Conclusion: the TV is much smarter than the shows it presents.

It is like technology has advanced and writers have devolved.  Or the audience has been judged extremely wanting in the good taste and intelligence departments.  Most likely all of the above.  The viewing fare is bloody awful.  Boring, tasteless and stupid.  Like when I was listening to the 1812 overture in the background when someone was mixing eggs on a cooking channel!?  How much did they pay that doofus and the producer of that show?

And reality TV?  What the hell…..?!  Soon there will be a potty channel dedicated to people moving their bowels in odd situations.  Why not?  Sounds better than most of the crap on the screen I have seen so far.  The mainstay of reality TV?  It is a skateboarder smashing his genitals into a handrail.   I swear!

But I confess………having a remote in my hands again felt good.  Ooooh, power corrupts, eh?

Here’s something weird…………….if I go to the store and buy wood and say, pay $1.00 a board foot, it seems like the ‘market’ price.  The way things are.  But if I have a pile of the same lumber left over after a job (still shiny and new) no one wants to buy it!  Not for 20 cents on the dollar!  Now why is that?  Wood doesn’t come with a warranty.  A 2×6 is a 2×6.  But the contractor pretty much has to ‘chuck it’ ’cause no one wants to buy it and he can’t store it and the store won’t take it back.  In the meantime, some poor schmo is lining up at the counter to pay the $1.00 plus taxes for his order.

Perfectly good toilets and basins, doors, even appliances………….chucked!?

Yes, I know…Habitat for Humanity, Used Building supplies, etc.  But, really, they just want it for free………..and it is a hassle and well, most of the time there is not enough to warrant taking it to them.  Easier to throw it in the dumpster.  It is a waste.  A complete and total waste for a guy like me.  Not for a contractor, perhaps, but for a DIY-guy for sure.  I can see myself heading home in a month or so laden to the top with stuff that would be considered junk here in town.  And it is not!

OK….our adjustment is still ongoing, I guess.  I’ll start to get out of scavenge-mode and be a consumer again.  Maybe.  But I would hazard a guess that a guy with time and a flatbed truck could slowly scour building sites and, with the contractor’s permission, salvage enough materials to build a complete 1500 square foot home within a month.  In fact, I am sure  of it.    Three months if it was me (Sal is starting to balk at the heavy lifting, I am slow and traffic is heavy).  The house may not be pretty and some things may have to be purchased to make it happen in a reasonable time but I am sure I could salvage 80% of what I needed openly and honestly to build at least a cabin.  Now there’s a reality show!   

I am re-learning how to drive in Vancouver: aggressive, fast and leave the car filthy.  An old guy in an old, dented Pathfinder covered in mud and going Hell-bent is, apparently, somewhat intimidating to the clean-car crowd and we are getting about rather well as a result.  Kinda fun.

Our poor ol’ car reminds me of ‘Pigpen’ in the Charlie Brown cartoon.  If we park at the Whole Foods store in Park Royal, the other cars and drivers shun us.  And that is before we get out of the car!

We can easily find our car in a crowded lot because there is a little ‘dull spot’ with dust all around it.

Sal suggested we wash the car sometime but I am sure you understand my reluctance…………?

Still, there may be a municipal bylaw concerning that.  Probably is.  West Van got some doozies.  Seems, for instance, you are not allowed to sell lumber in West Van.  It is a bylaw. ‘No dirty, 2×4’s wanted ’round here!’  And the trades aren’t allowed to work after 5:30 pm nor are they allowed to even ‘be here’ on Sunday.  So, given that we look dirtier and drive worse vehicles than the lowly trades, you can imagine our paranoia if we are caught ‘out’ after 5:30!  And Sunday?  We stay home.

“Honest, officer, we are OK.  Just house guests of friends with low standards and high levels of tolerance for the unsightly.  No.  I don’t believe I have to provide you with their names!  I think you are going to have to impound my car and take me to the station and run my prints before we do that.  Gotta protect the innocent, you know?  Want me to go home and shower first?  Oh, sorry.  You meant the car!?”

Oh well……..adventures come in different ways……….and, so far, this is just fun.  We are enjoying it.

As you all well know, we’re cool.  We’re hip.  We’re happenin’….. in a backwoods, hill-billy kind-of-way.  Which is to say: not much.  Not much at all, really.

But we are cool with that.

