Keeping Busy, Still Hurting....
I know I keep promising to update this thing more often, but it seems it's another one of those things that's easier said than done. I have things I want to say, and/or make note of, but I keep putting it off. The danger there of course, is that I can't always rely on my memory to keep track of everything. Once I start writing, things often come burbling up from the depths of my memory, but that also makes for dis-jointed posts that keep running off on a tangent. Sort of like how "old people" tell stories... ;)
And once again, the visual editor isn't recognizing the ENTER key. Isn't that just so special? This is the main reason that I don't update as often as I used to: LJ's constant attempts to "make things better" and fixing things that aren't broken, are destroying the whole thing. It's really a shame, because I really like the idea of having an online journal, but LJ seems bound and determined to drive all of their customers away.
In any case, the last week-and-some was very good for business: Iron Pony brought in about $4K (gross) within a week, and things aren't showing much sign of slowing down. I wish I could say the same for the bowling alley - Wildhorse has been pretty much dead for the last month since all of the rig-crews are out of town. On the plus side though, I finally got in touch with the people at Leisure and Wellness, and they're going to start promoting the bowling alley. Hopefully that will start generating some much-needed income! We're going to need it too - the bills don't stop just because the customers do, and I have to scrounge up an extra $500 for the deposit on the lane-upgrades. The deposit will be refunded if we can't get financing, but I have to send it in with the signed contract to get the (bowling) ball rolling.
It seems that I still can't talk about Molly's passing (and many thanks to everyone for your kind words.) I can read my LJ and FB entries without too much trouble, but to actually talk aloud about it is another matter. I called my Mom on Sunday to wish her a Happy Mother's Day, and to bring her up-to-date on the news around here, including Molly's passing. I was doing OK at first, but when I got to the part where she actually died, I lost it. I managed not to bawl, but tears were streaming down my cheeks and I couldn't speak for a few minutes as I tried to retain some amount of composure. Thankfully Mom is very understanding about that sort of thing, and didn't interrupt me other than to offer gentle condolences. I come from a family of "softies" when it comes to animals; Even my brother who often acts "tough" melts when it comes to animals. I think that's a good thing.
The Kidling bought the mini-quad that I had at the shop on a commission sale, and last Thursday he came over after school to get it tuned up and running properly. He also bought a jerry-can and a bottle of fuel-stabilizer, and on Saturday I took him over to the gas-station where he filled it with Premium gas. He's paid for everything with this quad with his own money, earned at his part-time job at Subway. He loves that machine, and the fact that he earned it himself (and knows that he earned it himself) makes it all the more special. I did most of the actual work with the tune-up, but I had him help as much as he could, and showed him exactly what we were doing, and explained why we were doing it. He seemed to be a lot more interested this time, given that it was his own machine being taken care of. He's also been paying his own cell-phone bills and the satellite-TV bill; Now if we could just get him to pay off his tab at the bowling-alley... ;)
One of my customers has an old Sears riding-mower in the shop; It's been here far too long, and twice, for the same problem: It leaks oil from the rocker-cover, and drips it onto the hot muffler right below it. The problem is (was?) that it only does it under the right conditions, which I wasn't able to duplicate at first. I've finally managed to do so, and I think I've figured out where the leak is actually coming from. The problem is that the gasket in question was already replaced the last time, and it didn't make any difference. A check on the web tells me that this is a common issue for this particular engine (A Tecumseh OVM120) - at least with the earlier versions. There's one last thing I can try, which is to replace the gasket with RTV Silicon gasket-maker. If this doesn't fix the problem, nothing will. The silicon takes 24 hours to cure, so I won't be able to test it until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. I hope it works, because I really want to get rid of this machine, and get the customer taken care of. Frankly, if I never see either again, it will be too soon. :P
Another customer has had a couple of lawn-mowers in the shop even longer, and I finally got one of them fixed this evening. What was supposed to be the easier machine has a broken spring in the rewind starter. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, except that none of the parts-breakdowns had a number for it! Even finding a breakdown for the recoil was a task, but while it had part-numbers for just about every other component, it didn't have any for the spring. One of the most common parts to break, and there's no number... Keee-ripes! Thankfully, a new vendor dropped off a "Rotary" after-market parts catalog just recently, and claimed that Rotary had a number of parts that no-one else did. Turns out he was right, and they did have the spring I needed. More importantly, they had the OEM part-number, so I was able to actually order the correct part from the supplier. Interestingly enough, Briggs & Stratton uses the exact same spring (albeit with a different part number) on some of their engines! The price for the Tecumseh branded spring is half the cost of the Briggs & Stratton one though, so I know which one I'll be using if I ever need one on the Briggs side of things!
