"Very little is known of the Canadian country since it is rarely visited by anyone but the Queen and illiterate sport fishermen." - P.J. O'Rourke

I'm feeling SO much better.
I'm not one of those guys who can't ask for directions, and this morning I called Daytona Parts in Florida. That's the firm where I got the electric choke that didn't solve the problem. They were very helpful with that transaction so I called to see if one of the guys out in the shop could give me some help. Why is this choke still getting jammed?
"You need to talk to Tim."
"Hello, this is Tim. How can I help?"
I told him I had a Holley #1931 and what's wrong with it. He told me he had that same carb on the shelf, and went to get it.
"Well! This carb is doing the same thing!"

Praise the Lord!! I was beating myself up assuming I'd done something wrong during the rebuild process, and it turns out it's not my fault.
Seriously, I was/am genuinely thankful to get an answer, never mind one that cleared me of guilt, and the rest of the day got much brighter.
I'll spare you the details but this crazy carb has a tiny piston associated with the choke mechanism and he discovered as we talked that on his carb the piston was frozen in place. I hadn't opened that section up but he thinks mine is probably frozen, too. He's sending me a new Welsh cap so I can pry this one off, free up the piston, and put the new cap on. And their not charging me for the cap! They mailed it today so it won't arrive until the middle of next week, but I'll gladly wait.
One of the reasons I like working on cars is that for all the hair pulling I learn a lot. I already knew that Holley carbs were less than stellar, but now I know that Model #1931 rates as a low even by Holley standards.
If you ever need help with an old carburetor call the good people at Daytona!

Chris Economaki died. He was 91.
If you know who he was you're in a select group.

We watched some of the Ryder Cup today. It was fun to see Mickelson and Bradley, almost a generation apart in years, tearing the course up and acting like kids in the process. They made a great pairing. Then there was Tiger Woods, spraying the ball all over the place and missing gimmee putts. Forgive me for my schadenfruede.
In Thursday's practice round Woods hit a drive so far off target that it smacked a spectator in the head and knocked him out cold. Tiger gave him an autographed golf glove as an apology gift.

We went out for dinner tonight to a place with real menus and cloth napkins! We talked about the future and decided we don't know a whole lot of things we probably should.
I'm glad we're on the same team.