Bonnie blew, fixed, bricked, TS 3
Bonnie was supposed to be a real drenching storm. The day before she arrived there were predictions of anywhere from 2″ to 6″ of rain in our area along with some decent wind. Well they totally muffed that forecast. I don’t think we got even a quarter inch of rain. Our normal summertime thunderstorms pack much more punch. It almost felt like a letdown although in the big picture I was happy to not have a small lake around the house.
Since between the new neighbor and my efforts on Thursday the grass didn’t need to be mowed this weekend. My plan for the weekend was to bust ass on Saturday and more or less “relax” (chore-wise) on Sunday.
I had to work on the tractor some more. Like I said, by the end of my Thursday mow session the Cub Cadet was crawling up hills, a sure sign that the drive belt I installed was too big and loose. I took the deck off Saturday and crawled underneath to take a look. There was no real tension on the belt, great.
Like I mentioned last week, there were two options. Buy ANOTHER belt and go through the hassle of gaining access to change it or utilize some of my McGyver rigging skills. I opted for the latter.
The drive belt goes around a tension pulley that is attached to an arm with a spring. The spring creates the tension. Since the belt is too big, even fully retracted the spring wasn’t really doing anything. At first I thought I might be able to bend the spring in a way to shorten it to create more tension. After fiddling around with it a bit I realized that wasn’t going to make enough of a difference.
I devised a new plan, come up with something farther away to attach the other end of the spring to. After surveying the bottom of the mower I came up with a good spot. There were two open holes on the outside of the frame that were maybe three or four inches away. I found a nut and bolt that fit through the hole (with a little drilling) and mounted them. After that I stretched the spring with a needle nose pliers to the new bolt and clipped it on.
The stretched spring now was putting some decent tension on the belt. I crawled out from under the tractor and gave it a quick test drive. The response felt normal once again. Cool, hopefully it holds up.
Next I had to level the mowing deck after reattaching it. I noticed when I mowed on Thursday that the cut had a definite lean to it. Half of the grass was visibly higher. Leveling the deck was basically a trial and error process. I moved the tractor down to a flat spot on the driveway, loosened a bolt, moved the deck up or down a bit and then laid down behind the tractor to eyeball it. It took a few attempts but eventually I got the deck looking pretty straight.
At this point I think I have the tractor about as ready as it can be to mow again. I can only hope the nearly $600 we spent in parts buys us at least another year or two of use.
After I was done I lugged the old, beat up, patched half a dozen times mower deck down to the end of the driveway for the trash guys to hopefully take this week. I was amazed when I saw later in the day that the deck was gone, someone actually stopped and grabbed it. I am not quite sure what they are going to use it for. At least it isn’t my problem.
Ali went running with her girlfriends Saturday morning and was wiped out. She was walking around like a zombie. I encouraged her to lay down and take a nap while I continued on. I had plans to shampoo the carpet. My army of floor cleaning robots made me even more efficient. As I ran the carpet cleaner I had the newly refurbished Scooba cleaning the kitchen floor and my Dirt Dog out sweeping up the pool deck.
Everytime I shampoo the rug I wish I had the motivation/time to do it more often. The dogs track in so much dirt that a regular shampooing is really a good idea. The gallons of nasty dirty water that I pour down the sink reinforce that notion.
Saturday night we watched a documentary I snagged via Netflix streaming. It was about marathon running and specifically a bunch of people preparing to run the Chicago marathon in 2005. it’s called The Spirit of the Marathon. It was quite interesting watching a diverse group of people prepare ranging from the old, the novice, to the professional prepare for the race. Ali especially was into it because of her experience training for the half marathons. Good stuff.
Sunday morning I had pegged as a bike riding morning. I have done very little biking in recent months. I can’t recall the last time I did the full Publix ride. Ali was in a similar boat. Even with her triathlon aspirations she has ignored her biking and hadn’t ridden since the Naples Tri in early June.
The ride got off to a bad start. Ali is still a bit baffled by basic bike operations like shifting. Specifically, changing the front sprocket to go between the various gear sets. She inadvertently had done the entire Naples Tri ride in 7th gear instead of 14th.
Well as we started down the road I told her she needed to change onto the large sprocket, she was still in 7th. She turned onto a side street to make the change. She moved the front shifter too far and in the process steered the chain completely off the gears.
