Nice work, and an engaging story as usual too, Bob. A big downunder congratulations to you both for that marital milestone, a very fine effort. May you have many more anniversaries.
Thank you
Geoff!
Happy Anniversary
@Bob Heine & Liane. Hoping for many more to come!
Nice work on the washer install....
Those jacks are really reasonable - $36 for the pair. I see prices on them all over the map.
Thank you
Roger! When I found those I pulled the trigger. They are rated for 440 pounds but I wouldn't even think about lifting something that weighed 1,760 pounds. Lifting 225 pounds was scary enough.
Congrats to you and Liane on the anniversary, that is no small undertaking. Also very ingenious on lifting the washer onto the pedestal, I guess necessity is the mother of all invention.
JB
Thank you
JB! I already had three small, lighter weight toe jacks and have used them to lift cabinets to replace casters. These looked like a good solution.
Congratulations on the Anniversary Bob and Liane! Seems like those installer "professionals" worked harder at excuses to not work?
Thank you
Fred! The installers were polite but that wasn't enough to justify a tip. Had they set the washer on the pedestal I would have given them one. Would have given them a large one if they hooked up the washer hoses and power and slid the unit in place. In my head I was doing John Lithgow's tip routine from
Third Rock from the Sun. While watching that show I failed to catch the overriding joke that the three men chose Tom, **** and Harry and the woman chose Sally. Liane had to point it out years later.
Happy anniversary Bob and Liane. 62 years of marriage is a wonderful accomplishment. I look back on the 33 years my wife and I have been married and I can't believe how quickly time passed. Has it been the same for you?
On the washer front, don't you have any neighbors, relatives, friends with muscles?
Thank you
@Wiz02! We celebrated 33 years together right after I retired from IBM (1995). I remember the milestones being much further apart back then. The next 29 years flew by so fast it felt like time went from bicycle speed to supersonic speed. I fill my prescription trays every two weeks and it feels like two days.
I had my son and grandson over to install a staircase and cut down a tree recently. My son (60 YO) didn't complain but I could see he was hurting at the end of their labor. My grandson (32 YO) did something to his knee and was holding icepacks on it. I figured they (or my super helpful neighbor) would do everything in their power to manhandle the washer onto the pedestal and regret it the next day. I had a little backache the next day but doing the job slowly and carefully meant a whole lot less chance of injury.
Congrats on another trip around Sol together,
@Bob Heine and Liane!
Nice job on getting the replacement in its place. Sad you had to deal with the "incompatible" and "in poor condition" B.S.
Thank you
@zanyad! I am no longer surprised by the excuses that something can't be done. I have always been a 'give it a try' person but I feel like a misanthrope these days. When my car's navigation system tells me to "turn right" and it's an open field, I try looking at a map.
Happy Anniversary Liane and Bob. Awesome job staying together all that time .
Thank you
Chris! Neither one of us will quit because we realize how long my training has taken. She introduces me as her "first husband" and I introduce her as my "last wife."
I had the same thought!
But now I realize, I have the same tendencies. I grew up in a very small neighborhood, and I had two sisters. I'm very used to working alone and always try to find a way to work solo. I can think of one time I enlisted a friend's help, doing a fuel lift pump. I wanted somebody nearby with a fire extinguisher.
Now car runs great!
tran
@Squankum, I don't refuse help but I don't often seek it. I know it's going to take me longer but I'm not happy when assistance turns into doing the job themselves. I also notice people get fidgety watching me work.
We've got and upright freezer downstairs that every couple of years might need defrosting out in the hot summer driveway. It's about that tight. Ms. Squankum rolled her eyes and thought I was overcomplicating things (but I have tools! and skills!) but I just remove a piece of trim from the doorway with a small thin steel prybar, and when it's all over, reinstall, tap those nails right back into their holes.
(I'm not a carpentertrician, uh, trim about 1 1/4" wide, 1/4" thick, door touches it when it's closed.)
I also keep that freezer on cheap $15 roller casters so rolling it forward in a straight line from resting place through doorway (maybe some steering corrections?) is a breeze.
I have the same situation with Ms. Squankum -- I consider her a laundry enthusiast.
I have very few things in my life that aren't on wheels. The washer and dryer are exceptions because I suspect they would be halfway
to the door with some of the loads Liane puts in them.
Pretty sure a laundry enthusiast is a whole lot easier to live with (and afford) than a designer clothes/shoes/jewelry enthusiast.
Congrats on the 62 years!
Seems your experience is a lot like what I have experienced when visiting down there, there is always something that requires more money to be spent. The headache that ensued after my grandmother ordered new sliding screen doors for her garage... The new ones were 6" too short. I called the rep and it took the better part of 30 minutes to convince him I wasn't a simpleton and his idea of "just adding a header" was already done the first time around, a second header was unacceptable. She did eventually get new doors 6 months later after the rep had a worker go out to see about said header.
Thank you
Rick!
It's not unique to Florida but the ratio of incompetent to competent seems pretty high. The Chevrolet dealer's mechanic diagnosed the sudden misfiring in my '87 Corvette as bad valves. Hard to believe he had never seen a Mass Airflow sensor failure before. The Cadillac dealer's mechanics had to rebuild the transmission twice and took a month to do it.
Congratulations on both the anniversary and the lifting project. Both appear to be successful.
Thank you
Andrew! I take less than half the credit for the successful marriage but I'm going to take a bow for the lifting project.
