avoiding confrontation and playing handyman

As much as I hate to admit it, we did our best to stay inside the house this weekend. I had heard enough horror stories about the Hell's Angels to warrant some avoidance. Besides, they seemed intent on being left alone, and it looks like the police, FBI, and ASP were harassing them enough.

On the bright side, staying in the house allowed me to catch up on some home projects that have been taunting me for some time. It's interesting, but I feel like I have two gears when it comes to work - computer and non-computer. Trying to mix the two, or schedule them both in one day often results in failure. I'm not sure why. It's like I have to switch off one part of my brain to work on the other. So, I was able to ignore the net for a few days, and try to play handyman.

I'm glad that I don't have a job doing any type of home construction work. I just don't have the patience. I also find that I cuss more when trying to upgrade things around the home. I can't really explain it, but my father was the same way when trying to work on cars. I can picture him now, his buttcrack hanging out the back of his pants, swearing like a sailor while trying to loosen a stripped oilpan plug. I guess I inherited his demeanor towards inanimate objects that don't want to cooperate.

In my case, I have this home that was built by morons and without any adherence to building codes. So, every time I go to upgrade or repair something, it ends up taking me much longer than I had anticipated due to unexpected adjacent problems that suddenly reveal themselves. I guess it's like that whole iceberg theory, where you can only see like 10% of the problem. Or like rust. If you see a fingertips' worth of rust, you can probably put your fist through it.

So where does it end? When do you call it a day and decide that the house looks good enough? When you've trimmed out all of the gold chandeliers and replaced them with brushed nickel ones? When you've managed to repaint the ceiling and they all finally share one shade of white paint (and it all features the same level of reflectivity, as opposed to having shiny patches here and there from ghetto style patchwork)?

The part that really floors me is when I start to see items that I have replaced only a year ago start to corrode or wear before my eyes. It gets to the point where you want a house made of durable ABS plastic so that you can just spray it down with some Krylon every so often to make it look new. LOL.