Cool Off Fellas

The inspector visit went off without a hitch and we started work on setting the joists for the driveway structure. We had our first real heat wave start today and let me tell you, it was a scorcher.

I spent the morning installing the rest of the hangers for the side we would start on. It gave me a chance to bust out my old framing hammer and get some practice driving 16’s. It is amazing how swinging a hammer is like riding a bike. After a few nails, you pretty much have your swing back.

I can tell that our FNG, (well, former FNG to be honest, but I introduced him as the FNG earlier, so I’m sticking with it) is still a little green. He hasn’t quite mastered the art of the swing yet. I’m not saying that I’m a pro or anything, but I’ve spent my fair share of hours swinging a hammer, what with growing up as free labor for a carpenter-dad and all.

The key to the hammer swing is that it isn’t just one motion. If you watch someone that hasn’t used a hammer too much, you will notice that they pretty much just pivot their arm at the elbow in a chopping motion.

On the other hand, if you watch a highly skilled carpenter, you will notice a subtle second motion. The skilled journeyman will push his arm out as he pivots his arm at the elbow in a fluid motion. This little change transfers all the force of the strike to the shaft of the nail and makes a huge difference.

The reason I can’t really claim journeyman status yet, (besides the whole not being in a union and never having a formal apprenticeship thing) is that I don’t get the double motion on every swing of the hammer yet. When I’m warmed up and swinging good, I can push-swing it like a pro, but I do still have some off-swings from time to time. Fortunately, I now have plenty of opportunity to practice.

We are installing doubled up 2x12s for joists because of the dual load factors of automobiles and several feet of Tahoe-snow in the winter. By the time we started hanging them in the afternoon, the sun was beating down on us.

The sun here is not like the sun at sea-level. I’ve heard it has something to do with us being closer to the sun so the rays are more intense but I could be wrong. All I know is that pretty much everyone has to put on sunscreen at some point in the day. Back home I felt like an outsider, not being able to enjoy the sun and get a cute tan like my coworkers. But now, everyone has to lather up like me. Gentleman, welcome to the world of the pale skinned!

As we were working through the brutal summer sun, the ice cream man drove by. I decided to flag him down, and used my last four dollars to buy two ice cream sandwiches for the four of us to split. Everyone agreed that an ice cream in the afternoon was the perfect way to bring the body temp back down a bit.

I think it was a nice gesture and all, and that was my primary motivation, but at the same time, a little of me knows that it is in my best interest to make sure the rest of the guys on the crew like me. Politics being politics and all, if the workers like me to begin with, it will be much easier down the road when I lead the company after executing a ruthless corporate takeover, or possibly a bloody coup, I haven’t decided which yet. Come on, do you really think I lasted 4 years in a Wall Street environment without being a little bit greedy and ambitious? (Disclaimer: That bloody coup thing was a joke, should something ever happen to one of my coworkers, the last thing I need is some Fed reading that and deciding I’m a suspect or something. I was just kidding people.)

I finished the afternoon at 174 pounds.

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Bring It Down

I started this morning by removing the chunks of top plate around the electrical wires we had left in place yesterday afternoon. I used my new chisel to chip away the wood from the side of the hole. After I had removed the first two chunks, I split the third and final chunk in half with the first smack on my chisel; that’s a nice way to start the day.

The new top plates fit into place nicely, restoring our faith in the structural integrity of the existing garage. The only thing left was to drop the ceiling back into place. I smacked the bottoms of our 2x4 supports and watched the ceiling slowly lower into place. I was pretty impressed with how easily the whole thing went. I think the process definitely gave me some useful remodeling knowledge to use in the future.

The rest of the day was spent tying up loose ends in preparation for an inspector visit tomorrow. We jumped from miscellaneous job to miscellaneous job until it was time to go home, The bouncing around was kind of nice; it appealed to my short attention span for sure. I finished this afternoon at 175 pounds again; I seem to be hovering around that weight.


