Dumb, Dumb, DUMB!

I returned from NH yesterday to find that there had been a ton of rain over the weekend, and just about all of the snow was gone. Nice! Even better; the roads were washed clean of salt!! Double-Nice!! And since I have this week off from work…and since the weather forecast was for sleet, snow and ice to move in later today, the only sensible thing to do was to take the bike out for some more 2009 miles! Yeeeaahhh!!

I rolled the bike out and she came quickly to life. Bundled up to ward off the high-30 degree temps, I rolled out to lay claim to some more mileage. But where to go? I headed down some side roads and meandered my way through some neighboring towns. My unscripted path brought me to a major interstate highway so I thought what the hell, I’ll jump on and see where I wind up.

And this was the beginning of today’s stupidity. Why? Because there was a major weather pattern approaching, and I knew it. I knew what the weather pattern entailed, and I knew what direction it was coming from. And yet, I didn’t bother to think about that as I proceeded on my merry way…away from the approaching pattern.

Discarding each exit ramp as it was offered up to me, I opted instead to continue along the highway, further and further away from home, and further and further away from the approaching weather pattern.

After a while, I found that I was only about 30 miles away from the Cape so I figured what the hell, I’ll hit that, cross over the bridge, ride a bit south, pick up the other bridge to cross back into Mass and head home.

My low-gas indicator lamp came on so I signaled my intent to peel off at the last exit before the bridge to refuel. Exiting the highway, I looped back towards the direction I’d been coming from…and was greeted by a nasty, gray sky. WTF! Idiot! That weather pattern has been chasing you the whole way, and now you have to ride back through it to get home!

I gassed up as fast as I could and, even though I was only 2 miles away from the Cape, I decided to forgo my plan of heading further east. Instead, I hopped back onto the highway I’d just deserted, aimed my bike homewards and hammered the throttle.

Success was not to be mine on this day. I hadn’t made it more than 10 miles before the skies opened up and doused me with near-ice water. Visibility was excellent…ok, I’m lying; it wasn’t good at all. Thankfully, traffic was fairly light so I was able to maintain a solid, hard pace. It would have been humorous to look around and witness what I’m sure must have been some interesting looks from the cages as this motorcycle passed them by, but I figured I’d filled my stupidity quota for the day, and therefore; I was better off keeping my eyes focused on the pavement in front of me.

Eventually, I managed to make it home – soaked and frozen to the bone. The precipitation was actually turning to snow just as I rolled the bike into the garage, so perhaps a bit of luck was on my side after all.

I still can’t believe I was that dumb, though. A cardinal rule; if you don’t have a specific destination to head for, and are just f’ing around, then you always head towards the storm. That way, as soon as the weather starts to turn against you, you do a U-turn and enjoy dry riding for your trip home.

But hey, I got about 150 miles on – not bad for the end of December!! Woo-Hoo!! (And judging from the forecasts for the upcoming week - arctic air coming in, black ice on roads - they’ll probably be the last miles for this year.)

Here’s hoping everyone had a great Christmas, and that you all have a fun and safe New Year’s!

Ho Ho Ho

It’s Christmas season! Time for brightly lit houses and colorfully wrapped presents! Time for decorated trees! Fluffy white snowflakes! Frosty breath…and chilled fingertips... Icy footing and windshield scraping. Last minute runs to the stores for forgotten presents…hard elbows and throat-punches to the old ladies who try and cut you in line… Big fat men shoving their asses down your chimney, only to leave a big pile of black coal in your stocking! (Ok; my stocking.)

So with all of this going on, it’s a nice surprise when you open a Christmas card and two beers fall out. That’s right; I said two beers fell out!! What’s that? How do you mail two beers in a Christmas card? Simple; you disguise them as VFW beer tokens! Thanks Coose & Mary!!

Wheee! Beer Tokens!! And since they originated from the Olean VFW, the only proper thing to do is return them from whence they came. Wheee, beer trip to Olean!

(Although, since we just got almost a foot and a half of snow dumped on us, the trip will have to wait for a bit.)

Here’s hoping everyone has a great Christmas!

Wheee, beer tokens!! :-D

The Return of Eddie!

Had a picture text from Mary out in NY earlier today and had to get the pic posted up here while I had a break at work.

