1 day, 3 lawnmower breakdowns, and a bonus breakdown

Buckle in folks, this is a long one...

 It wasn't so long ago I made a post on Reddit about my old Snapper lawnmower

I bragged a little bit about the buy it for life (bifl) mentality of the machine and how it's been faithfully mowing my grass since 2010. Interestingly I posted about it waaay back when I first got the machine but apparently never updated for when I got it running. I wonder if I used it in 2009? I don't remember.

Anyway, yesterday I went to mow the lawn after being away for 2 weeks. Mower fired right up, I made one half loop of the tiny front yard and the blade got loose on the spindle.

This picture is actually not from yesterday but from a month ago, I've been fighting this problem for awhile now. The blade is held on by a nut that is stepped which centers the blade and holds it on.

What has happened is that the blade got loose in the past and the step has gotten enlarged so it doesn't hold the blade. The fix is to carefully grind the step back so the nut can grab the blade again. Actually a better fix would be to make a spacer with a step out of some hardened metal that the nut can push against the blade. Yesterday I used the quick fix and ground a little more off the nut, back to work.

Made another half loop around the yard, heard a "thunk" and lost propulsion. This is another long term problem, the drive system on this machine is super simple, theres a flat plate on the end of the driveshaft, under the engine. The "transmission" such as it is, has a rubber drive wheel that runs perpendicular to the plate. Push the drive wheel into the plate and you go. Adjust where the drive wheel is on the plate and you go faster, slower or backwards. Simple system, easy to use, easy to work on.

The drive wheel is a wear item and regularly needs replacing as the rubber wears, apparently one time I didn't get the bolts tight enough and I managed to strip the holes. I'd put them back with locktite but apparently that wasn't good enough.

I decided I would make this a forever fix, tap the holes to the next size up (3/8 up from 5/16) and put nuts on the end of the bolts. I scrounged around and found appropriate nuts, bolts, washers and lock washers and got it all bolted up and locktited as you see above.

Problem: the nut on the end of the bolt needs to occupy the same space as the brake shoe...

Rats.

I experimented with custom thin nuts but it's no soap, there just isn't space, so in this shot you see the final, the nuts cut off flush. I was just thinking I ought to go back and peen the bolts so they can't back out but then I remembered that drive wheel is still a wear component and will need replacing, in fact it ought to be replaced next year. When I order a new drive wheel I'll also order a new nut for the blade spindle.

So back to mowing, this time I managed to get the whole front yard mowed when one of the front tires went flat. Fortunately I noticed it pretty much right away. In the past I've failed to notice problems like this and run the tire off the rim, these little tires can be a lot of work to put back on the rim...

Of course the tire had come off the bead so here I'm using a strap and screwdriver to force it back onto the bead. Once back on the bead I could get air into it but I could also hear it coming back out.

That's the upholstery tack I found in the tire. Well what to do now? It was after 2pm so our local hardware store was closed and I don't have a tire patch kit, or if I do I don't know where it is. I poked around a minute and managed to find a can of fix-a-flat. Does that stuff work? Well this time it sure did, I put way too much into the tire, rotated it so the hole was pointed down and put some air to it. Sure enough the leak stopped and I FINALLY mowed the lawn.

Interestingly the rest of the lawn was mowed without event, no issues at all.

Bonus: While messing with the tire my air hose developed a leak. The leak is right at the end, the part that gets handled/bent around the most. This is a Harbor Freight air hose that came on a retracting reel, it was cheap and I've had it 4 or 5 years. Recently I had noticed some weather checking on the line so I knew something like this was coming.

For now I've wrapped it in electrical tape. Does that stop the leak? Nope but it slows it down a little and makes me feel a little better about it. Short term I'll probably cut a couple feet off the line but that's just a temporary fix while I get a new hose...

Gratuitous 30,000 foot post

Have I ever made a post on airline wifi before? I feel like I have but don't remember and don't want to go back through 240 posts to find out.
Thats right this is JetBlue WiFly coming to you from the skies over Colorado. I don't know exactly where we are but I'm guessing Denver by all the lights below us. This flight was both a score and a disappointment. I booked it late so I was supposed to have a center seat but as I sat down a nice lady offered to trade me her window seat. Thats the score, 6 hours in a window seat is way better than 6 hours in the center. The disappointment is that the flight left an hour and a half late. Thats mostly due to rain but I suspect part of it is JetBlue being stingy about the amount of fuel they had in the plane. Apparently they had to do some circling and got low on fuel so they had to divert to Providence to refuel before coming to Boston to get us. Oh well, I'm on the flight now anyway.

I wanted to show you two other disappointments:

This one is the worst, these are disgusting, never buy them. I couldn't get past the chemical bacon smell. I conned Angie's uncle into eating one and his face told me all I needed to know, into the trash with them.

Lets zoom right in on the next one.

See the words "Slime Oozing?" I bought this one for my dad for his birthday, I thought it would be fun to shoot and get some oozing slime. See the holes? We shot it with a .22 rifle, a .22 pistole and a .32 Colt pistol. See the little tiny bit of pink on the front? Thats all the oozing we ever got after 20 shots each... So disappointed, no pride in this Daisy.

I HATE US Air

This is a boarding pass, in about 6 hours its going to let me go home. I COULD be going home right now, theres a flight home right now. I think I just watched it head to the runway. Theres an empty seat on it, a seat I could have been in but US Air hates me.

To be fair US Air is just greedy and stupid. They want $200 for a change fee, a $35 ticketing fee AND some unknown quantity of money if the fare for that flight was different than the exorbitant (Portland, Maine to Washington D.C. for more than my last trip from Boston to LA) price I paid for the later flight for me to change to the earlier flight. There are two things that really burn me, first the $35 ticketing fee. Thirty-five bucks to print a five cent ticket. Then they can't even tell me in advance how much the final price will be. Until I agree to spend $235 I can't find out if the final price will be $235 or $500 or who knows. I didn't think to ask but I bet if the earlier flight is cheaper I don't get any money back...

