This post is designed to give you all an update on the life of Gabe.  It’s not very funny, or insightful in any way.  That said, I’m especially excited about life these days, and I thought I’d tell you why.

I haven’t posted much on Poco Hecho recently, due largely to my new writing gig at Bleacher Report, a sports website.  I say gig because that’s how I think of it, not because I’m getting paid.  I write about FC Barcelona and how awesome they are.  I’ve learned the difference between an “em dash” and an “en dash”.  An em dash is used to break up sentences–like this one–that have a sudden pause.  En dashes are used to connect words, like in pro-American.  To type an em dash: on a Mac, use command + option + hyphen.  On a PC, hold alt and type “0151” on your keyboard.  You’re welcome.

Summer is just around the corner, and it’s time to get to work on that beach bod.  I’ve begun attending Vinyasa Sports bootcamps twice a week in downtown S.F.  An hour and fifteen minutes of outdoor exercise led by the unstoppable Lucy Roberts makes for a good time and a stronger body.  I especially enjoy these workouts because I do things I don’t normally make myself do (e.g. hundreds of squats).

Back to school!  I’ve begun a weekly Photoshop class at the UC Berkeley Extension in downtown S.F.  I’m finally learning the amazing program that makes artists relevant in the age of internet.  The class is taught by Hugh D’Andrade, a fantastic illustrator whose work you may have seen in San Francisco.  We each get our own big shiny iMac during class, which is an absolute dream.  The best part?  Student discounts, baby.

40 of my best hours every week are spent working for vFlyer.com.  This isn’t a new development, but our next project is.  We’re building a website-builder.  It’s a complete CMS (content management system)–think WordPress or Squarespace–that will build some really beautiful websites.  I’m helping extend the theme library, and I’m pretty stoked for the product.  We’re also hiring.  Needed are both a software engineer and a customer service extraordinaire.  The former requires some serious computer skills, the latter some serious people skills.  In both cases, you’ll get to work with me.

I filled up a little moleskine sketchbook that’s now touring the country as part of The Sketchbook Project.  I had lots of fun on with this little guy, and I like to know that it can be viewed by totally random art-lovers around the U.S.  I’ll never get it back, but I’ll be able to link to a digital version once the tour is through.  Currently the sketchbooks can be seen are in Austin, Texas.  After stops in Portland, Atlanta, DC, and Seattle, they’ll debut in San Francisco on June 18th.  The 10,000 books then stop in Chicago and Winter Park, FL (??), before settling permanently into the Brooklyn Art Library.

I’ll be taking a two-month leave from work this coming summer.  At the end of June, I’ll say goodbye to vFlyer and turn my attention back to painting.  If all goes as planned, I’ll return to the Chautauqua school of Art and complete the eight-week intensive studio program.  This hopefully means a whole bunch of new paintings, and the opportunity to see some of my dear friends on the Eastern seaboard.

If you’re reading this paragraph, thanks for wading through the self-promotion and being interested in my life.  I hope the coming months are looking rosy for all of you lovely folks.  Most importantly, thanks for reading Poco Hecho, and I promise some more sarcasm, humor, cynicism, and narrative in subsequent posts.

Tonight I decided to set up the pull-up bar I’d purchased last week at Sports Basement.  I intended to have myself a little bedroom workout, and I set right to it upon returning home.  I opened the box a bit skeptically, noticing the packing tape that indicated the item had been repackaged, and resold.  Inside were the four simple pieces of the apparatus, a folded diagram, and a small clear bag of hardware.  I unfolded the instructions first, examined the pieces, and planned my attack.  Four parts, four bolts, four nuts, and I’d be on my way to a ripped upper body.  I opened the little bag of hardware.  Inside were three bolts and four nuts.

I almost went nuts.  How freaking stupid do you have to be to leave out a bolt?  It’s not like some IKEA entertainment center with 67 pieces and an eight-page set of instructions.  3 out of 4 bolts?  Are you freaking serious?  I thought about returning the damn thing but how I didn’t want to get in the freaking car right now and drive down to Sports Basement, and how the damn thing would probably just sit in the corner of my room, or at best the trunk of my car, for like 2 weeks before I finally returned it for my measly $28.  I should get a refund and a replacement.  This was a colossal disappointment, a huge hassle, and boy was I going to make the cashier at Sports Basement feel real stupid when I opened the box and showed him the glaring absence of one of the 12 necessary pieces.

I tried to calm myself down.  This was a test.  I was tired, this was just a silly little incident thrown in my path, it was nothing.  It was a chance for me to demonstrate my self-control, my mastery of the moment, my ability to roll with the punches, find the humor in everything, and not be affected by triviality.  I threw the parts together and closed the box, and on the back…

The bolt.  Hello.  Scotch-taped their like some alien parasite clung the missing bolt to the back of the box.  Oh my goodness, now isn’t that funny?  Here I was getting all worked up, planning my tirade at the sports basement counter, deep-breathing to control my rage, and the little bolt was here all along.  I smiled, re-opened the box, laid out the parts once again, and set to fastening the first bolt to its nut.

The nut was too small.  I could screw it a couple of turns until the tighter end met the tip of the bolt, and no further could I go.  Who is the idiot who put this piece of shit together?  Is it so hard to grab the right freaking nuts for the job?  Again, we’re dealing with FOUR IDENTICAL BOLTS here people.  This isn’t hard.  What the hell am I supposed to do with these stupid little nuts?  I stomped off towards the tool closet, determined to muscle the damn things on there any way I could.  I was getting hungry, I could feel a twinge in my right hammy and I thought about how I was supposed to be stretching by now, and how I really just wanted to lie down and see what’s on ESPN3.

Well thanks to my ingenuity, a pair of pliers, and a screwdriver, I was able to work the bolts through the nuts.  These tools were definitely not included in the instructions, but as the pieces came together I gradually began to feel better about things, and get excited about doing some pull-ups.

What an up-and-down little incident!  From frustrated to relieved to frustrated and back to relieved, this was certainly a trying process, and an interesting one to observe.  I gave the final bolt its final turn, and hefted the completed apparatus.  Sturdy, simple, awesome.  I could practically feel the muscle bulging in my back.  I turned to my doorway and hooked the curved end under the doorjamb.  It didn’t grab.  I wiggled it a bit, turned around, came at it from the outside in, hooked it under again, but no luck.  The molding on my door was too high.  I freaked.  In 30 seconds I toured the entire apartment, frantically hooking the little rubber stubs up and under each doorway, grasping for purchase, and finding none.  There is nowhere in this ENTIRE apartment to hang this freaking piece of shit pull-up bar.  I stormed back to my room, briefly considered hurling the bar through my window, decided on my bed instead, and threw it down with disgust.  I stood there shaking my head, thinking of the half-hour I’d just wasted, the weekend to-do list undone on my desk, the massive pimple that was throbbing beside my nose, my fatigue and my sore hammy.

Somehow I managed to go on with my life.  I unrolled my yoga mat, cracked the window, and began a sun salutation.  Then I used the bar for some push-ups at the end of my routine, and tweaked my left shoulder.