You may remember Eddie from way back when Zig and I did our Sturgis trip. On our return leg, we were hanging in Olean for a few days and got introduced to Eddie, the Wonder Dog. Eddie has this great trick where he drags his nuggets across the carpet on command - how hilarious is that?!?! As much fun as that is, he also has a G-rated trick, where he plays dead on command. Point your finger, say "Eddie! Bang!" and he drops. Too cool! Eddie's last appearance on this blog was a couple of months ago, nearing Halloween, and he was dressed as Batman's trusty sidekick; BatDog.

Well here he is once again, this time he's dressed for the upcoming holiday.

Mary titled it; "Bark the Herald, Angels sing". That's a frikkin' riot! (Eddie doesn't seem to share the same level of appreciation for wit and humor, though...)

Santa is coming, so hopefully everyone out there is being nice. (Although, a little 'naughty' every now and then isn't so bad, either!)

Ok, back to work...

Fingers Crossed

We've dodged the bullet for quite a while now. It's already December and the only snow we've had so far this season, is a one-day heavy dusting back in October (which thankfully disappeared later that same day).

All that may change though...the weather reports are calling for snow later today. Originally they were saying just a dusting, but as time dragged along, those reports have been upgraded; first to a couple of inches, and now to maybe even 4 or 5 inches. The end of the world? Certainly not, but it may be the end of 2009's riding season. Time will tell...

But instead of pining the time away, I figured it was better to hit the road and roll up some more smiles before the white flakes had a chance to visit. A few errands after work, a bit of time spent at the gym (to work off some of the ice cream diet I've been on lately), and it was the open roadways for me. I was hoping the late hour (look at the time-stamp on this post to get an idea) would equate to paths of pavement free and clear of most traffic, and while this proved to be the case in many instances, I did encounter something I hadn't prepared for; traffic control. See, most of the lights around here seem to set to switch back and forth between red & green at the most inopportune moment, leading to many rabbit starts, followed quickly by rapid decelerations. Damn these infernal colored contraptions!

The temps were floating around 40 degrees and the clean crisp air did much to alleviate the stress of the aforementioned stoplight interruptions. Pacing myself, and with no real direction or destination in mind, I purposely got lost several times. I'd take educated guesses and just keep going until I came across something familiar, be it an interstate highway marker or a town line signpost.

Eventually the temps began to wear on my fingers (I forgot to bring my heavy gloves, dammit) so I headed for home and just pulled in about a half hour ago. Final tally; a few hours and maybe a hundred miles or so. Not a lot, granted, but most of the paths I traveled were inter-town roadways, complete with posted speed restrictions, so all in all; not too shabby.

Time to get some sleepy-sleep and have dreams of bright sunshine, bored-out motors and wind-whipped faces. I would say "with any luck, we won't get much snow", but we've had tremendous luck so far and it would be arrogant to expect more.

But there may be more riding to be done yet this year, so I'll still be keeping my fingers crossed...

Ride Hard, Take Chances.

Flaming Pumpkin!!

I was boppin’ around on the internet a little bit ago, looking for some cool pumpkin carving ideas. But what I found went far beyond carving a simple pattern into orange skin; I found something that involves FIRE!

And searching further, it seemed I was behind the times with this activity, as there are several sites that have done this before. Oh well, better late than never.

Items needed; a pumpkin, some kerosene, a roll of toilet paper and a container to soak the TP in.

Well I had a pumpkin already. Let’s see about the other stuff. Toilet paper? Check. A container? Check. Kerosene? Oh yeah baby! Check!

There was a bunch of fine print on the kerosene label, but I figured it wasn’t anything important so I didn’t bother to read it.
Now the instructions said to soak the TP overnight. Ok, that’s easy enough. I poured the kerosene into the can, put the TP in and even weighted it down with a rock to keep it submerged.
I figured a good place to do all this would be outside. Away from my lungs (and away from my furnace’s pilot light!). But some pine needles fell into the mix when I put the rock in, which made me realize that a good protective cover was needed to keep other dirt, leaves and other crap out of my experiment.
All set and ready to go, right? Ahhh, so I thought. The following day arrived and I was too caught up in some other kind of mischief to get my pumpkin carved. The day after that; it rained and a rainy night is no good for filming a flaming gourd, so things were postponed yet again. The night after that…well, I forget what came up, but the pumpkin didn’t get done that night, either. Can you guess where this is headed? Yeah, I didn’t get a chance to carve the pumpkin in time for Halloween. Dammit! Oh well, the pyromania would still be done!

