What a Difference

As of yesterday, I’ve been back in the carpentry business for three months. In that short time, my body has undergone an impressive change.

My weight has gone from 183 pounds to 166 pounds at my lightest. (I weighed 167 pounds today.) I’ve lost 17 pounds in three months, that’s impressive. The important thing is that the weight I’ve lost isn’t just water weight, or lack of food, but real weight loss through body transformation. My fat pockets are burning off.

The pants that I purchased before this all started don’t have a chance of staying up without a belt anymore. I’ve dropped four inches off my waist in three months. My arms and shoulders have developed a nice muscle tone to them, and I’m getting those little muscle-ly things that connect your shoulders to your neck. The woman loves my new “buffness.”

Even my gut and double chin have been shrinking, and those are the hardest to lose. I still have some pounds to take off, but the progress so far is incredible.

The key to the whole thing is that I’ve eaten whatever I wanted the entire time. I didn’t go on a meat only diet, or cut out junk food. I drink beer, eat snack cakes, pound Doritos, and devour fatty meals like it’s going out of style. The difference is that I’ve been active and working off the things I eat.

I think I’ve proven (As much as a statistical test with one observation can prove something) that it isn’t our diet which shoulders the blame for the fattening of America, it’s our lifestyle. Our grandparents and great grandparents spent their days toiling away performing mostly manual work. The few fat people you saw were usually lazy business owners or politicians, hence the term Fat Cat. Our ancestors didn’t gain weight because they worked off the calories that they ate; we’re ignoring starvation and poverty for the time being.

Our current American standard of graduating college to live life trapped in a cubicle (How do you think outside the box when you spend all day trapped in one?) does nothing to improve our waistlines. While an office job brings the luxury of controlled heating and paper cuts as major injuries, it also creates the responsibility of maintaining a regular fitness regimen.

Our bodies require a certain amount of use to stay fit, there’s no way around that. With my blue-collar job, I can knock out fitness and work at the same time. What’s more efficient that that?

Given that it’s been three months, and that I’ve pretty much made my point about weight loss, I’m going to wrap up the project at the end of this week. The website will still be up for people to read, I just won’t be adding daily updates. I may periodically add postings, but not at the schedule I’ve been maintaining up to this point.

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Phrasing is Everything

A couple of hours into the day, Hefé walked up to me and said, “You want empowerment, you got it. After you finish what you’re doing, I need you to come over to the other site with me. I’m going to get you squared away on a project and it’s up to you to execute.”

I told him that I was more than disappointed that he had managed to slip a couple of bullshit business school jargon words in there, but that I was still ready for the challenge. As a little background, I spoke with him last week off to the side indicating my desire to step up and take on more responsibility.

In my interview, Hefé and I talked about my ability to step up and be a leader as well as taking on some different challenges based on the different skill set I bring to the table with my education and previous experience in the business world and all. I’d like to start making good on that now that I’ve had three months to work out my rust.

Hefé elaborated that I’d be supervising the waterproofing of the foundation on our new project. This meant I’d be involved in some digging, tar application, and just all around dirty, nasty work.

Because of the way he had presented the job to me, I couldn’t wait to get over there and get started. This was a rough task that pretty much anyone would be right to dread, but I was jumping in my pants to get over there and start it. It’s all because Hefé presented it as my chance to prove I can be in charge. The cynical part of me wonders if he’s just a smart enough manager to know how to pull those strings to motivate people, but what the hell, I was all about giving it a shot; treading water only satisfies me for a short time.

He told me that I would be in charge of making sure that this happened correctly. We went over the project and he gave me The Lumberjack to direct. Unfortunately, I would have to tell The Lumberjack to dig out some footings while I was working on something else.

I felt bad telling him to go dig in that rock-hard soil while I was off doing something else, and I tried to communicate to him that Hefé had instructed me to have him dig; it wasn’t just me being lazy like someone else we all know and love. I think he understood; I’m planning to have one of the bi-lingual Mexicans translate the situation for me next chance I get. I don’t want them thinking I’m just another lazy white man that wants the Mexicans to do all of the hard work. But I’m pretty sure they already know that, hence my title of Gringo Mexicano.

