Greg goes undercover...

I was cleaning my guns this morning when I happened to glance out the window, only to see a dark figure come blasting into my driveway atop a blacked out cop bike!! Damn, hide the stash! Hide the plants! Hide the cash! Hide the....wait a minute...that's not a cop, that's Greg! And then I remembered...
.
Cut to the past; towards the end of last year, a local township bailed out on a bike they'd ordered from the factory. The reason for the default had something to do with the all-to-familiar 'budgetary woes' theme, but the end result was that a mint, reconverted police-issue bike was sitting on the dealership floor. Greg wound up benefitting from that township's shortcomings, but it was a bittersweet victory, as barely had the ink dried on the contract before the bike was being wheeled away to hibernate for the winter months.
.
Cut to the present; today was the day Greg was to pick up his bike. The poor bastard must have used up all his luck in landing the bike in the first place, for the weather today was not cooperating. Last Saturday? The temps were 75 degrees. Today? Ha, we'll be lucky if they get out of the 20's. That wasn't about to deter him, though. Bundled up and ready, he'd retrieved said bike from its deep slumber. Luckily, my house fell along the path of his travels so I was able to get a chance to check this beauty out.
.
Which brings us to...pictures!
.
Look at that sexy beast. (The bike isn't too shabby, either.)
All this talk about cops kinda takes me back... (Not to mention that this angle makes the pic look kinda like a mug shot.)

"Face forwards, look into the camera..."

"Turn to the left, look straight ahead..."

Ok, enough screwing around. Let's get back to the bike. It's an '09 Police Issue Electra Glide, complete with the 103" motor. (Drool) The dealership had to remove all the 'official' bells and whistles before releasing it to the public. But it seems like such a shame to have all that 'official' wiring in there and not have it doing anything. (Not to say we didn't discuss a couple of aftermarket ideas or anything...)

This bike is frikkin' sweet. One thing I've always loved about these bikes is the saddle packs. I love the hockey-puck style of latching mechanism, as well as the locks being on the back sides of the bags. I like this setup much better than what comes on the regular tourers.

And let's not forget the impressive declaration on the air filter housing...

Now once he gets the siren installed...er...ha ha ha, I kid, I kid. Let's move along, shall we?

The road was calling and Greg was soon off. There's an awful lot of zero's on that odometer of his and I know he's anxious to start erasing them.

Congrats, Man!

Quick Beer Review

It's Friday night. I'm thirsty. There's a sharp looking pint-bottle of dark beer sitting on the counter. I'd been saving it for a *special* occasion. Did I mention I was thirsty? That seemed special enough...
"World Classic Schwarz". The tall brown bottle implied that dark treasures lay within. The porcelain cap assured me this was a higher-shelf item. The fancy label promised an "Original Black" brewed according to the German Purity Law of 1516 (I'm no lawyer, but that sounds like a pretty sweet law). Anyway; suffice to say that I was pretty excited to kick this thing back.
.
Just look at this porcelain cap - any beer that has something as cool as this for a cap, has to be good!

When I broke the seal (on the bottle, not on my kidneys), there was a resounding POP! and I feared I was about to lose some of this fantastic liquid in a bubbly fountain, but thankfully, no such travesty transpired.
.
A tip of the bottle, a lean of the glass, and the liquid was flowing...all too quickly and thinly, as it turned out. And such was the first sign that things were not as they'd been promised...
.
The head...what head? It looks like I poured a glass of root beer. There's no consistency to the head. Bleah, this isn't shaping up well at all...

All too quickly, the head was gone, leaving me with a flat looking glass of brown liquid. Damn.
Never one to let life's disappointments hold me back, I made the best of things and savored the flavors and body as best I could. But it was a stretch to do so, as I quickly found there was nothing terribly special about this beer after all. (Of course I pounded the rest. I may not have been a huge fan of it, but c'mon, it's still beer!)

Hopefully the next beer that gets reviewed will be better...

Playing Doctor

I had my first follow-up appt with the Orthopedic Surgeon this past Thursday and he brought me up to speed on how things had gone. He said that when he got inside my shoulder, he found things to be in worse shape than the MRI’s and X-Rays had indicated. But with a combination of sutures and anchors (drilled into the bone – sweet!), he said everything came together nicely and his prognosis is good.

