We are all familiar with the initialism #DIY, do it yourself. Now how many DIYers know what DIA stands for, I didn't until a few minutes ago when I made it up.
Think about this statement made by Alan Watts.
"Our educational system, in its entirety, does nothing to give us any kind of material competence. In other words, we don't learn how to cook, how to make clothes, how to build houses, how to make love, or to do any of the absolutely fundamental things of life. The whole education that we get for our children in school is entirely in terms of abstractions. It trains you to be an insurance salesman or a bureaucrat, or some kind of cerebral character." Now, these are just the type of characters I like to spend time with. 🤦♂️
I know that @dandays would agree with Mr. Watts!
https://diy.fandom.com/wiki/Do_It_Yourself
DIA stands for do-it-again, and maybe again and again. With what was just stated above by philosopher Alan Watts, it doesn't surprise me how many folks have to call in a professional to change the toilet paper roll.
That reminds me of a joke. Have you ever heard the joke, How many knuckleheads does it take to change a lightbulb?
It takes four knuckleheads to change the lightbulb, one to hold the bulb and three to turn the ladder.
Do you see that cable in the first two pictures? Yeah, that one, the one that crosses the driveway and is way too low.
Doing it again because of poor planning, hastiness, or not having the ability to rethink your gameplan as the project moves forward, is counterproductive.
I have always figured that if I'm going to invest my time in any project, I may as well do it to the best of my ability.
Skill level may vary greatly, from one DIYer to the next but giving it your all and learning along the way will usually pay off.
Just recently, a company called Royal Contracting was installing new internet cables. The day before this cable was not here. It appeared out of nowhere. @farm-mom and I went out for a few hours and when we returned there it was, encroaching on our airspace
I knew they would be returning to suspend the fiber-optic cable, and at that point, I would voice my concern about the elevation of the cable, it was way too low.
They returned the following day, and very politely I made my point to the boss of the crew.
The boss of the crew had to call his boss, and that boss had to call his boss, and so on.
After about an hour I was told by the boss that his boss's boss said to continue to string the fiberoptic cable to the already existing cable, which was already too low. They were behind schedule and were told to continue their installation.
How does the saying go?
You've got the time to do it twice, but not enough time to do it right the first go-around.
That wasn't exactly the answer I was looking for. An hour later I had reached the right guy. He worked for AEG the engineering firm that was overseeing the installation of the cables for the internet company Clarity Internet. He was a nice gentleman and guaranteed that the issue would be addressed the following week.
He stated that the field engineer would be in town next week and he would stop by. I didn't feel as though I was getting the runaround and would wait and see.
A few days later the field engineer shows up. The issue is resolved to my complete satisfaction.
The game plan is to have the cable run underground parallel to the road.
Now, you would think that if you were already behind schedule you would have come up with a better idea than, string it anyway,
It took five guys longer to take the cable down than it did to put it up.
The worker with the yellow hard hat on had to work on that bird's nest of wire for a 1/2 hour, before tossing it to the side.
I guess doing things over, even when you know that the first attempt isn't going to fly, is no big deal.
The extra expenses will just be passed onto the customer.
The cable marked no is the one they removed and the one marked yes is good to go.
While they were here they had to drop a pine tree that was in their way.
Knowing that I would be cutting the top of the pine tree for this year's Christmas tree, you would think I would have gotten it before it was covered by 37 inches of snow, but what fun would that have been?
After about 20 minutes we had uncovered the piece of the tree we were looking for and had extracted it from the frozen ground.
A few shakes later, all that had to be done was to make the trek back to the house.
The walk back was only about 100 yards, but with all of the snow, a good cardiovascular workout was had.
With Christmas trees going between $60.00 and $100.00, this Charlie Brown Tree was looking better every second.
What a beautiful Christmas tree.
Remember, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
With the flying angel atop near the top of the tree. we were ready for Santa to stop by.
Everything worked out swell. and the good folks from Royal Contracting even cut down our Christmas tree for us. 👍👌😁
It's always a good idea to DIY to the best of your ability or you may be doing some DIA!