At the end of the day, I went home covered in tar and happy at my ability to “manage” the situation. It was at that moment that I contrasted my current situation with the tar experience of a couple of months ago. I realized how differently my outlook on doing the work was given the way the job request had been phrased. Hmmm, maybe I’ll have to turn “phrasing” into the next new-wave management cult. I can travel around and get paid to pontificate at workplace conventions on the benefits of asking in the right way. On second thought, I’ll stay in Tahoe. I weighed 166 pounds today.

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More Destruction

I got to start the week off right by destroying the homeowner’s living room. I grabbed my trusty sledge and crowbar and went to town forcefully removing the fireplace, a couple of closets, and the entertainment center.

As we were killing a wall, I was trying to pull off the metal corner bead underneath the drywall. Somewhere along the way, it had got a break in it and developed a razor sharp metal edge protruding that I wasn’t aware of. My hand eventually slipped, jamming firmly into the jagged chunk of metal.

I was left with a half-inch gash, about a quarter of an inch deep on the meaty part of my hand, just below the thumb. It was a bleeder; just wouldn’t stop. After performing my usual technique of wiping the blood on the front of my shirt, I ended up looking like I had taken a shotgun blast to my chest. I had blood everywhere.

The cut eventually stopped bleeding, and I sucked it up and continued my path of destruction with the vigor of a newfound hatred for the item that just gashed my hand propelling me forward.

We ended up with a huge pile of debris that needed to be trucked outside to the dumpster. The FNG and I got about halfway through cleaning it when the dumpster was packed to its limits. The rest of the removal would have to happen at another time. I weighed in at 168 pounds this evening.

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Final Day in Paradise

Today is The Bitch’s last day working in Tahoe. He is due to fly back to the Midwest tomorrow morning; poor guy. As usual, we had our half-day Friday to kick off a fantastic weekend night.

We spent this morning framing in a drop ceiling that tied into the wall we built yesterday. As the work progressed, we traded chalk line smacks and insults back and forth like the children we are. The lady at 7-11 asked me why I had blue lines on my face when we stopped after work. I told her it was because that guy over there is an asshole, as The Bitch stood there laughing at me.

It’s been nice having The Bitch here, and I’m definitely hoping him and his wife decide to move out. I think he’s going to have a hard time going back to the horrible weather and bleak landscape of The Midwest after being here for two weeks. Ultimately that’s something him and his better half will need to figure out for themselves; everyone needs different things to be happy. Speaking of happy, my Friday afternoon weight reading was 166 pounds, a new low.

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Tearing it up with The Bitch

The Bitch and I got to start the morning tearing out the front wall of the house. The old conventional size front door would be replaced with a massive opening in the wall leading into our newly framed hallway. We would also be tearing out the old window to close up the opening.

The Bitch doesn’t enjoy the demo work to the extent that I do as he is used to building new homes. He managed to nick himself up a few times on old nails and such doing some demo last week. Mr. The Bitch said that he hadn’t gone home with that many new cuts in years. I, being the supportive male role model that I am, called him a pussy.

We made it through our demo without any major incidents; the next step was framing it back in with our new parameters. Hefė gave The Bitch the set of plans and let us go to it. It’s still weird having The Bitch as the journeyman carpenter that I’m trying to learn from. He’s definitely picked up a ton of knowledge in the years since the last time I worked with him.

Incidental side note about Hefė. It turns out that Hefė is actually spelled Jefė. One of my Mexican coworkers kind of chuckled at me when I asked him if it was spelled with an H. “The H sound is a J in Spanish fool,” he laughed. So, anyway, I’ve decided to stick with Hefė anyway. I’ve already been using it this long, might as well ride it out, and I think it makes it easier for the Spanish-deficient to read, so what the hell. I weighed 168 pounds today.

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Don’t Talk Smack

Once again yesterday, The Bitch found a way to anoint my face with a blue racing stripe courtesy of his chalk line. With the rain in the afternoon yesterday, I went home with blue smudged and dripped all over my face. When I walked in the door last night, my girlfriend nearly fell on the ground laughing at me, thus congratulating The Bitch in the process.

As we prepared to eat dinner, The Bitch started talking some trash about getting me again with the racing stripe. I told him he would get his, and waited patiently for the drama to unfold.

Unbeknownst to The Bitch, I had retrieved the blue chalk line from his tool belt downstairs and placed it on the desk next to me, waiting for the perfect chance to spring my attack.