When I was done with a completely fruitless discussion the unhelpful gate agent ended with "This is capitalism at its best." which is wrong, this is capitalism at its greedy stupidest.

Fact A: It would have cost US Air nothing to put me on that flight.

Fact B: If I were on that flight I'd be a happy customer and would promote US Air which is a "goodwill" as it is I'm upset with US Air and will badmouth them at any opportunity which is an "Opportunity Cost".

It could be argued that US Air could resell that open seat, however I was at the ticketing agent at 2pm which left me just enough time to get through security and get on the plane. Someone at home could NOT have made that flight but they could make the later flight and could potentially have taken my seat. Which brings me to

Stupid fact C: I would have been willing to pay a reasonable change fee. I'd call it a "convenience fee" and would have paid even $100 but I will not pay "an amount to be determined later", thats what I call "a scam".

This is not my first irritating run in with US Air, in fact I think I've had maybe 2 trips with US Air over the last 11 years (my professional traveling career) that weren't marred by some stupidity:

Example 1: My first trip to Las Vegas during which it took 16 hours to get the Las Vegas. US Air claimed this was due to "weather delays" however NO OTHER AIRLINE was reporting weather delays in either Boston or Philadelphia, the other city I was traveling through.

Example 2: My first return from Las Vegas which took 24 hours due to "the pilot's seatbelt is broken." So poor maintenance... This was when I swore off traveling on US Air but sometimes its unavoidable.

Example 3: Overbooked flight in Charlotte, they asked for volunteers to move to the next flight without mentioning that all the flights for the next WEEK to Boston were overbooked. I fought hard and stayed on my flight. Somebody got royally screwed on that one.

Example 4: While I was on a flight from Boston to Philadelphia they canceled my next leg to Cincinnati. US Air offered to fly me in 24 hour hours late. I pointed out that I could DRIVE TO CINCINNATI and get there more than 12 hours sooner. They eventually got me to Cincinnati a mere 20 hours late.

Example 5: Failure to check-in. I'll admit on this one I arrived at the airport a little on the late side but I normally don't check a bag and can get through security pretty quick but their check-in system was broken and I literally couldn't get a boarding pass so I missed the flight. A US Air employee came through on this one and got me on a United flight direct when my original flight had a stop in the dreaded Philadelphia and I got home a mere 2 hours late.

Its worth noting here that US Air has some good people, it just seems that the corporate culture is one where the policy is to be followed at all costs and very little flexibility is allowed.

Example 6: Broken APU, this happened on my flight to Washington just last weekend. APU is "auxiliary power unit" its an extra engine that starts the plane. The lack of one made the flight 2 hours late and meant we had no heat on the flight a fact they didn't make us aware of until the end of the flight. Recognize that at 30,000 feet the outside temperature is around -50F so it was getting pretty chilly inside the plane by the time we arrived. Fortunately the flight was only an hour and a half long. Another case of poor maintenance on US Air's part...

Frankly I hope US Air goes bankrupt but I recognize that is being run by a bunch of idiot MBAs whos only idea about how to run a business revolves around "screw the customer, maximize shareholder value." which seems to be the thing for all businesses these days.

No more direct to Vegas

Heres an odd one for you.
Since 2007 I've been to Las Vegas for a week or so in April every single year so this year will be my 8th trip. This is all for business, I'm not a crazy Vegas addict or anything.
Anyway other than the first year where the travel agent pushed me onto US Air (a saga in itself) I've always had a direct flight. The first couple years out of Manchester, New Hampshire (MHT) a couple years out of Providence, RI (PVD) and last year out of Hartford, CT (BDL). I like where we live because it gives me options for what airport I fly out of. Hartford is the farthest at just under 2 hours but its a nice low stress drive and only a half hour more than Boston, worth it for a direct flight.

Trouble is this year there is 1 direct flight from greater Boston. Its on Jet Blue which is normally a good thing but all the return flight options either get you into the airport after midnight (and then I've got an hour and a half drive home) or leave at night and arrive in the morning, the dreaded "red eye".

I'm rotten on red eye flights, I don't sleep well on the plane, so I end up being a zombie the next day. My plane sleeping schedule is pretty much always the same, we get up in the air, I fall asleep for 20 minutes and I'm awake for the rest of the flight.

So the red eye option is clearly out. Which means I'm stuck with a stop. The internet makes it nice and easy to search around for flights but the computers at the various airlines also have a grand time coming up with crazy options. It takes about five or five and a half hours to fly from here to Las Vegas, seven hours total I put up with (so 5 hours of flying with 2 hours of layover. 20 hours I will not but yet the airlines all like to put those options out there. They'd like to have me make a bunch of stops and cool my heels.

I made the multi-stop mistake years ago when Angie and I went to Barbados. We flew out of Providence because I was frankly scared of Boston. We had to go to JFK, then Miami and finally to Barbados, the return was the reverse. It was the first time we had ever flown together and was about as much fun as you'd imagine it being... I was young and now that I travel more than most people I've totally learned my lesson.

This thing about Vegas bothers me mostly because a used to fly the route often from Manchester, change in Vegas for Burbank. The flights were almost always full, in some cases crammed full. Apparently I'm good for business, if Southwest quits a route it means they can't make any money at it. In this case either they weren't charging enough or when I wasn't on the plane nobody else was going either...

Angie and I joke that we're good for business, we see this in restaurants a lot, the place is empty, we show up and it fills up. Apparently its true for airlines too. I wonder if I could make a career out of it? Like William H. Macy's character in the "The Cooler".