Crazy week end and weekend.

I picked up Nestina after school Thursday and we spent the evening in Traverse City. We once again covered a lot of ground and talked through the transition to her living here. The exact timing is still being worked out, but it still looks as if she will be with us before Christmas.

Friday was work and snowplowing at the church. I got home around 11pm. I will certainly be glad when the regular snow plow guy gets back from his vacation in the Caribbean.

Saturday, I picked up a new generator. The one we were using was getting cranky. It was supposed to be for the cabin anyway, so I dropped that one off for a complete mechanical check-out and dropped $4K on a twin-cylinder, water-cooled Honda. Very quiet. In fact you can stand right next to it when it is running and have a conversation at normal volume. Nice. The rest of Saturday was spent getting that set up and running, then working on homework, house stuff, and a lesson for Sunday.

Sunday started at 5am plowing the church parking lot again. I was also the church taxi driver. I picked up four people on the way to church the second time Sunday morning. Afterwards was dropping them all back off, with a brief stop at Burger King for lunch with everyone. Then back to the church for more plowing, to my parents to plow them out, and finally to actually plow my own road and driveways. Then back to church for evening service (only two people to pick up this time). Debbie finally made her way north and met us in the church parking lot. We told her it was all her fault for the below-zero temps because she has spent the last week in 80-plus degree weather. We had Communion and I was serving. I had wanted to sit with Debbie and our "kids," but I ended up being one of the servers. It will be nice when I get off the deacon board and can go back to a semi-normal existence. Afterwards, I dropped people off while Debbie went home to unpack. We sat up late trying to compress the last ten days into a couple hours.

Monday morning started badly. Our brand new $4K, twin-cylinder, water-cooled generator refused to start. I was outside at 4am dragging one of the old generators out of the garage and getting it hooked up and running. I am working from home so I can keep an eye on it and also try to figure out what is wrong with the Honda. I dragged the thing inside thinking that enough moisture had gotten into the fuel system while it was being shipped around the country to freeze up something in the carburetor, but no joy. Now I have to find someone who can help be drag the thing up into the truck and haul it back.

This whole thing brings up something I've been really wondering lately: are there any competent people left in the world? My parents have been fighting with every person that sends them a bill over charges that they never made, double billing, and lost payments. Everybody they know is going through the same thing. I have a virtual junk yard out here full of poorly-designed and poorly-manufactured products. Are we to the point where nothing more complex than a hammer can be purchased with any reasonable assurance that it will work more than once?

Anyway, I need to go off in search of a strong back and a weak mind. Too bad the youth group kids all live in Kalkaska and don't have cars...

Later.