heavy metal mayhem

what is it about people who work with sheet metal and metal fabrication that causes them to always need to accuse other people of being “pussies”? i mean, i have witnessed this phenomenon a lot in my life. over the last few days i have seen a bit more of this behavior, from the “raider-nation” counter guys down at alco iron and metal asking me how i was going to fit some aluminum tubing into the bmw (try ’73 toyota hilux pickup, pal), to the guy in the berkeley marina boatyard who (implicitly) accused me of being a pussy for not being able to drill through a thick hardened stainless steel plate with a cordless makita. (i felt vindicated today when i took the plate to a metal shop and the guy broke a bit on his drillpress while trying to get through it).
in all my years of making things out of metal, i am yet to see jennifer beals down at the sheet metal yard picking up a little something to weld and hammer on before she goes out flashdancing. it’s always a bunch of dudes standing around assessing how best to accuse each other of being less macho. and the dudes that are usually the most vocal are the fat bastards who do nothing but sit behind a desk and process paperwork.
well, the mast tabernacle is all pieced together with the plate and the braces that i’ve rigged up with the indispensable help of phil. i will never, ever in my life be concerned about that thing failing. it could withstand a direct 100 megaton warhead strike. tomorrow, i seal the holes up and make the deck underneath the plate watertight, drill a hole for the mast hinge bolt and compression tubing, and fit the stay spreaders on. this has turned out to be a much larger project than i had imagined, but i now realize that i should have seen it coming.