End gaming...

End gaming...

My new house has a fireplace. I'm sure it is a net heat loss, but it creates a nice ambiance on a cold fall night. Actually it is getting quite hot right now.

This weekend as I worked on redoing my closet I found myself pottering along at my own pace, and I was surprised that I had no wish to take short cuts. If I needed a nail set, say, I'd trundle all the way downstairs, out to the Garagemahal, root around in my boxes of tools and related stuff until I found what I wanted, trundle back upstairs. All to set four nails. Maybe a dozen taps.

I made a lot of trips to the Garagemahal. (An alert reader may wonder why I didn't plan better, and why the Garagemahal isn't organized any better than it is, to which I have no satisfactory answers.)

I should say that I had no wish to take short cuts until mid afternoon today when I was pushing myself to get done so I could get outside and enjoy some of the beautiful end-of-October Sunday afternoon we were having and still have the satisfaction of having the job done.

I would like to blame what happened next on the weather. After all, if Saturday's rain that forced me out of the yard all yesterday had persisted, I wouldn't been in such a hurry to get outside. But that is a lame excuse.

What happened is that I took a shortcut. Instead of making yet another trip to Menards, I decided that the prior handyman's method of splicing wires together was OK after all. So when it was all done and I tested the light it didn't work, and of course the thing I most wanted to avoid had happened (broke the neutral line above the light, with just 1" poking out of the ceiling to work with.)

So instead of finishing the job I've set myself back - worse I made it harder for myself.

I hate it when I try to endgame and it backfires on me. I used to do it all the time, and up until about 4pm today I had stayed with the task and didn't try to get it finished.

I did make it outside (without the satisfaction) while it was still daylight and the millrace path and dam were right where I left them, and the day was even prettier outside than it looked from the inside.