Manversation

During some recent web surfing I came across the site ikea hacker, in which creative individuals from around the web submit ways in which they have modified (hacked) various items from the discount furniture giant to suit their individual needs. This got me to thinking that, as with so many things in life, there is not a simple black-and-white dichotomy here between those who make things and those who do not make things. There is instead what I would call a “creativity continuum” of progressively more creative endeavors starting with the consumer of manufactured goods at one end and culminating in the artisan who makes these goods almost entirely from raw materials at the other.

This article is about my initial observations about those two end points of the creativity continuum and some points in between. I’m looking forward to researching this further and learning more about the myriad forms of creative expression that make up the human experience.

By categorizing things, I’m not trying to put anyone down or say “this kind of artist is better than that kind.” Any form of creative expression is potentially a rewarding experience and we all have to start somewhere

However, it’s been my experience that the further someone goes on this theoretical creativity continuum, the more control and creativity he or she gets to exert on the finished product. It’s the difference between building something like a guitar from a kit and building it from scratch. In both cases, you’re going to (hopefully) have a rewarding experience, learn something new, and have a creative outlet, but in building one from scratch, you get to make a lot more choices – what kind of wood to use for the fingerboard? Rosewood? Ebony? Something less traditional like Hard Maple? All of these choices add up to a finished product that is more uniquely “you” than it would have been had you built from a kit. On the other hand, building a guitar is a pretty ambitious undertaking and maybe the first time around it is better to build one from a kit. We all have to start somewhere and someone who builds a guitar from a kit can use the skills learned by that experience when building the next one from scratch.

Now, without further ado, the creativity continuum:

The consumer: This represents the least creative point of the creativity continuum. In fact, this category really isn’t part of the continuum at all. If the consumer needs something his first response is to buy a product to fit that need. Of course we are all consumers in at least some areas of our lives as it is increasingly difficult in this modern world to be able to fix everything that needs fixing or make everything we need. However, I often find myself thinking, “Is there some way I could make this myself or make do with what I have?” That kind of thought doesn’t even cross the mind of the consumer. He simply wants it and wants it now and is willing to pay for it. I’m glad there are consumers as they are an important segment of the market and often drive innovation and creativity by their demand for improvements to existing products or for products that do not yet exist.

The crafter: To me this is the next level up from the consumer. The crafter embellishes existing products with her creative touches but does not fundamentally change the product. For example, the crafter might see an old desk she likes at a garage sale and spray paint it black to match her existing furniture. I also include in this point of the continuum those whose medium of creative expression primarily involves assembling things that were not made by themselves, such as beaders and scrap bookers.

The paint-by-numbers artist: I’m not really sure where to put this one in the continuum. Besides the obvious example of someone who well, paints by numbers, there are other examples of this within other handicrafts. For example, there are woodworkers who will only build things from someone else’s pre-drawn and measured plans, and seamstresses who only make dresses from patterns. When I’ve asked woodworkers I’ve known that work primarily in this fashion why they don’t want to design their own pieces, the response typically falls into one of two categories:

1. Fear of the design process – they might not have an artistic background and aren’t quite sure how to get started with design or they fear that their designs will “look wrong.”
2. Don’t want to get in the way of “doing” the craft. In other words, for them the joy is primarily in the actual execution of the physical tasks of the craft, in this case the sawing or chiseling of the wood, the fitting of precise joinery, or maintaining a set of chisels with razor sharp edges. Design is viewed a secondary consideration or a chore they would rather outsource to someone else.

The hacker / tinkerer: This is a fascinating point in the creativity continuum and as I mentioned above, this is what got me thinking of this whole idea of a “creativity continuum” in the first place. Hackers or tinkerers aren’t totally of the consumer mindset yet they don’t make things entirely from scratch / raw materials like an artisan either. Instead, they take existing products and modify (hack) them with creative touches to suit their needs. Don’t relegate these folks to the ranks of the crafter or paint-by-numbers crowd though, it some cases the hacks they make to an existing product are quite radical and display a considerable amount of ingenuity, such as this one or this one from ikea hacker’s top 10 of 2007. I’m looking forward to doing more research into this category and as I do, it looks like I will find several subgroups within this category. For example, there’s an interesting branch within this group that hacks things primarily by adding some sort of electronic or circuit board-driven device to the item being hacked such as this mood lamp with LED lights and a programmable circuit board.

In addition to ikea hacker another website that seems to embody this philosopy is makezine – check them out, there’s some neat stuff on there that will perhaps get your own creative juices flowing.

The artisan: To me this represents the peak of the creativity continuum. The artisan is a master of one (or more) raw materials such as wood, metal, fabric or clay. From these raw materials, he creates original designs and executes them with the precision and care of an old world craftsman. He sets himself apart from others who work in his medium by designing his own original works of art (i.e. no paint-by-numbers here) and striving to continuously refine his craft. Within this group, you will find custom furniture makers, knife makers, pottery artisans and others who transform raw materials such as raw steel or rough lumber into works of art from their own hearts and minds.

