Motivation is key.
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In this particular case the prisoners were learning a life skill. Welding, auto body work, etcā¦ Now they donāt. I think the program still exists, but they arenāt allowed to work on cars that arenāt mostly stripped, too many things that can be concealed and used as weapons.
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Also making me happy today - I finally installed the new outlet for the microwave and wine fridge. Omg it took forever but itās done. Yay!
Next step - tear down all trim and blinds and paint the walls. Cannot. Wait.
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I donāt know of anywhere in the US where prisoners do āhardā labor anymore. There was a time when prisoners here did something productive (from manufacturing license plates, to usable life skills like farming and cabinetry), but now most do nothing like that.
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CA depends heavily on prison firefighter labor, I know. Itās been something of a scandal because under existing law, they could not become paid firefighters once they left prison despite their training, demonstrated experience, and desperate need. There is some work on that front.
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And its a double edged sword.
As prisoners they are ripe for abuse.
But labor used to count as double time in some places. If you can keep it together to work A road crew then you deserve the reward. My uncle got out of a five year sentence in two years for work time and good behavior, that and the system itself thought the sentencing was too much.
It can also give someone who is in a bad place a skill. But, many places wonāt hire felons. After decades of reform prisons arenāt just about punishment any more, but they arenāt reforming or rehabbing either yet.
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Hahahaha! Still havenāt done the trim. Like, at all. But we have to do it this weekend because my flooring is in. All 2700 sq ft of it. That was supposed to be on backorder until June. The only part of this reno that is early.
Spent the last two weeks doing yardwork in all my free time so I could focus on the inside for the next month. Kids will be here this week so hopefully we can at least get demo done. Gotta patch and paint the entire house too. But the flooring and paint is pretty much all Iām doing for most of the rest of the house soā¦ 
Backyard after cleanup:
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Pulled trim this weekend. Picking up flooring tomorrow. After getting my second vaccine and voting. And then if I still feel human will start patching the walls until I canāt work anymore. Made sure to do as much as I could this weekend assuming jab2 would knock me on my butt. But man do I want this done.
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Now I feel lazy as my plan for next week is do sit and quietly build a lego set or something so Iām moderately active post-Jab2.
I know. I look at everything she gets done and makes me tired. I moved a dresser and a computer out of the basement on Saturday and I could barely move all day Sunday, aside from bottling a fresh batch of vanilla.
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So hereās the thing. Iām tired all the time. And sore. But I literally cannot sit still. Like, if I try and sit quietly my mind just gets all wonky and needs to do things. My dad is the same way. My grandparents too. Quite literally the only thing I can sit for hours doing is fishing. Otherwise I get antsy after about 20 minutes. So I find projects. Lots of projects. 
Eh?
$wife is the same. Think she and @MSUAlexis will get along nicely.
Oops.
Better find a man cave to hide in.
Iāve been looking at so many homes for sale and house designs to build ā¦ an idea has come into my brain.
It would be wildly unpopular and unfamiliar.
Why do we need to have a front door on a house?
Iām just thinking here, but what if I were to build a house that only had a side door and probably a back door? Imagine what you could do with the floor plan. Go ahead. Iāll wait.
ā¦
I mean, I donāt really want people coming to my front door at the best of times. If youāre leaving a delivery, you can leave it at the side of the house. If there is a mail slot, it doesnāt have to be at the front. It makes privacy much easier. Hell, if the street side is north facing, It doesnāt even need much in the way of windows.
I can park the car and load groceries et al. in from the side or back. I do that now, anyway.
Iām not saying that this is for everyone, but itās an interesting idea. I often think outside the box and come up with strange things that make people go WHAT?
Somebody tried it already.
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I am trying to build a fenceā¦ OMG lumber.
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I hear you. I plan to put up all new trim, just 1x4 and 1x6 but that might wait until I can save up. 
A good feeling is when you get your rates and taxes, and itās less than R40 for the whole year.
Iām considering dropping a R100 into that account, thatāll last us like two years.
Lumber is amongst the items where prices are rising due to COVID-19. Thereās a lot of home-building going on right now and real estate agents are trying to get people to sell their homes because demand for both is very high.
Yeah, we are feeling it at the bee farm. Wooden ware is going up across the board. Both because of lumber and because itās hard to get people to work at our vendors. Missouri hosts one of our bigger ones and they kept getting shut down due to COVID and multiple times theyāve rehired the shipping department just to have them not come back in apparently. So theyāve upped the salaries and the costs came through to us along with the lumber increase.
So now we pay more for the same stuff to be shipped slower and sometimes damaged.