Random Thoughts

Muddy Ride

2010-12-31T10:55:00.002-06:00

I hate road construction. I know, it's something we all have to live with, but sometimes it can be a real pain in the butt. This is how Old Blue looked when I got home yesterday, the whole front of the bike is covered in mud from the road I have to ride to get to work and we've had a fair amount of rain the last couple of days. Well, time to get out the garden hose.

Another year gone

2010-12-26T15:37:00.002-06:00

Well, another year has gone by, and not a whole lot has changed. Sweety complained about not having a white Christmas, as far as I'm concerned I could care less if I every see snow again. I see it this way, if I get a desire to see snow, I'll head to the mountains, LOL.

Oh well, life goes on. I hope all of you have a good year in 2011.

The year is 1947

2010-05-03T21:11:00.002-05:00

The year is 1947

Some of you will recall that on July 8, 1947, a little over 60 years ago, witnesses claim that an unidentified flying object (UFO) with five aliens aboard crashed onto a sheep and mule ranch just outside Roswell , New Mexico . This is a well known incident that many say has long been covered up by the U.S. Air Force and other federal agencies and organizations.

However, what you may NOT know is that in the month of April 1948, nine months after that historic day, the following people were born:

Albert A. Gore, Jr..
Hillary Rodham
John F. Kerry
William J. Clinton
Howard Dean
Nancy Pelosi
Dianne Feinstein
Charles E. Schumer
Barbara Boxer

See what happens when aliens breed with sheep and jackasses?
I certainly hope this bit of information clears up a lot of things for you. It did for me.

No wonder they support the bill to help illegal aliens!

Political Thought of the Day

2010-04-19T20:55:00.002-05:00

DIVORCE AGREEMENT

THIS IS SO INCREDIBLY WELL PUT AND I CAN HARDLY BELIEVE IT'S BY A YOUNG PERSON, A STUDENT!!! WHATEVER HE RUNS FOR, I'LL VOTE FOR HIM.

Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al:

We have stuck together since the late 1950's for the sake of the kids, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce.... I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has clearly run its course.

Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right for us all, so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.

Here is a model separation agreement:

Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a similar portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.

We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military. We'll take the nasty, smelly oil industry and you can go with wind, solar and bio-diesel. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell (You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them).

We'll keep capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You can have your beloved lifelong welfare dwellers, food stamps, homeless, homeboys, hippies, druggies and illegal aliens. We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO's and rednecks. We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood .

You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us. You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we'll help provide them security.

We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values.. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism, political correctness and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N.. but we will no longer be paying the bill.

We'll keep the SUV's, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Subaru station wagon you can find.

You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors. We'll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right. We'll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem. I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute Imagine, I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya or We Are the World.

We'll practice trickle down economics and you can continue to give trickle up poverty your best shot.

Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag.

Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you Answer which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.

Sincerely,
John J. Wall
Law Student and an American

P. S. Also, please take Ted Turner, Sean Penn, Martin Sheen, Barbara Streisand, & Jane Fonda with you.

P. S. S. And you won't have to press 1 for English when you call our country.

This is one proposal that really should be passed around.

2010-04-06T20:36:00.003-05:00

For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress. Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they didn't pay into Social Security, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws. The latest is to exempt themselves from the Healthcare Reform that is being considered...in all of its forms. Somehow, that doesn't seem logical. We do not have an elite that is above the law. I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever. The self-serving must stop. This is a good way to do that. It is an idea whose time has come. Have each person contact a minimum of Twenty people on their Address list, in turn ask each of those to do likewise. In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one proposal that really should be passed around.

Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution

"Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States ."

Sounds like a pretty good idea to me, don't you think so?

E-Mail of the Year!!

2010-03-28T22:01:00.000-05:00

E-Mail of the Year!!

WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO TURN ON THE TV AND HEAR ANY U.S. PRESIDENT, DEMOCRAT OR REPUBLICAN, GIVE THE FOLLOWING SPEECH?

'My Fellow Americans: As you all know, the defeat of the Iraq regime has been completed.

Since Congress does not want to spend any more money on this war, our mission in Iraq is complete.

This morning I gave the order for a complete removal of all American forces from Iraq . This action will be complete within 30 days. It is now time to begin the reckoning.

Before me, I have two lists. One list contains the names of countries which have stood by our side during the Iraq conflict. This list is short . The United Kingdom , Spain , Bulgaria , Australia , and Poland are some of the countries listed there.

The other list contains every one not on the first list. Most of the world's nations are on that list. My press secretary will be distributing copies of both lists later this evening.

Let me start by saying that effective immediately, foreign aid to those nations on List 2 ceases indefinitely. The money saved during the first year alone will pretty much pay for the costs of the Iraqi war. THEN EVERY YEAR THEREAFTER It'll GO TO OUR SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM SO IT WONT GO BROKE IN 20 YEARS.

The American people are no longer going to pour money into third world Hell holes and watch those government leaders grow fat on corruption.

Need help with a famine ? Wrestling with an epidemic? Call France .

In the future, together with Congress, I will work to redirect this money toward solving the vexing social problems we still have at home. On that note, a word to terrorist organizations. Screw with us and we will hunt you down and eliminate you and all your friends from the face of the earth.

Thirsting for a gutsy country to terrorize? Try France or maybe China .

I am ordering the immediate severing of diplomatic relations with France , and Russia . Thanks for all your help, comrades. We are retiring from NATO as well.

I have instructed the Mayor of New York City to begin towing the many UN diplomatic vehicles located in Manhattan with more than two unpaid parking tickets to sites where those vehicles will be stripped, shredded and crushed. I don't care about whatever treaty pertains to this. You creeps have tens of thousands of unpaid tickets. Pay those tickets tomorrow or watch your precious Benzes, Beamers and limos be turned over to some of the finest chop shops in the world. I love New York.

A special note to our neighbors: Canada is on List 2. Since we are likely to be seeing a lot more of each other, you folks might want to try not pissing us off for a change.

Mexico is also on List 2. Its president and his entire corrupt government really need an attitude adjustment. I will have a couple thousand extra tanks and infantry divisions sitting around. Guess where I am going to put 'em? Yep, border security.

Oh, by the way, the United States is abrogating the NAFTA treaty - starting now.

We are tired of the one-way highway. Immediately, we'll be drilling for oil in Alaska -which will take care of this country's oil needs for decades to come. If you're an environmentalist who opposes this decision, I refer you to List 2 above: pick a country and move there.

It is time for America to focus on its own welfare and its own citizens. Some will accuse us of isolationism. I answer them by saying, 'darn tootin.'

Nearly a century of trying to help folks live a decent life around the world has only earned us the undying enmity of just about everyone on the planet. It is time to eliminate hunger in America . It is time to eliminate homelessness in America . To the nations on List 1, a final thought. Thank you guys. We owe you and we won't forget.

To the nations on List 2, a final thought : You might want to learn to speak Arabic.

God bless America .. Thank you and good night.'

If you can read this in English, thank a soldier.

The Drive-Thru Lanes

2010-03-26T17:22:00.004-05:00

Drive-thru's were invented for quick and simple convenience, they are supposed to be used for quick and simple transactions and that's all folks, anything else is to be handled in the lobby at the front counter.

For example, today on my way home from work, I stopped at the bank drive-thru to deposit a check, a quick, simple transaction, just like the majority of the rest of the people in the lines. As I pull in there are a couple of other cars following me in, so I pull into the closest lane behind a truck, my first clue that something was going to be bad were the out of state plates on it, of course by the time I realize this, I'm hemmed in by all the other cars that pulled in behind me. As I sit there and watch several cars come and go in the lanes next to me, this guy is carrying on a conversation with the teller, which is not only delaying me, it's also slowing down the other lanes as well, because now the other teller is having to handle not only her two lines, but also the second line of the first teller. I just had to sit there and watch as the carrier traveled back and forth during their several minute discussion. This is not how it's supposed to work.

This is how it's supposed to go.

1. Pull in, put your paperwork in the carrier and send it up.
2. Teller greets you and asks if there's anything else they can do.
3. You reply "No thank you."
4. Teller response with a perky "Have a nice day" comment
5. The carrier comes back and you retrieve the contents and drive off.

It's that simple people, nothing more complicated than that should be done at a drive thru, if the conversation has to be more that a couple of short sentences, you should park and go into the lobby and talk to a teller face to face.

And one other thing, have your stuff in order. My stops at the bank on the way home are planned, so before I leave work, I sit down at my desk and get my stuff in order, I make sure my check is endorsed, I fill out the deposit slip and put it all together, ready to pull out as soon as I pull up to the drive thru, that way it takes the minimum amount of time and I don't delay the other patrons of the drive thru lane who are also in a big hurry to get home and plop their butt in front of the TV for the night.

OK, are we all clear on this subject?

Maybe next time I will give my opinion on the chuckle head that has an issue with just ordering a #2 off the quick menu at a fast food drive thru.

Monday - Monday

2010-03-22T19:57:00.002-05:00

Yep, it's Monday. Only thing that really felt good today was the shower I took this morning, LOL.

OK, since it's been awhile and several things have changed I'm gonna post a few highlights tonight.

1. We have a new dog, a Chihuahua that we named Peanut. She strolled into the backyard last Thanksgiving looking like a walking skeleton, we have since fattened her up to a nice normal weight of 2.5 lbs.

2. Our shop has finally relocated into a larger place, we've got five times the shop area now. Of course now we're having to deal with all the pains of moving, it's been about three weeks now and it's still going on. Tomorrow or the next day I'll be moving the last of my equipment, the engraving table, over to the new shop.

3. Mom has moved to West Memphis, a couple of streets over from her sister, we were all happy about that, now it's only about a five to six hour drive as opposed to ten or eleven hours. While that doesn't seem like much, not having all the insanity of going through St. Louis is a blessing.

OK, that's the biggies for now, more later.

Facebook

2010-03-21T15:58:00.001-05:00

Yes, I've succumbed to Facebook, now I'm trying to link things all together, more to come later

Football vs Education

2010-02-23T06:10:00.003-06:00

It's been awhile.

I got out of doing this mostly because it got boring to me and I didn't really have anything interesting to say. Well, I don't know if this is interesting or not, and I don't really care, it's more of my way of ranting I guess, since most won't care to listen anyway.

I've been listening to the Tulsa school district complain about money here lately, they've been whining and crying about not having enough money, their latest thing is wanting to go to a four day school week to cut costs. This is going to be great for our school kids, it's going to make it so much easier for them to be stupid morons. I know it's just my opinion, but maybe we should be more worried about whether or not our kids graduate, than if they make the football team. It seems to me that if the school district took says half the money spent on sports programs and put it back into educational programs, the district might not have to go to a four day week or have teachers take furlough days.

What do you think?

Thanksgiving Weekend

2008-11-30T08:14:00.002-06:00

Well, it's Sunday and Thanksgiving weekend is about over. The company gave us Thursday and Friday off for it, plus a 15 lb turkey as well. I decided to experiment this year and try to deep fry it. I've had the deep fryer for years, I won it as a perk prize at a company I used to work for. This was the first time I've tried deep frying a turkey though, I did some research on the net and came up with a general list of things, time, temps, etc... So, about noon on Thursday I got things started, it was a perfect day for it in my opinion, about 60 degrees, sunny, and almost no wind to speak of. I won't bore you with the details of watching a pot of oil get hot, I put the bird in about one o'clock and it started frying along quite happly, the only big issue came when it was about 2/3's of the way done, I ran out of propane! After a quick run to the Walgreens around the corner I had things up and running again. Everyone said the bird turned out pretty good. The rest of the weekend was spent in lazyness, watching tv and visiting friends.

Another day, another dollar

2008-11-25T19:03:00.003-06:00

Not a whole lot happened today, same big bunch of idiots on the road this morning.

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I build industrial control panels for a living. Anyway, I got started for a second time on a big one for JJ, had to stop the first time because as usual we were missing parts namely the 24 VDC power supplies, also as usual for a JJ project. They were supposed to be in today, but they weren't, so I got the measurements for them so I could get the panel layed out and start on the rest of it.

Bit of explantion here, I am one of two full time panel builders, they other one is in charge of the panel shop and has to spend most of his time with all the paperwork, chasing parts, dealing with project managers, etc... He does do work in the shop, he just has to keep it to the smaller panels that don't take a lot of time, so that means I get all the big panels, which doesn't bother me, since one of these will usually keep me occupied for a week easy.

Ok, back to the panel. This one's a 60 x 72 inch panel, kinda the norm for JJ, a pair of 17 slot PLC racks and a buttload of terminals. I took a quick look at the layout and spent the next couple of hours laying out and mounting the wireways and din rail (it's what the terminals and other bits clip to) that's when I start on my terminal count for each rail and realize that true to form JJ's draftsman has screwed the pooch again and the actual terminal count and markings don't match up with the layout drawings and he's even screwed up several of the terminal markings as well. So, first thing tommorow I'll spend probally a hour going through the entire wiring diagram and redoing the terminal layout, hopefully it will fit on the the panel.

Oh well, in other words, a normal day at the shop for me. LOL

I feel like doing this to some of these draftsmen, I haven't found one yet that actually checks his work.

Life as we know it

2008-11-25T00:45:00.002-06:00

It's been awhile since I've posted, life's been crazy, I'm not going to bother with a complete update, just highlights.

Went to see my folks and picked up a load of our junk.

Been working my butt off at work.

That's been about it.

