It’s HOT—HOT—HOT!!
I’m in the city of Mojave, California this week working. It’s Thursday, we’ve been here since Sunday Evening. Since it’s a little more than 100 miles to drive here I usually stay for at least a week because it doesn’t make sense to drive that far to get home each day.
There is usually enough work to last a week so it works out. I’m out here doing handyman, home maintenance, home repair……………. in other words “I fix, repair, and build stuff”.
This week we removed the sheathing from an out-building for the owners across the street from where I’m staying. It was nearly falling off and the contents would have been exposed to the elements.
We’ve worked at this property before. The last time, we built a car port so the owners could park their car in shade, because if the temp. outside of the car is 100 degrees; the temp inside the car would be about 200 or so degrees when they opened the doors.
Because it’s very windy here we had to really anchor it down really well or it would get blown away. As a result it was a very beefy structure, built to withstand the strongest winds the desert serves up.
Since that job went so well we were hired to take care of the out-building. That was not a very hard job because it was just removing the rotting plywood, shoring up the framing and correcting a few things around the foundation.
Since the temp. has reached 118 degrees this week we’ve had to start really early in the morning. (Not too early because we didn’t want to wake everyone in the neighborhood with the sounds of power tools.) I’m surprised at how far sounds travels out here.
We’d get started around 7:00 A.M. and end our day any where from 11:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M. By that time it’s really too hot to be outside. We were only able to work that late because the sun would move around the build so that we’d have partial shade on two sides of the build, and hopefully those were the two sides of the build we were working on.
Since our days end early it’s take a bit longer to complete a job, but today we put the finishing touches on the building and moved on to yet another neighbors’ house where we’re putting together a gazebo in his yard. In addition to that we have to install a security door.
Once that’s over it’ll be Friday evening and the work here in the desert will be over and we’ll be heading back home to start on yet another project.
Some of you reading this blog know me as a professional photographer are probably wondering why I’m here in the desert building things?
Well, it’s quite simple.
I’ve always enjoyed building and repairing things around the house. It’s been that way since I was in Jr. high school. I never really considered doing it to make money since I was into photography at such an early age, but since I’ve gotten older and I’ve had to do these things around my house I’ve gained more experience and knowledge in that area.
One of the biggest reasons though is the fact that I have a good friend that I grew up with here in southern calif. that’s a contractor by trade, he allowed me to help him on a few jobs.
While he cussed, fussed and generally talked krazy to me while I worked with him; he showed me the proper way to do things; I was able to get better. If I hadn’t known him since we were 12 years old I would not have been able to stick it out. It was kinda like “Construction BootCamp” where all the things said to me were said (Mostly) to make me better and to think about the task at hand, providing I was able to stick it out and learn something.
During that time and afterwards I used the secrets I stole from him to get little jobs on my own and use around my house to do repairs.
Since that time a few years ago, I’ve added that to my “List of things I can do to make money, and have a good time in the process.”
That association led to another friend asking to help out while they found a replacement for one of their guys that no longer worked with them. That worked out well also, which is what led to me being hired out here in Mojave. It was always understood that photography was first on my list of things to do, but when photography was slow I would pick up this type of work so I would not go crazy when I was not doing photography.
I’ve grown to like this type of work so much that I enjoy it as much as photography. In fact, I’m now really interested in getting back to doing the type of photography I want to do as opposed to the kind of photography I have to do to pay the bills.
So that’s why I sit here in Mojave drinking 32 ounce cups of water non stop like I’ve never drank water before in my life, while hoping it cools down a little so I can get out of the house!
As it turns out I have lots of computer work that needs to be done so for the remainder of my stay here I have lots to do.
For the next few weeks I have a couple of home repair jobs to complete, then I’ll be traveling to St. Louis to photograph The YTBTravel National Convention that will happen the first week of August.
I didn’t mention the travel business I’m involved with, but I’ll get to that because it all fits together with everything else I do to “Make a life worth living while having a good time”.
Well, this is my first official post since I started this blog on June 30th–2008. Keep an eye out for other e-mails for more blogging.
If you’ve looked at some of the posts on this blog you’ll see quite a few blogs from my son Austin as he’s visiting from Atlanta this summer.
I thought it would be a good idea and good for his writing skills if he wrote about his experiences here this summer.
Until next time.
I’m Here in Mojave trying to stay cool.
