I finally got a new job that doesn't make me want to quit every day when I wake up. Previously I was a tow truck driver. On call 24 hours a day, 6 days a week. 14 hour day, then sent out in the middle of the night. It destroyed my health, so I quit. The owner was really nasty towards me so I quit the day before Thanksgiving, without notice, and the manager cussed me out and screamed at me. As much as I hated that job, it taught me some valuable skills that I need for The Village. I learned how to drive very large trucks, got tons of practice driving manual transmission(I'm one of the few people around here that could), I learned how to rescue stuck vehicles, unlock doors, replace tires quickly, direct traffic, deal with crappy people, and generally how to be safe around large equipment on the road. Hated the shift and people I worked for, loved the work. I also made more money than I ever have before. I used that money to buy all new tools and organizational gear. Those tools will be used directly in building my life and my village. 

The new job is very different. Hard as I tried, I couldn't seem to escape those pesky tow trucks though. Instead of driving them, I actually work for a company that builds them. They order the bare truck, with no bed on it, then order the beds and install them. It's pretty incredible. I work with a few Amish men, who I really enjoy. The company primarily builds new tow trucks, but that's not what I do. I'm in an entirely separate building, with far different tools and goals. I've got a huge shop with a massive wood stove in it and immense piles of firewood. I have my own commercial air compressor. I'm given a very large project and just left alone. I run the entire shop myself and have since day 1 on the new job. The big bosses stop in maybe twice a day to check up on me. Not because they don't trust me, but because they're excited to see the progress I make. These days, with the various skills and habits I've built towards The Village, I work far faster and to a higher quality than most people around me. I traded my youth for skills and experience and it's paying off at last. While the other guys are building these collosal $100,000+ modern tow trucks, I'm next door restoring relics of the past. I run the body shop that's sat empty for over a year. My first project, given to me as training and practice, is to fully rebuild a 30+ year old steel dump truck bed. It's 12 feet by 8 feet or so. It's huge and very best up. When I got to it the floor pans and big chunks of the various panels had been roughly cut out with a torch, leaving massive jagged holes. I spent the first day doing nothing but grinding away rust with an angle grinder to prepare the main frame for a new steel floor. The second day I learned how to use the gigantic metal bending brake and shear. These are 3 phase electric machines that occupy multiple 100 amp circuit breakers. They're also far older than myself. In a few hours on day two I'd learned to drive the forklift, cut huge sheets of steel,and bend them as needed. I got all the floor panels cut and set into place. Day 3 is when I welded for the second time in my life. The first time I was just tack welding things. This time I really got to know the welder. I had the bed tacked together and ready to weld by the end of the day. It's been a few more days and the bed is early ready for paint. I've done probably 100 feet of welds on this project so far and am getting good quickly. If I had to weld a rusty old tractor back together or fabricate basic steel parts for it, I could. If I needed massive steel brackets for roof supports, I could make those as well. I'll keep practicing and start researching welding theory more as I go, but I can strip and rebuild an entire truck bed already. Something I couldn't claim 2 weeks ago. I even made a complex corner piece to replace a massive section that was cut out. I got the angles and shapes perfect on the first attempt. It feels nice to just be able to rebuild something like this. I'll be making my own machines and vehicles in the future as well. I've always wanted a tiny car I could drive around in. Something like a go-kart with a snow mobile engine that would be street legal and very fast. Such a vehicle could be made to run on biogas and used in the village. I now have the basic skills needed to make a custom frame and body. It's an amazing feeling. 

The dump truck bed isn't going to be my main job though. It's just an old project that needs finished so I can get it out of my shop and bring over the next one. This might be the most interesting job description I've ever held. I'll be restoring antique tow trucks for a private museum collection. I have 2 international tow trucks in the other bay of the shop waiting for me now. They're probably from the 1930s or so. It's very hard to tell. They're from the rounded era, before the big fins and such of the 1950s. Regardless, they're very old and very cool. One of them has a hand crank winch on it. I'll post some pictures below. 

The two trucks above sit in my shop,waiting to be restored. I'll be tearing them all the way apart a d restoring every bit of them. All the old square head bolts, replacing hand set steel rivets, rewiring the lights. I'd like to restore them to safe working order as well, perhaps take a few service calls. I'm hoping the owner would let me out the company name on one of them in gold leaf and drive it around to take service calls and advertise. That's a far off dream, but I suspect it's possible. I at least want to drive each one I restore. These old trucks tell many stories and are a very important part of history. Without tow trucks, society would actually slowly collapse. Imagine if every broken down semi just ended up staying broken down or over turned on the highways. We'd never be able to get anything done. Wrecks were once cleared out of intersections by these old trucks, in a time before these modern tow trucks with their air conditioning and computers existed. When I test these trucks apart, I'll be able to see some of the experiences they've had. I find to comforting to restore things, and I enjoy tow trucks. This is an excellent job for me, and one that will teach me valuable skills needed to make my Village a reality. I see welding and fabrication as essential skills. I rank welding way up at the top of my essential skills list, along with creating mortise and tenon joinery. Both are the strongest forms of fastening you can get in each respective material. To build things that will last many lifetimes requires proper strength and design. My old pickup truck is an example of a we'll built piece of equipment far outlasting it's original suspected useful period. It may be nearly 40 years old now, but it's still going strong. I plan to only create things that will last. Steel may rust, but will last many lifetimes if cared for. Learning to weld and fabricate puts me one massive step closer to being able to build the machinery and structures needed to build my dream life. Even something as simple as door hinges creates a very interesting problem when your solid oak door weighs 200+ pounds with another 30 pounds of hardware. Such a door would last centuries, but most modern hinges could not hold it and look good doing so. Between my experience forging by hand and modern metal working techniques, I could design and build hinges that could outlive me many times over. The possibilities are endlessly expanding before me as I learn new skills. 

Im very excited by my newly acquired skills and will post further updates as I gather more.