Sunday, July 17, 2005
Friday, 15 July 2005
The stars have finally aligned in Minnesota. For the people who knew us in Michigan, from time to time Kathleen and I would seem to have a series of three disasters one after another. We would grit our teeth and work through them. We have not had the same experience here in Minnesota, so we have become quite complacent. This week we have been making up for lost time. Oh, where to start.
This Friday adventure was to be chosen by Kathleen. The plan was to take in the sights at Maple Grove days, which had been widely publicized. Getting dressed up to walk in the heat we arrived just after noon on Friday. Not many cars Fred said. While Maple Grove days run from July 14th to the 17th, Kathleen had not read the very small print that there were no activities on the 15th except indoor ones for teenagers.
We quickly changed plans and headed off towards Tuesday Mornings, one of Alicia’s favorite haunts. We were unhappy to find that it was closed for restocking. We ended up at the Ridgedale Mall doing Christmas shopping only to find that Eddie Bauer Home Store is closing. We then headed home to dinner out with Kate and Gerardo. Gerardo wanted to go Timberlodge, which was not all that great, the food was barely passable, and the air conditioning was not working very well.
Saturday morning we found that our air conditioner would not run. This was the hottest day of the summer in the middle of the third longest heat wave in Minnesota history. Saturdays are of course ‘big clean’ days and this upset our schedule something terrible. We were done by noon with the clean and the temperature inside the house had risen from 75 degrees to 82 degrees while the outside temperature was up to 96 degrees. Fred’s friend, Pete Jensen, stopped over with some tools and it became apparent quite quickly that the motor starting capacitors had burned out. Of course it was afternoon by this time so most places were closed. Fred finally found some capacitors at a surplus junk store (The Ax Man) in the cities and wired them up. By this time the temperature in the house was a brutal 85 degrees. Here are pictures of the air conditioner compressor with Fred’s ‘work around’. It may not be pretty but it will keep us cool till the service people come on Monday.
# posted by Fred @ 2:23 PM 
