In to The Shop as is customary on the Monday Morning to drop off the previous week’s timecard – Mr. Ream is to attend us at 3065 to install doors. No Marcos on the job today – his father-in-law died. Mr. Ream is the paragon of door-hanging efficiency – I get something of a lesson […]

LUNES – Like a real guy, nailed on connectors between wall and joists. Sawzalled out for the side door. Installed ‘guard rails’ in the attic to keep the blown insulation off the new floor. Cleaned up, ripped out even more wall board, including a portion in the master bath I had spent an hour and […]

LUNE – Hanger hammering, glue gun destroying, wall destroying, minor stucco fragging. First acorns this season dropped by the oak across the street dot the pavement, new green against hard gray. Luis, the new carpenter (new, meaning this is his second week on this job, but hardly new to the tasks) and Marco’s neighbor is […]

Hometec Bootcamp – Week 3 is a concatenation of horrors. I had thought that nothing, nothing could be worse than pounding at a concrete slab with jackhammers.  But at least I was above ground.  Comes the news that Marcos and the Jersey Jerker will dig the footer for the new foundation.  I HATE dirt.  I […]

Monday, 0700 hours at Hometek, there’s nothing for me to do but irritate Jim by watching him hang the Hayward gates in a frame.  I had been thinking, ‘I need a new lunch spot’….be careful what you wish for… Arrives the boss man.  “I’m putting you on a job for a few days.  It’s a […]

Two hours applying fake raised panels to cheap doors – frames, like picture frames but without the cutout for art.  Same job as I did my first day, but was better at it this go. An hour hand-sanding the first coat of polyurethane on Dr. Gaily’s front door, overmuch in parts where I injured the […]

I’d like to tell you about all the exciting work I did today at Hometek, and it was exciting to me.  But gluing, planing, changing shaper bits and re-sawing cedar isn’t lofty on anyone’s dance card except an avid shop rat. This was Jim the finish carpenter and foreman’s first day back in two weeks […]

Got a job. Thanks to The Prof, he’d been out Asilomar way to Hometek, seems Tom Long of Hometek needs a hand. I drove out and volunteered. Accepted. Start Tuesday, 0700. The Prof came by later after his kick-ass Bikram class, wanted to know how the land lay, maybe I’d like to travel downtown, see […]

Paul and his chief dauber Scott were here of the AM putting more soiled baby diaper color paint to the castle making it to sag from 11th Most Repellant Structure in PG to 13th, solely on strength of uniformity of overall dung tone. The sound of the doorbell foretold the wonders delivered via FedEx from […]

Last night was my Engineering Final Exam.  There were only four questions: 1 & 2 were electronic circuit design problems – always the bane of mechanical engineering students – 3 & 4 were closer to our field of intentions.  None of the test questions were specifications. A diagram showing the path of Medieval French peasant […]