A perfect working day

10/15/06 Sunday
6:00 in the morning. Allen made it out yesterday. That’s both good and bad. I just came inside from looking at the trailer again. Cathy came over yesterday. Of course I didn’t hear her coming so she gave me a start when she said “Hi”. I don’t remember what I was working on when she got there but when she asked what she could do I don’t think I had an answer for her. It takes me a while to formulate an answer to a question when I’m focused on something else. I did ask her to go to the store and pick up some screws and paint brushes. I forgot she did that and bought another paint brush later on yesterday.

I called Allen at 12:00 to see when he was coming over. He was just getting up so I told him to wake up and come on over. He did so but it was hours later. I had just talked to Cherie about picking up a hamburger so asked Allen if he’d like one. I ran upstairs to tell her and after a brief conversation we went outside. Allen was under the trailer with my drill and socket wrench messing with something. “Allen, what are you doing?” I asked and he started going on about getting a nut on a bolt. Come to find out, in the few minutes I was upstairs he had decided to drill holes and mount my floorboards. In doing so he screwed up my plans for this. I tried to tell him and he argued not really listening to what I said. I finally got through.

Allen was here to do sheetmetal work. It was his concept and he is Mr. Union Sheetmetal Worker by golly so I need to get him working on that. The strange thing is that now Allen is depending on me for direction. He’s supposed to know what he’s doing but it’s like he is lost. I’d ask him something like “What do we need to get this done?” and his answer would be “I don’t know, what do you want to do?”. AAAND WEE’RE OFFF!!! How quickly I forget how hard Allen is to work around. Finally I get tired of this and say “Damn it Allen, Your supposed to know what your doing and I don’t know squat about sheetmetal so I’m depending on your expertise so WHAT DO WE NEED?”.

It was still confusion but at least we started moving. I helped Allen hold up a strip of the metal as he marked where he would need to cut. I had figured he would start with the nose of the trailer so it would be covered with a single sheet but he started at the back. I ran upstairs to get a fresh battery because, despite us talking about it he had not brought his cordless drills he was so proud of. When I came back Allen was fastening the sheetmetal with the side I painted facing out. I had painted it as protection against rust and was going to put that side facing in because I planned on painting the outside with a bright chrome finish. Now it’s bare metal that is guaranteed to rust thus it will streak the sides with rust stains over the years.

It’s going to be a perfect day to work with little or no wind and the temperatures climbing to nearly sixty. I had thought about pulling off the sheetmetal and painting it but that’s allot of work and time is of the essence. Instead I will mix up a batch of fiberglass to fill the gaps in Allen’s sheetmetal job and perhaps wire the dome lights in. Gotta get moving.