These days I work a little more than normal.  I have my real job, repairing various commercial electronics for Mood Media.  Most days I choose one type of electronics, say a certain digital satellite music receiver, and work on that model from the beginning of the day to the end.  On these days, there is little excitement from one unit to the next.  Few and far between are the times I get to say, “I’ve never seen that before.”  Today, however, was varied.  I repaired three satellite receivers, two oscilloscopes, one spectrum analyzer, a power amplifier, and a large venue projector.  I enjoy a new challenge.  Working on something I never have before is exciting, like hunting in a new terrain, trying to ferret out the faulty component.  This is what I do for 45 to 50 hours every week.

In my evenings and weekends I work on a (very) small side business where I design and build electronics.  These are small items, most of which will end up in antique cars.  All are handcrafted, so every hole is drilled one at a time with a pull on the drill press, every component is placed one at a time by hand, and every circuit is hand-soldered one point at a time.  As any craftsman knows, an error can be disastrous, and some cannot be undone.  This is a lesson I have learned the hard way, and so every detail is seen to with patience.  This is what I do for about 20 – 25 hours a week.  I suppose that overall, I work harder than some, and not as hard as others.

But today I am tired.  I compare this tiredness to another . . .

Am I more tired than when I baled hay and straw with my family for eight summers?

Am I more tired than on the thirtieth consecutive fourteen-hour day without the respite a rain would provide?

Am I more tired than pumping diesel fuel into seven empty tanks at the end of the day with a hand crank pump, arms aching no matter how many times I switch hands?

More tired than living in a camp trailer for six weeks because home is too far away to drive every day?

More tired than an uneaten pizza, the crew’s reward for turning out 5000 bales yesterday, left because it is too hot to feel like eating?

More tired than reaching the seasonal goal of 120,000 bales, enough to meet the needs of the books, and then pushing further because this is where they go into the black?

Am I more tired than when I rode on the back of a baler for half a day trying to get a knotter to work right, the honeymoon after winter maintenance and repair long over?

More tired than when I busted my knuckles on that knotter when the 17mm wrench slipped off the nut that fastens the worm gear to it’s shaft?

Am I more tired than hauling a 40-pound pail of open-gear lubricant to the top of each machine three times a day in order to pour from it onto a half-ton of moving gears under my feet?

Am I more tired than taking advantage of a moment when all the machines are working right, everything is fueled and lubed, twineboxes are stocked and no one is complaining, a moment to lie down in a windrow and close my eyes, never at ease lest a machine should swallow me up?

More tired than searching a 40-acre field by spotlight for a cell phone I had dropped?

More tired than the dog, panting in the stagnant heat of the pickup truck, motor off and A/C not running because gas has gone up to $1.19?

Am I more tired than my sister, shotgun in the same stuffy pickup truck, broken leg in a fiberglass cast, and if casts aren’t bad enough in their seventh week, this one was sweated in eight hours a day?

More than trudging in five-pound steel-toe work boots from one end to the other of a 400-acre field to pull all the twine from a row of bales because the baler operator didn’t notice that the center twine was always popping?

More tired than climbing inside the 16″ x 22″ chamber of each baler to change the plunger knives, lying on my side in the confined space with just enough room to manuever the breaker bar?

Am I more tired than when I had to pound a broken shear bolt out of the flywheel . . . again. . . because the operator kept overfeeding, and then the hole became out of round and no shear bolt could be expected to last too long, even under normal circumstances?

Am I more tired than after blowing all the straw out of three balers with compressed air in order to go to another farmer’s fields, appearing like a ghost from the cloud of dust and chaff?

How about when the Chevy had it’s Third Annual Spontaneous Water Pump & Fan Clutch Failure Extravaganza, and it had to be attended to first because it carried the parts and tools to repair the other two machines that were broken down?

Am I more tired than at 11:30 at night, trying to figure out how to only spend 50 cents in the campground shower and have enough water to get all the gear lube and Bigfoot grease off my body and out of my hair?

Or am I more tired than eating a chicken chimichanga at midnight for the thirty-fifth time because Muchas Gracias is the only place open after 10:00 in this small town?

And am I more tired than one of those really hard days, the ones when there wasn’t a moment that something wasn’t broken, and at the end of the day, it’s two beers with my chimichanga instead of just one, because, lets face it . . . when you’re drinking Icehouse, it takes two anyways?

Despite how it sounds, these were great times.  I’ve never worked with another crew as good as this one, and I don’t expect I ever will . . . more on that another time.

When I consider these things, I find I’m not so tired, and I can go another round or two, repair a couple more receivers, drill a few hundred more holes, and solder another dozen boards.  I know I can’t keep this pace up indefinitely, and it isn’t suitable in the long run.  But in this time and place, these are tasks I have been given to do, and they meet my needs.  So I push ahead, thankful for this daily bread, and thankful for having the task to do.