Red Green, Handyman Hero

Red Green is a Canadian comedian who is leader of the Possum Lodge and a self-proclaimed handyman. His show pokes fun a rural life and city life in equal measure.

One of Red Green’s running gags is called Handyman Corner and always wraps with the line

“If the women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.”

So let me reveal two recent Red Green moments here at the Johnson household.

Several weeks ago the garage door was coming off the track. Seems the track had bent at a high stress area. I managed to get the roller back on and thought, “job well done” to myself.

A couple of weeks later, the garage door is making a godawful racket and I see that one side the middle three rollers (of five) are off the track and the door is essentially hanging above both our cars. Yikes!

So I call the garage door company. The guy shows the next day and Anke calls me from my laptop to the garage.

By the time I get there the guy is done.

Shit.

Embarassing.

To put the rollers back on the track, the guy twisted the track more than I felt comfortable. Then he bent the track at the high stress area back into shape with a claw hammer.

Anke smiles and looks at me, “At least you’re handsome!” and she goes back into the house.

Now, the service tech plays this cool. He knows I have to write him a check, so he seamlessly hops into “make it look good” mode and lubes the track and the hinges and all. Still, he’s trying to stretch the service call out before handing me the bill. God bless him.

So a sheepish $69.95 later, I go back into the house, certain to get further Red Green teasing from Anke.  She obliges.

I feel like a failed man.

A failed man who is out seventy bucks.

But.

I am never one to let a lesson go unlearned!

So today, to start off Memorial Day, I decided to replace the lattice we have screening the garbage cans. I’m hoping to reclaim some handyman points and soothe my male ego. Plus, if I do it tonight, I’ll beat the massive holiday weekend rush at Home Depot!

Below is a pic of my handwork!

How does Tim's handywork look? Is it redeeming enough?

With a little luck I’ll be redeemed in Anke’s eyes and she’ll declare me both handsome and handy!

Your comments would help greatly in this regard…hint, hint!

  
“Tim, I can tell you have a really great Dad.” This disarming compliment was given to me by someone who out to know. Larry Bilotta helps save marriages for a living. We had just met at a marketing meeting in Green Bay.

So as I reflected on why Larry said what he did, Oprah’s words gave me pause because my Dad spent a lot of time with me. Her words resonated further because I’ve been having the feeling I was getting sucked too far “working in” my business, rather than spending time “working on” my business.

Anke and I just attended our first Parent-Teacher Conference at Kid’s Express, a milestone to be sure, and my comment to Anke afterwards was, “If they all go like that, then we’ll know we’ve done a good job with G.”

Seeking answers, I was referred to Tim Ferris’ excellent “4-Hour Work Week.” Two tiny tweaks I implemented were to set my email to check for messages every 4 hours and to return calls only twice per day. Now that I’ve taken back some control, what happened? People are complaining—Including the person who referred me to the book in the first place! Oh well, they will learn and a balance will be struck.

I’ve also committed to reading less. I realized that although I’m a sponge, I didn’t have the time to execute all the great stuff I’m absorbing. So (and this is really hard for me), I will have select my reading even more carefully or else my stack of books will get too tall. I’ve done this once before when I cancelled “recreational” magazine subscriptions to MIT’s Technology Review and Small Times, a nanotechnology rag.

So if I’m trying to define my business self, it’s getting back to that more strategic role and becoming a worker bee only in carefully screened circumstances, where the opportunity is maximized.

I often work from home and my “14 step commute” isn’t often a transition that works for me, so what I’m trying to accomplish as a parent is to be a dad whose mind is clear enough from “work detritus” that I can focus 100% on Griffin when we are together.

What I’m trying to accomplish as a spouse right now is to spend more time with Anke doing fun things.  At last report I was succeeding.

So that’s some of my thinking on time and what you can do with it. What do you do with your time and who does it say you are?