Softball, Ospreys, and a Quadrajet Carburetor

Posted on July 1, 2013 by Jerrie Cate

The fun-filled weekend is over and we made it through another Monday. Unlike before I retired, Mondays are perfectly OK with me. I can deal with them much better now. Monday’s are actually just like Sundays. We just don’t go to church.

I needed to add an addendum to the rant from yesterday where I cried that river about bad calls, and such. It’s mostly about Lydia and Jennifer who, after all that activity, made it back to town just in time to assume their 12 hour shift at the fireworks stand that is sponsoring the high school girls soccer team. Lydia is playing when she starts high school next year. Wow! High School. Wow! Jeran’s in the 8th grade. Wow! Cedric is a sophomore. Wow! He’s 16 and doesn’t care if he drives or not! Wow!

The deal with the fireworks stand is that it must be ‘manned’, or ‘womaned’, 24 hours a day for security purposes. So, that’s where Lydia & Jennifer spent last night, from 9pm on. For both of them, the fun didn’t end until this afternoon, after VBS at their church. Jennifer teaches and Lydia is a counselor for what they call Pacific Camp. I think that’s correct. I’ll be alerted if it isn’t. For sure. Needless to say, they were both very tired this afternoon. Lydia fell asleep while laying on the floor painting her nails.

While at the games in Albany, we spied a nest on top of a couple of light poles for the field. In this one I caught an Osprey female and at least two youngsters. Before it was brought to my attention, the female flew in with a fish for the little raptors. They eat well from the nearby Willamette River.

If you’ve heard about the rifles raffled off for the St. Helens softball program, you might enjoy is this one …

For the tournament, the girls were allowed to put whatever they wanted on their jerseys. This is Abby, and her initials are AR. Yes, it was intentional on her part to point out the AR-15 association. I asked. Kinda cool, I thought. Lydia put “Walnut” on hers because that’s one of her nicknames. Another girl had “Peanut” because she’s the smallest on the team. Some actually used their real names, too. They had fun with it.

Today I decided to get a carburetor kit for the pickup’s Rochester Quadrajet. It’s been around a while and I thought putting some new parts and gaskets in it might perk it up a little.

So, I disconnected all the hoses, linkage, and wires then went to remove the four mounting bolts. I discovered that three of them were only about finger tight, and the other one broke off just about flush with the intake manifold. It was a “Hmmmmmm” moment for me and caused me to sit and mull things over for a while before I figured a course of action. For sure I needed a bolt extractor tool, which I found at ACE. I also needed a part for the PT to eliminate a rattle in the rear. I got that at Carquest along with the carb tune up kit.

back at the pickup, I drilled out the center of the broken bolt, per instructions, then hammered the extractor into the hole. When I turned it, after soaking it with liquid wrench, the extractor broke off. Fortunately, I had another one, just a bit bigger, so I enlarged the hole hammered in the new one. I hammered it in really good, to the point where my 1/4 socket wouldn’t fit because I’d flattened the top. So, I meticulously filed the offending flare off the top to the point where I could just feel the socket catch the corners. Then I hammered the socket onto the extractor.

When I finally got to the point where I could work the ratchet, the bigger extractor also broke. The first broken extractor came out of the hole pretty easily the first time, but not the second time. It’s sticking above the intake manifold about a 1/4″. I figure that since the broken bolt was the only thing holding the carb in place before I started this evolution, that I could just eliminate that offending hole and secure the other three. Then it would be three times as secure before I started. So, I’m not too worried about the broken bolt at this point.

Thinking I would move along with the project, I took the carburetor out back and took all the screws out of the top that held it together. Then I tried to get it apart. I couldn’t do it. I suppose with a hammer and my screwdriver I could have accomplished that seemingly simple task, but I just wasn’t up to it. Whoever put it together last time must have glued everything together.

I’m to the point now that I think, considering how things went, that I could just set the carb on the engine and it would work just fine without any of those bolts that hold it together and hold it down. Maybe I’ll try that just for fun to see what happens. Maybe not.

At this point, the carb is back together and I’m just going to put it back on after I figure out what to do about the broken extractor. Maybe I’ll get my torch out to heat it up and see what happens. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. I need to burn all the gas off the top of the engine that I spilled when disconnecting the fuel line anyway.

I’ll let you know how that goes. Maybe from the hospital.

Good thing I’m insured, huh?

