Random 5 Friday 08/23/13

Linking up with Nancy at A Rural Journal today as usual for Random 5 Friday.

1. We have begun the Great Garage Purge of 2013. Trust me, we need it! We have to find someplace to put a recumbent tandem!

2. I'll be posting from the road today, (well, scheduled post actually) so bear with me that I won't be visiting your pages my friends, in a timely fashion.

3. The Hotter 'N Hell 100 is tomorrow.  Wish me luck!  Wish me tailwinds, too.

4.  We hope to close the sale of my MIL's duplex next week.  I'd appreciate any prayers you care to send my way for the closing to go smoothly and without any delays or errors.

5.  The moon has been beautiful at night all this week.  I love a full moon, and it always reminds me of Warren Zevon...

Adventures in Air Conditioning

Saturday evening, there was a knock on the front door.  This was unexpected.  DH popped up to go see who it was and what they wanted.  After a few minutes, he comes in with a funny look and says it was the next door neighbor.  I asked what was up with the neighbor, and DH says, "Not him, our A/C."

Ooh...not good!  It's never a good thing to have someone tell you your A/C is about to crap out, in Texas, in August.  Apparently the condenser fan motor was/is failing as it was making some dying-rabbit-mechanical-death-squeal noise.  Even DH with his lousy hearing, could hear it.  But it was still running, and cooling....for now.

Sunday evening we went out to disassemble what we could, and get the part# info off of the motor.  DH also wanted to shoot some white lithium grease into it if possible.  He assured me that it should not be a difficult install.

We took things apart, and got some grease worked down the motor shaft, then reassembled it all.  I took pictures of the motor ID plate, so to be certain of buying the right replacement, if I could find one.

Cut to today, and several phone calls and time web surfing later, and I found our motor!  It was at Grainger supply, about 20mi away.  I loaded the Monkeys and off we went.  Grainger's is great!  You place your order over the phone or online, and tell them what store you want to get it at.  They will pull the items and have them ready for you to pick up.  FAST.  I called in the early morning and they had the order ready for me when I arrived at 10:30am.

Old and busted!

The new hotness!

Showing Monkeys how to do this.

 Last night we tackled the replacement job on the motor.  The motor was, after all, original to the house, and at least 17 years old.  It's been worked like a rented mule!  The work to replace it was far simpler than I had expected.  (See, DH is the family electrician, and I'm more the family plumber!)  It was a straight forward replacement, and it dropped right in.

It was maybe 30 minutes, start to finish.  It was 7 sheet metal screws, 3 spade connections, and  4 mounting nuts, and the motor.  The capacitor was recently replaced, so we left it alone.  Should the motor ever need replaced, I know now I can do it without complications.  The Monkeys got to watch the whole thing too.  I am hoping they learned something.  I know I did.

 

 

Bridge to Nowhere

Last night I discovered an unexpected thing...our very own Bridge to Nowhere!  If you are old enough to recall the original Bridge to Nowhere scandal, you'll understand the chuckle I got when finding this gem out on a ride with the Monkeys.

Oops!  Out of road!

I found a bridge, and a stretch of abandoned, blockaded roadway, that goes nowhere.  Kinda cool actually!  The fact that the road surface is still quite good makes for a perfect place to race the Monkeys on bikes.  They had fun, and so did I.  I've told DH about it, and he may get them out on bikes and play around on it too.

A literal Bridge to Nowhere!

I'm not sure why the road just dead-ends there, but it does.  I am betting it has to do with the nearby toll road.  There's also a new subdivision going in to the left of the bridge-end, so they may be planning on hooking the bridge and this stretch of road up to it, and reopening the whole thing.  

I hope they don't.  I like it just as it is.

Off to the left about 200yds is a road barrier.

Random 5 Friday 08/16/13

Back at it for Random 5 Fridays.  I missed last week due to travel, and the persistent plague.  Here is this week's installment.

1.  Long road trips are easier with older kids, and sharing driving between the adults.  The portable DVD player helps too.

2.  The Monkeys have discovered they can shoot spitballs with long plastic glow-stick storage tubes.  This is not endearing them to me...

3.  I hope to be back on the bike at least by next week, so that I can get a few miles and rides in before I head off to Wichita Falls for the Hotter 'N Hell Hundred ride.  I'm only planning on the 100K ride, or about 64mi, and not the imperial century of 100 mi.

4.  The dog rescue I volunteer with, TIRR, has several nice events upcoming.  One is even local to me, so I hope I will be free to assist them.  We are also planning another woodcutting expedition for fall, once the weather cools off.

5.  The Perseid Meteor shower was early this week.  Did you get out to see any falling stars?

Fair Time!

The first week in August in Kansas is usually County Fair time.  I remember fondly, growing up in Eastern Kansas, and the local county fair.  I was in 4H, despite being a townie, and thoroughly enjoyed the fair, the exhibits, the animals, working the concession stand. and the carnival.

Our recent trip took us to small-town western Kansas, and their county fair.  It is different, in that the county owns the carnival equipment, and the local townsfolk maintain and operate the stuff during the fair.  It is a much safer atmosphere than what I remember of fairs, and this was the Monkeys' second trip to the fair.

The booths are simple, and the contests not rigged, unlike a traditional carnival.  Prizes are easy to win, and you can trade in 3 smalls for a medium stuffed animal, or 3 mediums for a large.  Tickets are cheap too, at 25cents each.

The rides are fun.  There's the Ferris Wheel, Merry Go Round, swing chairs, the train and several others too (mostly designed to cause motion sickness I think!)  The rides are well maintained too, which is nice from a parental safety standpoint.

Ferris Wheel.

Train ride.

Everyone loves the horses.

My life felt like this last week!

A classic ride.

It was nice to be able to let the Monkeys run wild for a couple hours, as a pack of "Rampaging Cousins" as they called themselves.They even conned their big cousin (20) into tagging along with them to keep them all together.  A good time was had by all, including parents.