Sunday, July 31, 2011
Winding Down
Lighting
Original Karaoke
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Respect
Protection
Now That's A Fire!
Roasting!!
Friday, July 29, 2011
Because I Like Screwing W/People
Practice
Annual Soaking
Eternal = a very very long time!
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Liver (& Ear) Damage
And it begins...
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Prepping
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Olean Pig Roast 2011
Zig and I depart Thursday morning and will follow our front tires westward. It’ll be almost 500 miles before we pull up the reigns in beautiful Olean once more. What’s the occasion, you might ask? Why a trip out to Olean at the end of July? Well, not that we need a specific reason to go party with some of the coolest cats around, but as it so happens; there is a reason. The Olean crew is hosting a pig roast! And even better than that; they even said we could show up! (We have to sit in the corner and keep quiet, but at least we can attend! We’re making progress!)
Kidding aside, this looks to be quite a funtastic event; not only are they going to host it on the VFW grounds, but we’re all setting up tents and actually staying there for the night. No worries about late night riding because we won’t be going anywhere!
That will be Saturday night. So what are the accommodations for Thursday, Friday, and Sunday night? (Yep; Sunday night – we ain’t comin’ home until Monday!). Well, Mark and Mary have graciously offered up their residence for the Massholes AND the Mainers to hang their hats. What? The Mainers? You got it, it ain’t gonna be just me and Zig…Dave, Karmen & Olivia are going to be there, as are Robb, Kyle and Natalie. We’ll have representation from all 3 of the original Labor Day Party states!
So back to the accommodations thing. I don’t know where we’re all going to fit, but obviously those with kids will get first dibs on sleeping indoors. Me and Zig will fall wherever we’re allowed to (although, if ‘Dad’ has anything to say about it, he’d probably leave us at the V, LOL.)
So there you go. I won’t have my laptop with me, but you may find some phone updates from time to time, as the trip rolls along. I hope everyone has a great weekend…I know I’m going to! Because we’re going to be…
Riding Hard, Taking Chances
Kidding aside, this looks to be quite a funtastic event; not only are they going to host it on the VFW grounds, but we’re all setting up tents and actually staying there for the night. No worries about late night riding because we won’t be going anywhere!
That will be Saturday night. So what are the accommodations for Thursday, Friday, and Sunday night? (Yep; Sunday night – we ain’t comin’ home until Monday!). Well, Mark and Mary have graciously offered up their residence for the Massholes AND the Mainers to hang their hats. What? The Mainers? You got it, it ain’t gonna be just me and Zig…Dave, Karmen & Olivia are going to be there, as are Robb, Kyle and Natalie. We’ll have representation from all 3 of the original Labor Day Party states!
So back to the accommodations thing. I don’t know where we’re all going to fit, but obviously those with kids will get first dibs on sleeping indoors. Me and Zig will fall wherever we’re allowed to (although, if ‘Dad’ has anything to say about it, he’d probably leave us at the V, LOL.)
So there you go. I won’t have my laptop with me, but you may find some phone updates from time to time, as the trip rolls along. I hope everyone has a great weekend…I know I’m going to! Because we’re going to be…
Riding Hard, Taking Chances
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Furniture Shopping
Friday, July 22, 2011
Escort Service
The flag setup that I'd been working with (for the bike) consisted of wooden poles to hold the flags. They'd held up through all of last year, but on the Rolling Thunder trip this year, one of them broke. Fortunately, because the poles are braced together, I didn't lose the flag that was attached to the pole that broke, everything kinda stayed in place...sorta. But it was apparent that I needed to upgrade to something stronger.
So what to go with? I checked out the local home improvement stores to see if I could find stronger (hickory) wood to work with, but none of the tool handles were long enough for what I needed. Talking things over with McCarthy, he suggested using sections of EMT but we weren't sure if they'd be strong enough by themselves. I'm not sure which one of us came up with the idea to use a wooden dowel inside to increase the structural integrity (there were several beers involved in this discussion), but that was what I decided to go with. And not a moment too soon - my Legion Post had offered to do an escort!
