“One needs not go for fast when there’s no money at stake.”
Exactly!
Although I frequently have to remind myself of this reality, now that I am retired I can take as long as I want to do whatever projects I am working on at any given time.
As but one example, I might finish painting the master bathroom this week, or…maybe not. And, although my car-related projects don’t drag on for as long as some of my house projects, all the same I see no reason to rush.
I’m just the opposite. At work it makes sense to get the job done and move on to the next, but I do the same thing at home. I can’t stand to see a car in pieces in the garage and have it not being worked on. I can’t stand unfinished business. I’ll go to a friends house and see the car taken apart for brakes, then he decides to work on the engine for a while…drives me crazy.
Same thing for home improvement projects. If the bathroom needs to be painted, it gets done all at once and as soon as possible. We have friends who have been working on a bathroom remodel for 4 years. I can’t imagine doing that.
Not right or wrong, its just a personality trait. Some are laser focused on one task and others get bored fast and have to have variety. Some people will work like crazy to get something done way ahead of a deadline, and others will wait till the bitter end and work like crazy to meet the deadline. Just differences like some people like detail and others can’t stand the detail and just want to talk concepts and policy. Myself, I can’t get anything done without a list and deadline and being retired, there aren’t many deadlines anymore except winter and spring.
I stay with a project until completion, but I’ve learned over years of dealing with my bad back to always think about what I’m doing and do it in a manner that won’t cause me to end up crumpled up in a ball. It slows the work, but the alternative isn’t worth risking. My degenerative disc disease rules every move I make. One of the adverse effects (besides the pain) is that I don’t start a project or phase of a project that I’m not positive I can physically complete. That eliminates a whole lot of car repairs. Most car repairs require a whole lot of bending over twisting nuts and bolts, and that’s verboten.
I still do my own brakes, but with a bad back and bad knees, I can’t work at ground level by bending or kneeling. I have to sit cross legged or lying down. I make sure to put every part or tool I will need within reach. When I first retired I would take as long as I felt like to finish a job, sometimes I would let my body rest for a few days before finishing . Now that we have gone down to one car, I have to keep going until the job is done.
People who have only lived pot west have no conception of the Eastern hardwood forest. With the annual snow and rain we have, it take annual activity such as mowing or plowing to prevent land from returning to the trees.
The last time I was in California people were upset because the Bureau of Land Management had stopped them from camping anywhere they liked on federal land. When I said we could camp in the National Forest lands for free as long as you were a certain distance from the road, the man I was talking to said " It must be nice to just drive off the road and camp for free". I had to explain to him that you couldn’t drive off the road in the eastern forest. You would need a bridge or covered culvert to cross the drainage ditches on the side of the road and there were no car sized gaps in the trees. I was talking about carry in, carry out camping.
If my garage were large enough I would definitely absolutely have a lift. Then I could do my brakes again!
Well"if thine eye offend thee" seriously,when I work its not for others entertainment,had a neighbor the other day griping because I was mowing without a shirt,you know what happened-the shirt comes off more then usual now.
I generally do not care how someone does something,as long as they can do it,I love to be able to help others make a living working on my vehicles(as long as they do not charge a fortune(parity again)my days of working on vehicles for a hobby are over and I just bought a new compressor to power an impact wrench,bad back and tennis elbow,take the joy out of twisting a lug wrench,a lift would be great.
To bad we cannot reply within a reply(but that would be like general discussion)
Well my male neighbor used to mow without his shirt on. I closed the blinds so my wife couldn’t see and I called him a show off. Now if it was his wife, I dunno. She never mowed though. I leave my shirt on to not embarrass myself anymore and protection from the sun and tree branches. I’m also wearing my sunglasses after getting hit in the eye with a tree branch. You have to realize the difference between the old testament and the new. Plucking your eye out is no longer required.
I’m reminded of the “girl washing the car” scene in Cool Hand Luke starring Paul Newman.
Well,scuse me for existing,wink,wink
Well my male neighbor used to mow without his shirt on
I had a neighbor like that…But I wouldn’t call him a show off. At 5’10 and 270lbs…I closed my blinds as he sat on his mower smoking a cigarette to mow his 1/10 acre lot.
I’m reminded of the Topless Carwash in Florida. Just my luck, the day we went there it was 40F outside and they’d closed the carwash due to the temperature. Damn.
Frankly I’m a little self-conscious about how I look pushing my lawnmower around without a shirt on. I’m 6 foot and 250lbs, and have a nice foot-long scar up my belly from colon surgery. But today it was 93 degrees and if the neighbors don’t like it they don’t have to look.
For all I know my across the street neighbor is secrectly looking out his window and writing about me on a forum somewhere…hahaha.
Actually he’s laying on the ground under his 1-ton changing the oil. Looks like he’s using Pennzoil and a Fram filter.
I think a 30 minute tire change is a good dress rehearsal for the next time. It usually takes me 30 minutes to get it together/find my tools in my garage. Check the oil in the compressor, straighten out the air hose, sweep the floor etc. The next time it should only take 29 minutes.
Now, who remembers Gladys Kravitz?
LOL, I do!
That was our neighbor when I was a kid. Couldn’t do anything without Mrs. S looking out the kitchen window at me. Wash the car, wax the car, whatever, she’d be watching me.
Now, who remembers Gladys Kravitz?
I do. But for me the highlight of watching reruns of those old shows is to see the cars. Sure were some nice cars out there in the 1960’s. Even in the 70’s and 80’s I guess.
I wasn’t particularly fond of the General Lee but I loved Boss Hogg’s Cadillac.
The replica car in Bearcats made to look like a 1914 Stutz-Bearcat was a favorite of mine. Actually two replicas made with small external differences between them (according to information on Wikipedia), they were custom build on contemporary Ford chassis with modern brakes for safety, one with a four speed manual and the other with an automatic transmission. They may have been replica fakes but sure were purty! Of course, given I was a young teen girl when the show aired, it didn’t hurt that two hunks, Rod Taylor and Dennis Cole, were driving the car. :-))