At one of the highest levels, they typically have branched off from their original medium and learned at least the basics of a second or third raw material as well. Examples of this would be the knife maker who learns something about woodworking so he can make his own knife handles or the woodworker who learns about metal in order to incorporate gold leaf designs or patinated metal finishes into her woodworking.

At another one of the highest levels, they have traced their raw material as far as possible back to its source and thus exert even more control over the creative design process by obtaining raw materials that suit their craft exactly. An example of this pinnacle would be chair maker Brian Boggs, who is also an expert in the way trees grow and the processing of raw lumber. Mitch of the blog furnitude described some of his Mr. Boggs’s comments from a presentation at the recent Woodworking in America Conference:

Boggs harvests his chair parts from specific parts of a log. He described it as being similar to the way you cut up a chicken. You don’t take a whole chicken, cut it into slabs and cook it. If you did that, you’d get white meat, dark meat, bones and cartilage, organs and all the rest in each piece and it would be a mess. Instead, you cut off the wings, you cut off the legs, you cut out the breast and so on. It’s similar with a tree. He gets the back legs, which he steam-bends into the shape that is the signature of a Boggs chair, from the lower part of the tree. He gets slat material from higher up in the log. He gets front legs from quartersawn sections of lumber.

Indeed, with this knowledge of what part of the log will yield the best lumber, Mr. Boggs displays a considerable mastery of his craft and an intimate knowledge of part of the natural world around him. It’s a level that I hope to reach with my own work someday.

In the meanwhile, I derive considerable joy from the pursuit of many creative endeavors and I can’t imagine life without a creative outlet. How about you? What role does the creative process play in your life? Where do you think you fall on the “creativity continuum?”

Staircase photo by blakeimeson

I live in one-half of a duplex (a “paired home” or “single family attached home” according to the latest marketing terminology) in an HOA-controlled subdivision. I’m not really sure how I wound up in an HOA community and I guarantee you that my next house will not be in one. I just really don’t care what colors my neighbors paint their houses, or whether or not their lawn is green. I also believe that most truly obnoxious situations such as 3 ft high weeds or cars up on blocks in the front yard are usually addressed by city or county ordinance. (I could be wrong about this, I haven’t really researched it, but I do remember getting a weed notice once from the city in a previous home I rented). Therefore, adding another layer of government and bureaucracy in the form of an HOA board is both an unnecessary additional expense in the form of HOA dues and a potential nuisance as you will see below.

The notice to paint and my neighbor

Early this year, I got a notice from the HOA board that my house needed painting. That was fair enough, I suppose, it had been nearly eight years since the house was built and the paint was definitely looking a little sorry. Not chipping or cracking or anything major like that, but it was fading and had some water stains in certain areas.

As is my typical style, I procrastinated until nearly the last possible minute then got in touch with the owner of the other half of the duplex, ‘Ronald’, to see what he wanted to do about the painting. The whole situation was complicated by the fact that Ronald doesn’t live in the other half anymore and is renting it out. I asked him if he wanted me to get some estimates or if he wanted to work with me and we could do it ourselves and save a lot of money.

Ronald’s family had been having some tough times lately, and he was all for saving some money. In fact, his first idea, which would have saved him a lot of money was that he would buy all the paint and in return, I would paint the entire duplex. I basically told him (nicely) to go piss up a rope with that idea, I mean come on, the paint is the cheap part while the labor would account for the lion’s share of the cost if we were to hire this out.

In later conversations, I felt a little sorry for him and I decided that if he would buy the rest of the paint (at this point I had already bought five gallons), I would paint the FRONT ONLY of his half of the duplex. Keep this part in mind for later, it’s important for the punch line, such as it is, of this little tale.

Getting the color approved

With my neighbor on board (or so I thought) for doing this DIY-style and saving some money, I started picking out a color (both Ronald and his renters said they didn’t really care what color I picked). I went with a blue with tan trim scheme and submitted (via snail mail) my choices to the HOA design review panel. After nearly a month of waiting for a response, they rejected the body color, and in hindsight, they acted appropriately in doing so. The first color I picked was a little wild, it was almost a turquoise shade of blue.

So, I toned it down quite a bit (or so I thought) and here’s where the fun really begins. What follows is a transcription of my actual emails with the manager of the HOA, ‘Val’. To her credit, she was very friendly and easy to work with throughout the whole process but, as you will see, the bureaucracy of the HOA started to run amok at certain points throughout the process. The emails that follow are my actual correspondence with the HOA but details such as names etc. have been changed to protect the innocent!:

From: Chris
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2008 10:17 AM
To: Val
Subject: paint color samples

Hi Val

I went to Home Depot last night and found a blue I like that is quite a bit more subdued than the other one that wasn’t approved. Can you take a look at this and let me know if  this new color, ‘Blue Slate’, would be acceptable for the body color of the house? The trim would still be ‘Sandy Tan’. I scanned the unapproved color in too, just for comparison.
<<Image756.jpg>> <<paint chips.pdf>>

Thanks!
Chris

From: Val
Sent: Monday, July 14th, 2008 2:17 PM
To: Chris
Subject: RE: paint color samples

Chris,
The Board looked at the new paint colors, they would still like to see another option for the body color.

