Happy Ho Ho Ho!

Dusting of snow and rain yesterday but the skies cleared off in the afternoon and the sun came out.  Sweet!  Dry that nasty shit off of the roads!

Alas, the sun didn’t last long enough and the moisture on the roadways froze up as soon as the sun went down (my driveway was a sheet of ice when I got home!)

Surprisingly, none of the towns put any salt down and there were plenty of slick spots on the way in this morning…in the Jeep.  L

The good news is the sun is shining brightly out there now and the roads look like they’re pretty clear.  The other good news is that I’ve got a half day at work today, so I’m going to knock out some last minute shopping and then head home to get a few miles on.  Merry Christmas to me!

And speaking of Christmas, I probably won’t be posting anything until after the holiday so here’s wishing all you troublemakers a happy and healthy holiday.  I’m back in the office on Monday for a little bit, then I’ve got the rest of the week off.  My liver is dreading what’s coming but he’s given up on trying to convince me to behave, so…yeah.

Merry Christmas!

Get Some Miles On!

Snowbanks and Solstices

I was able to ride in today.  The weather has been dry enough during the past couple of days to dry up most of the black ice that’s out there so I took a chance and it was worth it.  Even though I had to dismount and dig through two snowbanks to get here to work.  (There’s a shortcut I can use if I’m on two; it’s a small bike path that connects the back corner of the parking lot with a dead-end street, that runs down to the main drag to get here.  There are huge rocks in place to keep vehicles from passing, but the bike fits between them.)

The problem is that both the dead end street, and this place’s parking lot, utilize the access points to plow the snow up and out of the way.  In the wintertime, this often leaves me with having to use the back roads that cagers are relegated to using (to get from the main drag, to here), even if I’m on two.  The snowbanks are too high and solid to get through.

Today though, I took a chance and found that the snow banks were small enough that I was able to kick a path through one side of the dead-end street pile and ride around it, and then just get some speed up and plow through the bigger one that was blocking the parking lot.  (I got off the bike first and cleared some of the larger snow chunks out of the way.)

The weather had been saying clear and 40’s tomorrow but now they’re saying cold and about an inch of snow.  WTF.  An inch isn’t bad, but since the nights are getting so cold, even an inch of snow is making the roads slick as shit in the mornings so I’ll probably be back to the Jeep.  Drat.

Anyway, moving on…

As I’m sure man of you know, today is the Winter Solstice.  It officially marks the end of the Sun running away from us, and when he (she?) finally decides to head back up where he/she belongs; securely over our heads.

Today will be our shortest day  (I saw this morning that sunrise was @ 7:10 and sunset will be @ 4:15.  That’s barely over 9 hours of daylight!  No wonder the temps get so cold – our heat source is basically turned off for 63% of the day!

Thankfully, though, s/he’s heading back up toward us.  We wish s/he’d get a move on and be back up here in a few days, but that would mean we’d had some sort of tragic rotational tear and were probably about to die, so I guess we can wait it out.

Sure would be nice to be riding again, daily, though.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

RIP Dana

The years keep rolling by but it doesn’t make us think of you guys any less often.  You, Garv, Chuck, Gapper, Russ…that’s quite a crew assembling up there.  All the more for fun and rambunctiousness, I’m sure.

I hope you guys are hanging out, popping some cold ones, and getting some solid miles on.  A few of us are heading out to your neck of the woods in a little over a week.  I’ll stop by and say hello as usual.

Sure wish it was in person, though.

RIP Dana

Juicing the Goose

The stock battery that came with the bike has seen a lot of miles and a lot of cold starts.  These things take their toll after a while and I'd taken to carrying jumper cables in the saddle bags due to the number of times I hit the starter and wasn't sure if the resulting "kapop...kapop.......ka...pop.........." would kick over into a full start or not.

I'd swung by Cook's Cycle a week and a half ago to pick up a new battery but hadn't gotten around to installing it yet.  The starting became steadily harder each night and Friday when I was leaving work, it took long enough to catch that I'd been eyeing the parking lot for a familiar car to request a jump from.

Then this past Sunday came and brought a forecast of nastiness with it so I figured that would be the last gasp on the roadways for a while.  I contemplated just heading on out but knew that if we caught a break on the weather that allowed us to ride, I wouldn't want to be swapping the battery out at night, after work, in the dark, so I might as well suck it up and do it in the daylight.  So much easier!