As he stood by our counter, preparing his plate of food, I walked into the kitchen and gave him a nice blue racing stripe down his arm. As we laughed at him, I tucked the chalk line into a safe place to avoid his attempts at retribution.

This morning, as we were getting ready for work, I grabbed his chalk line from the hiding spot the night before, walked down the stairs to find The Bitch kneeled down tying his boots, and promptly smacked him across the face to produce a fantastic blue line.

Given that he still wasn’t even fully awake, the attack was even better than a mid afternoon strike. It made the time between him looking up at me with a blue lined face and registering what had just happened just a little longer, thus prolonging my entertainment. I told him that was what he got for talking smack.

As we went to work, I prepared myself for his eventual revenge, fully knowing that I lacked the ability to effectively counterattack due to the fact that my red chalk line doesn’t really show up on skin too well. Counterattack he did; I went home this evening covered in various blue lines. I still think my offensive in the morning was the best though. Surprisingly, after I washed all of the chalk off, my scale showed a new low. I weighed in at 167 pounds.

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Biggest Storm of the Year

We arrived at work this morning with a heavy cloud cover; I was cautiously optimistic that we would receive a heavy rainstorm and get to go home early. Unfortunately, the clouds just teased us all morning, even giving a few rain drops now and then to make us believe a storm was imminent.

About 10 minutes before our lunch break, it started raining. Since we had ripped a hole in one of the exterior walls and framed our structure into it, well everything but the roof that is, we had water running into the existing house.

As we frantically scrambled to patch up leaks, we decided to drill a hole in the floor of our new hallway to let the water run down below. Without the holes, the water was doing a pretty good job of running into the former kitchen of the existing structure.

After we had everything buttoned up, we took our lunch and enjoyed the gentle storm. The rain lasted for about another twenty minutes after our lunch, so we were able to enjoy an extended break. Unfortunately the rain stopped, so my dreams of leaving early in true slacker form were quickly dashed.

We went back to work, once again teased by clouds that looked like they wanted to spit on us. The rain finally came about a half hour before it was time to go home for the day.

The gentle summer shower of the morning was replaced with a maelstrom of an event in the afternoon. It started off as heavy rain, progressed to dime size hail, then to a full out torrential downpour.

Our half-assed attempts to “waterproof” the existing structure were no match for the volume of water falling from the sky in the afternoon. I had to stand in the hallway, in the rain with a broom to keep debris from clogging the holes we had drilled earlier. The water was running so fast that it was picking up sawdust and wood chunks and carrying them to the drains.

As the homeowners reported new leaks to us, we did our best to find ways to stifle the damage. At the end of the day, we were soaked and freezing. Evidently the clouds that had given us the hail was also carrying some water that was pretty close to being hail because it was friggin cold.

Not long after we started driving home, the rain stopped. I told The Bitch that he had just witnessed the biggest rain storm we had experienced since the snow stopped in May. He was shocked to find out that we hadn’t been rained out all summer, and once again he laughed at us for thinking that was a real rain storm. He thinks that we’re spoiled on account of the mild summers, but we more than make up for it with foot after foot of snow in the winter. There’s nothing like opening your front door and seeing fresh powder up to your waist. Speaking of my waist, I weighed 168 pounds tonight.

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Which Are You?

We finished up sheeting the roof of the garage this morning. It had rained a little the night before, so the roof was a little wet.

As we were pulling sheets of plywood up onto the roof, I kind of ran down the roof to grab one from the guy lifting it up from the ground below. Afterwards, my Mexican counterpart asked me if I was stupid or just crazy for running on a wet roof like that. I told him it was probably a little bit of both.

After we were done sheeting, I once again was nominated to install some metal hangers. By the end of the day, we had finished our third box of A35 hangers on this job. There are 100 in each box, and each A35 hanger requires 12-10d nails, so that’s 3600 nails on those hangers alone.

The rain we had overnight seemed to make the afternoon more humid than usual. We were complaining about the humidity when The Bitch overheard us. He asked if we were in fact complaining about the humidity, and when we replied that we were, he just laughed at us and walked off. Evidently he has no sympathy for a bunch of spoiled Tahoe carpenters complaining about humidity that is still half the norm in the Midwest.

At the end of the day, I weighed 170 pounds. As I walked in the door, my girlfriend got a great laugh out of the blue racing stripe running across my face. The Bitch got me again today.