Until yesterday, anyway.  OMYGAWD!  Are we hicks or what?  Pulled into our new digs in West Van and were greeted nicely by my friend who, in passing, said, “Oh, yeah…got you a new, smart TV…nice.  Got it hooked up an all…..gets internet and stuff…neat..stuff….I think….”

“Can you work it?”

“Well, Yeah.  Kinda.  No………not really.  Mine isn’t as smart as yours and I kinda know mine and, well, yours is programmed and everything….never mind…let me show you something else..”

So, we unpacked, went out for dinner and then came home.  I tried to turn on the smart TV.  Couldn’t do it.  Too stupid.  But that’s OK……we’re cool with that.  So, today we went shopping for some household junk.  Downtown Vancouver.

“So, are you feeling what I am feeling?”

“You mean kinda like a hick?  Kinda like Rip Van Winkle?”

“Zactly!  Vancouver seems so…I dunno….different….so new…shiny…. It is like we have been ‘out of it’ for so long, it feels weird!”

“Miss it?”

“Not yet.  New digs are kinda fun, tho.  But some kid handed me a pamphlet offering senior’s services.  So, I looked around the store and, sure enough, we were easily ten years older than anyone else.  Up in our community we are amongst the younger group of oldsters.  Here, I didn’t see any!  Starting to feel a smidge out of place, ya know?”

“What kind of services?”

“Never you mind!  We don’t need no stinkin’ services.  Not yet, anyway.  Pizza delivery doesn’t count, though, right?”

Sal and I are in the big smoke for a month, give or take and, even tho we no longer need or want much of what the city has to offer (‘cept friends and and a bit of work stuff)  there is no question that it is taking on the stuff of adventure.  I know that sounds crazy but so much that we see seems new to us that it feels well, adventuresome…… kinda.  Like visiting a new city but with the confusion part missing.

We do know the basic city, after all.  But there are new restaurants to try and people to see…..and, well, we are seeing and being seen with new eyes.  It’s different.  Really.

I know, I know….‘we really should get out more…..’

Anyway…….we are here. We’ll have fun.

I think we have to buy a new car, tho.  Sheesh.  A ’96 Pathfinder is a relic at the best of times but in West Van, it is like a cop-magnet.  People avert their eyes.  ‘Cept the cops and our new neighbours. Junkyards crush better cars.  Even the junkies have better cars!  Well, maybe we’ll start by washing it.  No sense puttin’ on airs, eh?

Gonna get me a banjo, tho….fer sure.

Winter is here.  And grabbing us hard by the pipes!  I turned on the heat tape wraps (around the exposed pipes) last night and that kept things flowing but the temperature is dropping and, once again, I rue my decision to having put off more insulation under the house when I had the time.  You know how it is….‘Geez, maybe with global warming….?’

Next year for sure!

Actually, the winter winds had sucked all the heat from the house over the week we were away and heating the place up took much longer than usual as a result.  Still not toasty.  18C.  We are warm but dressed in more layers and the stove is still on full tilt!  It isn’t even December yet!  Typically, November is miserable and wet but not overly cold.  Mind you, typically, Illinois does not issue a decades worth of tornado warnings within a few days either.  So, I guess things are changing…………..

Sal’s off to work at the post office today.  Intrepid worker that she is.  That old saw: ‘…..through rain, hail, snow the postman makes his rounds….’ That reputation has for the post office pretty much gone the same way as the Mounties’ reputation but there are still a few members of both forces who work on the good side and Sal is one of them.  The mail must go through!

It is minus ten for her in the boat I would estimate with the wind chill.  The seas are a bit choppy.  She is in a very small boat.  There will be an empty, cold office to greet her.  Then, a bit later, the plane will come in.  She’ll have gotten the wood stove on in the meantime but will remain bundled up till quitting time and then, in the semi-dark, she will fire up the boat and head home.  Her only link with anything being the running lights on the boat and her VHF radio.  By the time she steps back in the house, she will be cold, it will be dark and me and the dogs will want dinner.

(Yes, I will do both dinners….I was only kidding….) 

Intrepid and community-minded (the only reason she does it) thy name is Sally.

I’ll sit here in the meantime and write and eat bon bons.  No sense both of us getting chilled now is there?

Today’s rant/topic:  BC Ferries is going to cut services, raise fares and install slot machines.  Prediction: watch that slot machine monster grow.

How is it that a transportation company that can’t break even but can break their actual working units (ferries, docks, designs), can’t make a profit but can break the bank with management bonuses, can’t run a system that – when they took it over – wasn’t broke but now is, think they can run a casino afloat?

