Apr 22 - what we didn't do

We didn't go boating. It just looked too iffy with the clouds on the Doppler. It was just as well, we'd have been dumped-upon. After that, however, the sky gradually cleared. We went over to the SYC for a drink at 5pm, driving over with the dark clouds here and there, only to find that they finally cleared up. We left under blue skies. Had we walked, we'd have gotten wet, I'm sure.

Since we weren't going boating, I went over to Harbor Freight and picked up a couple of things as well as an impulse buy ... a bingo set for when the kids are up north. I really like the extendible 1/2" ratchet that I use all the time here and bought another for the cottage.

I also picked up a McPherson Strut spring compressor, hoping to compress the left rear coil spring on the X5 and move it slightly on its rubber pad, where it's a little off center. That didn't work, however, as there isn't enough room for the bolts to extend into the recess area. I could probably cut the bolts and make it work, but not worth the effort. Oh well, it isn't going anywhere.

The other reason to jack up the car was that the boot on the shock absorber had come loose at the bottom and I was going to pull it back into place to keep dirt out -- something that I'd noticed when working on the suspension -- but I found that Tire Kingdom had fixed that when they rotated the tires -- yay !

I forgot to mention that I visited with Gene next door the other day, wanting to see how he was doing. I should get over there again today. He broke his heel and will be in a cast for three months -- very hard for an active 80-year-old. For the first time that I remember, my grass has been cut but his hasn't. Judy was about to get her second knee done and has had to postpone. It's lucky that he didn't break this AFTER she got her knee done !

The other reason that I went to Harbor Freight, quite frankly, was just to get the X5 out on the highway for a test ride after all the suspension work and wheel alignment. It behaved very well. I'll be driving to Dawsonville GA north of Atlanta next weekend for that 400k ride and just wanted the assurance of a test ride beforehand. This week is going to go quickly.

I've been monitoring the alternator voltage on the M5 and at the same time, watching the same on the X5 just as a reference. They're not much different, although the X5 seems to do better at idle. It's hard to know whether the M5 problem was simply that loose connection. At this point I'm not going to do anything to that alternator.

I probably did some other things yesterday afternoon -- yes, some other things on the PC -- but nothing worthy of note -- translated, I don't remember :).

Today ... a quick call with Susan and Randy re the Lost Channel Roads Board at 9am and then I plan to go for a bike ride. The weather forecast has one of those "windy" notes on it so it's going to be a tough slog north today. 20mph in the forecast means more on the ground !

Onward ...