One year ago today: April 9, 2024, important letters.
Five years ago today: April 9, 2020, this planter failed.
Nine years ago today: April 9, 2016, the wrong starter.
Random years ago today: April 9, 2010, a grim scenario.
More requests—should I start a navigation school? See addendum for today’s GP, I am sharpening my calculation skills and will soon move on. Meanwhile you get a lot of GPs. This morning I was at the KIA shop, and just maybe we could stand for some good news. All this past seven months, the saving, the scrimping, buying the Hyundai with the neighbor’s help, changing the insurance over, all of this put me out the $8,100 of which $3,700 (after rebate) was to be the new transmission. When I got there this morning it was not ready.
The good news is, and this is tentative because it could still be the transmission, the shop says this broken piece “could explain most of the difficulties you’ve been having”. This could go two ways, since the transmission was first diagnosed in Valdosta. It could mean the cost of the transmission plus the cost of the axle, or it could mean that all the struggles of the past seven months were unnecessary.
Now, I have gone out for a drink at noon maybe five times in my life. If so, today will make it six. First, I will stop for bird seed and dog food, then I’ve driving out to Bartow because I know Kooter’s opens at 11:00AM and it is now 4:12PM in Greenwich. So tomorrow I could be out $4,500 or up $2,900. Which will it be? What worries me is that shop in Valdosta was one of the best and a broken axle means they would have missed that, which doesn’t seem plausible.
On the down side, there are a number of explanations for the axle. One is the trip through the Cherokee forest, though that was last September and I don’t recall any bad crunches. There is when the van would not roll onto the flat deck, but that would have popped a tire off the rim before causing any structural damage. If I’m lucky and it is just the axle, it could mean I finally get my thickness planer, a new band saw, and maybe a price on some new shingles.
It’s nice to plan but I don’t have the cash yet, and there is still the chance it is the transmission. The way to deal with such a quandary in the middle of the week is not that established around here. I did not go downtown until later in the day, as on the way home down 60, I saw the lights out in the old club. Yikes, the sign on the door is gone, the sign that said they would only be closed two days.
That place is too established to go under over what I consider the recent changes by management. Changes, by the way, that I consider wrong. But ten days? I hope they are like me, during a renovation, discovered other matters that needed repair. Close that long in this town and your trained staff is likely to move on. They’ve already lost their regular customers, losing the remaining weekend crowd could be the knell.
Tehran traffic jam.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
The squirrels are raiding my feeder again. I picked up some red hot bird seed and set the Hav-a-hart inside the shed. My logic is squirrels are smarter than rats and something knows how to trip the springs. Here is a classic shot from the deer camera. A squirrel crossing the garden beam, this would be just past 7:00AM for this angle. But for this little guy, it’s a ride to the quiet place soon. Nothing avoids the Hav-a-hart forever.
This month the doggie food is the best available. The $40 bag was on sale for $27 so I sprund for it. It’s unlikely I’ll get over there this week, so I opted for the very best 50lb bag available. Hey, I’ve seen doggies prefer these pellets over real food, so spend the extra $9 and give them a treat. Stopping by the old Legion, I missed all the officers by some minutes. Instead I ran into Walter, whose family owned a chairi of auto repair shops up near the Delaware river. I coaxed him into talking about broken transmissions. My hopes are now even higher.
ADDENDUM
At time of reading, it is 05:21:35 GMT. On the hour, the Sun was at 254°35’W and 07°33’N. It is 21:35 past the hour, so we add 07°24’W and leave the declination as is. So the Sun’s geographic position at that time (remember I am practicing on an outdated Almanac) is 259°59’W by 07:33N. This time we have hit land in the far East, in Malaysia. Moments later, let me correct that in two ways. I’ve been in that part of the world and that location is north of the Malaysian border, in Thailand. And there is a large artificial lake that I may have driven a motorcycle around in the mid-1980s, when Thailand was still Thailand. Let me zoom in.
Nope, I keep track of all islands I’ve visited and I was not near this lake. Ko is the Thai (Siamese) word for island and I did not drive across any bridges in that area. The nearest settlement is called Wat Khlong Ri. Wat is the word for temple, and I would have visited. I was not near this part of the peninsula, therefore. That indicates it was pretty remote and probably not that exciting a place, what with the Phuket night life just a motorcycle ride away.
The GP was some 1500 feet off the beach in the lake, which is listed as temporarily closed. There is a tourist beach on the ocean side within walking distance called Maharat. Tripadvisor describes it as peaceful and idyllic, which in Thailand means dull as dishwater.
