The Satisfaction of a Hard Day's Work, Especially When it's Helping Others

I helped out with Habitat for Humanity today, in association with GE.  My co-worker Chris started organizing the event, but then he got overwhelmed with work and also went on vacation.  So I ended up picking up where he left off and doing a large portion of the planning, organizing, and communicating for it.

When the day of volunteering was done, my forearms and hands were (and still are) pretty sore.  It was enjoyable and satisfying work though.  I really like assembling things and putting together projects.  There's just something innately gratifying and therapeutic to being outdoors (though under a roof) and using your hands, especially when (in this case) there were people there to help us if/when our own knowledge and experience was lacking.  Although, I can see how that might not be the case if it was a full time job.

In addition to enjoying the manual labor, I learned some new things about home building and improvement.  I am now more familiar with hanging door frames and closet doors, and also got to work on the bathroom floor (putting down water-proof floor panels in preparation for the ceramic tile).  As a bonus, the lady who is going to be living in the house (with her kids) stopped by to say hi.  So we got to meet the person who's going to be benefiting from our efforts.

The four hours of manual labor really boosted my appetite too.  I was hungrier than usual, and since I brought the lunch to the site (paid for by GE) I got to take home the majority of the leftovers (after asking around and giving some of it away to whoever wanted it).  So I not only got a free lunch, but I got dinner out of it too.

I'm scheduled to help again next Wednesday, and I gotta admit that I'm somewhat looking forward to it.  I'm also curious to see if the conditions (weather, assigned tasks) and end results will be as positive as today's were.

Dart Board Project

I bought an electronic dart board shortly after college, when I was living in an apartment with my brother, who was in high school at the time (how we ended up living together is a long story).  Since those apartment days I've lived in four houses before this one, and have mounted it somewhere on the walls of all of them.

In this current house though, the room I really wanted to place it in is a 3-season room that's attached to the back of the house, in which 3 of the walls are all windows.  Placing the dart board on a windowed wall would not only block the view, but also risk a window breakage if a dart should miss the board.  The fourth wall is made of brick and is actually the back of the house (from before they added this room) and also has one window and a sliding glass door.  Mounting the board on the brick would require making holes in it, as well as ruining the tips of any darts that might miss the board.

So the solution I came up with is to make the dart board mount in the window that's in the brick wall, but also make it removable.  It could slide in and out of the mounting brackets that were previously used for the screen (when the window was exposed to the outside).  The end result can be seen in the pictures below.

This allows the walls to remain unmarred, but we can also still use the dart board (with minimal effort).  The height is regulation, and it's in a location that suits the room perfectly, both functionally and aesthetically.