A Different Slice of Pie

I had a bit of a revelation this past weekend while using my angle grinder...I'm getting old.  It wasn't an achy back or stiff knees that propagated this realization.  Nope...it was a strange, unfamiliar pain I felt on the top of my head while using the angle grinder.  Let me explain.

 

As anyone who has cut metal with an angle grinder will attest, sparks are inevitable.  Usually, the sparks just fly away from the cutting surface and dissipate as they are cooled by ambient air.  Occasionally, sparks will ricochet of nearby objects and end up landing on you.  Generally speaking, this is not painful and at worst may just momentarily irritate your skin.  But get enough sparks bouncing back on you and the momentary irritation can change to a substantial degree of discomfort and burning.  Generally speaking, there are three solutions for this scenario:

1. Stop grinding/cutting (and hence, stop the shower of sparks causing the pain)
2. Change your cut angle to change the direction of the spark flow (sometime this is not possible depending upon the piece you are grinding/cutting)
3. Wear a protective barrier (like a long sleeve shirt or apron)

When sufficient in quantity, hair too can serve as a protective barrier.  This brings me to my most recent humbling moment...the realization that I'm balding because the shower of sparks landing on my head caused pain on my bald thinning spot.  Yup folks, its official...I'm getting uglier by the minute.  Just look at it;

Let me break this down for those who may still be confused.  Boy Old man starts cutting metal.  Sparks bounce of the adjacent bed walls.  Sparks bounce back towards boy old man and land on boy's old man's head.  Boy Old man feels pain where hair is thinning.  Here's a super sweet diagram of how it all went down:

So there you have it folks....another slice of humble pie for me to digest.  I'll add this to the "humble pie" section of my blog.  That said, I'm a problem solver and refuse to let this issue fester....so here's my remedy for this relentless nightmare:

 

Problem solved.