Arrrgh!!!

Dear Husband is an officer in a masonry corporation. He's risen through the ranks from a laborer to a bricklayer, learning how each job is done by doing it. He has 40 years of experience at laying bricks.

This evening we have been sitting in the living room. He has the remote for the TV and is switching between two equally detestable shows. One of them is a do-it-yourself show on how to create your own patio kitchen. He's been fairly quiet, but as each segment ends, he points out the key piece of information that was omitted. I really hope that nobody who watches this program gets the idea that they can do this project without professional assistance. It's a project that is WAY over the average person's capability, and the cost to clean up the errors or starting fresh would be significant.

We were rather surprised to see them working with a saw that didn't have a blade guard. I'd think that OSHA would require them to adhere to the current safety rules.

The "pro" didn't mention that when you lay brick, you have to figure out how many brick will fit the space horizontally. If you blithely go about laying bricks on that first row, you are likely to get to the last two spaces and find that you can't squeeze in both bricks. You need to know that spacing so that you keep your mortar joints the correct width as you run the row.

The "pro" also didn't know how to "butter" the brick properly. There wasn't enough mortar on the second brick.

When they showed the finished fire pit, they commented that they had put saw marks on a corner brick to make it look as though the pattern of laid bricks went all the way to the end of the row. What they didn't mention was that they needed a different kind of brick to be able to create that touch.

"How-To" shows are great for getting fresh ideas, but perhaps not great when it comes to carrying out more complicated ideas. You'd think they'd want their watching audience to have success at their projects, so they'd continue to watch the shows. Maybe people are smarter than I give them credit for being. I suppose I can stop shouting "Don't try this at home!" when I watch these things.

By the way....the other show that was disgusting was one of those nature shows that let you see all the babies being eaten by sharks and crocodiles and piranha and snakes. I know the world is a dangerous place, and that survival of the fittest is the law of the land, but I'm not watching any show that focuses on predators. I'm not watching another merkat take a hit!