A Pictorial and Videographic Record Of My Greatest "Hamhocked" Projects

A "hamhock" refers to a household construction or recreational project done in a crude, inexpert fashion, resulting in temporary fixes or enjoyments that often break soon after. I present my resume.

Dunking Platform Opens, Plunging My Friend James 30 Feet Down a Well In Nicaragua

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Today’s post is a marked departure from my usual content, which I trust my paid subscribers will enjoy as much as I did in putting it together. For me, it allowed for a beautiful and funny trip down “memory lane.” It will show a personal side that readers will find amusing (as well as my friends and family, many of whom have joyful memories of using and/or playing with these hamhocked creations).

“Hamhock” is a word coined by a friend of mine to describe our approach to fixing things around the house or building random recreational projects that we would dream up (we did the latter a lot, as you will see). We used this term as an open acknowledgement that we often displayed little sophistication or talent in building or fixing anything.

It can only be used by someone like me and my friend - those with suboptimal “handyman” abilities, i.e., little training, expertise, or natural feel or intuition for carpentry, woodworking, plumbing, metalworking, electrical repair, computer hardware, auto repair, etc. I must admit, as you will see, the above applies to me more than to some of my friends.

If you are like us, our approaches often involved massive applications of duct tape, Krazy glue, and/or randomly affixed two-by-fours with long nails. Over the years, we would text pictures of our latest “hamhocked” fix or project that we had completed. They are hilarious. None would last for very long, but the pride beaming from us when our fix or project worked for even just a little while was massive :).

I first used the word “hamhock” in my recent “Nosocomephobia” (fear of hospitals) post, where I employed it as a descriptor for the DMSO/chlorine dioxide protocol I devised to treat a paronychial abscess. As I started to include examples of hamhocks in that post, it detracted too sharply from its intended focus, so this separate post was born.

Hamhock is such a versatile word, too - it can be a noun, verb, or adjective. I, for instance, am a hamhocker; I enjoy hamhocking, and I have a track record of completed hamhocked projects from my home-owning and child-rearing eras.

In the following, I present the pictorial and/or videographic record of some of our most famous hamhocks (nearly all were recreational rather than household fixes, as I did not document the latter as diligently, although I should have).

Since this Substack is called “Medical Musings,” I thought I would share some “medical hamhocks” before exposing the more zany, absurd projects that my friends and I built.

Covid ICU Hamhocks

Once COVID-19 hit U.S. cities on the coasts, it was weeks before we had our first COVID-19 patient at the University of Wisconsin, where I was the ICU Director and Chief of the Critical Care Service. The preparations for the anticipated initial surge were relentless.

Know that “intubation” refers to the act of placing an endotracheal tube down the windpipe of a patient in respiratory failure so they can then be attached to a mechanical ventilator. We knew that many patients would need intubation. Thus, we were concerned because evidence from the SARS epidemic had found that intubation presented the highest risk of infection transmission to ICU or Anesthesia physicians. So we tried to “invent” ways to mitigate that risk.

Below is a plastic enclosure with armholes that we placed over a mannequin’s head. We hoped that using it would mitigate the risk of exposure to exhaled breath during the act of intubation. Here we are practicing with it in our simulation center (although we never ended up using it in practice - just too clunky and obstructive to use):

The below was my brainchild: here I “hamhocked” a way to keep IV pumps and the ventilator controls outside the ICU room in the hallway, thus decreasing the amount of gowning, gloving, masking and then doffing that the nurses and respiratory therapists would have to do to make the frequent adjustments required on the IV pumps or ventilators.

Note the wires and tubing going through the crease of the cabinet door, whose rear opened up into the room (not shown), which allowed the IV tubing and ventilator cable to be directly attached to the patient’s IV lines and/or ventilator:

Here is a picture of me and my Fellow proudly displaying what the hallway of our first “Covid ICU” looked like as a result of the above hamhock (not pretty, I know):

Emergency Airway Case

I invented this before Covid as I was in charge of training and directing the teams responding to medical emergencies on the wards. Many emergencies required emergency endotracheal intubation in often challenging and poorly equipped settings. I purchased a high-end photographer's case and stocked it with various types of airway equipment, including a video laryngoscope, a transtracheal jet, and a percutaneous tracheostomy kit (the latter two were used to save the lives of at least three patients). Intubation medications (etomidate, propofol, paralytics, etc) were carried separately.

