The Paint Brush

In the past week, I have been doing some painting inside the old homestead. We are repurposing a room, changing it from our grandson's bedroom to an office/den space, obviously something we need in our old age.

I am generally a hands-on kind of guy. I do my own home repairs, painting, landscaping and generally all the things that come along with owning a home. Okay, I will generally forego appliance repair due to the nature of what they are and the parts they require. You can't just run to a hardware store to replace the icemaker in the refrigerator.

As I was cleaning out my paint brush, a thought occurred to me: much of this type of skill is being lost in the more recent generations of our population. I know some of this simply because in my real-life work, I used to run hardware stores and I could see the level of competence slip over the years. So, what is it about the paint brush?

It's simple really, we have become a tribe of disposers. Buy a paint brush, use it one time and instead of cleaning it, we throw it away. Doing things the right way has become too time consuming. I have often said if people actually read the back of a paint can and painted their walls how the paint manufacturer said it should be done, the only people who would paint would be professional painters.

The weekend project of painting a room is actually a project that takes the entire weekend if you do it right. Too many skip the prep work which is what actually gives the project the perfect end result you really want. The first step is gathering the proper tools to do the work. That in and of itself takes time. Drywall needs to be patched, stains washed away, repairs have to dry (if using spackle) and then sanded smooth. All this takes time before one can even begin to apply the paint.

Finally, the cleanup has to take place. That in and of itself takes time. Several of my current paint brushes are in the five to ten year old range. Buy a good brush and clean it after every use and it will last that long. Some things just can't be rushed if you want your tools to last and the project to turn out correctly. Too many times over the years I spoke to customers in my stores that always want to rush the project just to get it done. That's how you end up with poor results, and the more poor results you get, the more you don't want to do another project and then you rush that next project, and you get a repeating cycle of poor results.

And then what happens, you give up and look to pay someone else to do the job. This cycle of 'good enough' or 'don't want to fool with this', leads to a generation of folks who lose the skills to do even the simplest tasks. Think about, how many times have you seen jokes of memes about a grown adult who can't change a flat tire? (I could have typed 'grown-ass' in that last sentence, but I detest that expression). That is just the simplest example of what I mean.

The bottom line of this is, try anyway. It will take longer than you hoped it would to do your project, but the next time, it won't. You would have learned something along the way to shorten the time and make the next time easier. I still learn things as I go. And it also saves money. Would you rather buy the supplies to paint your room and spend $200 for everything and take the weekend, or pay someone $500 when you could have done it yourself?

It's also quite fulfilling to do a project yourself and have it turn out great, and yes, I still clean all my paint brushes after every paint job.

The American Dream

The American Dream is the reason people from all over the world flock to this country. There is no other place like it. Yes, there are other destinations; it's a big world, however the tide that rushes to these shores are like no other.

I had initial thoughts about what and how this post was going to be written, but then, the FIFA World Cip came to America. Hmmm, my thoughts have changed.

What FIFA brought to our shores was a chance to see our country through the eyes of others from around the world, and not just those that were hoping to move here or find a job. These are the citizens of other countries that were simply on a holiday and hoping to root on their team and have fun.

What we now saw were people from around the world expecting the worst that Americans could offer. For years they have been told the United States is a dangerous place. The people are rude and mean and don't walk the street night. Their own governments and press has driven this into their consciousness.

And what they discovered should make all Americans proud. Social media and news media exploded with video after video and story after story of how wonderful and kind the people of this country are. The citizens of the world were welcomed from coast to coast. They revelled in our culture and our food as well as the scenery and vastness of our country.

The American dream is still alive and well. Are we perfect? No. No place is. But one thing I do know is we as the populace routinely overlook the grandness and kindness we as a nation still hold. We focus too much on petty differences instead of our collective culture and what unites us as a people. Our 'leaders and our news organizations' are a primary cause of this dysfunction.

The American Dream is still alive and well and it is what you make it. That has always been the Dream.

Property Bucket

In my area of the country, there is a new political debate raging about property taxes. There is a new petition to put an amendment to the state constitution to abolish property taxes. If enough signatures are collected, this becomes a ballot issue for the state population to vote on.

On the surface, the arguments for and against are simple. To the abolitionists (not a word I thought I would be typing in this day and age), the owners, many senior citizens are being taxed out of their homes and are, or will be in the future, struggling to stay in the home they bought or built and raised families in because the tax rates keep going up.

To the pro-tax folks, property taxes are a significant source of income to the state that funds schools and city services such as police and fire. If those taxes are no longer collected, services will suffer and the money must then come from other sources which would require raising sales taxes or other income taxes. That would make the state harder to promote to bring in other businesses to the state.

Here is my take on this.

As a property owner, I know taxes on my home and land can be a burden. I have worked all my life to have a safe and stable place to live and protect my family. I am not fundamentally against some property taxes to fund services, however there needs to be a cap on how much homeowners should be forced to pay out. Property taxes continue to rise with nearly every election cycle; someone wants more from the property owners to fund services or another school levy. Politicians should not be able to use property owners as a piggy bank for every idea that comes down the pipe.

Here's an idea. How about politicians and school boards and everyone else who uses property tax money become efficient in the use of those dollars. Communities are continually threatened with "we'll have to make cuts" if the new levies aren't passed. "This will go away, or that will go away". It's always the same excuse. But you know what I have found? Every time some entity has to make cuts, cuts get made and there is generally little overall effect to the whole of the service or business. They adapt. And they adapt because most of these entities are bloated because we are weak as a voting populace. Not every new idea needs to be funded with new dollars. Use the dollars you already collect for this new position or idea. Not every new school building needs to be a massive, sprawling campus with every new technological gadget that even NASA would be envious of having.

It's time to cap property taxes; not eliminate them completely, and make those asking for money from the voters to DOGE themselves and their services for the good of the tax payers.