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About a week ago during church the three youngest decided that it would be a good time to have an argument.  I have no idea what they were fighting about, nor why it was that important to have at that given time, but they kept discussing items rather loudly and very animatedly.  It involved prodding, poking, pinching, and any activities you can think of that involve pestering, or bothering their seat mate.  This continued for the better part of 30 minutes regardless of the encouragement from their parents to keep quite and keep their hands to themselves. I still don't know what the argument was about (probably something very important like what batman said or didn't say in the movie they watched a week prior), but it ended them up in a practice session.  Occasionally they merit a practice session where we travel back over to the church after all meetings and concluded and we sit down on a bench and be quite for 5 consecutive minutes. This was the first practice session where I didn't have to restart the timer.  Normally these 5 minute practice sessions last about 40-50 minutes.  Maybe they are improving, or perhaps I caught them at a time when they were just tired, or maybe the argument was settled.  Regardless, hopefully they will show some restraint going forward.

For those who have visited our house lately know that Terra's dislike for our house in its present condition has participated into some action, albeit slow action.  About a week ago, this was the state of our kitchen.  We had removed the back splash tile and all of the tile on the counters.  The jack hammering of the old tile and cement board off the counters made this a very dusty job. Dad even came out and helped us do some demolition and reconstruction efforts.  The living in a construction zone is not very fun.  Truth be told, I am losing my desire to restore order have slowed down on my work. The two tiles on the floor were going to be replaced by some of the tiles that were removed from the counter, but alas, they are different colors.  This color mis-match has increased the scope of the kitchen project.  Flooring manufactures constantly discontinue the color of their current offerings such that if you have a failure of a flooring component, in this case a couple of tiles, then you need to either deal with an obvious color mis-match.  OR, they hope you choose to match the color by removing and reinstalling the entire floor.

As of today, this is the kitchen. This is where we are at now with the flooring. Needless to say, it will probably be bare concrete for a few months before we get to it. The sheet rock on the back splash didn't survive the tile removal and will also need to be completely replaced.  Oh yea!  At least all the lights are back in working condition. I should be working on the kitchen right now (as the family is in Pinetop, but here I am writing a letter).

Kyle has taken a keen interest into the shooting sports.  I don't know if his interest is a result of his friends interests or of his own invention.  Regardless, he took a hunter education course on-line.  This was a series of videos to watch and taking a multiple choice test.  I know he passed, but I don't know how many he missed of if he needed to re-take any of the tests, but he was diligent at sitting down and watching all of the supplied videos.  Following the tests he had to participate in a range session.

The range session lasted about 5 hours and was held at the Pima County fair grounds (south on Houghton Road in Tucson).  He enjoyed the classroom experience much more than the internet based class.  Hopefully this multiple learning experiences will stay with him when he goes to select higher educational facilities and remembers there is more to get out of a classroom setting than is available on-line. Most of these activities were to prepare him to participate in a "Jack Camp".  The Jack camp is a 3-day, 2-night camp where he gets to hunt jack rabbits and they instruct and allow the participants how to process the animal after they expire. It is supposed to be this next weekend, but the information dissemination has amounted to less than smoke signals and at this point I am unsure if it will happen.  I guess it will happen, but I don't know if Kyle will be in attendance as I don't know the where, what, or how to make it happen.  Getting children to pass on important details is similar to loading unwilling swing into confined spaces of vehicles.  It can happen, but with considerable amount of effort on the part of the non-participant.

Our boat has been in some of our letters before, but here it is again.  This time it is shown in an un-natural environment.  Instead of being on the water it is on the side of the interstate.  This story begins about 4-years ago.  When we were adding Jannelle to our family, I realized that my bronco would no longer suffice for our family transporting needs.  This search of what to get started a point of view conflict between Terra and I on what vehicle should replace it. I wanted the ability to pull a trailer, go camping and have a tailgate.  This yielded really only one car.  A pre 1991 Suburban.  Well Terra doesn't like old cars, so I kept looking and found the 4-door bronco.  I proceeded to convince Terra into owning one of these rare cars and flew to Boise, ID to purchase one and drove it home.  After I arrived home, I embarked on the process of changing the engine from a mechanical 7.3 diesel 7.3 liter to a computer controlled 7.3L diesel powerstorke engine.  I wont go through the details, but the project to make that engine swap took way to much money and lasted 3+ years.

It did pull the boat to the lake without any issues other than the kids complained that the A/C was inadequate and Terra didn't like the ambient noise (it was difficult to talk to someone on the phone while sitting inside the vehicle).  This led to more money to fix the problems and the noise was reduced, but the A/C never was.  The last straw came when we were walking home from AJ's house last thanksgiving.  As I have resisted this decision I failed to realize one theorem: "When mama ain't happy, ain't no one happy."  I finally broke down and we acquired a newer suburban to replace the centurion.  After accuring it, I wanted to test out how well it pulled the boat - so we hooked up the boat and drove up to the Thing and back.  On the way back, I looked in the rear view mirror and noticed copious amounts of smoke rolling out of the driver side trailer tire.  We pulled over and alas, the bearing had failed.  Notice the axle is sitting on the hub and is no longer centered in the hub.

This resulted in a tow truck to move the trailer back to our house.  I didn't want to chance the tire falling off, nor did I want to work on it on the side of the freeway. Once it was delivered home (and I wanted a change from Sheet rock work) I took the bearing apart to see what the issue was, and if I could salvage the spindle and axle.  I greased the bearings when I first took ownership of the trailer, so the failure was perplexing, but one of the joys of owning someone else's problems (used equipment) is that these types of surprises get sprung on you when you are not expecting them.

I guess it is a good thing that the trailer wiring harness on the car wouldn't power the trailer lights as I would have taken this trip in the dark the night before.  Had I made the trip in the dark I would not have seen the smoke and would have ended up dragging the trailer down the freeway minus one tire.  When I went out to work on the bearing, I jacked up the trailer and just pulled the tire off without taking anything apart.  The driver side otter bearing was completely toast.  The spindle had a score on it, but I think it is going to be just fine.

Since I pulled off the outer bearing, I decided to also take a look at the inner bearing.  It looked to be in good shape, although there was spalling in the otter race and also needed to be changed.  I decided to also take the passenger side apart and see if those bearings also needed changed (I assumed they were all replaced a the same time).  What I found was astonishing.  The passenger side bearing appears to have been changed before, but the outer race was not changed, and simply the bearing was replaced the easy way resulting in a bearing fit that didn't match up.  All of the tapered rollers are supposed to riding on the race.  As you can see below, the otter race doesn't containing all of the rollers, but only about 35-40% of the bearing surface.  I suspect this is the reason why the driver side bearing failed.  I am assuming they were replaced prior as a pair.

So, one of these next weekends I get to make another trip into Bearing, Belt & Chain in Tucson to get some new bearings.  I cannot just order one as I don't know what size the outer bearings need to be.  The OD of the otter race is correct, and the ID of the inner race is also correct, but the bearing needs to mate in the otter race and this one doesn't.  I am going to change all four bearings along with the bearing caps and castle nuts.  The driver side hardware was all used up.  Luckily the tire didn't come off on its own. The joys of used equipment...

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