Ali was heading out of town for a few days on Saturday afternoon. I was hoping to get most of the outside work done before she left. Well the yard equipment had other ideas.
As I was weed whacking Ali came around from the front of the house where she had been mowing. I knew immediately there was some sort of mower issue from her body language. Ali tells me the mower just stopped moving, great.
Ironically, I had just had a conversation last week with my neighbor about mowers. He said years ago he dropped a bunch of money on a new mower deck and then as soon as he did the transmission went out. This conversation immediately came to mind sice I just ordered a new deck.
I crawled around and looked into the guts of the tractor. The problem appeared to be yet another belt issue. There is a belt that runs from the motor back to the transmission. The belt was in horrible shape, missing huge chunks of rubber. I can’t believe the tractor was working for as long as it has with the belt that beat up.
It was hot and humid as hell. My inner frustration with yet another tractor issue added to my internal heat index. I called to a local tractor place on the off chance they would have the belt in stock, no dice. I wound up ordering it online from Cub Cadet.
After I ordered it I actually took the deck off and put the tractor up on ramps. I was able to get the tattered belt back on the pulleys. After doing so the tractor once again was able to move! I had delusions of being able to baby it and finish mowing the grass. I was actually able to mow for about 10 minutes until the belt fell off again, oh well.
The weed whacker was also annoying the shit out of me. The beat up spool wasn’t feeding line correctly and once again the whacker shut off and wouldn’t run until I let it cool off for awhile. It almost reminds me of the “vapor lock” condition you would have with old carbureted cars. Eventually the stupid thing started again and I was able to at least finish one aspect of the yard work.
When Ali left for Orlando I was left with a half mowed yard and full cup of frustration. I wished her a safe trip and went back to addressing house duties.
I called across to my neighbors place to ask if I could borrow their tractor. He wasn’t home so I left a message with his wife. He just bought a 60″, zero turn mower Gravely. He also had his older John Deere. I said I’d be fine just using the Deere, I didn’t want to mess with his new toy. Well when he got back he came right over with the Gravely.
Steve gave me a quick 5 minute lesson on the controls. The biggest change is using two levers to steer instead of a wheel. The Graveley is practically commercial quality, it is simply a beast that lives to cut grass, fast. After my brief lesson I was off.
The combination of the huge 60″ deck, zero turn and high horsepower motor made the job of mowing the grass extremely easy. In spots where our 18.5 HP, 42″ Cub Cadet would have to slow to a crawl to get through thick grass the Graveley would sail right through without flinching, wow.
There were some negatives with the lever based steering. It’s incredibly sensitive which is both a good and a bad thing. I found that doing precision work like following a fence line took a lot of concentration. One flinch and you could easily hit a post.
I had an episode where I took out a couple banana trees. The trees were at the bottom of the small hill along the pool. As I turned down the hill my body weight shifted forward which in turn bumped the levers forward causing unintended acceleration. By the time I pulled back on the handles the two trees were under the frame.
The other thing that annoyed me was having to keep both hands on the controls at all times. I find when I mow my face gets very itchy from both the bugs and the debris that gets thrown up into the air. Well you can’t just take one hand off the controls with lever steering else you immediately begin turning.
Even with the steering struggles I was able to blow through the grass cutting. Although I don’t think I would buy a lever steering mower I will definitely be getting something with tons of power and a wider deck. I cleaned the mower off, dumped some gas in it and took it back to my neighbor’s place. I thanked him for trusting me with his baby.
Saturday afternoon I piled the dogs into the van for a road trip. I figured it would be a good way to get away from the frustration of the earlier events of the day. They were both extremely excited. The first stop was Pinch a Penny. I needed a replacement piece of rubber tubing that runs from the chlorinator to the return line. I had a pleasant surprise when the owner cut off a small section of the tubing and said it was free. He knew I was a regular and said it was such a small thing to not worry about it, nice, maybe the day isn’t so bad after all.
I left the van running so the girls would be nice and cool while I was inside. I walk up to the van and pull on the door. It’s locked. No…. I did a quick lap around the van and tried all the doors even though I already know they would all be locked. I couldn’t believe it. Evidently I must have hit the lock button out of habit. On most newer vehicles, they won’t allow you to lock the doors with the button if the engine is running, my Tacoma included. Well evidently this technology didn’t exist in 1996.
So now my mind turned to resolution. The last thing I wanted to do was call AAA to get me in. There was another key at home but I had no way to get there. The answer was clear, I had to break into the van.
I went back into the store and told the guy I locked my keys in the van. I asked him for a phillips and straight edge screwdriver. My plan was to try to get in through one of the small sliding windows in the rear of the van. Initially I had very little success but I was determined to get in. As I worked at popping the window the dogs were watching me from the inside, wondering what the hell I was doing. Why didn’t we teach them the “hit the power lock button” command?
Finally after removing some of the weather stripping and doing all sorts of prying and pushing I got the window to slide. I then went inside the store again and borrowed a long thin piece of pvc and used it to hit the power lock button on the rear door. Boy I am glad that I got the power locks working towards the end of the road trip. It would have been very difficult otherwise to gain entry.
So after that drama I hopped back in the van. On the way out of the shopping center I was very thirsty. I decided to quench that thirst with a large iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts. Iced coffee is a dangerous thing. If I order a 20 ounce hot coffee in the morning it probably takes me at least a half hour until I am done drinking it, if not longer. However a 32 ounce iced coffee can be slammed in 5 minutes or less, delivering a pretty strong jolt of caffeine to the system. After drinking mine I felt a bit like Beavis when he would go into one of his Cornholio fits.