I already know the answer: it is not BCF.  It will be the Casino lobby connection to Christy running a piece of their business on the ferries.  This is a sop to the corporate crooks the Libs hang with.  They may eventually attempt to install slots in libraries, hospitals and Sky-Train, too……..what’s the diff?  Why not install them in the lobbies of government services including the Liquor stores?

‘Do some shots, play some slots and soon we’ll sell you pots of pot’.   

Well, hell.……… why ask such a stupid question?  If there is another way for the government to screw up and screw the public at the same time, they will do it.  Just remember: This government has been in deficit since they took over.  This government does not sit in the legislature anymore (democratic debate, it seems, is not productive for them).

And this government has lost billions of dollars from ‘paying off’ Basi-Virk (chump change) to the Convention Centre (hundreds of millions dollars over), the Port Mann Bridge (even more over), the giving away of the Fast Ferries (a $500M expenditure sold for $19M of scrap value).  And that ego parade that was the Olympics. This is the government of cutbacks for everyone but BIG industry.  Christy Clark couldn’t manage a Kool-Aid stand and she is our premier.

I wonder who is really pulling the strings?

…and some things change.

My daughter is married to BR and is now Mrs. R.  I officiated at the ceremony.  Like a hillbilly pastor. They called me Yoda.  The wedding was held at a resort in Mexico.  52 people flew down.  I thought it would be weird but it wasn’t.  It was good.  Very good.  Very, very, very good.  And fun.  Even though all-inclusive resorts are not my kind of thing – they aren’t travel and they aren’t adventure and there is little that is foreign or new – they are a helluva way of a way to host a wedding.  Who knew?

All-inclusive resorts are really just land-locked cruise ships and the people ‘on board’ were much the main attraction.  People watching at it’s best.  But the appeal for a wedding is that the families of the bride and groom get to meet one another and have a few days (not just hours) to get to know one another.  That part was the best.  We met B’s friends and father – and they were good people.  Even their friends were nice and interesting and very kind to the bride’s parents and grandparents.  It was a good way to blend families who live a country-wide apart.  They are Torontonians.  We are not.

The wedding itself was a treat.  Not boring or drawn out.  Not all gooey or weird.  Very sincere.  Pretty short.  And every one seemed moved when they should, laughed when they should and were genuinely pleased and happy for the new couple.  Except for our own wedding, Sal and I agreed that this was the best one we had ever attended.  Biased?  Us?  Not in the least.

I started to blog about it and have a few pages written but I’ll save that for a longer post that is separate.  I, personally, would have a hard time reading much more about someone else’s wedding so I’ll spare you.  Bottom line:  BIG HIT!

But there was also a turning point for me………well, several actually.  One:  I swear I will never fly again.  NEVER!  What a massive trial and tribulation flying has become!  We ‘flew’ six hours (each way), ‘sat’ waiting (in total) for six to eight hours and ‘transferred by buses and cabs for almost 3 hours.    Everyone knows the lunacy of airport security and, of course, everything is geared to the timetable and convenience of the transport companies so you end up feeling like powerless cattle.  Mooing and baaahhing all the way. We need Temple Grandin to take up the cause of travelers.

My son also recently got engaged (and this was not a spontaneous move on anyone’s part) and so the message is clear:  I am no longer really needed as a parental guide.  To be fair, I never was.  But I kinda played the Father Knows Best role whenever the opportunity presented however hapless and stupid that may have been (they used to call me ‘Big Dork’).  Now my kids have partners to rely on.  And the partners have them.  And I am now just the ‘old guy’ who can advise about leases and legal work at a consumer level.

It is not a bad role. But I have been shunted sideways.  I am no longer a parent.  I am a parental consultant (translation: unemployed until grandchildren come to town).

I also noticed that I was no longer hip.  Young people, it seems, generally now come patterned in tattoos.  The resort was a veritable walking mural of doodles.  You’d see some beautiful young woman carpeted with tattoos of fish and flowers and skulls and bulls and Gawdknowswhat……….I even saw one guy sporting a Nike swoosh with NIKE written under it!?

He loves his shoes, I guess.

I dunno……..it is not my thing.  Yakuza?  Hells Angels?  Bloods and Crips?  Dennis Rodman?  And now secretaries, librarians and accountants.  Tattoo suggestion: KPMG rules!

Weird.

But interesting.

But weird mostly.