It wasn't a hard process and soon I was cleaned up, tools away, ready to go.  I hit that starter and Ba-Bammo!  She fired up with Au-thor-i-tay!  Nice!!

Out and about on the roads, hitting some smaller side stuff, mixing in some highway where I could really rip things open..you know; the usual.

When it was time to head back, I rolled to the local food store for some supplies, packed things away and hit the starter.

BA-BAMMO!  Even more powerful than the first one!  (Jon keeps his batteries charged up but mine, between when he'd charged it last and then the time it sat in my garage, had drained a tiny bit and the crusing around had charged it back up to full capacity.)  Such a sweet sound to hear; hitting the button, and the bike ROARS to life without a moment's notice.  Such sweet music to the ears.

It's currenlty sitting on the tender in the garage, waiting for the next time we can go out and play.  The weather has been wet enough in the daylight and cold enough at night to ensure a fresh coat of black ice and salt on the pavement but that can only last so long...right...?

...like; into June?  :-O

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Hold the Salt!

There's been talk that this winter will be wetter than last year's and so far it seems that may prove out to be true.  We had more rain in November than in some time, and December is shaping up to be the same.  The problem with more liquid-from-the-sky is that with colder temps, the stuff tends to get real slick.

Yesterday we had some snow in the morning - nothing terrible and it wasn't even sticking to the roadways.  Despite this, Walpole (and many surrounding towns) were just heaving the salt down onto the roads.  What the hell?  This stuff is turning to rain in a few hours, so lighten up!  The roads aren't even slippery!

Sure enough, things changed over to rain and the roads were nice and clear.  Huzzah!

But oh yeah; we're in December, and that means colder temps.  Overnight, the mercury fell, the wet roads froze, and now we have another fresh layer of the crystalline chloride covering our causeways.  (How's that for alliteration!)

Unfortunately this means the bike is sitting in the garage, eagerly awaiting it's next venture out.  I had it out on Sunday morning and got some good miles on but I'm afraid that may have to hold me over for a bit.  Forecast is calling for more wintry mix tomorrow which I'm sure means more salt being dropped.

Meh.  Just more impetus for moving south I guess.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Scrooge Wore A Santa Hat, Too

It’s December 1st so that means the Santa hat went onto the bike helmet last night, to be worn for the month of December.  (Gotta wait until at least the end of November – don’t want to rush things so soon after turkey day.)

Anyway, so the Santa hat is flying bright and I’m enjoying a leisurely ride in this morning.  Every now and then I remind myself not to forget that I’m wearing the cheerful/Christmas/happy-happy hat.  That means be nice to the other drivers; allow them their stupidity.

I tried.

I really did!

And I almost made it…

I was about a mile away from work, heading north, and sitting a few spots back at a red light.  The light goes green and we start moving forward…for about three houses.  Why did we stop?  Because a dipshit in the third driveway wanted to go south and instead of being polite and waiting for a break in traffic, they decided to put themselves ahead of everyone else and pulled out into our lane.  But there were no spaces in the south lane to pull in to; that lane is moving along pretty well.  This left our fuckwad friend with nowhere to go.  But they didn’t care that they were sitting there, blocking us from moving.  They just sat there and waited for someone in the south lane to slow down and let them in.  Thankfully someone eventually did and the goddamn dink moved out of our way and proceeded to pass us, acting as if nothing had happened.

As the stupid twat was coming up beside me, I saw them notice my bright red Santa hat, and they smiled at me, probably thinking some nice festive thoughts and how I must be a nice festive person.

So you can imagine their shock when I looked right at them and bellowed “YOU’RE - A - DICK!!” right at their face.

Oh well, the commute home is in an hour and that’ll give me another try at being nice.

Wish me luck.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Russell Remembrance

10 years.

It’s been 10 years since I got that phone call.

It was a Saturday and I was scouting some roads in CT, killing time until a friend of mine finished work and I was going to pick her up for a ride.

I felt my phone ring and pulled off to check the voice message.  I’d assumed the call would be from my friend, but it was from Karmen - and she had the worst news to tell.

 

I called her right back and we spoke for a short time, neither one of us really knowing what to say.  No sooner had I hung up than my friend texted that she was all set.  I replied that I had to cancel, explained why, and headed home.

I kept Karmen’s voice message for years.  I didn’t want to delete it as it was just one more thing that connected to you, even though it was something terrible.  When I finally ditched that phone for an upgrade, my carrier wasn't able to save my messages so it went away, too.

