Relative Something

Opting to remain at rest since my body was already at rest when yesterday’s post-4th-of-July pickleball tournament was held, I wandered down to observe as a spectator after the competition was already underway.

They achieved a good number of participants who did an impressive job of keeping games close, providing plenty of entertainment for the gathered crowd, made up mostly of other players waiting for their next game.

After I’d witnessed at least one game by most of the teams, I made my way back to the house by way of the beach, where I paused to hang for a bit while Cyndie, Elysa, and Ande were floating on or soaking in the lake. After so many days away from home, I’m finally getting the hang of doing nothing without needing to convince myself I can get away with it.

In fact, it feels a little daunting to contemplate revving my energy up again to tackle all the projects that will be awaiting me back at Wintervale. We expect to be on the road before noon today for the drive south to Pierce County, where we will find the hay field has been cut and baled, and the lawn grass about two weeks tall.

Yesterday afternoon, I took on a challenge I’ve been skipping over for a long time. I keep an old floor pump for inflating bike tires up at the lake place, ever since I bought a nicer one to replace it at home. The thing is, the old one leaks air on every stroke. One of the reasons I haven’t dealt with it is that I couldn’t easily deduce where the problem was, nor how to get the lower pieces apart to get a look at what was wrong.

Finally, yesterday I was prepared to give it a go. First off, I did some research to see if I could find an exploded view or service information on this old model. I could not. I surfed through a few YouTube videos, but didn’t find any answers there. I did find some replacement parts that looked identical to my model, but nothing that revealed how it came apart.

I tried pulling with increasing force, but wasn’t making any progress. Then, I had a lightbulb moment of insight. One of the replacement parts I had seen included a hose. I searched for that image again and zoomed in. The end of the tubing had a threaded fitting on it. That was the secret. I needed to find a pliers because the rubber boot over the mating part did not budge against my finger strength. Knowing it should turn allowed me to grab it using pliers with much more confidence.

It came loose easily. All the subsequent connections unthreaded with ease as well. The broken gasket at the bottom junction became glaringly obvious.

I felt pride in having used my mechanical sense and a good dose of patience to work out the problem without breaking something in the process. It just took a little pickling around with the parts before I eventually reached the desired result.

I’m taking the ripped gasket home with me to see if I can find a suitable replacement. If not, it will be time to make one myself, probably by cutting up a discarded inner tube. Wish me luck.

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