Nice updated picture you have of me.
But you should know, the first rule of keeping all of your fingers is
No beer on the jobsite.
I worked one very hot Summer near Lake Union on a four story condo complex. The framers were drinking beer all day, because it was so hot.
The plumbers showed up at 6:00, and got off at 2:30 to beat the heat.
We were drinking water.
One day the head framer fell two stories into the elevator pit.
He was pretty messed up, but came back a few days later with casts on his leg and an arm.
Beer is never touched while working with tools, that's the first safety rule.
As I got older, I started seeing that protecting the eyes was important.
I got scolded pretty bad by an eye doctor. You have those things for life, so you might as well take care of them.
Gloves for sure, unless it's Friday and near quitting time.
Then the last thing you do at the end of the day, is start gluing ABS without gloves.
Then you can show off your glued up hands all weekend long just to let people know what a slob you are. It's pretty cool to be picking off black ABS glue from your hands in church. You feel like a real Homer Simpson.
Learn to lift correctly, and when to drop things to save your back.
You can buy new water heaters, they're are cheaper then doctor bills and loss of work.
Learn to ask for help sometimes, even if one person can barely lift it.
And when you lift with two people, it's not a competition. Lift evenly and let the other guy know what you are doing. Communicate.
Don't run down mountain passes with 50 pounds on your back and crummy hiking boots. At least buy the best boots. Having an ankle cast for six weeks and missing work kind of sucks.
It also makes it kind of hard to play defensive back when you pull the cast off. I swear, it takes weeks to get all of the range back in your ankle.
Don't dive back to first base head first, at least not after pulling on two foot pipe wrenches all week overhead on fire protections systems. Let your ligaments resettle back in before testing them to the max.
When you fall on concrete,
Roll
don't put your arm out like somehow it's going to stop 200 pounds without breaking the wrist. At least if you do, you have plenty of time to practice your left handed layin's while you are missing work.
Somebody said
Ear protection!
And I said
"What?"
Yeah, and water, no alcohol.