Just Like Jesus

I took my first class in carpentry this week. It was a three-day intensive learning course, and we each built a sofa table. HOT DIGGITY DAMN! I can build shit now! Just like Jesus.

As fate would have it, I recently signed up for a local Freecycle yahoo group. Freecycle is a network of people who have useful things they don't need, and other people who want them. It could be a 4-pack of AAA batteries or a set of living room furniture. The theory being, rather than throwing it into our over-flowing landfills, give it to someone who will use it. It sounds very green.

I noticed something disturbing though; everything I have given away has been retrieved by someone driving a large, comfy, SUV. It seems to me, that if you're going to make an extra trip to pick up a free pack of baby-wipes in your 8-cylinder Excursion, while the kids, safely tucked into the air-conditioned back, play MurderDeathKill XII on the entertainment center, you aren't scoring too many carbon points. Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose?

But I digress...

During the lunch break on day two of carpentry class I came home and checked my email. Holy crap, some guy was giving away a jointer! For those of you that haven't taken a basic carpentry class, and now know everything about all tools, like me, a jointer is a table saw that makes bent wood flat. That's a really cool thing and they start at like $500 for a new one! Who cares if this thing is 20 years old and has a broken table? It was free, and once I sink $600-$700 into it I can build that Master Suite we've always wanted.

So I load up the kids in the SUV and we head down the street to pick up my free, broken jointer and who is laying on the guy's front porch? Flash, his "off duty" seeing eye dog. How cool is that?! It's not often you get a chance to rub a service dog all over, so I did. He's a big, sweet, lovable Black Lab that willingly gave me his belly. I think I liked that even more than getting a free saw or building a new table.

Overall the class was a lot of fun, and I really did learn a lot. Not to mention that my dove-tail joints are better than anything Jesus could have made, Craftsman Jigsaw or not!