Work is ever encompassing my days. I didn’t leave for lunch and didn’t stop till 5:45 it becomes mind numbing after a while. I think the other reason I am not my chipper self today is the sad news I received. A great old friend I will refer to as “the music man” let me know that one of my first bosses Jerry who i worked for in college. Has just passed away and only two weeks after the loss of his wife. The music man had worked for my boss’s older brother Tom and I would not have been surprised at his passing since they were not what I would have called healthy even back then.
But Jerry? very surprising and very sad. It was one of the easier jobs I had in college. They made newsletters for apartment complexes. I helped with some art, and some layout, but since I was willing to do anything and everything, I spent most of my time being the “automatic feeder” for the folding machine. Other skills of mine they took advantage of was my ability to multi task. So I could make popcorn in an air popper, make boxes, and fold stacks of newsletters, put them in the boxes and pack any air space with popcorn. Man I was good, and cheap too.
Good memories, but wow, so sad that they are gone. I am going to take the day off and go to the funeral. It will be the second one of the week since I am going to one Sunday for a guy I used to do business with at a local garage. It certainly makes you think about your mortality. It also took some of the wind out of my sails for the day.
I did make it down to the shop for about 30 minutes. I pulled the second head out of the parts washer gave it a quick scrape down and pulled 3 valves out. Interestingly, the intake valves had far less build up on them. The one exhaust valve I pulled had the pitting on it but no worse or better than the other side.
For today’s effort I moved the bench grinder over to use the brush on the valves. It made things much easier. When I am not feeling myself, things seem much more difficult and larger tasks seem more daunting. I stepped back and looked into the shop from the big door and it seemed overwhelming as far as clutter. I normally don’t see it. I usually just see what I am looking for, but from this view, I literally just see a ton of projects that have not been finished and many not started.
Since the valve seals do not get delivered until tomorrow, and my Bride needs to head off to her second job, I just called it a day.
Today is what I consider “good tv night” the two shows we usually watch are “Finding your Roots” which is always interesting, and “The Curse of Oak Island”. Oak Island I watch for the same reason I still play the lottery. If I stopped and they find something or in the case of TX Lotto – they pick my numbers I would never forgive myself. It is currently almost the end of the 10th season for Oak Island and they seem to be narrowing down the treasure. As far as the lottery, I have played the same numbers for about 20 years, or at least since the year it started. Not sure how long it actually is. I have spent a small treasure on lottery tickets but as they say, “You can’t win if you don’t play”.
