18 volts and My Mexi-CANS

I've almost recovered from the stellar events of this past weekend.

Lots of bike riding and barn raisings going on. Went to Nashville for a race Saturday morning. The most exciting thing that event was watching a Discovery Channel special on the sinking of the German warship, the Tipitz. That's about it for Nashville.

Sunday was barn raising galore. It was actually building a fort/swingset for my shawtee but barn raising sounds so much better.

Being the anal retentive that I am, I assembled some parts before my crew came over; I even separated and labeled the bags of screws, washers, nuts and bolts. Then, with LP's assistance we unloaded all the lumber and separated it into piles and put labels on them.

Yes, that is out of control obsessive-compulsive. However, had you seen what happened when 1 or 2 boards lost their labels then you'd understand how important organization was to this project.

I love building stuff; I also like buying stuff. This job required around $220 in tools from Sears and Home Depot. I upgraded my beloved 14.4 volt Firestorm that LP got me for my 30th b/day. It was a sad day to retire it but I went up to an 18 volt Ryobi. I figured I'd need the extra horsepower for this job.

The Channel 4 New Team graciously gave up their Sunday afternoon to help on this project: Zack "Pablo" Perry, Kenny "Escobar" Allen and "Brickquez" Lacek. Brick used to be a builder so his skillz came in handy when the primary structure for the swingset turned out looking like the leaning Tower of Pisa. By the time Brick was finished that fort was so square and tight it could have blended in at a Linux conference (sorry nerds).

Through superior intellect, dexterity and strong backs we were able to knock this job out in under five hours AND avoid most piles of dog shat in the back yard.

We celebrated with families coming over for burgers and beer.

I truly appreciate my homies and give them mad props for proving they're a great bunch of Mexi-CANS and not Mexi-CAN'TS.