"A man who has never made a woman angry is a failure in life." - Christopher Morley

(I'm a huge success)

from a friend via Facebook

I should have learned the lesson by now. Every time I miss an extended stretch of gym workouts because of travel I try to make up for lost time my first day back. That night and the next day are payback. This is that day. 

I was busy before the gym trip, too. The truck bed boards are all done, with three coats of spar varnish on the underside and four on top. All the shrubs in back are pruned and the rose garden all spiffed up. I worked on the truck, removing the bumper, getting the rubber weather seal around the doors, and realigning the passenger side door.

Did my notes for the second seminar session, with the slides made this morning. 

I also assembled most of the storage bed face frames. I decided early in that process that I didn't like my design; the drawers were going to be too short relative to their width. So instead of using the 1x4's I'd cut for the center rails I got some 1x3's on my way home from the gym, went down to the shop this morning to cut them to size, came home and made the pockets, and then screwed them in place. I still wish I'd have made the whole frame an inch or so taller, but this will work fine. I ordered the drawer slides online and they'll arrive sometime next week. I can't do too much more until then lest I construct the rest of the bed only to find out the dimensions are off relative to those slides.

When it's this hot I find indoors tasks for the afternoon, and with a move in our not-too-distant future there are plenty of those to fill the time. This afternoon I packed four boxes of books and stopped there because I don't have any other boxes the appropriate size. I may cut down some of the larger boxes I have.

I own at least a dozen Bibles, probably closer to 16. I've kept a few sentimental Bibles - my first non-kid Bible, the one I got for graduation, etc. - and the rest are different versions. King James, New International Version, Revised Standard Version, American Standard Version (1901).....
I'm not sure why I'm keeping all of them, debating it back and forth even as I was putting them in a box. Bible Gateway enables me to look up any passage in 52 different versions, and that's just the English options. I can also check any verse in Bulgarian, Cherokee, Maori, Nepali, and Serbian, to name just a few of the other options.
The internet is amazing. But throwing out a Bible is really hard, even harder than throwing out a flag. 

When we were up at the property last month we slept on a queen size air bed we've had for a long time. Just set it on the floor and used our sleeping bags. Both of us found it more comfortable than our relatively new (under 5 years) mattress. We slept well and woke up without the stiffness we typically feel. That got us thinking we might ditch both our mattress and box springs (the latter would be superfluous with the storage bed) and set the air bed on this thing. We'll have a chance to try it out with the mattress here between the time I finish it and when we move, so we'll so how it feels with that configuration. 

You may remember that I had to call in a plumber to fix the pipes behind the shower in MoHo. He looked to be in his 40's, arrived right on time, and had a young guy with him I took to be in his early 20's. They worked together and had the job done in less than 90 minutes. I quickly noticed that the plumber was telling the younger guy what to do. "OK, put a nipple, probably 2 1/2", on that riser." 

At one point when the plumber was out at the truck I asked the kid if he was an apprentice. Yep. He's been working in the trade for four years and is two years into this formal apprenticeship with another two to go. (I think I've got that right.) He's accumulating the necessary on-the-job hours and going to classes for three hours two nights a week. "The class part is not a lot of fun, but I'll get through it."

I told him I thought that was OUTSTANDING, and that our society has it all wrong with this "every kid needs to go to college" nonsense. My 10 years in front of the college classroom left me firmly convinced that some people, male and female both, have tactile skills and abilities the rest of us lack, need, and are willing to pay generously for. These young adults do NOT belong in the college classroom. The result is misery for them and their prof, a pile of educational debt, disappointed parents, and sometimes on-campus behavioral problems. The only winner: the college that, with a full grasp of this reality, makes a boatload of money off the kid.

This guy is having a great time (except for that classroom part), and learning a trade that will make him more in his first year as a journeyman than I've made in any year of my Masters degree-enhanced life. 

A friend who also blogs wrote recently about their oldest, a son who has a pretty significant case of dyslexia. Bad enough that the public school system couldn't (or wouldn't) deal with him, so she home schooled the guy. He graduated from High School last spring, got a legit diploma from a national accrediting organization recognized by their state, and had pretty decent grades...that often came with great angst for both son and mother. 

She wrote recently that he's been working two jobs this summer, a construction job and doing part-time landscape work with a crew. And he's loving it. She wrote that she's never seen him happier. 

[Begin Rant]

OK, listen. This "(classroom) education is essential, and the more the better" is not just wrong, it's bad. It beats down the spirit of kids who are wired to DO not cogitate, makes them feel inferior, and leaves them convinced they're doomed to a life of failure and second class status. If you're of the opinion that thinking is somehow more noble and valuable than doing, you try your best thinking the next time the toilet flushes backwards or your car's brakes don't. Let's see how far all that musing gets you. In the end you'll call one of these kids who will come and fix whatever's broken. You'll probably stereotype them as losers who couldn't make it in academia, complain about how much you have to pay them, and give thanks your hands aren't big and calloused. 

They drive trucks, they turn wrenches, swing hammers, and pull wire. They trim trees, lay brick, keep the plane's engines maintained, and pilot equipment the size of a small house. They are good at what they do, and what they do is as honorable as they guy who sits behind a mahogany desk and manipulates millions of dollars with the click of a mouse button. 

Martin Luther said, "All work is worship." He said that as a corrective to the contemporary teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that the clergy did God's work and the rest of the population's labors had value only as it earned them money they could then give to the church. Out of his teaching arose the term "Protestant work ethic" which says all labor, of the clergy and laity, of the head OR hand, has equal value. 

We're at real risk of turning the highly educated into a modern-day clergy. One more time: it's about what's on the inside, about a person's character, and not their skill set. That said, I salute those who find joy and fulfillment in labor, for what they do is honest, essential, and praiseworthy.
[End Rant]