J. Palmer

Long time, no write. I’ve got the time to write this morning, but I really have no idea–as usual–of what I could write about. And my feelings about writing something are kind of “meh” right now.

Part of my problem is that it’s been so long since I’ve sat down at the keyboard–I’m not sure what there is that I should try to catch up on. I mean, I guess there’s a lot, but at the same time, there really isn’t.

As a quick thing, I guess I could touch on recent Instagram posts.

The draft inducer on the furnace died. I discovered that a couple of weeks ago, but only took a picture of the thing the other day, after I replaced it. What had happened was back over the summer I had replaced the house water filter–not just the filter, but the whole system–and didn’t quite give the PVC glue enough time to cure before turning the water back on. So, after a little bit of time, the pressure overcame the weak bond and popped the joint apart, allowing water to spray everywhere. In the spraying, water hit the furnace and traveled down to the inducer motor, and it eventually rusted up. A week or so ago, I went to the furnace to see if she was up and running for this winter, and when she failed to fire, I went through the troubleshooting chain and discovered the draft inducer had seized. I took it out, smacked it around, started prying at the blades and got the motor to break free; re-installed it, and furnace fired up. Since the thing was not at 100% and now very noisy, I went ahead and bought a new one. So, yay. We now have a happy furnace.

I bought a slide hammer puller set the other day to try and battle Ashlee’s Durango. Unfortunately, it didn’t help. I’ve been trying to replace the lower ball joints because they’re approaching their end of life, and the truck is just giving me nothing but trouble. In order to replace the ball joint, I need to pull the hub out of the knuckle. I have yet to succeed. After a day of fighting to get a rust-welded rotor off the hub, I started my attempt to separate the hub and knuckle, which eventually led me to buying the slide hammer. My hands have just about recovered from trying to use that thing–I totally pissed off a nerve in my right hand, slamming that weight around. While taking a break and pausing to fight with the feelings of defeat, I came to the realization that I wasn’t just fighting the hub and knuckle, but I was fighting the axle and hub as well. While the axle had moved just slightly when I had started, that was no longer the case–it apparently hit it’s own little ring of rust within the hub and has now gotten stuck, keeping a death grip on the hub, as well. So, now I’ve got to add replacement hubs–and hopefully not axles–and some MAP gas (because all I’ve got right now is LP) and heat the hell out of the hub and axle to get them to separate. I’m counting on ruining the hub and cooking the bearings in going that route. I pray that the axle won’t be affected.

Well, I guess that’s all I have time for. Gotta head to work, now.

Got a little bit of time this morning, but not fully feeling the whole writing thing. Well, sort of. I am halfway wanting to write, but I’m not sure what to write about. You know, my other usual morning hurdle.

It’s a bit chilly in the house, this morning. Guess it won’t be much longer until I have to start sealing things up for the winter. Kind of a funny thought to have, when we’re expecting highs today to tickle the low 80s. Our overnights have been dipping fairly low as of late, however, and the heat during the day comes late and vanishes too quickly for the bones of this old house to collect and hold the warmth. Welcome to fall.

I’m not necessarily looking forward to work this morning. Ashlee gave me a heads up that GM freight was dropped last night–it was sounding like that might happen before I left work, yesterday. Unfortunately, timing couldn’t be worse–well, I mean, I guess it could be–as we were informed yesterday that market peeps will be touring the store tomorrow with candidates for manager of another store the next town over. It’s like a Murphy’s Law sort of thing when it comes to freight in that store, I swear. But, it just seems to be that way in most businesses, in my experience. Maybe that’s part of what some people like about me at work; I recognize that things aren’t going to go to plan, I accept it, and I just keep going, doing what I can.

I’ve enjoyed the kids having fall break–though I don’t feel like I’ve done anything to take advantage of it. It’s been nice getting up with them, kinda chilling in the morning, and watching them do their thing. The evenings have been kinda nice, too; and it’s going to sound terrible, but part of that niceness is where Violet has been spending time at her mother’s. With Violet away, I’ve had an extra hour or so alone in which to completely unwind. I’ll be picking up Violet tonight. I’m not looking forward to that time it’ll take to get her–as it subtracts time away from Ashlee–but I am kinda excited to have her back home. I will lose that aforementioned hour of alone time, but I’ll gain back that frantic hour of Violet talking and using my ear to decompress from her awkward teenage life.

Well, I really can’t think of anything else to say, and it’s about time to head out the door.

As usual, not a whole lot of time to write anything this morning.

And, now, I’m stuck, staring at the screen, wondering what I have that is worthy of writing in such a short amount of time.

I’m loving having broadcast TV back in the home.

I need to figure out more “crock-pot” recipes to add to my arsenal.

I’m slowly getting into the new role at work. There’s just too much crap that I need to get a handle on to make headway. If this were like my Family Dollar days, I’d just stay a little later and come and go as I pleased in addition to whatever I was scheduled in order to try and fix things. But, I’m on somebody else’s dime and under someone else’s watch, so I’m a little limited as to what I can do and when. It bothers me a bit, but, hey, what can I do?

Met our “emerging store manager”; I’ll leave it at that for now. I will say that he managed to introduce a thought yesterday that I just hate. In a meeting he said our average basket is a little over a hundred bucks. My thought–WTF? Why is our basket so low? I worked in FD’s where my basket was between $50-$75; in my opinion, our basket should be $200.

Ashlee is burning out. Kinda have to leave that thought there for now, as I’ve not enough time to write on that.

Well, time to go.

Just taking the time to make a couple quick notes.

I’m a Team Lead, effective today. Yay. Maybe I’ll pop back in and write more on that, later.

I bought a simple little TV amp the other day, and put it in line last night. I now have more reliable reception in the living and family rooms, now. Yay! That actually excites me a lot; now I can watch broadcast TV, again. I still need to get over my stupid height/falling fears, climb the tower, and elevate the antenna so that I can hopefully receive KET.

Related to the antenna stuff, we watched The Wizard of Oz last night; it was being broadcast on MeTV.

I dunno. I’m sure there’s other stuff I could quickly jot down, but I think that’ll do it for now.

I need to stop staying up late. I’m eating into my morning hours. And I like the extra bit of time I was getting in the mornings. Not only did it give me more time to sit and write something, but it gave me a little bit of time to do a few little housework pieces. Guess I’ll actually try and be a little more disciplined tonight.