Stay in Texas

Stay in Texas

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Another problem area for this job were the overhead doors to the kitchen above the counters (on the left side of this picture). They are cherry wood (not really visible) and cost almost $10,000 (did I mention this church was well off). They are also quite heavy and a lot of framing and dry walling required rework to get them up and mounted (Joey and Charlie did that rework).
The lead painter, Alfredo, is shown here painting one of the doors we hung. He is Mexican, but speaks English pretty well. He has been helping me improve my Spanish further.
Another painter, Sergio, is from Vera Cruz. There he enjoyed fishing very much. Now he makes much better money, but is not as happy (actually 'contento'). He drew a really nice picture of a shark (tibruno). I joked that he was the wrong kind of painter.
This is third of the painters that have been working at this site routinely. Here he is cleaning his brush before heading home for the day. He is in the restroom in the area we are working. The church people prefer if we don't use the restrooms outside of our area as they have daycare in the other parts of the building and construction workers have been known to use strong language.
Joey and I were able to work on Saturday, December 15, and got overtime for five hours; almost a full day's pay and that should help cover the days we won't be working like Christmas Day for me and the day before Christmas for Joey. It will be interesting to see if I can find work anywhere the day before Christmas. Here is Charlie on the phone talking to his wife. He spends a lot of time on the phone as the job supervisor, but generally doesn't smile quite the same. His wife stays in Henderson, Texas (about three hours away) with their grandson while Charlie stays in a trailer in Irving (outside of Dallas) during the week. It was really nice for Charlie to stay with us on Saturday morning. I know he would rather have been in Henderson.
Here is Adrian, the other person from Vector Concepts who lays the porcelian tiles. Adrian is putting grout down after the tiles have been laid. Sammy (shown previously) mostly lays the files (and is the lead person) while Adrian mostly cuts the tiles and puts in the grout.