No, not a compooter. That one seems to be doing alright today. I poked around a bit on the web and discovered a number of people who have reported spontaneous reboots when running a virus scan with this particular program, so I uninstalled it and installed a competing (also free) program.
No crashes since then. Keep fingers crossed. I haven't run a full system scan yet. But I ran a "quick scan" and it completed without incident.
What I broke today was a mulching blade for my precious lawn tractor. I caught it on a metal landscape edging, and it bent down about 50 degrees. That's the same way I broke the only other one I've broken, but it was on a different piece of metal.
Now, breaking the lawn tractor blade this afternoon was shaping up to be a particular annoyance. See, I had fertilized the lawn about two weeks ago, and we got some rain, and it was growing like crazy. So it very badly needed mowing.
However, Lowe's appears to be phasing out Husqvarna as one of the brands they carry, and they only stock parts for tractors they actually sell currently. I imagine this is problematic no matter what you buy, as it usually isn't for a least a year before you need replacement parts, and by then they're selling something different.
So the local Husqvarna dealer is way the hell down in Loverlyland. It's the place I got my Berco snowblower. I called them up, and they were already closed for the day (close at 1pm on Saturdays). Not open at all on Sundays. And I'm not going to have time to chase all the way down to Loverlyland during the week.
But then I am struck with Brilliance! Husqvarna actually makes all the Craftsman tractors, and Sears also sells my model under both the Craftsman and Husqvarna brand names. I bet they have the part. After all, Sears is Parts Central.
So I hit their website and look up the part number for the mulching blade for my tractor. They have it as a Craftsman-branded blade, but it is guaranteed to be compatible (because the tractors are identical except for the paint, perhaps?). I hit the "tell me if it's in stock locally" link, and it says, "no."
Shee
it
But, Sears is run by KMart. So they're probably a bunch of idiots. I decide to head up there to make sure. HannahC decides to go along for the ride. The Mrs. decides to tag along to take MaxieC to Target, which is a couple blocks away, to get him a bubble machine as a reward for sleeping in his own bed the whole night.
Something he's done only once before in his life.
So, suddenly I go from mowing the lawn to hauling the whole family out for Saturday shopping in the minivan.
Grate.
When HannahC and I got to Sears, I quickly located three packs of the mulching blades. And then I realized why. These were two-blade packs (since the tractor takes two blades), and they had a different part number. And the contents were listed as "blade_part_number qty 2". So they didn't have any single blades. Only two blade packs. But the Parts Central website didn't tell me two blade packs even existed. The price for the two-blade pack was slightly more than double the price of a single blade on the website.
F'ing KMart.
Though to be fair, Sears has been messed up for as long as I can remember. Which is much longer than KMart has owned them.
Three of us also got haircuts. The Mrs. didn't cuz either she's too fussy to go to Great Clips, or she's married and has decided to let her looks go.
When I got back home and removed the old blades, I noticed they had multiple part numbers stamped into them. One was the Craftsman part number. So the only difference is the packaging.
We were officially allowed to use the deck today, as the sealer had dried (enough). We're still waiting for the special-order step lights The Mrs. selected and for the serving/storage roll-away cabinet. And the contractor is still waiting for his last check.
It's a good-looking deck.
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