Congrats to you and Liane on your 62nd anniversary.
Thank you
Jon!
Congrats on the anniversary Bob & Liane! An impressive mark for sure! And well done on the unfortunate washer install...I keep seeing those Viking arm style lift clamps and haven't justified the addition of a set yet but that looks like a perfect use for them
Thank you
Logan! We've passed the newlywed, seven year itch and mid-life crisis milestones so it must be love. It's a good thing I bought a couple of those lift clamps a while back. The moment this problem presented itself I knew the solution. Probably goes back to those times in my youth when the only way to lift my car was the bumper jack that came with the car.
Congratulations on your anniversary, Bob.
Nice job on the washer installation. I could probably hook you up with a second career as millwright...
Thank you
Scott! Have you been talking to Liane? She'd love it if I went back to work and let her do her thing at home without me in the way. Of course it doesn't last long -- it's a good day when I don't have to fix something around here.
Congratulations on your anniversary. Not sure how you complete the jobs you do. Amazing the ideas you come up with that work.
Take the rest of the week off!!
Thank you
Dennis! I've been compensating for an awful long time. We should be holding the 12th Train party in 2025. We like to have a celebration every five years to remind me how great it is to still be here.
By take the rest of the week off you mean go pick up the drugs at Walgreens and some cheap chicken breasts at The Fresh Market tomorrow and take Liane to the Walmart Super Center Wednesday. Then maybe change the oil on the three cars.
Happy anniversary to you both!
I love when the delivery people come up with "well this is bad...oh, and this is worse, you're going to have to replace the whole house"
Kind of like the guy that was aligning my oldest daughter's Subaru...told her that her 2 year old (by the DOT #'s) tires were junk because of age...
Thank you
Mark!
I am turning into the cranky old man because of that attitude.
Did the guy point out the fresh oil on the outside of your daughter's shock absorbers? On the rare occasion I plan to take my car to a mechanic, I would wipe the dirt off my shocks and scrub the tires and rims. If there's no dust on the shocks or rims they might skip the shocks and brake pad scams.
Congratulations on yours and Liane's 62nd Anniversary Bob. That is a major achievement my friend.
Thank you
Mike! Some days I think we're just getting to know each other.
Congrats on your Anniversary bob. Hope all is well.
Thank you
Danny! Another day older and deeper in debt. Well, maybe not the debt thing -- I thought our bank balance was looking a little fat. Problem solved.
Happy anniversary
Bob! Such a milestone, wow!
Thank you
Dan! I'm not really sure how this happened. I need to pay closer attention to the calendar.
Congrats to you both (more to Liane)!
Thank you
Mark! More than once I've realized marriage isn't a 50-50 deal. If all you are contributing is 50%, you're headed for failure. It might not always be 100% but the closer it feels like that's your share, the more your spouse will feel like you're giving a touch more than 50%. Liane never gives less than 110%.
Bob, I first learned about ultrafluffy microfiber cloths for metal polishing from some guy in Louisiana who used to sell fine polishes. He was selling some but I found similar on Amazon. Haven't used them yet:
And yeah, I have a bottle of Griot's Garage microfiber washing soap. On my second bottle, actually.
@Squankum, I put a different stack in my cart but I haven't checked out yet. Four 10x10 rags for $8.99 is OK but twelve 16x16 rags for $12.34 is closer to my wheelhouse.
Bob,
Happy Anniversary - something to be very proud of!
Since you seem to have a really keen sense of racing and vintage power I wonder if you can shed any light on my weekend purchase.. As the guy on American Pickers says - if you see something cool that you've never seen before - buy it!... So I did.
Just down the road was an estate sale of a nice guy that had a powerboat company - along the way in his career he rubbed elbows with lots of motor and performance guys as the boat guys are also looking for big power. Anyway, he picked up a few items from Don Yenko's widow when she was closing down the shop and that's what I bought. It includes a cabinet they used in the store, a manual for building big block engines and lastly, 6 big block valve covers stamped with the Yenco logo. I know they are original and genuine but I can't find a picture of any Yenco valve covers that are similar - most are all aluminum re-pops - not steel like these.
Any ideas/comments would be appreciated!
Hope the saw is working too!
Philip, nice scores. My friend and I attended the 1988 Daytona 500 and visited Smokey Yunick's garage. He shut the place down in 1987 and we were hoping there might be some items for sale to remember him by. Everything left by the time we got there was priced way beyond my mad money account but there was still a lot of neat stuff remaining.
I've never seen that style steel valve covers with a Yenko logo stamped on them. They appear to be tall ones, which makes sense -- Yenko engines were likely to have rocker stud girdles along with roller rockers. I did find a place selling Yenko licensed valve covers but they are not the same design"
Saw is working fine -- used the Portaband again Last Tuesday to trim the detailing bottle racks.
Bob
Congratulations to you and Lianne, and for that herculean effort to replace the Washing machine (sheesh - I wouldn't/couldn't have done that! Irene would have had a panic attack, and would not have been able to supervise correctly).....
Form way down here.
Lyndon
Thank you
Lyndon! I wouldn't have done it without Liane's permission but there was one caveat. She had to go somewhere close enough to hear my screams but far enough away so she couldn't see/comment on the process. She has a lot of great ideas and happily shares them. She also has a lot of terrible ideas and shares those as well. At least she never says "you can't do that" (even when I can't).
www.youtube.com
