I'm 30 now, so let's build a barn.

*Real quick. Remember the wacky playhouse we secretly delivered to a family in town? Well, no secrets. The family is that of my friend Nate Casperson, a special ed teacher, wrestling coach and father of 5 really bright, kind, polite, beautiful kids. He has brain cancer, and they're fighting it. Today is my birthday, give me a gift by supporting Nate's family using the box below, or follow here if it doesn't show up. Please, thank you.

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I'm 30 now. Time for reflection, introspection and an inventory of my life. I once shared the lofty ambitions of a bright eyed, naive, adolescent mind with my 8th grade civics teacher and his pal, who taught history or math or something. "All I know is when I grow up, I'm gonna eat 7-11 burritos and blue slurpies everyday AND ride around on a sweet leopard printed moped with with a little orange flag on the back." They laughed at me. Now, as the sun rises over my 30's; I realize, I have fallen short. No moped, barely any 7-11 burritos and when was the last time I bought a blue slurpee? 13-year-old me, I'm sorry I failed you.

In other news, I'm building a barn!

On the F.W. Willis Sliding Scale of Legitimacy, this pole barn design is like a 9 out of 10.

I drew up some real deal -to me anyway- sketches, because I'm going to need a little help with this baby. I tend to take a mad scientist approach to building stuff, which is cool and all; but, some people seem to have a difficult time "seeing the vision" when I'm jib-jabbing and waving my arms around, possibly illustrating a few difficult to describe concepts by supplementing words with sound effects and gestures. This way I can just say, "Look, we're doing this part."

Dropping the first pole. Not pictured are Ron and Zach, who put forth no small amount of effort clearing the site and digging all the post holes. Jordy helped me drag all the old telephone poles off the trailer with the lawn mower.

This isn't exactly perfect, but it's a good start. I lay the 6' level up on adjacent sides to get the post more or less plumb, or straight up and down.

Then you back-fill the hole with some dirt, pack it down, check it again, repeat. Like, 20 more to go.

About getting help. I've already conned a couple dudes in to coming out to dig holes with me. I've got Jordy, my high school protege skipping class to come out here and lift heavy stuff (and maybe jam a little on some guitars when we get rained out). My neighbor Jerry has begun his daily backyard lecture series on the ins and outs of barn building. I've bummed free materials off of friends, while simultaneously getting Helga Beast straight up struck behind their house (to the point we had to pull her out with another truck, after falling just shy of blowing the motor straight through the hood). And apparently, we're going to have a "barn raising" in the near future, so we'll see about that.

Lastly, because this is a kinda cool project, I'm dragging Brinn out to make some videos. We taped some stuff already, maybe I'll put it up tomorrow. Don't hold me to it though.

-F.W.