No More Second Hand
God
I awoke with high expectations for the day. I had planted a
number of business seeds last week and I was certain that today I was going to
get to see a little green poking through the top of the soil; or at least get a
phone call. By 11am phones were silent and inboxes for emails were deserted. “Hum”,
I thought as I prepared to leave for yoga, “Is it really gonna be another one
of those days?”
As I rode to class I thought about Monday mornings in the
corporate world and how it would always take until late Tuesday or Wednesday
for me to get answers on things from those folks, as they needed to ramp back
up and my days were 24/7; in that I owned the place and had the luxury of
spending nights-weekends-holidays cranking stuff out for the sake of “progress”.
Class was good with one of our favorite instructors and I spent
time afterward going over the Scope of Work I had put together for the Owner
with several contractors. Most of the work is required because of poor
workmanship by previous contractors so I spent a lot of time going over details
and more details written, graphic and “in
the attic” where the temperature was deadly.
One of the good things about my training was that I learned
from really talented folks who knew how to do it right and only do it once. I
am cursed with an inherent “?really?” meter so if something smells fishy with a
proposed solution I can generally sift through it until I “feel” where the potential
problem will lie down the road and address it early on. Having to warrant my
own work for years has honed this skill.
As I rode home I thought of the structure shown in the photo
above. Saint Francis of Assisi – Ranchos de Taos,NM (the most painted/photographed church in North
America). It was first built in the 1500’s then burned a bunch of times and this
one built in the 1700s – Every year the parishioners all gather as a community
and mix adobe and straw and the women of the group apply it by hand all over the
exterior surfaces. They do it once (a year) and do it right. Their neighbors across
the mountain in Penasco got lazy a decade or so ago and got talked into
applying a latex based surfacing agent over their adobes. It looked GREAT on
the outside for year after year until one weekend the entire south side
collapsed. Then the east and west walls caved in. It appears that the latex
held in the moisture and would not let it escape and we all know from our
Southwestern Construction Algebra that moisture(m) x (a) adobe=MUD/YIKES…………Kind of gives a
whole other meaning to “Holy Sh%^ !!”. Needless to say the parishioners in Penasco now
pray in trailers. Children’s Children will be atoning for that one and all will
be forgiven from above but the bigger question will be “did they learn anything?”
I try not to get into those debates but
sometimes I do enjoy being a spectator.
I returned home to find “nada” on the phone or the inbox. “Yep,
it IS one of those days” I said out loud. I took the time to “converse” with Edy via FB-Txt and do a
bit of research on some things I had not gotten to last week. While doing
research I was reminded of one of my favorite author/thinkers and a poem he
wrote in 1940. His entire book is fascinating but the title poem has always
stuck with me and I'll share a small part of it for you:
“Here’s to verbs !”
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