Saturday, Jan 18th

A nice day in the valley, it took a while to warm up, but I saw 19C on the truck when I was out.  In the sun today it was very nice, shirt sleeve weather.

  I got mobile early enough to go for breakfast in the hall this morning:  pancakes, eggs, bacon.  There were other options, but having not been for a while, I definitely wanted the pancakes.  I sat with some friends, one of whom I gave one of my pieces of bacon as I usually do when they give me three.  You know already that Marg did not go for breakfast, not only is it not her favourite meal, she doesn't really even acknowledge it most of the time.

  When I went back home Marg was up and about having gorged herself on a yogurt an cup of coffee.  Apparently the electric bill arrived while I was gone and with the cold nights lower than average days we expected it to be higher, so the $133 was no big surprise.  Marg had been warning me about the temp in our place, but my response was I didn't come here to sleep in the cold. We needed a few things, so shortly after my return she went out to Safeway for groceries.  Ever since Albertsons took over Safeway here, she prefers it for her regular grocery trips.  She had been clipping coupons for the last while so when combined with her safeway loyalty discounts, the grocery bill was almost half covered by the savings.

  I decided to do something with the brakes on the golf cart as they have been squawking pretty bad.  I pulled the first side and it went pretty well.  One of the things I discovered was one of the keepers  [snap ring] on brake shoe retaining pin was distorted and not stabilizing the shoe.  I went out to get some new ones, which proved more difficult than I anticipated so after the auto parts store I went to Ace Hardware and then the Tractor store.  By the time I finished I had the keepers and rubber washers to try and damper the noise.  Then I took sandpaper to the shoes to take the glazing off the shoes and then ran it around the drum.  I thought dust might be part of the problem, so I cleaned the drums with brake clean and wiped them out.  Putting it all back together the brakes worked perfect, no noise even on hard or panic stops.  I did lose some time looking for a retaining washer, that I had put on the rear spring, so I wouldn't lose it.  Can you believe that a little over an hour and forgot where I put it.  When I was taking off the passenger drum I had the puller adjusted to put on a lot of pulling pressure and then beat on the drum with a rubber mallet.  Man it came flying off the axle.  When I reassembled it I wrapped tape around the drum to see if that helps dampen the sound.  A quick test run and it stops perfect and totally silent.

  Kenny and Doris stopped by to seen what we were up to and ask if we wanted Chinese buffet for supper.  Then Marg asked them to stay for happy.  Well that attracted another couple, so we had anther small group for happy hour. They also asked a third couple, but one said yes, the other no, so they never joined us.

  The buffet was busy but not bad for a Saturday night on a long weekend.  MLK day is on Monday.  The food was great as always and Doris had coupons, so we got a good deal on dinner.