It's funny how life can sometimes coast along for long periods of time without very much out of the ordinary. Then one little event comes along, then another, and then a whole flurry of events both little and large, often interrelated and amplified by each other.
This week is a little busier than most. This is my [Michael's] week for shoveling the walks at Michael's preschool. The National Weather Service has accomodated me by offering snow in the forcast for the next couple of days (after a record snowfall for the date yesterday). This means clearing snow in two locations, here and there. Make that three: my neighbor is going in for foot surgery today and I told him I'd look after his driveway for him too.
Tomorrow will be further complicated by the moving of pianos, although I have hired a crew to do the heavy work. We bought the grand yesterday, and they liked our piano too. This is a good trade. They get a Kimball that looks bad but plays well, a piano they can let anybody use without worrying about it getting damaged. I get an antique Sohmer that looks great and has great potential, and is marginally playable (the one unglued hammer will have to be secured first) but will require extensive work to restore its playability.
I bought the first piano as a non-playing hobby, so that I would have a musical/mechanical instrument to tinker with (my Industrial Mechanics degree is one manifestation of my love of tinkering). I only learned to play piano because I couldn't play the guitar for a couple of years (blog history) and we just happened to have a piano. Now we're buying a piano that will require a great deal of tinkering, especially if I intend to continue playing!
I broke the Metro yesterday so we're down to two cars. We never sold Sheryl's Trooper after buying the Mariner last summer, and it wasn't even running during our last cold snap (moisture in the fuel line probably), but it has come in handy a couple of times when the Metro has been unavailable. And the Metro is currently unavailable.
It doesn't make me feel better that the only initial problem was loose lug nuts on the right front wheel. I started my investigation with the right front axle, which has joints on either side that typically make the kind of noise Sheryl and I heard on Saturday night, and in order to gain access to the axle I needed to drop the front exhaust pipe. Ordinarily, taking the four bolts off and one rubber hanger that attach pipe to car isn't a big deal and I didn't treat it as such... until one of the bolts snapped off, preventing me from putting the pipe back on. Not only did it snap off, but it remains off more than a day later as the tools I had available were unable to extract it, even after removing the entire exhaust manifold. I did buy tools to extract the bolt today and will eventually make it all right.
The irony, of course, is that I needn't have removed the exhaust in the first place. It wasn't until after I was unable to find fault with the axle (without removing it, thankfully) that I determined the actual problem. It still seems implausible that the lug nuts got loose but that is exactly what happened, and on the bright side there appears to be no damage to the threads. It's possible I didn't tighten them – or tighten them enough – when I changed tires over (I change the tires myself twice a year between summer tread and winter studs, which gives me the chance to look at the brakes and suspension, and I always try to ensure the lugs aren't so tight that I can't get them off in case I ever have a flat). I once had a boss in Reno who had a posessed car with lug nuts that were continually loosening themselves, though I doubt my car has become likewise posessed. We bought new studded tires this year and they've always felt rather odd on the road, so it's also possible that the vibrations of the new studs could be loosening things. I'll check all the studs before the Metro goes back on the road.
And Sheryl's dad is in town for a visit and meetings too! He stayed with us over the weekend, and volunteered to watch the kids while Sheryl and I went out to dinner on Saturday night (when we had the car trouble and cut short our drive) and Sunday afternoon to hear the symphony (and later to drive home through snow that fell so hard it covered over our headlights, which then cast a uniform glow out in all directions that lit up the snow-filled sky much better than the snow-covered road).
Do I know how to show a date a good time or what?
