Glorious boredom? Or just bored to tears?

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Ennui. Pronounced "On wee," it can mean "glorious boredom," like when you're hanging out on the beach in Aruba.

Well, I'm bored, but there's nothing fucking glorious about it. So I meet the other definition -- "utter desperate boredom."

Hockey season's over for the Hawks. And the Bulls' playoff hopes may have been dashed by Rose's knee injury. The Cubs suck, and I don't give a shit about the White Sox. I guess that leaves only the Food Network to brighten my life lately.

Oh sure, there's the family. They're fun. And there's Facebook -- a major time suck for the entire planet. But I run the risk of being too ever-present, and alienating my fan-base. All eight of you. So I figure I need to write another blog entry to justify my existence.

The job scene still sucks. Construction on the whole is still depressed. I've visited a hundred job sites in the past five months looking for a gig as a carpenter, and sent out a hundred resumes looking for work as a superintendent. The union hasn't helped a bit, other than funding some skills-improvement classes that I've taken. But until the general economy picks up, it's still side jobs -- and Robin's job -- that are getting us through.

On the good side, we have a robin family nesting in our trellis over the walkout of our back deck. There are four eggs, and Miss Robin is a doting parent, giving us all kinds of Hell when we walk out accidentally -- we generally use the front entrances, to keep her stress level down. The eggs should hatch this weekend or the early part on next week. That'll be nice, as long as they don't get eaten by crows, which happened last year. Major bummer.

And also on the good side, my maniac neighbor is finally taking their garbage cans back to their house within a few days of the garbage pick up. They still don't mow their lawn, but any improvement is a good thing, right?

And also, tomorrow AT&T comes by to upgrade my internet modem to fiberoptics. I called to bitch about the price of my ISP service, and the bastards succeeded in upselling me on the service. But my bill will be $6 a month less. So that's something. Plus faster downloads, so we can utilize Sarah's Netflix account more expediently.

Other than that, there's nothing fun about being out of steady work. My Mom's been sick lately, and it frees me up to visit her a lot more often, but that's pretty weak sauce in the consolation department, really. I'd rather squeeze in my visits between hurried dinners and long work hours. Instead, we sit and watch People's Court and Judge Judy until my eyeballs droop.

And on that note, is Judge Judy a bitch, or what? You just know that she's gonna end up a prison guard in Hell when it's all over for her... and you know, with my recent luck, she'll be working my section. Shit.

I'll blog again when I can think of something less depressing. Sorry.

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Don't Track the Economy into your House

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My wife Robin stepped in dog shit this afternoon, and tracked it in the house. Somehow, that seems to be a perfect metaphor for our lives over the past several weeks.

In my last post, I bragged about how I loved the company I work for... they were paying me Superintendent's money while I was doing laborer's work. That's because the economy is a lot like what Robin stepped in today. Then things picked up and I got a project of my own to run for a few months. Back to being the boss! I like it!

Well, that situation didn't last. It seems that the family-owned company that has employed me for 30+ years had undergone a family feud, and the major partner took all his money out of the bank. The other partner -- who had been doing all the work but taking only a third of the financial "risks," decided to just close the doors and retire.

We had a few jobs still going, but I got leapfrogged in seniority this year by the owner's nephew. So I got laid off on my 29th wedding anniversary. And got told there was no coming back. Sort of put a damper on the mood around here.

At first they said I could keep my truck if I paid my own gas, and just turn it in some time after Christmas, when they company officially closes. But the other partner heard of this kind offer, and he over-ruled it -- made me give back the truck immediately. That's a nice way to treat a guy who's worked for you 30 years.

So I joined the many millions of others who've been bushwhacked by recent economic reality. I got a couple of juicy side jobs, so lately we've done OK. And being off steady work makes it easy to schedule work around the house. On the other hand, it makes it almost impossible to avoid those jobs any longer...

But I have a few months of unemployment benefits to enjoy, and Robin still has a great job. And we have a greater appreciation of just how good we've had it so far.

And the day was beautiful today. Our neighbor's dog got out of his shock-collar and wandered into our yard about an hour age. Fido, our guard-Beagle, went nuts barking, and we let him out to defend our ranch. Of course, all he did was play with Blackjack, and then refused to come back in the house. When Robin went to get a leash for Blackjack, she stepped right into a fresh pile of the economy, and didn't notice until it was too late -- she was in the house.

Yuck!

Thankfully, Pine-Sol saved the day. I wonder if we could dump a couple barrels of that stuff on Washington, D.C.?

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One Hand Washes the Other -- Unless it's Trying to Kill You

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I'm beginning to think my left hand is possessed. I'm right handed, and throughout my life I suppose I've favored my right hand to some degree (insert your sex joke here), but over the last eight months, I think my left hand has been trying to exact a measure of revenge for my favoritism. It's trying to kill me.