We also made a stop at the ATM and then a quick stop at Lowes to get a couple items. On the way back I pulled into Sam’s Club to run the van through the car wash. The van still had a base layer of crud on it from 6,600 miles on the road. The reason I went to Sam’s is because they having something very rare, a car wash with BRUSHES.
Most automatic car washes nowadays are the “no touch” variety that simply spray your car with water and suds. They should rename these washes “no clean”. They do a pretty bad job of cleaning a vehicle. Evidently these became popular because they eliminated possible damage that brush style washes can do.
Well this is a brand new car wash that uses rubber brushes that are safer for your vehicle. I wasn’t really concerned either way, it is the party van after all, warts and all. What I was concerned about was the 6′ 10″ height restriction. The van has been in some 7 foot parking garages but never anything lower. I spent a good 5 minutes determining if the van would fit. First I just stood back and eyeballed it. It looked very close. Then I moved the van slowly ahead several times under the stationary bar and got out to survey the clearance. The roof rack JUST cleared, I probably had an inch or less of clearance.
Sadie did not enjoy the car wash experience. She huddled by me as the water and brushes beat against the van. I kept my hand on her the entire time to reassure her. When the wash was over I pulled out under the blow dryers and then got out to survey the results. It looked great, tons better than if I went through the bullshit ” no touch” wash.
Saturday night I watched a documentary that has been in my Netflix queue for a long time, Food Inc. The film is about how food is made in America. Of course as you would imagine, it is f’d up just like so many other things. It’s very disturbing seeing how animals are processed in order to meet the insatiable appetite of the ever growing population. There were several scenes where I looked away.
The film also puts a spotlight on a crop that is the source of most evil in the industry, corn. Corn in America is cheap. However it is artificially cheap because of government subsidies. Farmers sell corn for less than it costs them to grow. Corn is the main ingredient for many of the substances that are used in processed food, none of which are very good for you. High fructose corn syrup tops that list.
Feed lot cattle are fed corn instead of the grass that is the natural diet for cattle. Forcing the animals to eat corn helps fatten them up quickly for slaughter. It also has the an unfortunate side effect, it breeds a strain of deadly ecoli.
There is a lot of emphasis on how only a few massive companies control the flow of food in the country. As in most situations where big business is allowed to swallow up an industry, there are countless abuses that take place. Many of the high ranking officials in the FDA were simply relocated former big food employees. Their insertion into government simply gave the food makers a nice rubber stamp for whatever they wanted to do since the agency dedicated to police them was actually in their back pocket.
The movie was a real eye opener. It showed how there is a deliberate and necessary effort to cover up exactly what goes on behind the curtain. All those bright colored, shiny packages of food have their roots in a very corrupt system. In some ways the food companies almost came off as a modern day mafia.
Watching the film really made me wish we could grow more of our own food. You should see the film, add it to your Netflix queue.
Of course many people would prefer just not to know. People in general like to not know about the details of things like this as they are generally unpleasant. Not knowing is a great way to simply continue along without modifying your thought process, a very embraced concept in modern society.
I hoped my Sunday would be a little less busy than Saturday. For the most part it was. I had another breakdown, this time the Scooba was dead due to a broken solution valve. I ordered the part to fix it. I have ripped apart many a Roomba but never a Scooba. It should be interesting.
Sunday afternoon I actually tried another 50-50-50 workout. You may recall my last attempt was a total failure due to strained abs. The low energy doldrums I felt last week had lifted a bit so I thought I would give it a go. It was a struggle from very early on. Obviously my endurance is not there yet, doing the pull ups was extremely tough. Several times I would fail on a pull up rep and then have to drop off the bar, recuperate briefly and then do the rep, slowing me down. I completed it in right around 13 minutes, very slow compared to the 11:15 I posted during my last successful effort in early June.
I also threw up another brief L sit clip to see if I could hold it any longer. I don’t think I did.
Sunday evening I watched another movie on Netflix, Zombieland. It was one of those Shawn only movies that Ali would have no interest in seeing. The movie was funny. Zombie movies are normally pretty scary and disturbing. It was a pleasant change to be able to laugh at a zombie flick. The movie starred Woody Harrelson.
Woody is another one of those actors that I love to watch. I have never seen him in a role that I didn’t like. He kept the streak going in this movie, he plays a fine zombie killer. The movie is 90 minutes of fun, rent it. I’d give it a B+/A-
I forgot to mention that during our trip I discovered the cause of the sloughing I had with my cheeks. For a few years my dental hygienist has pointed out how skin is peeling off the inside of my cheeks. I knew it was but never paid much attention to it. Well on the trip I just had a tooth brush, no rinses. It turns out that the Listerine pre-brush whitening junk was the culprit. Evidently on top of whitening your teeth it also strips skin from the inside of your mouth. I continued my boycott of the product once we got home and my cheek skin has been intact ever since.
Ali doesn’t come back until Wednesday so I have to hold down the fort until then.
The bike was in three pieces in the trunk of his car, both wheels were off. The bike was very dirty but looked intact otherwise. I thanked him again for his generosity. He said it was no big deal, it was just taking up space in his garage.