But the best part of the visit was that he printed out his notes from the surgery for me. Notes from the surgery! Check this sh*t out!...

(And of course I had to add my own little comments from time to time - I colored them in red so you don't think the doc is talking to himself in his notes.)

DATE OF SURGERY: 3/9/2010
DIAGNOSIS: Biceps labral tear, anterior inferior instability, attenuated anterior inferior capsule.
PROCEDURE: Anterior inferior capsuloraphy and biceps labral repair

Following satisfactory induction of general anesthesia, the left shoulder was prepped (that means they shaved the incision spots – too bad they didn’t shave where the bandages were going to be!) and draped in standard fashion for arthroscopy. Through a posterior portal (“portal”? Call it what it is; a hole! You punched a hole into my shoulder so that you could peep in at what was going on!), the arthroscope was introduced. (“Introduced”? What do you mean, “introduced”? You mean it went something like this? “Hello ligaments and shoulder bone, I’d like you to meet Arthur. Arthur Scope.”)

Two anterior portals (there’s that word again. They’re holes!) were created for instrumentation. Through the posterior portal (hole!), the pathologic changes were documented with photography (it’s true, I have the pics at home. Maybe I’ll get a nice frame and mount them over the fireplace).

A 4.0 resector was used to debride the disrupted biceps labrum and to visualize the exposed subchondral bone along the anterior rim of the glenoid from the 11:00 to the 1:00 position. (Now before we continue, I’d like to ask if any of you know what a ‘resector’ is? No? I didn’t either, so I looked it up. And I wish I hadn’t. This thing is basically a saw/grinder combination that fits inside a tiny little tube. They shove it up against anything that’s torn and needs cleaning up, and then they turn it on. And voila! It shreds the loose tissue and sucks it out at the same time. And you’re doing all this inside my shoulder?? I dug up a couple of clips on You Tube that showed this thing in action. Freaky stuff!)

This chronically attenuated (torn!) and detached labrum was freshened (“freshened?” You mean ‘cleaned up by chewing all the loose stuff out’!) broadly with the resector until subchondral bone was microscopically bleeding (“bleeding”? What do you mean “bleeding”? You ground at my bone until it bled??) The anterior rim of the glenoid to the 6:00 position was vigorously debrided (scraped!) while using a liberator to free the attenuated (torn!) labrum. With the capsule and labrum broadly released, the bone and chondral margin were broadly freshened (ground clean!) to stimulate biologic vascularization (again with the bleeding?!?).

With the capsular complex prepared, strategically placed orthocord sutures were used to secure the anterior capsule and attenuated labrum to the 5:30, 4:00 and 2:00 position along the glenoid. (Cool - let's have more of the "fixing things" stuff, and less of the "grinding and bleeding" business.)

The strategically placed push-lock anchors were then used, securing and supporting the capsule to the rim of the glenoid. (Excellent – more repair work!) This was done from the anterior to superior position while maintaining 30 degrees of external rotation at 30 degrees of abduction (“Roger, Roger, What’s our vector, Victor?”). Individually placed anchors and individually tensioned orthocord sutures along the way. With the anterior capsule secure, the most superior suture was used securing the anterior labrum just posterior to the biceps tendon insertion to the labrum. A simple orthocord suture was placed (simple? Nothing about this whole process sounds very simple so far…) corresponding to this position.

A 2.9 push lock anchor was used via predrilling and then inserting the push lock anchor under proper tension to reduce and stabilize the biceps labrum from anterior to posterior. External rotation was maintained throughout and tested at 30 degrees of rotation at 30 degrees of abduction as described above. Copious lavage and irrigation was used throughout. (I know that ‘lavage’ means rinsing, but what’s this about irrigation? You’re planting crops inside my shoulder now?).

An 18-guage needle was inserted and 30 cc of .12% marcain with epinephrine and 4mg of Morphine were instilled (18-guage? That’s not very big. I know for a fact the holes you punched into my shoulder could handle a much bigger needle. And since we’re talking about administering MORPHINE, we should have gone with a bigger needle. Just my opinion.).

The debris (debris??) was vigorously debrided throughout the course freshening the chondral margins and the attenuated labral capsular complex until the joint surfaces and joint cavity were free of debris (What do you mean; “debris”?) along the way.

