Got a lot done this week…………………………………………………

As always, first the chronology:

7/11/21 – Sunday – Up at the usual time.  Cleaned up and out to church.  Home and had lunch.  Did the blog.  Out to Gary’s for the Sunday afternoon get together.  Home and took Kathy to Cattleman’s Roadhouse for dinner.  Home and usual evening routine.

7/12/21 – Monday – Up at the usual time.  Out to the shop to look at the steering problem on the lawn tractor.  Discovered left front wheel wobbled a lot on the spindle.  Assumed it was a bearing so went to Shelbyville and got 2 sets of bearings.  Home and got into it further and discovered the tube off the inside of the wheel had broken loose from the wheel.  Welded that back together, installed new bearings and reassembled.  All works well.  Mike and Buddy Stump stopped by to talk about fixing the driveway to the field next door.  They will try to get that done this week.  In for dinner and usual evening routine.

7/13/21 – Tuesday – Up at the usual time.  Over to the shop and worked on the drip tray for Kathy’s laundry.  In for lunch.  Chores around the house.  A quick nap then cleaned up and over to the Shelbyville Repeater club meeting.  Stopped at Arby’s for dinner after the meeting.  Home and usual evening routine.

7/14/21 – Wednesday – Up at the usual time.  Did some banking and other computer work.  Cleaned up and out to the shop to do a bit of touch up on the brazing of the aluminum tray for Kathy.  Out for lunch with the Lutheran Pastor.  Home and finished up the tray for Kathy.  Worked on ripping more CDs.  Dinner and usual evening routine.

7/15/21 – Thursday – Up early with the dogs barking.  Kathy was already out to babysit the grand kids.  I took care of domestic chores today.  Laundry, changing bed sheets and cleaning up the kitchen.  Kathy came home late afternoon.  Dinner and usual evening routine.

7/16/21 – Friday – Up at the usual time and out for grass seed and straw.  Seeded the area where they re-worked the drainage ditches around the new driveway.  In and cleaned up.  Lunch and worked on my pulse generator.  Tried playing radio but not good.  Usual evening routine.

7/17/21 – Saturday – Up a little early and out to meet the Rice family at the Patton Museum at Fort Knox.  Spent a couple hours there then up to Linn Station Road to eat at a place Mike picked.  We all decided Mike needs to stop picking places.  Then home.  Lunch did not agree with me so I took some medicine and laid down for an hour.  Chores around the house, dinner and usual evening routine.

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Now the specifics:

Awhile ago I noticed the steering on the lawn tractor was getting stiff. Didn’t think much about it but Kathy mentioned it as well last week when we did the yard work. So Monday I went out to the shop, put the front end of the tractor up on a jack and steering seemed OK. Did some further investigation and discovered the left front wheel was very loose on the spindle and wobbled. I assumed bad bearings and went to the John Deere dealer and bought two sets of bearings. Got home and continued taking things apart and realized that the tube that extends out from the inside of the wheel and holds the bearing had come detached from the wheel. So I called the dealer but they didn’t have any in stock. Said they cost $100 and would be 2 to 3 weeks unless I wanted to pay $50 more for expedited delivery. I told them to disregard. Went back to work, cleaned things up and welded it back together. Pressed the bearings in place, put things back together and all is good now.

As some of you may remember, late last year I had a driveway put in to my field next door so the guy that mows and bails it can get his equipment in and out easily. It seems things did not suit the local roadway supervisor and they sent me an email explaining that it was a problem and I was to fix it. That was about the time (March) that I lost my dandydan.net domain name so my email had changed. A couple weeks ago I got a registered letter from the state saying if I didn’t have it fixed in 30 days they would come remove it, re-do the ditch and charge me. I quickly sent an email back explaining the email situation and that I would get on it immediately. The guy I was dealing with was very nice about things and told me since I responded in good faith don’t worry about the 30 days. So I went to the guy that is the local supervisor for something in writing to explain exactly what he wanted so I could give that to the folks doing the work for me and he refused. A real class ‘A’ asshole. My friends Buddy and his son Mike stopped by and said they asked for the same information from the same guy and essentially got the same response. So we did the best we could. They worked on it Wednesday and Thursday. I took pictures and sent them to the engineer and he said it looked great. So Friday I went out and bought seed and straw to get some vegetation growing as soon as possible to eliminate the possibility of erosion. I finally got that put to bed.

And here is the finished product.

I finished the brazing work on the aluminum tray I fabricated for Kathy’s laundry. Had to do some wiping on Thursday and it was finished.

She decided to put aluminum foil in the tray so she could just change that when she needed to. So now the drips from the detergent and softener bottles will not fall on her new washing machine.

Tuesday evening I went to a repeater club meeting in Shelbyville. Leeta, my HAM friend here in Spencer County asked me to go. They needed a VE (Volunteer Examiner) as they had someone that wanted to take their HAM test so I did that as well. Good group of people. Think I’ll continue going.

For the last couple months I’ve been going to the Lutheran Church out here in Spencer County. Last Sunday the Pastor asked if I’d like to have lunch some day. So we agreed on Wednesday this week. He is a great guy. Very colorful. Left the ministry to become a lawyer. In his words, “I wasn’t a very good lawyer so I went back to the ministry because I was getting hungry”. Anyway, we had a good time chatting. I think I will continue going to church there and become a member eventually.

I ripped another box of CDs this week that Kathy found. Keeping all the music on a large external hard drive. Now anyone can help themselves to any of the music they want.

Thursday Kathy had baby sitting chores so I was relegated to domestic chores here. Did laundry, changed bed clothes, cleaned up the kitchen and finished up ripping CDs.

Saturday this week we went to the Patton Museum down at Fort Knox. It seems there was a cavalry unit that was transferred from Fort Knox to somewhere in Alabama and they took a lot of the tanks and vehicles. There was at least a dozen pads out in front of the building for vehicles and there were only 3 or 4 tanks remaining. It was still interesting to go through it. I need to go again when I don’t have my son-in-law reading things to me and telling me things while I’m trying to read other things. Perhaps when Stan comes to visit we can go down there again.

So my son-in-law Mike picked out this place to eat on Saturday after we went to the Patton Museum. It was a yuppie kind of place and on weekends they only served brunch. The waitress had one of those whiny voices that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. She also talked like she was a valley girl. Some of the things we ordered from the menu were not available. When they served things, mine was missing because they burnt my burger and were making me a fresh one. The food was terrible and it was all expensive. This is the second time Mike picked out a loser of a place to eat. So we all decided that he wasn’t allowed to pick eating places anymore.

Other than the above, I am continuing work on my pulse generator for my time domain reflectometer. And I’m also in the process of building a custom controller for the local UHF HAM repeater. I will keep you advised as those project are finished.

That’s it for this week. As always, hope this finds everyone well and safe. Don’t let the Delta Variant get you. Blog at you again next week.