# Getting old is bad.



## Jim F (Nov 24, 2022)

Moved the SB9 and Grizzly G0463 to storage today.
400# sounds light, until it needs moved over grass and up a ramp of expanded steel, in a gravel alley...............


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## rabler (Nov 24, 2022)

Getting old is bad.  But moving your equipment to storage, that sounds frightening!!


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## Jim F (Nov 24, 2022)

rabler said:


> Getting old is bad.  But moving your equipment to storage, that sounds frightening!!


Such is life right now.
storage until determined whether to keep or get rid of.


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## MrWhoopee (Nov 24, 2022)

Jim F said:


> 400# sounds light, until it needs moved over grass and up a ramp of expanded steel, in a gravel alley...............


Hoping you're talking about the equipment.

To quote my father, "Never complain about growing old, it's a privilege denied to many."


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## great white (Nov 24, 2022)

Feel you pain.

I used to be able to grab 300/400lb engine blocks and carry them across the shop.

Now, anything over 75 lbs and I’m struggling badly….so I work smarter now, not harder. Cranes lifts and carts are the order of the day.


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## benmychree (Nov 24, 2022)

Here I am going on 78, have multiple ailments, but try not to complain, my namesake uncle passed at 40 of a heart attack, my dad at 56 same ailment, getting old is not for sissies, and it beats the alternative below the grass.


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## SLK001 (Nov 24, 2022)

Hey, moving 400 pounds over grass is near impossible for a 20 year old!  At least age gives you the wisdom to not even attempt something like that by yourself.


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## K30 (Nov 24, 2022)

great white said:


> Feel you pain.
> 
> I used to be able to grab 300/400lb engine blocks and carry them across the shop.



I'm either going to have to knock that stuff off, or start lifting weights again. I keep hurting myself. I've managed to give myself minor rotator cuff tears in both shoulders in the last two years.


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## FOMOGO (Nov 24, 2022)

We all get there, if were lucky. Was the same for me, could always lift most anything I needed to. Still fairly strong, but the connective tissue is not what it used to be. Things I wouldn't have thought twice about lifting 10 years ago, I now do with some form, or other of mechanical advantage. Still get it done just takes a little longer. Mike


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## RJSakowski (Nov 24, 2022)

When anybody asks me, "How are you?", my standard reply now is OK for an old bloke.  I used to lift engine block and anvils in days gone by.  Blocking up two cords of firewood in a day and splitting 20 cords of firewood by hand each year was the norm.  That may be the reason I wake up every morning with a back ache and sciatica.  Sometimes, with the arthritis in my hands  it's difficult to break open the cap on a gallon of milk. So much for the golden years.


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## Flyinfool (Nov 24, 2022)

Been there done that, have the T-shirt.
Used to carry short block v8's up and down the basement stairs all the time. When I just did some work on my truck this last fall I had a heck of a time getting 150 lbs of welder out of the basement. I still have not hauled it back into the basement. Even pulling the 105 lb AC out of the window is getting tough. Getting old is not for wimps. But I guess it beats the alternative.


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## markba633csi (Nov 24, 2022)

Me and a buddy carried a big engine a short distance using a piece of pipe over our shoulders.  I had unremitting hemorrhoids for 2 weeks after that
He's a former buddy now


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## Larry$ (Nov 24, 2022)

I'm 80 & now paying for some of the stupid things I did when I was invincible. In the last few years I've been scraped off the floor several times. Low blood glucose, very low heart rate (26 b/m Last month after they got me off the floor. Now they've shoved a monitoring device under my skin that is read by a device next to my bed and sends the info to a doctor every day. ) Had the lenses in my eyes replaced with plastic. Wear an insulin pump. On & on. Getting old sucks but like they say, the alternative isn't great either. 

I still like a challenge which is why I took up hobby machining.


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## Winegrower (Nov 25, 2022)

I can’t lift engine blocks and anvils now.  But I never could.


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## Karl_T (Nov 25, 2022)

If I ever wake up and nothing hurts, I'll know I made it to heaven.


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## projectnut (Nov 25, 2022)

Getting old may not be pleasant at times but consider the alternative.


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## T Bredehoft (Nov 25, 2022)

I lifted too much as a youngster, (up to probably 70). Now I normally have back pain. By itself it's livable, but I can hardly lift an airline suitcase weighing  35#.


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## gonzo (Nov 25, 2022)

Thinking I may have to cross the 81 threshold on my hands and knees. Guess I may have to give up sex for a day or two.


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## T Bredehoft (Nov 25, 2022)

Sex gave up on me sometime in the last decade.


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## great white (Nov 25, 2022)

T Bredehoft said:


> Sex gave up on me sometime in the last decade.


Not a choice for me.

Wife is ten years younger than and has a very….ahem, ”healthy”…..appetite.



Still (pardon the pun) keeping up my end, but there’ll probably come a day for the “little blue pill”.


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## Jim F (Nov 25, 2022)

I have no family or friends, so the alternative is no big deal.


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## Bi11Hudson (Nov 25, 2022)

Way back when, I used to sling a 40 CuFt oxygen tank on my shoulder and walk across the shop. 30 years later I still moved tha oxygen tank, but by rolling one end on the floor. 20 years after that, I could still move the tank *cart.* Today, I can't even stand up. It all adds up over time. But as noted above, looking at grass from the green side is much preferable to looking at it from the brown side.