She became instantly frustrated and barked at me after I said ‘What happened?” , telling me to just go without her. I instantly became frustrated with her frustration and told her to bring the bike to me and I would fix it. I admittedly was frustrated that Ali struggled so much with something that seems so simple as shifting a bike. I had to remind myself that she didn’t know how to even ride a bike until I taught her in her early 20’s.
After I got the chain back on I told her I would get it in the right gear. I hopped on her flashy pink bike and went down the other side street. No matter which gear I tried it didn’t feel quite right. You felt the chain to varying degrees no matter what gear I used. Considering we spent some bucks having the local bike shop adjust it “correctly” this annoyed me. It was better before we let them touch it.
Eventually I got it into 13th gear and it felt more or less normal. I gave the bike back to Ali who had calmed down a bit at this point. We headed back out on the road.
Ali had never done a full Publix ride with me. Well yesterday she did. On the way back we hit the typical increased headwind. I took the lead on the return trip, trying to act like a windbreaker for Ali. Having the shoe clips enabled me to power through the wind. If Ali stayed right on my tail I was able to break the wind for her. Unfortunately it was a delicate balance. I was trying to maintain a certain speed but then I would look back and see Ali dropped back out of drafting range. Ali was getting frustrated by my looking back periodically to see her position, she said it made her feel like she was holding me back. I told her I didn’t mind it, I was just trying to go at a speed she could maintain.
Eventually I realized her angst wasn’t worth my effort so with about 2 or 3 miles to go I just pedaled normally. I finished up a couple minutes ahead of her. I encouraged Ali as she pulled in the driveway. She completed the 17.25 mile Publix ride for the first time, good for her.
Ali is taking her bike and my Trek freebie to the bike shop today. She is going to tell them about her poorly adjusted bike and get the Trek all cleaned and tuned. I am looking forward to getting the Trek bike back and putting it through it’s paces.
I had it in my head I wanted to do a brick. A brick is a triathlon term meaning you are putting various training together like an actual triathlon. So shortly after getting back I hopped on our treadmill and did 2 miles at a 9:13 pace. I had never run after a bike ride before, surprisingly it didn’t feel all that bad.
After my run I hopped in the pool and did some swimming. The swim is hard for me. Swimming a full 400 meters is going to be a challenge. My biggest struggle is breathing. When I bring my head to the side to take my breath it always feels inadequate. I also seem to get too much water splashing in my mouth which is annoying. As a result before long I feel like I need to totally pull my head out of the water to make up for my oxygen deficit. Obviously it isn’t supposed to be that way. I need to work a lot harder on the swim.
So I did my brick, a scaled down brick but I did the three things in succession. It’s a starting point. Now the key is to not hurt myself along the way as my training continues.
Our neighbors asked for a ride to the airport later in the day. We decided to coordinate that with a trip to the movies to finally see Toy Story 3. After dropping them off we had some time to kill so we went into Dick’s Sporting Goods and Bass Pro Shop. We didn’t buy anything but just looked around. One of my favorite items was the big stuffed marlin.
We had an early dinner/late lunch at Carraba’s. I hadn’t been there for awhile so it was nice to check in at one of my favorite restaurant chains.
Ali had checked the movie schedule ahead of time and saw that Toy Story 3 was showing in Imax at 5pm. I was surprised that it would still be playing in Imax going on 4 weeks after it’s release. Well, it wasn’t. I’m not sure why there was a discrepancy. Luckily we arrived early enough to catch the regular 3D showing at 4:40.
I have been a big fan of the Toy Story series. It set the gold standard as far as just how good computer animated movies can be. As always there is a risk when a movie starts spinning off into sequels that it won’t hold up to the original. In fact, sequels rarely match up. Well I am glad to report Toy Story 3 maintains that high standard. It’s a great flick that both Ali and I enjoyed from start to finish. There is absolutely nothing to not like about it except maybe the fact that is appears to be the definitive end to the series.
I had heard there were some tear jerking moments in the flick. I didn’t have rivers running down my face but I certainly had some moisture accumulating towards the end. Great flick, I’d give it an A.
For the past several days I have been feeling generally annoyed, inpatient, dissatisfied and just angry at most things. Last night I looked up and saw the bright full moon shining down on me ominously. No further explanation needed.