Hmmm…would the TP have held up, or would I be faced with a disintegrated pile of liquid slop? (You’ll be happy to know that things held up wonderfully.)

So there I was; Halloween had passed and I still had the ingredients for something truly cool. So I cleared my schedule for an evening, assembled some tools and hunkered down to see just how well this activity would come together.

A nice skull stencil seemed to be appropriate for the event…
I opted to carve the pumpkin by opening the bottom, rather than the top. This was important, as it would allow me to get the TP situated on the base, and then I could place the carved pumpkin over everything, nice and easy. More importantly, if I needed to get at the flames once things were lit, I could just lift the pumpkin off, rather than having to screw with trying to lift a flaming roll of poop-paper out of a mini-furnace.

Also; I left the sides nice and thick to help keep the pumpkin from drying out too soon, once the flames got going. (It may look like I cut the top off, but I assure you this is the bottom.)
The tools which were used in this creation…
Ta~Da! A skull! (It doesn’t look like much in this pic, but trust me, it looked great in the dark, with the flames going.) Some chimney holes were needed around the top to allow the flames to shoot out of, otherwise everything would shoot out the face/carving and that probably wouldn’t look as cool.
I figured the fire pit would provide a safe area for the lighting ceremony…and then figured a nice mini-stack of cinder blocks would provide a bit more safety.
The TP has been placed and the pumpkin is ready to be placed onto the base.
Here, everything is set and ready to go…
JEEZUS, ENOUGH WITH THE PICS!!! JUST LIGHT THE DAMN THING ALREADY!!!!

Wow, pushy crowd, ain’t ya? Ok, ok, no need to shove. Here ya go…

The flames came up nicely. There was no “WHOOMP” like gas would give you, just a rapid-but-controlled spreading of the burn. Once things were fully going, the flames coming out the top were pretty sweet. Not too high, not out of control, but just really cool, man.

I’ll DEFINITELY be doing this again next year!! Hell, I might carve a SANTA pumpkin and leave that out on my front doorstep for when the Fat Bastard comes by with this year's gift of coal!!

Wheeeee!!!!

Halloween @ Sue and Ed's

Last year’s “All Hallow’s Eve” ride found me on the doorstep of Ed & Sue’s cemetery, where we whiled the night way with laughter and libations. All this, while warding off the curses and incantations of creatures, both tall and small, with promises of sweets and treats. Yes, it was a grand evening, and we all survived to live another year.

And here we were; that year had passed all too quickly it seemed! A quick call to Ed & Sue to inquire if this year would find them repeating the events of 365 days earlier, and sure enough; it was on!

I loaded up some of our my talismans (beer, wine and candy!) and made the trek over to the aforementioned cemetery where I settled in and made my preparations for the coming darkness.

Let’s see if we have things covered…
We’ll need plenty of candy to bribe any demons or witches that want to cast spells on us…
We’ll need a stellar cemetery layout, to fool any of the undead that come along looking for live folks, in hopes of eating their brains…
“Ghosts” in the windows to keep out any wandering spirits who might be looking for an un-haunted location to take up residence in…
Here and there, some eerie blinking eyes had also been set up, which just added to the overall atmosphere. Ed had the chimenea fired up and it was billowing flames to ward off the chill. One final look around to make sure everything is covered…Ok, I think we’re good to go! And it was not a moment too soon, as the creatures of the night began to appear out of the darkness. The trickle started slowly and then picked up to a steady flow of both mini-critters and their accompanying guardian ghosts (parents).

The night saw no shortage of costumed creations; there were ghouls that were fools, and monsters who were songsters. I saw vampires and umpires and even one noble squire. There was a witch that was a bitch, and a squid from Madrid (walking with the Karate Kid). Barbie and Ken were hanging with the X-men, while a Frankenstein was drinking wine with a swine from Rhine. Hell, there was even a zombie from Bombie looking hip in Abercrombie.

I’d seen enough; it was time for another beer…

On my trek to find said beer, I found myself in the old abandoned barn where Ed stores his prized Harley. He had a blue light on it, just like last year, and since I just love how this thing looks, I had to snap a pic again;
The rest of the evening was much of the same. We checked out the monstrosities as they presented themselves to our altar of candy, and each time, our offerings were adequate to send them merrily along their way, without any thoughts of casting curses in our direction. Overall, the night was a compete success.