Sweety's New Ride

2008-05-18T11:06:00.002-05:00

Well, the V-Star and the scooter are gone, we traded them yesterday for a 2008 Hyosung GV-250 Aquila. Cute little bike, I rode it around a bit and to me it feels like riding a mini-bike, LOL.

Since we were trading in two bikes, Sweets and me both rode over to the dealership, (Metric Cycles, Tulsa, OK) so we had to ride two up on the way back home, this was fun. I'm on a bike I've never rode before with Sweets on the back, and it's lite, very lite, GVW is 774 lbs, like I said, mini-bike. After about two blocks, I had to tell her to sit real still, because any wiggle of her cute butt sent the bike in motion. It's not really a two up kinda bike and once I find a book rack I like the rear seat and pegs are history, I trust Sweets on it, but I'm leary of her and someone else on it. I'm not going to do any tweaking untill after the 500 mile break in, Sweets has already commented on how quiet it is, I seem to be rubbing off on her that way, that should give me some time to see how well it runs. The one thing I am going to start working on is mounting a set of vintage hardbags I have, I've got to do a little refurbishing and painting, so it'll be a bit before they're on, but I think they will really set the bike off.

Now, onto the issues. Only one so far. I filled it up yesterday and later that evening Sweets complained that she was smelling gas from somewhere, I thought it was just the gas can sitting by the back door, so she moved it but that didn't help, so I went looking. I had the bike sitting under the awning behind the house and when I went out I noticed a big wet spot under the bike. Turns out the gasket for the fuel sensor was pooched.

Of course, I'm out there by flashlight, because the motion sensing porch light keeps turning off, trying to drain the gas and keep it from running all over the bike. I finally got the tank off and enough drained out so that I could set it on it's nose and that's how it spent it's first night at home.

This morning, I cleaned everything up and used some gasket sealant on the rubber gasket that was there, it pooched again while I was finger tightening the bolts, so I said screw that and when to O'Rellys and got some regular gasket material and made a new gasket for it. It's setting out in the garage right now curing, later this afternoon, I'll go out and put it all back together again.

Since the V-Star is gone, I've got to get my butt in high gear and finish the CB750ss, not a whole lot left to do, but lots of little things to tie up, so it looks like I'll be sporting the GV250 to work a few days this week, especally tommorow because I want to keep an eye on that sensor and make sure it's not leaking.

OK, that's about it for now, got some shopping to do and then work on the CB750ss the rest of the day.

Catch ya all later.

My what strange weather we're having

2008-03-03T05:40:00.000-06:00

Gotta love the weather, we've run through all four seasons in the last week. But not necessarily in the correct order. The last few days it's been beautiful, even hit the 70's yesterday. Today we start the day at about 40 deg. and we're supposed to have major snow by 5pm, and then tomorrow it's supposed to start getting warmer all over again. It's no wonder my sinus are in an uproar, they can't figure out what time of year it is. LOL

Oh well, got to get ready for work, going to leave a bit early today, just in case.

Asta

America's Legacy of Ashes

2008-02-20T23:01:00.001-06:00

Sometimes it's just heartbreaking how our vets are treated.

The Weekend

2008-02-17T10:21:00.001-06:00

Been kinda busy this weekend mostly due to the weather, we had some major wind & rain yesterday, so it was a good day to stay inside and get some things done. I got a bonus from work and we filed our federal taxes early by e-file, so we got our return back in a couple of days so Sweety and me had a little extra money, so we did a little shopping, actually we did a lot of shopping. Bought a new recliner and loveseat for the living room, and a "Room in a Bag" kit for the bedroom, along with some new curtain rods.

These "Room in a Bag" kits age nice, they were either designed by a guy or a woman that really used to having a guy do the shopping, almost everything you need to setup a bedroom is in the bag, comforter, fancy pillow cases, the little fru-fru pillows, bed ruffle, curtains, and table cover, all you really need to buy extra is regular pillow cases, bed sheets and two curtain rods. yes I realize this is all sounding a bit strange, LOL, but I felt the rest of you guys could use this info. One of the main reasons I think it was designed by a guy is the curtains, most of us that live with a lady will understand this issue - hanging curtains. When hanging the fru-fru curtains, you have to put up a rod for the shear curtain (the thin, kinda see through ones), then a rod for the regular curtains, then another one for the valance panel (the little short thing that goes across the top), so that's three different types of rods that you have to hang just right, so that it all looks right. With these curtains on the other hand, they're all made together as one piece, that means one rod to get centered, level and at the right height. Like I said, had to be designed by a guy, it's all in one bag, and for the most part makes logical sense.

So anyway, Sweety and me put out most of it the night we bought it, but had to wait on the curtains until yesterday's shopping run, when I picked up a nice set of curtain rods. I decided to be a nice hubby and surprise her by having it all done by the time she got home from work, so out came the tools and I put up the rods and curtains for her, and I flipped the bed up and got the dust ruffle on as well. Sweety was surprised and tickled that I had hung the curtains and straightened up the bedroom all on my own. Of course that was yesterday, today is all about cleaning up the rest of the house, which will include carting all my tools back out to the garage. Speaking of tools, Sweety gave me my anniversary present Friday, a Skil 1-1/4 hp router, I'm a lucky guy, I've got a wife that understands a guys need for tools. She of course got a pretty set of earrings, which is what she wanted.

Ok, that's about all for now, time to get to work on the rest of the house. Catch ya' all later.

Veterans

2008-02-16T07:28:00.001-06:00

When Veterans Retire

When a good Veteran leaves the "job" and retires to a better life, many are jealous, some are pleased and yet others, who may have already retired, wonder. We wonder if he knows what they are leaving behind, because we already know. We know, for example, that after a lifetime of camaraderie that few experience, it will remain as a longing for those past times. We know in the Military life there is a fellowship which lasts long after the uniforms are hung up in the back of the closet. We know even if he throws them away, they will be on him with every step and breath that remains in his life. We also know how the very bearing of the man speaks of what he was and in his heart still is.

These are the burdens of the job. You will still look at people suspiciously, still see what others do not see or choose to ignore and always will look at the rest of the Military world with a respect for what they do; only grown in a lifetime of knowing. Never think for one moment you are escaping from that life. You are only escaping the "job" and merely being allowed to leave "active" duty.

So what I wish for you is that whenever you ease into retirement, in your heart you never forget for one moment that "Blessed are the Peacemakers for they shall be called children of God," and you are still a member of the greatest fraternity the world has ever known.

Civilian Friends vs. Veteran Friends

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Get upset if you're too busy to talk to them for a week.

VETERAN FRIENDS: Are glad to see you after years, and will happily carry on the same conversation you were having the last time you met.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Have never seen you cry.

VETERAN FRIENDS: Have cried with you.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Borrow your stuff for a few days then give it back.

VETERAN FRIENDS: Keep your stuff so long they forget it's yours.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Know a few things about you.

VETERAN FRIENDS: Could write a book with direct quotes from you.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will leave you behind if that's what the crowd is doing.

VETERAN FRIENDS: Will kick the crowds' ass that left you behind.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Are for a while.

VETERAN FRIENDS: Are for life.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Have shared a few experiences...

VETERAN FRIENDS: Have shared a lifetime of experiences no citizen could ever dream of...

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will take your drink away when they think you've had enough.

VETERAN FRIENDS: Will look at you stumbling all over the place and say, "You better drink the rest of that before you spill it!!" Then carry you home safely and put you to bed...

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will talk crap to the person who talks crap about you.

VETERAN FRIENDS: Will knock them the hell out OF THEM..... for using your name in vain.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will come and visit you in jail if you goof up badly and chastise you for being there.

VETERAN FRIENDS: Will be sitting right there beside you, saying "Boy, we really goofed that one up, but what a blast!!!"

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will ignore this.

VETERAN FRIENDS: Will forward this.

Been updating the websites

2008-02-11T21:40:00.001-06:00

Well, not a whole lot has been happening lately, just pretty much the same old junk. The weather has been screwy as all get out, 60's and beautiful one day, next morning, 30's and raining. Gotta love it!!! LOL

Anyway, I've been working on websites lately, I've gotten Sweety's main site up and running finally.

www.winniescreations.com

And I did a major revamp to mine.

www.woogaus.com

Been fairly busy with that lately, that's why there hasn't been much posting to the blog, although I have discovered a nice feature of Blogger, you can set it up so that you can email your post. Makes it easier and faster to create your posts in my opinion.

Well, enough computer burn for tonight, asta

Survived another week!!

2008-02-01T21:04:00.001-06:00

It's Friday!!! I survived this week in one piece, considering the weather I've been dealing with riding back and forth to work, I think that's a pretty good accomplishment. LOL

Well, work today wasn't that interesting, I finished up as far as I could on the Delta V panel, did the finish wiring on another panel, and started a third panel. Like I said, not very interesting today. It was a little iffy riding in this morning, there were a few wet spots here and there, the worst spot as usual was right in front of the Quick Trip. It could be a perfect day otherwise and the road in front of it would be lousy, it's a main stop for truckers to refuel and they have a wash bay for them, so if it's a nice sunny day, all the truckers are washing their truck and the road is wet from them driving out. The ride home on the other hand was nice, not too cold, not too windy, so at least it was pleasant.

One of Sweet's girlfriends stopped by tonight and brought her dog with her, it worked out pretty good, Woo didn't attack it, we were a bit concerned about that happening since he's an Akita and they are very territorial, but he behaved and they smelled each other's butts, then we put him outside until they left.

I did find me a set of hand warmers I think I'm gonna get, about 60 bucks and they're removable, now I just have to come up with the money.

http://www.castlesales.com/html/productDetail.psp?catid=6&prodid=380&start_indx=28

They got pretty good reviews on a biker site I checked out, so I think I'm going to get these instead of a pair of heated gloves, especially since the cheapest gloves I could find were about $110.00, then you had to buy all the controllers separately.

That's about it for today, can't wait to see what the weekend will bring.

Fun ride today

2008-01-31T20:38:00.001-06:00

Well, today was interesting riding weather. This morning it was about 40 deg. and raining on the way to work, then about midday it switched to snow. All the guys were asking me how I was going to get home, I just answered, "The same way I got here, right down the expressway." I cruised home doing about 45-50 mph, it wasn't too bad, had a few spots where I felt the rear wheel skid a bit, but I kept it upright and made it home safe and sound.

Most don't believe me when I say it's safer on the expressway, than on the city streets. But, if you look at the conditions, you'd see it is.

Expressway Riding Conditions

1. Everybody is going the same direction.

2. No stop and go traffic to deal with.

3. No side streets or parking lots for an idiot to blast out of.

4. In the case of snow & ice, it's usually cleared before the city streets are.

5. On the expressway the minimum speed is 40 mph, the average posted speed limit on city streets is 40 mph in Tulsa.

6. No 90 deg hard turns, nice swooping ramps.

7. Most people, when they see a crazy fool riding a bike on the expressway in the snow try to stay as far away from him as possible! LOL

See ya on the flipside, they're talking ice in the morning.

It's Hump Day

2008-01-30T17:56:00.001-06:00

Well, it's hump day, and not a whole lot has happened this week so far. Work has been the usual for the most part, been working on a flair trailer, used in the petroleum industry I think, this week. Big pain in the butt since our current shop isn't big enough to pull it inside, so we've been having to deal with the weather, working on it when it's nice. Since nobody took any real notes and the reference pics of the last one were not that good, we spent quite a while discussing where things actually went. I've decided that when we finish this one, I'm going to take pics myself, so that we actually have the angle shots we need to do the next one with. Other than that, it's been pretty much business as usual around here.

Have a good one.

It's Friday Again

2008-01-25T20:16:00.000-06:00

Well, it's friday. The day started off with an ice rain storm, so I woke Sweety up and asked her to give me a ride to work since it didn't look like it would be safe to ride. I probally could have made it, but why take the chance with possible icy roads. Things turned out to be fairly clear, btw.

At work, first thing on the board was to finish up the field job with MS and PR, well PR was needed in the shop and really it wasn't nothing MS and me couldn't handle ourselves. We had to fix a problem, seems JCL didn't give up the correct info on how the wire tag numbers were supposed to be labeled, so we had to pull about 80 wire tags off and replace them, the bitch was that the foreman at JCL had the correct plans and hadn't bothered to give them to us until we were just about finished yesterday, so what should have been a hour finish up job turned into four hours by the time we were done. The best part was when our boss MM, stopped by to drop off some parts that we were waiting for, we just stood back and watched him rip the foreman a new one about this whole fiasco. He was p.o.'d because this happens a lot with them and he's getting tired of it. Well, the rest of the day went pretty normal, I finished up what I could do on the big JKZ enclosure, do to lack of parts either MS or me will end up on a field trip to finish it up on site, because the field crew needs to set it monday so they can finish up running the conduit. Monday I'll finish up the Delta-Vee panel and get it in its enclosure and that will probally kill off
the morning.

Oh well, not much else happened today. Got to deal with the cable company tommorow, that should be fun, they're still having line problems and we seem to be the only ones that will work with them on it.

Have a good one, and I'll catch ya later.
W.

It's been awhile

2008-01-24T21:27:00.000-06:00

Well, I've decided to start blogging again. No promises, but here we go again.

01-24-2008
The day started out at a balmy 20 degs, yep, it was a bit nippy on the ride to work. I've started a new job since I was here last. I now work at International Custom Controls it's a good place to work, I had gotten layed off from Crane Custom Carrier, so I had been seeing ads for a placement service called Prime Industrial Recruiting, so I signed up on the website and a day later had a job interview with ICC, and I started the next day, worked for me, I was only off work for three days.