Bleeders (“We’ve got a bleeder!!!”) were carefully cauterized along the way, as well. The incisions were approximated with 4-0 monocryl and a dry sterile compressive bandage applied (yeah; applied with liberal amounts of super glue).

The patient tolerated the procedure well and left the operating room in satisfactory and stable condition. (I tolerated it well? I was unconscious! It’s hard to complain when you’re out cold. Although…I was curious why my pants were around my ankles when I woke up…).

And there you have it. I still need to wear the sling for another week and a half, and there’s no physical therapy yet - which means no riding yet. I don’t know when I’ll get the green light to hop back onto the bike, but my next ortho appt isn’t for another 5 weeks.

Not sure I can wait that long to put some handlebars into my lap…

Biding Time

There hasn't been any riding going on lately, due to the shoulder surgery thing. But in an effort to keep somewhat active with the posting; here’s what’s been accomplished on the basement project over the cold winter months.

Where did we last leave things on that? I believe the walls were plastered, the bathroom shower was tiled, a pellet stove was waiting to be installed, and the rough makings of a bar were taking shape, yes?

Since the construction phase was completed, the next step was to get beadboard up and painted. I’ve got some pics showing the progress on that, so let’s pick one. Any one. Ok; the bar!

Here, you can see the beadboard, prior to painting. And. we can see the BAR! It’s looking GOOD! All framed in, beadboarded, and tiled around the bottom where the stools and other traffic will be. Nicey-nice!

Here’s a close-up of the tile; notice the brass edging along the corner edge – now that’s sharp! (I’d like to take credit for that, but it was my tile guys’ idea.)
Here’s a shot of the back of the bar. The counter will hold a sink when things are all done, there’ll be storage space where the shelves are, and the opening on the left (behind the manhole cover) will be where the bar fridge goes. (Here, you can get a good shot of the initial paint color of the walls. I then added a faux-finish on top of this and those pics follow in a bit…)
Painting the beadboard. What a royal f’ing pain in the ass this was. All those grooves!
The paint didn’t want to cooperate at all and despite trying different methods of getting the paint in there, it turns out that rolling over the flat parts first (with a roller) and then going back with a paint brush is NOT the best way. In fact, that way only lends to aggravation by the truckload. The best way is to just load up the roller with paint and splooge the paint into the grooves, then go back with a brush and hit any spots that are clogged, to get them nice and cleaned out.

Huh, whaddya know; we’re back to the bar. Again. (Some might call it a problem, I like to think of it as a hobby.) Anyway, here you can see the first pass that was routered into the bar top. See the bottle cap in the middle? (Its the thing that looks like a dark speck.)
What you may or may not be able to make out is that the first-pass with the router wasn’t deep enough (despite prior discussions and assurances that the proper depth would be adhered to by the person that did the routering). Anyway, as the old adage says; if you want something done right, do it yourself so I borrowed a router and went to work. The only problem was that since since one level had already been removed, I was left with different working heights (the outside edge was higher than what had already been routered). As such, I had to use a wooden jig, spanning the width of the top, to keep the router bit at the right height.

Here’s an action shot…just look at those wood chips fly! Gotta make room for the bottle caps...

Anyway, what do you get when you’re routering line after line after line of wood? Why, you get an impressive pile of sawdust!
And sawdust all over the nice new tiles…
Here’s the final pile. (Please keep all matches away…)
I sanded the hell out of everything and things look good. There are a couple of “Whoops” spots where the router slipped (and some screw holes, too) – they’ll get some tinted wood putty and then you’ll never see the spots (especially if the bottle caps happen to align over them).
Ok, so the whole idea for routering out the bar top is to put the bottle caps in and then polyurethane over them. But before I go ahead and start dumping a permanent epoxy over the hundreds of bottle caps, it’d probably be a good idea to do a couple of dry runs to see how things work. Do air bubbles come out from under the caps? Do the caps slide around when the epoxy is pouring over them? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do know that I don’t want to find out the hard way. So I’m going to do some test runs, first. And that means I need some routered spots to test with. Voila!
I’ll do a post about how the tests go, but for now, I focused on getting other things wrapped up. Like the afore-mentioned faux-finish on the walls.

