Good Morning! 48F @ 8:15AM. Windy with morning showers evolving to a steady, soaking rain for the afternoon hours. High 49F. Winds S at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a half an inch. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph.
Right now the sun is shining down from a partly cloudy sky and there's no wind at all to speak of. But the radar map does show a front over to the west, so I suppose at some point today I'll get some more rain. Just when things were starting to dry out a bit, too.:thumbdown:
While in town yesterday I stopped for a haircut. Gentleman in the chair as I came in was saying that this was his first out and about trip since his recent hip replacement. I asked if he was walking the same day as the surgery, and his reply was yes, and that he had no pain at all in his hip. His thigh muscles were a different story, though, as they are displaced to get at the top of the thigh bone during the surgery. But he was very happy to be rid of the pain and get back his mobility. But I wonder, Don, if your mother is in good enough shape such that the surgery would do more good than harm? She's no spring chicken at 90, and this man didn't look much over 60...
Last time I used my leaf blower to clean the garage floor, all the dust set off the smoke alarm and I had to run for the phone when the alarm company called.
:laughing:
Took the glass/plastic/aluminum cans/bottles in for recycling, and also 10 gallons of oil in a pair of plastic buckets, the kind with the pull out spout and screw on lid. Strapped all the containers back into the bed, but at the next stop found that the buckets had gotten loose and there was oil dripped all over. That's when I noticed that one cap had come off, and the spout was half collapsed into the bucket. When I got home I used some pliers to pull the spout back up, but the lid wouldn't screw on, it seemed too big. Comparing it to the other bucket it wasn't the same color. So the highly qualified "technician" at the county hazardous waste disposal facility didn't do such a good job of putting the right lid back on the bucket. And now without the proper lid, I can't really use it because it'll splash oil all over everything when it's filled. I have two more buckets to dump next week, and I think someone's going to get an ear full on the next visit.:muttering:
And speaking of ear fulls, I stopped by the mechanic's place, as it's just down the road from the waste dump. It was nearly noon, and he was nowhere to be found. Only one worker there, and he was busy doing something on a junker. In the three weeks since I last saw my van, a pair of radiator pipes have been run underneath from front to back, the master cylinder for the brakes has been installed, and the tired old driver's seat had been moved onto the seat base. There was a new master cylinder reservoir sitting on the seat as well. And that's about all that I could see that had been done. So I called the mechanic to let him know that I was at the shop, and that I was disappointed at the lack of progress. The litany of excuses, mostly personnel problems, wasn't unexpected, but I made it clear that it was also unacceptable. Next month will mark the one year anniversary of this project, he's spent the last four months at what he estimated as one month's worth of work, and he's still a long way from finishing. He did say that the bottom end of the engine is completed, but I saw no sign of it when I peeked into the engine building room or the main shop. Perhaps he had it in his pocket?:confused3: I had just let him know that if this continues I'd reluctantly find someone else to complete the work when he pulled into the parking lot. We briefly recapped the phone conversation, then I told him that there are two VW camper events I plan to attend at the end of April and early May. I'll either drive the VW to them, or spend my time explaining why it's still in his shop. My hope is that he'd see this as an opportunity to attract more business if others heard a satisfied customer talking up his work, but instead he played the victim and could make no assurances because of factors beyond his control. So my plan is to spend time at those events looking for a new mechanic, because at this rate I'll be attending them in my F250!
Lunch was had at a Mexican roach-coach that has excellent food. The one liter bottle of Mexican coke did more than a little to brighten my mood as well.
I had better luck at Home Depot this time when I finally found a clerk that knew how to order the plastic laminate I needed to refinish the camper's cabinets. Took him two tries at the computer, but it looks like the material will arrive in a couple of weeks. That'll give me some time to remove the old finish and figure out how I want to rearrange the cabinets and drawers. Then at Costco I found special pricing on a pair of Scotches, one called Red Breast that I was quite fond of, so they found their way into the basket along with the shipping tape I'd gone there for, and all the other things that find their way there that just can't be left behind. :laughing:
The house was full of the wonderful smell of crock pot chili when I got home, but being still full of burrito I just made a fresh salad and enjoyed it with a beer. I think I've only used the pressure cooker feature of the Instant pot once, Don, but the crock pot and saute features also work wonderfully and I'm really happy you steered me to that great Amazon deal!:licking:
Several things had arrived from Amazon while I was in town, among them the new, bigger, network drive array, so I'll set that up today and start migrating data to it. Probably take most of the rest of the day to move it all over, but thankfully it doesn't need to be watched. Then back out to the garage to take another swing at the headlight conversion.