Since I have to wait for the spring to come in for that machine, I got to work on the other machine the customer had brought in; It should have just needed a simple tune-up, but it wound up being more involved than that. Both machines were quite dirty, so just getting them cleaned up enough to see what was going on took a while. I got the machine cleaned up, put in a fresh spark-plug and a new air-cleaner, and tried to start it. It would cough and bang, partially back-firing with smoke coming out of the air-cleaner, but it wouldn't actually start. Going with a hunch, I took the covers off the engine (again) and this time removed the fly-wheel as well. Just as I had suspected, the aluminum key was shorn, and thus the timing was completely messed up. Once that key was replaced and everything was re-assembled, the engine started on the first pull and purred happily until I shut it off. That's the sort of thing that makes this job worthwhile... :)
Since it was too late for me to go back to the farm and actually get any work done, I relieved Trixstir at the bowling-alley so she could go home with the kids. Whether I go home, or stay at the alley, I'm not going to bed until after midnight anyway, so I may as well be here. As I suspected, it's another dead night, and that's just as well. Yes, we need the income, but I'm so tired and sore right now that I'm just as happy not having to deal with anyone for now. There's a high-winds warning in effect tonight, with gusts expected to reach 100km/hr or more! Couple that with thunderstorms, and it's going to be a fun night. Ah well... At least I know that The Munchkin is not afraid of thunder and lightning; We had a few flash-and-boom (and loud ones!) recently, and though she covered her ears when the boom came, she didn't cry or freak out.
That pretty much wraps up the last few days - other than to note that I made steaks and baked-potatoes for Mother's Day supper last night. The original plan was to BBQ them, but the high winds would have kept blowing the BBQ out, so I cooked them under the broiler in the oven instead. This was the first time I'd used the broiler since we got this new stove, and I over-cooked them a little. Not too much, but enough that all of them came out well-done instead of medium. Flavour was still fantastic though, so it was all good. Looking forward to doing some real BBQ'ing later though!
And once again, the visual editor isn't recognizing the ENTER key. Isn't that just so special? This is the main reason that I don't update as often as I used to: LJ's constant attempts to "make things better" and fixing things that aren't broken, are destroying the whole thing. It's really a shame, because I really like the idea of having an online journal, but LJ seems bound and determined to drive all of their customers away.
In any case, the last week-and-some was very good for business: Iron Pony brought in about $4K (gross) within a week, and things aren't showing much sign of slowing down. I wish I could say the same for the bowling alley - Wildhorse has been pretty much dead for the last month since all of the rig-crews are out of town. On the plus side though, I finally got in touch with the people at Leisure and Wellness, and they're going to start promoting the bowling alley. Hopefully that will start generating some much-needed income! We're going to need it too - the bills don't stop just because the customers do, and I have to scrounge up an extra $500 for the deposit on the lane-upgrades. The deposit will be refunded if we can't get financing, but I have to send it in with the signed contract to get the (bowling) ball rolling.
It seems that I still can't talk about Molly's passing (and many thanks to everyone for your kind words.) I can read my LJ and FB entries without too much trouble, but to actually talk aloud about it is another matter. I called my Mom on Sunday to wish her a Happy Mother's Day, and to bring her up-to-date on the news around here, including Molly's passing. I was doing OK at first, but when I got to the part where she actually died, I lost it. I managed not to bawl, but tears were streaming down my cheeks and I couldn't speak for a few minutes as I tried to retain some amount of composure. Thankfully Mom is very understanding about that sort of thing, and didn't interrupt me other than to offer gentle condolences. I come from a family of "softies" when it comes to animals; Even my brother who often acts "tough" melts when it comes to animals. I think that's a good thing.