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Every Friday is a Holiday

Today was the first Half Day Friday for The Bitch. He was pretty excited about getting off early, said it felt like a holiday weekend of something.

I told him that every weekend was a holiday weekend for us on account of the whole half day thing. I said it was nice to get off early, but it carried a curse of the longest four hours you could ask for.

When you know you’re getting off early, it tends to make you more accustomed to clock watching, and that tends to make the day go by pretty slow. What should be a short four day ends up seeming just as long as a normal day on account of the drag factor; at least while you’re at work it does, time quickly stops dragging once you drive from the jobsite.

I weighed in at 168 pounds again. I’m pretty sure my weight on Monday will be a little heavier, as The Bitch and I need to do some hard drinking this weekend for old time’s sake.

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The Racing Stripe

My buddy The Bitch has been working inside the structure on framing in the new kitchen. I’ve been giving him a hard time about coming all the way to Tahoe just to spend the whole time inside.

I’m pretty sure Hefé is just testing him, giving him a set of prints and letting him go to town so he can get a feel for what he knows. It still sucks that he has to be inside because the weather this week has been partly to mostly fantastic.

At one point in the day, as I was running my mouth, The Bitch pulled his chalk line from his tool belt, pulled out a couple of feet of string, then whipped it at my arm. Before I knew what had happened, the chalk line had wrapped itself around my arm leaving a blue line in its wake.

I had been given the racing stripe. Until you wash it off with soap and water, you can’t really do a whole lot about it; you’re stuck with a blue line on your arm when you get the stripe. Evidently The Bitch has learned much since our last encounter because the racing stripe was a trick I had never seen. Rest assured that it will be added to my repertoire though. Once the blue line was washed off this evening, I weighed 169 pounds.

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More Digging

The Lucky Three got to spend most of the day digging again. We started the morning finishing up our trench from yesterday.

As we were digging the trench, we uncovered a boulder roughly 4 feet in diameter right in the middle of our path. We had to dig around it to get it out of there.

There was also a tree fairly close to the spot of the boulder, so the massive rock was entangled in roots that needed to be cut away. Apparently, our elder Mexican and one of his friends chopped and formed fence posts when they were fourteen. They were able to sell them for 12 pesos each, which I was told would translate into about a buck. Between the two of them, they could make the equivalent of a hundred dollars a day, which back then, and in Mexico to boot, was very good money.

I told him he was the lumberjack because that man knows how to work an axe for sure. They didn’t know what that was, so I explained it was the huge guys wearing flannel chopping down trees in the forest all the time.

The lumberjack tried to explain to me a few times how to chop like him, alternating hits from either side to remove the most material. I told him that chopping wood, like so many other things in life, was something that I understood how I should do in theory, but in practice the execution was much less elegant.

We got most of the material removed from around the boulder and I decided to think it out the rest of the way. I went and grabbed the hydraulic jack from the trailer, dug a hole underneath one side of the boulder and proceeded to jack the rock up out of its centuries old spot. As the rock raised up, we shoved smaller rocks underneath to prop it up.

After I got one side free, I did the same thing on the other side and we had the boulder loose finally. We tied a strap around it, looped that around the hitch on Hefé’s truck and let him give it a pull. As the massive chunk of stone popped up and out of the trench, we gave a little man cheer/roar for emphasis. We just whooped that rock’s ass dude.

We spent the rest of our time at the site cleaning up the footings and making sure everything was ready for the foundation work to begin. With two hours left in the day, we went back to the old site.

We were all exhausted from two days of digging and quite relieved to be as far as possible from that hole in the ground on the other site. When I arrived at the other site, I discovered that I would once again get to install metal hangers. This time I needed to put them up under the overhang of the roof, hence I would be climbing up and down an extension ladder once again. I was less than thrilled to discover that my day of physical torment was not over.

I decided to suck it up, and installed quite a few hangers with my remaining time. Each one requires twelve nails, so they can eat up some time. After a long, hard day of work, I weighed in at 168 pounds again, more than ready to sit on the couch and not move until bed time.

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Stupid Boulders

At the end of the day yesterday, Hefé told me I would be working at another site. I was excited to get a change of scenery and looked forward to this morning.