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Now the Downside

We finished tearing out the water damaged area of the existing structure this morning. By the time we were finished, we had accumulated an impressive pile of debris.

As Hefé drove up pulling the trash trailer behind him, the downside of demo work quickly dawned on me and my partner. The mountain of plywood, insulation, drywall, and wooden planks would need to be carried up to the dumpster trailer. We knew that we were nominated before he even parked.

Carrying a bunch of water rotted trash would normally suck, but as I’ve previously mentioned, this property sits on a steep slope. Hence, every trip to the trailer is a short mountain climb. Another guy from the crew was told to come help us so we were able to make quicker work of it than I had expected.

Our boss bought dust masks for us to wear as we tore out the insulation and such. We were instructed to put our names on them so they can be reused if necessary. I felt that a smiling mouth with bloody fangs was much more interesting than a name. One of my coworkers decided that I needed nose holes and drew them on for me, complete with drippy boogers. Men are easily amused, although I’d never admit it.

After the debris was safely removed, I started working on jacking up the ceiling of the garage to install a new top plate free from water rot. We laid a sixteen foot 2x6 across the top of the ceiling and cut 2x4s that were a quarter inch longer than the actual distance from the floor to the 2x6. I put the 2x4s in at the top and beat the bottom into place with a sledge until they were standing level. You could actually see the ceiling rise up with every smack of the hammer. I continued smacking 2x4s into place every two feet until I had raised the roof on the entire replacement area.

Once the ceiling was raised, the top plate was cut out with a reciprocating saw. We had to leave a couple of chunks in where electrical wires were running through as there is still juice running to the garage and neither myself nor my partner were in the mood to shock ourselves at the end of the day.

We finished cutting out the damaged top plates right in time to begin our roll up. I finished the afternoon at 176 pounds. I’m pretty sure that my double chin is shrinking. I think I may be down to one and a half chins. Ok, maybe one and three quarters.

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It’s Four Already?

We discovered some water damage at the top of the existing garage structure last week. Once the sheeting was removed, we found a rotted joist at the top, so the pending question was how much more of the structural components were faulty.

This afternoon, my gringo coworker and I started working on tearing out the area of the water penetration to assess the true damage. We got to bust out drywall, knock down studs and remove exterior sheeting. It was great. Both of us agree that tearing up someone else’s work is kind of entertaining. It’s also a nice way to vent some stress and frustration.

After we had destroyed a couple of walls and tore a couple more down to the studs, it became apparent that the top plate of one of the garage walls needs to be replaced. The board was so rotten you could just crumble it with your hands. I’m pretty sure we found the source of the water leaking from the outlets in the garage ceiling.

We were so into continuing our path of productive destruction that we had no idea how much time had progressed. We were shocked when one of the other guys on the crew had to come around and tell us it was time to roll up. I guess the old saying about time flying when you’re having fun carries some truth.

I weighed in at 175 pounds this evening. Happy Monday.

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Half-Assed Half Day

We work nine-hour days Monday through Thursday so that we can work a half-day on Friday. It’s kind of hard to keep your mind on work when you know you’re getting off early; it’s weird.

My theory is that the first half-hour and last half-hour of every day, regardless of the length of the day, are wasted. I think this is true no matter what job you have; it’s just human nature. We need some time to get going in the morning, and we need some time to wind down at the end of the day.

If we assume that my theory is true, then as an employer, it makes sense to have your crew work fewer days with more hours in each day. For example, if we waste the first and last half-hour of every day in a five day week, we’ve lost five hours of work. On the other hand, if we waste the same amount per day on a four day week, we’ve only lost four hours. That’s a 20% improvement no matter how you look at it.

From the boss’s standpoint, it should make sense to let us work 4, ten hour days instead of making us roll out of bed for a half day on Friday. Unfortunately, he feels that ten hours is too much to work in a day so we have to be thankful that we at least have a half Friday.