Michael Peterson (country singer & songwriter) is the spokesperson for the American Legion Auxiliary, as well as the American Legion Scholarship Fund. He'd just been over in Iraq and Afghanistan, touring and performing for the troops, almost non-stop, for two weeks. He had just returned and had a performance to do on Saturday at Gillette. However, he was flying in on Thursday afternoon and had been invited to do a meet/greet at our Post in Sharon that evening. So that meant we needed to get the bikes out, go meet him at the airport, and bring him back!
Thursday arrived, and brought with it some blasting heat and humidity. There were 7 of us making the run, and as we waited for the departure time to arrive, we holed up inside, in the AC and out of the sun.
Thursday arrived, and brought with it some blasting heat and humidity. There were 7 of us making the run, but prior to departure time, we hid out inside the post, soaking up as much AC as possible. Billy Cabino's bike was in the shop for service, so he and Mary were riding on hers. She saw my empty back seat (complete with wraparound armrests and everything) and asked me if anyone was riding on the back of my bike and I said no, so she then said “I’m going to look good on the back of your bike today.” LOL
Before long, it was time to roll on out. The new flag-mount setup wouldn’t be tested too much for the ride down, as the flags were furled for this leg. It’d be the return trip, with flags unfurled and at highway speeds, that would really test things out. Anyway, it was time to roll!
Rolling out of the Post…
We arrived at TF Green and made our way to the short-term parking lot. Well, our bikes weren’t big enough to trigger the ticket machine at the gate, so we had to turn the bikes around and ride against traffic to reach a different lot (as per the attendant’s instructions). We were kinda fuming at this, but luckily a cop arrived and, seeing all the flags on the bikes, asked what was going on. We explained we were there to pick someone up that was returning from Afghanistan and escort them back to our Post and that we only needed about 20 minutes. He directed us over to the loading/unloading area (the area with VERY STRICT “No Parking” enforcement) and told us to park there. Sweet! Front row!
Inside, we ambled about for a few minutes until Michael and his manager Jill arrived, where hellos and handshakes were exchanged all around. Then, it was back out to the bikes!
I’d unfurled the flags when we first parked, so it was simply a matter of hopping on and going. We hit some rush-hour traffic up through Providence but once we cleared that, it was smooth sailing for the rest of the ride. We made it to the hotel, got our guests checked in and then we headed back over to the Post for some well-deserved beerfreshments.
Here’s a shot as we were heading back to the Post from the hotel. As you can see, the flags were flying great!
We had a couple of hours to kill before we’d need to head back over to the hotel, pick our guests up and bring them over to the Post for the official meet/greet. All went well, there were all kinds of Legion dignitaries from all over, and they all said the night was great.
But the best compliment came from our guests themselves. At the end of the night, after Moose dropped them back off at the hotel, he came back and told us that, in the many, many years they’ve been doing these tours and such, they said they’d never seen/experienced anything like the escort we gave them.
Not too shabby at all, and we congratulated ourselves in proper fashion (cold ones, all around).
Ride Hard, Take Chances
So what to go with? I checked out the local home improvement stores to see if I could find stronger (hickory) wood to work with, but none of the tool handles were long enough for what I needed. Talking things over with McCarthy, he suggested using sections of EMT but we weren't sure if they'd be strong enough by themselves. I'm not sure which one of us came up with the idea to use a wooden dowel inside to increase the structural integrity (there were several beers involved in this discussion), but that was what I decided to go with. And not a moment too soon - my Legion Post had offered to do an escort!
Michael Peterson (country singer & songwriter) is the spokesperson for the American Legion Auxiliary, as well as the American Legion Scholarship Fund. He'd just been over in Iraq and Afghanistan, touring and performing for the troops, almost non-stop, for two weeks. He had just returned and had a performance to do on Saturday at Gillette. However, he was flying in on Thursday afternoon and had been invited to do a meet/greet at our Post in Sharon that evening. So that meant we needed to get the bikes out, go meet him at the airport, and bring him back!
Thursday arrived, and brought with it some blasting heat and humidity. There were 7 of us making the run, and as we waited for the departure time to arrive, we holed up inside, in the AC and out of the sun.
