Before we get started,Â
I have to correct a grave mistake that I made in the last post. My grandson was aghast at my utterance of building a Megatron Lego Transformer. I must apologize to those Transformer folks out there.  It was not Megatron but the mighty Sentinel Prime, the once leader of all the Autobots who turned over to the bad side in the last Transformer movie. Anyway, the mighty Lego Sentinel Prime stands guard over the kitchen table as this picture is taken. Now, since the dynamic duo (grandfather and grandson) did such a great job on this one, Mom, Bradley’s Mom, decided to buy us another one to work on with 500 parts to assemble. We haven’t started on that one just yet.
Just a side note about something that’s important for one seven year old. I received my latest copy of GRIT magazine a few days ago. On page five, some GRIT blogs were highlighted for readers to check out. I was surprised, to say the least, to find my blog, “Adventures of old Nebraska Dave,” was one of the blogs highlighted for the current issue. The highlighted blog entry chosen for the magazine had a picture of my grandson standing halfway up the bank at the back of Terra Nova Gardens, my land purchase soon to be gardens. What a great surprise for me and for him. Congratulations go out to Chuck Mallory and Carolyn Evans-Dean who also have highlighted blogs in the current issue of GRIT magazine.
I started spring cleaning last week. It’s not that I think spring will get here any sooner if I start the cleaning, but when spring gardening starts, I really don’t have the time to be doing spring cleaning inside the house. The cleaning will continue this week as well. Of course, with Bradley, my grandson, being off school two days this week, I’m not sure how much real cleaning will get done. The kitchen and cabinets are finished, and only the scrubbing down of the floors are left. Entryway to the house and bathrooms are on the agenda this week.
OK, now as you recall, the seed starting station was completed in the last blog. I stand ready to fire up the system but will have to wait for April fools day to start the tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and zucchini. This is the hardest part of the season for me, as I really want to get them started now, but the May 15th frost free date keeps me from doing that. All my seeds were ordered long ago and are waiting to be planted and spring to life. I haven’t forgotten my backyard beds, and I will be planting the salads there for summertime fresh salads.
Those of you who have followed my blog for awhile will remember just how much I really love to work on cars. There was a time when all that was needed was a good strong tree branch, a chain hoist, and a set of tools to fix just about anything on a car. The modern day computerized cars? Ehhhhh, not so much. Cars just seem to break at the most inconvenient times. So at the end of a workday for my daughter, it didn’t surprise me to hear that the newly purchased, very used car she is driving had front brakes that were scraping metal on metal. So let the repairs begin. The parts were bought and the proper tools were found to replace front brake pads. I have done this job so many times that it should have taken about an hour. Right, “should have” is the key phrase. Oh, yeah, I see you long-term blog readers chuckling with thoughts of the bathroom plumbing job returning to your mind. Well, the brake pads for the passenger side were ground past metal on metal. They were gouging into the rotor. I happened to buy one, just in case it would be needed. I’m really feeling like a driveway mechanic guy filled with wisdom beyond my years now. Yeah, the rotor and pads fly together. I’m thinking in the back of my mind. This is way too easy for one of my projects. Quit that snickering. I should have never thought that thought. Murphy’s law kicked in (sorry, Cindy), and as I eased the car out of the driveway just as the sun was setting, I hear a continuous scraping sound even without applying the brakes. Now it’s starting to snow. You ever feel the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when things start to go wrong. Yeah, I’m not even going to tell you the words that were flitting through my mind. So back to the dark driveway with snow falling. My garage is not big enough to work on a car as …. well …. ah …. it just has enough room to exit the car if you slide out sideways because …. ah …. it’s full of good stuff. Yeah, I might just use it someday kind of stuff. Anyway, back to the story. I pulled everything apart under the glowing light of an environmentally friendly spiral florescent replacement bulb for the trouble light. .
If you will notice on these new pads the top defective one has the metal back plate shifted down and over to the left, which would cause the bent up part of the metal on the bottom to cause the scraping sound because it would be rubbing on the rotor. I’ve never had an issue like this before, but leave it to me to find probably the only defective pad in the history of brake pad manufacturing. I used the pads for the other side to replace these pads. Everything went back together smoothly, and the test drive was wonderful. An inspection of the driver side brake pads revealed that whoever owned this car before we bought it from the used car lot had replaced the pads just on that side with new ones. So the five-hour brake job finally came to a finish as the snow continued to get heavier. A hot cup of coffee, a nice hot shower, and a good night’s sleep makes for a wonderful way to recover for the next day of adventure.
Remember that basement food storage area that I started last year? Yeah, I’ll tell you all about the progress next time. The coffee’s ready so I’m going to kick back and let you comment about what’s going on in your world. I’m really enjoying reading all your blogs. Keep up the good work.