POOL DECK RENOVATION

Here I share my brilliant “resurfacing” of my old pool deck, which, before this project, consisted of the ugliest, public school-type cement surface in light brown. I got an estimate to re-pave it with pretty colored slate stones, but there was no way I could afford that at the time. So, I faked it - I got a few stone-shaped molds and spent a week spray-painting stone shapes in different colors on the concrete. Voila:

THE MELLO SHIP

Probably one of the greatest hamhocks in history, this was the brainchild of James, one of my best friends from college. He came up with the idea of a “hammock boat” (or hamhock boat?).

The best depiction of the Melloship was a 90-second video that James put together to market it, which garnered millions of views (but no sales). The music is fantastic:

The above video was brilliant enough to land him as a contestant on a Shark Tank-type TV show called The Adventure Capitalists.

Every time I watch the episode, I literally “cry laugh” so hard that my belly starts to hurt. James gets eviscerated by the hosts, all of whom decline to invest in the Melloship, ultimately ending the segment with the famous catchphrase, “I’m out.” However, they were supportive and helpful to James despite that decision, so it was all good.

Poor James. Some background to the episode below, which will make it even funnier:

1. He was, as James typically is, late. He arrived at the pristine lake in Utah where they filmed the episode only the night before, after dark, while it was raining (and freezing). He was up all night assembling the two prototype boats. It might explain his poor performance the next day, as they were grilling him on his business model and market research during the “negotiation segment.”

2. When he told the hosts that he had sold two of them already, he neglected to mention that one was… to me (I was an early investor and asked for one of the prototype boats in return). The plan was for him to leave Utah and then stop at my house in Madison, WI, after the show on his way back to NJ, where we would hang out and rebuild the prototype together, which we did on my front lawn (pics to follow).

3. The entire Melloship segment of the show is 9:50; it is a must-watch. To make it quicker, I suggest fast-forwarding through the “Melloship Race,” where the hosts try to race each other (one of them cannot steer and goes around in circles). The rest is them grilling James about his idea and business plan, which is pure gold. Please, at least fast-forward to 7:10 and listen to one of the hosts describe the Melloship as “nothing but straps and duct tape,” i.e., the literal definition of a “hamhock.”

The “Adventure Capitalists” Episode

James then came to visit me in Madison, WI, where we reassembled one of the prototypes (to which I then added numerous impressive improvements, as below - at least in my opinion):

One of the immense pleasures of Melloshipping was passing other boaters as above. Every single time someone passed us, they would slow down, stare, laugh, or cheer with a double thumbs-up. It was so fun.

“Poppy” (what my kids call me) Makes Some Improvements

My kids and I loved the boat (for a while, until the motors kept breaking down and stranding us on the lake). During those first months, I continued to make improvements. In no particular order:

Setting Off On Maiden Voyage (1 minute - increase playback speed)

Pulling Into Dock From Maiden Voyage (23 seconds)

Below is a bittersweet memory. My daughter had to endure a prolonged hospitalization for an illness that required frequent intravenous medications. At one point, she became stable enough during the day that I was able to obtain a “day pass” for her to leave the hospital. Little did the ICU team know that I took her and her dog Bear Melloshipping:

Well Dunking Project

There really are no words for this one. James had a deep well on his farm in Nicaragua and came up with the idea of hamhocking a dunking apparatus, triggered only when a contestant would hit the attached tennis racket with a ball, thus slamming open the platform and plunging the victim 30 feet into the well below. I was terrified of this thing and refused to do it, but my kids loved it. I am speechless every time I watch it:

Evie, 13 years old - first victim:

James Gets A Taste Of His Own Medicine:

Older Sister Ella Follows Suit (in slow motion):

FIRST ZIP LINE

I have built three in my life. Notice the hastily improvised hammock platform (built without plans) as well as the clever tree shrub trimming at the bottom, allowing the kids to zip through them unscathed (15-second video):

ZIP LINE #2

You would think that my skill in zip line building would increase, but it didn’t. This is the launch platform I built when we later moved to Madison, WI (not so pretty):

One of the first Zip Line Rides in Madison (launched off a ladder before I built the amazing launch platform above):

