Muhndaze highlights

Long hot day broiling on a football feild: tear out and install new.   Tear out done, install,,, not so much.   These things take time, concrete needs to cure>  And one of those holes is Frillin HUGE,,,  Took an hour with a jackhammer to bust out the old concrete plug.   Would have left it in place had it been vertical, not slanted like the Tower in PIza.

Buffalo is running around town without her usual toupee of Kayaks.    Found an issue yesterday, late in the day and decided that discretion outweighed desire.    Seems that I had busted one of the racks when I had my unintentional offroading session last week.   I was getting something from the truck and noted that Lyssa’s straps were loose, then noted that one of the saddles had rotated 90 degrees and wasn’t supporting her at all.  THEN, I saw the broken weld on the front rack.     Got damned lucky she hadn’t tried to make like a wing and fly while going down the highway.    SO, She is on the porch until I can fix the rack.  And being one the porch, means she gets some repairs done.   Little gouges in the Gel, stuff,,,  Nothing major, nothing in dire need of repair, but I figure I have a race coming and every little nick and gouge is added resistance to motion,,,,

Long day broiling in the sun, but I did it without having to deal with 4watt flicker bulbs.   Seems I have a crew of my own now (third day out with them) and they are “Not stoopids”,,,, huge sigh of relief.   The eldest of the two (both early twenties, amazingly,,, you understand why I say that in a moment) runs a small mowing business that he handles on the weekends, the other is his cousin and he is making inroads to his own side-gig while working for us and his cousin on the weekends.    Kudos to both of them since the rest of our krews,,, motivation? whuzzat?   Like I mentioned to Son of Bossman this morning: “I like that I can hand these guys tools, point them in a direction and know it will get done, and my tools are going to come back to me unharmed.”

The downside?  I know when his little sidegig is bringing in same or better in two days worth of work as he is bringing in, in 5 days of ballbusting labor, he’s gone.    Can’t keep the go-getters, they aren’t willing to tolerate our conditions: and I can’t blame them.   Hell, I have said that if I were bring in a set amount each week from writing or the myriad of other things I do, I’d walk away from the J.O.B. too.  Even now, the only reason I am still there is convenience to me, being close to dad, able to take off at the drop of a dime and still have a position,,,   Not many places are tolerant of that need: most will terminate on one ‘unexcused’absence, to hell with what you bring to the table in all the other aspects.

And things are improving, not just in the crew I am leading currently.   ‘Son of’ dropped a Franklin in my hand past Friday, said “Christmas in July” and that they felt they needed to show some appreciation for all the stuff I have been doing.   (a raise would have been nice too, but I ain’t bitchin’ right now)   It definitely made my weekend more comfortable with all the running around and buying shit for the wall heater that I was doing.   Even dropped double my usual amount into savings with that in consideration.

Funny, things start going good, I start looking for the shaft coming at me from some unknown corner.   Call me paranoid, but that lesson has been driven home way too many times in the past.   Good times now means shits gonna get heavy soon.  That whole ‘waiting for Damocles sword to drop’ thing.  Karma running down my dogma,,,  

Roll with it 

Funny that kayaking taught me that last.

a’ight,,, been a long day, my eyes feel fuzzy from all the UV’s we were bombarded with (yes, I wear sunglasses, slows down the burn, but doesn’t stop it: I am welder with many instances of flashburn in my past) and I have a bunch of sanding to do on Lyssa if I want her ready for the coming weekend. 

Talkatcha y’all tomorrows.