A second storey and renewed lighting
Our little car just gained a second storey.
After certain issues with bolts that didn’t mate well with threaded receivers, the long-awaited roof rack has been installed. Seems tough enough; neither me nor “the boy” could pull it free from the parent auto, and that’s the suggested test on the Thule video.
I then removed the hibernating “cookie” (that’s our name for a series of roof cargo carriers over the years). Like any bear hauled from the comfort of its winter cave, it required a modicum of effort, but (again) with the help of “the boy” I got the thing outside into a mixture of sunshine and showers. Carefully tied in place, I tried a test run with speeds up to 80 kph. Nothing fell to earth, but the new noise will require some adjustment mentally.
Last evening, the basement seemed darker than usual, since one of the two sets of fluorescent lamps had gone black. Off to Canny Tire for more tubes, I figured that all would return to normal. Not so; the fixture had developed an oozing ballast. Back to Canny Tire and then home to show “the boy” how to change a light fixture. Since this kind of thing doesn’t happen often (once in 20 years), it fit in well with that whole prepare them for life routine that fathers do so well.
Was he intrigued? Not so much. This was just one more reason to stand around in the basement and listen to the “old fella” rant about how things aren’t as well made as they used to be, and about how much more it would have cost if we’d called in a tradesman to effect the repairs.
