Snow! And a Garbage Plate!

And then there was snow! It snowed 4 inches overnight, putting the Christmas wonder back into the land.

I've waited all year for this: a plate at Wimpy's Burger Basket with my brother (two hamburgs, macaroni salad, fries, spicy meat hot sauce, two slices of bread & butter served in a to go box slightly mixed together.) This place is not as famous as Nick Tahou's 'Home of the Garbage Plate', but it's closer and my brother and I can eat our fill there. Yummy! Here's a picture from another blogger of a garbage plate.

Out in Dad's shop we've tried our hand sharpening a wood gouge. Dad's been working on making wood bowls and this tool is used to carve the inside raduis on the wood lathe. We both took a turn sharpening the gouge and trying to follow the printed and DVD instructions, with mixed success.

I took apart an integrated TV/VCR unit which would not give up the half played video tape. It was easy to take apart, but very challenging to hand work the ejection mechanism, but eventually I got the tape out with only a couple of wrinkles on the tape. I discovered a blown fuse which might be a symptom of why the tape wouldn't eject. I have to get to radio shack to buy a replacement fuse so we'll see what happens when I replace it.

Dad's 1" Rockwell belt sander had a bearing go bad on the idler pulley, so I looked into that tool. Taking the pulley's off it seems most the bearings are worn out, so what I thought would be a simple bearing replacement job has turned into a hunt for substitute parts because the metal bearings are molded into the plastic wheels -- no pressing the old bearings out. And replacement parts are not available anymore. Dad's shop needs a metal lathe....

And I finished a book Jonelle gave me - "The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein. An enjoyable little novel.

Tomorrow the parents are busy, so I'll look around for a metal lathe to use to fix the pulleys, and hang with my brother after he gets off work.