From: Chris
Sent: Monday July 14th, 2008 3:00 PM
To: Val
Subject: RE: paint color samples

Hi Val - Wow, that kind of surprises me. I think it’s pretty similar to a lot of other blues I’ve seen around. Looking at my first choice, I’ll admit that one was maybe a little too wild, but this one seemed like it should have worked. Do you have any suggestions for me? Are they looking for something lighter, darker, more grey etc? A little more feedback would be really helpful and appreciated - I really would like to start painting by this weekend and I need to coordinate buying the paint with the owner of the other half.

Thanks
Chris

From: Val
Sent: Monday July 14th 3:47 PM
To: Chris
Subject: RE: paint color samples

Let me see if I can get some answers for you and I’ll get right back to you.
Val

Val never wrote back and at this point I was getting a little frustrated, so I thought I would just go to the Home Depot, grab a chip for EVERY shade of blue they made, and show up at the HOA board meeting to let them help me pick a color!

From: Chris
Sent: Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 1:52 PM
To: Val
Subject: RE: paint color samples

Hi Val – did you hear anything yet? If you haven’t heard anything yet, I was thinking of just coming to the board meeting tonight and bringing paint samples of all the varieties of blue Home Depot carries and seeing if we can all just sit down and pick one we all agree on. Do you think that would work?

Thanks
Chris

Val didn’t reply to this one – probably didn’t want to encourage me to come to the meeting, but I did indeed carry out my plan. At first, I had visions of bringing in the whole 2” thick wad of paint chips,  dropping it on the desk in front of the HOA and saying, “OK, suckers, lemme know which one of these will work!” In the end I was a little nicer than that, went through all the colors and circled about 15 that I liked and brought only those chips to the meeting. They approved my first choice of the 15 colors at the meeting, so in this case, the third time really was a charm. Here is my follow-up email:

From: Val
Sent: Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 8:01 PM
To: Chris
Subject: RE: paint color samples

Hey Chris,
Thanks for coming to the meeting tonight, glad we got you taken care of.
Val

From: Chris
Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2008 7:24 AM
To: Val
Subject: RE: paint color samples

Hi Val – Thank you for being so helpful throughout this process. I realize I procrastinated on getting the colors approved and you would have been within your rights to say “Hey, the form says we can take up to 30 days to approve this,” so I really appreciate that you were willing to be more accommodating so I could work on this on my week off next week. It was nice to meet you and interesting to hear what else the board was up to.

Wonder if the HOA would have approved this color scheme?

At this point, I proceeded to paint my half of the duplex and the front of my neighbor’s half. Ronald came over towards the beginning of the process to buy the paint as per our agreement and wondered why I was using brushes and rollers and insisted that if I just waited for him to come on down with his sprayer next weekend, we could work together and get the whole thing done in one weekend. Good thing I didn’t wait for him. Next weekend became the weekend after that, then the next weekend, and so on and so forth. At one point he asked for Val at the HOA’s number and I later heard through his renters that he had worked out a deal with her to let him have until next April to finish off his half. Here’s where it gets really funny or sad depending on how you look at it:

From: Val
Sent: Monday November 24, 2008 11:01 AM
To: Chris
Subject: RE: paint color samples

Hi Chris,
I know you have painted most of your unit, but with the weather changing are you going to be able to get the rest completed by the end of the year?  Just let me know.
Thanks
Val

From: Chris
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 11:14 AM
To: Val
Subject: RE: paint color samples

Hi Val –
I think my half of the duplex is all painted. My next door neighbor, Ronald, hasn’t painted the side and back of his yet but I was talking to my neighbors, his renters and they were saying that he had worked something out with you where you were going to let him have until April of next year to work on it. (I had worked out a deal with him where he bought most of the paint and I agreed to paint the front only of his half).

Oh shoot come to think of it, there is just one small section of siding above the roof on their unit on the east side that would technically be part of mine. Is that what you are talking about? I forgot all about that since I always drive up from the west! Can I finish that when Ronald finishes the rest of his unit? I just checked the forecast and we don’t have any 60+ degree days coming up soon. (I think 60 degrees is required for good adhesion).
Thanks
Chris

From: Val
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 11:30 AM
To: Chris
Subject: RE: paint color samples

Chris,
No I was talking about the other unit.  I see that I did talk to him and grant him an extension, but I didn’t realize at the time it was your other half.  I guess I’ll have to tell the Board we have to live with it until May.  Thanks for clearing it up for me.
Val

From: Chris
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 12:04 PM
To: Val
Subject: RE: paint color samples

Thanks Val, when I heard he’d worked something out with you for an extension it never occurred to me that you didn’t realize he was the other half of my duplex.
Chris

From: Val
sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 12:30 pm
To: Chris
Subject: RE: paint color samples

Yea, I’m not that smart!!  Didn’t even occur to me.  Too many addresses to keep track of out there..

Val

I’m living in a half-painted duplex!

