by now you shoulda somehow realized what you gotta do
I'm no stranger to being in over my head. In fact, I would dare say, in the parlance of our times, it's how I roll. Many times it's due to rank procrastination. I am often told that I live in the last minute. I don't just live there - I camped out, adversely possessed it, and built a summer cottage on it. If you're not waiting until the last minute... well, you're probably just some pansy with enough free time to be afforded the luxury of not waiting until the last minute. You're probably the type of person who watches Sports Center more than once a day and rents movies on weekdays.
Also, beyond procrastination, I have a nasty habit of undertaking tasks which lack any real probability of success. Remember that time that I had a job in California and I was going to move there but then that job fell through and I decided to just go anyway? What is that about? Who does that?
And this week, on the Halo job site, somebody wanted to destroy my proverbial sweater and they pulled a certain thread as they walked away. If you're counting at home, that makes two allusions to songs from my spectacularly miserable middle school tenure. But I digress... Anyway, the thread in question?
Some idiot decided to build a wall. A Wonderwall. As in, "I wonder what kind of moron built this wall?"
Allow me to back-track. The pastor of CFG (our latest Halo venture, in case you haven't read my blog, like, at all) decided he wanted a partition wall built through the back office. One side of the wall would house the bathroom fixtures, and the other half would be the hallway to the new office that the 9:30 Mission Trippers built last month. Simple enough.
The pastor decides it's a great idea to get his friend, who is also a pastor, and who used to be a contractor, to build this wall. Splendid, says I, the less framing I have to do, the better. So this guy frames up a partition wall on Thursday night. We showed up Saturday morning to finish some other assorted tasks and also to marvel at this new wall that sprouted forth overnight.
Well, you know what a picture is worth...
A. That is a window. That is my hand, indicating that the wall stud has been framed overlapping said window.
B. Notice that the wall stud has been cut around the blinds. The removable blinds. The blinds that could have, you know... just been removed. Apparently, the Midnight Framer was working under the impression that these blinds carried some inherent magical or historical value that required the structural integrity of the entire wall to be compromised in order to preserve them in their natural state.
I pointed this out to the pastor. His response: "Oh, we can just take those blinds down." Well, certainly. Now that someone has gone to the trouble to build a wall around them, I don't see any convincing reason to leave them up.
Who does that? The same person that did this:
The wall stud is overlapping the switch plate! What? By the time someone were to put sheetrock, primer, and paint on that, you wouldn't even be able to flip the switch! The switch that, might I add, the Halo electrician installed just two weeks ago! Now the Halo electrician is going to have to come back out, pull the switch box off of the king stud and run the line through the wall stud.
Well, that's what he would be doing if I weren't going to raze that wretched partition and move it back eight inches. Which is actually more difficult than it sounds because there's not a stud eight inches back. There is a stud sixteen inches back, but that would put the wall inside the shower. Yes, there's a shower. No, I don't know why a church needs a shower. Some churches just have showers - leave me alone about it.
To get that wall back eight inches we have to put in studs and top plates. Which is actually more difficult than it sounds because the pastor loves his Magic Friend Wall. Just loves it. Thinks it's the greatest wall since that great one in China. He wants us to sheetrock it as is. Lovely. If the inspector comes out, I'll let him tell you to tear it down and rebuild it eight inches back.
Oh well. Not like I have anything else to do on Saturday. Every Saturday. For the rest of my life.
Also, beyond procrastination, I have a nasty habit of undertaking tasks which lack any real probability of success. Remember that time that I had a job in California and I was going to move there but then that job fell through and I decided to just go anyway? What is that about? Who does that?
And this week, on the Halo job site, somebody wanted to destroy my proverbial sweater and they pulled a certain thread as they walked away. If you're counting at home, that makes two allusions to songs from my spectacularly miserable middle school tenure. But I digress... Anyway, the thread in question?
Some idiot decided to build a wall. A Wonderwall. As in, "I wonder what kind of moron built this wall?"
Allow me to back-track. The pastor of CFG (our latest Halo venture, in case you haven't read my blog, like, at all) decided he wanted a partition wall built through the back office. One side of the wall would house the bathroom fixtures, and the other half would be the hallway to the new office that the 9:30 Mission Trippers built last month. Simple enough.
The pastor decides it's a great idea to get his friend, who is also a pastor, and who used to be a contractor, to build this wall. Splendid, says I, the less framing I have to do, the better. So this guy frames up a partition wall on Thursday night. We showed up Saturday morning to finish some other assorted tasks and also to marvel at this new wall that sprouted forth overnight.
Well, you know what a picture is worth...
A. That is a window. That is my hand, indicating that the wall stud has been framed overlapping said window.
B. Notice that the wall stud has been cut around the blinds. The removable blinds. The blinds that could have, you know... just been removed. Apparently, the Midnight Framer was working under the impression that these blinds carried some inherent magical or historical value that required the structural integrity of the entire wall to be compromised in order to preserve them in their natural state.
I pointed this out to the pastor. His response: "Oh, we can just take those blinds down." Well, certainly. Now that someone has gone to the trouble to build a wall around them, I don't see any convincing reason to leave them up.
Who does that? The same person that did this:
The wall stud is overlapping the switch plate! What? By the time someone were to put sheetrock, primer, and paint on that, you wouldn't even be able to flip the switch! The switch that, might I add, the Halo electrician installed just two weeks ago! Now the Halo electrician is going to have to come back out, pull the switch box off of the king stud and run the line through the wall stud.
Well, that's what he would be doing if I weren't going to raze that wretched partition and move it back eight inches. Which is actually more difficult than it sounds because there's not a stud eight inches back. There is a stud sixteen inches back, but that would put the wall inside the shower. Yes, there's a shower. No, I don't know why a church needs a shower. Some churches just have showers - leave me alone about it.
To get that wall back eight inches we have to put in studs and top plates. Which is actually more difficult than it sounds because the pastor loves his Magic Friend Wall. Just loves it. Thinks it's the greatest wall since that great one in China. He wants us to sheetrock it as is. Lovely. If the inspector comes out, I'll let him tell you to tear it down and rebuild it eight inches back.
Oh well. Not like I have anything else to do on Saturday. Every Saturday. For the rest of my life.
posted by hoov, esq at 12:19 AM
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