I’m hoping that when winter comes, I can make a deal with him to work an eight-hour Friday every other week. That way I can have three-day weekends to snowboard twice every month. He’s a skier so I think there is an outside chance that he will recognize the beauty of my plan.

I finished the day out at 174 pounds again. After five weeks, my hands are riddled with small cuts, scrapes, and splinter holes. I have a tar stain on the back of my elbow that won’t go away, and one of my toenails is black from a smashing. My legs are covered with small bruises on my knees and shins.

All and all, it’s worth it. The body takes a lot more damage than working in an office, but I haven’t gone home in a bad mood yet. Maybe the newness still hasn’t worn off, but I still find building stuff to be more like I’m pursuing a hobby than going to work; it’s great for the mind.

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It Looks Like a Wall

We continued framing our driveway structure today, adding the remainder of the 2x6 studs and some plywood sheeting. Our boss stopped by this afternoon and said, “Well, it looks like a wall.” We interpreted that as his way of saying we did a good job.

Evidently the inspectors are brutal up here so Hefé has been making a point that we understand how important it is to use the correct nails in the correct pattern in the correct spot. I learned how to read the prints and see what nailing pattern was called for on a particular area of sheeting. On this particular wall, we had to use ½ inch plywood, nailed every three inches on the outside edge and every twelve inches on the two studs in the middle.

From what I understand, a previous job had to be re-nailed after the inspector found some nails that were placed too far apart, or driven too far through the face of the plywood, or something along those lines. I made sure to go over the sheets I had installed with a tape measure just to be absolutely sure that I’m not the person that causes us to fail an inspection.

At the end of each day, our structure looks more and more like what it is supposed to be; it’s kind of cool to watch the progression. I’m hoping that I will get to stay on this project through to the end. We’ll be doing some interior renovating as well so it would be a nice learning experience to take a project from start to finish.

I finished this afternoon at 174 pounds. You can definitely tell that my body is in better shape than when I started. My muscles are getting firmer and more toned while my waist is getting smaller. The blue jeans that I bought to fit me at the beginning are already a couple of inches too loose; it’s nice.

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I’m Going to Work Somewhere Else

Our boss came to the site after lunch to oversee the final squaring of the beam structure we set earlier this week. The driveway structure sits square with the road, but is built to tie into an existing garage underneath that is placed at an angle to the street. Needless to say, the angles in everything are a little strange so our boss, or Hefé as we affectionately call him, wants to make sure things are set out good and square in the beginning.

In the interest of properly setting the mood, a little back story is in order. I will say upfront, that a lot of this is based on hearsay, so you have to take it with salt.

From what I understand, the foreman ordered around two thousand dollars worth of custom metal brackets to tie the structure into the footings, or tie the headers together or something along those lines. Evidently the brackets were ordered incorrectly and we can’t use them. Unfortunately for us, the brackets were a custom job so we can’t return them to the manufacturer for a refund.

So clearly Hefé, (Don’t worry, the guys tell me it means boss in Spanish), is a little perturbed at our foreman to begin with. Over the past few days, I’ve been sensing a little friction between Hefé and the foreman; could be in my mind, I don’t know. Well, as the boss and our foreman were squaring the structure, we could all tell he was getting a little annoyed.

My buddy and I decided it didn’t take five people to square things up, so we went to work moving the scaffolding from the back of the property to the front so that we could continue running cedar siding up the wall. Shortly after, the other guy on the job came around to help us, leaving Hefé and the foreman to work out the kinks of the structure.

Clearly, we all felt it was probably in our best interests to avoid the situation unfolding with the beams and such, hence the quote, “I think I’m going to try to work somewhere else for a while.”

I finished the day out at 175 pounds. Blatant corporate endorsement warning: I bought a set of Dr Scholls memory foam inserts for my boots last weekend. The inserts were labeled as work models and said, “For hard working feet.” I decided that I can qualify as hard working now and decided to treat myself. They were $13.99; you can probably buy them for like $7.99 or something if you aren’t shopping in Tahoe. They were definitely worth the money as my feet are not nearly as sore after work as before. If your feet are hurting, buy some inserts.

