Gin.
Too much gin.
No, I’m not hung over. That would be way too much gin.
But it seems that a little gin in the evening makes for a lot of trips in the night.
How do I know this? And why so much gin? Well,
For the last month or so, we’ve had nothing but non-stop family visits.
Lots of togetherness, lots of toasts, and lots of cocktail hours.
Lots of gin and tonics.
Lots of lost sleep.
And when everyone was finally gone, and the cocktails dried up, so did my pecker, and I finally put two and two together: gin makes you pee.
Just like science says.
They hurled insults back and forth for 3 minutes.
Nobody got hurt.
This guy had a 12″ shell.
Not a petting zoo.
When the weather’s nice, we use manual air conditioning: We open the windows.
And when the nights are cold, we close them. Simple.
Except for that one window in the kitchen. The one that sticks when you try to close it, so the house is cold in the morning. It’s been like that forever.
Until today, when I just got tired of it and I waded into the shrubbery to try to shut it from the outside, and …
You know the little wooden spacers they use to stabilize the window when they ship it to you on day 1? The ones you’re supposed to take out and throw away?
I never took it out.
So now, for the first time in 14 years, that window works perfectly.
It took this much swarf …
… to make these parts.
I like to think that I am a pretty good motorcycle mechanic, but the data says otherwise.
Sure, the Suzuki is a stunning success story, but if you want to keep score, neither of the Hondas have motors, and the Kawasaki started out ‘hard to start’ and then started not starting at all.
That’s 1 out of 4. Better than average, but not very good.
So I decided to fix the Kawasaki.
I know how to do this, I thought to myself.
It shouldn’t be all that hard if I don’t fuck it up, I reasoned.
It oughta take about a day of actual work to fix the bike, I guessed.
So why not?
I ordered parts, took apart the carbs, ordered more parts, put it all back together and, after about a total of a day of actual dirty work, I pressed Start.
It started right up.
It made me feel really good, for a change.
It pays to practice with string, because you only get one chance with carbon fiber.
That god damned Stowe house. Ugh.
I’ve been assessing the septic system, and it’s not going well.
I got a guy with a fancy plumbing snake to locate the buried pipes and we found a blockage. I did some digging, and it wasn’t just a rock or a root. All the pipes past the distribution box are clogged.
Chuck full o’ shit.
I’m not actually sure how this is even possible, but I can’t argue with -ahem- the facts on the ground.
I know it’s bad news, and
I know it’s beyond my pay grade.
I need professional help.
The boom I use to pick apples runs off a 50 year old, 2 cylinder, 400 pound power plant that, starting last year, won’t start.
Parts are hard to come by, and what’s the point of having a Boom if it doesn’t run?
So I decided to replace the power plant.
In concept, I’d mount my hydraulic pump on a modern engine, and call it a day.
Keep it simple.
A Venn diagram of the engine I needed.
So I bought an engine and a separate electric start kit.
Adding electric start is supposed to be a piece of cake, but No.
The key-to-pickup angle on the new flywheel didn’t match the old one.
And you can’t just broach a new one, because the key overlays a taper.
Google said I was fucked.
This is the kind of cr*p that gives Chinese imports a bad name.
Unbelievably, I own an antique filing machine which I’d bought at auction. I’d fixed it, but I’ve never actually used it.
Sadly, it was too small for the flywheel, so I jerry-rigged some ball bearings for support.
And I cut myself a 4mm keyway in a tapered bore.
(I amaze even myself, sometimes.)