Ever built anything?

There's a level of satisfaction that comes from taking a lump of raw material and turning it into something. It's even better than building a piece of software or a solution that works exactly the way the client said it should.

The difference between building stuff on the computer and making things is that you get to play with power tools.

Can you hear Tim Allen in the background (Argh, Argh Argh!!).

My tools of choice are DeWalt. That's a personal thing. I like the power that a professional piece of equipment has, and the precision.

My wife thinks it's just because they're yellow. <grin>

I started out five years ago working on the house with a hammer and a drill. The hammer wasn't DeWalt. The drill is. The hammer broke ages ago.

Now I've got just about every power tool you might need on a full-blown construction site (yes, our house did need that level of renovation). I learnt very quickly that you can waste days working on something with the wrong tools. Now I don't bother. If I haven't got the tool that will do the job NOW, I go and buy it.

We started with this...	Made some changes...	Nearly finished...

So now there's a great big stack of yellow boxes in my workshop, and jobs around the home get done a lot faster than they did when we first started.

And the look on my wife's face, when she walked into the kitchen and saw the new cupboard doors that I built, makes it worth every penny.

&nsbp