But enough of that.  I said that each year I’ll post a Russell Remembrance.  Something that sticks out in my mind from all the fantastic memories.  This year I think I’ll share a time that showed Russell’s softer side.

I believe it was 1993; it was the year that I fell into the fire.  Russ had taken one look at my hand (despite my protestations that I was fine) and said “You’re going to the hospital.”  There was no arguing, the decision had been made.

We met the EMT’s at the fire hall, finally got to the hospital and the conversation went like this;

            Doc; Have you take anything for the pain?
            Me; Yes.
            Doc; What did you take?
            Me; I don’t know.  (Steph had handed me a white pill and said “Take this!”, so I took it…but I didn’t think to ask what it was.  I found out later it was a simple (useless) 200mg Ibuprofen.)
            Doc; We can’t give you anything without knowing what you’ve already taken.
            Me; Got it.
            Doc; We have to clean the burned skin off of your arm.
            Me; Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
            Doc; This is going to hurt (as he approached with what looked like a Brillo pad and started 
 scraping away).

Pain.

I can assure you that I’ve had some painful things happen to me in my 50 years, but I assure you that this was the *worst* pain I have ever felt in my life.  Not just what the doc was doing, but the entire burn; the arm, the palm of the hand, the fingers; every screaming inch of it.  And as I’m standing there trying to be a tough guy and not make a sound, my body took over and started shuddering.  Not violently, but I wasn’t able to control it and it was enough to be visible.

And then - Russ reached out, took my good hand in his, and held it.

 

He didn’t say anything, just held it; firmly and comfortingly, letting me know that he was right there with me.

I didn’t need to look at him, and I imagine he wasn’t looking at me.  Hell, he hardly knew me.  It was only my second time up here and here I’d managed to hurt myself so badly that he was dragged out of bed (he’d had company with him, shall we say) and off to the hospital.  Yet here he was, standing beside me and holding my hand in his.  He didn’t care how it looked, or that he was a tough biker, or anything like that.  He was strong enough to show that he cared about me.  I’m sure the act wasn’t lost on the doctors or nurses, either.

I’ll never forget that.

I say it many times, Russ.

Usually in my head, sometimes out loud;

We miss the hell out of you.

Victrola Brother.

Higgins' 30th Annual Toy Run

I'd tried finding the info on this year's November toy run but it seemed like all that was out there was info for prior years.  I tried FB, Google, friends in the know, etc.  Nothing.  Then - at last week's Riders meeting, one of the members had found it.  It would b in tree days!

We hurredly sent the word out but unfortunately with such short notice, folks' availability was extremly limited, and it just wound up being three of us.  No matter; the weather wound up being stupendous for mid-November and we had a great day.

First up was to grab a toy - a quick jaunt along the aisles of my local Wally-World and I found what I first presumed to be a simple stuffed animal.  Only after I was walking up to the register did I realize there was more to this little guy than met the eye.

This thing was two animals in one!  It's a Flipazoo critter and apparently there are like 8 different ones. The one I'd grabbed (which was the only one on the shelf) was a dragon by all appearances.  But this thing had...a...I guess "hood" would be the best way to describe it.  In it's "dragon" form, the hood folded over the back but if you lifted it up and over the dragon's head, you revealed a unicorn, underneath.  You had to see this thing - it was so cool!

Here he is, all anxious and ready to get rolling to the run.

You can also see in the pic how nice and sunny the day was, too.  I was thinking I should have taken a pic of the sky - it was nothing but blue for as far as you could see.  Not even a single cloud anywhere.  Awesome!

I met up with Dale and Kathy at the Post and we headed off to the rally point.  There was a fantastic turnout already parked at the ready.  This run is well known, and somehow they always seem to have fantastic weather - pretty amazing for mid-November!

We headed inside and registered...and we wound up with the last available tickets. Judging from the ticket numbers, they'd had 350 to sell and were all out.  Other folks were still showing up, and they were just asking them to pay their $10 at the Commercial Club (the place the run ends at, and where the massive after-party is).

Oh yeah - when we'd parked, the guy in front of me had this thing on his antenna.

I've never seen one of these before but I Googled them and they're out there.  $10 apiece.  I'd like to get one but I'm pretty sure someone would swipe it pretty quickly and then I'd be po'd.  So I'll have to think about it.

