I've somehow managed to snag myself on some bad luck.

A few nights ago I heard a mouse and saw some rodent droppings in the garage. I bought a mousetrap and set it up with peanut butter. The next day the trap was sprung but only bits of fur, and the peanut butter, remained.

Since I've been painting in the garage this concerned me. (More on that later, when I actually finish the project) Also, some items had been knocked off the shelves and several cardboard boxes had been ripped up, nearly through to the containing artwork.

Last night I decided to further investigate and used a push broom to move a bunch of stuff outta the way when I heard rustling coming from behind some boxes. I see something large and furry crawling back behind more stuff. (My garage is quite full of stuff). It didn't look like a mouse. Or even a big rat. It was certainly bigger, and faster, than a rat. I kept moving stuff outta the way, keep at broom handle length, when suddenly out jumps a Beaver, easily the size of a small 15 or 20lb dog or cat. I wasn't startled or scared or anything... I just watched it crawl behind a dishwasher that I had in the garage (I told you it was full of stuff). At this point I ID'd it as a beaver and went back inside the house to hit the Internet. My local Humane Society was closed at 8pm at night, but the site said to call the local police, which I did. 5 minutes later 3 cop cars show up. They can't trap him, only scare him out of the garage. I considered keeping him in the garage until the next morning so the HS could trap him, but then I noticed, to my financial horror, that the little bastage had chewed through the power cable of my electric lawn mower. This did not make me a happy camper. The police offered to either scare it outta the garage so not wanting anything else to be destroyed, I accepted their offer. I really didn't want the sucker to get caught in someone else's garage, or run over by a car, but I couldn't afford any more damage. Heck, I can't afford the current damage done. As they scared him outta the garage he came straight at me. I calmly but quickly braced myself between the 2 cars I was standing between and lifted my legs to let the dude pass right under me. Wish I had taken a picture of him at some point. It woulda made a nice blog entry.

The other major suckage is that Violet's Xterra's AC is out. I bought some refrigerant and filled it just fine, but it only lasted a few days. Figuring I may have done it wrong (Getting pressure was difficult in 95 deg weather) I checked the Internet and found some Nissan forums. The compressor wasn't kicking in, and I read that after 400 bucks of hose replacement repairs and diagnosis by several people, the Thermal Control Amplifier is what ended up needing replaced. 40 bucks. SO I went and bought one and tried to replace it myself. The Thermal Amp, or AC Thermistor as some call it, is a temperature gauge that overrides the AC compressor switch to make it kick on. Something like that. Anyway, The part I got wasn't even close to the original so I took it to the dealer this morning and had them troubleshoot it. They're results were... unfortunate. The compressor and hose line both had a large leak in them and needed completely replaced. Parts were due in on Wed. This isn't something I could do myself since I don't have the tools and vacuum equipment required for this sort of repair. Total cost estimate at this time is about 850 bucks. Le Ouch. So much for that new mattress I promised to buy Violet. ;(