Tractor trouble continues, still off, Ali back, 90k

So Ali got back from her conference yesterday.  She was glad to be home although she did miss the bed at the Ritz.  Ali missed it so much that she went to Target and bought some bed topper thing that supposedly is similar to what the Ritz had.  I told Ali that I thought our bed was comfortable already and we already have a memory foam topper on it.  I also questioned the wisdom of spending money on something non-essential like this when we are still recovering from post road trip expenses compounded by tractor repairs, need for tires on the Camry, etc…

Well Ali never likes to be questioned about her spending especially shortly after just returning home.  I admit my timing wasn’t great but it just struck me as odd that we both recognize the huge outlay of cash we have dropped yet only one of us seems all that bothered by it.  Admittedly between the two of us Ali and I make a good living and it would take a financial H-bomb to derail us.  Still I would like to practice thoughtful spending whenever possible.

Maybe one of the reasons I was hyper sensitive to this was finding out the new market value for our house in the 2010 tax roll.  It took another MASSIVE 90k hit in value from the previous tax year.  There are several shocking things about this.  We have had 90k hits in recent years but that was off of the old hyper-inflated real estate values.  Hell at one point they had our house on the books for 460k.  But this 90k hit comes off the top of already majorly depressed numbers.

At this point our home is actually worth less than what we paid for it in 2001, now that is pretty damn depressing.  Obviously we are trapped in our house.  Luckily we weren’t actively trying to move anytime soon.  Refinancing would be an impossibility.  The only bright side to this is our taxes will be lower.

So yesterday I received the new mower deck for the tractor.  After eating dinner with Ali I headed out to work on transferring the various parts from the old deck to the new deck.  As I did I quickly discovered I needed some additional parts.

I was missing a few bolts that must have fallen off after years of abuse.  However my biggest problem came when I tried to unbolt the spindles.  The damn bolts snapped right off leaving the frozen remains of it buried inside the spindles.  After I snapped the first one I tried hitting the remaining bolts with wd-40 and PB rust buster but it made no difference.  Each one was frozen solid and the head simply snapped off.

So now I also need two new spindles, the most expensive part of the deck outside the deck itself.  If that wasn’t aggravating enough I realized as I was moving hardware that the new deck was damaged. (red arrow points to it)  That piece is supposed to be a right angle.  Instead it looked like it was dropped/hit and as a result bent the piece.  I was so pissed.  Instantly ideas of the hassle involved with returning the deck flashed through my head. Without any control I yelled “Mother f’r!” quite loudly.  I was so aggravated.

So now I had to think what I wanted to do.  First I took pictures of the damage so it was documented.  I just could not see going through the hassle of returning the deck.  I already moved a bunch of stuff across plus returning it would slow down the tractor repair completion even further.  I decided I would try to bend it back.

I grabbed my hammer and started hitting the piece until it looked to be close to a right angle again.  It wasn’t that hard to get back in shape although I am worried that the bend and re-bend could weaken that part of the deck.

You can see the condition the old deck was in, not good.

So after going as far as I could with the deck I went inside to order the extra parts I needed.  It added up to another $220.  I was not pleased.  The current tab for tractor repairs is right around $600 if I include the transmission belt that I have not received yet.  I could have bought a lightly used Troy Bilt 42″ tractor off Craigs List for the same money.

The tractor will be out of service for awhile yet. I doubt I will see the additional parts until next week sometime.

I still don’t feel right energy-wise.  Still sleepy, still fade quickly when doing anything cardio-wise.  Even so I am going to press on and play vball this weekend with Jeremy although I don’t expect the performance to be much outside of a circus act.  If this feeling continues into next week I am going to have to break down and see someone about it I guess.

Ladies, if you listened to the Mel Gibson tapes you learned one important thing (besides that Mel is a complete lunatic asshole)  You ALWAYS want to blow a guy BEFORE going in the jacuzzi.  ALWAYS.