This year's run was somewhat shorter than prior years.  I don't know the reason for it, but it was still a nice scenic ride - despite one road being nothing but serious bumps and potholes.  Nevertheless, we all made it safely to the Commercial Club.

Heading inside, we placed our toys upon the masses of other toys already there.

It's so cool to see such outpouring and support for kids!

We grabbed a frosty and some grub, then headed out back to enjoy the warmth of the sunshine still flowing down from above.  The band was hammering some amazing biker tunes, our bellies were full, there was a feeling of camaraderie in the air.  It was an awesome vibe.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to stick around for long.  One beer and it was back to the roadways to meet up with a friend of mine who'd lost her husband two years ago on this day, and needed some cheering up.  We hung out with some friends, had some laughs, and managed to distract her from her thoughts for a few hours.  All in all, a good day.

The Higgins run is something I look forward to each year.  It's a great time and for a great cause.  But it's also bittersweet because it's usually the last organized event for the year.  Which means I don't currrently have any other runs on the docket.  Oh sure I'll still find some mischief between now and next year's riding season but it's kind of a bummer knowing that the rides are done for the year.

Although...I did hear rumblings about a frosty nuts ride on January 1st.  I'll have to see if I can find anything out about it...

Ride Hard, Keep Your Nuts Toasty

How's That Surprise Workin' Out For Ya?

Bill and I were slated to head up to the NH house this past weekend to get some work done on the yard.  But, then Myszka started texting me at 10am on Friday morning; he was coming out to visit!  And, he was bringing Tom with hime!

He'd only made up his mind to do so, about two days earlier, and hadn't wanted to tell anyone so as to surprise folks.  Surprise!  I'm not going to be around, and neither are Bill and Tara, who are heading up north as well.  (How's that surprise thing workin' out?)

But no matter; brothers were coming out and plans needed to be changed!  A quick call to Bill to call off the work weekend, and I shot home.  I'd already secured a half day off from the job so instead of using that time to miss traffic going north, I jumped on the bike and headed west to meet Steve and Tom at the halfway point.

All things considered (leaving at roughly the same time, each having 250 miles of pavement to travel, me hitting a feet-down, bike-off traffic jam on the Pike, them having to make more gas stops due to smaller gas tanks, etc), we did pretty damn well and only missed meeting up at exactly the same time by about 10 minutes.

Some quick grub to fill the furnaces (both us and the bikes) and we were soon hammering eastward, finally pulling up at Kevin's house where the guys were staying for the weekend.  Beers and shots of course soon followed, along with Kevin working the stove and grill to get a late feast served for the guys.

The drinks and good cheer were flowing fast and durious so I took my leave around 11:30.  I knew if I stuck around much longer, I'd be pulling up sleeping space on the couch.  (And it was a good idea to leave since I later found out that they'd been up to about 3:30 in the morning.)

The next day, the boys were off to a local brewhouse where many of us Massholes caught up with them as the afternoon wore on.  The beers were delicious (and strong!), the bartender was a hottie, and we even got a behind-the-scenes tour of the place.  Good times!

From there, we rolled on to Chickie Flynn's for more camaraderie and more friends showing up.  We had dinner, washed it down with a few more frosties, then headed back to my place for a fire and more drinks.  And more folks showed up - sweet!

We didn't run that long into the evening, it'd been a pretty long day.  I do remember capping off the evening with pulling out the Johnny Blue and savoring that smooth sweet nectar with a good number of us.

The next morning, and I was feeling the effects of having gone hard on little food the day before.  Kevin texted that the boys hit the road around 9am and I busied myself with chores around the house.  Around 6 in the afternoon, the messages began coming in; the boys had arrived home, safely.  We all agreed that we'd had a hell of a great weekend and we couldn't wait to do it again.

I didn't get any work done on the house in NH, but did manage to give the liver a working over, and share lots of laughs with some awesome brothers.  Definitely made the right choice.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Costume Chaos, Party II

After doing more thinking about dispensing shaving cream, I realized it would be a terrible idea.  It would get all over the floor, make a big mess and be all kinds of slippery.  Having folks wipe out and get hurt is not a good way to get votes for your costume.  So I opted to go with white silly string, instead, and it was a huge hit/success.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

 

First up was to take a picture of what I was trying to create so that I could keep referring back to it during construction.

Yes; the all-important souce of the good stuff...