OK, more later

WARNING!!! I'm a bit pissed right now

2007-10-09T18:28:00.000-05:00

Sweety is in the other room trying to figure out what's wrong, I've already told her it's not her, she of course wants to talk about it and I don't, she's gonna find out soon enough and then it's really gonna blow up. I got a yellow slip of paper given to me today, shoulda been pink. Yep, as of this friday at 3:30 pm I'm offically unemployed. I got layed off, bumped out of my job by a half-wit dumb shit just because he has a bit more seniority than me. J. my foreman was irked when he gave me the sheet this afternoon, and after I mentioned that the guy bumping me had been red-flagged and had his fork truck license yanked because he ran into a truck out in the yard, he was really P.O.'d, you see you spend about a quarter of the day driving a fork truck doing the job, not to mention that fairly often you have to use a overhead crain to move some of the parts and I don't recall ever seeing him use a crane before. Enough about that idiot. I've now got three days to find another job that pays decent, because we were floating bills already just to survive and an unemployment check just isn't gonna cover things. I can't think really clear right now, more later.

People Watching at Wally-World

2007-09-30T17:43:00.001-05:00

I've kinda restarted a old hobby of mine, people watching. I did quite a bit of it while I was working at the mall in the cigar shop, now there's a place to see the world. All kinds come to the mall.

Anyway on to today's people watching, Wally-World, another good place to see America at its finest?

First, I have to tell you about Miss Priss & Gomer, both early 20's. She's all done up in her finest today, she's got on her low cut hip huggers, hot pink baby doll tee and matching hoodie, both of which are adjusted to proudly show off her belly button ring. Black stilleto heels with little rinestones on the long pointy toes, and matching knock off tiny handbag, she's not about to carry a women's purse that can actually hold more than a lipstick, cigs, and cell phone. And you can't forget, got to have the make-up and hair just so, you never know who your going to bump carts with in the frozen food aisle at Wally World. Then there's Gomer, most likely her first hubby, he's pushing the cart, following along behind her,looking like a puppy you just yelled at, wearing old camo pants, his faded out high school baseball t-shirt, dirty work boots and an old freebie ball cap he got somewhere. Scruffy would be a good description of him, looks like he hasn't shaved in a few days, probally rolled out of bed this morning and drug on whatever clothes were close at hand. What a pair.

Next up, your typical mexican family. Dad's a cowboy, got the starched,pressed, skin tight Wranglers on, multi-colored cowboy shirt, white ostrich skin cockroach stomper boots, tooled leather belt with chrome lacing and choncos with a belt buckle big enough to serve lunch on, and you can't forget about the blazing white straw cowbot hat either. He's strutting along like a peacock on viagra doing nothing. Wifey, on the other hand is wearing a pair of old jeans, frumpy shirt, and scuffed up old tennis shoes, her hair is pulled back in a no nonsence ponytail, and very little if any makeup. She's probally been running like mad all morning taking care of the house and everything else, including all of the shopping currently going on. Let's see now, on to the kids. The teenage son is pushing the cart, was drug screaming to the store, he's wearing baggy jeans, a t-shirt about two sizes too big, and high tops, the height of teenage male fashion. The teenage daughter is there as well, she of course spent two hours getting ready for the trip, making sure she looks like the biggest hoochy mama slut that you've ever seen, enough make-up for two girls on, trying her best not to fall out of her halter top that is about a size too small, skirt short enough that if she bends over, everybody's going to know what color panties she has on, and the best part is, I'd guess her age at about fourteen.

Well, that was the two most interesting sights today, can't wait to see who I see next.

Been Awhile

2007-09-30T17:29:00.000-05:00

Yep, it's been a bit since I've posted anything. Life has a way of getting in the way of simple things like this. Not that a whole lot has happened since I last posted anything. As for what's going on now, a whole lotta the same old, same old. I have started a new project bike for Sweety, she's really been on my case lately for a bike to ride, she's realized the scooter, while cute and fun, just doesn't cut it in Tulsa traffic. So, I've agreed to rework my '76 Honda CB750ss into something she can ride. First order of business is lowering it for her, after a bit of searching and price gathering, I've decide on a set of 11" shocks for the rear, I bid on some on e-bay, but got outbid on them about two days later, so last Saturday I checked at a local shop and they had a set that would work for 90 bucks, pretty good price, I'll stop by Tuesday after work and pick them up. Then comes the fun part, lowering the front. It's time for tool shopping now, since I no longer work at a bike shop, I've got to start picking up some of the tools I'll need to do this kind of work, right now all I need to get is a disk grinder, cutoff wheels and sanding pads, so it's a trip over to Harbor Freight for those items, nice thing is, they pull double duty this fall when I start reworking the front porch, more on that later. After I get it lowered, then come the really big jobs, rewiring the bike and getting it running.

More Later
W.

Gotta luv Sunday mornings!

2007-07-15T10:35:00.000-05:00

Yep, gotta luv 'em. I woke up this morning with a major kink in my back, amble to the bathroom for the morning routine, then head to the kitchen to make some coffee and find the pain killers, as I'm walking towards the kitchen I hear a strange hissing sound. Nope, not a snake, the water line going to the fridge's ice maker is spraying water. Fricken mice had chewed on the water line under the sink and there was water everywhere. Got the water shut off, looked around and decided - Damage Done. So I picked up the coffee pot and headed to the bathroom for water. I got the coffee started and pulled out the shop vac and started sucking up the water, after a bit Sweets stumbles out of the bedroom yelling at me about running the vac while she's still sleeping, I politly informed her about the flooded kitchen and got a repreve for being so rude. I don't blame her, I would've done the same thing given the circumstances.

After a quick inspection and figuring out what I needed, I headed out to the truck to go to Lowes, and had to laugh, Sweets had locked the truck as usual, but left the driver's window rolled completely down and of course it had been raining for awhile, so, back into the house for a towel to dry things off and on to the hardware store I went.

Gotta luv Sunday mornings
W.

It's a Monday, do I need to say more?

2007-06-25T05:27:00.000-05:00

Hey all, it's been a few days since I've been here and nothing has really happened. Last friday was the last day for all the guys that got layed off, and basicly not a whole lot got done at work, they told all the guys that got layed off they had to be there until 1:30 or they would change thier status from "layed off" to "they quit" which would screw them out of any unemployment pay. So, needless to say we had a bunch of guys hanging around that basicly did nothing most of the day, and at 1:30 it was pretty much a mass exodous around there. I start my new position today as a parts cleaner, yippie (not). Oh well, not much else to say today.

Until next time.
W.

Well, survived another layoff round

2007-06-20T05:31:00.000-05:00

I gotta find a new job. About 60 people were affected this week, I survived by accepting a transfer to the parts cleaning dept. and of course a pay cut. From the looks of things, CCC is basicly taking the whole plant down to a skeleton crew and it's really starting to tick people off.

On the good news front, Sweets started her new job last night, she got a job dispatching at Storey Wrecking. Of course it's second shift, so basicly I'll only get to see her durning the day if I drive over there and visit because she doesn't get off until midnight. But she seems happy about it and I'm getting good vibes about the place whenever she talks about it, she doesn't seem stressed about it like she was with the last couple of places.

Well that's about it for this morning, it's pouring rain outside so, I need to get my butt in gear and leave early, it takes a bit longer to get to work on the bike in the rain.

Asta
W.

Well, the truck is totaled

2007-06-14T05:30:00.000-05:00

Finally got an answer from State Farm last night, the truck is officially totaled. Sweets is going to get with them today and finish up the paperwork. Then we get to spend this weekend finding a new car because the rental has to go back on tuesday. I've decide to take tommorow off for two reasons, one, to go check out a lead on a part time job and second, to start looking for a new car. I say new but it's going to be a used one, we figure once everything is said and done, we'll have about 3,000 left over.

Not much going on at work right now, L. has been working on battery cables for the last two days, I've finished prepping every truck I could, and J. is actually three weeks ahead on chassis wiring. I had everything I could do finished up at about one o'clock yesterday and didn't have anything else to do, luckly J. had one chassis left, so I worked with him the rest of the day. Today is going to be rough though, because we've got nothing to do now. It's going to be a day of scrounging to find work, another reason I'm going to take tommorow off.

Well, time to get ready for the day.
W.

Joe Arpaio - "The toughest sheriff in the west"

2007-06-12T17:52:00.000-05:00

I got an e-mail from my uncle the other day about Arpaio, I decide to Google his name and see what would come up. Quite interesting some of the info that popped up.

"Arpaio is among the state's most popular office-holders. He enjoys an 85 percent approval rating among voters in the county, which at 9,200 square miles is larger than some states, and includes the city of Phoenix. "

http://www.cnn.com/US/9907/27/tough.sheriff/

Granted, there are problems and some conditions do need to be addressed, but it seems the county is happy with him considering that they have re-elected him three times.

And here's something I find impressive. Source - http://www.mcso.org/

Arrests by Sheriff’s deputies of persons transporting or being transported illegally into Arizona

Month to date total as of 06/12/07: 546 illegals

Arrests by Sheriff’s deputies who, in the course of their duties, determine the arrestee is in Arizona illegally.

Month to date total as of 06/12/07: 177 illegals

And that's only this month, hmmm, sound like he's got the right idea to me, and they don't get an immeidate free ride back to Mexico either, they get to spend two years in jail first.

I noticed one thing though, everybody that is complaining about his tactics, either was an inmate or belongs to one of the liberal weeny organizations that wants us to molly-coddle prisoners, these people committed a crime and were sentenced to jail time as a PUNISHMENT, and that's what jail time should be!!!

Ok, that's my political rant of the day
W.

Another weekend has come and gone.

2007-06-10T19:15:00.000-05:00

Well, this weekend is about over, not much to tell about it either. I stacked the remains of the stump up neatly in the drive next to where I put the trash out and weed-eated the yard, that about killed saturday. I did send a nasty e-mail to the channel 6 news team saturday night, it's the rainy season here in Tulsa and we had one of our usual sever thunderstorm warnings happen about 8pm, well the idiot weatherman on ch. 6 decided he just had to have a running announcement about it for 45 minutes, the alert only lasted for 30 minutes, he rehashed the cloud patterns, talked to other weather chaser via the phone, and basicly caused everybody in the viewing area to miss the first 45 minutes of "Die Another Day", I must have not been the only one to complain because the very next commercial break after he did go away he was back and made the comment that he was only going to interupt the commercial break and get us right back to our regulary scheduled programming. Anyway that was saturday. Sunday, well I got a haircut. Exciting weekend huh.

Till next time.
W.

Just though I'd post this

2007-06-08T18:56:00.000-05:00

Here's a pic of the truck sitting in the fence before it got towed to the repair shop.

Made it to the weekend!!!

2007-06-08T17:36:00.000-05:00

Well, another week survived. Stopped by the repair shop to check on the status of the truck, the State Farm adjuster was supposed to have been there today to finalize the estimate on the truck, he still hasn't showed up, according to the claims office he has 48 hours to show up. The State Farm estimate so far is a little over 5000.00 the repair shop has added about 500.00 more to that total, but we're still under the total loss value of 9025.00, so it looks like the truck is going to be rebuilt.

As for work, well, pretty much SSDD. Spent the first couple of hours making battery cables, then had to go down to the final assembly area and re-route a power lead breakout that wasn't done correctly, my fault on that, it was an engine that they only use when shipping the rig overseas, and I had wired and routed it the same as the standard engine setup. Spent a hour cutting it all loose and reworking it correctly after the engineer had explained the correct routing. After lunch was another rework job, not my fault this time, the build sheet for the truck had been revised with a new main chassis harness, but the dummies had forgotten to revise the parts kit pull sheet with the new part number, so the old style harness got pulled and installed instead. At first we were going to have to pull the whole 30 ft long harness out of the truck, but one of the senior engineers loked at the prints and discovered that there was only a minor difference in the harnesses, so I spent about 15 minutes altering and retagging the harness, instead of two of us spending a couple of hours pulling and replacing the harness. Spent about a half hour doing finish wiring on another truck and then spent the last couple of hours of the day making more battery cables, LOL.

Well, that's about all that happened today, looking over my to-do list for theis weekend, I'm going to be a busy beaver out in the yard this weekend, a lot of clean up to do.

That's all for now, you may return to your own borning life now.
W.

P.S. Check out a friend of mine on YouTube, he runs http://www.outragedpatriots.com/
He's speaking to our city council.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYxsM7W2F8g

More life to love

2007-06-06T16:11:00.000-05:00

Well, I survived another fun filled day at work, most of the day was fine, but the boss walks by right before last break and tells me that S. is leaving for the day because of a dentist appt. (I already knew about it) and that he wants me to finish up wiring the engine that S. was working on. No biggie, I figure that S. has it pretty well finished and all I have to do is zip tie up the loose cables and maybe put a little sealant on some connections and basicly take the rest of the day off. Boy I was wrong, he had about half the wiring routed wrong, so I had to tear it all out and rework half the engine. Oh well, still got to kill about a half an hour doing nothing.

BTW, it's freaking HOT, it's got to be at least 90 out there right now!!!

And just think, only a couple of months ago we were all complaining about how cold it was. LOL

And now the topper for the day

After three whole days working at Nonni's Cookies, Sweets gets fired, and you gotta love this reason. She was talking politics with a couple of coworkers while they were on break. Yep that's the reason they fired her. Apparently since 95% of the workers there are mexican the management doesn't like anyone to talk about immigration policy and law even if they only do it on thier break time.

