Day 1258

I woke up at 7:50 this morning.  That was too early to get up, so I did a little napping and surfing.  We did get up at 8:15 though to do pet stuff and have breakfast.  We left at 9 to take Devyn to the vet.  It was a battle trakcing him down and getting him into the box.  He tore the back of my left hand up really badly.

We only spent a few minutes at the vet.  They took the stitches out and pronounced him fine.  It looks like he will be screwed up for the rest of his life - head tilt, half closed eye, and not very sure on his feet.  Oh well.  He was a cool cat before he got sick.

We went to a estate sale after the vet.  It wasn't very far away - 29th and Lamar.  They had a cat picture that looked nice on the web.  It didn't look as good in person.  The owner had a lot of cat paraphernalia.  We bought a cat switch pate and a solar powered lucky cat.  Loop 1 southbound was a parking lot, so we took Lamar in.  That allowed us to stop at the dog store we didn't get to last week.  There were roach coaches in the parking lot and Ellen had breakfast.  We also stopped at the Greek store on Lamar for baklava.  After that it was the post office and home.

When we got home I went out to attach the star to the weather vane.  It kind of fought me, but I finally got it attached.  Then I hung the barbed wire plaque we bought weeks ago in the apartment.  I'd finally gotten around to asking Ellen where she wanted it.  Finally, I did my exercises before going in for lunch.

Lunch was a turkey sandwich and a raisin cookie (from the Greek place).  After a little surfing it was time to put the weather vane on the pole.  I got out all of the stuff and Ellen came out to hold the ladder.

My first attempt to put it on the pole failed.  It was just too heavy and lopsided to balance on the top and put the bolts in.  So I took the fin off and tried again.  That allowed me to get the tail bolted on.  Then I bolted on the fin.  The whole thing didn't work for two reasons.  First, the springs weren't strong enough to hold the tail ridged enough.  Second, the set screws weren't holding the bearing.  I could have fixed the spring problem with the vane on the pole but the bearing problem needed work that couldn't be done on the pole. The only thing to do was take it down.  We took pictures first, though.

Taking it down went well except for my forgetting some tools and hardware at the top of the ladder.  When I moved the ladder they fell in the bush.  It took awhile to find them.  Then I put everything away.

When that was done I removed the springs from the tail and used a couple of corner straps to anchor it to the swivel.  I also recentered the bearing in it's housing.  That's when I rediscovered that the cheap Chinese piece of shit bearing really isn't 1.25".  It's slightly smaller.  The guy who made the pole had ground down the shaft to fit.  I'll have to grind more of it to fit a second bearing.  It was after 5, so I quit and took the dog to the mailbox.

I went to Amazon and ordered another bearing while dinner (coconut shrimp from HEB) was cooking.  They claim that the bearing will be here tomorrow.  That means I'll be grinding tomorrow.  I also took a shower.  I was feeling like I needed one.

The evening was TV and a movie.