Bob is Secure In His Masculinity

Bob is once again updating his work room.  It's like a massive game of Tetris, seeing what he can fit in there (someday that corner of the house will come crashing down.  Maybe we should reinforce the foundation)   But he wants everything accessible as well.

Thus, the hunt for a set of drawers to put on his shelves.  What he wanted was a set of shallow drawers for his paints and scale-model stuff--shallow so things wouldn't get buried, and the type that pull out all the way (without falling out) so he could get to the back.  What he wanted was a set of tool drawers, like the top part of this set.

The problem was that the top lifts up--which wouldn't do any good on a shelf, and he would lose storage space.  There were some online, but sometimes you want to see something before you buy it--what if it ends up being cheaply made or with stuck drawers?  The search was on.

While doing an errand run, we decided to go into Sears.  No luck--all the small ones had the lift-up lids.  What he needed was the middle section of a three-piece set, but they're sold only in sets (because who else would buy the other two pieces missing the middle?).  So we wandered a bit--and there they were.  In the middle of an aisle, glowing.  There may have been a small chorus of angels trumpeting.  A stack of middle sections, on a very deep discount because (according to the salesman) for some reason the company had shipped too many middle sections.

So we looked.  And we laughed a bit.  And we looked around a bit more, just in case.  And we stared at them.  65% off the usual price.  Good construction.  Right size.  We laughed some more.  Finally I turned to Bob and said "could you live with those?"

Remember I said that they were glowing in the aisle? I meant that literally.

 

Yep.  Hot pink.  Made by a company called "Pink Box" (behave yourself--don't go there).  Tool chests for the "handyma'am"--someone who needs decent tool storage but still wants to show her femininity (I personally got over my hot pink stage by age 17)

But they were otherwise perfect--and on sale.  He decided that he was manly enough to deal with hot pink tool drawers.

Almost.  As well as the two sets of drawers, he picked up two rolls of digital camouflage duct tape.  Where there's a will . . .

 

(he also had to get some black drawer liners--that blast of hot pink every time he opened the drawers was just too much).

STILL READING

Woven into the Earth--this one will take awhile because it's basically an archaeology textbook.

Njall's saga.  Almost through with this--and it's getting to be a bit of a slog.  There's a certain formula--some new characters are introduced, then either they kill someone or get killed, and it has to be decided if it was done in a proper and manly way or a cowardly way, and then they have to decide if there will be a retaliatory killing or if an attonment can be paid.  Rinse and repeat.  Every now and then someone will get married, and then the wife has her husband, brother, or house servant go kill someone.

But I seem to be leading a trend.  Both this month's National Geographic and Smithsonian magazines had articles on the Vikings.

Respect the Spindle--because I was tired of the Vikings.  A somewhat technical book about handspinning with spindles (including a discussion of the physics involved)