SEARCH Travels With LD

May 02, 2008

Tick...tick...tick

Ever since I had the Lazy Daze' front brake rotors turned back in Demopolis AL I've been hearing this light tick..tick..tick from the left front wheel when passing a concrete barrier with the drivers window open. I jacked the wheel up and rotated it and I could hear the tick but I couldn't see into the wheel assembly well enough to definitely identify it. I was pretty sure it was the brake rotor lightly rubbing on a sheet metal shield and it didn't sound or feel like a wheel bearing so I ignored it. But darn, it didn't go away! The last couple of days I began to hear that tick..tick..tick even with the window closed and decided it was time to get that wheel pulled to check it out.

Turns out there is a Goodyear shop right handy by the Wal-Mart here in Sullivan MO and it didn't take too long to wander over there. And hang around in spite of a run in with poor customer service - at least the mechanics seem to know what they were doing.

Yep - it was indeed a bent shield.

But that's not all.

The tick..tick..tick was getting louder because the wheel was leaning harder and harder against the shield as the lower ball joint wore. Aha! - of course! That ball joint was one seriously worn puppy too. As was the right one. I knew there was a bit of looseness in the front end but it didn't seem serious and I was going to wait until I got home to check it out.Thank you ticking shield.

We're sporting nice new lower ball joints and the weather is going off the map. Life is good, Kate.

Night camp:

Wal-Mart parking lot, Sullivan, Missouri

Disaster and the Failure of Authority

Disasters are almost by definition about the failure of authority, in part because the powers that be are supposed to protect us from them, in part also because the thousand dispersed needs of a disaster overwhelm even the best governments, and because the government version of governing often arrives at the point of a gun. But the authorities don't usually fail so spectacularly. Failure at this level requires sustained effort. The deepening of the divide between the haves and have nots, the stripping away of social services, the defunding of the infrastructure, mean that this disaster—not of weather but of policy—has been more or less what was intended to happen, if not so starkly in plain sight.

The Uses of Disaster Rebecca Solnit, Harpers.org, September 9, 2005

more...