Pictures, Plumbers and Pastors

I was told I wasn't posting enough pictures, so here you go. I still want to get a shot from above of the floor framing and plumbing, but this is a start. It's the addition wearing its raincoat (and more often fog and pine needle coat). It won't keep off a serious rain, but it keeps most of the water and pine needles out.

Today I worked on the plumbing some more, but I realized yesterday that sweating pipes is not my strong suit. I can do it when there's lots of room and only a few connections, but those "last connections" where things are tight and there's multiple joints to sweat give me fits. Fortunately my good friend Jim agreed to come give me a hand (again -- he helped me out back when I was remodeling the bathroom, and dielectric unions were giving me fits).

Jim is one of those interesting people who's been a number of things in his life. He doesn't have a lot of formal education, but he's very intelligent and has a lot of different experiences, so he's a jack-of-all-trades and master of many. I'm feel like I'm more of a dilettante in comparison. Jim once made his living as a plumber, and besides having taught me about the wonders of Wonder Bread, he's taught me other valuable lessons about being a plumber: shit runs down hill, and pay day is on Friday. So there you go -- now you've begun your education as a plumber, too. A lot of the rest is fairly easy, but sweating pipes well is the work of an artist. Jim is definitely an artist. Just check out his photography.

I just realized there might be some confusion about Jim. The above refers to a different Jim than Pastor Jim who helped me during the concrete pour. Though Pastor Jim has been a number of things in life, too: raisin farmer, electrical parts salesman, and pastor, that I know of. Come to think of it, I think he was singing and playing guitar when he and his wife Nancy met.