DAY 68
Week 10
CORINTH (Texas, USA)
Tuesday May 21st, 2019
TODAYS MILEAGE – 16 miles / 26 kilometres
TRIP MILEAGE – 23,809 miles / 38,317 kilometres
Today Dallas, well northern Dallas technically as I’m 58 kilometres (36 miles) from the city centre, awakened to more intermittent torrential downpours starting around 3:10 AM this morning and lasting until mid-morning.
The rains put the kibosh on trying to resolve the A/C drain repairs, as there was no way I was climbing an aluminium ladder in rainstorms with the amount of lightening that was around – no Fro for this Bro!! No real dramas though, I had the hot water relief valve to sort out.
With the amount of renovations, repairs and re-work I’ve completed over the years, as well as the advice and assistance I’ve provided my mates with their new builds, it comes as no surprise to me that the “quality” of “workmanship” is solely reliant on builders enforcing the sub-contractors race to the cheapest and quickest solution for most works undertaken. This is especially prevalent with the so-called hidden trades of plumbing, electrical, heating & cooling.
The legacy of this was borne out at Mike & Bek’s place with me having to cut the hot water system drain pipe to be able to remove the Temperature and Pressure (T&P) Relief Valve. A simple two dollar PVC barrel union was all it would have taken. So instead of it being a simple 5-minute and $16.22 for the valve job, it would have cost at least an hours labour for a plumber, plus their callout fee, plus parts.
No matter for me, not that I make things ½ pregnant with any of my house repairs or projects, it took me a couple of hours to not only replace the valve, but also to plumb it correctly so that it’s a 5-minute job should it need replacing in the future. Most of the time was spent acquiring the parts required for the job, if the truth be told.
Lunch was a pretty ordinary affair at El Fenix, which hopefully does not rise from the ashes, should it burn down. The 'Lunch Menu' offering of a Chicken Chipotle Enchilada and a Sour Cream Chicken Enchilada for $8.99 could best be described as baby or retirement centre 'food'.
The afternoon was spent trying to track down some door sill protectors for my Ford Ranger, as well as sourcing a better solution for the mounting of the Boom Audio amps in the panniers of my Harley. Surely thier is a better mounting system than the double-sided tape the manufacturer ships the bike with - which is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.
By some stroke of Unicorn fairy dust, I also managed to update my corporate wardrobe and locate some replacement bed linen before someone fronted me and demanded my 'Man Card' back for crimes against Manderstanding and Metro-sexuality. 
• CORINTH ~ Sortin' Shit Out (Texas, USA)