Then, a quick trip to Lowe’s for a wardrobe box and I had the main component.  It was too big by itself so I had to cut the seams and glue things to make the dimensions more in perspective.  Holding things in place for drying took some creativity (what you can’t see are the cardboard supports I’d built to hold the top from collapsing inward.)

Next was the faceplate.  I took measurements from the image on my phone and then used some geometry to scribe the arcs, and voila; a faceplate.

For the window, I tried taping some cellophane over the middle hole, with some tin foil behind that, but didn’t like the way it looked…

You could still see the inner edges of the faceplate’s cutout, so I took the piece of cutout cardboard, wrapped that in foil and cellophane, then pressed that back into the faceplate and it looked great; all the edges were in line with each other.

At this point I realized that since I needed to cut a hole in the top for my head to fit through, I needed to remove the clothes hanger bar that the wardrobe box comes with.  It’s along the top of the box, and secured to either side with flaps which I’d now painted over.  That, and having glued the box into a smaller shape meant I was no longer able to easily remove the bar without destroying the box…unless I used my dremel to cut one of the flaps off.

Which I did, nearly setting the box on fire in the process.

 

The last thing needed was the dispensing port.  Originally I’d planned on having it shoot out from the very bottom, but after cutting the hole in the top for my head, the whole thing sat way too low.  The dispensing point needed to be in line with my unit, so I cut a hole at the right spot and created a rounded half-shell top to spiff things up a bit.

Success!  A life-sized, Purell hand soap dispenser (I google-image searched on the Purell logo and found some large versions which I printed out and glued on).

 

And it worked flawlessly.  Well – I did find myself going through the cans of silly string much faster than planned, but a quick trip to the party store and I was stocked up again.

A bit of fortune greeted me in the middle of the day.  I happened to come across the owner of the company (the guy who makes final decisions on who wins and what place they come in), and he was eating lunch.  I proceeded to walk up to him while asking if he’d washed his hands prior to eating.  “It’s very important to wash your hands – do you need some of me?” and then let loose with a stream of string, right at the floor in front of him.  He started laughing so hard, I honestly thought he was going to choke on his lunch.  Someone next to me actually said they thought my costume was inappropriate for Cognex, but the owner (while still laughing his ass off) said no, it’s PERFECT for Cognex!

Fast forward to the after-work party, and the contest.  I was called up as one of the finalists and proceeded to spray string all over the dance floor – much to the laughter and cheers of most people, and got some shocked looks from others.  It turns out I made the company president blush, but this seemed to please the owner all the more, and I wound up with 6^th place (out of 15).  The 5 people who beat me out, definitely deserved to, as their costumes were very creative and obviously took much more time and thought than mine had.

I wound up claiming a KitchenAid blender system of some sort but since I don’t do any kind of serious baking, I brought it back to Best Buy today at lunch (we’re allowed to do that) and get store credit; Holy crap - $425!  Not too shabby for 4 nights of work and about $30 of materials.

So there you go; this year’s costume chaos.  I wonder what I’ll wind up doing next year…

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Costume Chaos

It's that time of year; my company's annual Halloween extravaganza is approaching and many of us employees are scrambling to get our costumes done in time.  I had another ambitious plan for this year; I was going to be a meat grinder, complete with working crank which would push more 'ground meat' out when turned.

Despite once again being an over the top costume, I was excited about the idea.  I brainstormed the plan, bought materials, and dove in.

Much of this thing was going to be paper mache, which I've never used before, but I looked up some tutorials on YouTube and off I went.

The first thing I needed was a central tube for the grinding chamber.  I wanted the end to flare bigger than the inside end so I grabbed a metal trash barrel, wrapped it in chicken wire...

What a pain in the balls this was, cuttin the wire, wrapping each cut piece around its accompanying connection point, tucking all the sharp ends inside so they wouldn't keep jabbing me.

Apparently I did a great job of wrapping it very tightly.  It was so tight, it took me almost half an hour to slide it off of the trash barrel.

After that, I molded another chamber to house the crank, for opposite of the grinding chamber.

Next was to cut some cardboard circles to tuck inside to give the chambers structural integrity...

The circles on the end kept sliding inside the tube so I cut some spacer shims to keep the circles in place.  But the shims kept falling over so I tied them into place with thread (if you open the pic you can see the thread).

