The Whiskey Vault

The Whiskey Vault
This year's Whiskey Vault outing with Texas Auto Writer Association buddies in Austin for the Texas Truck Rodeo.

Sunday, January 14, 2018

Well, At Least I'm Not in Detroit....


I'm not the kind of guy to wallow in leisure. Sure, I can goof off with the best of them. I judiciously guard my slacker credentials, but I do reach a point of feeling guilt when I go more than a couple of days without doing something productive. This is particularly true if there are things that I have left unfinished.

Imagine my level of discomfort, staring at the unfinished ceiling in my great room every time I crank back in my recliner. It still needs painted, the trim added and the light fixtures installed. Then there's the upstairs hallway where I need to install the sliding barn door for the bathroom and put down the new wood floor. I've had the paint and light fixtures for the great room for three months. I've had the door, hardware and wood flooring for the hallway for longer than that.

I hate leaving projects half finished. It bugs me. However, with every renovation project requiring more than a day or two, I reach a point where I can exhale, feeling a degree of accomplishment in completing a big step in the overall process. That's the point I reached in the hallway when I completed its ceiling. And, it's the point I reached in the great room when I got all the tongue-and-groove beadboard nailed up. I needed a breather after both those steps.

But, now it's been three or four months since I picked up a nail gun or turned a screw. I'm feeling guilty. This is compounded by the fact that I have just completed the second week in a three-week travel-free period. Three entire weeks at home! That just doesn't happen. I'll be here nearly all of next week, too. My oh my.

Yes, I have been cranking out two or three paying stories each week for my biggest client. But even that doesn't seem like enough coming off December, which was my worst revenue-generating month in more than a year and a half. I have some serious catching up to do.

I feel lucky not to be joining many of my peers in Detroit this week for media days in advance of the opening of the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), or what most of us call, the Detroit Auto Show. Or, what I call, hell on earth. A few unveilings have already occurred, but the bulk of the press conferences will be Monday and Tuesday of this week. I am so glad to be covering the show from the warm, cozy confines of my in-home office. I will be generating some income writing about several of the vehicles introduced there without enduring the pain of actually being there. And, make no mistake: It's painful!

Think of three or four thousand jackasses stampeding from one end of the show hall to the other every 15 or 20 minutes for the next big reveal. Half these people are to automotive media what the accordion is to chamber music. My dead cat could get credentialed for the Detroit show. Each press conference is like a rugby scrum. Teasing the attending press by providing seating for maybe 5 percent of the crowd, the carmakers create Black Friday-like mob scenes when they begin passing out whatever giveaways they are providing.

Media days for this show ought to be treated like a White House presser with a pool photographer and videographer. Everyone else could just stay home, rather than climbing over a thousand lunatics fighting over a table full of ball caps.

Yep, I'm glad not to be in Detroit.

I'll make a little money Monday and Tuesday writing about the show, but then what? It will be a short spurt of activity followed by three days of recovering and beating myself up because I'm not sufficiently motivated to return to one of my house projects.

I am doomed to this period of self loathing. Of course, it could be worse. I could finish out the week kicking myself in the ass for wasting three days in Detroit. Now that would be a real tragedy.

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