I’m doing an okay job of keeping busy this weekend until getting another ultra sound next week. I’m not riding very much. Just an hour or two a day, super easy.

Friday was a treat going down to the SPCA (Animal Shelter) with Sue and her friend, Jan. Jan is animal loving, billionaire who funded the building. The state of the art facility is named after her. The nicest shelter I’ve ever been to, by far. I usually don’t like animal shelters much, for obvious reasons, this place was wonderful. If all shelters were like it, I’d think we, as a society, would do a much better job of placing our animals in homes. I am an animal guy, so it was a very good experience. Pictures below.

There are races everyday here. I’ve managed to make it over to the first two. McKinney on Friday night was an all Elbowz Team show. I never saw the final results, but they were definitely 1-2-3, plus maybe 4-5. They nearly did the same thing down in Georgetown last weekend. I beat the local riders hate it.

I have to install a new radiator in my van. It took me a while to find the problem. I nearly couldn’t believe that there could be a hole that big in the radiator. It was spraying water. I would a bet it was a hose. The hole is in the back of the radiator, near the top. I spent a hour on the phone trying to track one down before the holiday. These vans are a pain in the ass to work on. It is going to take me a good while to get it in. The radiator cost $250 dollars. I called a couple places and since it is a holiday, they couldn’t get to it until Wednesday. And it was going to cost well over $1000 dollars. Up to $1600. That is way too much labor for something like this. I say that now. We’ll see how I feel about that in a couple days.

Okay, here are some pictures of the SPCA.

Jan carrying her bag of doggie treats to the SPCA named in her honor.

Sue and Jan.

I thought this saying was great. I agree completely.

The cat area was awesome. I bet they don't even want to be adopted.

The surgical area was state of art.

This is Tank. He was my favorite.

Jan is obviously into dogs. This is beside her door at her house. A gazillion dollar piece of art used to hold the leashes and such.

This radiator wants to be inside the engine compartment.

The van is back in drivable condition. At least that is good. It took awhile, but not as long as I’d thought. I have the Ford Shop manuals for the van, but don’t carry them around. I don’t really use shop manuals for auto repair other than specifications and such, usually anyway.

I took me a long time to get the radiator itself. And it is jammed in there. I think the way that the manual would recommend would be to remove the fan shrouding and fan itself. I didn’t do it that way. I removed the intercooler for the turbocharger and that gave me enough room to pull the radiator up.

The tool selection I had was interesting. Pretty frustrating and thought provoking at the same time. I was using a lot of box ended wrenches when I would have normally been using sockets. I had to be pretty inventive sometimes, which was fun. In the end, it worked out good.

Just did a lap of White Rock Lake. The masses are out on Memorial Day. Even though it is pretty hot, maybe not for Dallas standards. I’m not going to make it downtown to the race today. I made it to 3 out of 4 of the races, so that seems like enough bike race watching.

I’m kind of getting antsy for the next ultra sound on my leg, so am probably not going to hang around Texas too long. Probably head back tomorrow after Trudi flies in from Greenville.

I just borrowed a bag of tools that my friend Rod Lake had thrown together. It was just enough to get by with.

I was using a small stool to get a little height so I didn't destroy my legs.

This was the damage. If I was home, I probably could have taken this and got it welded. Actually, my friend Joe Irwin is a HVAC guru and could have done it in his sleep.

One thing I hate about automobile repair is the number it does on your hands. It seems like messing with diesel cars is worse for some reason.