This year was fantastic as always, and we hope that Ed and Sue will be gracious enough to host again next year. For if they do, I’ve got something else planned for the night’s display. Something that involves pumpkins and pyrotechnics. How can we go wrong?

Happy Halloween!!

Costume Pics!

Yes, Halloween has come and gone, but I’m not done posting about it, so you’ll just have to bear with me.

Each year, I like to bring my latest costume creation over to show Sam and Zak, and to also check out their costumes. They usually get quite a kick out of Uncle Dave and his silly costumes. Here are some examples of years past;

This is the earliest one I could find. I was decked out in 70's gear, Sam was a giraffe, and Zak was a frog.
The following year, I was a 7' tall Frankenstein Monster. Sam was a cat and Zak was the Hulk.

Zak wasn't too keen on the costume (which you can see from his body language in the pic) - for some odd reason he thought my face was scarier with the green makeup than it is on a regular basis. (In this pic, they're sitting on my costume's boots. They were huge clunky things that sounded awesome when I walked.)
The next year, I was a 7' tall Grim Reaper. Sam was a cowgirl and Zak was a ninja.
Zak and I squared off against each other (he's swinging his foam nunchucks at me).

I can't remember if this was the following year or not (Alzheimer's is a bitch), but suffice to say that this costume came along at some point. I thought they'd get a huge kick out of this costume, but unfortunately; The Muppets were a bit after their time and they really weren't too familiar with the character - and therefore; they thought I was kinda retarded (in this pic, they're both making fun of me) LOL.
The year after that, I was the Headless Horseman, and while pics from that year are in that year's Halloween post, I'll pull a couple up for posterity. Sam was a pirate and Zak was an alien.

I didn't like how my costume looked in that last pic so here's one I shot at the house - I loved this costume!

Last year's pics of myself (as an outhouse) with Sam and Zak can be found in last year's post, but here's a reminder; Sam was a clown and Zak was a mini Grim Reaper.
Here’s a pic of Sam and Zak from this year; Sam was a cavewoman and Zak was a Frankenstein, with a giant head and googly eyes. (If you compare these pics to the above pics of prior Halloweens, you can see how tall they’re getting!).

We didn't get a good group shot of the three of us, and I think it's because they were a bit unsure of the reliability/stability of my shower costume. And they had good reason, as evidenced by the clip in one of the below-posts, in which I can be heard to exclaim "I'm getting wet!".

Next year should be a return to the fun, group thing. I've got a good idea of what I'm going to dress up as and it shouldn't involve any moving parts (which is a relief to everyone).

And there you have it; a wrap on the Halloween Costumes.

Ok, I believe I only have two more Halloween posts coming (one of Halloween night @ Ed & Sue's, and the other involves fire!); with any luck I can get them up here tomorrow.

Whew – almost caught up!

Shower Costume!

I should have taken pics along the long and crazy trip that was my Halloween costume creation this year. Why? Because of all the changes and obstacles I encountered along the way. But, I didn’t, so I’m afraid you’ll have to accept a few pics of the completed project, along with a vid which hopefully illustrates the working effect.

The idea began simply enough; take the plain ‘shower costume’ idea and extend it one step further. I mean, how hard could it be to incorporate actual running water into the grand scheme of things? Ahhh, I was destined to find out just how hard!

First things first; I had to rig up the shower stall. For this, I took 7/8” copper tubing and a borrowed pipe-bender and made myself a nice circular shower rod. Nice and easy so far.

To support it over my head, I used my T-Bag from my Fatboy, as it came with backpack straps which zipped up inside the back of it. Pulling those out, I had a nice working backpack which I would wear, and from which, I’d support the getup.

Into the carrying space of the backpack, I stuffed an empty bird seed container (rigid plastic, roughly 8” * 12” in size, and it fit perfectly. This would give me something to hold the water in, as it circulated through the system. I also cut a piece of 2x10 board to stuff into the carrying space. To this, I bolted another section of copper pipe which would act as the backbone to the costume. This was attached to the circular rod. I also attached two sections of 3/8” threaded rod to the shower rod; one on each side, roughly 18” out from the backbone piece. These three posts did a great job of holding the curtain rod, even after I’d attached the shower curtains (I needed two curtains, as one wasn’t enough to wrap entirely around me.)

