Apr 26

What I’ve Been Up To The Past Couple Of Days…

Posted on by

Yesterday I drove over to Union, WA and spent a good hour talking to Rob at Dogwood Construction. He’d be glad to take on our dome project but I have to get him MUCH better plans and a lot more information. Really kind of a productive meeting. The drive over and back was beautiful! Right along the water front from Belfair to Union. Took some good pictures (check out our Webshots site). Got back home and called Bob the Dome Guy about my talk with Rob. We decided it would be best if I contacted Larry Byrnes at Monolithic.com to re-draw the plans. Meanwhile we’re hoping that Mason County still issues us a building permit…
Today talked to Larry Byrnes at Monolithic and he agreed to re-draw the dome plans. So I gathered the stuff together to send and got it mailed off. Straightened up around the house a bit. At least stuck my dirty clothes in the washer. Bishop Job dropped off a notice to post on the cyber-church website so I got that done. Watched Smallville (cool show!) and Supernatural and that’s about it.
And that’s it!

Apr 22

Proposed Class Action Suit Against “Telebrands”: $ 5,000,000,000.00

Posted on by

For unethical and unfair marketing practices. For not giving the public a way to leave them a message complaining about the crappiness of their products and (most importantly) for not giving us a way to ‘opt out’ of their damned spam-mail. Anyone Agree?
Things been going well. Passed the EcoEngineer report on where our dome is going to physically sit. Been working for Bob (The Dirt Guy) the past couple of days spreading gravel and breaking septic pipes. Dozer is up and running and I just have to change all the fluids in it to make it just right. Thinking of selling it but I’m not sure if I’m going to need it later or not. SWMBO and I went out to “Fat Rascal’s” for dinner last Friday evening. I had the fried catfish. Yummy! Went shopping yesterday instead of our usual after date stop. And that’s about it…

Apr 18

Cool! We Had Some Thunder Today!

Posted on by

Cool Cool! We don’t get much thunder and lightning around here. Every couple of years or so we have some thunder; not often. Something about being too close to the coast and the atmosphere not having enough time to pick up/generate enough static electricity or something like that. Bummer! I like storms.

Apr 17

I Am Learning WAY Too Much About Dozer Mechanics!

Posted on by

Got up yesterday and took my ‘crowd cylinder’ (from atop the boom on the backhoe) to Pape (pronounced Pa Pay) over in Fife. Asked them if it would be okay for me to watch them replace the seals. Man, am I ever glad I took it over to them to fix!!! I’d have never gotten it done at home. Alone. We had to use a 5-ton crane and a lot of muscle to get the ram out of the cylinder! I got right in there with the young guy that was changing the seals and got just as dirty and tired. Guess I was some help cause they didn’t charge me for the job. Cool! We figured out I have a JD 350-D dozer. The ‘D’s stands for “Dey Don’t Make No More Parts For Dis One!”.
Left Fife at 1400 and zoomed to our property to meet the hydroseeding guy. Almost missed him. Showed him what we need hydroseeded but he thinks the job might be a bit too much for him; so he gave me a card with another company’s information on it. Was raining pretty good out there and we were soaked by the time we walked from the bottom of the hill to the top and back. Nice guy though.
Got up today and went and picked up my radiator. $700! Phew! I spent ALL DAY putting my dozer back together. Went fairly easy but MESSY! Even the front of the dozer went back on without much trouble. Lifting that 100lb cylinder back to the top of the boom was a bitch though! But after that it hooked back in quickly. Bled the air out by flooding one side (completely retracting the ram), hooking up the bottom side and unhooking the top side and filling it from the bottom until hydrolic fluid started coming out of the top. Then rehooked up the top side. Works great and NO leaks!
Radiator went in fairly easily. Ran the dozer for about 15 minutes for it to get warm. Had one small leak where I didn’t tighten down the hose completely but once I tightened it up i had NO leaks! Cool! Managed to tighten up one of the tracks but can’t get grease to go into the other.
Will have to finish this later; SWMBO wants me to reboot the internet server….