Lastly was the center of the costume.  I wanted it to be a bit rounded to give more of a chamber effect, rather than just a straighht tube.  I bought an inflatable exercise ball and then se the tubes against it.

(In this pic, just the smaller tube on top was splayed open to mold it better to the ball, but after I took this pic, I splayed the bottom tube as well, for a muc better fit.

 Next up; the paper mache!  Glue, water, and a bit of salt which apparently keeps the paper from molding.

Ta da  Wait...no "ta da"...it's not done!  When I started to apply the paper, I found that while it stuck great to the ball, it wasn't sticking to the chicken wire at all.  This meant I had to do the middle section first, then I'd have to lay it on its side to apply some paper on its top, let it dry, then roll it a bit, put more paper on the top, let dry, etc.

 And messy?  Man, just look at that tarp.  This stuff was dripping all over the place.  But, I had knocked some of the project out and it was time to let stuff dry.  I turned on the ceiling fan, set up a floor fan to help, and kicked back for a while.

When it was dry (many hours later), I went up and checked it for strength.

And that's when it hit me...

This costume required me to be inside of it to achieve the effect of me being ground up - I was aware of that.  But I'd assumed I'd be able to cut a section out of the ball and have the remainder of it held firmly in place by the paper mache.   But what I found was the ball was still very flexible, meaning that as soon as I cut into it, relieving the internal pressure, the costume would lose all structural integrity.  This meant the costume would flop around on both sides, most likely resulting in the whole thing tearing in half.  Definitly not what I wanted - and with only 5 days left until go-time, I was out of luck.

So I cut/tore/dismantled the entire thing and it all went out in yesterday's trash.

This left me without a costume for what is the biggest event at my work, all year.  But that'd be sacrilege.  I've been competing in the costume contest for almost as long as I've been here.  For weeks, folks have been coming up and asking me what I was going to be (I never tell beforehand), and saying they couldn't wait to see what I came up with for this year.

But I was out of time and to be honest; out of motivation.  I just wasn't feeling it.  I figured what the hell, I'll take a year off and sit this one out.

But then yesterday, as I was washing my hands after using the bathroom, I was hit with inspiration; I'm going to go as a commercial hand soap dispenser.  (Huh?)

That's right; a commercial hand soap dispenser, complete with PURELL (C) labels on it and everything.

Anyone that's daring enough to hold their hands under the dispensing part - which will conveniently be located at my crotch level - will get a handful of cream.  Shaving cream, that is.  I'll be holding a can of it inside the box I'm building.

I may not place in the winning group, but I plan on getting a shitload of laughs.

Maybe I'll try the meat grinder thing again next year.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Just Can't See Getting Any Older

This whole "getting older" thing sucks.  Yeah, it's cliche' to say that and we all know it to be true, but I'll press on with it anyway.

The latest example for me is how it's getting harder and harder to clearly see the roadway at night.  Granted, some of this is due to my sucky low-output, yellow-beam headlight, but most of it is due to my eyesight losing it's youth.  I've been realizing more and more that as I'm rolling along roadways in the darkness, especially when there's traffic coming toward me and their headlights are washing out my own, that I'm riding on pure "blind" faith that there aren't any obstacles in the road.  I can't see the surface to know that it's clear.  And that's bad.

I need to see about upgrading my headlight situation, and I'm hoping there's something out there that's a better option than that +$300 light which I returned a few months ago.

Oh well, moving on...

I really need to get my bike in for its service, I think I'm about 500 or  600 miles over, and have another run going on this weekend so that will wipe out the option of bringing it in then.  I'm kicking around the idea of bringing it in tomorrow at lunch and then hopefully picking it back up on Thursday at lunch.  The problem with that is it'll take me at least an hour to get there, let alone the time needed to drop it off/pick it up, and then the hour ride back.  How do I explain my extended lunch periods?  I'm not sure but I'll try to think of something.  (They offer a free bike loaner for 24 hours, so that would cover me getting back to work and then home and then back to the dealership.)

Lastly, it's that time here at work; Halloween.  Folks keep asking me if I'm all set with my costume yet.  Nope, I'm not.  In fact, I haven't even thought of anything yet - I just feel burned out.  I need to get my head right, though, and think of something fast.  The party/contest is 10 days away...

Maybe I should go as the Invisible Man...and just not come in...

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Light At The End Of The Tunnel

I'm waiting on one answer from an exec and then I'll be able to hand off my budget plan.  That'll mean an end (hopefully) to the long hours and working on weekends.  Sweet!

