Held, near disaster

For a long time I have had a small post work routine I do at the house which involves crunches, push ups, pull ups and wall hand stand holds.  I always do the routine inside.  Last night I decided to take the routine outside and do it on/around my outdoor exercise equipment, I need to use it more anyway.

While I was out there I decided to do some extra hand stand practice.  I saw a video of a guy earlier in the day that motivated me to work seriously at it.  Like I said I have been working the wall handstand holds for shoulder endurance but I haven’t been doing much to work on my balance on my hands.

In the past my work on stand alone handstands typically would wind up with a series of painful back flops as I would tip too far forward.  It would only take a few of those crashes to discourage me before I would bag it.

I figured practicing outside on the grass could at least somewhat cushion the impact if I did more inadvertent back flops.  My first few attempts didn’t go too well.  I kept tipping over but I managed to fall sideways instead of on my back at least.  The way it is supposed to work, if you start tipping over you should be able to do a hand pirouette out of the fall to avoid the awkward back flop I am so good at.

Then a light bulb went on.  Even though I knew that finger tip pressure was supposed to be used to resist tipping over I realized I wasn’t doing it.  I tried a few more attempts where as soon as I got upright I forcibly pushed down with my fingertips to resist tipping.

I still found myself tipping but the fingertip pressure allowed me to spin out of it gracefully for the first time ever.  Then finally I actually held a handstand, only for a few seconds, but I held it.  It was pretty cool.

One of my body weight exercise buddies from Australia sent me a nice routine tailored specifically for handstand training.  I am going to really try to focus on it.  I taught myself to juggle, there is no reason I can’t do the same thing with handstands.

Shortly after Ali got home we were in the kitchen talking when we heard a very loud crash sound from the garage.  Oh shit, this can not be good. We both rushed out to see what happened.

I was shocked when I opened the door and saw the shelf on the near wall had collapsed.  On the floor I saw a puddle of bubbling yellow liquid which I quickly realized was the muriatic acid.  This shelf held pool supplies including the acid, chlorine tablets and three full jugs of liquid chlorine.  Evidently I either underestimated the weight of these supplies or overestimated the strength of the shelf I had them on.

Within a fraction of a second of visually identifying what happened I was hit with the fumes from the acid.  It was awful and instantly choked me as I breathed it in.  I told Ali to hit the button to open the garage door and get back inside.  The fumes felt like the variety that would actually kill you if you were unable to escape them.

Once the door was open I pulled the box of tent covers out of the puddle of acid, I had visions of the acid quickly destroying them.  The other stuff  in the bubbling acid was less crucial like the garage broom and some other small items that were on the shelf.  I noticed that one of the chlorine jugs that fell was also leaking from a small crack after the fall.  Liquid chlorine is pretty dangerous on it’s own but it was the least of my concerns.

I ran to pull the hose over while Ali backed the Camry out of the garage that was parked no more than 4 feet away from the shelf.  It is a MIRACLE that the acid did not hit the car, that would have been awful.  I pulled the hose over and started to blast bubbling acid out of the garage.  The fumes were still awful, even trying to breathe through my shirt didn’t help.

The acid had spilled right in the front corner of the garage, again a stroke of luck with it’s location.  It was collecting in that corner and spilling out into the driveway.  I blasted the area with the hose repeatedly until I was sure the acid was washed away.  Even though the acid was now gone, it’s effects were clearly visible.

As the acid flowed out of the garage it came in contact with the outer wall of the house.  It totally stripped the Rhino Shield from the wall, leaving a stripe of the white primer coat exposed.  The floor of the garage was altered forever as well.  In addition to the color difference you see in the picture, the area now is filled with holes and pits where the acid was literally eating the concrete. Man don’t screw around with muriatic acid, it will f you up.

So my new plan is to house all pool chemicals on the ultra-strong industrial wire shelves on the back wall of the garage.  I will make room for the stuff by relocating the gas cans to the small shed.  I really shouldn’t store gas in the main home structure anyway.

When I examined the shelf collapse remnants I found the supports that went wall to shelf were bent badly.  I estimate there was probably close to a 100 pounds on 6 foot shelf.  I will put another shelf in the same spot although I will be utilizing the heavier grade hardware this time.

After the incident Ali and I said repeatedly how lucky we were that it wasn’t worse.  If that acid hit the Camry it would have destroyed whatever paint it touched, possibly even eating into the metal.  I told her to imagine if we had the Camaro already and two cars were in the garage, it would have been ever worse.

Ali asked if the shelves on the other side of the garage were sturdy, fearing a another incident.  I assured her there would be no repeat incident.  They are screwed into cinderblock and I used expensive, heavy grade brackets because I knew the items on those shelves would be perched precariously over the Camaro eventually.

Ali leaves tomorrow for a few days for a dietetic conference.  I will keep myself busy as always.  I have a list of stuff in my head that is more than long enough.  I think it is time for my summer buzz cut.

Maybe I’ll see if the ground water level around my proposed high bar area has receded.