To the backbone piece, I ran another section of 7/8” copper pipe, and bent this to look like a shower head, aimed back down into the costume. Inside this, I stuffed some ¾” (outside diameter) plastic tubing to carry the water for the shower. I picked up (from Home Depot) a rubber aerator for a kitchen faucet as it was wide and looked like a shower head. The problem with it was that it could switch back and forth between being just an aerator, or allow a full-blast of water through the middle of it. Kinda hard to explain, but the end result was that the center piece allowed water to leak out and didn’t leave enough pressure backed up to give a good shower effect (hey, the thing only cost me $1.29). To fix this, I took out the metal face plate, leaving just the rubber housing. Then I took a heavy plastic jug and carved out a round piece that was the same size as the metal faceplate. Then I kept heating up a needle (on one of the gas burners on my stove) to melt tiny holes into the plastic. Then I tucked the plastic piece into the aerator head and tested it out on the kitchen faucet – perfect!

Everything was coming together nicely! The one thing I still needed to locate was a battery operated water pump, as I had to be mobile with this costume, hence; no plug-in pump would work.

I found something that I thought would work (on-line) and ordered it. When it showed up, I had some serious misgivings about its ability to pump air, let alone water. Sure enough; a quick test of its strength and I knew I needed something else.

I found another pump on another website – this was a marine bilge pump, and worked on “D” batteries. It claimed to be able to lift water 4 feet. Perfect!! Time was running short (before the costume party at work) so I didn’t feel comfortable that it would arrive in time if I had it shipped, so I drove to the warehouse in CT and picked one up. Sweet!

Back home, I assembled everything; curtains were on the rod, water was in the container, which was in the backpack, I’d rigged up a third curtain (inside, where it couldn’t be seen from the outside) that would catch the water and return it into the container inside the backpack, batteries were placed into the pump, the hose and shower head were hooked up – everything was ready to go! With a profound sense of pride and accomplishment, I hit the switch on the pump...

…and almost started crying when the damn pump wouldn’t even lift the water halfway up the contraption.

Ok, I can fix this, I just need to do some re-engineering. First thing I need is to figure out just how much lift this pump will give me. Using a water-filled bucket and some spare tubing, I calculated that I had about 22” of lift-height to work with. Anything higher than that and I wouldn’t have enough pressure to garner a good shower effect.

Hmm…ok, 22”. That means my water storage container needs to be roughly the same height as my head. So what to use? After many ideas and failed attempts, I came up with something that worked great!

I took one of those 5-gallon water jugs (like from Poland Springs) and cliced the bottom off of it. Then, to my costume’s backbone, I connected a piece of 3/8” threaded rod, ending in a 2 ½” coupling. Inverting the water jug, I stuck the neck down through the coupling to hold it in place. Next, I ran another section of threaded rod out near the top of the inverted water jug. I drilled a hole through the jug, then threaded nuts onto either side of the plastic (one nut on the outside, one nut on the inside) and tightened them against each other. Now, between that and the coupling at the bottom, the jug was solidly secure.

The pump went inside the inverted jug, and the hose ran up through the shower head, which I aimed down into jug – since the bottom was sliced off, the water would now return to the reservoir to be pumped back up again. I gotta say that I was pretty pleased with myself. I used silver spray paint for the metal rod and shower pipe, and things looked sweet.

The day of the party came and things went off without a hitch. I’d picked up a shower curtain, some flip-flops, and I wore shorts – the ending result looked like I was nekkid and taking a shower. I could poke my head out to see where I was going, and it was great! Everyone was amazed at the working water assembly and wanted to know how I’d done it.

At the costume party at the end of the day, my costume wound up winning me a waterproof digital camera/camcorder. The thing is valued @ over $400, so that wasn’t too shabby at all.

Ok – pics!
Here, you can see the backpack was the center of everything. Even though the original idea of having the water stored in the bottom container didn’t work, I still needed to leave that in there (along with the piece of 2x10) to keep the backpack from folding in on itself. To that 2x10, was the backbone pipe, and to this you can see the threaded rods holding the inverted water jug in place.
The pump sits in the bottom of the jug and the line feeds up through the overhead shower pipe, only to return the water back into the jug.