And that, my friends, is why I’m living in a duplex that is currently half one color and half another. At least the whole front is the same color, thought like I said before, it wouldn’t really bother me at all if it weren’t. Paint is merely colored adhesive to help hold together the shoddy construction used in our houses these days. Anyway, I guess I learned a few things from the process:

1.    My next house won’t be in an HOA-controlled community
2.    My next house won’t be a duplex
3.    My next house won’t be an all-wood monstrosity. I didn’t mention this above, but my home is all wood, not a bit of brick, stone or other surface on her. That means the whole thing had to be painted.

Do you have a funny or sad story to share about dealing with an HOA or an opinion of HOA boards in general? Join in on the MANversation and post a comment below!

I’m about to share something not many men will openly admit, but I have been known on rare occasions to watch an episode of Oprah.  Well, maybe I shouldn’t say ‘watch’ because that may carry an inherent repetitious characteristic, but when the stars align I can be found alongside my wife, totally enthralled.  Anyway, I caught an episode the other day about unexplained medical mysteries.  They had a 7’3” 12-year old boy with a genetic mutation who couldn’t stop growing and a 3’3” 26 year old woman who suffers from Microcephallic Primordial Dwarfism.  Interesting? Sure.  Did it fulfill my instinctive compulsion for the anomalous?  Not even close.  The next guest, however, did send my mind wondering.  It was a woman who claims she can remember everything that has happened to her since age 14 (surprised it wasn’t a man? Me either.).  Wow!  Can you imagine your life if you remembered everything?  Yes, everything.  At first thought, it would be great, right?  You’d never lose your keys, you’d know exactly where you set your beer, there would be no more embarrassing calls home (while still in the driveway!) asking what it was you needed to pick up from the store, heck, you would excel at Trivial Pursuit.  Life would be grand!  Not so fast.  You would also remember every bad thing, every regretful outburst, every poor decision, every hurtful thing anyone has ever said to you and of course, all the emotions that went with them.  I know I wouldn’t last a week.  Fortunately for most, the brain constructs memory based on personal significance.  I know my oldest, most vivid memories tend to be positive and thus my mottled recollection bears a rosy hue.  Does this mean I categorize my memories differently then how they actually happened?  Do we have memories we can’t access or worse yet, choose not to remember?  As my wife reads this I know she would smirk at this comment, but I do not believe ‘selective memory’ is deliberate.  Is it of brilliant physiological design?  Perhaps, it is the confluence of environmental, psychological and social influences that shape our perception of the past.  We may never really know and quite honestly I hope we never figure it out because I enjoy marveling its mystery.  Why just the other day I was reminded once again how remarkable the brain and remembrance really is.  I live in a house chockfull of “forget-less” women.  My wife is truly an astonishing woman with an elephant-like memory (don’t fear for my life, this is a good thing), but it is actually my oldest daughter, “R” that perpetually boggles my mind.  I have somberly accepted the fact she gets her “talent” from her mother and find myself completely beside myself, yet so compelled to share these next two stories.

#1

I remember when R was just a year old, beginning to experiment with new sounds and learning to explore the house.  Even the sturdiest of doggie gates couldn’t corral her curiosity.  One day, the wife called me at work in a panic, she couldn’t find her wedding ring.  We had been very busy the last several days and my wife was incredibly fearful she may have lost her ring and was worried we’d never get it back.  I hurried home from work that day and we both tore apart the entire house looking for the ring, but to no avail.  We had previously arranged to spend that weekend with her parents and soon had to be on our way across town, unfortunately without the ring.  The entire drive and much of the weekend we spent brainstorming all the possible places we could have lost the ring.  We initiated several phone calls and emails, but surfaced zero leads on the rings whereabouts.  We returned home 3 days later to scour the house one last time.  Our final search turned up nothing and our hopes were dwindling fast as we started getting ready for bed, signifying an anticlimactic end to our journey.  Then it occurred to us to ask R.  Maybe by some bizarre twist of fate she would not only understand us, but be able to lead us right to our pot of (white) gold.  We approached R and my wife asked aimlessly, “R, do you happen to know where mommy’s ring is?”  She looked up with a puzzled gaze, but made no sound as she looked away, seemingly getting back about her business.  The wife and I sat down on the bed, emotionally deflated, pondering our remaining options.  When all of a sudden, R walked back into the room, right up to mommy and dropped the wedding ring into the palm of her hand.  We looked at each other and were instantly overcome with emotion.  I scooped R off her feet showering her with kisses as we all shared a huge hug and joyous tears.  We set her back down and asked, “Where did you find this?”  She instantly turned around and walked out of the bedroom.  We followed inquisitively.  She headed down the hall towards her room, but stopped at the closet door in the hallway and pointed to the lowest hinge.  My wife handed R the ring, she hung it on the hinge of the door and turned back and smiled.  Apparently, while my wife was showering that day, R had wondered into the bedroom and found my wife’s wedding ring sitting on the bedside table.  I can’t ever hope to understand what lead her to hang the ring on a hinge in the hall, but that’s the beauty of a boundless imagination.  R had known all along where the ring was.  I’m certain it was our naïve inadequacy, not that a toddler could wander off with small objects, but that after 3 days and a presumed inability to comprehend, a very young brain could so effortlessly grasp the complexity of the situation.  Truly amazing!

