Slim on a hot tin roof.

Freezers are supposed to stay below 32 degrees, right?  Well, Chevron’s decided it liked 45 better.  We didn’t notice until a customer came up with a bag of ice that had a puddle of water in the bottom.  They’re not supposed to do that.

I checked all the breakers, the fans were working and I couldn’t find anything to adjust the temp with.  So I called the manager and he suggested I flip the breakers to the freezer, let them reset, and flip them back on.  No go.

So he called the repair dude, who suggested I call him and he could talk me through a few troubleshooting things.  I checked the copper tube thingy, which was hot and wasn’t supposed to be.  Then he (the repair dude) asked me if I could get up on the roof.  Um, ok, it’s just 30 or 40 feet straight up this ladder bolted to the outside of the building.  I need to get the keys to the ladder, so I tell him that I’ll call him back when I’m up on the roof.  I text the manager to ask him if we have keys to the roof at the store, and then mention it to the guy I’m working with. He goes “Yeah, right there with the other keys, the ones marked ‘Roof’.”  Duh! Should have asked him before texting the manager.

I get up on the roof, call repair dude back and he has me check the copper tube up there.  Hot too.  Not good.   So he says to get a long hose, haul it up there and spray out the compressor.  Ok, more fun getting up that ladder carrying a hose with me.  Fortunately the spray nozzle hooked onto the ladder rungs perfectly so I could put it up a couple rungs, climb up, move the hose up, climb more and so on all the way up.

The rest was kind of relaxing, standing there spraying down the compressors.  I figured I might as well do them all while I was there.  A lot of dirt came out as I sprayed them, which was a good sign because that meant that most likely was the problem.  I called repair dude back and he had me check the copper tubing again, which was no longer hot.  He was happy with that.  He then asked me to keep an eye on the freezer temperature for a while and then call him back.  The temp went way down to 20 degrees, I called him and told him, texted the manager too, and repair dude said to let him know if it starts to get too warm again.

Two hours later it was at 20 degrees again (we had a little spike when we had the door open restocking the ice bags) and I left a note for everyone to keep an eye on it over the weekend.  I told the manager that the note said “if it hits 30, sell”, but I actually told them to call him.

Troubleshooting is fun, and it’s especially enjoyable when I can actually fix the problem.  So even though I ended up staying an hour and a half longer than I was supposed to, it wasn’t so bad.  At least I got paid for it.

Dirt roads in hail storms are fun!

Here I’ve got the Flip Video hooked to the roof rack as I drive from the South Forty back to camp in a hail storm.  I hit a poor little tree near the end.

The 4th of July Parade (on the 3rd)

Yeah, I know.  This is a little bit late, but sometimes these things just happen.

I worked, and became good friends, with someone who is now on the School Board at the district I work for.  She’s been on it for a couple of years, and last year asked me if I would drive her in the South Salt Lake 4th of July parade in my ‘70 LTD convertible.  I, of course, said I would love to.  Well, the parade was not a priority of the Mayor at the time, so because of budget restraints it was cancelled.  This year, with a new Mayor, the parade was back on and my friend called me up and asked if I would be willing to drive her this time.  I didn’t say yes right away, because the car was (is still) having some issues with the transmission, and I didn’t want to risk it.  But I did know someone else with an old Ford(ish) convertible and figured I might as well ask.  The Gearheads agreed to drive her and her husband around in their ‘69 Cougar convertible.  It was all working out great until my friend mentioned that another of the School Board members wanted to join in the car, which would make 3 in the back seat of the Cougar, which is not quite as big as the LTD.  We warned them that it would be a bit cozy, but this didn’t deter them at all.  Cozy they could handle.  So my little brother, his wife and I were up and ready to go by 6:30 am, after being at the South Salt Lake fireworks until after 11 the night before.   Ahhh, who needs sleep when you can be in a parade.  Mr. Gearhead headed down to the meeting place with the Cougar while Mrs. Gearhead came to pick me up.  Since the Cougar has 2 bucket seats in the front, Mrs. Gearhead was going to sit out and take pictures of the parade.  We get less than 3 blocks away from my house when Mr. Gearhead calls to let us know the Cougar was out of commission.   Something in the front end gave way, luckily while he was on a side road and not on the freeway.  Eeeek!  Well, transmission issues or not, we flipped a U turn and headed back to get the LTD.  I was 98.7% sure it was going to make it through the whole parade, so we decided we had to take the chance.  I wasn’t going to get down to the parade starting area and have them all cram into the back seat of Mrs. Gearhead’s Nissan.

We made it to the staging area by 7:00, despite the troubles, and parked the car in our designated position, 12th in the line.  Then my friend  took all 3 of us out to breakfast, we went and picked up her husband and headed back.  The good thing was that since we were in the LTD, the two Board members and husband fit nicely in the back seat (sitting up on the back of the car, feet on the seat, not very safe, but at a maximum of 10 MPH that really wasn’t a concern.)  AND both The Gearheads could join me in the front seat of the car for the parade. 

It was a blast.  It took us about an hour to drive the 5 or 10 miles, and the whole time all the passengers were throwing candy at the people watching the parade.  The car drove great, going that slow shifting was not an issue.  At one point Mr. Gearhead jumped out of the moving car to get pictures of us going by, and then caught up to us and jumped right back in.  Fun stuff.  I hope she asks me again next year.  Maybe we can get both the Cougar and the LTD in.

This last picture is of three of my students from the high school who decided it would be fun to chase me around with Super-Soakers.  Mr. Gearhead borrowed a Super-Soaker from a group of younger kids and got into the fray to defend me.  I had a few bottles of water, so I wasn’t unarmed, and the 5 of us ended up getting pretty wet.  Since summer had finally hit Salt Lake, it was quite refreshing.  We also got into a water fight with them at the end of the parade.

All in all, a very fun and tiring day.

Clouds over the Uintahs

More of my time lapse playing.

How to embed a YouTube video in your blog.

I made this up for my brother, and thought I’d post it here in case anyone else is interested.  It is a PDF file, so everyone should be able to open it, but keep in mind it was written for a PC and Blogger.  Mac and other blog programs may be a little bit (or a lot for all I know) different.  I hope it’s helpful, and if you have any suggestions to improve it, let me know.

How To: click here

A walk in the park.

Ok, so it’s really a walk in my property.  This is the road from our camp to the front gate.

Pat Bagley: Psychic Political Cartoonist.

Oh, the irony of it all.  Sunday, as my brother and I were surveying the damage done by ATVists who ignored the big blockade to their ad hoc road on our property, the Salt Lake Tribune published this cartoon by Pat Bagley:

Ironic coincidence or psychic premonition? You be the judge.