God bless America and all the stupid idiots in it!
W.

June 6, 2007 - Morning

2007-06-06T05:16:00.000-05:00

Well, the truck is in the repair center for it's final estimate, they picked it up yesterday morning and I stopped by after work to sign the paperwork. hopefully it won't take them long to decide if it's totaled or repairable.

Not much went on at work yesterday, finished up putting all the ABS harnesses that I had pulled out back in along with fixing the other couple a trucks that I couldn't get to Monday. Only other thing I did was relocate a backup alarm that had been mounted in the wrong spot. Have no clue to what I'm gonna do today, I think it's time to start looking for a new job, this place has no problems with laying off people and after the last round, I know I'm next on the list if they have another round. Granted, I'll get unemployment pay, but considering that we're just getting by right know, we'll be screwed if I do get layed off.

Gotta love life.
W.

Well, survived another day

2007-06-05T05:57:00.000-05:00

Not much happened yesterday, 4am came way too early, but I dealt with it. I figure I might as well get used to it and just consider the days that Sweets doesn't work a sleep in day.

Work was about the normal level of stupidy, just before lunch my leadman gave me a list of nine trucks that they wanted the ABS harness pulled out of because the new style engines have the exhaust running down the right side of the frame because of the turbos, so I pulled all the harnesses and piled them on a cart, just after I finished the engineer decided he didn't want the harnesses pulled that he wanted to try a slightly different routing instead. These engineers have no clue as far as I concerned. My leadman and me looked at one of the trucks that had the engine and exhaust all in place and decided that his alternated routing wouldn't work either so I suggested, just let me figure it out instead. It took me about ten minutes to figure out that if I ran the whole harness down the left side of the truck it would work just fine, so I ended up reinstalling three of the harnesses that way yesterday. Today I get to look at the others that had a different harness and see if I can do the same to them. At least I don't work in air piping, those guys had to strip all the air tubing out completely and start over because all of thier tubing is cut to length as they install it, needless to say there is a big pile of scrap air tubing laying in the middle of the line right now.

OK, time for me to get ready for work, catch ya all later
W.

I feel like do-do

2007-06-04T05:24:00.000-05:00

Couldn't get to sleep last night, went to bed at 9pm, Sweets came to bed shortly after. The neighbors decided it was time to make noise, finnaly at 10pm I decided to get up and see what the hell was going on, couldn't figure out what N. was doing, but apparently they saw me standing at the frint door and decided to quit for the night, so I went back to bed and layed there for another hour listening to the various sound in my house: the chain on the ceiling fan ticking, Jazz's stomach doing I don't know what, Damien was coughing and hacking, and of course Morgan snoreing like a bear. I felt like I wa in a sound stuido durning the mixing for the latest Ailen movie. I ended up putting in my earplugs, they helped a little. Then 4am comes and Sweets alarm goes off. I think I only ended up with about 3 hours of sleep last night. Of course today is Monday, so we all know how that will go. Time to get things ready for work, I'd like to be able to get at least one cig in after I get there, before I hit the line.

It's been awhile since I've been here

2007-06-02T21:09:00.000-05:00

Life has really gone screwy for me lately, actually to tell the truth it's bent me over the chair and is not even giving me a kiss on the cheek.

Let's see if I can sum up the last couple a weeks in short terms.

1. Company laid off about 20 guys, just missed the cut on that
2. A drunk plowed through the yard tearing out the gas meter, big flower box and ramming my truck into the neighbor's fence.
3. Sweets wanted me to kick the snot out of a little 20 yr old piss ant at the pizza place she worked at, she quit, has a new job now.

And that's just the last two weeks.

Just enjoying life
W.

Prohibition Today

2007-04-08T07:50:00.000-05:00

I find it interesting that America hasn't learned that Prohibition doesn't work.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/26/AR2007032601893.html

I heard about this on CNN this morning, the only thing I have to say is that it won't work, it didn't work in the past and it won't work now. Back when Prohibition was in effect, we had bootleggers, mobsters, and such running illegal booze all over the country, very little good came from it, only a lot of strife and problems. Now it seems everybody wants the same for smoking, it's just going to start all over again. People are going to smoke, no matter what the government says, all the government is going to do is create a blackmarket environment for cigarettes. They've already show us that they can't control smoking pot, what makes them think they can control smoking cigarettes which are more generally accepted. I think they should just back off and leave the American people alone, we all know the danger, we all know the health risks, if someone doesnt' want to be around smoke, then they should stay out of areas that are know to have smokers.

Stupid people

2007-04-07T14:32:00.000-05:00

I ran over to Smokey's today to pick up lunch for Sweets and me, going down Pine St. there is about a two block stretch that, due to the road construction has been a one way for the last couple of months. Kinda hard to miss all the road signs posted everywhere about it. Anyway, as I'm driving along Pine St. I notice something, a Ford Explorer coming down the road at me, this nut job is driving the wrong way on the road. I think the idiot realized it when I didn't move over into the other lane and I continued to drive straight at him, granted I was keeping an eye on the other lane just in case I had to bale over there. He finally turned off onto one of the side streets. And everybody wonders why I get pissed off when I drive around this town.

Back at it.

2007-04-07T11:08:00.000-05:00

Yep, it's been awhile since I've been here. Not much has happened since I was last here either. LOL It's finally gotten decient enough that I can get out in the garage and work, and I've finally gotten enough of Sweet's yard projects done that I can actually do some work in the garage. :) It being Easter weekend I got friday off as well, so I was able to run around all day picking up bits and pieces for some bike projects today. I did a couple of mods to the V-Star and re-sync'ed the carbs, tommorow I'm going to finish up a partial gut to the exhaust pipes that I actually started over a year ago, talk about procrastanation. LOL After I get that done, I'll recheck the sync again and make sure all is good. And just for all of you that think, "OMG, he's making a annoying loud bike." No, I'm not, I'm only removing one of the four baffle plates in the exhaust, according to the guys I've talked to about this, it should give the bike a bit of a rumble, but not be earshattering, all I'm trying to get away from is the sewing maching sound it currently has.

Well, asta for now, and more later.

yada, yada, yada

2007-02-23T04:07:00.000-06:00

It's 4am, it's friday. Not much can be said about that.

The shop is back on 50 hour weeks, the only reason I heard was that PR wasn't happy that only a couple of the electricans were coming in on voluntary ot, it wouldn't suprise me if that was the case. Granted, since no one seems to know where LC vanished to, and JB is going to nights week after next, I'm gonna need 50 hours to keep up, normally with two of us things run sweet, neither of us has to crazy rush to get things done, just keep a steady pace all day, but with only one, well it can get hetic.

And Sweety is on the trail of a 450 Rebel again, or at least something similar. I hope I can find something for her real soon.

I'm outta here, gotta finish getting ready for work.

New Avatar

2007-02-19T19:46:00.000-06:00

Just a new one I made.

Been Awhile

2007-02-17T09:32:00.000-06:00

Yep, it's been awhile since I've posted anything. Work and the real world have been taking up most of my time lately, I'm taking a break from it all to go to the Starbird Car Show here in Tulsa today. First real car show I've been to in a long time, most of the ones I've gotten to in recent years have just been the local cruse night types or a local townie event, this one is actually a national event, and of course the admission price tells that, 20 bucks to get in! But what the hey, might as well go. I did a little research and it turns out that the Starbird Museum is about an hour and a half from here, so maybe it might make a nice day trip this summer.

More later....

Another week is over with.

2007-01-26T17:05:00.000-06:00

I gotta tell ya, 50 hour work weeks really suck. I'm glad it's over for a couple of days, of course now the house work begins, I got a head start by cleaning up most of the kitchen and after I finish this post I'll go back and finish the other half and put away the dishes that just finished up. Sweety is just getting home right now, I can tell because I hear the truck and the dogs are stirring. Oh well, see ya all later.

My Garage

2007-01-22T19:55:00.000-06:00

I posted awhile back that I had finally got my garage back. Well, I have now spent several days cleaning and organizing and it looks pretty good. The V-Star sets on the left side, I have to keep it in there for now because I keep it plugged into a battery tender. My chopper is setting on the right side, looking a bit rough right now, because I haven't been able to work on her because it's been too damn cold and the garage is not insulated or heated. Two problems hopefully that will be solved by next winter.

Once again into the payroll fray

2007-01-22T19:43:00.000-06:00

Well, I found out something today that explained why my check was screwed up, it turns out it was my fault. I had a small bout with the flu bug last week and took Monday off as a sick day, now up till now all the companies I've worked for had the same policy - If you call in before work starts, the absent is noted and approved. Appears that at my current employer, they still want you to call in, but after you get back you have to fill out a form stating that you want the hours you missed taken from your sick time hours. In other words, if you call in sick, you still have to request sick time afterwards. Kinda silly I think, also a pain in the butt when no one bothers to inform you that you have to do that, all I was told was that you had to call in and let the boss know. Plus I forgot that I had went home early on that Friday due to the ice/sleet storm and that I was riding the bike at the time.

Oh well, lession learned. Now because of this I've started keeping track of my hours and hour usage in my schedule book that I carry with me at all times now.

Payroll screwed me again

2007-01-19T20:44:00.000-06:00

Ya know, sometimes I just get fed up with blaten stupidy. The payroll dept. where I work has screwed up my paycheck once again and it's going to be Monday before I can get it straightened out. They processed my check through with only about half my hours on it. The damn thing is annoying enough to figure out to begin with. Instead of filling in the regular and overtime hours like any normal company would, they have this thing about refiguring the hours. I'll explain using round numbers.

Normal company's math
(40 regular hours * $10/hr) + (10 ot hours * $15/hr) = $550

My company's math
(50 regular hours * $10/hr) + (10 ot hours * $5/hr) = $550

Now, while this does add up to the same total, it doesn't make any sence to me why they do it this way, I mean it's not like they have to do any real math, everything is entered into a computer that does all the math and then prints out our checks. In general this does work fine when I work a full week with no sick/holiday/missed days in it, I know my check should read 50 and 10, but if you through anything odd into the mix, you have to stop and calculate what your hours and payrate should be. And it never fails, if you do take some time off, your check is going to be screwed up, I had a bout of stomach flu last weekend and ended up taking monday off as a sick day, needless to say my check was all screwed up, they only payed me for 27.8 hours of regular time. Don't ask me how they ended up with this number, I worked the rest of the week. I should have had 32 hours of regular time and 8 hours sick time. I can't wait to see next weeks check, it should be for 40 regular hours and 3 ot hours, but there's no telling what it will end up being.

My rant for the day, thank you for listening.

I hate insurance companies!!!

2007-01-06T21:31:00.000-06:00

Yep, that's right I hate them all. Every last stinking one of them. They're all a bunch of money hungry, stab you in the back a-holes (pardon my french).

This opinion has of course come from trying to get a new rate quote tonight, I've been at it for about two hours now and still haven't gotten anything worth looking at, or the systems have been down and not able to process my request at the moment. I think they do that just to get all you info so that they can put you on the tele-markerter list so that somebody can call and bug you all hours of the day/night. They all talk about how fast and easy it is to logon and get a rate quote, what they don't tell you is that they want a life history on you before they tell you that thier system is down or not working at the moment. Big buch of sorry loosers as far as I'm concerned.

Enough bitching for now, I think it's time for something fun.

Asta

I finally have my GARAGE!!!

2006-12-30T10:54:00.000-06:00

Yes, today I will finally get my garage. It's not that I didn't have one before, it's just that it has been filled with someone elses stuff since we got here, long story that I don't feel like telling right now. Her crew is supposed to show up today at 1:00 and move all her stuff out. Then since this is a long weekend I will still have two whole days to start cleaning and sorting out all my stuff and finally get my chopper into the garage so that I can fix it!!!

Immigration: Scary Stats

2006-11-29T17:12:00.000-06:00

Immigration: Scary Stats

If this doesn't open your eyes... nothing will!

From the L.A. Times

1. 40% of all workers in L.A. County ( L.A. County has 10.2 million

people) are working for cash and not paying taxes. This was because they are

predominantly illegal immigrants, working without a green card.

2. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.

3. 75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal

aliens.

4. Over 2/3 of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien

Mexicans on Medi-Cal, whose births were paid for by taxpayers.

5. Nearly 25% of all inmates in California detention centers

are Mexican nationals here illegally.

6. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in

garages.

7. The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles

are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border.

8. Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal.

9. 21 radio stations in L.A. are Spanish speaking.

10. In L.A. County 5.1 million people speak English.

3.9 million speak Spanish.

(There are 10.2 million people in L.A. County).

(All the above from the Los Angeles Times)

Less than 2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops,

but 29% are on welfare.

Over 70% of the United States' annual population growth

(and over 90% of California , Florida , and New York )

results from immigration.

The cost of immigration to the American taxpayer in 1997 was,

(after subtracting taxes immigrants pay), a NET $70 BILLION/

year, [Professor Donald Huddle, Rice University ]. The lifetime

fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) for the average

adult Mexican immigrant is a NEGATIVE number.

29% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens.

If they can come to this country to raise Hell and demonstrate by

the thousands, WHY can't they take charge over the corruption

in their own country?

We are a bunch of fools for letting this continue.

THE U.S. VS MEXICO

On February 15, 1998, the U.S. and Mexican soccer teams met at the Los

Angeles Coliseum. The crowd was overwhelmingly pro-Mexican even though most

lived in this country. They booed during the National Anthem and U.S. flags

were held upside down. As the match progressed, supporters of the U.S. team were

insulted, pelted with projectiles, punched and spat upon. Beer and trash were

thrown at the U.S. players before and after the match. The coach of the U.S.

team, Steve Sampson said, "This was the most painful experience I have ever had in

this profession."

