Lemonade...

You know the adage, "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade"... well, I got some lemonade to make.

I use the craigslist free section religiously when I have the time to spend on it and I can often come up with some pretty good stuffs. I recently picked up a 2500 gallon pool which I only had to spend about $75 in parts to make functional. I also found a really nice antique china cabinet which now graces our kitchen. Today, I went to get a very nice heavy duty wooden "jungle gym," all I had to do was dismantle it to get it. Similar ones sell for around $1000 so I thought I was gonna get a good deal. Thought being the key word.

I got about half of it apart with out too much difficulty, but the other half was a bear and essentially soured the deal. That's where the lemons come in. The guy had built it himself and he built it to last. Each joint was connected with a 3/8"x4" bolt, but that was not enough. Each joint also had the added connection strength of a few nails. Not just any nails, but those nice corkscrew type that are supposed to prevent loosening when the structure is wiggled. the nails were also put in on each side of each joint and each at a different angle versus just straight in (all parallel to each other). Good deal for him; it served his kids well for almost 10 years.

What he got today was some free demolition. Attempting to get those joints apart pretty much destroyed the wood. So, now I have a whole bunch of lumber which is full of corkscrew nails and cannot be turned back into a nice heavy duty "jungle gym" for the kids.

I thought about just taking it all to the dump, but I would have to pay for that and then the purpose of using craigslist free section is totally defeated. I would essentially have had to pay for giving someone else five hours of manual labor.

So, I make lemonade. I will get the rest of the nails out at a leisurely pace and then use the lumber to build something else. Maybe I will make the shed I was looking for so I can get all teh garden tools off the back porch.

Why is this post here? "Reduce, Reuse. Recycle." :)

-Joe