Another shot of the pump, tubing, and shower head.
I’d love to show you a great walking-around action shot, but unfortunately; after the party was over and I went to stuff this thing back into my Jeep, I guess I wasn’t as careful with it as I should have been. I messed up the connections that hold this thing together and when I tried to wear it again (for the purpose of this posting), it wouldn’t hold up correctly and kept turning.
Anyway, I had to prop it up against the wall to get some semblance of it in action.

I did bring my costume over to show Sam and Zak, and we did manage to get a bit of an action clip then, but it only shows how messed up this thing had become, because the water jug shifted on me, and the shower started dumping water all down my back. Ha ha ha, you can hear me say “I’m getting wet!” right at the end of the clip. Ahh yes, good fun had by all.

I’ll do another post (probably next week) showing Sam and Zak’s costumes.

‘Til then…

2009 Annual Halloween Run

(It's budget season and I’ve been beyond-slammed here at work. I’ve got some catching up to do, so here’s the write-up on last weekend’s Halloween Run.)

The invitation had gone out to all Ghosts and Ghouls that like to ride. It was time for the 2009 Annual Hyde Park Halloween Run! Departure from 640 South St was to be @ 11 sharp. From there, we’d roll over to Ronnies and hang out for a bit while knocking back some road sodas and sharing some laughs.

11:00 arrived and we had a respectable crew saddled up and ready.

Mike had zip tied a skeleton to his front forks – excellent contribution, Mike!

We fired up and headed off to our next destination. 25 minutes later found us turning off the main drag and into the neighborhood of our esteemed host Ronald.

And wouldn’t you know it; I was making the last turn before the aforementioned destination and was leaning hard into a left turn. Leaning harder and harder…and…dammit! Too hard! I caught the floorboard frame, and more importantly; the brand new kickstand spring! The telltale sound of the kickstand dragging along the pavement signaled to all around me that the idiot had arrived.

We pulled up to Ronnie’s and got settled. And I broke out my trusty mini-bungie cord to keep the kickstand up and out of the way where it can't cause any trouble.
Does this pic look familiar? (I’m talking about the spring, not the beer. We can ignore the beer for the purposes of this tale.)
We hung out in the sunshine and enjoyed each other’s company until it was time to roll out.
We shot to the registration location, handed our money over, and took in the sights for a few. Having arrived later than we’d planned, we only had short time until the signal was given to fire things up and head on out.

We found ourselves next to this guy, right out of the gate.
Had to catch up to him and catch a side-shot.
This guy was dangerous – riding up onto people’s lawns and stuff. What the hell is he thinking?
I tried taking a shot of myself through my side mirror…but as you can see; I have a problem keeping my side mirrors clean.
Here’s a shot of Ronnie. If you think his mask is scary, you should see him without it.
Hey kid, just look at your father if you want to see what happens when you don’t keep your hair cut short.
We made it safely through all the many towns and bystanders who were out waving us on. The weather wound up much warmer than we’d expected and by the time we arrived at the end, we couldn’t wait to peel off some of our outer layers.

The food line was beyond ridiculously long, so we contented ourselves by enjoying the road sodas we’d brought with us, and walking around, checking out creativeness of some of the bikes.

I managed to snap a pic of this bike…
…and then my camera batteries died. Man, WTF? This camera goes through batteries faster than this group can polish off a 12-pack. And that’s pretty damn fast.

The beers eventually ran out so we made our way down to the food line, finally managing to finagle some sustenance for ourselves. We mingled about for a bit longer before heading back to the bikes. The sun was beginning to wane and the temps were stating to drop. Did I mention that we'd run out of beers? We could have gone inside and paid for some, but that would be just silly.

In years past, I’ve had folks back to the house for more beers and a warming fire. This year; everyone had different things to do and responsibilities to take care of, so I bade my farewells and headed back to the homestead to catch the Pats game.

And with that; another successful Halloween Run was in the books.

Creepin' Closer to Creepy Time!

A chill is in the morning air, sunlight retreats more quickly at day's end, and multi-colored leaves are beginning to appear along the edges of roads and sidewalks. Yes; Fall has arrived, and this brings what? Halloween!

Halloween is my favorite time of the year. Aside from the tons of candy that I can’t seem to avoid eating, I love the whole creepy/scary themes that come out to play for the second half of October. Decorations begin appearing on houses, scary shows are aired on TV, and I get to prepare for my company’s annual Halloween party/contest.

