Yucky!

September 11, 2006 (12:53pm)
55º F, Cold rain, E wind 8 mph.

Good afternoon,

Yucky! Is about the only word I have for the weather at the moment. It is cool enough and with the rain to make it really feel uncomfortable outside. It is a slow rain coming down for most of the morning so far. The weatherman said we would have a couple of showers before midnight, then they would end. Well .... they started coming after midnight and have continued since. The current report is that the rains will continue until tomorrow afternoon or so. Looking at the radar, there is a very large and slow moving rain cloud over the eastern b of the state. Yucky!

The van has nice quiet bearings now. Took it in this morning and after a rangity-tang by the mechanic, the new one is in place. Seemed every fastener of every kind caused him a problem, requiring the heat wrench to loosen them. A big hammer also got into action too. Of course putting on about 140,000 miles could have caused some rust, hampering the procedure. In retrospect, I really am glad that I let them work on it (especially with the rain today) and not try to do it on my own. Don’t have the proper tools to really do it right. Expect when the other one goes, I will also have my friendly repairman do the work too.

In talking with the owner, he indicated that the replacement of the entire hub was a much better fix than the "pressed" bearings now used on some vehicles. He, and auto dealers, apparently have had some problems with them. This system is fairly straight forward. After the brake is off and the drive axle nut is removed, there are only three bolts holding the hub in place. I still like the old fashioned, shade tree mechanic, method on the older vehicles. Probably could not get 140,000 miles on the bearing, but were fairly easy to re-pack every 25,000 miles or so. Wish I had a nickel for every time I have re-packed bearings in my past.

I also asked him how far the gas prices would go as they just dropped to $2.659/gallon over night. He said he thought to about $2.209/gallon just before November then go up again after the election. He might be right. Sure would be a bunch happier if it went down farther than that and stayed there!

Margriet built a batch of oatmeal cookies, using Aunt Julia’s recipe. The last time she made them they turned out to be "plop" cookies, having too much liquid in them. They tasted good though. This time she found by only putting half of the milk as required, they turned out right on. At least those I tested for quality control so we can take them to Bible study tomorrow. We were trying to figure out why so much difference and came to the conclusion that originally they were made with whole milk, rather than the 2% we now use in our house. It might have been milk right out of the cow too, so really had a higher butter-fat content, therefore a bit "thicker" in viscosity. Anywho, I was glad to be of service while she experimented to get them right!

We aimed a package at Brenda’s house for the birthdays of the men in the house. There are three birthdays in about a week. I addressed it to the MEN and while chatting with her today on instant messaging, tool her to keep her hands off of it as it was for the MEN in the house! They probably gain weight during that week with three birthday cakes to eat in a bunch! Sounds good to me.

Tomorrow is voting day in Wisconsin for primary elections. It will be nice to have the number of TV ads for less candidates after tomorrow. There will be, I’m sure, just as many ads, but for fewer people. There really are some questionable people running for office on a state level. There sure has been a lot of mud flying around the airways. On the local level there are some really straight folks running and it will be harder to choose between them. After Bible study tomorrow will be the opportunity for me. I really look forward to the experience here, as we vote in the township hall - a one room building from the turn of the century (the 1900's), which still has an outhouse out back and the heat source (now an oil space heater) stands in the middle of the room. It really is a modern day "Little House on the Prairie" setting. Not much problem registering as most folks know each other.

I started to do the work on next week’s Bible study. It is a very only research for it. The study only covers two chapters of Revelations, but I have about 45 pages of research accumulated for them. I am sorting through the research and will cut it down some. There is a lot of information and concepts for me to try to wrap my head around. I have not studied Revelations much in the past, so this is new territory for me. Much more interesting than I thought it would be.

Time to get a-going.

In Christ My Saviour,

Chris <><