My Finishing Kit was delivered today! Unfortunately, the process did not go flawlessly. The delivery was made by BAX Global, who told me this morning that they'd call me before the driver headed my way. Instead, they dropped off the crate at lunch time, unannounced, at the FBO, and never notified me. An hour later, as I drove past the maintenance hangar, I noticed it sitting out on the ramp by itself, unattended. I also noticed two large forklift holes punched into one end of the crate. I called Van's and asked them if I should even open the crate, or whether I should just send it back and file a claim. They instructed me to examine the contents and report back. To make a long story short, I opened the crate and found a dime-sized partial puncture of my lower cowl. The hole is only in the surface layer -- it did not go all the way through the cowl -- so I feel confident that I'll be able to fix the damage later. It'll be much easier to do this than to deal with a month's delay and stacks of paperwork to get a small settlement and not have the airplane parts I need. Needless to say, I won't be taking any of my business to BAX Global in the future.
Later in the day, after unpacking and taking inventory of everything, I managed to get a little work done: I test-mounted an XLR jack in the right-side mid cabin cover. This will provide an easy way to charge my auxiliary EFIS battery with an external charger. I like XLR plugs for applications like this because they're "keyed" and you can't goof up the plug polarity. [Superseded several times!]
I also removed the gear tower access covers, and prepped and primed them.