Getting my ass kicked in the shed

My fathers birthday was last month and as the usual overly busy son that i am, i let it go by and did nothing for him, which is what he likes. But I told him I was getting him something even though he doesn't want anything. I told him I would rebuild his run down wood frame shed that we tried to rebuild but were interrupted by the world famous sets of hurricanes back to back and the following year again. We never got back to finish it and it was torn apart and water damaged as well as termites and age. So starting the first weekend of Feb I started work on it for him, he was there of course but at 72 he isn't really able to do too much, aside from be my helper and hand me things and nail when my arm gets tired. He wasn't to happy about how much damage was there and bitched and moaned about getting replacement parts but with hurricanes you don't take many chances allowing high speed projectiles to exist because you didn't build it right. You could easily destroy other things around it, like the house its at (his rental unit) much less a kill someone or worse. The roof was pretty bad even though it was new from 4 years ago when the hurricanes hit, it only had the tar paper when we were cut short of the finish and torn apart. So it leaked and the bugs ate it too. so I had to rebuild the entire front main wall and roof again. simple enough, but rough when you are doing 90% of the work and working with a grumpy old man (he is). He just wanted to get it done and move on, I wasn't about to let it go to pot again and was building it right this time as it was my work that was going into it and damn his ideas of cheeping out and cutting corners.

If you care you can click the pics for the HI-RES versions 4 Megapixel shots

So before he got there on Saturday, I went over in the early morning and started to remove the old shit roof. Everything on the East side needed to be replaced since it was so rotten. Started with the tar paper. I made him get the good stuff to replace it with, same as i did the year before when rebuilding my house. 30# not that cheap 15# crap.

First batch of old 15# paper, it was rotten from being exposed for those years and was not too bad to remove, just clawed it with the hammer. bought a new one for framing and roofing, a 28oz one, really worked well. I bought a new set of professional work gloves, with the grippy fingers, kinda like my mechanix gloves, I gave them to him as he was struggling with the OLD MAN garden type yard gloves. NOT a good idea, cant pick up shit with them. So he paid me the $30 for the gloves and paid me for the hammer too. I've learned over years not to say no. Makes him angry. He did get a new blade for the radial saw i brought, it was rusty and burned the first few cuts pretty bad. almost caught on fire. hahah

After I knocked out the first roof sheets, the beams were in bad shape too, water and bugs, will have to replace them.

Here you can see the top rail for the roof line, double beamed and worthless as it turns to powder when you hit it with the hammer. I cold crush it with my fingers. It was mostly termite poo throughout. Gross that its all falling on me as i was removing the roof.

Other end of the shed on same side, to right of previous pic, wanted to show the kind of water damages to the rafters and the roof sheets of plywood. Note the rot and mold on the wall in the corner. That too will have to go.

Same roof sheets after throwing on the ground, you can see the rafter lines.

This one was the worst of them

Up top, the beam with the wire is the one that was totally eaten away by bugs, they ate all the way around yet left vertical beams alone, strange things termites. Must have been old damages as I didn't see a single one alive or dead.

The last roof sheet before beating the shit out of it from below to knock it loose

Well here it is later in the day, been working a while and had to rest a bit, no time for pics in between sorry. I had to rest as after swinging hammer for first time in a while my arm totally cramped and locked up on me. My muscles were so tight I had to fight to keep my arm from curling up and my hand from closing. Not a good start but I took an Ibuprofen and it helped. After a short self induced massage and break I was able to get back to work without any more cramping.

It was getting later in the day, I got the Framing done after removing all the bad wood, much more damage that i originally expected, but i pushed on. So much for a few hours Sat and Sun. It was all day for both. Dad did buy lunch on both and took me out for BBQ on Saturday at the local joint, he was so tired. But, again at 72 and a pencil pusher, its no wonder. He doesn't do this kind of stuff much.

The new roof line and main beam, looks so much better. I'd honestly would have like to just rebuild the whole roof, but it wasn't bad on the West side, a few pieces of top rail needs cutting and replacing with braces. I will do that later.

The new wall studs and corner with the new hurricane approved bracing started on the corner. pretty damned stable if i do say so myself.

Another few of from above, the apex joints were bad too, so i replaced what needed it and added the same spaced short cuts in between the rafters on the exterior walls top rail, so in effect its 3 2x4 stacked with the rafters nailed to it all. pretty damned strong. I used southern prime pine and not that white board crap that you can dig with your fingernail. That stuff is pure crap and I cant believe people use it and don't realise how bad it is to build with. no wonder some homes just blow apart in 120mph winds.

