Sunday - late

Not going to say this was an ideal day by any stretch of the imagination. 

The first thing that happened was at the washout place this morning. The man was up on top of the trailer, washing out the interior of the trailer. He gets down, waves at me and I get out.  The emergency shut off valve had closed and wouldn't reopen.

It opens by moving a lever up and down, pumping fluid into the line and forcing the valve to lift.  It took a while to figure it out, but there was a huge leak - on the other side of the trailer, hence taking a while to find it.  

Long story - go to Love's, they tell me. I go to Love's, 30 minute drive away. We can't fix it.  I then try to bend the copper back and forth upon itself to effectively seal it off, where the line leads to is not a  critical thing to have, could simply cut it off. But try as I may, several times over, it wouldn't seal.  

So now I'm told to drive clear to Crosset, AR to get an empty and then drive clear back to load?  

While all of this is going on, I get text messages.  Pics of golf ball sized hail, reports of vehicles being damaged by it and the entire electrical system  on the side of the house being ripped off the wall and hanging there with the overhead power lines laying on the ground.\

I wasn't feeling it. Sunday, missed church, had this stuff going on at the house, had a new person coming in for a few months, had a superbowl party to go to and they want me to spent the next 11, 12, 13 hours doing all  of this nonsense?  Not to mention the fact that I wouldn't legally be able to do it? No thank you. I wasn't feeling particularly well, either. Just very tired, not a good night's sleep.  

So, I made my own decision to drive back to my park and fix the damn thing myself. We're talking 1/4 inch copper tubing, I've fixed this stuff before on other applications, same thing, different usage.  I was wrong about that tho.  Lowe's was completely out of 1/4 copper tubing and  fittings.  I thought that rather strange. They  had the shelf space for it but they didn't have anything.

I tried AutoZone, Tractor Supply, Harbor Freight, looked it up on Walmart site for the local store, somewhere else I can't think of I went to, nothing in town.  So I gave up.  Well, I found it all in Longview, 30 miles away at Home Depot.  Not going there today.  My sleep hasn't been all that great in recent times -dogs, cats, neighbors out making noise in the middle of the night, waking up after weird dreams, all kinds of stuff.  Take a while, like often times hours, to get back to sleep. 

I think what's wearing on me is this is day 7 of consecutive days of working. Now it's going to be even more.  Oh, well I was looking stuff up on line and found that Lowe's has a cap for soft copper tubing that just slips on.  It holds up to 150 pounds of pressure, which should be plenty for that pump.  That was it, I went out looking for the stuff, came home and took a long nap.  After that, the folks were going to the party early, I was not.  Slept some more, actually.  I think I'm missing the year long haitus from having to get up at a certain, early time in the morning.  

I was sleeping in til I felt good.  If it's was 9:00 am, no worries.  I'd like that life back again, maybe someday.  

When I left the house, I went to Lowe's first. It took a while to find that cap, they had it in an aisle that didn't make sense for that stuff to be in?  But I found one and got 2 just in case I screw up.  Got a quart of hydraulic fluid to fill the reservoir back up and then went to the party.  

First Superbowl game I've watched in years.  Skipped the pregame stuff except watched the National Anthem.  No weird stuff, no kneeling that I could see anyway, I heard they played the black national anthem.  Do we have 2 countries here?  Is the National Anthem now  a white anthem?  I find it abrasive the force these organizations take to try and push their wokeness on everyone.  I'm not biting. 

Well, anyway, I have no stake in that game, whoever wins, wins, no sweat off my back, at least the Chiefs finally made a comeback. 

Ok, well the cap isn't installed. I'm going over there in the morning and hopefully deal with it, get it working and get going with this.  If it doesn't work? I dunno. Either drive to Longview and get the stuff or call them and tell them there are no parts in this town - which there legitimately aren't any - what next.  They'd probably tell me to go up there, which I don't want to do. What a waste of time, they'd rather drive hours and hours out of the way going up and back then just pay someone to fix it?  

9 seconds left on the clock, 4th quarter, KC 16 - SF 19, KC in scoring and/or field goal range.  What's going to happen? A little bit of suspense here....

OT.

Back to the situation.  The man did, indeed, show up. He's been at the park on work assignment several times now.  He works at the gas fired power plant down south, about 10 miles south of the park off of Highway 43.  I told him I only have a dirt lot with 30 amp available behind the shed, he said fine. I give a discount on it since it's dirt.  And right now, a bit of mud.  The rain finally stopped. I told him he could stay in lot 2 if he wanted to wait until it dries out, but I could see him on the camera, even if in the doggy park, he pulled around, backed in and set up. Then contacted me telling me he has to leave to go get parts to fix water leaks.

Apparently he didn't winterize in that dreadful freeze we went through wherever he was at at the time and burst some lines.  He is all concerned about paying the rent, I'm not concerned at all. He is a good person to have around, he pays his bill on time and I have no worries about him not paying.  

It's just been a long day and I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.  I mean, the tanker is going to get loaded.  The point is, that valve has to stay open to wash it out.  I just hope my repair cap is going to work.  As for the electricity? James put a plea out on the local gossip page and some electrician's wife saw it, posted the phone number and the next thing you know? that guy was over there fixing everything. Only had to wait for SWEPCO (power company) to come out and hook the lines back up.  It was cheap, too. $350?  This guy must be doing side work or just freelancing and taking whatever he can get and lowballing everyone else.  I'm going to keep this guy's number if I need help at the park. 

Oh. And now that today is messed up for delivery, it also messes up my days off.  Instead of going to Gurdon tomorrow, it's go to Lufkin and load. Then Gurdon the next day, only giving me one day off. Yeah, not fun for me.  I'm wanting to try to fix the driveway, i wanted 2 days off for that.  Rent the tractor on day one, bring it back on day two, no huge rush.  

Enough.  Finish watching this OT in the Superbowl and then go to sleep.