Did you know that immigrants from Mexico and other non-European

countries can come to this country and get preferences in jobs, education, and

government contracts. It's called affirmative action or racial privilege. The

Emperor of Japan or the President of Mexico could migrate here and immediately be

eligible for special rights unavailable for Americans of European descent.

Corporate America has signed on to the idea that minorities and third

world immigrants should get special, privileged status. Some examples are

Exxon, Texaco, Merrill Lynch, Boeing, Paine Weber, Starbucks and many more.

DID YOU KNOW?

Did you know ... that Mexico regularly intercedes on the side

of the defense in criminal cases involving Mexican nationals?

Did you know ... that Mexico has NEVER extradited a Mexican

national accused of murder in the U.S. in spite of agreements to do so?

According to the L.A. Times, Orange County , California is home to 275

gangs with 17,000 members, 98% of which are Mexican and Asian.

How's your county doing?

According to a New York Times article dated May 19, 1994, 20 years

after the great influx of legal immigrants from Southeast Asia, 30% are

still on welfare compared to 8% of households nationwide. A Wall Street Journal

editorial dated December 5, 1994 quotes law enforcement officials as

stating that Asian mobsters are the "greatest criminal challenge the

country faces." Not bad for a group that is still under 5% of the population.

Is education important to you? Here are the words of a teacher who

spent over 20 years in the Los Angeles School system. "Imagine teachers in

classes containing 30-40 students of widely varying attention spans and

motivation, many of whom aren't fluent in English. Educators seek learning

materials likely to reach the majority of students and that means fewer words and

math problems and more pictures and multicultural references."

WHEN I WAS YOUNG

I remember hearing about the immigrants that came through Ellis Island

They wanted to learn English. They wanted to breathe free. They wanted

to become Americans. Now, far too many immigrants come here with

demands. They demand to be taught in their own language. They demand

special privileges ... affirmative action. They demand ethnic studies that

glorify their culture.

NOW ...

WHY CAN'T WE SEND THEM HOME

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

YES WE CAN, the sheriff od Mecklenburg County NC requested training from ICE (immigration) and since May IN HIS JURISDICTION ALONE over 900 illegals, convicted criminals and regular run of the mill (wets mohows, creek jumpers, brown travelers ect ect) have been scheduled for deportment or have been deported. Seems someone in our or your community has dropped the ball if they are not also doing the same w/these slugs. Seems AL, NC, CA, FL and AZ have all received training from ICE, and there are only 14 depts and 6 states that have requested this training. WHERE are the community leaders on this matter?????
So hey if/when U fwd this to another please ask, "WHAT IS OUR COMMUNITY DOING REFERENCE THIS MATTER?"!!!
Did U vote? Do U pay taxes? If yes then it seems U have a right to ask the elected local/state/federal officials, "WHAT THE HELL R U DOING? Do U only puff up and act like U care when votes are needed or DO U REALLY CARE? How much has the local population of illegals costs OUR community and maybe UR PAY should reflect Ur action or lack of."
No backseat/couch quarter backing/bitching if U cannot do something about the problem, we have enough bullshit from those who make a living off our inactivity.
So you are either a supporter or a opponent of the current status quo!!! PICK

The long weekend is almost over

2006-11-26T14:53:00.000-06:00

Well, it's Sunday, Thanksgiving weekend is almost over. Haven't done a whole lot this weekend, spent T-day itself just relaxing on the coutch and in front of the computer. Spent Friday and Saturday messing with the chopper, finally got it out from under the tarp in the backyard where she's been hiding since we got to Tulsa. Gotta say that I love those old Hondas, she's been sitting for about three months now and I know the battery was half dead when I covered her up. I put the key in her, turn on the gas, closed the choke and two kicks and she was running. :) Mind you not purring like she should, but she made a couple of laps around the block ok. I rolled her back up to my garage and decided that maybe the timing was off a bit. After getting the timing light hooked up I noticed that I wasn't getting a pulse from the #1 wire, so I checked the rest and they were good. I pulled the wire and checked it with my meter and got a reading of 10K ohms, yep a bad wire, just for the fun of it I decided to check the rest, I avg. 5k ohms on the rest, ok, one really bad and the rest not far behind. I did a little research and decide the problem was that I had used graphite core wires. So, after a trip to the local O'Reily's Auto Parts, I had a set on order for Saturday morning. The next morning I did my running around gathering a few tidbit parts and my new wires. After putting on a new set of wires, I took her for another spin around the block, well, she's running a lot better now, but still got a few bugs to work out.

All for now - Asta

Yes, it's been awhile

2006-11-19T14:20:00.000-06:00

Ya, I know it's been quite a while since I last posted. Not much has changed in my world and I spent most of my time today working on my new blog site, it's for all those joke you get via e-mail. Check it out while I go move a truckload of mulch. LOL

http://woogaus-jotd.blogspot.com/

Time flies ...

2006-07-06T01:55:00.000-05:00

Just happened to look and see when the last post was, didn't realize it was that long ago. It's been real busy for me lately, I finally finished mocking up my bike last monday. Everything is done except for the seat, so it all got ripped apart for the finish work. I'm going to be bringing the frame home tommorow so I can work on it at the house some, Sweets gets a bit lonely when I spend half the night at the shop. But the clean up work I have to do on the frame I can do at home, so I'll work on that here. Laz, our painter is going to bring some fine line tape to the shop tommorow so I can get my tank ready for paint, I think I'll do the painting here as well since I'm only going to rattle can it for now.

'Night everybody, it's time for beddy bye. Asta

It's Monday - yippie?

2006-06-19T18:49:00.000-05:00

The start of a new work week, and the start of a new project at the shop for me. Hmm, I haven't been talking much about what has been going on at the shop lately, quick update.

1. Hired a new guy, fresh outta MMI two weeks ago. He's doing great, him and the boss get along great and he actually knows enough to be past the danger point. Best thing he knows is when to ask for help or advice on how things are done in the real world as opposed to the classroom world.

2. Hiring the new guy has let me get back to build projects, namely Victor's chopper, since he was complaing the most. LOL. It's a sky high monster, I can barely see over the fuel tank and I'm 6'1". We finished the mock up and most everything a couple a months back, but without a third guy at the shop, it's been a pain to work on it, since hiring the new guy, I've been able to devote the last week and a half to getting it finshed and on the road. It's about 90% done, but I had to stop because I ran outta parts, gotta love backorders.

3. The Smoke Out is this weekend, so we all have been spending a lot of time helping guys get thier bikes ready for that, mostly little things that they can't take care of themselves. Most of the guys that go to the Smoke Out tend to work on thier own rides and usually only come to us if it's beyond thier abilities.

4. Started a new project this morning, an OLD shovelhead FLH, it's not excatlly the kind of job I like to do, but I'll do my best on it. The owner was rebuilding it himself, kinda of a long term project for him, unfortunally he passed on before he could finish it and his family asked us to finish it for him. I imaging that once it's finished, they will probally want to sell it. Personnaly, I think that if that's the case, they should just sell it as is. Basicly though, all I'm doing is getting it running, doing what's needed to be able to show it does run. I figure if there are no major setbacks, I'll have it finished by friday and hopefully the rest of Victor's parts will be in and I can finish his next week.

Ok, that should bring everyone up to date on the shop work. As for the personal rides, I'm planning on finishing the oil tank/battery box for mine on thursday night, hopefully have it mounted as well, I'd like to be able to spend this weekend tying up a lot of the little loose ends so that I can spend next week wiring the bike. I've decided to get the bike running as a rat chopper for now, I'm still not 100% sure I'm gonna like the sucide clutch / jocky shift setup, plus I need to see how the Amen suspention will need to be tweaked for the best ride, so it's just gonna be a rattle can paint job for now, I figure by this fall I should have all the bugs worked out and then I'll finish it up completely. That will let me get to work on Sweety's trike project sooner, gotta keep her happy, so I'll be happy.

Well, that's all for now. Asta

it's been awhile

2006-06-16T08:03:00.000-05:00

Yep, it's been awhile since I've been here. Life is like that. It's mostly been the usual crazed pace of life that's been keeping me occupied lately. A big project that's been going on is research, Sweets has decided that she would like a trike. So I've been researching them, looking at different kits, convertions, and of course the costs. Let me tell ya, there not cheap, no matter how you do it. The photo above is the one I like the best so far, it's made by a local outfit www.eztrikekits.com . We drove over there last wensenday to check them out and we both got to take the one in the picture for a test ride. You can't tell it by the photo, but this one has been raked out to 40 deg and was set up as a drag bike, not excatlly a streetable setup. But it did ride nice for the most part, it had a bit of a shake in the front end taking off, I'm figuring is due to a improperly balanced front tire, but other than that I liked it. Of course like most, it's not cheap, but at about half the cost of most, it's an option we're discussing a lot.

Well, I'll try to get back later, time to get ready for work now. Catch ya all on the flip side, asta.

I wanna be the product tester !!!!

2006-05-24T17:27:00.000-05:00

The SP9004 Spudgun

Only in America can a guy make a living making and selling potato launchers! Just amazing, here's the link to his site.

http://www.spudtech.com/default.asp

Lazy Sunday

2006-05-14T22:15:00.000-05:00

Well, it's a lazy sunday around here. Not that I just sat around all day doing nothing, I did go to the shop and work on the chopper I'm building for a few hours. I manage to get a start on the rear brake setup, that's been fun, the Amen Saviour frame I'm using was designed around drum brakes and I'm trying to rig a hydraulic system on it. I also worked on the oil tank and electric box as well. I managed to get the box made and got a good start on the tank, I figure about one more night should take care of that. As for the rest of the day, well...... I found a fun website.

http://www.veoh.com/

You can watch the previews if you like, but it doesn't cost anything to sign up, you do have to download a viewer program to watch them, but there is a lot of content there and not just porn either!

But just for you preverts out there ----

Fun with garage doors

2006-05-07T22:28:00.000-05:00

Well, keep the first part short, my Dad and me had a discussion about the garage, his thoughts were to tear it down and build a new one, after explaining that the current garage was grandfathered under the current building codes and that the only thing wrong with the old one was the doors, we went out today and bought new doors. Let me tell you, garage doors ain't cheap! But, we came across a deal at Home Depot, they had a two sets of matching doors the right size that had been returned minus about half the hardware needed to install them, so we did some talking and ended up getting the whole mess for $250 bucks, the doors were originally $300 bucks apiece. These are some nice doors too, two inch thick steel clad insulated doors. :)) Well, after getting them home and inventorying what was there,I had everything new for one door except for a couple of brackets. Not a problem, considering that the east door never gets opened, I've got a work table and one of my toolboxes up against it now and the door is locked down so that it won't raise. I spent today taking down the west door and installing the new one, had to do a little engineering with the brackets at the top to get it all to work. Had real fun doing that since the instructions didn't mention which way they had referenced left and right, turns out that it is looking at the door from the inside. With a little help from a Hilti hammer drill that I borrowed from my nephew I was able to get the door up and almost working, remember that left/right thing I mentioned. I've got to switch the two bottom roller brackets around, right now the door will only go up about two thirds the way up and gets stuck. Oh well, that's tommorow nights job fixing that, by the time I got that far I was beat, so I just called it a night. The other door gets to wait until wensenday.

That's about it for tonight, I'm beat and I think I'm going to call it a night early. Asta.

It's finally over, at least as far as I'm concerened.

2006-05-05T18:38:00.000-05:00

Sweets and me have been having a series of discussions about work, my job in particular. She wants me to quit and work some where else, doesn't matter where, or if I actually like the job, just not at the bike shop. It's not that she doesn't want me to work at a bike shop, just not the one that I currently work at. There are several reasons behind this.

1. She doesn't like my boss - on this one, well a lot of people don't like him, he's one of those types, you either like him or not, period.

2. The pay isn't the greatist - I've been checking around, the pay isn't too hot anywhere. But at least I'm getting a raise at the end of the month.

3. No benifits - Been checking around on that one too, not too many places have benifits that are worth even mentioning, most places you have to pay for your insurance anyway. I worked for Motion Industries for six years, big outfit, google it's parent company sometime - Geninue Parts, I was coughing up 80 bucks a paycheck for insurance - $2080.00 a year and I wasn't even paying the full amount, when I started the company was called BerryBearing and the insurance was paid by the company, all the Berry employes got a bump in pay to cover the cost of insurance at the time of transition, but it was a one shot deal, after that if the cost went up, we had to pay for it.

4. No overtime pay - This issue is fixed, the boss and me had a talk today, starting at the end of the month, I'm no longer on a salary pay schedule, it's going to be hourly and I'll get overtime pay if I'm needed to work some extra hours, not that I expect extra hours, I very rarely have any now.

Anyhow, to sum things up, the boss and me had a nice chat today and straightened out a few points and straightened out a few issues and I've decided to stay put and stop looking at other jobs. Of course the fun part has yet to happen, telling Sweets this. LOL

Oh well, asta for now.

I like what he said

2006-05-03T09:54:00.000-05:00

This is an e-mail I got, like most "chain letter" e-mails I don't know if it actually came from him, but whoever wrote it, I think they got it right and I agree with what is said. I have NO problem with people wanting to live in America, just do it the legal way. Sign on the line, become a legal American like the rest of us.

