[elky] Re: A day when things went right (for a change)
- From: Dann Keller <kwhale22@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Ray Buck et al <elky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2011 08:42:59 -0700
Damn, you both make me tired just reading your lists; I better lie down and
recuperate. All's I got done yesterday is changed the oil on the Elky and
changed out the "heater water flow control valve." The silly thing started
leaking after 28 years and 128K. I'll be lucky to get one-half that from the
new one 'cause it's plastic.
Dan
Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2011 05:12:15 -0600
From: rbuck@xxxxxxxxxxxx
To: elky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [elky] Re: A day when things went right (for a change)
Holy smokes! That's one hell of a list. Good luck with it. If I started to
make a comprehensive Things To Do list, I'd still be here tomorrow morning
working on it without having completed anything. :)
I woke up around 3 ayem and I've been answering email ever since. There's a
big project on the horizon for Target 550 ( www.target550.com ) and a lot of it
has to do with that.
Back to work on the photo editing...I got sidetracked by phone calls last nite
and didn't make much progress.
r
On 10/25/2011 3:57 AM, John Christensen wrote:
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> 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
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