Beware my Wrath, House

Can I just tell you how wonderful it is to wake up in the United States of America, with a garage full of tools and a bunch of house problems to crush?

That sounds crazy, I guess. I just feel good today. As much as I hate sweating in the yard, I get tremendous satisfaction from the results. Wait…that almost sounds like a WORK ETHIC. Something must be wrong.

I consulted with a yard guru yesterday, and I have decided to kill the St. Augustine grass. Right outside, a battle is going on. The battle is between ordinary, boring, weed-loving St. Augustine grass, and pretty, weed-choking Bermuda grass. I have been trying to decide which one to poison and which one to keep, and because the yard guru says Bermuda will do well here, I have decided to put my considerable weight behind the Bermuda faction.

He says the kind of Bermuda which is invading can’t be bought, because the seed isn’t sold. So the only answer is poisoning the St. Augustine and transplanting chunks of Bermuda. Fine and dandy. I can kill two birds with one stone. Many lawn weed-killers kill St. Augustine grass, so all I have to do is weed the areas where the grasses are mixed. I can’t wait. Killing plants I hate is nearly as much fun as saving plants I like.

I also have to take the transfer motor thing off an SUV and see if I can make it work. And then there is the mess the bee-removal commandos left.

I can’t do any of the electrical work, because I refuse to use my hammer drill to go through 12″ of solid concrete again. I broke down and ordered a rotary hammer. I thought the hammer drill was the right tool for this, and that’s sort of true, but it’s like using a paring knife to carve a turkey. The rotary hammer should take about a tenth of the time the hammer drill takes. Don’t get me wrong; I love the hammer drill for most holes. But when you’re putting a 3/4″ hole through poured concrete, it’s not ideal. And I’m afraid using a cordless hammer drill for that kind of stuff approaches abuse and will eventually ruin the tool.

Here’s a question. Let’s say you have a cinderblock wall, and you need to put a hole in it for a unit air conditioner. What’s the right tool? I have realized that a $300 investment in a unit would multiply the usefulness of the garage by a thousand. Even if it only drops the temperature to 80 and the humidity to 60%, it will be a godsend. Right now, during the 9 hot months of the year, I find myself spending way less time out there than I should, because after a while, I can’t stand the sensations of my shirt sticking to me and sweat running into my eyes.

I guess a unit air conditioner will be an invitation to burglars. That means putting bars around it, which means fabrication, which means WELDING.

I am swimming in testosterone.