Chaos for Khaos

Posted on June 30, 2013 by Jerrie Cate

OK, team. The day started out just great with an 11-2 win at the 10am game. Then a short break before beginning their sixth game of this weekend at noon. I know, for some of the hardcore softball Mom’s and Dad’s out there, that doesn’t sound too tough, but by noon it was around 91 degrees and the second team they played today had only played 3 games all weekend. Interesting.

I’ll just give you a few pictures so you can get an idea of how the second game went from the perspective of the umpires.

Abby stealing second.

Ball bobbled just before Abby hit the bag.

Base ump called her out and told our coach that she slid too early.

What does that even mean. Is that really a rule? These pictures covered about 1 second of time in that game.

Another really bad judgement call was by the home plate ump. It was a passed ball for the catcher so our runner was sent home from third. The catcher got the ball to the pitcher about the same time our runner slid and collided with the pitcher. The pitchers mitt was on the ground under our runner and the ball came out of her glove. This was visible to everyone on our team, but not the ump who was on the other side of the play. He stood there for about five seconds, without moving around to see what was going on, enough time for the pitcher to pick the ball up and bring her mitt out for the ump who then called our runner out. That was about the fifth inning and would have given us a 2-0 lead.

There was an uproar from everyone on our side which resulted in admonishment from the home plate umpire that we weren’t allowed to question his calls. Even bad ones, apparently.

The game went to the bottom of the seventh inning where the opposing team scored two runs and the game was over, 2-1.

Now that I’ve said all that, ensuring that you just KNOW I’m a whinnie loser, let me add this. Our girls team is not a tournament team. They are a composite group of selected players from two different recreation teams in St. Helens. All the other teams who played this weekend are tournament teams and our girls beat three of them quite handily. They held the last team, an all-star team, scoreless for 6 innings.

I understand that the umps can only call what they see, but sometimes you just have to wonder if there isn’t a little bias going on. A little lack of effort to “get it right.” Know what I mean. Of course, the same is true for all sports where judgement calls can sway the course of a game.

Gotta quit now. Sorry for ranting. Please forgive me. The girls played just great and we’re proud of them. An, honestly, had those bad calls been against the other team, I would have honestly commented on decision. It wouldn’t have changed anything for them, just as it didn’t for our girls.

Softball, I-5, Heat, and Albany

Posted on June 29, 2013 by Jerrie Cate

So, here we are in Albany, Oregon. That’s about 100 miles south of St. Helens. Normally that equates to about a 2 hour drive on the freeway. Then, consider that today is Friday, next week is 4th of July, our trip south was directly through the heart of Portland, and everyone in town was hell-bent on getting out of town. Oh, ya. We didn’t leave home until after 3 pm, ensuring we would hit the big city at rush hour.

Now, I know you folks on the East Coast can’t imagine that traffic through Portland could possibly be as bad as, say, Boston, or Hartford, but it can. Really, it can. Rush hour in every large city is the same, the world over. Some cities just have more lanes of it. Portland only has 4 lanes each way, not as big as many cities, but congested just the same. I think there are a special breed of people who are bred specifically to make everyone else’s life in a traffic jam just a little more miserable, or to add that little element of excitement making those around them wonder if this is the day they’re going to die.

For me it was not a problem because I don’t have to contend with those drivers, or get caught up in the moment when someone makes a foolish pass, or cuts me off, because I’m not driving. Diane won’t let me, as many of you know. I’m a professional passenger everywhere I go, unless it’s down the hill from home to ACE and back. Maybe a trip to Warren for something, but no long trips. That’s fine by me. Because of my diminished status, I get to navigate and just sit in my seat. I’m pretty good at both of those, except when I get my arm in front of the right side rear view mirror at the exact moment Diane wants to look at it.

Thankfully, the worst traffic was heading North on I-5, so we found the trip better than we thought it would be. Still, the two-hour trip took us about 2.5 hours. Not a bad delay.

The temperature, in case you’re wondering, made it up to 94 as we left Portland, but the weather folks will only claim 85. Silly. They only count the temperatures at airports, not on the freeways. Does that make sense? I think not. In Portland’s case, the airport is right next to the Columbia River so it’s always going to be cooler there. Silly.

We’re in Albany, as you may recall, because Lydia is playing in the ASA state tournament for 14U teams. We arrived at our Super 8 Motel hungry, so checked in and headed directly out for dinner at Sizzler. It wasn’t the best dinner we’ve ever had, but not the worst, either. Jennifer, however, suffered from the two bites of ice cream she had. Lactose intolerance is a terrible affliction. Diane has it, too. Not fun.

