Lewis's Life

The steel rack in my shop sucks. It has sucked ever since I moved into my new place. The original design was attached to the wall in my first shop and never really intended to be free standing. I had meant to reinforce it for several years but dropped that plan because I was gonna reorganize everything after I bought the shop. So I continued on with my crappy rack until today.

I have a couple of big jobs that are supposed to get me through the summer and help pay for Burning Man. In the ordinary course of my life this amount of work would be finished about mid-September but I gots stuff to do! Today they brought the steel for these jobs. The packing list says that this was 657.344 pounds of steel. Apparently that extra third of a pound was just too much for the rack.

The driver and I unloaded it all by hand and stacked it on rack. I had just signed the slip and turned around when it happened. The far end of the rack started to bend and steel started sliding off of it. I took one step back to be out of the danger zone and watched it happen. I believe I may have said "**** me running" but I am not sure. The very last thing to finish sliding down was the huge bundle of 1/2" square we had just put on the rack. It piled against my leg. I pulled my leg out and turned to the driver...

"I guess I know what I'll be doing today."

After I took stock of the situation I called Marz (my son) and explained the situation. He came over and pitched in and we got it all moved around to the old steel rack in the back in a couple of hours. He is not working right now but he has spent the last year on his own. (He took a year off before starting college.) It actually was a very pleasant afternoon. Hot and sweaty but we chatted about music and kept up a decent patter while working. The working experience has really been good for Marz. It felt like working with another adult instead of the battle that work has been in the past.

He offered to come back and help for the rest of the summer and he invited me over to smoke some hookah. Yes, I am paying him to work but that has never been sufficient incentive to get him to the shop before. It certainly helps that I am feeling a lot better about things and that I called and asked for help. (I don't think that I have really done that with Marz before.) I also noticed that he was interested in getting stuff done and looking at the best way to do the job. He was really engaged in the work in a way I have not seen before.

So I finally got rid of the crappy steel rack and I am closer with my son. Not bad for day's work.