Fits and Starts

In a scene in the movie "Swing Time," Fred Astaire had to toss an umbrella across a room, into an umbrella stand. On the day of filming, it just didn't go his way. He later said,

"I did it 45 times, and it always hit the edge. So I said, 'That's it! Tomorrow morning, first thing, I'm coming back, and I'm going to get [it] … I came back next morning fresh as a daisy, and that umbrella went into the stand on the first take."

I can't begin to tell how many times things have gone like this at times for me --- where the feel of something isn't right and you know you should quit or do something else for a while, and come back to the problem later. There is a great amount of wisdom in knowing the moment when you have to take a step back, rather than pressing on and making a problem worse by building up frustration. Working while angry is not generally conducive to productivity --- things get thrown, work gets sloppy and the anger consumes energy and tires its host. Admitting that something isn't working, rethinking and regrouping is not a sign of failure. A break often lets us see the problem in a different way --- either through analysis, remembering something forgotten, visualizing something going right and the steps necessary, and in physical challenges like in Mr. Astaire's case, getting a fresh spatial read on the situation and what the solution is going to take. I'm a big fan of productive breaks when there's something else that can be worked on.

And then there are some days when it's like the universe is telling you to go back to bed and wait for tomorrow. I had one of those days several years ago. It started with running out of battery charge in the middle of shaving, and the day went downhill from there. I don't remember the specifics, but I do remember that quite literally, nothing --- not one thing --- went right. In the evening I decided to wash a load of clothes and "try to get something productive done today." About a minute after the water started running into the washing machine, the plastic casing on the whole-house filter, located directly above the washer, cracked and stared spewing water, water everywhere. There are days like that. But, fortunately I've found, these days are often closely followed by ones where it seems like nothing can go wrong. It all evens out in the end.

10 November 2010

It's been awhile since my last post and I'm entering a blog post to inform all of my readers (that is, myself) that I am still alive and kicking. Since I last wrote, me and my cousin installed a tile floor in the same basement as in the post immediately below. In flooring you are given certain givens that are hard (and sometimes nigh impossible) to overcome satisfactorily. In many other applications, like the wall veneering, things can be mitigated and jury-rigged.... but a floor has to be level. Or, as level as one can get it. It would've helped in this particular house if the guys who poured the foundation / basement floor back in the '60s had actually been sober or gave a sh-- what they were doing. We managed to produce something workable out of the nightmare scenario that was present. I have done a 4' x 5' tiling job before using adhesive and pre-mixed grout, but it would have been nice to learn the from-scratch mastic and sanded grout tiling on a level floor. It was nice to be able to work with my cousin on this one; besides good-natured ribbing about him being a Democrat, we see things eye-to-eye and get along very well.

Foremost, I think, is our appreciation for using quality materials and doing a job correctly one time, as opposed to times when a homeowner buys straw and expects the installer to turn it into gold. Doing a job right the first time is always less expensive than paying to put in shoddy materials, then paying to deconstruct and reinstall when they fail. I ran into a family friend at Lowe's a while ago who was finally buying a good-quality kitchen faucet after having gone through four cheap models in the previous 5 years. This person has a buddy who'll install the faucet for a case of beer, so that is something of a saving grace rather than paying a plumber. Now, the savings on the so-called "cheap" models is about $40 give or take. But, rather than put in a reliable Kohler or Moen brand for a one-off $200, this guy probably spent $580 to $600 on faucets in the last five years. Whereas, picking the right faucet at the outset would have saved him about $400 and four cases of beer (plus, as he said it, the "Wife Inconvenience Factor" of not having water during each of those removal and installs).

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Got Ruff a so-called "Gentle Leader" collar yesterday and after some fits and starts, he was doing pretty well with it today on a walk on the dirt roads up the hill where I like to walk with him. This collar's function is to provide some tension on the muzzle so there is no lunging or pulling while walking. Apparently, this muzzle hold is what the wolf pack alpha uses to keep the others in line; nature and 10,000 years of domestication hasn't changed this methodology. Even for the first use (and I found out after the walk that I had missed a doohickey that eliminates slack in one of the straps), it seemed to calm him down a lot. I expect to be putting it to the test more in the coming days and weeks, and I'm certain it'll get my unvarnished opinion right here on TMT.