Jun 30 - another half year

Yes, another half year has gone by. 

I went into town, having made an appointment with Arnstein Garage to check for the noisy wheel bearing.  I'd jacked each wheel in turn and couldn't find the issue.  Jeff took the car out on the road and could hear it but there wasn't much change in bearing sound with turns.  Once on the hoist, however, he quickly found the noisy front right wheel.  It wasn't as bad as the one that I replaced on the prior X5, which you could feel as you rolled the wheel.  This one you could hear but not feel.

So ... he's ordering in the part and I'm having that fixed on Tuesday.  Naturally it isn't cheap.  The front bearing includes the hub; the rear takes more labour to install because the existing bearing must be extracted.

Interesting though -- on the Pelican Parts website, my usual source, the cheapee bearing is $101 USD; the better one $242 (which would be my choice); the BMW bearing $325.  The bearing sourced by Jeff is $271 CAD, so it's probably equivalent to the SKF $242 bearing.  I didn't ask Aimee who the manufacturer was ... my bad.   Naturally his labour rate is less than half of what I'd pay at a Tire Kingdom in FL, a third of what I'd pay at BMW.

On the old X5, the bearing noise got so loud that it was hard to have a conversation.  I didn't want it to go that far. 

I remember doing a wheel bearing change on my first Honda.  Arlene and I drove to Toronto from Florida listening to the bearing and I was worried that it would fail during the trip.  It was a rear bearing and the replacement was similar to doing a replacement on a trailer; pretty simple, not very expensive.  That was my only Christmas with my Mom and Dad in Florida.  That would have been the Christmas of 1978; memorable for a number of reasons that I won't get into ....

On my way through town I picked up the mail.  She will be working next week even if there's a postal strike as she isn't part of that union, which I guess is the letter carriers.  I guess that the delivery trucks are, because she won't be getting any new mail.  I'm expecting something from MEC that may come by Purolater or Canada Post; I'm not sure.  I stopped at Buchanans's to see if it had been delivered there and the answer was no.

On my way out of town I stopped at Gohm's and picked up some minnows.  As long as the weather cooperates, I'll head out this a.m. and see if the Bass are biting.  I just checked the Doppler and there's rain heading this way.  We'll see.

I've been lazy and didn't get my own minnow traps out.  I'll do that but I don't get many minnow hauls before that dries up.

Early in the day I did some week whacking -- back 40, driveway, front yard.  I still have the area by the kitchen and the hill, but I didn't want to strain my back any more.  It doesn't all have to be done in one day.  If my back feels ok and the weather cooperates, I may get out for a short ride today.  We'll see -- it's supposed to rain.

Sandy stopped at Stef's on the way south and met up with Marda at her airport hotel. 

There was no sign of Kim on Wednesday night; presumably they arrived last night.  From the looks of the modem traffic meter either I had some Windows updates come through or there was usage from next door.

I've been playing around with the features of the new modem, did a firmware upgrade which was necessary because it wouldn't send out SSL emails, tried a few other things.  It's doing what I want, so it's a keeper.


It's Canada Day this morning.

Onward !