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Wins and Waterloos
Why I Was Gone Right After I Came Back
I hit a rock with my Snapper lawn mower. When it wouldn’t start again, I knew what had happened. Normally I would take it to my local small engine shop, but the mower is old, so I watched a few YouTube videos and ordered the parts online. I had to take the flywheel off and replace the flywheel key. The flywheel didn’t come off easily. I watched more YouTube videos and bought… again online… a flywheel “puller”. Really, I bought two, because the first one I bought was the wrong size. Once I had the right size, it took a little work, but I removed the flywheel, then replaced the flywheel key, and the machine started up like a champ. It’s been running ever since.
Score: 1 for Gutbloom and the Mechanical Age
I had to take a trip to Chicago this summer because my only child, Mayor McFreaky, was graduating from Navy boot camp. The whole trip had to be 100% refundable due to the fact that the date of graduation could change right up until the last week. I booked through Expedia because it feels like a travel agent.
In my twenties, when I was working in the Boston Public Schools, I lived in West Roxbury. I went to a chain-smoking travel agent who looked and talked like my aunts. I would walk in and say, “I want to go to Bermuda” and she would ask, “how much do you want to spend?”…