So what do I have in store for this weekend to celebrate not having to work?  Not a thing!  I tried making an appt to bring my bike in to Boston Harley this weekend to have the 35k service done but they have an event tomorrow and a huge run going on, on Sunday, so they're pretty tied up.  No to say they couldn't do the service, but they probably couldn't get it done within 24 hours, and that's where the problem comes in.  My "priority" service plan alots me a free rental bike for 24 hours, so I ordinarily would be able to drop the bike off tomorrow, take the rental home, then go back in on Sunday, return the rental, bring my bike home.  I will try again for next weekend.

The weather looks like it might be halfway decent so I'm going to see about taking the new bike out - the mountain bike, that is.  Having weighed myself in the gym the other day and finding that not only have I regained all the weight I lost in the Spring, I'm even heavier than I was, originally.  So burning off some calories via pedaling won't hurt me a bit.

I'll probably take the real bike out some as well, even though I'm 300+ miles over the service interval.  It's all synthetic fluids, though, so I imagine it'll be fine.

Not much else is going on.  Kinda looking forward to having a drink when I get home; a luxury I haven't afforded myself in some time, due to the long hours and fried brain cells of late.

I'll try and find something fun and exciting to do this weekend and bore you with the details about it on Monday.  Have a great weekend.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Bentley's 2016

The weather was calling for absolute ass (heavy rain) but to hell with it.  My work schedule was about to drop into overdrive and I needed one last getaway before the suck set in.

Loaded up and ready for departure…

We arrived dry, if not a tad chilly, and got camp set up.  Two tents with one tarp to share, above them.

 

At least it would give us decent protection should the elements turn against us.  And it also provided protection from the acorns.  Yes; the acorns!  These things were rifling down through the leaves with what seemed like way, WAY too much force than they should have had, just from detaching from a branch.  They were slicing through the foliage and hitting the ground with loud “Whump!” sounds.  I looked around, expecting to see squirrels hurling them at us, but couldn’t make anything out in the thick canopy above us. 

(The tarp worked well enough to keep the insides of the tents dry, but it rained so hard, there was a ton of mud splatter all over the tents.  When I got home, I had to hose everything off.) 

We  needed some lunch and found this place.

 

BYOB?  Damn.  But the food was so good we came back here on Saturday (even though my omelet with salsa arrived as an omelet with a side order of sausage). 

Off to the beach!

The rain hadn’t hit yet but you could see it was coming…

 

Yes, there’s a reason I posted a pic of this sign.  You’ll know it when you see it.

 

This crab had a bad day…

 

We found lots of these poor dead crabs over the course of the weekend.  I’m not sure how the seagulls are able to finagle these things onto their backs – some of them were good sized.  But finagle them they did, and then dissected, disemboweled and digested them. 

Here’s a lineup of the villains, waiting for their next victim…

 

For some reason, I was struck with a need to stack some rocks, so I did…

 

From there it was off to a brewery to check out their products.  And just for us; special parking out back with the rest of the trash…

 

I really liked these mini windows in the converted factory building we were parked up against.

 

Ta da!  Beer, courtesy of Banded Horn Brewery!

 

It was the only stout they offered and was an Imperial.  Oh, and it was very sweet (as expected) and I didn’t really care for it.  They did have a nice back deck to hang out on.  Very industrial setting, as you can see in the background. 

I thought these star-shaped anchor plates were pretty cool…

 

As was the decrepit area below…

 

We only stuck around for one beer and had decided to head off to the one to check them out, when we happened to spot…

 

That’s right; a distillery, right next door to the brewery!  Unfortunately, they didn’t open for another 20 minutes, but since the next brewery (Publik House) was only 0.2 miles away, we figured 20 mintues was plenty of time to head over, try a beer or two, then come back.  As it turns out, we stayed for a couple beers then decided to head back toward Bentley’s and the party waiting therein.

But…there was still a bit of daylight left in the sky so we decided to hit the shoreline one more time.  The tide was on its way back in but hadn’t reached my stack of rocks yet.  The stack of rocks that’s right over…what the...?  They’re not there…?  Walking over to the spot, I found that someone had actually destacked my rocks.  They hadn’t been knocked over because they were all in a pile at the base of the boulder I’d stacked them on.  Who does that?  So I figured I might as well restack and go even a little higher this time…

 

From there it was off to Bentley’s for the evening.  The weather outside was cold and drizzly so most folks were hanging out inside, and that’s where we hung our hats for the evening.  It was raining pretty well by the time we turned in, and I could hear the rain coming down in buckets over the course of the evening.

