I have a funny relationship with California. I like making fun of their wack-a-doodle politics, gas that costs $12,438.45 (as least last time I checked), rolling brownouts, etc., but whenever I’m out there for work, basking in the 78F weather with 35% humidity I can’t help think “Ahhhhh, so THIS is why people live here!”
I mention this because up to this point, we’ve basically had SC (SoCal) weather down here in SC (South Caccalackey). It’s been a pleasure to work outside, and I was almost getting to the point of complaining about the lack of rain.
Well, apparently my mental complaints were heard, since we just made out way through a good 10 days of rain, with those weird southern days where you have a crazy thunderstorm, then 30 minutes later it’s beautiful out, then another 30 minutes and it’s pouring and the tornado sirens are blaring.
I’ve been waiting for a flashing repair, and once that was wrapped up between the monsoons, waiting for a better day to do more work on the garage stairs, but figured I’d sneak in a mini-project that was outstanding, mainly installing a tow hitch on my wife’s car.
I’ve done a couple hitches on past cars, and ordered one early in lockdown so we could put our bike rack on her car when taking family bicycle adventures. The install video looked easy enough, and we found some used plastic ramps to lift the tail up, which presumably would make the job easier than past hitches were I was shimmying under a non-elevated car.
This all seemed like a recipe for success, with the first glimmer of ugliness showing up when I check amazon for some reviews of the used gorilla ramps we’d acquired. Basically, 9 of 10 reviews were stellar, with people mentioning that they’d rolled their Freightliner on the ramps and slept the evening under the vehicle, but every 10th review of so mentioned the ramp failing catastrophically, falling upon dad while he was changing the oil in the family Wagonero to save a few bucks so he could put Tiny Tim through community college, killing dad and igniting the Zippo he carried in his pocket from when he served valiantly in Vietnam, igniting the house and burning down the entire neighborhood, which was primarily filled with pregnant women, nuns, doctors for the poor, and a team of Nobel-prize winning scientists that were hours away from sending the email with the formula for their cure for cancer.
I don’t like being under cars in general, and while the ramps made working under the rear of our minivan easier, I kept thinking about my pending demise at the hands of our mighty minivan.
No matter, I told my wife... there were minimal parts to remove (just a simple wind shield and popping the exhaust off 3 hangers). If all went well, it was a 45 minute job, and using my usual 2X estimation process, I told her I’d be done for dinner in 90 minutes.
24 hours later, here’s where we were:
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
I mention this because up to this point, we’ve basically had SC (SoCal) weather down here in SC (South Caccalackey). It’s been a pleasure to work outside, and I was almost getting to the point of complaining about the lack of rain.
Well, apparently my mental complaints were heard, since we just made out way through a good 10 days of rain, with those weird southern days where you have a crazy thunderstorm, then 30 minutes later it’s beautiful out, then another 30 minutes and it’s pouring and the tornado sirens are blaring.
I’ve been waiting for a flashing repair, and once that was wrapped up between the monsoons, waiting for a better day to do more work on the garage stairs, but figured I’d sneak in a mini-project that was outstanding, mainly installing a tow hitch on my wife’s car.
I’ve done a couple hitches on past cars, and ordered one early in lockdown so we could put our bike rack on her car when taking family bicycle adventures. The install video looked easy enough, and we found some used plastic ramps to lift the tail up, which presumably would make the job easier than past hitches were I was shimmying under a non-elevated car.
This all seemed like a recipe for success, with the first glimmer of ugliness showing up when I check amazon for some reviews of the used gorilla ramps we’d acquired. Basically, 9 of 10 reviews were stellar, with people mentioning that they’d rolled their Freightliner on the ramps and slept the evening under the vehicle, but every 10th review of so mentioned the ramp failing catastrophically, falling upon dad while he was changing the oil in the family Wagonero to save a few bucks so he could put Tiny Tim through community college, killing dad and igniting the Zippo he carried in his pocket from when he served valiantly in Vietnam, igniting the house and burning down the entire neighborhood, which was primarily filled with pregnant women, nuns, doctors for the poor, and a team of Nobel-prize winning scientists that were hours away from sending the email with the formula for their cure for cancer.
I don’t like being under cars in general, and while the ramps made working under the rear of our minivan easier, I kept thinking about my pending demise at the hands of our mighty minivan.
No matter, I told my wife... there were minimal parts to remove (just a simple wind shield and popping the exhaust off 3 hangers). If all went well, it was a 45 minute job, and using my usual 2X estimation process, I told her I’d be done for dinner in 90 minutes.
24 hours later, here’s where we were:
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
