Learning.

I helped my Dad build an outhouse a few weeks back. I'll admit it was a bit strange pouring my blood, sweat and tears into a tiny building that you "Boof Bonser" in, but it's a damn fine outhouse.

My pops is an architect, and he loves to tinker with things in the great outdoors. He likes it when I help him. I think.

Take the outhouse for example. The man designed this little treasure to withstand a nuclear holocaust. It looks like a strange, obelisk sitting there alone in the middle of a heavily wooded forest. I can just imagine some drunk local pulling up on his ATV, looking at its striking simplicity in awe. They would climb off of their 4-wheeled steed and stare aimlessly at the structure, pondering over its use. Then they would likely vandalize it and steal the toilet paper.

People always destroy things they don't understand. Knowing my father though, he's probably invented a toilet paper dispenser that's "backwoods, slackjaw, Nascar, beer-fart, Get-er-done" proof. He's smart like that.

I've always envied the man's vast knowledge of everything trivial. Over the holidays he talked for two straight hours about a particular pen that he really, really liked. A Pen. The man spends time studying things like that in minute detail. It's mind-boggling.

Once when I was 12 years old I was listening to a Led Zeppelin cassette in my room. My father, also a musician, burst into the door and asked what I was doing. I thought he was mad at first, but he wasn't. He began weaving a diatribe about how there were so many more gifted guitar players superior to my hero at the time, Jimmy Page. It lasted what seemed like days. We spent the afternoon scouring record stores, listening to bluesmen and talking about their chops. It was all very studious. I may have even taken notes. My Dad just knows a lot about everything.

Last summer he told me to stop over to his house, without explaining why. Once I arrived, he came in from his immaculate garden in overalls and a sun hat. He had two tiny tomato plants in each arm. "These are black beauty heirlooms" he said. "Put them in direct sunlight, and don't let your friends smoke around them". He then talked for maybe two hours about how they were the best slicing tomatoes he had ever tasted, reiterating horticultural facts and a little anecdotal evidence for emphasis. I was spellbound.

The point? There is no point, except for maybe the fact that it helps writing great copy when you've researched every intimate detail of the particular product. It's not often that we get to work on a brand that we truly love, or even use, so learning everything about it is imperative. Yeah, you may get a little Cliff Claven on the bit around your friends, but it's worth it.