Cutting, Fixing, Dying
We have now been immersed in oppressive humidity for a little while now. You would think after 20+ years in Florida I would adapt to it better but no, it still makes doing anything outside very uncomfortable. Despite this fact I spent a good portion of Saturday sweating my ass off outside. The big must do was get the tractor back in working order. The onslaught of rain has kicked yard growth back into high gear so having a mower that doesn’t mow is a real problem.
I knew the original blades that were on the Husqvarna were in poor shape but I didn’t know they were this bad. The one blade looked like it was missing 2-3 inches off either side, no wonder it was vibrating like a son of a bitch. The blade swap went easy, similar to the many swaps I have done before over the years. I breathed a sigh of relief when I engaged the PTO and the blades spun up normally.
After the swap I checked the deck for side to side level as the tractor also started scalping badly during last Wednesdays mowing session. I was surprised to see it was indeed out of whack, a half inch higher on one side. I think the level being off and the old blades being mangled in a way where part of the blade was bent downwards was causing the scalping. After doing the work I wanted to do a thorough test so I headed out back and mowed the rear yard which was getting pretty scruffy. The tractor performed flawlessly which I was pleased with as there is a long, hot mowing season ahead of me.
Saturday night we watched Midway while enjoying takeout burgers from Brooks Brothers. I never knew any real details about the Battle of Midway, the film was eye opening. Plane/ship warfare back then was just brutal, I can’t imagine the bravery involved. It was well done and further reinforced the horrors of war, continuing to make me wonder why mankind has chosen to inflict it upon one another for centuries on end. B+
On Sunday I had an extended bill paying session with a wallet stuffed full of CC receipts from the trip to KSC. Thanks to the magic of Quicken I was able to determine that in total the trip cost $750, a little more than I expected for a three night trip with no gas expenses but we both enjoyed the time away so I can’t complain too much. During the day I did more repairing, this time to another one of my 3D printers. Imagine my joy when I did my first test print and it failed as well. The printer needs more tweaking but I am running out of energy to do so.
During the afternoon Katie and DJ were over. We had fun as always including extended time in the pool, visiting the chickens and a new activity, tie dying fabric. We quickly discovered that tie dying is probably not the best activity for a two year old to be involved with. Don’t get me wrong, the act of squirting colored ink out of a bottle is fun for a toddler. However the end result was DJ wearing a bunch of the colors as well, he had yellow/green feet, green eye shadow, and a purple rear end. I tried to be more careful and still have pink dye surrounding my fingernails. When it was time to go, originally Cindy was going to take them home in the Tesla while I did more stuff at home. However when I heard DJ crying “Pop Pop, Pop Pop…” as the car was backing up it broke my heart. I jumped in the passenger seat for the ride, DJ likes when all of his tribe is together. He fell asleep during the ride.
Today I will be meeting an AC tech at the house. For awhile Cindy, who has a more sensitive sense of smell than I do had been complaining about episodes of mildew smell coming from the system, part of the reason I replaced one of the two UV lights in the air handler. However even after doing this, even I could still smell the mildew at times which is not good. I discovered that if I remove the air filter in the return in our bedroom the smell goes away, almost like the system is being choked for air flow. Well you shouldn’t have to run a system without filters to function properly.
Then over the weekend I noticed something else. As I mentioned it was brutally hot and humid. I noticed that during the afternoon the system was unable to cool the house to the 75 degrees it was set to, it couldn’t go any lower than 77. Of course cooling a house in these conditions isn’t easy but my Trane system, which is normally very efficient, has never had an issue doing this in the past. The combination of these factors made me place the call this morning. At first I figured I could just double up my routine PM which was soon due. I was told that the PM guys and the service guys are two different departments and presumably different skill levels. I requested a service call which will cost me out of pocket but at least we can dig deeper into what is going on.