The first Day Job, now a popular historical site, had to be abandoned due to intense neighborhood opposition. Our revenge was to move only two blocks away, but neighborhoods change a lot in two blocks, and in the new neighborhood we were far from the most annoying thing around. In fact, I'd argue that the most annoying things around were our immediate neighbors. Their teenage son was an early karaoke fan and would play Black Sabbath and other classics at earsplitting volume while singing along through his own amplifier. But even that was nothing compared to his sister, who would have screaming arguments with her boyfriend at all hours of the day and night. The solution to that turned out to be alarmingly simple. One day an ingenius counselor hooked up a microphone through a digital delay to an amplifier and played their argument back to them. Though severely warped, it was clearly recognizeable, and the world got a lot quieter for a while. Despite this improvement we gave up the lease on this house, largely because it was apparently built on an underground spring.
The third Day Job was insulated from neighborhood pressures somewhat by the 5 acre yard, but still there were interactions. Like the time some lady from the neighborhood tried to drop her teenage daughter off with us because she had heard that we were a rehabilitation center. Or the guy who would regularly drop by about 11 at night and try to sell us stuff. You know how it is, you're sitting around late at night and suddenly remember that you forgot to sell your drill. What to do but go visit the local freaks? Of course, we never bought anything either, so I guess he ended up at the pawn shop like everyone else. The current Day Job (see photos) has no neighbors, so we are hoping to stay for a while.