Halloween is Cognex’s official holiday each year, and the employees take things very seriously. On the day of the party, everyone dresses up in costume, vying for one of the 15 finalist slots. Prizes range from digital cameras, to computers and large, flat-screen TV’s. So the incentive is there for coming up with a great costume. I haven’t figured out what I’m gonna be just yet, but I’m tossing around a couple of ideas (a write-up will follow, once I settle on a plan and get rolling).

Our annual pumpkin carving fest is coming up in a couple of weeks, too! We all gather over at Ed & Denise’s house, pumpkins in hand, and begin the ritual massacre. Knives are chosen, stencils are selected, and the hacking and slashing begins. Mix a number of frosty libations into this concoction and you truly have an event not to be missed.

A bit of practicing was needed to hone our skills for the upcoming shindig, so we headed to the store this past weekend and picked out two unfortunate victims. Once home, the all-too-familiar scene was repeated without care or concern for the poor bastards.

And here were the finished products;

My contribution:
Add a couple of ceramic jack o’ lanterns, and here’s what the front window looked like.
The New Yorkers are getting into the mood, too; check out this picture and text I got from Mary this morning; "Happy Halloween from Eddie. AKA Batman"

Too cool!
What else, what else. Oh! We have the annual Halloween run coming up this Sunday. Those that can make it will gather once again at 640 South St, then roll over to Ronnie’s house where libations will be tossed about for a bit. From there, we’ll shoot over to register and then join in with the procession as we wind our way through a myriad of towns, finally ending up at….well, I’m not sure where we’re ending up this year. (Each year, the final destination changes, as each year, we wear out the welcome of the town we party-hearty in.) So while we don't know where we'll be at the end, we’re still looking forward to a fun-filled day.

Ahhh Halloween. I welcome your sweet embrace...

Fright Hard, Stake Chances

C'Mon People, it's the Flag, Dammit!

I was leaving work last week and had just merged onto the highway when I spotted a small American flag lying off to the side in the breakdown lane. I pulled over, set the kickstand, and walked back to retrieve it from the pavement. As I was doing this, I couldn’t help but notice as car after car drove right on by, paying no attention to this symbol of our pride and freedom that was just laying in the dirt. Come on people, this is the US Flag!

I can’t count how many times I’ve been riding along and seen a mini American flag lying on the road as folks just cruise past, not giving it a second thought. Ok, I can count; it’s 6 times. How do I know it’s 6 times? Because that’s how many mini American flags I have sitting at my house that I’ve stopped and retrieved from the roadway.

They may have a bit of road dirt on them, or their poles may be broken, or have some scuff marks on them, but the flags still represent every bit of courage and sacrifice that our great country has been built upon. And that means that I will not ride on by them. If I see one, and it’s in my power to retrieve it, I’m going to do it.

Am I condemning those that lose the flags? Hell no. I go on the assumption that those who’ve lost them had been displaying them with pride, the way the flag should be treated. It’s going to happen that flags will come loose, or their posts may break, and the person won’t even know they’ve lost it until many miles down the road. I understand that this happens. My problem is with those that see them on the road and choose to ignore them.

Moving on; here are some pics of the flags I’ve retrieved so far.

Two of these little guys were retrieved after a July 4th parade, if you can believe it. I fail to understand the logic of standing by and waving flags at a celebration of our country’s heritage, only to then leave the flag on the ground when you leave.
In this pic, the bottom one is the latest retrieval.
I’ve decided that each time I retrieve another flag, I'll take a pic and post about it. My tally of flags rescued so far is 6.

And counting...

4th Annual Lance Crprl Shayne Cabino Memorial Run

I was checking the weather on the local news station. It was Saturday morning on the weekend prior to a very important memorial run that we do each year. The weather had been great for over two and a half weeks and that much good weather in a row is an awfully long time. The odds makers in Vegas said it wouldn’t hold out for us for a third straight weekend and sure enough; the 5-day forecast showed some clouds moving in towards the end of the week. I turned the TV off and tossed the remote onto the recliner. There was still plenty of time to come, and plenty of things could still happen with the weather.

