Terry Sumner

Believe it or not Bud...I have THREE all within 15 miles of my house that are complete automotive engine machine shops! Arico's Machine in Jewett City, B&M Machine in Brooklyn and L&L Machine in Lisbon!

Pictures friends...PICTURES!

Man, 2013 is not going to go down as a good year for us. First my wife lost her best friend of 30 years to cancer back a few months. Then I got diagnosed with cancer in April and had to have surgery in August. And today my mom passed away in Florida after a brief illness. what a lousy year. At least my mom is in a better place now and is not suffering....

When I was n NCO School the instructors used the movie 12 O'clock High as a case in point illustrating the classic case of a boss taking too much on his own shoulders and failing to delegate. He'd run the movie for a while and stop it at various points to make his points. Worked very well !

Still remember plain as day the evening when our whole gang went over to Ray's house to watch COLOR TV on their brand new COLOR TV set! They had the first one in our neighborhood. We all thought that was quite the piece of modern technology back then. It had a beautiful kind of red tinted picture.... LOL

If you are on Facebook you may want to check out my group called Scale Modelling Work Spaces. It's a group specifically just for our modeling workshops. Lot's of ideas.. https://www.facebook.com/groups/533013200112185/

Black Sheep and 12 Oclock High...no connection to each other aside from the fact they were both WWII. Black sheep, commanded by Major Pappy Boyington was a Marine Corsair unit in the Pacific theater. 12 Oclock High was a U.S. Army Air Corps Bomber unit in the European Theater.

Some of you may remember that my younger brother is the driver of the big rig for Marsh Racing/Team Whelen #31 Corvette in the GrandAm series. And he is the man in charge of all things fuel related for the car and is on the pit crew as the fuel guy. Well tomorrow is the last race of the year and it's at Lime Rock here in Connecticut. And my son and I get to go and be a part of the crew for the day. We actually get to be on pit road with the whole pit crew too. It's a really cool day! Weather is supposed to be perfectly clear and 74 degrees. I will be bringing my camera and I'll post some photos in the next few days after we get back! And the best part is I'm feeling much better after my cancer surgery 4 weeks ago so it should be a blast!

Cool looking indeed! But glad I don't have to drive it.... No forward vision for the poor driver!

Big Roger on that Tom! I have to admit...being told you have cancer, no matter what kind, is a huge shock to your psyche! And then all the petty stuff in your life just doesn't matter at all! And now that I've had the surgery and my prognosis is looking pretty good at this point....there are just too many things that are now much more important in life. Acquiring "things" and wealth in the monetary sense jus isn't important. My wife, my kids, my grandkids and the rest of my family and my friends are what is important!

The parts store doesn't have the parts I need for a customer's BMW and they have to come from Germany! So it will be at least 2 weeks!

A friend of mine going through the same exact thing just found that through the same treatment I had, his PSA dropped from over 15 to .4! So it looks like he should have a good surgery outcome like mine!

First day back to work was good. Long day but glad I am able to return! After work I went to a local steak night with my two sons...good time and excellent food. But now they've all gone to our local club to watch the football game and my body just said NO! Just can't do it....too tired. So I am home and am going to bed. Thanks guys for the words of support and encouragement. You might not believe that they mean a lot coming from folks I haven't ever met in person....but they do! So thanks guys!

Going back to work tomorrow!!!!

Wow...just WOW!

That's one HECK of a first attempt! Wow.....

Me too! Yup...that's how mine is set up!

