::Creak:: goes the door as we open the shop. I’m very excited to be hosting the SMHRB! This is the first community I stumbled upon after joining DK. Every Saturday morning claude and his crew sit around talking shop, bragging about their last project or offering advice to those in need. I was first led here by Happy Camper and have returned most every Saturday since.
Today we’ll step back a few years to when my wife and I decided to install a play structure for the little one. Living in the city and with the hectic pace of life we felt it would be nice to have a place she could call her own. A place for her to get outside and do what kids do…play…dream…be a kid. It has been a great investment as she and her friends have spent many hours playing in the safety of our backyard. I also wanted to include the little one in the building process so she could feel the pride and sense of accomplishment that comes with completing a project…and get some special daddy time.
Like any project we did some prep work; we created a rough budget and plotted out a location. The night before picking up the kit I leveled out the area, a very important step. Just like with kids if you create a solid foundation things will fall together but start off wrong and you will be fighting to correct things all the way to the end.
Due to her age I took extra care with regards to safety…I made her wear safety glasses while using the chainsaw… alright, I was kidding about the chainsaw… but I did make sure she understood which tools were safe for her to use and which ones weren’t.
Together we got to work and in no time at all it really started to come together. We made some mistakes - somehow we skipped ahead, building a section too soon only to have to take it back apart. Builders and parents make mistakes, but if you catch the problem early, you can usually get the project back on track. We also found problems with the kit itself. Some of the planks were slightly bowed so we installed them with the bow up. Nothing and no one is perfect, you can only try to make the imperfections work to your advantage.
At the end of the weekend when the project was completed we were tired, but we shared in the pride and sense of accomplishment. I didn’t just give her something… I gave her an experience. And at some point in the future, probably in her early teens, we’ll work together again to disassemble it, find a worthy cause to donate it to, and share again in a new sense of joy as we look at the smiley face of the recipient it was passed on to.
Now for some plumber jokes, although I must admit I’m not so good at jokes so I asked for some help. I knew my friends would be eager to insult help a plumber. First we have Phil S 33, he was most eager, so eager he posted two. No surprise there, he always seems very happy to tease and harass plumbers…
"Your crap is my family's bread & butter."
"A plumber is the only guy I know who can take a leak....and fix it also!"
Next one is from the always eloquent paradise50, again no surprise; he seems to get much enjoyment teasing plumbers, maybe too much.
"Just because we do shitty work doesn't mean we do shitty work!"
We’ll wrap it up with this one from Gooserock, so good it had to be posted twice.
"Here's the bill for the plumber, Sire." "$60 an hour? That's an awful lot of money for knowing that water flows downhill." "--It isn't all water."