Mexican Standoff

I don't know how everybody else feels about it, but to me I think Hispanic people in this country, legally or illegally, made a huge public relations mistake with their recent demonstrations.

I don't blame anybody in the world for wanting to come to the United States of America, as it is a truly wonderful place. But when the first thing you do when you set foot on American soil is illegal it is flat out wrong and I don't care how many lala land left heads come out of the woodwork and start trying to give me sensitivity lessons.

I don't need sensitivity lessons; in fact I don't have anything against Mexicans! I just have something against criminals and anybody who comes into this country illegally is a criminal and if you don't believe it try coming into America from a foreign country without a passport and see how far you get.

What disturbs me about the demonstrations is that it's tantamount to saying, "I am going to come into your country even if it means breaking your laws and there's nothing you can do about it."

It's an "in your face" action and speaking just for me I don't like it one little bit and if there were a half dozen pairs of gonads in Washington bigger than English peas it wouldn't be happening. Where are you, you bunch of lily livered, pantywaist, forked tongued, sorry excuses for defenders of The Constitution? Have you been drinking the water out of the Potomac again?

And even if you pass a bill on immigration it will probably be so pork laden and watered down that it won't mean anything anyway. Besides, what good is any other law going to do when you won't enforce the ones on the books now?

And what ever happened to the polls guys? I thought you folks were the quintessential finger wetters. Well you sure ain't paying any attention to the polls this time because somewhere around eighty percent of Americans want something done about this mess, and mess it is and getting bigger everyday.

This is no longer a problem; it is a dilemma and headed for being a tragedy. Do you honestly think that what happened in France with the Muslims can't happen here when the businesses who hire these people finally run out of jobs and a few million disillusioned Hispanics take to the streets?

If you, Mr. President, Congressmen and Senators, knuckle under on this and refuse to do something meaningful it means that you care nothing for the kind of country your children and grandchildren will inherit.

But I guess that doesn't matter as long as you get re-elected. Shame on you.

One of the big problems in America today is that if you have the nerve to say anything derogatory about any group of people (except Christians) you are going to be screamed at by the media and called a racist, a bigot and anything else they can think of to call you.

Well I've been pounded by the media before and I'm still rockin' and rollin' and when it comes to speaking the truth I fear not. And the truth is that the gutless, gonad-less, milksop politicians are just about to sell out the United States of America because they don't have the intestinal fortitude to stand up to the face reality.

And reality is that we would never allow any other group of people to have 12 million illegals in this country and turn around and say, "Oh it's ok, ya'll can stay here if you'll just allow us to slap your wrist."

And I know that some of you who read this column are saying "Well what's wrong with that?" I'll tell you what's wrong with it. These people could be from Mars as far as we know. We don't know who they are, where they are or what they're up to and the way the Congress is going we're not going to.

Does this make sense? Labor force you say? We already subsidize corporate agriculture as it is, must we subsidize their labor as well?

If these people were from Haiti or if they were from Somalia or Afghanistan would we be so fast to turn a blind eye to them? I think not.

All the media shows us are pictures of hard working Hispanics who have crossed the border just to try to better their life. They don't show you pictures of the Feds rounding up members of MS 13, the violent gang who came across the same way the decent folks did. They don't tell you about the living conditions of the Mexican illegals some fat cat hired to pick his crop.

I want to make two predictions. No. 1: This situation is going to grow and fester until it erupts in violence on our streets while the wimps in Washington drag their toes in the dirt and try to figure how many tons of political hay they can make to the acre.

No 2: Somebody is going to cross that border with some kind of weapon of mass destruction and set it off in a major American city after which there will be a backlash such as this country has never experienced and the Capitol building in Washington will probably tilt as Congressmen and Senators rush to the other side of the issue.

I don't know about you but I would love to see just one major politician stand up and say, "I don't care who I make mad and I don't care how many votes I lose, this is a desperate situation and I'm going to lead the fight to get it straightened out."

I don't blame anybody for wanting to come to America, but if you don't respect our immigration laws why should you respect any others.

And by the way, this is America and our flag has stars and stripes. Please get that other one out of my face.

Pray for our troops

What do you think?

God Bless America Charlie Daniels; April 10, 2006
http://www.charliedaniels.com/

Time flies ...

2006-04-29T19:49:00.000-05:00

Another week gone, not much to tell about this week.
Monday & Tuesday - life as usual, not much happened at the shop we're doing a lot of spring maintance right now, getting everybody ready for the riding season.
Wednesday - went out and got a truck load of mulch for the flower beds, got all the soaker hoses laid out and hooked up, started working on fixing up the cook shed.
Thursday & Friday - pretty much same as Monday & Tuesday
Today - Finished up most of the work on a bagger I started yesterday and due to the cold wet rain outside, decided to hibernate the rest of the day after work.
Tommorow - big fun, Monday is the annual mass trash pick-up day, you can pile as much as you want to on the curb and the garbage company wont charge you extra, so that meant I'll be carting all the garbage and junk I've been piling up behind the garage out to the curb tommorow, rain or shine.

Boring isn't it?

Deck the Halls (or at least the back porch)

2006-04-19T22:54:00.000-05:00

Been kinda one of those weeks so far, had monday off due to Easter, actually what happened was that the boss got talked into something by the wife and kids so he called me monday morning and told me not to come in. It was fine by me, did some running around and worked in the garage a bit. As for tuesday, well, I bolted a couple a more of those shiny go fast chrome bits on the fatboy, rewired the driving lights, can't remember what else I did, I guess that shows how exciting that day was, LOL. Oh, I did haul a load of my bike parts home and started sorting out the stuff, one truck load down, about two or three more to go. Today on the other hand, while not as exciting as building a cool chopper was a busy day. When we built the addition onto the house a few years ago, my bro built a small landing at the back door that had three short funky steps going down to the deck. Everybody complained about them because they were kinda short and stumpy, not to easy to walk up and down, plus the landing outside the door was kinda small. Trying to get in the back door with the groceries while three big dogs are trying to get out/in/see/sniff everything was a bit of a feat. So today out came the building tools and after a trip to Lowe's to get building supplies I re-did the landing. I extended it all the way to the cook shed, about four feet, and built a new set of stairs going down the front part. Didn't completely finish it today, I still have a set of stairs to put in on the backside and then do the hand rails and such, but it's looking a lot better and everyone's happy with what I got finished today. You can now walk up a nice set of stairs to a landing that's big enough for everyone including the dogs to get on and move about. Once I get the rest finished, I've got to buy some Thompson's water sealer and hose everything down so that it doesn't go to hell.

Well that's about it for now, Asta.

Good Friday ?

2006-04-14T22:11:00.000-05:00

Well, it was a pretty good friday for me, I'm not really the religious type so I didn't even realize it was Good Friday untill Jeannie at the shop mentioned it. I finished working on a custom softtail this morning, it had a rats' nest wiring job under the seat, I had talked to the owner late last summer when he had bought it and told him then that he might have some problems with it. The bike is in really nice shape otherwise and he did get a good deal on it. He managed to make it through the end of last season without too many problems, but he brought it to the shop earlier this year for us to fix a couple a bugs. One of them was the tail/brake light, it was acting funky. We had the shop kid start on it yesterday, thinking it was just a loose wire, but after a bit of fooling around with it, the boss put him on something else and had me take over. After I got it on my lift, the sparks started flying literally, I managed to get the battery unhooked before it exploded. The way the battery was sitting in the bike it was able to tip forward, the positive cable didn't have any protection on it and it welded itself to the oil tank, not a good thing. LOL After that little incident the decision was made just to rewire the rear end of the bike. After a little wiring tracing and marking I ended up cutting out a bunch of wire, about a dozen scotch-locks and three of the four load equalizers I found, leaving just one mounted up under the dash. This morning I finished up re-routing and cleaning things up, it all looks good and actually works, and now I've got three spare load equalizers in my toolbox to boot. LOL

The job I started this afternoon is a pretty straight-forward one, changing out stock parts with shiny go-fast chrome ones on the front end of a fatboy. Of course I won't be able to finish it this weekend, I'm still waiting on the new rims to come in, but I'll get done what I can.

Started working on Sweety's V-Star tonight, I bought a set of hard bags for Old Blu' but I decided that they didn't look right after getting them and they've sat on a shelf for a while. I got to looking at them the other day and decided that they were the right size for her V-Star. So tonight I started working on the mounting brackets, I managed to get things figured out so that I only have to make four tabs and two support bars to get the racks mounted. Now all I have to do is fix the couple minor problems with the bags and repaint them to match her bike, do a little rewiring, rework the license plate mount since I'm removing the stock turn signals, etc., etc., etc., just another simple job. LOL

Well, that's about it for tonight, time to hit the shower and then crash for the night. Asta!

The Sunday To-Do List

2006-04-09T18:43:00.000-05:00

Well, it's sunday. It was yard work day today nothing exciting or funny. Trimming and pruning trees, working on the flower beds, and general clean-up. Checked out the lawn mower as well, Dad ran over a big rock last year and broke it, I pushed it out of the shed today and cleaned it up enough so that I could see what got broke, went online to check out the parts, it's going to be about 90.00 in parts to fix it, but it's worth it. It's only a year old, so I can justify the cost. Not much else happened, just have to wait until tommorow to see if anything good happens.

Somedays

2006-04-07T21:16:00.000-05:00

Somedays are best forgotten, I've had a couple this week. Tuesday was so-so until amost the end of the day, I was installing a new clutch cable on a bike that I had put new bars and controls on to dress it up. I don't know excatly how many of these I've put on since starting at the shop, lets just say so many that I don't even think about how it's done anymore, I just do it out of habit. So anyway, I've gotten the cable run and snugged into the trap door, next I bolt the trap door back on the trans and tourqe it to 100in/lbs, next I pick up my wrench to give the cable it's final snug, as usual, then snap, the cable end breaks off. Yippie!?! The previous post explains thursday, so I wont go into that all over. Today, I finished wiping down the bagger and moved it and the trailer up to the third floor until the customer comes for it. Then I started reassembling a bike that I did some fab work on about a month ago. Part of the work I did previously on the bike was removing the tail/brake lights that were on it, the plan was to install a tail/brake light on the side mount, It ended up being a bit more of a project than it really should have been, the light that we wanted to use wasn't designed for the side mount that was on the bike, so instead of getting a new side mount the decision was made to make an adapter plate to mount the light to it, not really a hard job, just takes a bit of time to lay it out so that it loks good and then make it. That didn't take a real long time, but I need to rework the light itself some so that it would work. As it was, the light mounted with two 1/4-20 flathead bolts from the backside, well that wouldn't work with the adapter I had made so I subsitituted a couple of smaller bolts that would work just fine, except now I had to use nuts on the inside of the light housing. After getting everything mocked up, I realized that the nuts would contact the electronic board that the leds were mounted on, so I had to clearance things so I wouldn't have a short. Easy enough, I made up a quickie jig to hold the light housing in the drill press and chucked up an end mill in the drill to cut down the mounting spots inside the housing. The first one worked great, I eased the end mill into the housing and it easily cut the mounting spot down cleanly, then I shut the drill press off and repositioned the light housing so that I could do the same on the other end. I was just about finished when I noticed that I was off just a bit and it was leaving a bit of an edge on one side, what I should have done was finish the cut and then take my dremel and use a burr bit to clean the little bit out, but that wasn't what I did. I released the lock on the press table and nudged it a bit to the one side, BIG MISTAKE, the end mill caught the edge of the housing and yanked it to the left, chewing half the side out of the housing before I could slap the off switch. And there we have it, a sixty dollar tail light ruined. I was so pissed off at myself that I just cleaned up my tools and work area, showed the ruined housing to the boss, then told him I was done for the day and went home. The weather outside reflected my mood on the ride home, a cold dreary dampness, defently not an enjoyable end to the day. I just rode home dodging the cell phone chattering nitwits in their cars, parked the bike and went inside and made myself a pot of coffee and turned on the boob tube and vegged out. Hopefully tommorow will be a better day, I've got an appointment with the accountant to go over last years taxes. Yippie.

