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handtruck virtuoso
Tuesday, August 21 2018
For some reason FedEx decided to deliver the metal roofing for the screened-in porch today instead of tomorrow. The delivery guy came in an unbranded truck a little before 4:00pm, backed into the driveway, got out, and said, "I hope you have some way to get this off the truck! It weighs 550 pounds!" I didn't have any such way and said so, but that was no deal breaker. When the delivery guy asked if we should just try to wrestle it off, I said sure. I brought over my handtruck (which now has no-flat wheels) and a steel cart with huge casters for wheels. The delivery guy turned out to be something of a handtruck virtuoso, able to lift and maneuver one or the other end of the fifteen-foot parcel using the handtruck's horizontal "blade" and the leverage of its handle. But it turned out the floor of the delivery truck was so slick that it was easy enough to just slide the parcel around without any tools. Doing so, we got it out over the built-in lift and then lowered it to the ground onto the caster-cart. We could then pull it out further and then use the lift to lower the whole thing to ground. From there, it wasn't too hard to maneuver it out of the main part of the driveway to the place under the basketball hoop. There I could take it apart and deal with the pieces one by one without blocking-in the cars.
After this impressive achievement, Gretchen came out asking if perhaps we could move it into the house. That was absurd for many reasons; it would've destroyed the floor, blocked necessary movements, and probably been impossible to do. And doing so would serve no purpose. I could easily fetch the pieces I needed one by one where the parcel ended up.
[REDACTED]
Though the roofing parcel had been crated much better than the one that had been destroyed (and which we'd had to refuse), the crate had an improvised slap-dash amateurishness about it. The nails had evidently been driven by someone unfamiliar with a hammer, and many of the heads protruded into the space where the sheets of roofing material was. This had damaged one of the pieces, leaving deep indentations and scratches. It was possible that I could fix this damage or make sure it ended up in the sections of the material that would end up as scrap, but it was nevertheless an irritation.
Meanwhile the deadline on that code challenge (the one for which I'd built a Symfony/React webapp) had been extended. It seems another applicant for that job had misjudged the effort required and had pleaded for more time. And, since he was getting more time, I was given more time. I took advantage of this additional time to take a deep-dive into fixing a particularly obdurate bug involving the reading of Material-Ui DropDownMenus (which are similar to classic HTML SELECT elements). Not only did I fix that (after several hours of work!), but I implemented a third party DateTimePicker module that greatly improved the interface for editing time slots in a schedule.
For food today, I mostly lived on burritos made with whole-wheat tortillas, Goya-brand refried beans, pickled jalapeños, organic spring green mix, and the chanterelles sauteed with onions. I'm finding that I'm not getting sick of chanterelles anywhere nearly as quickly as I get sick of chicken of the woods.
Meanwhile, out in the wider world, today (a Tuesday no less) was something of a 9Eleven for Donald Trump personally. Not only did his long-term lawyer plead guilty to eight felonies, implicating Trump himself in some of them. But his one-time campaign manager (and all around agent of amorality) Paul Manafort was convicted for eight felonies.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?180821 feedback
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