Mandy Goes to Vet. Mirage in Transmission Shop. Chris To The Rescue.

Another lovely day, but for some reason Bobcat hasn't wanted to go on her porch today. Maybe she knew that it was going to be a humid 88 deg., so she has been sleeping on the back of my recliner most of the day.

I left about 8.00am to meet another SPCA foster mom, Cindy, who lives the other side of our little town. She is going to take over the care of Mandy, the Chihuahua, for a while, as I am still trying to leave for the Kerrville Dreamer's Gathering. Cindy was on her way to the vet, so Mandy was also examined. Kenya, my SPCA boss, called me later, and said that Mandy is staying the night at the vet, and will be operated on in the morning. It isn't a goose egg size tumor that she has hanging down from her tummy, but a hernia that could strangulate and kill her at any time. It is a good thing that I got her away from her drunk/druggie "hooman".

I was having so much trouble with my PicasaWeb albums yesterday, with my computer locking up at tight as Fort Knox, that I asked for help on the GeeksOnTour forum. This morning there was a reply from Chris (Mrs. Geek) suggesting that I try going in through Firefox. I had Firefox before, but didn't know what to do with it. I couldn't find a 'write' button, or 'mailbox', or anything on it. But this time I found a button where I could opt to keep my AOL settings, so this time I knew how to work with it. Us AOL folks like our 'carousel', and "little red heart", and many of the things that AOL has! As soon as I went back into my web albums, it all worked like a charm. In fact my machine seems to be working better all the way round through Firefox, instead of Internet Explorer.

Ray had already started work when I got back from meeting Cindy. He was painting the two dog cages, and as soon as they were dry we put in the new floors that we had made, folded them up and got them out of the way. We tried out the 2 lightweight upright vacuums that I had bought at the flea market, on the workshop mats. They are big deep red carpet, backed with rubber, and you can see every speck, so they are the best place to see how much suction a vacuum has. Neither of the vacuums were marvellous, so I am still looking. Now that I have the commercial upright Hoover back from the repair shop, we could see the difference.

We took the blocks off the Mirage table top that we had contact cemented the Formica to, and got that routered. Our biggest problem was getting a wood router bit ( far left) out of the router that Jay had left in there. He doesn't know his own strength, and we had to resort to chucking it up in the vice to get it out. Then found out that the little wheels on the Formica cutting bits (left) were all locked up, as they hadn't been cleaned the last time they were used. After soaking them in thinners, and penetrating oil we got one working.

Seems like Murphy's Law, everything takes twice as long, and costs twice as much, as you think it will.

That is especially true with the repairs on the Mirage. It has had all the front end repaired, new shocks, and the brakes completely over hauled, including wheel cylinders. For the test drive, Pete had driven it over to Keith's Transmissions, so that Keith could examine it. Ray and I drove into the next town to pick it up from Pete's, and took it straight to the transmission shop. Gee, that is going to cost a lot, too, but it can't spend the rest of it's life without using fifth gear, that will hurt the motor.

The Mirage might be ready Friday.