When I arrived at the new site, I discovered to my dismay that two coworkers and I would be digging an eighty foot trench for a sewer line. Even though it all pays the same, some things still suck more than others, and digging a trench by hand on the side of a mountain is definitely one of the suckier.

The ground here is hard and full of rocks, nothing like the soft black gold beneath the feet of Midwesterners. Back home, you can almost always grab a shovel, step on it a little and dig a hole. Here, not so much.

The only way you can really use a shovel here to remove dirt is if you spend some time hammering on it with a pick axe. In itself, swinging a pick axe pretty much sucks, but toss in the fact that our “dirt” is riddled with various pebbles, rocks, and full-out boulders and you clearly have the makings for a long, painful, sucky day.

Our trench eventually needed to tie into the existing sewer lines, so we would go from level with the bottom of the foundation at one end, and about four feet deep on the other end. Needless to say, we had our work cut out for us.

As we hacked in the dirt for nine hours, we had plenty of time to contemplate life’s pressing mysteries. We were able to question such things as why in the world would Hefé allow us to collectively waste 27 hours of labor in place of renting a trencher, and why didn’t the excavator dig the trench when he dug the footings and foundation, and how in the world did we end up being the “Lucky Three” chosen for the task?

Despite enduring a task that clearly sucked, we didn’t grumble too much. We toughed our way through it and went home completely beat. I didn’t even want to lift my arms when I got home this evening. I weighed in at 169 pounds.

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The Bitch is Back

Early in my construction saga, I told the story of a good friend of mine who had been dubbed “The Bitch” by a crusty old carpenter who felt he was way too fancy to be on a construction site. The name stuck because despite eventually rising up to be a superintendent, he is still occasionally called “The Bitch” by people in the know.

I’ve been talking with him over the past few weeks trying to convince him and his wife to move out here to Tahoe. The construction market is a lot better here so you can make more money than the Midwest and the weather and scenery are infinitely better than back home. Toss in the limitless extracurricular activities available and it is easy to see how living here is thousands of times more appealing than the Midwest.

He talked with my boss, and they agreed that having him come out for a couple of weeks to see the area and work to get a feel for how we run things was probably the best idea. He flew into Tahoe on Saturday, and today he came to work with me once again.

It was weird working with him again after all these years. When I got my first fat-inducing office job, he stayed in the field. I can definitely tell that he kept at it because he’s pretty much a journeyman carpenter and clearly has a lot more knowledge and skill than me. Last time we worked together, I had more experience and he was the green one, seems like the tables have been turned.

I told him that I wouldn’t call him “The Bitch” at work or tell anyone the story, but that outside of work, it’s fair game. I had a hard time not calling him “The Bitch” but made it through the day without a slipup. I finished the day out at an even 170 pounds.

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Monkey Man

Once again, I got to spend a half day Friday installing metal hangers. We have to put a total of six steel hangers on each of the outlookers we built yesterday.

Three of the hangers can be installed from the roof with the palm nailer. The other three must be installed from underneath, by someone climbing around in the rafters.

I got to be the rafter monkey today. I was glad that I was chosen today instead of my first day. There wasn’t much space in there and I really don’t think I could have managed in my previous hefty glory.

After climbing around and using the palm nailer for a couple of hours, I was more than happy to start doing our weekly cleanup. The woodpecker vibrates your wrist like crazy; it can get painful after a while.

We always try to leave the site clean and organized on Fridays. We want to avoid leaving a bunch of debris for the homeowners to stumble over on the weekend. I think it makes the relationship work better that way.

We finished up and left early as per our Friday tradition. I’m not sure, but I think every half Friday is better than the last. There’s something about ditching out of work early without risk of negative repercussions that makes your afternoon particularly enjoyable. I finished the week out at 168 pounds again.

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Better Pace

Hefé met us at the site this morning, set to run the crew for a change. We were all given our various tasks, aimed at getting the roof sheeted.

I was once again the cut man. The combination of switching to pen and over two months of getting rid of the rust have made my cutting ability more than proficient so I was ready for the challenge.

It is amazing what a difference having the boss on the site makes, as for once, everyone was making a contribution to the project. It is refreshing when you see slackers having to bust their humps for a change.

We were able to install a big chunk of the sheeting and get the outlookers installed and squared. Our progress was impressive. I weighed 169 pounds again today.

