Removing weathered wood... and frustration.

Yesterday was the culmination of some not-so-fun things at work.
I won't bore you with the details, but frustration is the key word.

I chose to skip the Great Lakes show and instead head to the Physicist's to work on the boat.

Most of the hardware has a piece of wood between the metal and the fiberglass that acts as a large washer - much of it had become too weathered or completely disintegrated.

So I thought, "What better way to work off the frustrations of the office than by going at rusted metal." Rusted, by the way, because someone sold my father hardware that was not, as claimed, stainless steel.

I put on the trusty pink headlamp, grabbed the toolbox and settled into the bulkhead to start... wait... ew... what is...?

We had cleaned it - but we didn't look UP.

All along the "ceiling" of the stowing area up front were wasp's and mud dauber's nests...

awesome.

So I got out some gloves, some scraping implements and spent an hour making those disappear.

We got out most of the hardware with little resistance, but at the back, the motor mount proved challenging.

The last bolt was attached under the seat and my father had installed a porthole to get to it... but it was still difficult - I almost broke my hand holding the bolt still with a wrench while the Physicist used a ratchet socket wrench to loosen it. The wood looked weathered, but it was cherry and quite good once you got past the exterior.

By the time 9pm rolled around, the office frustration had melted away - no racing, anxious thoughts about what I had to do at work - he made me a cup of Ovaltine (he recently learned of my love of Horlick's, but didn't have any so Ovaltine was the next best thing... malty and sweet and good.)

I went home tired and sated with a good dose of accomplishment, a good way to end a frustrating day.