My personal philosophy is heavily influenced by a mixture of the martial philosophies of the early Tokugawa Shogunate and my mother's father's approach to life. That is to say, I tend to favor the idea that when you undertake a task, you should strive to do it with every ounce of willpower you can muster until you have succeeded in your goal or are forced to yield. I have not always pursued this ideal diligently, mind you, but it's something I feel is worth striving for. My grandfather phrased it more succinctly, though: "I don't care if you're sweeping floors, you get up in the morning and you be the best [EXPLETIVE REDACTED] floor sweeper there is."
So, when I showed up this morning and was informed that I was going to be flattening washers to assemble more panels, I just saw it as an opportunity to meditate upon the mysteries of the universe. Granted, the main mystery I was considering was why I'd never developed anything vaguely reminiscent of upper body strength or, for that matter, more weight than I had in the eighth grade. It wasn't particularly strenuous, mind you--I'm just a perfectionist of the worst sort and when I'm told to flatten a washer, more than a few degrees from 0 is unacceptable unless you tell me otherwise.
The telling me otherwise came about an hour and a half or so into the two-and-a-half hour process, by which point I was already over half-way through the amount that I planned to compress. There's some sort of important moral to this episode, but all I can come up with is, "Don't spend five minutes trying to flatten a stubborn washer unless you know that's what you're supposed to do." The applicability of this pearl of wisdom I will leave as an exercise to the reader.
Regardless, the rest of the day was spent on the assembly process. I know I failed to go into great detail last time, but, honestly, that's probably for the best considering (a) that post went on for far too long and (b) this was more involved anyway. You see, because we're bolting these screens over the actual graphic/text panels, that means any dust, debris, or other sorts of material wind up getting sandwiched in between unless we make sure ourselves that they are clean. These panels which we were working with were... well, not as clean as I would have liked.
So, this was the process, in list form.
Step 1: Remove tape binding together panel and cover so that the holes are oriented correctly.
Step 2: Flip the cover off the panel, revealing the beautiful graphic design covered in inexplicable particulate matter inserted there by the Labor Imps so that they may feed off your annoyance.
Step 3: Carefully dust off the graphic panel with a brush, follow up the brush with a cloth, follow up the cloth with a brush. Look at the dust remaining and sigh in annoyance.
Step 4: Having reached a point where removing any further marks would require a wire brush and the very destruction of the graphic this process was meant to avoid, turn your attention to the paper protecting the cover. Remove this paper and--in the process--create enough particulate matter to force you to repeat step 3.
Step 5: Using plexiglass cleaner and a cloth, wipe down the exposed face of the cover before flipping it back over, lining it up carefully so that the holes are once again lined up for the later bolting.
Step 6: Ruin your careful alignment by having to peel the protective paper off the other side of the cover panel. Stand back and marvel at all of the particles that somehow got between the plexi and the graphic between step 5 and now. Repeat step 3, with the additional complication of lifting the plexi and wiping down the interior.
Step 7: Having now passed through denial that there's any more dust, bargaining with the panel to come clean, getting angry with the stupid panels, sadness over your powerlessness in the face of the stupid dust, accept that it's not getting any cleaner and start bolting it down.
Step 8: Remember why you needed to flatten all those washers this morning as you realize that you have less than 1/16 of an inch on which the nut can bite the screw/washer combination. Spend five minutes in a futile attempt to get this magical concordance of threads before trying the exact same combination of screw, nut, and washer in the next hole over and have it work immediately.
Step 9: Do step 8 7 more times.
Step 10: With all 8 screws in place, remember that you were supposed to leave one hole empty for mounting.
Step 11: Having removed a screw, realize that you have the heads oriented incorrectly.
Step 12: The Labor Imps are now satisfied. You may grab another panel and return to step 1 while another group comes in to feed.
Don't let me give you the wrong impression, though. It's actually pretty fun, because when it's all said and done, there's a thing and you built that thing with your hands. Well, I built that thing with my hands. You probably spent your day on Facebook laughing at whatever George Takei posted while I was busy. That's okay, though. If we were all this awesome, who would we all look down on?
That's right, people who don't let pedestrians know they're biking up behind them. Seriously, guys, it's not like "bicycle horns" aren't a thing.
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