Here’s a couple shots of the initial yellow-ish top coat, with the beadboard almost finished.

Here’s one with some different lighting. The beadboard looks decent here, but the top half of the walls look really yellow. Believe me when I say the color was more of a pasty pastel-ish kind of yellow tan. Sort of.
I’ll be honest; I’ve never done a faux finish before and almost chickened out (leaving just the boring, pasty yellow color). But I’d gone down to my local Home Depot and talked to a very nice lady there who took about 45 minutes to walk me through the entire process, so I pretty much HAD to do it then. Good thing I manned-up as it came out pretty good.

(The lighting for these pics isn’t so good, so bear with me.)

Here’s a comparison pic, showing the base color (on the right) and the finished product on the left.
Here’s over by where the pellet stove is going to go.
Here’s a close-up of the texture.
Here’s the finished walls behind the bar.
Here’s a decent shot of the back wall.
(Hey, what are those things leaning up against the tree in the back yard? They look like racks of some sort. Racks that would be used on a fire pit to cook a pig, perhaps? Hmmm…)

That’s about where things are at this point. I went around and painted a second coat onto the beadboard (it needed it in spots) and things are looking sharp.

What else. Oh; the shower hardware was installed in the shower. Now I just need to cut in some tile shelves and get a glass door. (The door is gonna have to wait, though, as the bank account is reeling at the moment and I need to give it some time for the bleeding to ease up.)
Progress will be slow going from this point, due to the shoulder, but I’ll see what else I can accomplish by the time the pig roast gets here.

As for the shoulder itself, it seems to be coming along well. I’ve got my first follow-up appt on Thursday, so well see what the doc says.

Think he’d be upset if I showed up on the bike?

Shouldering the Burden

As mentioned on my last post; I went in for shoulder surgery this past Tuesday morning. I’d had this same shoulder worked on about 6 years ago, but the fix that was done at that time had become broken, and needed fixing again. (Here’s hoping it’ll stay fixed this time around.) What was the problem, you ask? My Labrum had torn off from the bone (and the ligaments were stretched as well). The doc had to go in, detach any remaining sections that were still connected, pull everything upwards (to tighten them) and then reattach. Thankfully, this can all be done arthroscopically.

Surgery was scheduled for 7:15am so was up and on the road bright and early (too early, as it turned out, for I got there before the place even opened). After waiting a bit, I was called in and the admitting nurse went through all the stuff she needed to cover, I signed my name a few times, and off I went to the operating room.

As the anesthesiologist began connecting the sleepy-time fluid to my IV line, I asked her to let me know when it was turned on, as I wanted to see how high I could count before going under. She said ok, go ahead and start. Bam! I was off and running; all the way up to 20 before I knew it! Oh, but then the nurse said she was now turning it on and that I’d begin to feel a warm tingle in my arm as the anesthesia began to flow. Damn! I’d started counting too soon! I gotta start over! But when to start? (The nurse had already false-started me once and therefore couldn’t be trusted.) Besides, where’s this alleged warm and tingly feel…oh wait, there it is. Ok, no sense in counting now. I said “Good Night!” out loud and then it was lights out in Georgia.

Consciousness was slow to return. I have always had a hard time with anesthesia but the folks in charge had done a good job with keeping the levels down for me this time around, which I certainly appreciated. After a few hours, they loaded me into the car and we were homeward-bound. A quick stop at the grocery store where I stocked up on popsicles and soup , and then it was into the recliner with me, for the next two days. (I’d wanted to come in to work right away on Wednesday but the doc forbade it, so I had to wait until today.)

Anyway, the bandages were able to be removed last night and I was able to take a much needed shower.

And that brings us up to speed. I guess the only thing left is the pics…

I loved the compression stockings I had to wear (they help with circulation when you’re under anesthesia). So fashionable!
Here’s the mass of bandage wrappings, prior to removal (I would have to say this was the most painful thing so far; when my body hair was ripped out by removing theses wrappings. I think they used super glue to hold them on…).
Here’s the front – there are two holes under the tape.
And here’s the back – only one hole on this side.
And there you have it. Recovery will be slow, but I’m already doing some light exercises and will star physical therapy in a week or so.

