Mike Rowe Addresses the Senate Regarding the Rapid Decline of Skilled Trades

Mikey 2012

Mike Rowe/Jon Stewart

campaign slogan I LIKE MIKE or I"M FOR MIKE or better yet
WE NEED THE LIKES OF MIKE

How about "Rowe, Rowe, Rowe your vote?"

Also, meep you for no reason.

I live in an affluent town, very affluent. I meet ,talk to and listen to the conversations of a good many the housewives I meet in my work. These slim, blonde, gorgeous milfs will do anything, I mean anything to have access to man that can fix meep for them and be their nest building buddy. I kid you not. Their husbands make six figures and more and they are the constant meep of jokes. Of course a lot of this just the typically contempt that comes with marriage i know but all I hear is how Joe or Matt is so wonderful. He fixed the door that was rubbing, filled the scratches in the hardwood floors and so on.

Men, learn to do things with your hands! Women respect this. They want this.

Comes Armageddon you'll have to change your own oil anyway.

In a small town of mostly retires & professionals in half to million dollar homes, rust & dry rot are my best friends.

Gather 'round kids.
Uncle Spanky's gonna tell you about his week.

A week ago at Taft prison, the HVAC and electrician both got fired.
That left a HUGE GAP in maintenance.
No meep, I am the sole remaining person who knows how the machinery runs here.

Two days later, the Fire and Safety manager retired. A day after that, Cal-OSHA (OSHA'S meaner, nastier little brother) showed up at the door wanting to inspect the place due to my retar...
...developmentally disabled coworkers suing over every fart that's lit.

Pass the buck,man.
They all did.

Oops, hit post by accident.(meep these big thumbs)
Anyway, everybody I talk to is absolutely dedicated to doing only the job that they're labeled to do everybody's (rightfully) afraid that they'll get stuck doing all the work that the company should hire someone else to do.

I'm kinda iffy on the matter since it only makes sense to keep your hours full of productive work. But a few days ago the clueless new Fire and Safety manager basically handed me all the info for his job and asked me to train him.
On top of repairing the peremeter fence, doing all the facility AutoCAD, HVAC, spot repairs on electrical, and running the chillers, boilers, general maintenance, and paint crew.

I'm keeping plenty busy.

...(Where was I going with this?)

Oh yeah,
It's a pain in the meep being expected to do all these jobs, but if everybody's being honest, there's a limit to what one person can do in a given amount of time.
They'll see that you're busy enough and hire somebody to help.
If not, then just take your bad-meep skill set to somewhere else and laugh as the whole meeping facility collapses.
meep they'll probably hire you back to rebuild it.

Once in a while, skills are good for something that's fun. I got to do a railing in September for a house that was supposed to be a "wine theme". Came out like this.






Unfortunately, it was way underbid for time, but the end result made it worthwhile.

Awesome railing!

I love that Cthulu-themed harp(guitar?) thing you built.
Pure talent, man.

@spankerchief

The Harp thing is the product of Peter Fels, a long time master blacksmith in the Big Sur area that I've known for decades. In my wildest dreams, I could never hope to achieve what he has with his mind and hands.

"32" high,31 wide, 55"long;13 strings, moveable bridges, walnut feet, 20 some years...I'm really tired of the meep thing."

"Sounds curious.
The little 3 legged bridges are moveable and i sort of correlated string weight with length.
My ear is pretty much gone and Phe's interest is pretty cursory.
Moving the silly thing seems to reset the tuning..tendency to lift it by the tuning assembly
which is a little floppier than intended.
The thing about stringed steel instruments, is that they have harmonics they like/ reinforce..and others they do not.
So i usually end up tuning to the particular instrument.
Tried to build this one to have a more complex sound than in the past."

This is the beastie:

@BeachGoat
Got a vid of somebody playing it?

I wish...I still haven't heard it myself. Our friend Gail went up & tuned/played it a few weeks back, and said it had certain "drone" tones that came natural to it that lent itself to a tibetan or egyptian type of tone. Her basic style is a folk/hippie/love thing, so it was a new dimension for her even after 40 odd years of playing music. Sounds as mystical as it looks.

Teh goat has metal skillz? Rad.

Yeah, that railing is beautiful.

The real meep about the railing was hand bending all the scrolls. That meep is steel, and does no want to look like it's flowing. It comes in 20 foot rods. Have to cut, texture (by hand, with a hammer), and bend every piece in it to make it look like a vine. The fun part was a non-repeating, but similar pattern for each pattern.

"Create. Use your judgement."
These are not words you often here on a project that cost a dozen or so thousand bucks.