#2

We were sitting around the dinner table the other night, enjoying a typical family dinner.  Unfortunately, a typical dinner for us usually means L, Wife and I finish eating and then I spend the next 30 minutes struggling to get R to eat some of her dinner.  R can be extremely stubborn and it’s not uncommon for these negotiations to transition right to an early bed time.  This night was no different.  We had been battling for over an hour and I was nearing the end of my patience.  I had just taken the last bite of my green beans directly from the pan they were cooked in.  The pan was a small 1 quart, stainless steel, sauce pan with a black handle and wire loop on its end (normally, this type of detail is irrelevant, but in this case it’s needed).  Chewing my last bite and contemplating my concession speech, I looked over at R.  She had that look, the look that suggests she was thinking 3 times as fast as the words that were about to come out of her mouth.  She knew if she didn’t fill the void, I would say something about her next bite and she was not about to allow that.  She pointed to the loop on the handle of the pan and said, “Daddy, what is that?”  Quickly recognizing her developing ploy to distract me from the task at hand, I replied, “It’s a loop you use to hang it–now take a bite!”  Trying to stretch the conversation as far as it would go she commented, “Oh, just like at Chris’s house.”  I stopped dead cold.  Completely dumbfounded, I cocked my head and inquisitively asked “What?”  She confidently explained, “That’s how Chris hangs the pots at his house”.  I was completely in awe.  I proceeded to clear the table and get the girls into bed.  This is where the story gets crazy.  You’re probably thinking, what is so crazy about a conversation about pots and pans at someone’s house?  Let me explain.  Well, Chris (our fellow manversationalist) does have an elaborate hanging pot rack in his kitchen, but this is not the weird part.  It’s absolutely mind-blowing to know R had only been to Chris’s house one time in her life and exactly one year ago (when she was 3) in November of 2007.  I couldn’t remember the date myself (much less the exquisite detail of his pot rack) and so I had to consult my friends about the specifics (Brian/Chris – this should explain why I asked you a series of odd questions last week about a party that occurred more than a year ago).  Needless to say, I am absolutely astounded that a 3 year old took enough interest in a hanging pot rack, at a friend’s house that she had never been to before over one year ago.  On top of that, she absorbed enough detail to understand the mechanics of how a pot could hang and contextually retrieve this information in casual conversation.  This is just absolutely amazing to me!  I was trying to explain this to a friend the other day and the only logical comparison I could draw was in The Matrix when Neo begins to sees his reality in binary code.  Of course, this can mean only one thing, R is “THE ONE”!

My wife and I had a five year plan: once married, we would wait five years before starting a family. We wanted to travel together, experience the journey we embarked upon on our wedding day, and unify our lives together as one. Like most newlyweds we didn’t have much in the way of financial security and most of our energy was devoted to supporting one another while trying to finish college. We wanted to set a firm foundation before even considering a family. I was twenty seven at the time and my wife was 23. Needless to say, we also felt much too young, irresponsible, and downright selfish to bring another life into this world. Naturally, three years into marriage we decided to start a family. However, fate it seems, is keeping us to our original five year plan. In the beginning we were excited and hopeful. I even made the mistake, much to my wife’s dismay, of announcing our decision to her family during a trip to Mexico. We rented a house on Rocky Point, all eleven of us. For a son-in-law, this may be a worst nightmare scenario. However, my wife’s family is wonderful (most of the time) and love to have a good time with plenty of food, alcohol, music and dancing. After a horrendous day of shopping in blistering heat looking at the same trinket in store after store, we decided to relax at a local cantina and enjoy ample libations of Margaritas and tequila. Now, normally I’m a quiet, reserved guy; however, given the correct amount of liquid courage, I can crack open my shell of introverted silence and release all the thoughts in my head, whether for good or bad. On this occasion, seeing as the entire family was gathered and having a grand time, why not announce our decision while spirits were high? After all, we had been trying for two months and my wife could be pregnant even at the moment of my announcement. Well, my wife’s family is not shy by any means, and the can of worms I opened by blurting out “we’re trying to have a baby” was much larger and more explosive than anticipated. Within moments, her family was offering up their rooms for our fruitful conception. Our child was named and their little life was plotted out: who they would marry, and, of course, how spectacular their football career would be. In that one moment, I placed my wife and me into a pressure cooker of baby-making, surrounded on all sides by anticipation and endless prodding. It’s been one-and-a-half years since that announcement. The excitement has faded, replaced by frustration and, sometimes, arguments in which we blame each other for our failure. The endless prodding has ended, and the topic of pregnancy in the family is hushed. I often joke with my wife that we should head out to a bar, pretend we don’t know one another, drink ourselves into a stupor, shoot some cocaine, meet in the bathroom, and then, surely, she will get pregnant. My only saving grace over the last two years is a show I watched on PBS documenting how a woman becomes pregnant. I must say after watching that show it’s a wonder anyone becomes pregnant at all. From the moment the fruit of my loins begins its journey, my wife’s defense network goes into Defcon 1 and the chances my little guys have of survival is dismal. Should one of them succeed, the fertilized egg is still seen as the spawn of Satan and is attempted to be purged from her body. And, if by some miracle, the egg takes hold in the uterus, the process that follows quite frankly is a miracle. A process for which I am quite ready. Our five year anniversary is only a few short months away. Our five year plan is coming to a close, and my wife and I have some tough decisions to make if nature does not cooperate. For those men out there who are also experiencing what I am, then you may know what is to follow…the fertility doctor, the “window of opportunity,” and your wife standing on her head…weird. Next post I’ll talk about the fertility doctor and his “toys” disguised as sonogram equipment.

