Fence muscles
Building a fence is tough on the body. Both of my forearms look like they were rubbed raw with a cheese grater. The tendons in my forearms feel like they have been stretched and the muscles in my hands feel sore. Since I was still battered from the weekend fence building, I blew off a 300 for this week and instead ran a 5k at the gym yesterday. My legs are one of the things that doesn’t hurt too much yet. Last night after work I headed back outside to pile on the pain.
One good thing about doing fence work late in the day is the temperature was much more pleasant. There was even a steady breeze to keep things even more comfortable. I decided to tackle building the first H brace on the other side of the house. Digging the first hole was incredibly frustrating. For some reason the sand at that spot was very dry and fine, like sand in a hourglass. So each time when I went to pull the post hold digger out, 2/3 of the sand would run out before I got it out of the hole. Eventually I got smart and sprayed water down in the hole to make things stick. After that little hang up, the rest of the process went ok. We got the complete H up and tied together with brace wire, finishing up by spotlight around 8 pm.
Tonight I plan to install the four foot gate. Doing so is going to be a bit of a pain in the ass. Although I measured beforehand, I have less clearance for the gate hinge than I would like. As a result I am going to have to crank the hinge all the way into the post and do some adjusting of the bracket on the gate as well. It should be a fun time. After tonight I’m not sure how much more fence building time I will have this week. I am supposed to be getting the chips for the timing system tomorrow and I need to do a bunch of work to get them ready for the race on Saturday.
Yesterday was St. Patty’s day. Although I am Irish at least by name, I don’t think I EVER have celebrated the day. I don’t believe I have ever drank one drip of alcohol on the day that is most famous for being drunk off your ass. I normally don’t even wear green, although it is one of my favorite colors. I just don’t care about it. Never did, probably never will.
I read a quote where during his visit to Iraq, Dick Cheney characterized our operation in Iraq as a success. I wish he would clarified it a bit. Who exactly is it successful for? Certainly it is a HUGE success for the various war profiteers that celebrated when we wrecked the country so they could be paid billions upon billions to rebuild it. Other than that, I really can’t think of whom would characterize it as a success. Certainly our allies wouldn’t, the families of fallen or injured soldiers wouldn’t, the majority of the American public wouldn’t nor the majority of the Iraqi population. Oh wait I forgot one other group that would call this cluster f a success, Al Qaeda.