Ten Minute Job

2006-04-06T23:38:00.000-05:00

Gotta luv those ten minute jobs, had one today that lasted five hours. LOL Wiring up a trailer plug on a bagger, sounds easy doesn't it, especally since I had already worked on the bike and had pre-wired a pigtail down to where the plug was going to be. The only reason I didn't finish it when I was working on it the first time was that I didn't know how the customers trailer was wired. Normally on cars and trucks there is a set pattern as to how a light plug is wired, but knowing bikers the way I do, I didn't take it for granted that they had followed any set pattern. Since I wasn't sure about the wiring and the customer couldn't tell me either, I asked him to bring the trailer to the shop so that I could verify the wiring pattern. He dropped the trailer off late tuesday, so it was on my board to do today. It took me about five minutes to decipher the pattern. The pattern was fairly normal, the only goofy-ness was the wire colors on the trailer itself, they didn't run along standard color patterns, but it didn't really matter as long as the plug was ok. The fun came with the bike, I decided to test things before doing the final hard wiring, so I hooked the wires together and put a bit of black tape around each one to keep things from shorting. Then I grabbed my test light to check things out, running lights were fine, brake lights were fine, turn signals - a dead short, or at least that was my first guess. It defently acted just like a dead short, I could pull the main plug going to the rear of the bike and the turn signals would work ok, so I started with the easy stuff, I pulled all the light bulbs from the rear and started trying to isolate where the short was, couldn't find it, then I pulled the bags off and dropped the shocks so that I could get to the underside of the fender, no problems there. By now I've killed about two hours tracing wires, finally yelled at the boss to come over and put his two cents in, he fiddled for about twenty minutes before giving up and telling me that it's got to be in the wiring job I did putting in the pigtail and he wants me to cut it all out and then start over. After lunch we messed with it some more and finally decided it wasn't the wiring job it had to be the turn signal module. On older baggers this module is in the fairing - somewhere. Usually it's just behind the headlight, so all you should have to do is pull the headlight assembly out, needless to say it wasn't where it was supposed to be. Like I said, it's an older bike and has been worked on before. I ended up having to pull the front part of the fairing off, about twenty misc. bolts later I had it off and was digging through the wiring nightmare looking for the module, finally found it zip-tied to the back side of the fork leg, and of course it was the older style unit, spent about twenty minutes digging through the cabinets before I found another one, I've got a whole box of the new style on the shelf, we've pulled a lot of them rebuilding bikes. That turned out to be the problem, the module was failing, it had enough strength to work the bike's turn-signals, but it couldn't hack the additional ones on the trailer. Got to spent the rest of the afternoon rewiring all the wiring I cut out, then putting the bike back together. But it's all done now and ready for the road. You know this is the second time that turn signals have really messed with me, the first time was on my '76 750ss, I spend two weeks tracing a dead short in it, the sucker would blow the main fuse as soon as I turned on the key, that ended up being the turn signal flasher, turns out that the expensive honda flasher needs to be grounded, but the cheap replacement one doesn't, as soon as I pulled the ground wire off, everything was fine. Oh well, another lesson learned.

Hmmm, it's Friday night

2006-03-31T21:27:00.000-06:00

It's friday night, raining like cats & dogs with winds like you wouldn't believe. The rain hadn't started when I got off from work, so I was able to ride the bike home instead of calling Sweety for a ride. But the wind was terrible, it keep pushing me around durning the ride home. Plus I think I've fouled a plug in Old Blu', she just wasn't sounding right or running right on the ride home. Tommorow's going to be a busy day, after work I have some business to attend to then get back home and get to work cleaning/straightening in the garage again. My goal is to have it straightened out by next weekend. I made a pretty good dent in it a couple a weekends ago, but haven't been able to get back to it until this weekend, but I made the announcement tonight that I'm going to work in the garage this weekend. Some times I have to do this just so that I don't get other Sweety-do's. LOL Oh well, not much else to say tonight. Have a good weekend all and keep it fun.

TV commercial

2006-03-30T00:57:00.000-06:00

Why can't we have TV commercials like this?
http://www.zipperfish.net/video/may2005/bouncing.php

http://www.zipperfish.net/mediabase/popup.php?Active=Zvideo&&ID=696

http://www.zipperfish.net/video/july2005/likebrunette.php

Sloooow Day at the shop

2006-03-27T22:30:00.000-06:00

Not a whole lot happened today, I started mocking up a new rear fender on a '03 Deuce, I got it bolted on but that was about it, we wanted to get that much done so that we could have the customer check it out since he wasn't sure about the fender, he was happy though when he stopped in to check it out. Now I just have to wait on the rest of the parts to come in so that I can finish the full mock up.

My other big project today was putting new risers and a new starter in a Dyna WG that we put a 240 wide tire kit on a couple of years ago. The risers turned out to be a no-go, after I got them install it looked like there wasn't going to be enough clearance between the bars and the tank, turned out there wasn't, so I reinstalled the original risers back on it. The starter was pretty much the usual HD bs of installing a starter, the only technical problem I ran across was the starter shaft bolt, the 240 kit that we had previously installed included an offset kit for the primary drive that spaced it out from the motor and trans approx an inch and a quarter. After digging a bit through the parts bins, I realized that I didn't have one long enough, I ended up making one out of 3/16" dia rod by threading the ends and then welding a nut to one end. The new starter shaft bolt ended up being about 8 inches long, I'm just glad that it doesn't have to support a great deal.

Well, that's about it for today, catch ya' all later.

Sunday Evening

2006-03-26T22:25:00.000-06:00

Well, it turned out to be a somewhat busy day, built some short fences around Sweety's rose bushes in the backyard to keep the dogs from peeing on them, and replaced the gate that goes into the backyard. Sweety did make up for the lack of our normal sunday morning routine, she fired up the grill and cooked me a couple of beautifully delicious steaks just the way I like, and then suggested that we ride the bike over to visit with a friend of hers. The bike ride doesnt' sound like much unless you know Sweety, she loves to ride but she's a warm weather type, she doesn't usually even suggest going out on the bike if it's even a bit nippy. It was a short ride, her friend just lives about 5 minutes from here, on the way back we swung by the nephew's house since I saw his garage door up, we waved as we went by since she wanted to go home. I ended up dropping her and the V-Star at the house and riding Old Blu' back over to his house to visit for a bit. The V-Star is more comfortable when riding two-up, but I prefer to ride Old Blu' when I riding alone, it's a '75 Honda CB750 Four that's about 90% original and what's custom on it was done back in the 70's. Well, not much else happened today. Just going to relax a bit, play with F.R.E.D. then hit the sack.

Sunday Morning

2006-03-26T10:47:00.000-06:00

Ok, sunday morning is supposed to work this way -
- Wake up smelling a fresh pot of coffee
- After a bit, the smells of breakfast wafting up the stairs
- After stuffing myself, retiring to the computer room to read e-mail, etc.
- Farting around enjoying the rest of the day

This morning -
- I had to nuke my coffee
- A bowl of cold cereal
- My wife asking for a big hammer, so she can rip apart the deck
- So much for farting around and enjoying a nice day.

Oh Well, it was good while it lasted. LOL

Gotta love changes

2006-03-25T00:25:00.000-06:00

Well, another fun day at the shop. When I got there this morning all set to finish up the lenses on the Victory, I noticed someone had been doing some doodling on the bike, when I asked the boss about it, turns out him and the painter had decided to do the lenses differently. Yep, two days of cutting, grinding and fitting down the drain. Oh well, life goes on. LOL I just wish that they had thought of it before I did the other lenses, it only took me about ten minutes to make the new lenses, they're still discussing (arguing) about who's going to recut the sheetmetal. I'll let them figure it out, not that it really matters, I'll end up doing the work anyway.

Not much else happened today, I did a summer check up on one bike and got back to work on a bagger that I started on last week.

Maybe tommorow will be more interesting.

Four days in one. LOL

2006-03-23T21:00:00.000-06:00

I've been kinda tired the last couple a days when I've gotten home, so I haven't really haven't felt like getting online, but here goes, so get comfy. Started working on a Victory on monday, actually started on it about two months ago, but the guy wanted to go to Daytona, so I put his original sheetmetal back on the bike so he could make the run. I got back to it finally, it's just a sheetmetal job on it, replace the front and rear fenders, reworked the sissy bar mounting, and installing flush mounted leds in the fender and bags. The front fender I did two months ago when I first started working on it, He wants an Indian Chief fender on it, defently wasn't a quickie job either. It took four days to mount that fender, now while that may sound crazy, you have to realize one thing - an Indian Chief fender is designed for a 18 inch rim with a standard profile tire, a Victory runs a 17 inch rim with a low profile tire, this makes for about a 4 inch difference in radius. So it was more of a job than normal. First I had to carefully cut out the fender skirts, so that they could be reworked later, then I cut about twenty slices down each side of the fender so that I could collapse the overall radius down to an acceptiable level. Once each of the slices was tacked, I started on the skirts. After examing the right side skirt, I decided to just pitch it and recut a new one because of the cutout it had for the Indian style brakes. Next up was more fitting and tacking until they fit correctly, then finally doing cutouts for the Victory brakes. It took one whole day just to do all the finish welding and grinding but it defentaly made the front end look a lot better. While he had the bike in Daytona, we had Eric make up a frenched license plate box and mount that in his new rear fender. Jump to this last monday and now I get to work on the rear end. I got started on monday reassembling the bike back together with the pieces we had mocked up so far and I layed out the new lighting. The design for the led's is based on a "V" shaped chevron, he had originally picked out a set from Hi Tech, but after looking at the specs on them, decided that they were too small for the look he wanted, so I layed out a larger chevron pattern on paper and transfered it to the lens material, fender and both bags. a few hours of work with various power tools and files and I had four lenses made and four big holes cut in bodywork. That pretty much sums up monday and tuesday. Wednesday, being my day off, and a beautiful day to boot, I spent the morning working on my truck (oil change and monthly cleaning) and Mom's truck (distributor problems). The afternoon was spent cleaning the garage, still have about three or four more days work there, picture having a 30 x 40 ft garage 90% full and having somewhat trained chimps shoving all that into a two and half car garage, need I go further? Anyway, back at it today at the shop. The day started out with a break, and not a good one, to mold the lens into shape you have to heat them, I use an old electric roasting pan, the same type as your see at the church socials usually full of beans or sliced beef. Well, I pulled the first lens out a bit too soon and when I pressed it into the cutout, it decided to snap in half, after cussing about it for a minute, I tossed it aside and put the next one in the oven, didn't have any problems with the other three lenses, spent a few minutes cutting out a new lens and gluing it up, it'll be ready in the morning to fit. I finished up the day working on the sissy bar, he didn't like the way the stock attached, it bolts in between the saddle bags and the fender. He wanted to be able to remove it easier, since his wife doesn't always ride with him, so I took an underseat HD version and sliced it up and reworked it to fit. He stopped by this afternoon to check out where things stood, and was pretty happy with progress so far, he's going to bring his wife by either tommorow or saturday to see how she likes the new sissy bar before I finish it up completely and send it out for powder-coating. That about sums up today, I'll finish up fitting the last lens tommorow and roll it off my rack until him and the wife show up. Hopefully they show tommorow, so I can finish the sissy bar on saturday. I get to spend the rest of tommorow doing odd jobs, got a couple a bikes that need new tires and checkups for the season. Well, that's enough for tonight, LOL, time for a head run.

It's Sunday

2006-03-19T21:54:00.000-06:00

Ya now what really sucks, 6:30 am, that's what time I woke up this morning, and I didn't even go to bed early either. It ended up being a pretty full day, Sweets and I did a little shopping at Lowes, we bought a small stack of lumber and a truck load of dirt. Needless to say, I spent the day beginning the spring gardening. I built raised flower beds around two of the trees in the front yard, 3 ft by 4 ft by 1.5 ft tall. Then I took down the last of the Christmas lights, ya I know, it's freaking March, but it was the first day that I've worked outside that the ground was solid enough to put a ladder up. I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing from the work, then spent about two hours working on killing the virus on her computer. It was one of those adware viruses, ended up having to research it on the net to find out how to kill it, since Norton Internet Security 2006 couldn't get the job done. The virus is from a company that sell spyware removal software, namely Spy Falcon. Now isn't that a kicker, an anti-spyware company infecting a computer with a virus. Thing of it is, most of the leading software packages can't kill it, they can identify it, but not kill it. You have to do it the old fashoned way, manually. Looks like it time for all you high-techie people to bone up on the old MS-DOS commands from my day. ROFLMAO!!!

March Equinox

2006-03-19T21:16:00.000-06:00

Tommorow is the beginning of the March Equinox

Approximately March 20-21)

This day begins fall in the Southern Hemisphere and spring in the Northern Hemisphere. There are twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of darkness at all points on the earth’s surface on the two equinoxes. Sunrise is at 6 a.m. and sunset is at 6 p.m. local (solar) time for most points on the earth’s surface.

North Pole: The sun is on the horizon at the North Pole on the March Equinox. The sun rises at the North Pole at noon to the horizon on the March Equinox and the North Pole remains light until the September Equinox.

Arctic Circle: Experiences 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. The sun is 66.5 off zenith and low in the sky at 23.5 degrees above the horizon.

Tropic of Cancer: Experiences 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. The sun is 23.5 degrees off of the zenith.

Equator: The sun is directly overhead the equator at noon on the equinox. On both equinoxes, the sun is directly over the equator at noon.

Tropic of Capricorn: Experiences 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. The sun is 23.5 degrees off of the zenith.

Antarctic Circle: Experiences 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness.

South Pole: The sun sets at the South Pole at noon after the Pole having been light for the past six months (since the September Equinox). The day begins on the horizon in the morning and by the end of the day, the sun has set.

Was a quiet day at the shop

2006-03-16T23:35:00.000-06:00

Not much to tell other than that, I've been working on a softail that a guy got a good deal on, he bought it with the thought of doing a little work to it and then selling it for a profit, quite honestly, if he makes any profit on it, it won't be much. He did get it for a song, and in my opinion he got a good project bike for the price, but I don't think he'll make the kind of profit he thinks he will, I say that he'll probally break even, including my bill, or maybe five or six hundred more, but that's about it. His dad brought the bike into us and is the one keeping tabs on it for him, he stopped in today and we chatted about it while I was putting the primary back together (it had a couple of bad seals) I basicly gave him the lowdown on the bike's condition, and my opinion about what his son should do with the bike. That and showing/helping Eric put the seat and brake part together for Tony's bike that I made on tues. not much else happened. Oh well, asta for tonight.

Giving 100%

2006-03-15T21:55:00.000-06:00

What Makes Life 100%?
Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%?
We have all been to those meetings where someone wants over 100%.
How about achieving 103%? Here's a little math that might prove helpful.
What makes life 100%?
If
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z is represented
as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.
Then,

H A R D W O R K
8 1 18 4 23 15 18 11 = 98%

K N O W L E D G E
11 14 15 23 12 5 4 7 5 = 96%

But,

A T T I T U D E
1 20 20 9 20 21 4 5 = 100%

And,

B U L L S H I T
2 21 12 12 19 8 9 20 = 103%

So, it stands to reason that hardwork and knowledge will get you close, attitude will get you there, but bullshit will put you over the top.
And look how far .........