The Men of Manversation and our friend Ruben worked in my garage for about 6 hours yesterday, and in that short time, in utter defiance of the get ‘er done formula I wrote about earlier this week, we actually got everything done that I had hoped for it the amount of time I had planned on. I’ll post some more pictures of the results sometime in the next week or two after I’ve had a chance to clean up and get my lathe stand built, but in the meanwhile, you can have a little sneak peek of the new lumber rack in the photo above. Even with a lot of stuff that still needs to be organized piled high on both workbenches, it already feels a lot better out there now that all the lumber is collected in a somewhat orderly fashion on the lumber rack.

The guys and I worked together very well. In fact, they did such a good job that a lot of the time I didn’t really have much to do and my main challenge was cleaning up the areas we were going to be working on next and trying to keep everyone busy. Bol really helped me out in this area and his skills as a project manager became evident.

The lumber rack and a shortage of drills

The day began with general garage cleanup and clearing a lot of the stuff out of the garage and on to the driveway. Next, we proceeded to build my lumber rack, and with five of us working on it assembly-line style, it came together pretty quickly. Bol and I cut lumber at the miter saw and Nate, Brian and Ruben assembled the uprights of the lumber rack using a spacer block to ensure that the shelves were spaced evenly on each of the four uprights. That way, when we screwed the uprights into the studs of the garage wall, all of the shelves would line up with each other once one level of shelves was level.

We almost hit a snag when the second battery in my cordless drill lost its charge before the first had a chance to fully charge. Bol had brought his cordless drill too, but it was having battery power issues as well and we were almost left without a drill at a key point in the project. Luckily, the first battery, though not completely charged, had been on the charger for about 20 minutes or so at that point and had regained enough of a charge to finish the job. If you’re planning a home improvement project that will involve drilling or driving screws, I suggest asking everyone who’s coming to help you to bring their own drill as well if they have one – you can never have too many!

French cleat

Bol and Brian were intrigued by the French cleat system I had used to hang some of the cabinets in the garage. A French cleat is a great way to hang something like a cabinet, mantle, or picture to a wall. It makes it easier for one person to install something heavy like a cabinet while still getting it level and offers the additional advantage that you don’t have to drive screws or nails through the front of the item you are hanging, which can be important if doing so would detract from the appearance of the item. I found a great video about it from Tim Carter at Askthebuilder.com. If you like this video, be sure to check out his website, it looks like it’s chock full of other useful videos like this one:

Thanks again!

Once again I’d like to express my sincere appreciation and gratitude for all the help that Ruben and the other Men of Manversation gave me on this project. It turned out great and I couldn’t have done it without you guys! Next up on the “Man Project” menu: Hardwood floors at Brian’s house!

Today, the Men of Manversation, Nate’s wife Erica, and our good buddy Ruben are coming by the house to help with with a litte garage project. Over the last couple years, I’ve been in the process of building a woodworking shop in my garage. I spent a couple semesters at school building a heavy duty Scandanavian-style workbench, I’ve acquired a few machines, and last year about this time, my Dad and I wired the garage for the 220v electricity some of the bigger machines require.

Along the way, my placement of new machinery has not been optimal and my organizational skills in general have been lacking. I really reached a tipping point when I ordered a new lathe (I’m taking a woodturning class this semester) and found I really didn’t have anywhere to put it that made sense. You can see a picture of the overall mess above, and a picture of the lathe’s current home is below:

In addition, there are several random piles of lumber strewn about. So today, I hope to build a lumber rack to organize all of that and move a few of the bigger pieces of machinery and my two workbenches around to a more optimal layout so I can actually start getting some work done.

With any luck I’ll have an update for you next week and some pictures of a much improved workspace!