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Tar-Baby Tuesday

I arrived to work to discover that I was the lucky person that gets to coat the back side of a support wall with tar. The wall was about 50 feet long and eight feet tall, so it wasn’t a small job by any means.

Our multitude of snow melting into the ground and refreezing at night worsens the damage caused by water so we have to be extra diligent in waterproofing where possible. The tar is being applied to the backside of the foundation wall prior to backfilling to improve the water protection.

After preparing the area, I began applying the tar with a paint roller. The surface of the concrete was riddled with tiny air holes that were the primary reason for applying the treatment in the first place.

After completing the wall, we realized that the roller hadn’t really provided the kind of coverage we were looking for. In fact, the tar had pulled back from the opening of the tiny holes, thus thwarting our attempt to waterproof them.

The foreman explained to my boss that we, and by we, he means me, had applied the first coat with mediocre results. We, again me, would try to apply a second coat with a brush to see if we could get a thicker coverage.

As we, oh wait, I went back into the trench to blackwash the wall, I could only look forward to scrubbing the tar from my arms with the scratchy pumice filled worksite hand cleaner again when the job was complete. I was pretty sure I had taken most of my skin off scrubbing tar from my arms when I thought I was done the first time, but now I would have a chance to prove myself wrong.

The brush did a much better job of filling the air holes. I slapped on a really thick second coat of tar just to make sure there wouldn’t be a third time. We were pleased with the final outcome of the brush endeavor so I’m cautiously optimistic that my tar experience is over.

Thankfully, the boss had bought some mineral spirits to wash up with the second time around, so my flesh didn’t have to be rubbed to a complete rash. However, I did end up using the pumice cleaner to take off the mineral spirits, so roughness was not completely avoided.

Early in the morning, my boss had dubbed me, “The Tar-Baby” in honor of my coveted task of the day. The term was thrown around throughout the day, and eventually, I had to point out that it was a good thing that we live in Tahoe where there are virtually no black people. I said, “You know, if we were in a lot of other places in the country, we could get shot for yelling something like Tar-Baby.” I’m not saying I’m happy for the lack of African Americans or anything, but that we probably wouldn’t be bold enough to throw that term around in a more diverse environment.

I finished the day at 176 pounds. When I went to the bathroom to take my after work shower, I saw that I had a spot of tar on the end of my nose. I can only wonder how long the guys let me wear that around today.

As I reflect upon the day, I can say that tarring that wall definitely sucked. However, I’m still pretty sure it was better than cleaning out porta-crappers all day.

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Bring In the Crane

I woke up this morning feeling much better after a long weekend of sleep and relaxation. I’m still coughing a little bit, but other than that I feel fine. We had to bring in a crane today to set some huge wooden beams so things were exciting.

The yard of the project slopes back from the street downwards into the back yard at a nice, steep, mountain angle. We are building a “driveway” from the street that will run level to the second level of the house. It is kind of hard to describe, so I’m thinking about snapping some digital pictures for the site.

The crane was scheduled to arrive at noon so we spent the morning installing the remainder of the steel brackets that tie the support posts to the main beams. We were running smoothly until we had to install one that required huge bolts through the beam rather than the nice lag screws we had been coasting with.

The FNG and I set to drill the holes through the massive wooden support beam with a short bit that would require drilling holes from both sides in an attempt to meet in the middle. We had everything marked and set, and even used a square next to the drill to try to get our holes nice and straight. Somehow, our (my, but we’re not admitting that right now) holes went in at angles on both sides and met with a nice hump in the middle of the hole.

