THE SEA WEEDER IS SEA 'WACK'!! and other crap

It should have raised a red flag for me. When the guy from whom I purchased the boat told me that it had been sitting drydock unused for the last 5 years I should have realized that this meant it hadn't been taken care of properly over that time. And it hadn't. Not being used is another way of saying 'neglected'. First it was the disrtibutor, then it was the water pump, then the title issues came into view, then I realized the reason it was sluggish on startup was due to a battery that had too low of cold crank amps, so I switched that out for a new and better one. Everything was awesome. I started her up a dozen times in the driveway listening to her hum like a pro. I was elated. I had turned the corner and she was going to be running great from here on out. Then yesterday I started her up again just to double check her sound before taking Aspen and her friend out Sunday morning for a few hours of tubing. She barely wanted to start up, she was smoking and vibrating heavily, her RPM's had to be kept at 12000 otherwise she would stall out. Damnit! What now?! My educated guess was she needed new plugs. Thanks to an unconstitutional law in SC known as 'The Blue Law', no business other than grocery stores and gas stations can open their doors on Sundays until 1:30. Unless I wanted to wait for 5 hours I was gonna have to drive to the NC border and grab new plugs up there. So I did. I gapped and installed new ones to no avail, she still was coughing and sputtering. My second guess is that she is leaking gas into the carburaetor. That means she needs a new carburaetor gasket. I could try to install it myself but one mess up on my part could change a $100 job into a $500 job so I'll let the local boat mechanic, who now knows me by my first name now, take care of things. Which means since he's backed up by a week and won't be back in town until Thursday that I won't be out on the water with her for 2 weeks! Grrr! On a side note, Aspen and I went to the boat store the other day and looked at water skis and tubes for her. I asked which she would rather have and to my delight she wanted the skis! She has never been a big risk taker which I'm always trying to work on. I was pleased to see her opt for the more risky and challenging activity. Her eyes were aglow as the salesman demonstrated how the child skis work. In other news, Aspen and I are going to the minor league baseball game Tuesday night to see the firworks afterward. And she starts horse lessons this Saturday, which includes some kind of adopt a horse program. Great, he'll probably need new gaskets too before long. Thank goodness Tishy is coming down this weekend. I can use some lovin'!