In the last eight months, I have managed to smash, cut or otherwise mangle my left hand -- or integral parts thereof -- on six different occasions. Two times the damage has involved crushing or damaging my wedding ring. But that ain't no thang, right?

Oh sure, I'm a tough Construction Dude... cuts and scrapes are nothing -- they're a dime a dozen. We Construction Dudes laugh at scrapes, scoff at minor burns, put on a Band-Aid when most other suburbanites or "FHO's" (Fucking Home Owners) would run to the local ER for a stitch or a shot...

At least we'd have you believe that.

In reality, sometimes it's just that we don't have time. Like last year, when I shot a nail through my finger. I was in the middle of a very important cash side job. The nail was very new -- not rusty. And I needed to stay through the finish -- no time for a three-hour ER break. So I stayed, and I got a tetnaus shot later.

Or the month before, when I was trying to hang a HUGE steel door, and it slipped. Not a HUGE slip -- just a gentle slip to the left, about three inches. Unfortunately, there were only two inches between the door and the concrete structure. My wedding ring kept the door from crushing my finger. But nothing kept the door from crushing my wedding ring. I had to use pliers to get the ring off my finger, which was rapidly turning blue. I used a jeweler to repair my ring. Let's call that a break-even kinda day...

But there came a period of relative calm -- nothing more ominous than the occasional hang nail or hitting the base of my thumb with a hammer while striking (at) a chisel... somewhat painful but no biggee... Then things got seriously bad.

My son Jimmy bought a boat, or rather, his wife Vicky bought him a boat for his birthday. They both invited Robin and I on a shakedown cruise on the Fox River. At the dock, Jimmy backed the trailer into the water, and I had the honor of releasing the winch for the inaugural launch. But when I attempted a release, it sort of exploded in my hands -- grabbing my left hand, by the wedding ring, and pulling it into the winch. In a microsecond, my hand was flipped over my head, and the winch was spinning -- the boat heading out into the river.

Turns out the winch "keeper" had failed. My wedding ring was now oblong, no longer a circle. With a nice divot. But no blood and no missing fingers. We had a nice boat ride, and an exciting afternoon of securing the boat, and all was well.

Instead of a Jeweler, this time I slipped my wedding ring down the shaft of a "spud wrench" -- a steel wrench with a tapered handle -- and used a trim hammer to beat it into round. Then I used my carpenter's trim files to make it right.

The next day, I was called back to work after a long layoff. Back in the "day" I was a superintendent, but with the economy in the pits, we don't have enough work. But my company is gracious enough to call me back to do even the lowly laborers work -- at my old superintendent's pay -- so I LOVE them.

This week, we were clearing out the old ceiling of a school lobby, along with two exit vestibules. I removed sixteen large fire doors from their frames, and they needed to be loaded onto a skid. Like a can-do kind of boss, I helped the guys load them on to a pallet, which is when a stray piece of metal cut my left ring finger, leaving a cut almost two inches long. I managed to get my paw out in the nick of time -- in fact, if I had been wearing my wedding ring, it would have been REALLY ugly.

It was a three-Band-Aid cut. On my left hand. But still, No Big Deal.

But on Saturday it got even better. We were removing a steel-and-glass window wall. It was erected in 5-foot wide by 14-feet-tall segments. We had removed three sections, but the fourth was being difficult -- the section containing the door frame wouldn't come down. I decided to show my crew how it's done... and I would have succeeded uneventfully if the welds along the top hadn't failed.

But they did. The door frame, all 400 pounds of it, twisted as it fell, knocking me ass-over-teakettle, and I cut my hand on something I landed on. Which hand? My left hand, of course. So I had to go to the ER to get fixed up -- nasty abrasions and some shoulder X-rays. I "scalped" my left palm, taking a couple of square inches of skin off -- and there wasn't enough skin left to stitch it together. So they planted some artificial skin/turf on my palm. Sort of a skin-farm growing on my palm.

Didn't even make it eight hours until I drew blood again. The glass door on the medicine cabinet mysteriously fell out of its frame just as we were sitting down for dinner. When I picked up the pivot to examine the wreckage, I cut my left middle finger. You can imagine the look on my face -- sort of a combination of "Duh" and "WTF."

So I'm heading over to the Catholic Church up town. Maybe if I dip my left hand in Holy Water it'll lay off for a while. It can't hurt.

Spring is in the Air -- and on the edges of the Roads

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Gosh, it seems like winter's almost over and spring is just around the coroner. Can't wait. The snow's melting, and the entire winter's worth of frozen dog shit is revealing itself day by day along the quiet suburban streets. How grand. But anyway, the weather's getting better. So I've got that going for me. Which is nice.

