More Raccoon Tales

Did the last 5K racewalk of the four race series Saturday morning. Didn't get any faster but my running buddy decided to stick with me rather than run it, so we gabbed a bit while out on the course. We were still the first walkers in by a bunch, so we're definitely the ones to beat in that group. I'm doing another 5K in August but I'll have to pick up the pace if I want to beat my buddy Jimmy for the dinner bet we've got going. 

After the racewalk I had a wedding to attend in the afternoon, so that shot the better part of the day. When I came home and opened up the garage door to park the wife's car, I was in for a big surprise. Apparently a raccoon had gotten in the there and decided it wanted out while we were gone. Chewed up the bottom of the service door and scratched a bunch of the insulation off the roll-up doors. Also managed to chew about a 10" chunk of wire from the safety switch along the bottom of the doors so I had to pull the emergency release to get the door down. It also knocked a bunch of things off the shelves and generally wreaked havoc. I cleaned up most of the mess so I could get the car in and then went back out later and there was more damage done so it was still in there. I got the shotgun, opened the big door, turned on the light and then took up a position to ambush the little bugger when he came out. I waited for about an hour thinking it would come out when it got dark, but he was a no show. I finally left the door open and the light on and gave up the vigil. It just wasn't worth any more mosquito bites. Everything looked OK in the morning so I guess it left. Everything is cleaned up and fixed now. I'll just have to be more careful about leaving a door open in the future. I think I'm going to have to start running a trap line to keep the population in check. Maybe start a raccoon skin cap business.

I did get a couple of little jobs done in the last couple of days. In the top photo are the brackets for the deck off the end of the new barn. We had some formed angle made out of stainless at the college that were just about right. The lab tech wanted some of it cut up to make slats for the burning table so I plasma cut all of his parts when I did mine. I still need to drill some holes so I'll throw them on the mill for that. I can slow the speed down on the mill which should prevent any issues drilling that stainless. It's real easy to work harden the stainless if you don't keep a chip rolling off it. Slow and steady wins the race.

The bottom photo is a right angle saw. The motor for it burned up, so the lab tech is making some Rube Goldberg rig to hook it up to a drill motor. I bored out the coupling on the right side of the photo. Nothing much to it and it keeps me in good standing in the shop at school.

Have a good week. I'll keep pecking away at things on my end.