I’m already itching to hold the handlebars again…

Re-Wrap!

I just had a busy, busy weekend, but did manage to get theke out for some riding on Saturday afternoon to run some errands – one of which included swinging over to Ed and Sue’s. Ihadn’t seen them in ages so Ihung out for a bit and caught up on times.

Too soon, Ihad to blast back to the house and do a bit of cleaning, as Michigan Paul and Betina were in town and were coming over. When they arrived, we kicked around the idea of having a fire outside, but opted instead to hang inside where it was warmer (and closer to the fridge). We shared many a laugh and knocked back a beer or four. It was good to see them and Ill be looking forward to seeing them again this summer down in KY. (It’s only 500 miles from their house and they can do that kind of mileage in one morning!).

Sunday found me up early and working on the Fatboy. Being short on money and long on bills, I realized the time has come where I need to get her running and listed for sale. The first order of business; rewrapping those pipes!

Starting out; man, those wraps are dirty and beat up. The bottom one is tattered and hanging on in pieces. Oy, someone has been mistreating their wraps!
It took a little finagling, but the pipes came off without too much trouble. With the basement still in chaos, I couldn’t find my duct tape, so painter’s tape would have to do this time.
Here are the pipes, stripped down and naked. That’s a pretty poor looking pile of old wrappings. Anyone looking to make a Mummy costume? Gimme a call…
Ahhh, here’s some good looking tape, all nice and new and tightly wound. A bucket of warm water for soaking, and we’re good to go (more on that in a bit…).
The last time I wrapped these pipes, I had Brother Bill lend a hand and between the two of us, we rolled the pipe, all while keeping tension on the wrap and wetting down the wrap as we went along. It was a slow and tedious process.

I’d read that another option was to tie one end of the wrap to a post and use that to apply tension to the pipe as you wrapped, so I figured I’d give that method a try this time around.

Also, instead of using a spray bottle (like last time), Greg had told me he’d just soaked the whole wrap in a bucket of water ahead of time and then; wrapped away. What the hell, I figured I’d give that a try, too.

I knew I’d need roughly 20’ of wrap per pipe, and the roll that I had was 50’ in length, so to make things easier to work with, I cut it in half. (Length-wise, not width-wise. That would have taken me forever, and really wouldn’t have resulted in any benefit.)

Setting one section aside, I submerged the other into the water just long enough for it to get soaked (about a minute), then pulled it out with one hand, running it through the fingers of my other hand to squeegee out the excess water. I tied one end to lally column and off I went.

Wow, what a difference! Between using the post, and soaking the wrap all at once, I must have cut the whole process in half, time-wise. Two quick wraps at the bottom, secure that with a hose clamp, then just start winding, all while keeping tension on the wrap.

Note the gloves and long sleeves – I remembered how the insulation felt on my delicate skin the last time I wrapped these pipes. (No comments are necessary regarding my overall fashion style, thank you.)
And here we see two nicely wrapped pipes!
The weather was warm and breezy so I set these into the porch to air dry (out of direct sunlight so they wouldn’t dry too quickly).

And here they are, back onto the bike. I made sure to only do one wrap at the tops of the pipes this time and it made a world of difference in terms of getting the nuts to fit onto the exhaust flange bolts.
Oh yeah; the last time I wrapped these pipes, I’d read that a potential downside was that rusting of the pipes could be accelerated, as they’d be kept wetter, longer, anytime it rained. I have to say that I didn’t notice any increased rusting of the pipes, and that aside from heat discoloration and dirt, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with them at all.

I’ll have to do some touch-up with the high heat black paint on the back ends of the pipes, but overall, the re-wrap project was smooth sailing.

Once the wrapping was done, I went out and got a new battery, got it home and set up to charge overnight so I’ll slap that in tonight and see how well she fires up. I put stabilizer into the tank last year so I’m hoping the gas is still good, but we’ll see.

As long as she fires up then I’ll give her some serious cleaning and then list her for sale. At this point, I’m not going to convert her back to a hand-clutch, opting instead to see if I get any interest in her as she is. If there’s no interest, then I’ll convert it back and see what happens.

‘Course, all this will have to wait for a bit as I’m going in for shoulder surgery, first thing tomorrow morning…