Not long after we realized the discrepancy, our boss showed up to supervise the crane festivities. When he arrives, you have what are basically two FNG’s frantically trying to get the middle of the hole knocked down so that the bolts would feed through both sides of the beam bracket, thus removing the sudden air of stupidity currently surrounding our heroes.

We tried everything; a rasp, boring it with the drill, but a good old fashioned chisel proved to be the most effective route in the end. Incidentally, I recently bought a new set of chisels from a certain huge, orange store, so I was kind of excited to have an excuse to use them.

As we watched the last bolt finally wiggle its way through both sides of the bracket, we breathed a sigh of relief and did our best to look for other things we could prep before the crane showed up.

Shortly, the crane truck pulled up, stabilized its outriggers and swung the headache ball down to do some lifting. We set the beams pretty quickly and everyone agreed that it went about as smoothly as you could hope for.

At the end of the day, we went from having some dirt to having a recognizable, albeit basic structure. It was pretty rewarding to be honest. Now we get to look forward to framing in the rest of the structure and really making some progress.

I finished the day out at 175 pounds. I was kind of surprised because I ate like a pig this weekend. I couldn’t remember whether extra food or extra sleep would be better for a respiratory ailment, so I decided to go with both just to be safe.

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Rough Week

On Wednesday of this week, I came down with a case of bronchitis. I started feeling it on Tuesday, but when I woke up Wednesday morning, I knew something was wrong.

I went into work and did my best to hang in there, but I could tell early on that I needed to get some prescription medicine. I made a doctor’s appointment and went to tell my foreman that I was going to go get myself checked out.

It was about 8:15 am when I told him, and my appointment was at 9:30 am. He acted like it was a big deal and said that in the future I need to give him more notice than that.

In my head, I was thinking, “Dude, do you want me to let you know a week ahead of time if I’m going to contract some germs and get sick?” As I struggled with a mental picture of my father telling me that there would come a point when I’d grow up and learn to watch that smart-ass mouth of mine, I decided that discretion was in my best interest and agreed with the foreman’s guidance, assuring him that I would come back to work after my appointment.

The doctor gave me the bad news that I had bronchitis and would be contagious until I was no longer running a fever, and then she gave me a prescription for some good medicine so I could begin my road to recovery.

Prior to picking up my prescription, I brought a doctor’s notice to my foreman. Normally, I wouldn’t go to that extreme, but given that this is my fourth week, I don’t want them to think I’m just lying to get out of work.

Part of my prescription included a bottle of super strength cough syrup with codine in it. Needless to say, I didn’t spend very much time awake after I went home on Wednesday.

I woke up Thursday with a temperature and was forced to call into work again, as per the doctor’s instructions, I was still contagious. After leaving my boss a voicemail, I renewed my super cough syrup dosage and headed back to bed for my codine induced day of sleep and recovery.

On Friday, I woke up without a temperature but still filling quite like crap. Despite my girlfriend’s pleadings that I take another day off, I decided to tough it out and head to work. After all, Friday is a half day for us.

I made it through. I felt bad for dogging it a bit, but I definitely looked and sounded like hell, so I’m pretty sure I got brownie points just for being there. Besides, I needed to pick up my paycheck for last week.

I finished Friday out at a very sick 176 pounds. Unfortunately, I did not get a weight reading for Wednesday or Thursday. My weight was the last thing on my mind at that point.


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It’s Nice Having Seniority

I went to sleep early last night and woke up refreshed. Two of us started working on installing the cedar siding while two others worked on hanging the vapor barrier on the outside of the second story.

Since I’m no longer the FNG, I managed to get out of working on the ladders and instead was able to install siding. On the smaller sections, I cut boards while my compatriot installed them. It’s easy to make a lot of progress working in this fashion.

As we move up the walls, we will set up scaffolding and head skyward. Although working from a stable platform is much safer than a flimsy extension ladder, all that climbing up and down is still a lot of work.

