An Eary Birthday, the Flu and that Wallflowers Song

An Early Birthday

For those of you keeping score at home, it's still March. My birthday is some days away in April. Didn't stop me from coming back from the Bay Area (taking Frankie back after spring break) with three large Sears boxes - the bottom, middle and top of nice red Craftsman tool chests.

I had red Craftsman tools chests, but cheap ones from decades ago that I was outgrowing. (The middle and top boxes got progressively smaller on my old ones, and the bottom chest only had two drawers then a big open space behind a tilt-up door.) The new ones are almost square straight up (the middle and upper drawers are slightly less deep than the bottom drawers, but just as wide.) It sits in the same place as the old one, with the exact same footprint, but gives me at least double the storage. It's nice.

Today I got creative with the bottom cabinet of the old set. One of the popular items in shops and tool catalogs today are mobile tool carts - just little push carts you can roll to the car or whatever it is your working on and it holds the tools you need and the parts you take off the car and nothing rolls off the inside fender well because you have a flat place to set it. It occurred to me that the base of the old tool chest would make a fine mobile tool cart with better casters, handles on the sides, the door gone and a rubber mat on the top. So it has all of those things (and nice black Krylon under the rubber). It should work like a charm, and beats just setting it under the house.

The Flu

We apparently both have it.

That Wallflowers Song (One Headlight)

On our way to Berkeley yesterday I discovered the drivers-side lowbeam in the Hyundai was out, so today my fuzzy head and I drove to Angeles Camp, bought the bulb and drove home. I changed it, checked the headlights and viola, they both worked. Low and high beams. I gathered up my tools (no mobile tool cart yet!) and closed the hood and checked them again.

The passenger side low beam was dead. It had worked 30 seconds before. Tomorrow I'll buy TWO bulbs...