Mar 21 - perfect timing

Wait, before I get to the "perfect timing" part, we got good news from Sara yesterday that the Chorionic villus sampling (CVS) came back with positive news -- a healthy baby girl. She's just about to enter the second trimester. There will be more results, positive we hope, from that test next week as they test chromosomes.

Sara, Jeffrey and Emma arrive tomorrow evening so we'll be able to celebrate together !

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I'd just pressed "publish" on the last blog when it started to rain. With other storms tightly scattered around us, I decided to skip riding for the day. I'll go out today and perhaps tomorrow as well.

I finished up the touch-up painting where I'd installed those locking pulls on the pocket doors in the upstairs bathroom. All I have to do at this point is do a final pass of the vacuum and put away any remaining tools / paint / etc.

I decided to have one more go at the rear shock mounts on the X5, still wanting to check them from above rather than removing the shocks.

Success ! I got the retaining nut loose with my 18mm socket ... 19mm on the other side (why ?), and then once the top of the shock started turning, could use an 8mm to hold the shock while I used an open-end to turn the nut.

Pristine ... there is no issue with these at all ... obviously they're better made than the 3-series shock mounts that have all the blogs about being replaced. It's a similar setup but these are much more robust.

That leaves the subframe bushings as being the culprits. That's an annoyance but has no bearing on drive-ability, handling, safety ... just an annoying squeak, only lower pitched :).

Not that I need projects, but I'm still likely to tackle the tie rods and those rear upper control arms before heading north. The replacement of that o-ring seems to have cured the sweating from the radiator connection, but that's something that I'll only know for sure in a couple of weeks, but checking the coolant level.

As for the subframe bushings ... they're cheap ... I'll think about that.

We had Wahoo for dinner last night along with sauteed spinach, now one of Sandy's favorites, and brown rice, now one of my favorites !

Today ... Gym with John, riding, riding, riding ... if it weren't for the fact that I finish too late with John to consider it, I'd to a 200k.

Onward !