Once back at the motel, Diane and Jennifer decided it was time to head for K-Mart for some needed items. The kids were playing in the pool so I went down to watch and enjoy some fresh air for a while. Sounded good at the time. The pool, however, is in an open patio which is surrounded by two wings of the motel. The result is a venue with sound reflective abilities that rival some really nice music halls. In this case, however, the source of audio wasn’t music, but the excited laughter of five kids playing Marco Polo. I only knew four of them so attempted to keep my corrective nature in check, letting them play and make noise. It was just fine for about an hour, then an entire herd of small, softball playing girls descended on the pool causing the noise level to increase dramatically. I can only equate it to what it must have been like to sit in front of one of those huge speakers at a Def Leopard concert. The main difference between the two was that I was experiencing the treble cleft far more than the bass cleft. Very skreechadelic, as Austin might say

At last count there were about 25 kids in the pool so no one was really swimming – there wasn’t enough room for anyone to attain a prone position. They all had to stand upright.

There was a negative aspect to yesterday’s trip that was brought to our attention around 9:30pm. I actually had it all documented, herein, then lost it when the WI-FI signal just “went away” making it impossible for the blog to auto save the data. Sad, but true. So, I’m going to have to rely on my notoriously bad memory for what happened.

It’s simple, really. After battling our way south to Albany, then digging in near the freeway, it was discovered Lydia was missing her sports bag containing all the things she will need today in order to fulfill her obligation to the team. No shoes, no glove, no helmet, no bat, no nothing. The bag containing those essential items normally resides in the back of the Walters’ SUV. That’s because 99.9% of the time someone driving that SUV takes Lydia to and from practice.

Except the last practice when the family SUV wasn’t available and Lydia got a ride with someone else. She took her bag to her room, and there it sat. All the way back in St. Helens.

So, as it was getting dark, Daniel headed north to retrieve the bag. The plan was for him to secure the bag, sleep at home, and return this morning in time for the first game at noon. We could only hope the hoards going north had dwindled to a navigable size so the trip was a reasonably easy one for him. As we were leaving Portland yesterday, the north bound jam was taking drivers at least a couple of hours to transit the 18 miles from Tigard to the Washington border Interstate Bridge. That’s really not unusual for that trip because people who live in Washington and work in Oregon do that every day. It was just compounded by the extra people heading north for cooler air.

Now it’s 10:15 Saturday morning. Diane are sitting next to the pool while the boys play in the pool and the hot tub. We’ve not heard from Daniel yet so don’t know his status. He was to meet Jennifer and Lydia at Bryant Park for the first game. Diane and I have 1.5 hours remaining to enjoy the shade before we must extricate ourselves and head for the park. We have umbrellas, so we’ll survive.

Just heard from Jennifer that Daniel made it back OK with the necessary equipment.

Now I’m stopping.

Painting, Gluing, Brakes, and Weeds

Posted on June 27, 2013 by Jerrie Cate

I’ve almost got Diane’s bathroom finished. As many of you know, it’s one of the projects I’ve been working on for the past 4 years, between other emergent projects that demand attention. Now all that’s left to do is apply a bit of touch-up paint and it’s done. I thought about sneaking into the room this morning to do that but figured I better wait until Diane is alert enough to realize there’s wet paint in there.

Yesterday, while various parts of the bathroom were drying from whatever kind of adhesive and/or paint I had applied, I did a brake job on Dan & Jen’s SUV. Yes, I can actually do stuff like that once in a while. Jeran helped me. It was a simple matter of replacing the front disc brake pads. Les Schwab wanted around $300 but I did it for $40. The difference is, Les Schwab insists on replacing perfectly good calipers so they can guarantee the work. Since I don’t guarantee anything, I didn’t have to do that. With Jeran’s help the entire process only took about an hour and the only injury I received was when I moved the work light and burned my arm. Apparently it gets really hot.

Then, after all that work, Diane made me go outside and pull weeds until I could barely stand. She didn’t make me do it, but seeing her out there all alone, pulling up grass, tugged at my little heart-strings making it necessary to participate. I’ve been wanting to hack down all the black berry bushes threatening to overrun the house, but just haven’t had time. Today I made time. My reward for the effort is scratched arms which made their presence known when I showered and rubbed soap in the wounds. That works almost as good as Old Spice for finding injuries.