In honor of the famed Austin Powers, “Let me introduce you to…um…myself”.  From here on out I will be known as “Bol”. I selected this screen name primarily because it allows a certain level of anonymity to the outside world, but also carries a distinctive classification among my friends and family.  Like the other fine gentlemen on this site, I intend to use this forum to simply share my perspective on various experiences of the modern 30-something male.  Although the men of Manversation share a slightly homogeneous being and share several core principles crucial to long-term friendship, we intend to leverage the various endeavors each has created over the years to offer an insightful and unique perspective.  I am happily married of 5 years (rapidly approaching 50) to a very beautiful, motivated, organized, selfless yet and subtly tenacious wife.  We have two extremely energetic daughters who remind us each day how fast life happens and if we don’t enjoy it every chance we get, it quite simply will pass us by.  Our eldest, “R” is turning 5 this winter and enjoys the typical childhood activities that we all have been forced to try a time or two, but she truly seems in her element at school (more on this later…).  Our youngest, “L”, just turned 2 and is quickly absorbing every habit (the good and the bad) her big sister imposes at every waking moment.  I love being a father and a parent (it’s easy to say now, they haven’t hit the teen years yet) and so you can expect many more postings around this subject.

At 32, I take a lot of pride in acting anything but my age, whether it is playing kickball, enjoying endless bodily function comedic sketches, or wearing shorts when at all possible, (thanks to our “sauna-like” abode) I strive to be ageless.  Since society only allows for a certain level of negligence and immaturity (turning 18 and leaving high school is the socially-imposed threshold) you quickly learn everything you do has long-term consequences.  So, after high school I went on to college (many more posts of this nature down the road) for a bachelor’s in Zoology in ’98, spent 5 aimless years before finding and marrying the wife of a lifetime in ’03.  I was able to sneak in a Master’s degree in Business related management before the kids’ activities took over our free time.  Since then, we’ve been establishing permanent roots in the Denver to leverage the best family and friend network anyone could ask for, and for this we are extremely grateful.  For 8 hours a day each weekday, I pass the time sandwiched in a grey fabric-covered cube just trying to figure “it” out.  I really don’t mind the job itself, but I feel very strongly that I have much more to contribute than my corporation is willing to tolerate.  Nonetheless, I’m looking forward to this blog adventure and I hope that despite my seemingly self-therapeutic posting style, (consider yourself forewarned!) you find my stories better than a stick in the eye!

The “Get ‘er Done” Formula

I once heard from a friend that when attempting some sort of a project that involves physical labor such as painting a house, remodeling a kitchen, tiling a bathroom etc., you should take the amount of time you think it’s going to take you, go to the next unit of time measurement up from there, double it, and you will have a reasonable estimate of how much time the project will actually take you to complete.

For example, you’re getting ready to tile your bathroom. You think it will probably take, oh about a day. Wrong! According to this formula, go to the next time interval up (1 week) and double it to get your more realistic estimate of two weeks.

Unfortunately, this formula proved itself true with one of my most recent projects which was painting my house. I had taken a week off work to do it, and the project wound up stretching over several weekends beyond that week until it had actually taken me close to two months start to finish.

Although this formula is probably especially apt for amateur DIY types, especially when trying something new for the first time, the friend who first told me about it has worked for the last several years as the foreman of a house framing crew and now owns his own home remoldeling business and he assured me with several amusing anecdotes that being a professional didn’t necessarily exempt him from the effects of this formula all the time.

The Home Depot Hypothesis

It also seems like for any home improvement project, one trip to Home Depot is never enough. Just when you think you have all the materials you need, you realize you forgot some small (but crucial) part and it’s off to the store again!

In the spirit of the good fun of the “Get ‘er Done” formula, I have devised my own Home Depot Hypothesis. First, in order to scale the formula to people of different incomes or spending levels, you will need to find the amount of money you are typically comfortable spending on food, gas, and discretionary items in a week. For people who get spending money out of the ATM every week, that would be your weekly figure. Maybe you put everything on a credit card. Well, go find that last statement and look at how much you charge on food, gas and discretionary items like going out to eat, going to movies etc. It doesn’t matter how you arrive at this figure, just get close to a rough estimate of how much you spend in a typical week.

Next, estimate the cost of your project and divide it by your weekly “comfortable spending” figure. This will yield the approximate number of trips to Home Depot or a similar store it will take to get all of your materials throughout the course of the project… Of course, this implies that you can accurately estimate the amount you are going to spend on the project and that is a whole other problem, so this really turns into kind of a ‘chicken and egg’ exercise.

I sincerely wish you better luck than these two formulas would suggest on your next home improvement project!

Risky looking home improvement project photo by eelke dekker

Lifestyle inflation in a nutshell

One of my major goals this year has been paying down the principal balance on my home loan and building up my long-term savings. Along the way, I’ve discovered the personal finance blogosphere and I’ve been reading great blogs like Get Rich Slowly, Early Retirement Extreme, and I Will Teach You to Be Rich for tips and encouragement as I dig my way out of debt.

One of the concepts often discussed on PF blogs is that of “lifestyle inflation,” which is really just another example of how nature abhors a vacuum. In a nutshell, the concept of lifestyle inflation states that expenses will increase proportional to increases in income. It’s the reason you might feel like you still can’t make ends meet even though you might be earning $10,000 or $20,000 dollars a year more than you made five years ago. Sure, currency inflation plays a part too, but if you examine your expenses, most people will find themselves paying much more for things now than they did just five years ago as a result of upgrading. Don’t believe me? Quick, how much were you paying for rent 10 years ago?

