September 25, 26, 27, and 28

All right, I’m annoyed. Tina and I drove out to Midian on Thursday, September 25th for the explicit purpose of accepting three pallets of books from a truck driver on Friday the 26th. As we pull into Reno we get a call from Hero Game’s office telling us that the trucker is still in Canada somewhere. Nobody from the printer bothered to call and tell us this, even though the date had been set well in advance. Bah!

In any case we still had a productive three-day weekend. I worked on the tractor, which seems to be running fairly well for its age. I also worked on the jeep, unfortunately meeting with considerably less success. It has some real electrical problems. Tina finally got a chance to construct the mammoth cooler she has envisioned creating for some months now. It works quite well, better than a commercial one in fact. I put an initial coat of paint on the front and sides of the office building. I seriously hope to complete painting that within a month so I can move on to my next big project: putting in the triple insulated stovepipes that will connect our wood burning stove to the roof. I want that sucker working -- and working safely -- before the winter.

Our new Coleman 6500 watt generator is turning out to be something of a pain in the rump. I had high hopes for it, too, as it’s lighter, quieter, and more fuel-efficient than the old Porter and Cable generator we have been using. Unfortunately, it is also a lot more heat sensitive, with this computer controlled automatic gearing that’s supposed to protect the engine from suffering any heat damage. Works too: the damn thing turns itself off at the slightest provocation. It’s almost useless.