The view from this house is not nearly as good as the old environment because the back yard is filled with large trees to obstruct the view. The elevation on this place is a little higher, so I’m sure the view would be quite spectacular, but I doubt the local authorities would allow them to start clearing trees to improve the picture from their back window.

Once again, I finished the day out at 178 pounds. I’m convinced this is a testament to the fact that I’m building some muscle mass, because I’ve dropped a couple of notches on my belt but haven’t dropped a lot of weight. From what I hear, people that start working out sometimes see a temporary weight gain as they build muscle mass, but the growth levels out and the fat starts to burn more as the weeks pass. Time will tell I guess.

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Change of Scenery

We started working on a new site today. The new job is another remodel, but this time the family is still living there so we have to manage around that when we move to the inside in a few weeks.

For the time being, we are working on the outside of the structure. We are hanging cedar siding again, so splinters happen quite frequently. I’m going to go to the hardware store and get some thin gloves cause I’m tired of getting splinters; it’s just unnecessary.

I was super tired most of the day, as I got very little sleep over the weekend. Between the travel and the wedding, I didn’t have much time to spend in the bed.

My weight was 178 pounds today. I think the extra weight might be from the several new splinters I have to dig out of my hands later tonight.

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Language Barrier

Our porta-toilet maintenance man came again today, thus restoring the pristine luster of a freshly cleaned job site throne. Seeing the crap-hauling truck arrive reminded me of a story that happened at my first Tahoe job.

The first job I had after moving here was at a local bank, and there was another employee in one of the branches I worked at who happened to move here from Australia.

On one particular day, my Aussie friend happened to be talking on the phone, and I overheard him say that someone was quite the Johnny-On-The-Spot. However, based on the context of the rest of the conversation, I did not think that he was trying to insult the person in question, as he had been speaking highly of the individual up until that last sentence.

When he finished the call and replaced the receiver, I asked him, "Hey man, I'm wondering if the phrase, Johnny-On-The-Spot, means something different here than it does in your country?"

He replied, "Why, what does it mean here?"

I explained to him that pretty much everyone in our country defines a Johnny-On-The-Spot as being the big plastic toilet that you see on job sites and outdoors events.

He just started laughing like crazy after the explanation, and informed me that in Australia, calling someone a Johnny-On-The-Spot meant that you considered him reliable and competent; kind of like saying he was a "Go-To Guy." He told me that he was definitely not trying to insult the person, and that he was amazed that the phrase could have such a drastically different meaning here.

The look on his face when I explained that he had just mistakenly called someone a big shithouse was absolutely classic. However, the best part of the moment was watching him call back to the lady that he had been talking with in an attempt to smooth over any misunderstanding. As I sat there watching him squirm while trying to explain the language difference without crossing any lines, I had to bite my fist to keep from laughing out loud.

Weight

I finished the day out at 177 pounds….I think I may be building some muscle mass or something. (Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.)

This week will be another short week thankfully. I am flying back to the Midwest tonight to attend a wedding, so there will not be a Friday update this week. I will return to my regular updates on Monday.


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Milky Wednesday

It rained most of the day today. We are running out of things to do on this job. We had to wait on some materials and such today, so we had to spend some time milking the clock.

I hate slow days. It takes forever for the time to pass when you have nothing to do, it sucks. I like to just have a ton thrown at me and be running around crazy all day. Days fly by when you're busy.

One of the reasons I don't miss working in the office is that every day is a form of a slow day. Since you never really feel like you accomplish anything, every day is a perpetual stream of finding ways to kill the clock.

The biggest difference between the office and a construction site is that it is much, much easier to get away with standing around talking to waste time in an office. In an office, you can always find ways to "strategize" and "formulate action plans." In some professions, you can even schedule meetings with the agenda being to schedule further meetings in the future; nothing more.

On a construction site, you're always running under the gun and the boss can always tell how productive you're being. You can't tell him you're still working on cleaning up the file, or that you're waiting for the data request to get processed. All he has to do is look and see if you have any work done.

Weight

I weighed 175 today.

