Hell of a good day. I can only hope this one goes as well for me.
On my list:
CAD for work before 7:30 AM
Lions Club Board meeting at 8 AM (El Camino .... It's dry for now)
Come home to a contractor in my house installing can lights and
finishing drywall on the new island.
Do the minutes for the board meeting (I'm the Secretary)
Try to rustle up enough help to lift the heater in to position while
I attach it to the ceiling of the garage
Shut the gas off in the laundry room to start re-routing the pipe in
the garage to the new heater
Hardware run for pipe and a thermostat (El Camino hopefully... looks
like rain today)
Price out the Bamboo for the floor while I'm at the store
Gotta eat in there somewhere
Gotta walk about 3 miles before it rains too.
I'll only get half of it done. If I get more, I'm happy.
JC
On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 8:44 PM, Ray Buck <rbuck@xxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:rbuck@xxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Boy, am I tired. It's been a long day (14 hours so far) and it
ain't over, but in what seems to be a change from the norm,
things went right today. Here's the list:
I finally got Expedia to arrange for a refund of the 2 night's
lodging in Wendover that I left early when World Finals was
rained out:
http://www.chevyasylum.com/lsr/bsf2011/05-wf/Welcome.html
(there's a caption on every page to explain what went on as far
as the racing and the Burb's distributor's untimely demise.) I
had to be tenacious about it before I got it...at first they
didn't want to refund anything, then the hotel manager said it
was their policy to refund only 1 out of 2 nights, but when I
explained that my German friend checked out at exactly the same
time I did and got a full cash refund, the motel owner finally
ran out of excuses and authorized the full refund. Btw...if you
come to the salt flats, avoid the Motel 6 like the plague. The
Knight's Inn is much better. Jim can explain about the cockroach
he found in his room earlier in the year....ohh...and that was
the place where the owner doesn't turn the heat on for the rooms
until November. Hell, I dunno if he's noticed, but Wendover is
in the high desert and has the same climate as Salt Lake
City...except for our Wasatch mountains directly to the east of
the SL valley. I started turning on my heater before I left for
WF. But then I'm kinda cold-blooded.
Moving right along, I got Moon Equipment's refund of the deposit
for the Moon Disc mounting hardware welding jig.
I took the junkyard driveshaft in and had the people at GRS
Drivelines replace the slip joint and rear u-joint. That was
done in about 6 hours. It cost about half of what had been
refunded to me, so that wasn't too bad. It was pretty good, as a
matter of fact.
While I was waiting for that to be done, I was able to fix the
Beater Camaro's horn button with the spring from a ball-point
pen. Seems that whoever installed the aftermarket wheel (looks
sorta like a 60s-era Cal Custom job) neglected to put the spring
in the electrical contact do-dad that has the wire that connects
to the grounding plate the center cap snaps onto. Confused? Me,
too...but it was a no-cost repair of something that was a case of
(as Jim H likes to say) "the dreadin was worse than the doin."
Now I just need to get Safety and Emissions Inspection and I can
get a real live license plate for it. That one may not be so easy.
Finally (and this is rather ponderous) I took the "flexible
flyer" trailer ramps back to the place I got 'em and although it
also took some rather tenacious discussion with the parts counter
people (the first guy was Mexican and we definitely had a
"failure to communicate") I got a result that I'm very satisfied
with. Here's what happened. When the folks at Henderson Wheel
(a very well-established place for just about anything to do with
wheels, spindles, bearings, trailers and a whole buncha other
stuff) told me that they had a pair of 4400 pound-rated ramps,
but they'd have to be brought in from one of their other stores
(in Orem, Ut...the joke about that goes, "what's the difference
between Orem and yogurt?" Answer: "Yogurt has culture." <G>)
they did just exactly that. They had a pair of ramps brought
north by their courier and I picked 'em up the next day. But
what they gave me isn't what I paid for, nor was it what they'd
told me I was buying. Seems the counter guy (experienced,
knowledgeable and ok in my book) was off by a single digit in the
part number and the ones he gave me...well, all the labeling was
in French and when I unlimbered my high school (and Moroccan)
French skills, I saw that it said, "Do not exceed 500kg on
ramps." That's 1100 pounds, exactly 1/4 of the 4400 pound-rated
ramps I supposedly bought. They were intended for use with
garden tractors or maybe ATVs or snowmobiles. Fail. Big time fail.
In an almost spooky way, the ramps that I'd paid for and they'd
had brought in by courier were right by the door behind the
counter. They apologized for handing me the wrong ramps and
handed me the right ones. Here's a shot of 'em still in their
packing along with the installation-ready driveshaft:
Seeing what I should have had in the first place, there's no way
that the first set could have done the job of what I picked up
today. These are about twice as wide and twice as thick. Now I
know why the others bent.
Finally, I got in touch with a guy who wants a CD of photos (a
new customer) and he tells me he'll be making a contribution to
my website as payment for 'em.
I can't remember a day in the recent past (hell, I can't remember
breakfast) where so many things have gone right. Yanno, I think
I prolly otta go to bed before I screw something up. :) No...I
have another 120 files to edit from the car show I shot last
Saturday. But I can handle that.
r