PS.  Just for the WEIRD record:  I am a big fan of the cartoon that is Rob Ford.  He’s a buffoon, too, of course.  Probably some kind of crook to boot.  And he never should have become a mayor of anything.  Not even Spuzzum.  But he is more entertaining than any Canadian politician or comedian ever.  He’s better than Martin Short or even Cheech and Chong.  This guys is a fat Evil Knievel, high on whatever he can OD on and vying with Dawg the Bounty Hunter for the stupid crown of the world. I know it is perverse but, really, this guy is showing the underbelly of Canadian politics (not to mention his actual belly).  He and Harper hang out and go fishin’………. If Rob Ford does not put some perspective on politics-as-usual to the Canadian people, nothing can.    

Our premier talked tough before the election.  Made a BCér proud to see her stand up for what is right!  ‘We intend to get our fair share of the pollution and our fair share at the trough that is being spread around to allow it!’  Oooh, what cajones!

And, because she was so tough and such a brilliant negotiator, the premier of Alberta had to roll over (in slop) and agree to our porcine premier’s demands.  Oooh….pigfight!  I am getting excited.

But, of course, it is like all political acts – it was a stunt, a sham, a lie and a distortion.  Christy lied.  Hard to believe, isn’t it?  Our premier (NOT a mayor, this time) lied to us.

Firstly, she did not negotiate anything…some ‘framework‘….which says nothing…..and doesn’t get us any of Alberta’s ill-gotten gains.  But, more pathetically, it implied that, with the two premier’s agreeing, the Enbridge pipeline is ‘moving forward’ (I hate that phrase).

It isn’t.

Well, it is, actually.  But that decision to proceed with resource exploitation had nothing to do with them.  We, the people, don’t really know what is happening.  Not really.  But we can assume the worst.  The reason?  Enbridge is not accountable to BC or even Alberta.  The proposed pipeline is 100% a Federal affair.  It is Harper and Harper alone that casts the vote.  Given his recent legislative changes to Federal environmental law that makes the decision to proceed easier, and his announcements in Asia that ‘it will happen’, and the increase in pipe construction going on, the continuance of surveying and ground crew work and the many hundreds of contracts being let, my guess is that Redford and Clark are simply posturing like groupies with smiles and pig squeals hoping to be invited to the party.

Enbridge has been a done deal since it was announced.  Environmental studies were NOT done or ignored or made unnecessary by the Feds.  The people’s voice was controlled, limited and is being ignored.  Northern Gateway hearings, my butt!  Every member of that panel was a Harper appointee and each appointee was plucked from the Petroleum sector!

Given his announcement in SE Asia, Harper may have already received some money for the oil………?  He has certainly allowed SINOC (ChinaOIL) to buy stakes in the tar-sludge.  And he has pretty much rammed through an agreement with China that states that they will make all decisions on trade matters….so, it is not hard to guess where this is all going.

China is going imperialist on oil and Canada is looking to be a colony.  Which may cause some friction with our US owners who already control so much of what is Canadian.  Did you know that CN Rail (the only transnational rail line in Canada – the one given so much land by government) was privatised and sold off in the 1990’s?  Did you know that Bill Gates is the largest single shareholder of ‘our’ national railway?   

But all that lying, cheating, greed and environmental destruction is not really news, is it? Hasn’t that been the robber baron mentality so prevalent for so long- even before the Industrial Revolution?  Haven’t we been breeding pigs for a long time?

And will we ever do anything about it?  The answer is no.  We will never do anything about it and the reason for that is ‘they‘ have established ways for the public to protest and they call those ways ‘democracy’.  It is a false democracy, of course, but we have bought it.  So we protest by electing people who have to do what their party tells them to do and, of course, our party choice is severely limited to two or three.  So you can choose to protest by way of door #1 or door #2.

And both doors lead to the feeding trough.

We used to host Woofers.  (Didn’t get any this year, tho…) Willing Workers on Organic Farms…………..basically, people traveling and wanting to ‘help out’ in exchange for room and board.  We did it because we like to see young people traveling the world and we wanted to share our own off-the-grid experience with them.  It was fun.

A week was enough for most of them.  They were very nice.  Can’t think of any that were not.  But, after a week, maybe two, they wanted to keep on with their journey and we were all happy to ‘move on’.  It was good.  But it was usually short.

Christian, however, stayed for about 6 weeks!  He was so keen and fun to have around that he was a notable exception to the usual…………plus he wouldn’t leave!  And we’ve been friends ever since.  I still enjoy hearing from him. 

