Ahhh, nothing like a brisk breeze to refresh!  Unless it's -24°c outside, and the wind is racing through at 80kmh! (50mph!) That's what it was like on Tuesday morning. I woke up around 6:30am to the sound of the wind howling outside, thinking to myself "That can't be good..." and dozed off again. Woke up again when the phone rang 45 minutes ( Read more... )

     Really not having a fun day; Stress levels are through the roof, and I'm about ready to bite someone's head off.  Preferably the head off a dark-chocolate easter bunny, as they say that dark chocolat helps relieve stress.  I've got some Cadbury's dark chocolate fruit-and-nut bars at home, but that doesn't do me much good here at the shop ( Read more... )

     I finally managed to talk to a human at Dixie Sales, the company that handles the warranty work for a slew of other companies, including Champion Power Equipment, Canadian Tire, MTD, and others.  MTD seems to have various channels, since I'm already getting parts for them through PSC and Yetmans.  It gets confusing at times, to say the least ( Read more... )

     Ah, the last two days have been so much fun...

With the BS from the WCMHC, and the shadow of the GST audit, and just way too much to do and not enough time to do it all, the stress levels have been crazy.  They did reach the boiling point yesterday, as evidenced from my last posting.  They're not doing a lot better today, but it's not as ( Read more... )

      It's actually December 5th as I write this, but thanks to LJ's ability to change the dates, I can enter this on the proper day.  Here's a quick sample of how the day went:

Me:  Another birthday....  42 years, gads...  Still, better having another birthday than not having another birthday, I always say.

Murphey:  Hey sweet-cheeks!  Haven't seen ( Read more... )

     It was simply too hot to do much of anything at the shop today; The temperature in the shop reached 87°F, and it was even hotter outside.  As a result, it was a very slow day all over; The only customer I got all day was Bernie, who came in early in the morning (while it was a bit cooler) to see if I could fix the recoil starter on his mini- ( Read more... )

     When we purchased this farm, trixstir  and I applied for a GST number so that we could avoid having to pay the GST on the purchase.  You can do this when you buy real-estate, if there is a reasonable assumption that said purchase will be used to generate income.  This also allows you to declare the GST on any purchases you make that are also intended ( Read more... )

     The last couple of days have certainly been busy ones.  The most important thing was getting all of the income statements for Iron Pony and Wildhorse Bowling into the accounting software so that I could calculate the PST due.  I completed the bowling alley's part last night, but I had some concerns with the numbers it was giving me.  I slept ( Read more... )

     Whuff...  What a week so far!

On Monday, I was about to head out to make a field-service call for the people I had rebuilt the Frankenengine for.  Apparently, they were having some problems getting it started, and from their description it sounded like the float-valve in the carburetor might have gotten stuck.  Just as I was about to head ( Read more... )

     Things finally started going right again yesterday!

For starters, I got a phone-call from one of the head parts-people at Stens Canada.  Stens, and their Canadian branch, are major after-market parts suppliers for small engines and other machines, and they're also the official distributors for Kawasaki and LCT engines.  Somewhere along ( Read more... )