Spent most of the day (about 6 hrs) fighting with the lawn mower. I could have borrowed the grandparent's mower, mowed my front and back and have it back to them within an hour...but I was going to show that mower who was boss.
Gave the carb a good cleaning (Removed it, and scrubbed it out in a bowl of hot water and sprayed the inside with carb cleaner). In fact, I clean out the fuel lines, but still had trouble firing.
Then I got this brilliant idea. I'd clean out some of the small hole in the carb with a wire. So I took some twist ties and my lighter and melted the plastic off (this is something I've done hundreds of times in the past when I needed a small wire). I'm not sure how it happened, but a flaming bit of the plastic landed on the knuckle of my finger just below the nail...and melted itself under my skin. Not pretty (Plus, I got a few other friction burns on my hand, as well).
I finally got it started, but it was running rough. I decided to say "
it," and removed the governor spring to keep the throttle fully open (With a screw driver holding the switch open) and cut my front and back. I had it intended to edge my yard, too - but I was already behind schedule.