Typically, we would get Wfers in early summer as the season became ‘flush’ with backpackers and we would then use them to help us bring in the firewood.  We’d only work ’em (and us) for about four hours a day, often less.  And their job would be to ‘wheelbarrow’ chopped wood from the chopping block to the wood shed and then stack it.  We’d usually pull in two cords and that would be enough.  Maybe three cords if they were keen and good at it.  And then they went kayaking and oyster-catching.  The days went by quickly and pleasantly as a rule.

Some were good.  Some were not so good.  Some were brilliant.  Lindsay was some kind of wood-stacking genius.  That woman stacked piles so tight that it was hard to get a finger between the wood!  Seriously!  She had some kind of spatial aptitude-thing going on.  Must have been a puzzle champ or something.  Martha Stewart does wood-stacking.

Rob and Judy were a lovely couple from England.  We really enjoyed them.  They were and probably still are, traveling around the world and taking each day as it comes.  We liked them.  They liked us.  And we were all the better for having met up.

But that was last year.

April, 2012, to be exact.

And that brings me to the point of today’s blog.  I was out at the wood shed this afternoon piling a load into the wheelbarrow for bringin’ in the house (we keep a few days pile stacked in the house) and, as I was reaching for some pieces, a note in a plastic bag wafted down.

It was from Rob and Judy:  “It’s been awhile since we were here helping you with these logs!  Just thought we’d say how much we enjoyed…..hope all is well…….much love and best wishes!” 

OK….admittedly NOT a really big deal…..but both Sal and I wore a grin for a while.  It was a really nice touch.  Brought back memories.  Made us feel good.

Hey!  This blog is about how I spend my day and…well,….I just spent a few extra minutes this afternoon grinning over a pleasant meeting a year and a half ago…………

Just sharin’

I’ve written several blogs these past few days.  Then deleted them.  You likely already know the gist of them…rants, senate, Harper, Christy Clark….amateur politics, Dave style…….the stuff of common knowledge really.  You get enough of that from the ordinary media.  Ya don’t really need me for that.

If anything.

The problem is that I am trying to write what I feel and think about and some of that junk is where my head is at.  But, if I shunt that crap out of my head, what am I left with?

Well, Orcas and ravens and construction projects, of course.  But anything original?

Here’s one: the CBC has orchestrated this senate scandal.  I mean Wallin and Duffy and Brazeau are real, of course, but senate waste is an old story, one we have lived with for years.

From the beginning, this scandal is really a story of the CBC in survivor mode.  And, tho the focus story is a financial tempest-in-a-teapot (tragically, misspending hundreds of thousands by lying and cheating is not really uncommon enough to make much of a deal over these days) it is serving to illustrate the backroom dealings and Machiavellian nature of our government.  Revealing a bit of the underbelly of this and any of the past governments is really just the CBC coming to grips with the fact that the Harper government is trying to kill off the skeletal remains of our national broadcaster – one that has been dying from lack of funding for decades.

Of course, news is just infotainment and the CBC is just fighting for their jobs, not necessarily the public’s interest, but their’s is a fight against a bully and that makes for good watching at the very least.

So, to that extent, the senate scandals are compelling reading for me.  The money itself, the corrupt senate, the lying…pshaw!  Picayune – the type of stuff that rarely lasts on the front page for long.  They have wasted multiple times that on the G8 Summit /fake lake and over-the-top security, the helicopter purchase debacle and even the Cohen Commission’s fish study ($26M to interview scientists who have been saying the same thing for years and then shelving the report is a HUGE waste of money). Look at the submarine scandal.  The slashing of environmental laws for the petroleum industry.  The list goes on and on.   And don’t get me started on the dozens of other crooked deals hatched by our governments these past few years.  Like I said, it is old news and all bad all the time.  And we all just move on….as a rule.

But not this time!  Not the CBC this time!  The CBC is fighting back.  Listen carefully, watch closely.  They are chewing and chewing every little morsel they can find and then hacking it back up for another chew if the there is room.  They will not let the senate issue die till Harper pulls the plug on the CBC.  They are against the Harper government and the gloves are off!

And should the senate scandal somehow get boring?  They will have dredged up something else.  Trust me on this: the CBC are at war!