My original base with the new corner, I used red bolts into the concrete when i put in the base years back during the first rebuild, the pressure treated base is still looking good and solid as hell, no worries there. A few braces and brackets later it was sound as a pound.

Well here it is the end of day two, late Sunday and i finally go the roof boards started and half the roof done, need to cut a few pieces of 3/4 to finish the roof wood. I was however pretty damn ass tired by then, my arm was giving out from hammering so much. Dad was having a hard time climbing the ladder to help. I kept telling him to go sit but he didn't want to. Stubborn old man.

I called in some friends to help hand me up the sheets of plywood, I sure as hell couldn't do it by myself and Dad couldn't either. Hell we couldn't do it together by then, I was ready to keel over.

Well here is the new rafters with the roof sheets on. Note my handy dandy bracketing for the hurricanes. That shit works, between the 3 inch nails at angle into the top rail and gap stops the strapping will keep the roof from lifting in winds. I did a better job here than my house.

Here's more to the left of the previous pic. My dads head as he pulled down the tarp to cover as we closed up for the coming week. That's the doorway. It was about 6.30pm on Sunday. He only wanted to go to about 2pm, yeah right. I got the major shit done. Had to go for supplies 3 times over the weekend aside from trip #1 on Friday night. Damn termites ate that shit up. That should have been replaced the first time but he didn't want to, i gave him no choice this time. He was pitching a fit all over the place, it was hard to work with him at times. But after 41 years I guess I'm kinda used to hearing it and tune it out. Just don't like it when it gets directed at me. That when i bark back and tell him to take a break.

Well that's what I have done so far, this coming weekend I was supposed to go to Orlando but looks like that isn't happening. I will finish the shed. Just a little bit more roof work and then on to tar papering the entire shed and the eve work, did i mention i HATE eve work? I am not into the hammering up it requires and hanging over roof isn't a choice as its a long eve. Then the final sheeting on the outside. Drywall and wiring after, but that's the simple stuff as its all just BANG and go. But I may have him hire out for that since its such a small job. I did the hard part. I should send him a bill hahahah. Why not? I bill him for the IT work I do for his company.

Managment vs Reality and getting the job done

It is said that Good judgement comes from bad experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgement. But as we all know bad management never learns from mistakes since they don't know any better nor do they care. For many its not a career as much as its only a J.O.B. to them, the [i'm just here for the paycheck attitude]. I've seen it, you've seen it, hell we have all seen it including the ones guilty of it.

Bad management is rampant in this economy and it shows. Even today the news breaking of a wall street prostitute scandal. Granted it was from before the bailout but indeed why was the bailout required int the first place? Because when companies were busy paying $300,000 a year for sexual favors they were busy not paying attention to anything else they were throwing money at. When your eyes roll back in your head from the Ecstasy you don't have a care in the world.

What I am getting at is the penny counting ways of management to make decisions for the future of a company solely on the fact of costs. The costs now are not the issue as much as the way of doing business or solving problems which is where the problems are in our country from small to large and throughout the local to Fed level GOV departments lye. Stupid purchases can be eliminated first and foremost and is an easy quick fix for most companies but when you have problem solving issues that border on the absurd you have to wonder who the idiot was that OK'd he solution. For example: The typical stupid answer to an existing problem for many mangers is to replace entire items or personnel when its the way they were instructed that is the problem and not the human conducting the repair. It has been said that management ideals for repair responses are as such:
Client is standing there pounding a dead parrot on the counter, and the management response is to frantically swap in new counters to see if that fixes the problem. When that doesn't work they put in some sort of sound deadening material on the counters.
Its this utter nonsense of responses that wastes everyones money and time and in the end costs jobs when the company looses money for poor service.

I see the same thing all year long when a server or system goes down because the hard drive failed. The management thought that spending 300-1000 dollars back when they set it all up was too much to add to the expenses. So now that the entire staff of 50 people are sitting on their asses getting paid to do nothing. Then my hourly fees to try to recover the data and get them back up and running are added to the pot. The average drive recovery costs 800-1200 dollars for a simple data save of 1 drive under 250G. So there I am spending up to 36 hours to restore a server after a serious hard drive crash because of no backup of any kind. Yes 2 Days on site for a repair and all 8 locations where offline during it. I can't imagine what it costs them past my $3000 invoice for lost income from employee costs. So after all that what was the solution they agreed on? Tape drive, cheapest. Which has a major fail point, humans, required to change the tape everyday, I can bet it doesn't happen.

Short rant for the new year
just had to get that out there