Thursday arrived, and brought with it some blasting heat and humidity. There were 7 of us making the run, but prior to departure time, we hid out inside the post, soaking up as much AC as possible. Billy Cabino's bike was in the shop for service, so he and Mary were riding on hers. She saw my empty back seat (complete with wraparound armrests and everything) and asked me if anyone was riding on the back of my bike and I said no, so she then said “I’m going to look good on the back of your bike today.” LOL
Before long, it was time to roll on out. The new flag-mount setup wouldn’t be tested too much for the ride down, as the flags were furled for this leg. It’d be the return trip, with flags unfurled and at highway speeds, that would really test things out. Anyway, it was time to roll!
Rolling out of the Post…
We arrived at TF Green and made our way to the short-term parking lot. Well, our bikes weren’t big enough to trigger the ticket machine at the gate, so we had to turn the bikes around and ride against traffic to reach a different lot (as per the attendant’s instructions). We were kinda fuming at this, but luckily a cop arrived and, seeing all the flags on the bikes, asked what was going on. We explained we were there to pick someone up that was returning from Afghanistan and escort them back to our Post and that we only needed about 20 minutes. He directed us over to the loading/unloading area (the area with VERY STRICT “No Parking” enforcement) and told us to park there. Sweet! Front row!
Inside, we ambled about for a few minutes until Michael and his manager Jill arrived, where hellos and handshakes were exchanged all around. Then, it was back out to the bikes!
I’d unfurled the flags when we first parked, so it was simply a matter of hopping on and going. We hit some rush-hour traffic up through Providence but once we cleared that, it was smooth sailing for the rest of the ride. We made it to the hotel, got our guests checked in and then we headed back over to the Post for some well-deserved beerfreshments.
Here’s a shot as we were heading back to the Post from the hotel. As you can see, the flags were flying great!
We had a couple of hours to kill before we’d need to head back over to the hotel, pick our guests up and bring them over to the Post for the official meet/greet. All went well, there were all kinds of Legion dignitaries from all over, and they all said the night was great.
But the best compliment came from our guests themselves. At the end of the night, after Moose dropped them back off at the hotel, he came back and told us that, in the many, many years they’ve been doing these tours and such, they said they’d never seen/experienced anything like the escort we gave them.
Not too shabby at all, and we congratulated ourselves in proper fashion (cold ones, all around).
Ride Hard, Take Chances
Monday, July 18, 2011
IKWJWD
I saw one of the most ridiculous bumper stickers the other day. It said "I bet Jesus would have used his turn signals". Now I'm the biggest proponents around of people using their turn signals, and it really grinds me when folks carefreely turn this way and that, without any thought or care for those behind them...
But to invoke Jesus? Hell, the combustion engine hadn't even been invented back then, let alone turn signals. And who are you to claim to know what Jesus would or wouldn't do? Are you the person who the question "What Would Jesus Do" (WWJD) is aimed at? Are you the person who, when that question is asked, answers proudly "I have that answer."?
Because, at least in this instance, I Know What Jesus Would Do. He'd punch you in the eyeball for your insolence.
He probably wouldn't even signal beforehand.
But to invoke Jesus? Hell, the combustion engine hadn't even been invented back then, let alone turn signals. And who are you to claim to know what Jesus would or wouldn't do? Are you the person who the question "What Would Jesus Do" (WWJD) is aimed at? Are you the person who, when that question is asked, answers proudly "I have that answer."?
Because, at least in this instance, I Know What Jesus Would Do. He'd punch you in the eyeball for your insolence.
He probably wouldn't even signal beforehand.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Going Off Tour
When I bought my original FLHTC, I also had the optional quick-detach kit installed for the tour pack. That, was a nice feature. The replacement FLHTC, while nice in its own regard, did not have this option on it. So I went on eBay, bought the kit...and then let it sit in my garage for weeks.
Enough procrastinating! Friday night, I’d set aside my schedule and was determined to get this thing done. First, I needed to get some tools together…let’s see here…we’ve got a wrench, a screwdriver, a ratchet, some torx sockets…what’s missing…ahh, there we go, a Bud Light. Ok, now we’re ready to roll.
Enough procrastinating! Friday night, I’d set aside my schedule and was determined to get this thing done. First, I needed to get some tools together…let’s see here…we’ve got a wrench, a screwdriver, a ratchet, some torx sockets…what’s missing…ahh, there we go, a Bud Light. Ok, now we’re ready to roll.
