one for the masses

Sweat builds under my fingers causing the control of my mouse to waiver. 80 thousand dollars of panels that I need to layout for production staring back at me through my monitor. Book face or slip matched? That is the first question that runs through my mind as stare at my notes for the panel layout regarding the new Bethesda Metro Center. Blueprints strewn across my office like a blanket of snow, fresh with the malcontent of the unforeseen. Was elevation A over 2 mirrored to the layout or not? This is an FSC certified job so the backer has to comply as well if the LEED certification is be obtained. God, I need some Redbull. My line of work is fitting I suppose, laying out thousands of square feet of ever changing veneer panels. Beautiful, unique, and only a skin deep shell covering medium density fiberboard. Have you ever noticed Veneer paneling before?... probably not, but in my profession you would be lead to believe that scrutinizing their every flaw is a national past-time. Sure I my not be hanging from a rock face, staring death straight in the face, only to avoid staring a job in the face; or tacking on some letters on to the end of my name. But next time you walk into a building and notice some exotic wood paneling you can rest assured that every grain line, end match, sweep, tone, sequence, defect, flitch, adhesive, core, edge-band, cut, and stain were properly accounted for and made without compromise. So that when glance at them for a split second you won't even notice they are there. My quest may not win a Nobel Peace Prize or earn me a show on the ESPN X Games but I believe that it is much deeper that these modern-day facades of social approval. I get to work with the rarest and most exotic species of wood from across the globe. Taking the only the finest specimens to tool into great monolithic walls of beauty; and the unbridled suction of the earth's most treasured resources is a human tradition that predates history itself, all most a spritural right of passage. Taking something unique and making it our own at whatever costs. After all I believe, we, at our core, are embracing the world as artist's trying to become that which we behold. It is in our very nature to seek out and display the beauty of lands from which we sprung. everything zen. ok thats a load and a half. yeah over break we all need to hangout and grill the flesh of cows and drink the sweet nectar of the fields, sit around a fire, and shoot the shit with the people who which we are forever bonded by the memories of a time when life was simple and all our worries and doubts were but a distant cloud on the horizon; and happiness was contained in a small sliver of land we call Rappahannock.