that. 
Me & a nurse had a good laugh last December when she was preempting the test with “Now, I’m sure you’ve heard that these are uncomfortable” and I joked "Just hand them to people in a rolled up $20! " She totally lost it with that one. I’m sure it was a reprieve from a lot of the pushback they were getting at the time.
Well, all things considered, I hope you’re in the clear. This is preoperative, right?
Wait, you guys have someone else do that? We have to do that bit ourselves.
Glad you’re out of the woods mate.
Ha, I might get tested more often if that were the case!
Me too! Yep, it is. To be honest I wouldn’t be surprised if I were already infected at some point without knowing. Either way, I am glad I haven’t had to experience how you felt. It sounds awful. Getting a taste of that with the booster was enough for me.
PCR remains the gold standard. Not to mention it’s virtually impossible to get at-home tests in my area. Of course we can all now get four free tests delivered… two years into a pandemic. Plus my university just now sent me a couple that I have to take. Politics aside, it was a lot better in my case to go in person because my results will be sent directly to my provider without any additional work on my end.