A S S K I S S I N G
1 19 19 11 9 19 19 9 14 7 = 118%

will take you.

Blankness

2006-03-15T21:12:00.000-06:00

It's wed. my day off, it's been a forgettable day, we all have them now and again. Nothing interesting happened, didn't do anything exciting, unless you can somehow count hooking up a washer and drier exciting. The most enjoyment I had today was tickling Sweety in the kitchen this afternoon and threating to drop a piece of ice down her shirt. I've been parusing through the blogs and community boards for about the last half hour and yawning, boy has it been a fun day.

Another day, another fight

2006-03-13T20:19:00.000-06:00

Day 2 of the virus fight, I've been reading up on the nasty little bugger. Hopefully I can kill the bastard tonight, we'll see.

In other news....

Saturday was a freaking busy day, it was nice out, good riding weather. That meant that everybody stopped by, of course I was busy as all get out, I had a seat pan to make. Luckly I had prepped the bike on friday night so I was able to start laying glass as soon as I hit the door saturday, I didn't even stop when all the guys started walking in, I just waved and kept on laying glass. Between Laz working his magic with bondo on one side of the shop and me over in the other corner working with fiberglass, we had the whole shop stinking to high heaven. LOL About two hours later, I finally finished and took a break. After taking a few minutes to air out and get my nose cleaned out (yes, I do wear a respriator mask) I went back in and started rearranging the showroom, the shovelhead FL that we had out front had sold, so I had to get it out, that was fun wiggling a bike with 38" beach bars out through two doors 36" wide. Of course the battery was dead since it had sat there for about six months, had to push the heavy ass mother around to the back door of the shop. At least I got to ride the other bike that replaced it in the showroom around to the front. The guy that bought the shovelhead wanted a few changes made, nothing major, he wanted a old school tractor seat with springs, and also needed the brake pedal relocated. I started making up some mounts for it saturday, I finished mocking them up today, the old style seat looks good on this bike, the bike has that old style look. The new owner came by this afternoon so I was able to have him try it out, he was happy, so I get to finish it up tommorow along with reworking the brake pedal. Other than that not much else going on, you can tell from my previous post how I spent my sunday and how I'm spending tonight.

NVCTRL.EXE The virus that's impossible to kill

2006-03-13T09:21:00.000-06:00

NVCTRL.EXE That's the name of the virus on Sweety's computer. It's more a pain in the ass than anything, and most likely you have it and don't even realize that you do. Ever click on a webpage link on your desktop and all of a sudden it redirects you to a different site, usually one either selling anti-spyware/virus software or porn. Good chance that you've got it then. You don't even need a fancy virus scanner program to see if you have it either, just click on the your start button, then click on run. When the dialog box comes up, type "regedit" and press enter. A new window will pop up. Then click on "edit" at the top, then click on "find", type "nvctrl.exe" in the box and press enter. If you have it it will pop up highlited right there on your screen. Of course that's the easy part, getting rid of it is a bit more diffucult, there are whole webpages just about this one virus, google it sometime. Ah well, time to get ready for work, more on this later.

It's Thursday and back to work

2006-03-09T22:38:00.000-06:00

Well, not a whole lot went on today. It rained some this morning and is still raining as I type, yadda-yadda-yadda, on to the good stuff - Gearhead Porn LOL

Well, finished putting Nature Boy's kicker together today, all the pieces I made up on Tuesday were nice and dry from the rattle can paint job I gave them. Got them all bolted in place first thing this morning then started finishing up the rest, I decided that since it was an old 4-spd kicker it just had to be bolted up the old fashioned way, fat stainless steel acorn nuts! Bossman had bought a bunch of stainless button head cap screws originally, he gets a woody over the damn things, everything he puts together gets 'em. I can't stand them anymore, LOL. But button heads just didn't look right to me, come on, it's an old fashoned 4-spd kicker, it screams "Acorn nuts!". I made short work of a piece of 5/16th threaded rod with my handy cutoff wheel and made up studs for the case, along with my handy-dandy home-made stud install tool, I had it all set to go in a matter of minutes. Of course it took a bit longer to get the damn thing on, holes never line up perfectly when your dealing with different manfacturer's parts, hell, sometimes even with the same manufacturer they don't line up just right. Next tool out of the toolbox, the offical Harley Davidson fine adjustment tool, (for those of you not familar with it, it's a 3 lb dead blow hammer). After a couple of minutes "discussion", it decided to go into place and I was able to tighten ever thing down and fill the tranny back up with fluid. Then came the easy stuff, putting the fuel tank back on and cleaning up a few bits and pieces here and there. After finishing up there, I moved onto the next project in line, mocking up the new rear fender and struts on a Fat Boy that's getting a 200 rear tire. I was in the groove buy then and it only took me about 20 minutes to get the fender and struts fitted and mounted in place. Then spent about 30 minutes cutting and fitting a set of filler pieces for the side skirts since they just weren't the right shape.

Well, that's about all for tonight, tommorrow will be welding the struts and filler pieces to the fender and making sure nothing warped to badly, then it's on to the stinky job, making a new seat pan for it.

I just love the smell of fiberglass in the morning.

Gotta have a kicker !

2006-03-08T15:52:00.000-06:00

Things have been going pretty good this week sofar, i finished most of the work on the dyna I'm currently working on, I mounted a 4-spd kicker via a adapto plate to a 5-spd dyna trans. That was the easy part, the fun began with engineering a clutch cable setup for it, I started with a stock clutch arm and atttempted to make it work by cutting a bit off the end to clear the start button mounted on the starter and then took the torch to it to bend it, so that it would clear the top of the 5-spd. After looking at that a bit, the general concensous was that it looked like doggy do-do. LOL So, I ended up cutting the end off where it bolts to the clutch rod, throwing the rest away and making a new one out of 1/2" steel rod, now it looks good. Next up came figuring out the cable mounting, that actually worked out pretty nice with a simple clean bracket made from some angle stock that was in the bits & pieces pile. It all turned out pretty cool looking, even with the clutch cable running along the right side of the engine instead of the left. "The Nature Boy" as we call him, wants to do a jockey shift next winter, so all I have to do now is to convince him to do a X-Treme suidice clutch setup since the clutch cable is neatly running down the right side now, other wise I'll be figuring out how to get it looped over to the left side for a regular jockey setup. That was the hard stuff, the easy work was swapping out a new set of rims and tires and powder-coating his handlebars. Well, it's off to update the shop's website now.

Another day, another reason to say f@#k it

2006-03-05T22:15:00.000-06:00

Ya now it's been one of those weekends. It all started Saturday morning, Jazz our rotty had a thing on one of her paws and Sweety decided to take her to the vet to have it checked out, she's not a pup anymore so I didn't mind. She got back from the vet just as I was leaving for work and as she pulled in, I could see the coolant steaming from under the hood, I just shook my head and told her I'd check it out when I got home and to ask Dad to give her a ride to work. As I walked into work there's the little green sporty that I spent two days making a custom set of pipes for back on the rack, apparently the boss decided that he didn't like the set of pipes that I had made and he was making a new set. I thought "Screw it!" In my opinion his weren't as good looking as mine. His were all bent and twisty and didn't look that nice, while mine were clean, simple and followed the lines and style of the bike. Some of the guys were there and I ended up working on another bike that day. When I got home and checked the truck out, it turned out that the water pump had gone to hell. Luckly the local parts store I deal with had one on the shelf. Fifty buck plus a ten dollar core charge later, I was the proud owner of a reman Dodge water pump. I decided to wait until today to put it on since I had to clean out a spot in the basement for the new washer and dryer that I picked up this morning, managed to get five more boxes of garbage packed up and ready for the dumpster. Well, not much else happened this weekend, ended up changing the water pump in my nephew's garage since it snowed today, got about 4-5 inches, and to thing it was a beautiful day yesterday, about 45 deg and nice and sunny. I knew I should have took the bike out for a ride, LOL.

And then they complain

2006-03-03T01:58:00.000-06:00

Female celibs always seem to be complaining about finding nude or semi-nude pics of themselves on the net, I just can't understand why, when they go out dressed like this.
I ran across this pic on www.stupidnakedpeople.com
Good name for a website. LOL
Lots of other good pics there as well.

Just what I need

2006-02-28T08:31:00.000-06:00

I think we could all use some of these, somethimes. LOL

Something I found

2006-02-22T20:07:00.000-06:00

I can't remember where I found this, but I like it so much, I've decided to put it here.

I'm putting it permantly at the bottom, so it's always here. LOL

The middle of the week

2006-02-22T18:50:00.000-06:00

Well, it's the middle of the week, for most people that doesn't mean a whole lot, but for me it's my day off. When you work for a bike shop, you usually don't work 9 to 5 monday to friday, most bike shops are open tuesday to saturday, our's is open mon, tues, thurs, fri, and sat. So this means I get wed. off. It does mess with life a bit, since I don't have off two consective days in a row, but it's how we're set up so I live with it.

Anyhow, it was a balmy 45 deg outside today with only a mild breeze, so I did what any crazy motorcycle rider does, I got a bike out and rode it around today doing my errands. Yep, everybody thought I was nuts, got a few stares from people in cars most likely wondering what kind of nutcase would ride in this weather. LOL I don't care, it was a nice day and in my leathers I was warm as could be.

Oh well, not much else happened today, just another normal wed.

Another day in the life of a motorcycle builder

2006-02-20T21:20:00.000-06:00

It was one of those fun days at the shop, I got to the shop a little before opening (my normal time). I already knew what my project list was for the day - make the spacers for Tony's handlebars. Little background on Tony's bike, I reworked his factory fat-bob set, adding a filler panel down the center and fitting a custom mini speedo, relocated the key switch and coils to a custom made mount on the left side of the engine where the horn is normally, made a curved backpack carrier for the rear fender, and a few other odds and ends. Well, in relocating the key switch, I changed it to a universal type setup, it basicly works like the one in your car now. Since his bike didn't have turn-signals to begin with, this left only the hi/lo beam switch on the bars. So, we decided to relocate it and toss the control housings all together, this ment making a set of billet alum. spacers to fill the gaps left to make it all look good. Normally on a bike with 1" diameter bars I make a spacer that tapers straight from the hand control left to the bar. On this bike it has a set of fat Carlini T-Bars, so this means they have a taper on the ends where the bar drops down to 1" in diameter, Tony happened to show up at the shop just as I finished cutting and boring the slugs for the filler pieces and I described how I usually make the spacers, after looking at the bars for a bit, we decided that instead of the usual straight taper, I'd cut the slugs to match the diameter of the brake and clutch housing and do a slight round-off taper on the ends. So far, I've got about two hours in cutting and boring the basic slug, add another two hours to cut the clutch side slug down to size on the lathe and taper the end, throw in a half hour for lunch and you can see how my day has gone so far. After getting that one ruffed out, the boss and me stood back and took a look at how things looked, we both said it looked like crap. A little over four hours work down the drain, I ended up making the filler pieces out of 1-1/8" OD tubing that took me about ten minutes to make and look a hell of a lot better. Oh well, that's life in a custom bike shop. Well, at least one good thing came out of it all, I've got two slugs already bored for the next job and I'm now two days ahead of schedule since I don't have to make alum. spacers. Gotta luv it, ROFLMAO !

The Day the World Changed (at least for me)

2006-02-19T13:36:00.000-06:00

Feb. 18, 2006

This day will live in my mind forever.

This is the day I got married.

People talk about the nervious jitters, butterflys in the stomach and various other things. I myself was stone cold solid about it all, not a jitter or anything, until about 30 seconds before the actual ceremony started. LOL, I get to laugh now, because I've done it, I've experenced the moment. It's not something that you can really talk about or share with someone unless you've done it yourself. I've been a groomsman in my cousin's wedding and I've helped plan, arrange and work the weddings of my two neices and a nephew, along with a few friends, but until it's you standing there in the spotlight, the feeling can't be realized. Two things got me through it, my military training about standing watch kicked in, in other words I did a very slight roll of my shoulders and I unlocked and relaxed my knees, the other and I feel most important thing was looking into Sweety's eyes, seeing the love and commentment there.

Well, it's the day after, most of the out of state friends left early this morning, trying to get back home before the weather get really bad, the last two will be flying out this afternoon. We're all just sitting around the house just unwinding, it felt like a drain plug had been pulled out of me this morning, it was just a top down feeling that came over me as I was sitting there drinking my morning coffee. I knew at that moment, despite the bills and other bs that was waiting for me come monday morning, that all was now right in the world.

One day to go

2006-02-17T08:00:00.000-06:00

It's friday morning, tommorow is the big day. I'm getting married.

Not much else to say at the moment, it's too fricken early to think. LOL

In the Beginning

2006-02-16T23:59:00.000-06:00

I read several blogs, and I wonder why people blog, I guess I found my best answer so far on Neko's blog http://www.letterstoanangel.com/

I'm a man trying to understand other people. A great deal of the time, they are a mystery to me, so I have to investigate them. Each of us does this, to a greater or lesser degree, but for me it's become a hobby. And because I think that there are other people out there with the same level of confusion as myself, I like to write my observations down for them to read. It's the only way in which I'm an exhibitionist.

Seems to make sense to me.