Verizon, Truck Upgrades and Central Washington University

As I stated in an earlier posting we switched to Verizon.  Today I received my first billing and it was a whopper.  Over $300. in charges and they are charging me for a phone number I don't even have.  Wow, it should be an interesting visit to the Verizon store early next week.

My wife and her friends seem to have difficulty entering and exiting our 2 wheel drive Silverado, so today  I remedied the situation.  I installed new side steps much to the chagrin of my shoulder which is now hurting non stop.  I got these nice new side rails from Amazon.com and they were delivered free of charge to my wifes place of work, we have Prime.  Here they are wrapped securely in the box they came in.

I have to say that the packaging was excellent. Not a scratch on them.

First you have to crawl under the truck and remove the body bolts.  Those long bolts that hold the body to the frame and go thru some big rubber bushings.  You then take the supplied brackets and install them on the designated body bolt.  It takes three brackets per side and the bolts are a lot of fun (remember my shoulder) to get loose.  But loose they were and here is a picture of the brackets loosely installed.

And yes I am quite aware of the filthy truck.

The next step is to bring the side rail out and lay it alongside the truck so you can lift it up and insert the mounting bolts.  So you get out a drop cloth and lay it on the ground along side the truck so you don't scratch the new side rail by dragging it on the pavement.  I turned to go into the garage to unwrap and bring out the side rail and this is what I find when I return.  As you can see there is no place to put the side rail and she looks really comfortable.  Unfortunately she had to move and we had success at last.

Here they are installed and tightened as tight as I could get them. I ended up going to Lowe's and getting a one inch diameter, 24 inch long piece of pipe to put on my ratchet to give my weak shoulder more leverage and was able to tighten them farther than I had before.  I took a side view picture but I was really saddened by the condition of the truck, so what could I do?

Give it a bath.  Of course we didn't stop with just a bath, we did the inside and the windows and the works.  Now it looks really good with the new side steps on a clean truck.  And they weren't that hard to install.  I think I spent all of an hour putting them on.

I think Honey approves...I am never quite sure.

Tomorrow it is off to Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington.  We must travel I90 over the mountains and down into the farmlands of the east side of the state.  My grandson has a 2:00 o'clock p.m. tour scheduled and I plan to enjoy the town and campus as he learns about the possibilities that may await him.  I have said before that he is nuts about geology and this university has a fantastic geology sciences program.  I hope he likes it and continues to study hard so he can go to college, something that only my son has accomplished in my family so far.

Hope everyone had a great Easter.  I think I'd better take Honey for a walk before we have an accident.