200 Meter Nicaraguan Zip Line Project

Here is the inaugural voyage on a zip line that my buddy James and I later built on his farm and yoga retreat center in Nicaragua. Took a full day in the jungle heat. What I couldn’t find a video of was the “test run” we did by stringing up three car batteries together to test if it would indeed “hold” before sending his wife, Gabi, off on the first zip as below (30 seconds):

The “Hangatorium” Disco Ball Swing

Another James special. He built a swinging disco ball apparatus in the main recreational lounge hut at his retreat center which he named the “hangatorium.” Doesn’t need much explanation, enjoy:

Violet 9, Swings Accompanied by James Playing Drums

The Ice Rink Project

I discovered that in Wisconsin, and further north in Canada, backyard ice rinks are “a thing.” The weather report predicted a prolonged “big freeze,” so I ordered a massive tarp from a Canadian company, hit Home Depot for a large amount of 2 x 12’s, and set about building the rink walls around the tarp:

Filled it with water from the hose and waited for the freeze:

My daughter is enjoying her first skate on a pristine, flat surface (at the risk of foreshadowing, that would not last long):

I broke out my hockey stick:

Here I take off on a breakaway.. and score:

The Rope Swing/ Inflatable Pool Projects

I won’t forget the first ham-hocked inflatable pool I installed on our 17th-floor balcony in NYC, where we lived during my Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship training and my children were toddlers. The balcony was made of a massive slab of concrete, by the way. Note, it came with a water slide:

Although obviously not as impressive as the disco ball, the beauty below was inspired by a particularly hot summer in Westchester County, NY, where I was raising my kids at the time. I set up an inflatable wading pool on an outside deck, and then found a random child’s plastic staircase, over which I tied a rope to an upstairs deck. My middle daughter, Evie, seemed very happy with it (5 seconds):

THE TREE SWING

I got a friend who was a tree surgeon to help install a massive tree swing (i.e., I got professional help on this one, so it is not technically a hamhock):

The inaugural swing (I couldn’t find the ones where I pushed my kids super high on it after a running start, but this one is still pretty good):

The Chicken Coop Project

Let me just say that raising chickens didn’t work out - none survived to lay their first egg. Hawks got a couple of them, and then we gave away the rooster (which was supposedly illegal to have within Madison city limits):

Hamhocked Outdoor Pen For the Chickens

My construction skills are clearly evident:

The Beach Volleyball Court Fiasco

My daughter was starting to get into volleyball, so I came up with the brilliant idea of taking down their childhood play set and carting a ton of sand from the driveway into the backyard (I paid my daughter and her friend to do it, and they almost quit on me a few times):

Sand Delivery - someone seems happy:

Girls Hard at Work:

Problem: The girls played on it a few times until we had a literally historic thunderstorm, which dumped around 11 inches of rain overnight. Much of the sand got washed away and was a total pain to clean up:

The Surf Boat (not board)

The below inflatable boat was purchased repeatedly for numerous beach vacations after we found that it would literally surf waves with my girls in it - best purchase ever - essentially I “hamhocked” an inflatable boat into a surfboard:

Kayak Project

I bought a two-person kayak after we moved to Madison, WI (land of lakes). Tested it out in the pool first:

Since I did not own a roof rack, I hamhocked a kayak transport solution so we could hit nearby Lake Mendota. Simple, effective, and not without risk:

The Stair Mattress Slide

Invented by a former mentor of mine (Dr. Paul Mayo) when his kids were young, I was visiting him with my three small children one day when he graciously re-hamhocked it together again for their amusement. The game consisted not only of letting the children slide down the mattresses but also involved the children having to prevent me (they call me Poppy) from climbing to the top (rules were that I could not place my hands on the stair railings to aid the climb).

Note the safety measures too - pillow cushions at the bottom to prevent slamming into the wall :). Three short clips from what was likely two hours of roughhousing (6, 19, and 15 seconds):

First Slide Down

“Poppy” Attempts To Scale Mattress Mountain

Baby Violet’s Successful Ascent

GYMNASTICS MAT

Randomly found these pics of me bringing back a new mattress, which my daughter immediately hamhocked into a gymnastics practice mat (apparently the hamhock gene runs in the family):

The Toxic Blue-Green Algae News Interview

Although this entry is not an example of a hamhock, many will find it hilarious, so I included it. Here I am interviewed by a local news channel because I took my family swimming at the local lake despite a surge of toxic “blue-green algae blooms” (1:17):

Hope you all enjoyed my trip down Hamhock Lane! - Pierre