Fix locally

I realized yesterday while dropping off my rototiller for repair that we Loves are doing a lot for the local economy this week. When we went to fire up the Craftsman tiller a couple of weeks ago, it wouldn't start. Bill sprayed nearly a whole can of fluid on the carburetor and yanked that starting rope at least 35 times only to arouse a momentary sputter. He finally gave up and said we'd take it to Leon's at Sandpoint Small Engines.

While it worked like a dream last fall, it couldn't defend itself against the wild wind and rain storm that blew its cover off. We discovered the tiller's exposure dilemma the next day when we found the tarp still covering the riding mower but definitely headed south from the rototiller's winter parking place.

Both the mower and the tiller spent the winter of 2004-5 in the barn, but wet weather and deep mud in the barnyard prevented us from getting them in their storage spots in time last fall. The tarp did an okay job protecting both implements, but that one north wind with all its piercing rain proved to be too much for a carburetor in dormancy.

So, off the tiller went to the fix-it shop. As Leon came out to take it from the pickup, I noted that our new old motorhome was parked across the street at Melody Muffler. Bill had driven it there earlier yesterday morning and left it for Dean Rynearson to install a new muffler, exhaust, and anything else he thought it might need for noise reduction. We were hoping that Dean's work would eliminate the blue smoke and backfiring that got Young Mr. Spade's attention last week as it burped up the hill to the Schweitzer Conoco.

While not expecting a call from Dean Rynearson because of Bill's prior arrangement to pick up the motor home after work, I did wait around the phone yesterday afternoon to hear from Leon. He told me in the morning that the tiller would probably be ready at the end of the day. He never called. I'm hoping he just got busy and that the tiller is, indeed, fixed for a reasonable fee and ready to go.

I also did some phone waiting to hear from the folks at Sandpoint Computers who've had my main computer for two days. It's the one, readers may recall, that flushed out 9,000 email messages from the inbox a week or so ago.

For a few days after that gut-wrenching event, I spent an insane amount of time troubleshooting to figure out what had gone wrong and how I might fix it myself. I even downloaded a supposedly free version of spam detection, only to find out that once it does a scan it tells you about problems you've never heard of and to register if you wish to go further for the fixing process. That means it's not free.

When it got to the point that I was rebooting my computer 40 times a day just to get my Outlook Express Inbox open only to have the "illegal" sign stop all downloading of mail, I gave in and took the thing for repair. So far, I've talked to two technicians, and they still haven't figured out what kind of "vile" gremlin has taken up residence within the system.

Those folks down there scare me when they talk and use words like "evil" or "malicious" and ask me how old my daughter is when I say that one of the programs on the computer might be her chat stuff which she uses when she comes home for visits. It makes me wonder what kind of stuff is infiltrating the technological brain that I've come to rely on for running so much of my life.

They don't want to send the computer home until they know what the evil demon happens to be lurking deep within its bowels, and I don't want it here either if it's just gonna come back and keep disordering my day. I'm hoping a major cyber-exorcism will occur today and that when they call me up, I won't have to take out a loan to pay for the repairs. Those folks are usually pretty good to me except for their continued lectures about not using Outlook Express.

When all is said and done, Dr. Leon and Dr. Dean, along with the techie team of Seth, Dawn, Chris, Carol and anyone else they can find off the street to eradicate that computer bug will be better off financially when the Love's write their checks this week. We're hoping, through these local fix-it services that we'll have a motor home that purrs like a kitten, a tiller which will work the dirt and a computer that will keep my daily affairs in order and those damn cyber invaders out of my business.