Last minute, yard work, other work

I was in class yesterday as a student. It was a good class taught by a coworker I trained to teach the class. He did a great job – even giving Red Shaw (another instructor) and I some good tips to include in our presentations. Though it took me away from many things I needed to be doing to catch up to the last few weeks of travel and training as well as prepare for next week’s travel and training, it was time well spent. I have to keep reminding myself of that because I walked into a mess this morning.

Tomorrow I will be presenting an internal version of the same class I will be presenting next Monday morning. It is a great opportunity for me, but it is very last minute. No preparation for this class has been made and as I discovered rather belatedly, no preparation has been made for the classes next week either. No books printed and bound. No tests printed. No certificated made. Nothing. With tomorrow being taken up by a last-minute training, I will have only today to get all the wheels moving to make the arrangements for materials for next week. Whether or not we get anything printed for tomorrow is not nearly as important to me. It is for information and for fun. But as of this morning, no one knew who was attending or how we were going to present the class…internal only, video conferencing, net meeting conferencing, etc. Oh, well. I will do my best to make it a worthwhile presentation. Helpful information. An interesting morning.

With our mower in the shop, Mama is antsy to find a way to get the grass cut. Typically, this time of year we do not have much grass to cut, but we have had some unexpected rainfall and the grass is responding accordingly. We did get in touch with Roger yesterday – maybe it was Tuesday. He has looked at the mower but has not broken down the engine. It is pumping oil into one cylinder so, either the rings are bad, or the cylinder is shot. Replacing bad rings is a simple, inexpensive issue. If the cylinder is shot, we will need a new long block replacement on the engine. That part is about $800. Either way we will pursue the repair. For a $7,000 mower, $1000 in repairs does not seem unreasonable. How long it will take to get that done is not known. Roger did advise we get a better air filtration system installed on the mower since we are using it in very dusty service. Since that is what ruined the engine, I definitely agree. Mama is trying to get Grandpa to bring his mower over this weekend to help keep the yard trimmed. I am not sure we will have time for that, but if Mama wants it done, we will make time – providing Grandpa is up to it.

With Hurricane Dorian’s change in trajectory, Maggie has been told that evacuation is not mandatory. I have not talked to her since that change of directive was issued, but I assume she will stay put. During the last hurricane that rolled across the Wilmington area, their apartment complex did not lose power so is it a good bet that she will be safe through this one also. At least, we pray so.

Teaching tomorrow. Out next week until Friday. After that, things slow down for a couple weeks – work wise. Mama and I are hoping they speed up regarding work being done on our houses, but that is in the Lord’s hands. At this point no work of any significance has happened on the houses since May. Disappointing but not devastating.