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Cold, Wet, and a Bailing-Wire Belt

It snowed last night in Tahoe. It’s June 7, and there was snow on the ground this morning.

Normally, I would be excited to see fresh snow, but in June, the ski resorts are closed, so snow does nothing for me. It was cold & wet, and it didn’t melt all the way off until about 1 pm.

We were working on putting up some soffit underneath a carport overhang. This particular house has a unique roof drainage system built in where there are holes in the edges of the roof with copper drainage pipes sticking through the soffit.

Our boss needed to get the scaffolding to another site tomorrow, so we needed to get this section of soffiting finished, regardless of the fact that ice-cold-snow-melt-water was dripping through the pipes on us the whole time.

While we suffered through our version of the Chinese Water Torture, we desperately hoped that the water would stop dripping. In fact, the water did stop dripping. Unfortunately for us, it was about 15 minutes after we finished the job and tore down the scaffolding. Isn’t that life?

As for the bailing-wire belt, well I forgot to put on my belt this morning. As previously discussed, I have no natural ability to retain my pants in the rear. Add to that the fact that my waist has actually shrunk a little, and I was destined to spend a lot of the day hiking up my britches.

I decided to suck it up a little and make a belt out of the only ready material; bailing-wire. It wasn’t the most comfortable device, but the custom fit actually seemed to work better than the real thing. I told my girlfriend that I was thinking about wearing a bailing-wire belt from now on, but she didn’t seem too amused by the idea.

Weight

I finished today at 176 pounds.

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You Won’t Have FNG to Kick Around Anymore

We learned this morning that a new person started working for us today. I am officially no longer the FNG. My title has passed.

Fortunately for me, the boss has continued to forget to bring the 30-foot extension ladder, and thus far I have avoided climbing my fat ass up to the peak of the house. I’m cautiously optimistic that the newly appointed FNG will assume this task; however, he is currently working at another site, so I’m still the reigning FNG at our project. Given that we are working off of the last few lines of the punch list with the goal being to finish with the job at the end of this week, I think there is still a strong probability of heading skyward before it is all said and done.

Towards the end of the day, my Hispanic counterpart and I were discussing work site injuries. We went through the usual, splinters, blisters, nails in the feet, you know, the fun stuff. Our discussions invariably lead to an analysis of how much worse it is to get hurt at the end of the day than the beginning. About two minutes later, I skidded my knuckles across the sharp end of a downspout causing a nice shaving of my skin. As my hand bled and my coworker laughed, I could only ponder whether I would have still hurt myself if we weren’t talking about it.

Speaking of splinters, those most unholy of bastards, I somehow managed to get one underneath my fingernail this morning. I’m seriously thinking about wearing gloves anytime I have to work with this rough sewn cedar. The stuff is just full of splinters; it’s ridiculous.

Well, I thought splinters sucked, but now I can say with authority that splinters under the fingernail are definitely worse. My heart goes out to anyone that was forced to suffer the bamboo shoots beneath the fingernails treatment; that’s just evil.

After my evening shower, I sat down and began digging and carefully cutting with an exacto-knife. The feeling of finally grabbing hold of the tormentor and slowly pulling it from its spot of pain generation was almost orgasmic. I HATE SPLINTERS!

Fat Weekend

I finished the day out at 178. This weekend must have given me just enough time to fatten back up a little. Nonetheless, my daily calorie burns will continue and progress should resume.

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My Kingdom for an Ass…

I finally decided to accept the truth this week. I have a serious syndrome; I was born with white man’s ass.

White man’s ass affects a considerable portion of our population, both those who carry the affliction, and those around them who are forced to see the unpleasant results of a rear end that can not properly sustain a pair of pants.

My condition prevented me from growing enough buttocks to properly keep my pants in place. Every morning, I tighten my belt until my love handles spill over the top, but to no avail, for as soon as I bend over or crouch, the back side of my drawers will slide off.

