These last couple of weeks...have to vent some

[The Warden]

*panting*

Of course, I could be speaking too soon, but I think the stress is finally taking a break. BTW, I do volunteer work with a youth organization {a maritime division of the Boy Scouts; I work with two units, an all-male unit and an all-female unit} and last weekend was a big competition that I was preparing for). These last couple of weeks almost broke me. Here's what happened:

Sunday, April 27th
I was involved in setting up for the competition (called a regatta), and used my truck to drive up to Napa and tow a big chow trailer back to the port of Redwood City. Normally, this is an hour and a half (one-way) drive, but the trailer is very old and thus wouldn't let the truck come back faster than 50mph (the engine was pulling just fine, but the trailer wasn't stable). As I pulled up to the toll booth at the San Mateo Bridge, I pushed the clutch in and nothing happened. Fortunately, I had taught myself how to drive without the clutch, so I got the trailer to where it needed to be and got home.

Monday
This was the closest to a day off that I had over the last couple of weeks; I spent the day trying to diagnose the truck...found out that the clutch slave cylinder's leaking. I decided that the truck was out of commission.

Tuesday
Spent most of the day cleaning out the girls' boat (a 40' former admiral's gig from the USS Midway ). The boat had sat non-running for a long time, and while she had been fixed, no one had taken the time to clean her out and organize everything. I got a little over halfway done.

Wednesday
Spent almost the entire day on the boy's boat (an 82' former Coast Guard cutter) helping install new safety lines (going along the edge of the boat) on the aft deck.

Thursday
Finished cleaning out the girls' boat and getting her ready to get underway. I also started getting seriously sick on this day (I'm still recovering), and had to leave early in order to get into bed.

Friday
Showed up at the port of Redwood City as soon as I could, to help set up the regatta. Between moving boats, setting up equipment and tents, and helping to make sure that everything and everyone was where it was supposed to be, we all finished up around midnight.

Saturday, May 3rd
COMPETITION DAY!! Got up at 0600, ate breakfast, listened to the opening spiel, and spent the day running one of the events (my event consisted of a rope going 20 feet up to a pulley and back down; a person would tie a double loop around him/herself and go up, assisted by one other person, to the pulley and back down, for time). Fortunately, it didn't rain on this day. Finished up around 5:00pm and got to rest a bit while the kids danced.

Sunday
Awards ceremony in the morning, then time to tear everything down. After doing that and moving the boats back to where they were supposed to be, the chairman of the regatta (and the leader of both of the units I'm working with) basically begged me to get my truck operational enough to tow the chow trailer back to Napa. I spent the rest of the day tearing into the truck to see if I could JB Weld the breach in the clutch slave cylinder. Finished up at around 10pm, and hoped that it would make it.

Monday
NOW the fun begins!
Finished some last-minute stuff on the truck and then towed the trailer back to Napa. The clutch went out right as we got there. Backing the trailer to where it needed to be with a truck with a clutch that won't disengage is a chore, believe me. Finally got home at about 9pm to find that Robin (my girlfriend whom lives with me) had noticed a problem with the car. She described a thumping noise. I tried to listen to it, and had no luck. Went to bed hoping it was something minor.

Tuesday
Got up to the boys' boat to do some wire-wheeling and painting on the foredeck. It rained, so although the deck looks good now, it's a temporary thing at best...it'll need to be redone. Robin came up to pick me up and talked more about the car making the noise. My heart sank, and sank even further when I heard it myself and especially when I couldn't figure out what it was. Drove home and prayed that it wasn't serious. Then I got home and found on another site that the truck's gonna need a lot more work...possibly needing to pull the tranny.

Wednesday
I got the car up on jackstands and put it in gear. I found that one of the axleshafts (that I had replaced last New Year's) had gone bad. This is good and bad; good because the axleshaft is under warranty, bad because this means pulling the differential cover and re-doign the fluid, along with everything else. I got the car torn apart as far as I could without actually removing the axleshaft (rain was in the forecast; I didn't want any rainwater getting in the differential). Finally finished up at around 9pm and then ran to the store in the truck. Got home and crashed.

Thursday
I woke up, planning on getting the axleshaft out of the car and taking it to the parts store to get exchanged when I got a phone call. It was the leader of the Scout unit. The girls' boat was sinking. Spent the next 6 hours pumping all of the water out of the boat, and another 3 or 4 hours trying to get the water out of the engine (DD 6-71) and transmission. Then we put oil in both, charged the batteries, and at 12:30am, were able to get the engine to light off. *whew* We had thought that the engine would have been ruined. As they say, you can't keep a Screamin' Jimmy down

Friday
I got the axleshaft exchanged and put everything back together. Realizing that I needed to get the differential oil (I use Royal Purple synthetic) in Redwood City, I borrowed my mom's car and got the oil. On the way back, I saw the idiot light for the battery coming on. Got home and put a voltmeter on the battery terminals and sure enough, the battery wasnt' being charged. Got the Benz back together, ran to the auto parts store, grabbed an alternator, and put it in my mom's car. I have since begged her to replace it with a RWD car, but I think that's about as likely as GM building a quality product in the next 10 years We then ran the car around trying to clean out the catalytic converter, because it needed to be smogged the next day. Got back from that at about 12:30am and got to bed shortly thereafter.

Saturday (today)
Got up and immediately took my mom's car to the shop. Amazingly enough, it passed smog! I then went up to the boat and got the pipe that had let water into the girls' boat plugged up, so she can't take on water anymore. There's still a lot of clean-up to do...that's for next weekend. The girls spent the day practicing for the next big competition (Memorial Day Weekend), and I also helped them out with that.


Maybe, to others, that didn't seem like all that much, but this evening is the first real break I've had...and I'm wiped. Just thought I'd share. Off to bed I go...