Current Mood: Erm…

A week or so ago, I took this year’s first ride on my riding mower. Luckily, it started right up. But something weird happened–it scalped the lawn! That shouldn’t have happened, because I set the deck at 4 inches…which should have been more than enough clearance for the high spots. Yet it not only didn’t clear them, it made them into clouds of dust!

The reason for that became clear when I put it away: There was a nearly-flat tire. That made the whole thing ride lower, and on an angle, to boot.

So I ignored that until yesterday. Yesterday, I decided to mow, and as soon as I took it out of the shed, the fact that I found myself sitting at a sharp angle reminded me of the tire. I took it down to the driveway, and considered my options. I could ride it to the gas station, risking the tire…or use a manual bike pump to reinflate the tire.

Not wanting to have to buy a new tire any time soon, I decided to use the bike pump. This is one of those kind where you have to push/pull a handle down and up, requiring either lots of arm muscles, or lots of bending and straightening (letting my body weight work for me on the downstroke, but having to straighten back up to start the next stroke).

OMG what a bunch of work! They “only” need 12 pounds of pressure…but that’s a whole lot when the tire is big instead of a thin bike-sized one!! I gave it about 20 pumps and it looked a lot firmer…but when I checked with the tire guage, it didn’t even register! I thought the guage had to be malfunctioning. Then I tested it on one of my car’s tires. It wasn’t malfunctioning…

40 pumps later, the tire was back to full inflation. Then I got the bright idea of checking the other 3!

2 of them were down, too, at about 1/2 the correct pressure. Fortunately, they were the front ones, which are smaller than the back. But still, they needed 15 pumps apiece.

Next time one of those tires goes flat, I think I’ll just pump enough air in to let me ride to the gas station…

Current Mood: Angry

Two years ago, at a cost of $17,000, we had a new roof put on by Roof-Rite. Obviously, this wasn’t just a tear-off…there was a lot of rotten wood replaced, and the roof ended up being completely replaced along with it. At first, it was fine…the rain finally rolled off the roof instead of through it!

And this year, when it finally warmed up, the snow was melting off the roof…

And then last Friday, to our utter dismay, a big bunch of snowmelt came THROUGH IT like it used to!!! On top of that, it went through INTO THE TV. Now. It’s bad enough that I had to invest in a fricking TV in the first place. I may have even mentioned how I hate TV! So obviously I didn’t buy the thing for ME… My mother, however, loves the brain-destroying machine and has been pouting ever since the box turned to static.

So if it doesn’t go on now that it’s had a chance to dry up, it’ll mean buying another TV.

Needless to say, she called the roofing company and had their guy come out. But they DIDN’T FIX IT–instead, they claim that it’s some kind of problem with the masonry in the chimney. Which has indeed come to end-of-life…BUT, the claim that it would make a ROOF leak is a rather dubious proposition IMO.

And they made several other excuses and WILD, WILD scenarios that it sounds like just more BS. For instance, he said that maybe a kid got up on our roof and poured a bucket of water down the chimney! At 2:15AM. Without making any noise (yet you can hear a CHIPMUNK run across this roof!). And without tripping on the saplings around the house. And, somehow this “bucketful of water” miraculously warped out of the chimney and ended up coming through the roof!!! LOLOL if it wasn’t for the cost involved, it’d be both funny and pathetic. But at $17,000, it’s just pathetic.

So we’re going to get a mason’s opinion.

I can’t say for sure that Roof-Rite sucks or are crooks who aren’t honoring a valid warranty claim YET, but that’s the way I’m betting unless the mason says otherwise.

For the record, this Roof-Rite roofer serves the areas of: Commerce Township, West Bloomfield, Milford, Novi, Pontiac, Farmington Hills, and the rest of Southeast Michigan.