At this moment in time I’m waiting for 0900 to roll around so I can go have coffee with the ‘guys’. After that we’re going to go repair a crack in the church parking lot that sprouted weeds. Since I still have two hours to go, I think I’ll just read my book for a while. I’ll set an alarm, too, because I know I’m going to fall asleep. I always do this early in the morning.

NCAA CWS on ESPN from OMAHA

Posted on June 25, 2013 by Jerrie Cate

The UCLA Bruins just won the College World Series by beating Mississippi State 8-0. The won yesterday, too, sweeping the Bulldogs in this best of three playoff. I’m reporting this even though I’m not normally a UCLA fan because they are a PAC-12 opponent of the Oregon State Beavers and the Oregon Ducks. Today, however, I had to root for them simply because they are a PAC-12 team. Gee. Another PAC-12 team, Arizona, won the CWS last year. I guess the PAC-12 is pretty darn good at end of season play. Sadly, Oregon State bowed out in the second round, attempting to make a run from the loser’s bracket.

Oh, well, there’s always next year.

I’m sure that the vast majority of you were hoping I’d say something about this, right?

Happy 1st Day of Summer

Posted on June 21, 2013 by Jerrie Cate

It’s an M&M evening here in Oregon. That would be for the Mountain & the Moon. These pictures were taken at 9:00 pm and it was much brighter out than the photos might lead you to believe. I still fairly light at almost 10:00 pm. Now the days will start getting shorter until, all too soon, it will be getting dark six hours sooner and we’ll all be dreaming about a day like today.

On June 23rd it gets even better because we’ll be treated to a supermoon, when the moon is at perigee, or its closest point to the earth this year. The next time that will happen is August next year.

Pretty, huh? No matter how many times I see the mountain, it still captures my full attention.

How about you?

Free To A Good Home …

Posted on June 21, 2013 by Jerrie Cate

One Procyon lotor carcass.

Currently residing in crawl space directly under a bathroom on Matzen Avenue in St. Helens, Oregon. Mostly decomposed but all solid parts are available, aligned in the order dictated by specie DNA instructions.
Must be cleaned before using.

Tub has been removed for easy access.

Photo available upon request.

You remove.

Please comment if interested.

Ouch!

Posted on June 20, 2013 by Jerrie Cate

I’ve discovered a new way to find all the little cuts on your hands. The ones you forgot about, and the ones you didn’t know you had.

Shave your face then pour aftershave into either hand and clap them together in preparation for patting your little cheeks. The aftershave highlights all injuries with severe pain, however short lived.

Old Spice works best.

This works for anyone who shaves and uses aftershave – men or women.

VA, Weinies, and Mold

Posted on June 20, 2013 by Jerrie Cate

This afternoon I had an appointment at the VA Hospital for physical therapy. On the way we always pass this dry cleaner in Portland that has the coolest sign in the window – “Drop your pants here!” I’d do it, but Diane won’t stop and let me. Just want to accommodate.

This morning I spent a couple of hours with Daniel seeing how bad the damage is on the bathroom floor and the consensus is that we’re just going to gut it and start from scratch. We know for sure that we’ll have to replace some of the sub-flooring, and underlayment, so might as well make sure it’s all gone. The mold smell is horrendous now that we’ve unleashed it into the atmosphere. But, it’s trapped in the bathroom and the kids are on notice to stay out until it’s all cleaned up. We also yanked out the bathtub. It’s actually OK where it was sitting, but I wrecked it with the sledge yesterday, as reported, so feel obligated to replace it. I suggested to Dan that we just put it in the back yard and they can use it to plant something. It will probably just go into the dumpster that’s on the way.

On the way home we stopped at Fred Meyer’s to get “a couple of things” and walked out many more than that. Typical for those kinds of stops. But, we needed all of it so it wasn’t a wasted or un-frugal stop. One thing she got is a cat nip scratch pad thingies for Breezy. She laid on it a couple of times then ran off when I tried to move it away from the deck railing, fearing she might start flipping all over and fall off. We’ll see how it works out.

Dinner tonight is beans-n-weinies and potato patties. Comfort food. Diane boiled a dead chicken yesterday thinking I’d make egg noodles today, for my world-famous chicken and noodle soup, but there was no time. That will be a task for tomorrow. It’s not really soup because there are no vegetables in it. I cook the liquid down, and add flour until it’s thick like gravy, then we put it on mashed potatoes. It’s part of our new diet that I call “I Like Starch So There.” For those who like acronyms, it could be ILISTARSOTH.

