The dawn of a new day.
Taylor left about half an hour ago with the boys.  The boys went to dayschool, Taylor hit the road headed to Missouri.  The boys have no clue that mom is going to be gone 8 days and further have no idea that dad is coming after work to pick them up and head straight up to Arkansas to drop them off with the grandparents. 

Everything kept changing about Taylor's trip - I mean there's been 4 changes now, the final version of it was started today. Now, James is also going to go up there to pick up a bunch of stuff and bring it back here.  This is Taylor's stuff that was left at a relatives long ago.  Anyway, I sort of have the house to myself.  I say sort of because I've been off work 3 full days now, it's very likely that I will be heading out on the road somewhere tomorrow.  I'd expect to hear from the new dispatcher in the next several hours - it's still early, I got up to wish them all goodbye. 

In a nonchalant way of course, they didn't want the kids to know because of what happens when you tell them in advance.  When are we going? Are we leaving yet?  etc etc etc ad-infinitum.  So we all just said nothing about the upcoming trips.  The boys will be exceedingly happy once they find out that they are going to grandma's. It's not just grandma, the other half brother is up there as well, he's only a few years old than the oldest one here, they usually get along pretty well.

James isn't leaving for Colorado until Friday, I believe, he's just dropping the kids off today.  Taylor is going to Colorado for her dad's wedding.  Forgot to throw that in there.

As for me, I went to get the boat yesterday.  Took it to the nearest lake about 10 miles away, decided to try and fire it up in the parking lot.  No sense trying to launch it if it's not going to work.  It wouldn't fire. It cranked over nicely but firing was a different story.  I mean, it didn't even try to start.  The battery started wearing down, decided to take it back to the shop.  Continuing on with cranking it would have left a dead battery and no way to tilt the motor back up for traveling. 

Once back at the shop, they wrote up a new repair ticket and I left.  Went looking for ammo - it's pretty sparse and hard to find.  9mm especially.  Academy Sports had no 9mm or 40 cal.  I eventually ended up at a pawn shop where they had a few boxes of 9 mm and as much 40 as I wanted. Well, they would only sell me one box of the 9mm, which was fine, my main pistol at this point is the 40. On my way home from that, I stopped at Wingstop and then off to the house - where in the middle of that drive back the shop called me and informed me that they tried to start it and it fired right up.

I became suspicious of that.  I know how to start the thing, it's not that difficult, it wasn't even trying to fire up.  When I texted Taylor about it, she also had her suspicions.  Like they forgot to hook something up. I'm telling you, when I tried to crank that motor, it wasn't even trying to fire even a little bit.  Not like I haven't had the thing running before.  Well whatever, I guess I'll have to drive clear back over there again today. They want me to come and show me how easily it fires up.  Great, I'm thinking, that doesn't really prove anything.  If they made a mistake, why not just own up to it?  I wouldn't have an issue with it.  I have more an issue of them trying to make it look as if I'm the culprit who doesn't know how to start an engine that I've started in the past many, many times over.

But I'll keep my mouth shut. They've been in business 30 years and they know these old motors, it was really my last resort locally.  Otherwise I would have had to drive to Dallas or Houston with the thing to get it repaired, something I was less than interested in in doing.  This is their first attempt, btw. They said the dude that put on automotive plug wires and plugs had it wrong and that it doesn't work with these 2 stroke engines.  it has to be some special type of wire and plugs - whatever is in them they told me but I have forgotten.  They replaced all of that and declared it running fine! lol okay well maybe it's running fine in the shop in a tub of water, we'll see what's going on with it out on the lake. 

I just want the thing to be able to fire up, idle, move when I want it to move, idle it again, etc.  If I could ever get it to that point then I would focus on the minor issues the thing has.  I found a brand new trolling motor yesterday at Adaemy for a very reasonable price.  I also found a ladder on an old junk boat they have out there that I could use on it.  And other things that aren't really costly.

Other than that, I have no plans today.  There's plenty to do around here - too hot.  We didn't quite finish up the cleaning job we started a month ago, still plenty to go in the back yard.  I'm less than motivated, especially thinking that I may be going out tomorrow to who knows where.  Brownsville preferably but at this point I'll take whatever.  Except Houston. Don't send me to Houston! lol

Okay, well time to get busy about the day.