Well this is the best update yet on my prostate cancer journey. Went to see Dr McCullogh this morning and got that dang catheter out! Didn't hurt a whisker and the feeling of having my freedom back is indescribable. My heart hurts for anyone who is permanently using one! Only 7 days for me and I had had enough! But even better than that was the pathology report! I have already mentioned that the doc told me that the past 4 months of hormone therapy had reduced the size of the diseased gland so much that it made their jobs much easier. But the report places a figure of 75% on that shrinkage!!! That was a lot of shrinkage in 4 months! I guess all those hot flashes from the hormone therapy were well worth it! But the best thing on the pathology report is that there was NO cancer found in any of the samples they took from my lymph nodes and surrounding tissues in there!!! He said that as of right now there is no evidence of any more cancer in m...e!!! Of course they won't say that you're "cured!" That can only come after the next couple of years if my PSA stays at the zero or almost zero figure. And one tough thing is that I will still have to be on the hormone therapy for the next couple of years. At least it's not pills though...only an every 6 month injection of Trelstar. Unfortunately this means the hot flashes are going to remain. So now I'm doing the Depends thing and doing my "exercises" to tighten up the old bladder muscle....So I guess I don't get to retrieve my man card just yet....but that day is coming! Once again...thank you so much to all of you who have sent messages of support and encouragement, and all the prayers you all have done for me. My wife says that she knows that Linda Lussier and her Aunt Shiela Ward were both looking down on me from heaven. Of course we have no way of knowing if that is true but if it is...thank you Linda and Aunt Shiela! Some day maybe I can do the same

Got home today. The surgeons told me the surgery went a lot better than they had expected. Apparently these last 4 months of hormone therapy went a long ways in shrinking my prostate down and that made it easier for them to do their thing! They didn't have to touch the sphincter muscle at the bottom of the bladder so it looks like I may not have to buy stock in the Depends Company after all! Feels great to be in my own room with my own TV and alone! No more roomate who did nothing but constantly complain. Man that guy was wearing on me! And now I can get some uninterrupted sleep without being awakened every 4 hours for vitals! Looking forward to getting back in the groove!

Have to be at the W.W. Backus Hospital at 05:45! Surgery scheduled for approx. 07:30 or so. I'll post something as soon as I'm able to. Take care my friends...

My deepest, deepest condolences my friend... My wife is the same...loves my two hobbies...modeling and woodworking. We've been married getting close to 32 years now and I truly don't know what I would do if she passed away on me...

Just some regular white primer...nothing special....

Yes Harry...you guess right. In fact, I built the whole darn 24' X 48', 2 story, 30' tall garage/woodshop! ...well...except for the foundation that is.... LOL

9 years ago a good friend and fellow police officer died from a massive infection after knee surgery! He had three sons...all friends too. One is a cop now, another is a Sergeant in the Millstone Security force and the other is an engineer. Every year since Larry passed away his kids run an event at our local club called The Poppa P Plunge....so named because Larry's pet name was Poppa P. And one thing Larry did a few times was run fully clothed into the lake behind the club! At this event, all the young fellows run into the same lake in honor of Larry...hence the "plunge" part of the event name. The main purpose of this yearly event is to raise money for a scholarship in Larry's name awarded every year to a student at our local high school. The money is raised by the raffling off of dozens of baskets of goodies that are donated to the cause. Well I wanted to help out but I was pretty lousy at making up baskets...but I thought, "Well I have this big woodworking shop...why not build something and donate a handmade item instead?" So 2 years ago I did for the first time. That was a nice book case and they raffled it off as sort of a grand prize in a separate raffle. It raised a pretty good amount of money. And in the end, the woman who won it turned around and gave her winning ticket to Valerie, Larry's widow because she really wanted it! This year I decided to do this again and the piece I chose to make is a Colonial Step Back Cabinet, so named because the top part "steps back" from the lower part as you can see. Every part of this thing is handmade including all the molding. I finished it in an Antique White Milk Paint color. With how tired I've been from these darn hormone treatments it was a struggle just to get my sorry butt up those 26 steps into my shop and finish this thing. But I needed to get it done by this week because the event as I said is on September 14th and after next Thursday's surgery I don't think I'll be doing much woodworking for a while. So I hope y'all like this piece of colonial furniture. I'm hoping it will raise a lot of money for Larry's Scholarship! Here's the small brass plate at the top... Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki

LOL... Yeah...Matt the Snaopon guy is gonna go through withdrawals w/o me there!!!