EB, my physical therapist, made me hurt today and all he used was extremely large rubber bands. I didn’t know it at the time, but now it’s 7:30 pm, five hours later, and I’m a little sore. Maybe I should exercise more.

Gotta quit, now. Game seven of the NBA finals is on.

Go Spurs.

My Beloved Lawn Mower, Windows, and a Bathroom

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Jerrie Cate

I forgot to mention yesterday that before the rains came I was able to mow our yard (the front), the dog’s yard (the back), and two of our neighbor’s yards. Although I’m elderly myself, and might some day soon have the need for someone else to mow our yards, those for whom I performed this service are considerably elderlier than me. So, it was a good thing.

This morning was pretty normal … you know, up with the dogs 5:30-ish, read till 6:30, sleep til 9:00, then think about getting to work. The latter happened around 9:30-ish. On the slate were the windows for Diane’s bathroom. They’ve been painted (outside) and stained (inside) and were just lying around in the basement drying. Today I was going to clean the paint and stain off the respective sides of the glass, then consider putting them back in the frame. But, before I could do that Diane insisted that I had do something with the bathroom door which she claimed had all kinds of runs in the varnish. I did put a coat of polyurethane on it yesterday, but the runs were already there. She didn’t believe me, but I swear that’s true.

Bowing to her wishes, I removed the door and took it to the basement so I could sand and refinish it. Before that happened, however, Jennie called to report the tub in their kids bathroom started pouring hot water and they couldn’t turn it off. Thankfully, I had a t-bar handle for use in shutting off water at the meter. It’s also handy for turning the water back on when the water department turns it off for some reason.

After getting the water off we checked to see what was going on and discovered mold around the tile. So, since we didn’t have to worry about water, Daniel and I started ripping out the wall at the shower end of the tub. The sheet rock behind the tile was the wrong kind and was pretty wet, a perfect atmosphere for mold. It came apart pretty easily. There was mold on the bottom 2 feet and we were able to get it all. But, because we were having more fun than a normal person is allowed, we continued ripping wallboard out all the way around the tub. Actually, we did that because we the waterproof kind of sheet rock like it’s supposed to be. We figured we would install a tub surround, instead of tile, but still need the sheet rock to be correct.

During the demolition I was allowed to wield the sledge-hammer for a bit and made it necessary to replace the tub when I chipped it with a mis-hit. So, now we plan to remove the tub tomorrow, maybe. It shouldn’t be difficult because it’s not a cast iron job. I’ll let you know how that goes.

As I scribble, I’m watching the Oregon State Beavers play the Indiana Hoosiers in the College World Series in Omaha. They just finished the 4th inning and Oregon State is up 1-0. You needed to know that. Some of you may remember when Oregon State won back to back titles in 2006-2007. In 2006 they became the 1st “cold-weather climate” to win the title.

After replacing the gaskets in the tub valves we restored power to the water system to ensure it wasn’t going to leak. It did, a little, on the hot side but I was able to stop it with more effort than normally necessary for a good faucet. So, I think the faucet is compromised and may need to be replaced. That remains to be seen the next time we remove water power to the house.

Now we’re letting dry out over night with a fan blowing on the damp area. Then we’ll clean it with bleach and let it dry again. Then we’re going to rip up the linoleum, pop off the toilet, and see if there’s any damage to the floor in that area. When we’re done it will be a new bathroom. Honest.

I tried to start my truck this afternoon, but the battery was dead. Bummer. It’s charging, now so I can try it again tomorrow.

Just now Diane told me that PD, one of the neighborhood feral cats we’ve befriended, was munching away at the outdoor dining facility on our back porch, then all the sudden he was gone and there was “an enormous cat” in his place. The biggest cat she’s ever seen, she said, so naturally I had to get up to see it. It was big, for a cat, but not so big for a raccoon. Considering it was still daylight, and raccoons are nocturnal by nature, I can understand how she could mistake it for a large cat. Our view was of its backside and its tail was hidden by a bucket which compounded the confusion. So, I rapped on the window and it turned around to look and confirmed it’s species with that black mask and little pointy rat nose. Diane slugged me when I said, in my announcer voice, “and Diane mistakes a small raccoon for a large cat” knowing full well that was a prelude to a blog entry. So there you have it. I’m officially in large trouble, now.

So, I shall quit, leaving you with this rainbow that invaded our back yard in as the storm passed over.