The Gods that oversee memorial runs must have been looking favorably upon us, for as the week progressed, the threat of impending precipitation began to fade away. Friday morning brought us nothing but cloudy grey skies which lasted long into the night, and while the forecast for Sunday called for heavy rain, the all-important day in between, was going to be beautiful.

Saturday, September 26th, dawned bright and clear, if not rather chilly. There was anticipation in the air and folks were ready. Today would be the 4th annual memorial run for Lance Corporal Shayne Cabino who gave his life for our freedoms on October 6th, 2005, during combat operations near Karmah, Iraq.

Our contribution to the attendee tally would be decent sized this year; about 14 of us, although many folks had various obligations to take care of beforehand, so they were going to meet us at the run’s starting/ending location; the Sharon American Legion, Post #106.

11am approached and one by one, those that were riding over from the house began to arrive. Flags were checked, jackets; zipped, and out we rolled for the short ride to the Post. Pulling in, we parked as instructed and then split apart, each in our own directions to say hello to friends, say hello to the bathrooms, and say hello to the bar – but not always in that order.

I located Danno and inquired if blocking would still be needed and the response was; definitely. That meant we’d need to pull our bikes out of the ranks and line them up towards the beginning. Getting back to the bikes, we found that; Damn – we were blocked in. We waited for the announcements to be made, TAPS was played, then the owners of the bikes in front of us showed up and we began to force our way to the front of this cluster-F, only to find the bikes from the other side of the parking lot were being told to roll out. Double-damn, now we’re going nowhere. Oh well, no choice now but to settle into the middle of the pack and see how things go. And surprisingly, the police representation did an outstanding job with the blocking, meaning no additional help from us meatheads wound up being needed. That meant we were able to just kick back and enjoy the ride – which is always nice and all, but there’s something to be said about the adrenaline rush that comes from blasting up the side of the column, time and time again…

Pics from the run;
Of course, there’s always a bit of congestion through town centers…
How great is it when you can’t see the beginning of the column in front of you…
and at the same time, you can’t see the end of the column behind you.
Shayne’s memorial bridge, which we pass over each year. His family always waits on the other side, with flags waving proudly as we proceed by them, one at a time. Very emotional.
We passed plenty of folks along the route, some standing respectfully, some waving and clapping. Thumb’s-up were extended out of some car windows, cheers and smiles were seen and heard out of others. Whenever we passed a veteran that had come out to stand at attention, our horns blared in a symphony of appreciation and pride.

Back at the Post:
Once settled in, we celebrated with food, frosties, and friends. The music blared and stories were shared, and the afternoon passed gently by. And before long? It was time for the raffles! An amazing assortment of donated items awaited those whose tickets would be called, so we all gathered together and prepared to claim our booty.

Unfortunately, and as usual, we’d all managed to purchase defective raffle tickets once again. Folks to our left, to our right, and all around us, made trip after trip to the proffered prizes, but our behinds never left our seats at all. Oh, the sadness. (Good thing the beer tickets were once again all winners.)

Speaking of beer tickets, I had purchased 10 tickets to start with, but after having redeemed several of them, I came to find that I somehow had 11 tickets left in my pocket. I guess the ticket dispensing person had been sampling some of their wares before they counted out my 10 tix? And to make things worse...er...better, Greg knew the guys behind the beer table and kept bringing us armfuls of free beers, time and time again. (You see why we hang out with him, don’t you?) Suffice to say that at the end of the day, I still had a pocketful of beer tickets.

The past three years have found us bringing the after-event back to 640 South St for a chimenea fire and more camaraderie. This year, however, Kevin’s 40th birthday party required attending, so the chimenea invitation was not an option for us. By luck, it didn’t matter, as every single person had something else going on and wouldn’t have been able to make it back to the house, anyway.

The afternoon sun began to fade and the cooler air was swift to reclaim the land. We said our goodbyes to one another and headed off in our own directions, bringing to a close the 4th annual memorial run.

Final count on the number of bikes came in around 190 – not a bad turnout at all. Each year, this run gets bigger and better, and it’s entirely due to all the hard work that Danno and the rest of Shayne’s family and friends put into it. It’s no small reflection of what this brave Marine meant to those that knew and cared about him.

From those of us who continue to ride in your honor; we thank you for your courage and your sacrifice. You gave the ultimate gift for us and our loved ones, and we honor your memory.

http://www.shaynesrun.com/

Ride Hard, Take Chances, and Thank a Vet!!!