.


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## Larry$ (Nov 25, 2022)

Jim F said:


> I have no family or friends, so the alternative is no big deal.


True friends are hard to come by, but very valuable. 
This site provides a bit of the friend function. Someplace to swap lies, tell tall tales etc.


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## jpackard56 (Nov 29, 2022)

Jim F said:


> I have no family or friends, so the alternative is no big deal.


Well ya got friends here Jim, but 8 hours one way is just too far of a drive for me help you move stuff around !


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## Bone Head (Nov 29, 2022)

I'm going to sound like a slice of fruitcake, but at 73 I'm having problems doing what I did last year.  So instead of giving up or calling friends to do what I used to do I've gotten on the attack.  Weights.  Exercise bike.  Diet.  Been on it for about 6-8 weeks and seeing some sort of results.
I lived fast and hard the first 40-50 (?) years of my life.  Something I don't do anymore, but I still want to do stuff around the house, work on my own vehicles and ride my motorcycles.

Oh, about that little blue pill?  Forget that.  Get the genuine Cialis.  You can pull this thread up later and thank me.


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## great white (Nov 29, 2022)

Bone Head said:


> Oh, about that little blue pill?  Forget that.  Get the genuine Cialis.  You can pull this thread up later and thank me.


thanks for the advice, but no problems that way……yet.


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## great white (Nov 29, 2022)

Jim F said:


> I have no family or friends, so the alternative is no big deal.


It’s always a big deal.

As long as you’re drawing breath, you have infinite options and possibilities.

Once you stop drawing breath, all those possibilities are gone.

Keep drawing breath, keep your options open.


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## Aworoeuw (Nov 30, 2022)

Hey! I agree with you. 81 is here...


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## Karl_T (Nov 30, 2022)

A VERY good friend lost her spouse to violence a few years back. She was left with a troubled son (in and out of jail, abusive to her) and a demanding mother. She was self medicating and thought about eating a bullet. Well, her mother passed, her son lives in the prison AND she met the most delightful person that thinks his place in life is to make her happy.

You never know what's around the next corner.


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## rwdenney (Nov 30, 2022)

The only thing worse than getting old is not getting old, it seems to me.

We can't know what the future will hold, but I've worked through blue periods always looking forward. I'm in my middle 60's and just bought a lathe. I'm told by several here that after tipping it over onto its back I should scrap it and start over, but if I did that, I would waste several more years of not having a lathe. My bet is I would never have one. I'll bet I can get this one working well enough to have fun with it for a decade or (hopefully) two, and even if not, attempting to get it working provides its own enjoyment. I'm still looking forward to that.

Some of my other hobbies are getting harder, not easier, which means I need to pursue them while I can and enjoy each day. I know musicians, for example, who stopped playing as soon as some aspect of age degraded their abilities. They couldn't stand not being able to play like they did at their peak. To me, that's looking backward, not forward. I bought a new (to me) tuba just last year--still looking for new experiences.

I was an endurance athlete back about 25 years ago, working up to an Ironman triathlon. Now, I have various injuries that limit my workouts to an hour (running) or two (cycling), and my motivation to do it five or six days a week in any weather is long gone. But as soon as the latest injury is fully healed, I'll be out there trying to improve, even if the definition of improvement is minimizing disimprovement.

(This may have happened: I was at a motor home rally and was running loops around the campground. One of my old friends in that group asked me what I was running from. "Old age!")

All my closest friends are older than me and some are ailing. But we are spread all over and their friendship is based on love and respect more than daily entertainment. And that's what attracts me about finally learning machining--it is slow, patient work where improvement is always possible, and it can be done alone. One strategy for old age, it seems to me, is to learn how to enjoy keeping our own company. And not just old age--my wife and I were older when we met and thus both already knew how to enjoy our love and companionship and still be happy in our own pursuits.

Rick "always learning, sometimes the hard way" Denney


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## brino (Nov 30, 2022)

rwdenney said:


> the definition of improvement is minimizing disimprovement.


Lol, yep!


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## alloy (Nov 30, 2022)

RJSakowski said:


> So much for the golden years.


FYI: The golden years is referring to how many times per night you get up to pee.

My kids and the people at work used to call me the human fork lift.  Not that way now.  One my vmc I have now (same one I used at my last job, I bought it from them) there is a 4th axis that is 142lbs mounted on it.  We used to have to remove the 4th to put larger parts on the machine.  Occasionally others would use the macbhine when I was to busy and they would try to pull or put the 4th back on.  They would put a spreader bar in the lifting eye and 2 of them would try to move it.  One time one guy actually got hurt doing that.  There was no way to get a forklift in to help.  One of them asked me how I moved it and I just picked it up and put it on.  They used to give me crap about being old, but not after that.

Now, that 4th has a permanate place on my mill and I don't ever plan on pulling it off.  Mostly because I can't anymore.


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## mmcmdl (Dec 1, 2022)

Bone Head said:


> Oh, about that little blue pill? Forget that. Get the genuine Cialis. You can pull this thread up later and thank me.


I like the liquid form . I come home from work each morning and pour myself a stiff one .


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## Manual Mac (Dec 1, 2022)

alloy is spot on about the golden years.
and he’s not *******rting you about picking things up.
he came over to my abode to have some wheel studs welded, and he is indeed one Big Dude.


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