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Be Careful

I arrived this morning to happily discover I would be the selected person to tear out the old deck. Nothing cheers me up like finding out that I get to do some legal vandalism.

Unfortunately, I was not able to destroy the entire structure. We just needed to remove the planks and replace them with the recently relocated redwood boards.

Pulling the planks was a quick job; the next step would be replacing them. As we decided on our plan of attack, I was designated the cut man. This meant I would be taking measurements from the other guys, giving them the cut board, and then moving on to the next one as they installed it.

In case you’re not aware, redwood is rather pricey, in fact, I had never even been on a job where it was used before moving here. From what my coworkers tell me, an eight-foot redwood 2x4 costs somewhere in the area of $15-16. Compare that with a pine board of the same dimensions costing you roughly $3-4, and you can see how the material is not to be wasted.

So given that I was the cut man, the task of making sure we wasted as little wood as possible fell on my shoulders. I’m proud to say that I made some awesome cuts today, and the issue never came up as zero boards had to be tossed for being measured and cut incorrectly. My weight this evening was 169 pounds.

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Are You Sure?

My stint as a newly appointed Mexican continued today as we were assigned to siding and trim once again. As the day progressed, we were able to complete one side of the building; it looks awesome finished.

Not long after we finished tearing down the scaffolding, we received a lumber delivery. It was a huge stack of redwood 2x4’s, destined for the deck around back. Given that the wood was dropped off in the road out front, the wood was going to need to find a way to the back before it could be used.

Four of us set about the task of moving the pile. Evidently, the foreman pulled his old trick of asking for it to be moved then leaving. That’s based on hearsay though so I can’t say for sure, but I have a sneaky suspicion that there’s some truth to it.

As we were moving the wood, I set my pieces down, stepped back, and said, “Man, that pile of lumber is really red.” Then I waited. Wait for it, Wait for it.

One of my amigos turned around, with that classic look of, dude, are you really that stupid, and said to me, “That’s cause it’s redwood dumb ass.”

I told him I knew but wanted to see if he’d tell me I was an idiot or not. He tends to enjoy busting balls almost as much as I do, so I thought he would, and he did.

Given that moving the pile of wood happened at the end of the day, I went home pretty worn out. Maybe it’s just me, but there seems to be something about climbing a mountain about 30 times in a row with a stack of lumber on your shoulder that takes the energy out of you. I weighed in this evening at 168 pounds again, must have burned off some water this afternoon.

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Gringo Mexicano

My alarm clock didn’t really wake me to the full extent this morning, so I hit the snooze button two more times than normal, completely unaware of my folly.

As I frantically threw on clothes and installed my contacts, I had to take a second to scold the cat.

On every other day, including weekends, she will come down, jump on the bed, and meow to wake us up if it’s more than five minutes later than when normally rise for work. Where were you today fur-ball?

I skipped making a lunch and still managed to make it to work on time. We had six guys at the site this morning, three Gringos, and three Mexicans.

Our foreman said that the three Mexicans would work on the siding in the back, and the Gringos would work on framing out garage.

One of the Mexican guys, said, “Oh I see how it is, send the Mexicans to the back.’ He likes to bust balls a lot, so we all knew it was in jest and had a good laugh.

As we were rolling out, the boss pulled up and said he needed to take the gentleman who had just split our sides to work on another job. In his place, I was to go work on the siding.

Early in the morning, I was dubbed “Gringo Mexicana” by my companions. It basically means Mexican Whiteboy. Today, I was dubbed an honorary Mexican.

In the afternoon, the foreman came around to inspect our work, and told us we had done a nice job. I said, “Hell yeah, when you want good work, you send in the Mexicans.”

He said, “Dude, what are you talking about? You’re a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Whiteboy.”

I told him that I had been dubbed an honorary Mexican, and that furthermore, I didn’t appreciate the White Man coming around to breath down our necks. I told him my brown brothers and I were tired of being oppressed in this White-Man’s world.

My Mexican buddies were just rolling, and he was laughing pretty good as well. I must admit, he played along with my stupidity pretty well, right up to the point when I started pumping my fist chanting, “Brown-Power, Brown-Power.”

It’s nice to work around guys that aren’t all uptight about the race thing. No one cares about that sort of thing, all we ask is that you put in an honest day’s work. After my day, I weigh 170 pounds.

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