Tuesday weekend catch-up

So this week's catch-up post comes to you in reverse chronological order.  Therefore we start with today, which had the wheels fall off soon after lunch.  We have an old-style boat made with two longitudinal panels instead of 5 or six side to side ones.  I call it a "whale".  The long panels are about 8 yards long, instead of 3 1/2 yds on normal boats.  So needless to say, I cross my fingers that nothing bad like a defect happens while it's cutting these enormous panels or the fifty thousand or so bands it needs to put it together.

And so, bad thing #1:  These boats are so old, many of them are not on the system with a part number, but with a description, which means instead of it scanning over to my machine, I have to bring it up manually- if I know what the description # is, which I didn't.  This involved a five-minute office trip that got me nowhere I couldn't have figured out myself.  So, "33776A" becomes "SL200LS-ERP-12", and away we go.  I have only about 18 yards left on my fabric roll, and that's about what it's supposed to be, so I have an outside chance of getting it all if nothing else goes wrong.

And so, bad thing #2:  For whatever reason, these big panels have a couple of tight corners that, if the blade is worn and I have the pressure maxed out, it will either reset the machine or break the blade- either of which, on MY machine (thought not on the other) means 8 yards of fabric have just been shot up the butt.  And, sure enough, on the last tight corner on the second panel, the blade broke.  So I changed the blade- not taking into account that the belt on my machine is getting so bad that if I forget to turn the air back on before I home the machine prior to restart, it will mess up the blade.

And so, bad thing #3.  So while I cut some of the bands, my floor lead gets me another roll of fabric ("black cherry"), and soon I am struggling to get the remaining pieces cut.  Struggling, because the blade has a nick from homing it without the air on.  Get all the way to the last piece- and there's bad thing # 4, a defect square in the middle of the last piece.  I take the opportunity to change the blade- again forgetting to turn the air on before homing, #5- and recut that piece.  Change the blade again- this time leaving the air on.  But this time, when I went to put the blade holder back on the machine, the tiny little screw that holds it on fell out and hid, #6.  After wasting 5 minutes looking for it, I turned to the tool drawer for a spare- and found none, #7.  Finally found it after pulling back the belt to see that it rolled into a nearly-inaccessible crevice.

In cases like these, I assume that the boat will sink upon delivery to the customer.


We move on to Sunday, where we saw an exciting NASCAR race that saw my three drivers, Truex, Larson, and Chase Elliot- finish 1-2-3.  And after, Kyle Busch decides to go kick Joey Logano's butt for wrecking him at the end (which may or may not have been what happened.)  But he went to Logano's pit, where Logano's pit crew were, without taking his own guys along.  As you might expect, it did not go well for Kyle.  In fact, it inspired me to make a meme and post it on FB:

And that brings us to Saturday, which featured the birthday of Jessica's son Aaron, who just turned 10:

Lighting the cake

Love the eyes here...

"Yeah, Peanut, when I turned ten, Dad took me to Hooters..."

I can't wait till I get cake...

2 for one- Jessica picking her nose and Shenan showing off her latest hickey.

And later on, I get my first taste of legal Indiana Yuengling