Daylight Savings Time starts after this weekend, which should give everyone one extra hour of daylight to do whatever it is people do during daylight. In my case, that would be nothing. I've been unemployed since late October, which is my longest personal streak of ass-sittin' since 1987. Still waiting for the economy to rebound.

I saw the layoff coming, and lined up a nice bunch of side jobs, but they've all wrapped up. And I've caught up on most of the fix-it projects around the house -- those that don't involve huge wads of money -- and now I'm in damage-control-only mode.

So I have a lot of loafing time. If you're my friend on Facebook, you already know this. I've found a wealth of semi-amusing crap on the web, and I repost several times a day on FB. I'm mainly stealing from theChive, theBrigade, theOnion, throttle.com, and a few others. Believe me, those sites can suck your day DRY with their nonsense, and links to other nonsense. So my days are full.

Plus, every Wednesday, I get to drag my neighbor's empty garbage cans from the street into their driveway, to remind them that, hey, MONDAY was garbage day, and everyone else on the street has already taken their cans out of the public way.

As far as looking for work, I sent out a load of resumes and made the rounds, but construction work is very down. I took a chance on a career change by applying for a spot as Carpenter Foreperson at the Art Institute of Chicago, but that didn't pay off either. It was a great-sounding gig -- modifying the galleries and building the displays for multi-million dollar art exhibits. Inside work, paid holidays & vacations.

While I was interviewing and waiting for the results, I had to back off my nuttier postings on the web and on Facebook, but it was worth the risk. I bought a new suit, got a haircut, shined up my teeth and got new contacts... here goes!

I actually got pretty close -- made the second interview, got down to the final three choices, but no luck. So now I feel like the bronze/silver medal winning doofuses (doofi?) at the Olympics -- everyone says we should be proud to finish as high up as we did! I am proud -- but there's still no fucking paychecks for second or third place in the Employment Olympics.

Taking that job would have meant a major pay cut, quitting the Carpenter's Union, losing my insurance -- a whole lot of major changes. But it would have meant a paycheck and a potential end-game to this working-for-a-living thing we all seem to be trying to wrap up as early as possible. Plus I wouldn't be at the whim of every economic downturn that comes along... But it was not to be. So back to Plan A -- hoping my old employer comes up with some jobs, and soon! And hoping like Hell that the economic upturn will hit my sector sooner than later...

But rather than sulk and feel sorry for myself, I choose to rejoice in my blessings. I have a wife with a great job; we're not in danger of losing our house; I have three wonderful adult children -- and only two of them still live at home while they're finishing school and/or send out resumes!

I rejoice that I have a dog that rarely bites me, and in fact, only snarls occasionally. I have an entire aquarium full of guppies that absolutely LOVE me! (Hey guys! It's the chubby guy! He's coming over here again! I bet he's gonna throw food at us again! Let's swim back and forth like maniacs!)

And I rejoice that Spring is truly coming. I know this because the sun is warm, the birds are chirping, and the one thing that always tells me that the snow is going to be gone, without question, for another year: State Farm has just sent me a bill for the insurance on my snowmobile.

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Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle -- Hey! Come Back Here With That!

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I read a funny article today. Some kids stole the Salvation Army donation pot outside a store in Addison. Witnesses said four teenagers grabbed the pot, stuffed it into a car and drove away. What the heck? What's the world coming to?

The local cops are checking the store security video to see if they can identify the thieves. If they catch them, I hope I can help post their bond. They were doing the world -- or at least the shoppers at that specific store -- a favor. Giving them a few minutes off from the month-long passive-aggressive panhandling that IS the Christmas Season according to the Salvation Army.

Before anyone declares me a Scrooge -- or worse -- I have to say that I approve of their mission, and I donate to their cause. And I greatly respect the people actually ringing those bells and freezing their collective and individual asses off this time of year. They are unfailingly polite, whether you donate or dodge them. But how about a day or two off during the week?

My local Jewel must be a Gold Mine for the Army. Both doors are covered, and every day, every shift, it's a new bell ringer. You never get the opportunity to get to know one of them; to make eye contact; to get a nod and a smile and a PASS because they know it's your fifteenth trip into the store since last Thursday and it's MAYBE OK NOT TO STUFF A DOLLAR IN THIS TIME JUST ONCE!

I even mentioned it today to the guy at the north entrance, how I never see the same bell-ringer twice. "They didn't just start doing this, you know," he said with a chuckle. I stuck in a dollar. It was my second one today, maybe 20th of the past week.