First step was to disconnect the antenna wire and thread that out of the tour pack. Then remove the tour pack itself (5 bolts), exposing the tour pack frame which is hard-mounted to the fender brace. Once that was done, yank the saddlebags and then the chrome piece that covers the shock support/fender strut. This exposes the bolts which need to be removed, to remove the tour pack frame. (You can also see the license plate bracket has wings on it which are part of the support system for the tour pack frame.)
The kit includes a new license plate bracket – no silly wings! Just gotta apply the new reflector to the new bracket, and we’re good to go.
(Hey, why is the sky getting dark? It was supposed to be clear tonight? Oh well, must just be some low passing clouds, right? Certainly nothing to worry about…moving on…)
Here’s where things got interesting. THREE sets of directions, 8 bags of parts (not all are in this pic), and schematics which don’t do a good job of mentioning which kit they go to.
Here’s an example of the confusing schematics; on the top schematic, if you look at the lower right side, you’ll see you have two options; either part # 13 (1” bolt), or part #11 (3/4” bolt). You’ll definitely need part B (washer) and the original bracket (part C), but then you may, or may not, need part #14 (spacer), before going with two more washers (part #12). How do you know which bolt you need? How do you know if you need the spacer or not? Basically; trial and error! Fun stuff!
Ok, I finally got things figured out and hey look, the quick detach bracket even lines up and everything. Woo-hoo, we’re getting somewhere now! (But why are these clouds getting darker and more menacing? Hey, is that a raindrop on my taillight?)
F’ing great. The weather people were wrong once again. (But that only makes me the fool for trusting them.) Yes, it’s raining!!
Ok, taking things into the garage, it was time to install the quick detach frame to the tour pack. Again; 5 bolts, and need to make sure the shims (which are rounded on top side) line up against the round frame rail.
Last, I had to install the quick detach setup for the radio antenna wire. Simple assembly of the connection and bracket, and it’s bolted to the left detach support brace. (Hey, look at all the water coming from the sky!)
I finally managed to get things wrapped up, picked up, wiped down, and put away. I was going to take a pic of the bike without the tour pack on it but waited until the weather improved to snap that one. And here it is…ta da!
Now that’s a sweet looking ride. I think I’ll have to do something with the seat, though. The passenger part just looks way too thick and bulky. Not a problem, I’ll buy one off eBay and then wait for the next time it rains to install it.
Stupid weather.
Ride Hard, Take the Tour Pack Off
Friday, July 8, 2011
Where Do All The Miles Go?
Swung by Cook's last night to grab the stuff I need for my service change. Two trips to NY, two trips to NH, a trip to DC, and lots of highways and biways in between, have added up to 5,000 miles already. Not too shabby considering it's only been 8 weeks since I was finally able to get this bike onto the road.
Had a chance to catch up with Paul and Bettina last night. They're in town and invited me over to his Dad and Terri's house to hang out. The neighbors, Neal and Maureen came by, and we all swilled some beer, swapped some jokes, and swatted some mosquitoes. A great way to spend a Thirsty Thursday.
And now it's the weekend! Busy stuff lined up for it, too. Not sure how much riding I'll get in, but that's ok because there are more trips looming; heading out to Olean in three weeks for a pig roast (sweet!), then before we know it, it'll be the annual Maine Event for Labor Day. And somewhere in between those, we're going to try and squeeze in an Iron Butt challenge.
Many miles, many smiles. Lookin' forward to them all.
Ride Hard, Take Chances
Had a chance to catch up with Paul and Bettina last night. They're in town and invited me over to his Dad and Terri's house to hang out. The neighbors, Neal and Maureen came by, and we all swilled some beer, swapped some jokes, and swatted some mosquitoes. A great way to spend a Thirsty Thursday.
And now it's the weekend! Busy stuff lined up for it, too. Not sure how much riding I'll get in, but that's ok because there are more trips looming; heading out to Olean in three weeks for a pig roast (sweet!), then before we know it, it'll be the annual Maine Event for Labor Day. And somewhere in between those, we're going to try and squeeze in an Iron Butt challenge.
Many miles, many smiles. Lookin' forward to them all.
Ride Hard, Take Chances
Saturday, July 2, 2011
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