The good part is that it is encouraging others.  Of course, the ‘free’ press and the ‘freelancers’ have been shrieking for years (Lala Yulie, The Tyee, The Commonsense Canadian just to name a few) but they have the same taint as I do……..we sound biased and partisan.  Our stripes show.  We don’t sound ‘balanced’.  And that is because we are not. I am just a nut and they are more credible.  But marginal nevertheless.

But the CBC still has the ring of professional journalism about them (undeserved but still there) and this is even putting some of the sell-outs to the corporate news outlets looking more critically at the way they do their job.  The Globe and Mail and even the Big Easy (the Vancouver Sun) are, infrequently still, sounding a smidge critical at times.

One can only hope.

Anyway, my point: things are changing.  Independent media, social media and even baby bloggers like Lala Yulie and Rafe Mair are starting to make changes from the sidelines.  It is good to see.  Let us keep our fingers crossed that these new voices can help sway a nation.  And let us hope that the CBC girds their loins to the sticking post and inspires an internal revolution of institutional thinking so as to support that.  Maybe the new revolution is possible by way of information..?  Who knows?

On the theme of Hallowe’en, I have a small tale to tell.  It’s about voices.  We hear ém quite often despite living remote and usually miles from anyone.  Of course, we hear wolves howling and eagles shrieking and we even hear the trailing edge of conversations from moving kayakers now and then as they ply up and down the channel but I am not talking about them.  I am talking about the spirit voices.  Ghosts, maybe.  The ones that whisper in the night.

“Do you hear that?”

“Yeah.  I’ve heard it before.  Can’t make it out but it sounds like voices.  Waddya think it is?”

“Dunno.  I can’t make it out either but it definitely sounds like voices.  Like campfire conversation or something.  I hear what seems like words but none of them are distinct.  Nothing is clear.”

“Me, too.  And I have listened hard.  The voices usually come around after dark and more frequently in the summer but I heard them last night and it is October”.

“Scared?” 

“No.  They don’t seem malevolent.  They don’t sound bad or anything.  Just voices.  Just conversation.  They always sound as if they are just a smidge north of here, ya know.  Not south  Not west.  Kinda north with maybe a bit of east…like they were on the beach where we don’t have a beach. ”

“Yeah.  That’s where I hear it, too.” 

“So, do we tell anyone?”

Nah.  I don’t think so.  Who’d believe it?”  

The outside of the new studio is finished!  (Of course, like any building, it is never ever truly finished – even the outside – but, for all intents and purposes it is.  I will eventually extend the deck rails to connect up with the building and I will likely refinish the doors but they are still performing the basic function regardless.  We are done with the outside practically speaking.  Ooops…’cept for the chimney which we’ll do later…. Still, lockup is lockup and we can lock up!)

And October hasn’t even ended yet!  We are ahead of schedule.  Which is great for me.  I love that.  Sal?  Well, not so much.  She has her own agendas and they have been put on hold while we get the studio at least weather ready.  So, pretty soon now we will get on again with things in the usual way – her doing hers, me doing mine.  But she’ll still do the electrical.  Otherwise I’ll do the interior myself.  Pretty much.  We’ll do the ceiling together, too, but after that, she is gone.

So she thinks, anyway.

The truth is I am a bit of a pain in the butt when I am ‘into’ one of my projects.  Even if Sally is busy doing something else, I will often call out, “Hey, Sal!  Could you come over here for a minute?  Here, just hold this for a minute while I get this nail in….”  “Hey, Sal!  Could you come over here a minute and just….”  And, to her credit, she is always there for me.  She’ll come.  She’ll hold.  She’ll wait till it fits (several extra cuts then a new piece altogether).  Then she will leave and get back to what she was doing.  Usually good naturedly, too.  She’s very patient and tolerant with me and I kinda rely on it.  It is how things get done out here – she does her job and half of mine, too.

Still, it is nice to show off the pictures.  The building is only 16 by 12.  192sft.  And that is measuring the outside.  The inside is made smaller by the 6 inch walls and so the useable square footage is 11 by 15 or 165 sft.  NOT huge.  But it is going to be big enough and it has plenty of light with the two windows, four skylights and, of course, the French doors.

I’ll make shelving and a workbench when finishing the inside. And I’ll add two large shelves at the eight-foot level to create mini-lofts at both ends increasing storage by almost 50 sft as well.  Naturally, I will have outgrown the damn thing by the time it is complete but, really………that just means I GET TO BUILD ANOTHER SHED!

I just overheard Sally say something about ‘lock-up’, too.  But I think she may have been referring to me!