Saturday, October 16, 2010

Mid October Ramblings.

Heading to work one morning. I just had to snap a shot of the sky.
Big Blue. I bought this truck a few years ago at an auction in Edmonton. I got it home to find it was getting antifreeze in the engine oil. Turned out it was the O rings around the piston liners were rotten. I educated myself and rebuilt this 425 cat engine. I have over $10,000.00 worth of engine parts in there. Some of the parts include a new head, liners, pistons, rods, bottom end bearings, injectors, oil pump, starter and more. At first I had intentions of changing just what was absoulutely neccesary, but once I had it all opened, and realized just how much work it was, I thought I may as well do it, and get it done. I had intentions of using this truck to haul my backhoe and maybe haul some dirt and gravel, or what ever. I got a good education about how much it costs to licence and keep this baby in service, and I decided that a one ton dually would be more feasible for me at this time. Some day the old Volvo might just come in handy though. If I can get my money out of it, I may sell it, but otherwise, I might put it to work someday. I like the old mechanical (no computer) 425 cat engines. If something does go wrong, I can usually have some kind of idea what the cause would be. Anyway, I had this truck sitting at my brothers place for quite awhile now, and my sister in law has been kinda reminding to get it the heck off their place for a long, long time now. So finally I brought er home. lol. She runs like a charm.

I had a bit of a work place mishap a little while ago. I was preparing to take the radiator out of the truck I drive at work. I was in the process of removing one of the big long springs that holds the hood of the truck from dropping and hitting the end of the stop cables. After removing the snap lock(or whatever it is called), I merely touched that spring when it let go and the hook pierced my hand. I had to hold the spring with one hand and slide my brand new bad hand off the spring. It was quite a site. lol. The spring entered my hand kinda at the back between the index finger and thumb.


And it came out here on the palm way down below the middle finger. I lost a little time this day, going to hospital and all, but I charged for the whole day. lol. The next days to follow was regular business as usual. It's pretty good now, although I am still wearing a couple bandades when I'm working and building.

I decided that I needed to take some time off from work and get the top part of my house closed off before all the yucky weather starts. So I took Friday, Saturday and Sunday off. I might even go for Monday too. We have still been very busy lately. I sure hav'nt been getting alot done on the house, but oh well. The shack is warm, and thats the main thing I guess. All I'm really concerned about is the North and South soffits for now, just so that I can eventually insulate sometime this winter and not worry about birds and critters nesting somewhere up there. Friday was mostly picking up supplies and doing some business in town. I got the South side soffits done today. The completed picture was pretty dark so I threw this unfinished pic on instead.
Alot of the time, if the yucky weather hits in the fall, things may slow down at work until freeze up. Just a little wishful thinking. I did'nt think I would ever be looking for shitty weather, but I guess I was wrong.



8 comments:

  1. beautiful sunrise! keep pluggin' away, you'll get there eventually. glad the hand's healing. sounds painful!!

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  2. OUCH!!! That just had to hurt! The cabin is looking pretty good, my friend! Ought to be as snug as a bug this Winter!

    Good luck on finishing things up before the really bad weather...!

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  3. Dang it Mark, hope your hand is healing fast.. looks pretty painful!
    The house is looking great, so is Big Blue, I'm sure he will come in real handy.
    Beautiful sunrise. :)

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  4. Hi Hermit,
    Good to see you posting. Sorry you had a lil mishap on your hand. Keep the wound clean and covered till it starts drying up.
    Big Blue is a handsome looking truck and the cabin looks great. You've come a long way the past several months with it. Glad to hear you got to get a lil time off for yerself. ~Jen

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  5. Thanks Lynneanne.
    The hand is healing pretty good. I've been just plugging away a little bit at a time, but I can just see the end coming sometime soon.

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  6. Hey Jim. That hand injury did'nt seem to hurt quite as much as my pride. It was a kind of a stupid thing to happen. Thanks Jim.

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  7. Thanks Jeanie. The hand's pretty good now Jeanie. Surprisingly, it was a little tender, but it never did hurt as much as I thought it should have. I went back to work the next day doing all my normal duties. Luckily it was just a flesh wound and missed all the vital organs, like my brain, cuz I think it must have been close. lol.

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  8. Thanks Jen. The hand's pretty good now. The time off was real good, but I'm going back to work in the morning. I just started to get back into building and now it's work time again, but hopefully it don't last long.

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