If you’re in your early thirties like me, chances are that you were sharing a house or apartment with one or more roommates and paying $300 or $400 a month or less for rent. Fast forward to the present day, and as a typical thirty something, I bet you have a nice fat mortgage payment of at least $1200 per month. And I think that we all can agree that this $800 or so a month difference is primarily due to lifestyle inflation, and not currency inflation. (In other words, yes your rent payment would have increased somewhat if you were still renting with roommates, but it sure wouldn’t be anywhere close to an $800 per month increase).

And this is just one example. The way that lifestyle inflation really gets you is that it sneaks up on you as you gradually make upgrades in lots of different areas. Think cell phones, cable TV package upgrades, bigger car payments, etc. etc.

“Model inflation” or a tale of two vacuums

Just as lifestyle inflation can eat away at your hard-earned financial gains if not kept in check, I’ve discovered another insidious concept I am going to call “model inflation.”

I’ve been working on some projects in my garage and my old shop vac died an untimely death Sunday afternoon. I determined that the cause of death was the infiltration of the motor by massive amounts of sawdust allowed in by the absolutely silly “paper and band” style filter in the vacuum. (I guess I should have realized something was amiss when it started spewing wood chips out the exhaust).

So, I went off to “The Borg” (*) in search of a new vacuum. I had determined that my budget for a new vacuum would be about $70 or $80. I wanted one that took a cartridge-type filter and that could also be fitted with a paper bag inside, which I thought would serve the dual purpose of prolonging the filter life and making cleanup a little neater.

(*) Big Orange Retail Giant

When I got there, I found a model that looked like it would work – the Ridgid WD1250. It had a 12 gallon capacity, 5 horsepower, and cost $79, right around what I was looking to spend. I looked around to see if there were bags for it. I found some bags that said they would fit the next few models up – the WD1450, WD1650 and WD1850, but nothing for the WD1250. After enough running around and frustration with the utterly incompetent staff at “The Borg” to fill an entire additional post, it was determined that no, there were no bags for the WD1250. It had a different intake nozzle assembly than the others and no one made bags to fit it.

To make a long story short, I wound up getting the next model up, the WD1450, in order to get a shop vac that could take a bag. I spent more than I had wanted to - $115 - and part of me wonders if the sneaky SOBs didn’t plan the product line with just that sort of thing in mind. It’s a concept that I am dubbing “model inflation,” the deliberate planning of product lines to influence consumers to buy the next model or two up the line from where their starting price range was, and the more I think about it, the more I see examples of it in a lot of consumer product lines (TVs come to mind - “well the 42 is only a little more than the 36 inch and it has extra features X and Y”).

What do you think? Have I been reading too much of a conspiracy theory into this or do agree with me? Join the manversation and post a comment about your shopping experiences below.

Since I was a tiny little tot, barely aware of the world around me, I’ve been a Denver Broncos fan. My parents raised me with season tickets in hand, leading the way every autumn Sunday to our seats in the original house of orange and blue worship, Mile High Stadium. The electric atmosphere brought about by 80,000 devotees watching, gasping, and celebrating in unison was like nothing else in the world. Just like that, the Broncos had a fan for life.

Every time I got to watch the Broncos take on a different team, my dad bought me a pennant with that team’s logo on it. I never got to see all the teams in the NFL, but I did get a good collection, and the groundwork was laid for my future status as more than just a Broncos fan, but a football fan.

Eventually, my folks had to let their season tickets go. It was the sad result of my father’s retail business going bankrupt. Although I could no longer attend every home game, I remained a serious Broncos fan into adulthood. Until my early-twenties, I paid very little attention to the other teams in the league.

And then came Fantasy Football

About ten years ago, a good friend asked me if I would like to join a fantasy football league with him. Neither one of us had ever tried it before, so we weren’t sure what to expect. Finally I agreed, and soon I was “drafting” my team. I don’t remember a single player I had on my team that year. I don’t remember if my team did well or came in dead last. What I do remember is that my enjoyment for watching Broncos football turned into a joy of following the sport as a whole. Suddenly, I had players to root for from those teams on my pennants from long ago.

Fantasy football makes the sport more interesting. It makes watching a football game more personal and gives a fantasy team owner a vested interest in how their players perform. It creates a fun, non-athletic way for people to compete based on the United States’ most popular sport.

Analysts try to estimate the value of time lost by companies to fantasy football participation by their employees. It’s a lot. Billions per year; but they can’t estimate how much companies would lose from damaged morale and loyalty if it were banned. Also, I’d like to see how many jobs and how much revenue fantasy football is responsible for creating.

Fantasy football is really not a fantasy at all.

It’s just a fun game based on the statistics produced by real players in pro football games. It requires no more special skill than a willingness to do a little research, but makes the game so much more exciting every week. If you like football, but never tried fantasy, get some friends together and give it a try. You can make it as simple or complex as you want, as long as it’s fun. Check back often or subscribe to this blog for more…I’ll be posting more about fantasy football in the future; from general observations to overall strategy.