Mr. Productivity

It's been about a week since I wrote anything here, but I haven't exactly been goofing off. On the contrary, I got all kinds of stuff done lately. It's as if my last name were Workerton, and my first name, Workie.

I did stuff in the yard:

See that in-ground faucet? It wasn't there before. I had to dig pretty deep for the pipe it attaches to. After finishing the installation, I turned on the supply valve, and it worked! No leaks. Water comes out when I turn on the faucet, and stops when I turn it off. Success! Oh, one little thing though... another faucet that I recently installed in a different part of the yard used to work, but now it doesn't. Where's the emoticon for a puzzled look and head scratching? Pipes are tricky!

I played appliance repairman with our washing machine, which recently went on the fritz. (Whatever "the fritz" is, lots of things at our place seem to go on it.)

I had almost every part of this unit out, and somehow managed to get it all back together. And it works! Washes clothes again. Rinses and spins them too. And there are no leaks. After finishing this job, I only had a few screws left over. Obviously they were extra and unneeded, like your appendix. I'm pretty much a genius with electronic and mechanical things, and I (usually) save a fortune by not calling in the professionals. That digital multimeter isn't just there to look good in the picture. Okay, that's largely why it's there, but I did use it once during the repair process.

My neighbor was installing tile in his kitchen this weekend, so I went over and helped with that. We did pretty good, for amateurs.

It looks like wood, but it's actually ceramic tile. Cool, huh?

I'm definitely NOT a genius with tile, so I wanted to get some experience (in someone else's house, hehe!). I like learning new skills.

For the biggest job of all, I spent some time in the garage. There's a problem with the clutch on my old Ford pickup, so the transmission had to come out. Here's the truck:

And here's the transmission:

Notice that the two are now completely separated--proof I was successful. I did this alone, with no help at all. I do not recommend this method. If you're considering removing a transmission, take my advice and get a friend to join in the fun. It's much less exciting that way, and excitement isn't something you need in your garage. During this operation, I invented several new swear words, never before spoken by man. Please don't remind me that removal is the easy part, and I still need to put this back in. I'll nearly destroy cross that bridge when I come to it. Hopefully I will not end up with too many extra bolts.

A guy can't just work all the time though, can he? Sunday we had lots of family and friends over, and we cooked out. I grilled burgers, hot dogs, and chicken kabobs, and also made a huge batch of Dutch oven potatoes.

Thin sliced potatoes + bacon + cheese + 1.5 hrs in an iron pot = culinary bliss.

I must have not used enough charcoal, because these took forever to cook. When they eventually got done, they were delicious. I guess that's a win.

So you could say I'm pretty handy around the house. Fixing things and building things... even cooking things sometimes. I don't do it perfectly, but I can do it all.

Now, for my next project...