.There I am in the patio, holding steady at 151 pounds. Or 10.8 stone if you hail from across the pond. Or 68.5 kilos. Down a tad from about 235 pounds back before cancer came to call.
My height has also shrunk, apparently due to the destruction of my 3rd lumbar vertebrae; enough so that my height is now 70-1/4" instead of 72", which explains why my trousers are not only too loose but too long. Here again, the cause is due to the tumor munching away on my spine. In fact, even my feet have gotten smaller. Not in length but in most other dimensions. Which means my feet sort of rattle around in my shoes... now that the edema-like swelling is no longer a problem. (For several months the edema forced me to wear an old pair of Uggs that I'd modified with a razor, turning them into enormous slippers.) As a point of interest, the edema was a side-effect of the medication. As I became accustomed to the medication, the edema slowly went away.
Early in the history of this blog is an article about an apprentice's tool box, which was one of those tricky bits used to teach people how to rivet. A number of you, including at least one shop class, have found the tool box of sufficient interest to tackle it as a project. But more than one of you has pointed out that the dimensions of the box, while practical for tools of the 1930's, is a bit too small for tools of the 21s century. Which I pretty much ignored. After all, the project was meant to teach people how to rivet; it's functionality as a box for carrying tools was not its purpose. But when this point was raised by a third person I figured it was time to take another look at it. You can pretend that's what I'm doing in the photo above :-) (I think my wife took the snap shot to show my sister how skinny I've become.)
So I will go ahead and post a set of drawings for a bigger box; something more suitable for a modern-day kit of tools. Personally, I have not yet found the need for such a thing but judging from my mail, several of you have.
-R.S.Hoover