And they don't stop there -- the Army's direct mail continues. But honestly, if they'd offer me a lapel pin for $50 or so, I'd buy it, just to dodge the daily door-tax at Jewel, Ace Hardware, the adult-video store, etc.

Not that I'm against charity. I donate. To the Salvation Army, the Leukemia/Lymphoma Association, my church. (Just check my tax records on that one! It's amazing how generous I am. And if I go to Hell for lying to the IRS, it's almost certainly a case of bad record-keeping in Heaven, but I digress.)

Anyway, I just don't like the Army's omnipresence. Which is why I laughed when I read that someone stole their pot of money. Those kids probably have more one-dollar bills than the average stripper.

Which just makes the phrase "Ho ho ho" seem even funnier, now that I think of it.

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DO NOT Try This At Home

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I don't think the word "Ouch" came out of my mouth, not even once.

Oh, I'll admit, the first few moments after I shot a nail through my finger a lot of thoughts went through my head, and more than a few words came out my mouth, but none of them were "Ouch." Go figure.

Last Saturday my son Steven and I were working on a side job, framing up a few walls and installing a few pre-hung doors to separate some rooms in a Kindergarten. We had been at it for about an hour, and to my mind, we weren't going as fast as I had hoped. I needed to finish to a certain point before we could leave and I didn't want to have to work Sunday. A late quit was out of the question, since my buds from University of Illinois were getting together that night, and I didn't want to miss the party. It's been 29 years since we graduated, and I was really looking forward to seeing everybody.

So I suppose I was rushing. And when my hand slipped as I steadied a stud in the wall frame, everything happened at once. The nail gun fired, my hand felt like it exploded, and I found myself skipping and hopping in several directions at once, squeezing the living daylights out of my left middle finger. I hopped/skipped out to my truck to get a band aid, desperately hoping that that was all I would need. I couldn't make myself look -- if it was bad, it would ruin the day's work and screw up my life in a major way. The electrician would have wasted a trip. The client would be very unhappy. And I would have to pay the ER bill myself -- working a sidejob with no Workman's Comp insurance has it's risks.

No band aids in the truck. Well, they were there, but I wasn't able to locate them in the three seconds I spent looking. I took a chance and looked at my finger -- bleeding out of both sides, but the nail missed my fingernail and it missed the bone. It went through at an odd angle, and apparently I yanked my finger off the nail without mangling much flesh. Damned good luck. And I was still too shocky to feel pain. So I squeezed the Hell out of it again, and went to find something to wrap it up with.

About this time, Steven noticed my odd behavior. "Are you alright? Did you do something to your hand?" he asked, noticing that I was about 17 shades of pale lighter than I was 5 minutes ago, and gripping my left hand like I was afraid it was going to escape from the end of my wrist...

I found my glasses and two cough drops, which had all flown out of my shirt pocket in the initial leap. I unwrapped a cough drop and tossed it in my mouth like it was a huge Oxycontin.

"Go in the truck -- get me two Advils. I shot a fucking nail through my finger," I explained, as calmly as a man with a fresh nail-sized hole in his finger might explain. Not exactly Clint Eastwood cool, but at least I wasn't crying.

Steven was suitably impressed -- he offered to drive me to the ER or wherever. He seemed skeptical when I said I was OK and that we'll just keep on like nothing happened. "Shouldn't you get a doctor to look at it? Don't you need a shot or something?" No thanks -- I just had one... (RIM SHOT)

I wrapped the finger in a kleenex, and wrapped that with some green electrical tape to keep pressure on it. I was operating at Level 10 Denial. If I just believed it would be alright, the it would be alright. Steve got me 3 Advils, just to be sure, and ran some water in the sink. He turned on the hot water in all the excitement, but I washed down the Advil with it anyway. Then I pounded the nail back out of the 2x4 and put it in my pocket. I don't know why -- maybe subconsciously I thought if it was in my pocket, it couldn't do that to me again.

The finger bled for a while, which is a good thing. Bleeding cleans the wound, I thought. And I changed the bandage every hour or so. I washed it off about noon with some hand sanitizer, at which point I said a lot of things that substituted for "ouch," but were much more colorful. That was the first time it really hurt -- up till then it just throbbed and ached.

We finished up the job a little ahead of schedule. Aside from a garbage can full of bloody bandages, you'd never even know I did something really, really stupid in there this morning. I'm sure some Kindergarten teacher had a puzzled look on her face at some point on Monday morning.

And once he knew I was OK, Steven got to use my accident as a shield... every time I gave him grief about anything, he'd just grin and add, "this coming from the man who shot a nail through his finger this morning."

So we learned a valuable lesson, made some money, and I never even said ouch.

Until the tetanus shot Monday morning. Ouch.