For years, a serious lack of movement throughout my day-to-day life as a fat, under-motivated office worker made coping with the condition easy. While my pants still found ways to wiggle away from their appropriate position, the fact that my derrière was being firmly planted into a chair meant to no innocent bystanders had to be horrified at the sight of my canyon of abyss peaking out at them.

But alas, my new position in the world of carpentry requires much more activity and movement in a normal day. Because of this, the harmful side effects of white man’s ass have become ever more apparent to me.

The last two days of this week were spent installing a hardwood floor. This task required a considerable amount of crouching, and kneeling, and bending over, and various other body movements meant to thwart my poor little belt’s vain attempt to keep my jeans in the appropriate position.

I feel bad for the people around me who will inevitably be faced with the unpleasant sight of my crack. I do make every effort to pull up my pants when I feel the breeze on my backside, so at least I’m trying.

End of Week 2 Weight

I finished the week out at 176 pounds. While I haven’t seen significant weight loss yet, I can definitely see some early results. My pants feel a little looser around the waist, and I can see just a hint of an improvement in my muscle tone.

My hands are pretty busted up. I’ve already had to dig 5-6 splinters out of my hands and I have various little cuts all over the place. While I haven’t developed any blisters on my hands yet, the accumulation of small cuts and nicks is really starting to get annoying. I’m not sure how long it will take for my leather-coated-man-hands to redevelop, but I hope it’s soon.

I think my feet are really starting to get used to the boots. While they are still sore after a hard day of work, they aren’t nearly as bad as the first week. I’m still planning to buy some gel inserts, but I haven’t been to Reno in a couple of weeks. (Things like that are way too expensive to buy in Tahoe.)

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So You Think Your Day Was Bad? It Wasn’t...

Today was Thursday, which means we get our porta-crapper cleaned. Thursday is a happy day for the workers, because our Palace of Solitude is properly restored, and we can go about our business as hygienically as possible.

Seeing the truck pull up made me think about my position in life a little bit. After he arrived, it didn’t really matter what happened the rest of the day, my day at work couldn’t possibly be worse than his.

When he pulls up every Thursday, the Mexicans on the job all smile at each other and say, “Shitty-job.” Everyone knows, as soon as they see the truck rumble to the curb, that although some of the things they have to do may be difficult, boring, or tedious, at least they don’t have to clean up fecal matter all day.

The Can-Cleaning Man literally deals with crap every day. Even on his best day at work, EVER, he still has to clean up someone else’s mess; that has to be difficult to accept.

Now, don’t misunderstand me, I am by no means seeking to disrespect the brave souls who keep our Johnny-On-The-Spot’s clean. They perform a job that I would NEVER have the intestinal fortitude to sign up for. Those people deserve our undying adoration for the vital function that they perform.

So, as I contemplated the man cleaning up our best work, my mind inevitably wandered to his wife. Not in a sexual way mind you, but wondering what kind of woman he goes home to every night.

There are a lot of women in the world that will clean the brown stains out of your clothes, and if you have one, you should thank her once in a while. However, the throne-washing man has to find a woman that is kind-hearted enough to clean other people’s stains out of his clothes, and that is an entirely different kind of love.

Remember, no matter how bad your day is going, it could be worse; you could be cleaning up dookie. If you happen to be reading this and your job involves cleaning up dookie, my hat goes off to you.

Weight

I finished the day out at 175 pounds. I think the workout is definitely starting to show results. I looked online tonight, and doing carpentry work can burn up to 5-600 calories, an hour. That is definitely significant. It is like being in a gym on the stair machine for nine hours a day. Although I won’t see hot chicks at work like the fitness center, I get to use power tools, and that’s not half bad.

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Quiet Hump Day

Not too much to report today, had a fairly uneventful day. We began work on a hardwood floor and continued tying up loose ends around the job. We're nearing the end of the punchlist on this project. I finished the day out at 176 pounds.
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