Ain't Dead Yet

This blog is in dire need of an update. The first month of 2009 and this will only have two posts. I'm going to summarize what's been going on. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, but the first story I'd like to visit is the weekend my truck spent 24 hours in Dom's garage. The tale REALLY begins a few months ago when I heard some whining. I didn't have time to look at it myself so I took ol' Babe in and the outcome was there was nothing wrong. The same week I went over to Dom's, I was having problems with grinding and the truck would jerk to one side or the other. Enough was enough and Dom let me bring 'er over. After a quick disassembly we discovered the problem was a badly blown inner wheel bearing. And that was the brick wall. We started simple by trying to pull it off with our hands, no go. We took a trip to Auto Zone where I bought replacement bearings and Dom bought a puller, which is a tool designed for this kind of job. That and a pizza later we were back to work. Even with the puller, the bearing would not budge. The next logical step was heat and cutting wheels. But for crying out loud, the bearing did not want to succumb. Eventually, we were able to make it turn in place using the puller and a clamp. I mentioned that I wish I had gotten a Dremmel recently which brought us back to cutting wheels, only on a smaller scale but much higher RPMs. This is when we ate more pizza and stopped for the night. Kelly had to come pick me up since I had no vehicle.

The next morning, Armed with a Dremmel and a set of cold chisels, we finally made a crack in the wheel bearing run which released the pressure of the run on the spindle. We were then able to use the puller along with a large clamp to pull the bearing run out.

What was meant to be a blurb turned into a longwinded tale of frustration. So for those of you still with me, I'll spare you the final part of the tale only to mention the most awesome part of the whole ordeal. The new bearing was almost as tight to go on as the old one was coming off. Heat was the first thing that came to mind. "Bake it," Dom said. "Let's bake it." 250 degrees for 20 minutes...just enough time to finish the pizza from last night and watch an episode of The Office. The bearing slid right on and everything went back together successfully. We attempted the left side, but after hitting two hurdles in a row before getting close to the bearing we quit and called it a job well done.

Well before this and over the holidays, Will came home. My old man, Dom, Will and I all got together for a testosterone filled day of Cracker Barrell and target shooting. I'll leave you with a few shots from that.

On Appeasing The Gods

It's a longstanding tradition in the South to eat black-eyed peas on New Years Day. As the legend goes, a hearty dose of black-eyed peas brings prosperity and good luck for the entire year. So when I missed my chance on the actual day, I vowed to make things right. I knew there was no way I could just eat black-eyed peas. I had to combine it with my love of something else.

Mexican, I knew, was the answer. You see, black-eyed peas are not really peas. They're actually beans. As we know, many types of beans find their way into a number of Mexican dishes. So on January 2nd to atone for missing a day, beef enchiladas with a black-eyed pea base. Oh and guacamole.