We had to put our dog, Ross, to sleep this morning. He was at the vet all day yesterday. Apparently the cancer had gotten to his brain because anytime they tried to reduce his medication, he went into seizures. He's been my best friend for the past 12 years. I'd like to say something like "it feels like my heart has been ripped from my chest", but words can't come close to the emptyness I'm feeling.

Between bouts of sobbing I tried to distract myself by working on the plane. I really have no idea what I worked on and didn't get any pictures either.

Sigh. He was a good dog. He deserved better. I'll always love you, Ross.

My friend, Scott, came over tonight to help buck rivets. We got all the main ribs attached to the front spar. On the left spar I was using the double offset rivet set for driving these rivets and Scott was bucking. I ended up mushing the some of the manufactured heads to the side somewhat and we drilled out about a half dozen rivets. On the right spar, Scott suggested I switch to the straight rivet set. I did that and also changed my grip on the rivet gun...instead of gripping and pushing on the handle of the gun, I gripped and pushed on the back of the barrel of the gun. This way I was able to keep the push force in-line with the bucking action. This worked a lot better and pretty much every rivet on the right spar came out perfectly. There are quite a few on the left spar that aren't perfect, but they're plenty airworthy, so I'm gonna just leave them as-is.

By the way, this picture is totally faked. I didn't do a single one of these rivets solo. Scott and I had a good chuckle about the fakery. I needed that.