I’m Free

Not free from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, just free from the sling I’ve been in for the past 5 weeks. I have permission to drive again. Physical Therapy goes to phase 2 – range of motion and strengthening. I tried sleeping in the bed last night instead of the recliner. The only issue I had was that I reached out to pet Brie when I was half asleep, forgetting that my arm does not do that right now. It was sore for a while after that, but nothing serious. The recliner is still more comfortable for my shoulders, but I like the normalcy of the bedroom.


My Rube Goldberg adventure continues. Today I completed the new design MOD III cat food dispenser. As promised, it is driven by an electric drill that turns a bicycle wheel (using a circular wire brush for traction). Every revolution of the wheel brings around a bolt that hits the dispenser wheel causing it to rotate in short steps each time it is hit. The rotating dispenser passes under the food supply where gravity fills a cup at the top of the rotation. The dispenser continues to rotate (a sleeve keeps the food from spilling until it is over the dish) until it dumps out at the bottom of the rotation into the feeding dish. The drill is turned on for 1 minute every 12 hours and in one minute the dispenser makes 1 full rotation dispensing the cup full of food. The design actually works. It can hang up, so I am going to do whatever fine-tuning may be needed this week. Hopefully it will continue to work and the kitties will have a food supply while we are gone.


In current events I find it interesting that when the Pope makes a faux pas and uses a quote that refers to violence and killing and Muslims, the reaction from the Muslims is violence (burning churches) and killing (a nun).

So now it is back to catching up on all those things I put off while in the sling and planning for our drive up north.