The Kidling bought the mini-quad that I had at the shop on a commission sale, and last Thursday he came over after school to get it tuned up and running properly. He also bought a jerry-can and a bottle of fuel-stabilizer, and on Saturday I took him over to the gas-station where he filled it with Premium gas. He's paid for everything with this quad with his own money, earned at his part-time job at Subway. He loves that machine, and the fact that he earned it himself (and knows that he earned it himself) makes it all the more special. I did most of the actual work with the tune-up, but I had him help as much as he could, and showed him exactly what we were doing, and explained why we were doing it. He seemed to be a lot more interested this time, given that it was his own machine being taken care of. He's also been paying his own cell-phone bills and the satellite-TV bill; Now if we could just get him to pay off his tab at the bowling-alley... ;)
One of my customers has an old Sears riding-mower in the shop; It's been here far too long, and twice, for the same problem: It leaks oil from the rocker-cover, and drips it onto the hot muffler right below it. The problem is (was?) that it only does it under the right conditions, which I wasn't able to duplicate at first. I've finally managed to do so, and I think I've figured out where the leak is actually coming from. The problem is that the gasket in question was already replaced the last time, and it didn't make any difference. A check on the web tells me that this is a common issue for this particular engine (A Tecumseh OVM120) - at least with the earlier versions. There's one last thing I can try, which is to replace the gasket with RTV Silicon gasket-maker. If this doesn't fix the problem, nothing will. The silicon takes 24 hours to cure, so I won't be able to test it until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. I hope it works, because I really want to get rid of this machine, and get the customer taken care of. Frankly, if I never see either again, it will be too soon. :P
Another customer has had a couple of lawn-mowers in the shop even longer, and I finally got one of them fixed this evening. What was supposed to be the easier machine has a broken spring in the rewind starter. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, except that none of the parts-breakdowns had a number for it! Even finding a breakdown for the recoil was a task, but while it had part-numbers for just about every other component, it didn't have any for the spring. One of the most common parts to break, and there's no number... Keee-ripes! Thankfully, a new vendor dropped off a "Rotary" after-market parts catalog just recently, and claimed that Rotary had a number of parts that no-one else did. Turns out he was right, and they did have the spring I needed. More importantly, they had the OEM part-number, so I was able to actually order the correct part from the supplier. Interestingly enough, Briggs & Stratton uses the exact same spring (albeit with a different part number) on some of their engines! The price for the Tecumseh branded spring is half the cost of the Briggs & Stratton one though, so I know which one I'll be using if I ever need one on the Briggs side of things!
Since I have to wait for the spring to come in for that machine, I got to work on the other machine the customer had brought in; It should have just needed a simple tune-up, but it wound up being more involved than that. Both machines were quite dirty, so just getting them cleaned up enough to see what was going on took a while. I got the machine cleaned up, put in a fresh spark-plug and a new air-cleaner, and tried to start it. It would cough and bang, partially back-firing with smoke coming out of the air-cleaner, but it wouldn't actually start. Going with a hunch, I took the covers off the engine (again) and this time removed the fly-wheel as well. Just as I had suspected, the aluminum key was shorn, and thus the timing was completely messed up. Once that key was replaced and everything was re-assembled, the engine started on the first pull and purred happily until I shut it off. That's the sort of thing that makes this job worthwhile... :)
Since it was too late for me to go back to the farm and actually get any work done, I relieved Trixstir at the bowling-alley so she could go home with the kids. Whether I go home, or stay at the alley, I'm not going to bed until after midnight anyway, so I may as well be here. As I suspected, it's another dead night, and that's just as well. Yes, we need the income, but I'm so tired and sore right now that I'm just as happy not having to deal with anyone for now. There's a high-winds warning in effect tonight, with gusts expected to reach 100km/hr or more! Couple that with thunderstorms, and it's going to be a fun night. Ah well... At least I know that The Munchkin is not afraid of thunder and lightning; We had a few flash-and-boom (and loud ones!) recently, and though she covered her ears when the boom came, she didn't cry or freak out.
That pretty much wraps up the last few days - other than to note that I made steaks and baked-potatoes for Mother's Day supper last night. The original plan was to BBQ them, but the high winds would have kept blowing the BBQ out, so I cooked them under the broiler in the oven instead. This was the first time I'd used the broiler since we got this new stove, and I over-cooked them a little. Not too much, but enough that all of them came out well-done instead of medium. Flavour was still fantastic though, so it was all good. Looking forward to doing some real BBQ'ing later though!