The next morning, it was still raining pretty well.  Not quite as hard as it had been overnight, but still enough to dampen my spirits (which is probably why I didn’t take any pics from Saturday).  We showered and headed off to Mike’s Diner again for breakfast.  When that was done, we walked back outside to find it was raining pretty good again, and we still didn’t have a plan for the day.  Looking at the weather on our phones, it looked like it was going to be ass all day. What to do?  Well, inland looked like it was missing the rain so we opted to point our tires westward, and head toward the house in Wolfeboro.

 

As it turns out, we found some decent roads; great scenery but the road surfaces weren’t always that great.  We hung out at the house for a bit, I napped, Greg watched some tv.  Checking the weather again, it looked like things would calm down in the amount of time it would take us to get back, so we headed back eastward.

 

After getting almost all the way back and finding the rain had become just an irritating drizzle, I suggested we head back to the shoreline one more time while there was a bit of daylight left.  So off we went.  No sooner had we ridden about a half-mile past Bentley’s, than the drizzle turned to full-fledged rain again.  We continued on to the shore, did some walking around, I tried stacking some rocks again but gave up since they weren’t cooperating.  (Oh, my second stack of rocks was left alone for the tide to knock over, as the stones were scattered all about, on the far side of the boulder I’d stacked them on.)  We saved a small crab who was stuck out of water (found a nice tidal pool with lots of hiding spaces for him), looked for some more flat stones for Patty, and called it a day.

 

We arrived back to camp, got showered and cleaned up...so of course  the rain started coming down in buckets again.  What the hell.  Since all we had was our two small tents and no standing room between them, there was no place to hang out, so there was nothing to do but head up to the bar as quickly as we could before getting thoroughly soaked again.

 

The rain kept coming down so folks who would ordinarily be all spread out outside were instead; all crammed inside.  We lucked out in that a couple got up from the bar shortly after we arrived so we parked our asses and took in the sights for the night.  One of the best sights was the barmaid who kept leaning over the beer cooler in front of us.  No complaints there!

When the night was running late we headed back – and it was raining even harder now.  All through the night, it seemed to rain harder and harder and each time I woke up (my back and neck are becoming less and less agreeable to sleeping on the ground), I could hear the droplets pounding the tents and the tarp.  At least the sound was loud enough to drown out the acorns which were still hammering down, too.

The next morning, the rain had let a smidge.  We cleared camp as quickly as we could and hit the road.  Fortunately the rain clouds thinned a bit and we pretty much had just a very thick mist/drizzle for most of the ride home.

It felt so good to roll in to my driveway; thank God, I was done with riding in the rain for the weekend.  Tenting gear was hosed off, laundry was set into motion, and then it was my turn; a nice hot shower to warm the body back up.

A quick run to the food store for supplies, then it was back to make strombolies for Bill and Zach who came over to watch the Pats game with me.  (No need to go into any detail on that, it was painful enough to watch just the one time.)

Greg and I talked it over quite a bit and have come to a unanimous decision; from here on, trips to Bentley’s will entail renting a room.  My first year here, the temps dipped into the 20’s – not excellent for sleeping outside.  On top of that with all the rain this year, it just makes sense to go with a room.  Less to pack on the bike, less to worry about in terms of the weather.  Which of course means the weather will probably be dry and in the 80’s next year, but if that’s how it turns out, it’ll be worth it.

There you have it; Bentley’s 2016.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Absentee...

Same story every year at this time (budget time); too busy at work and too short on time to post things. That's partly a lie because I have time to do other things in addition to work so i guess it comes down to a matter of prioritizing.
Anyway, things are gonna get even busier at work, starting on Monday, so let's get you caught up on what's occurred on this end recently.
The Riders have attended a few runs, and they went well and were good exposure for the group. We're still a small fish in a small pond but we're growing.
We ran the annual Shayne's run without issue, despite some unexpected surprises (by definition, are any surprises ever expected?). The one that puzzles me the most is who the fuck was the guy who was staged with us (the blockers) who pulled out of formation and into the roadway, stopped traffic and convinced the family bikes to pull out, causing the rest of the blockers to pull out? I kept hollering "No! No! No!" but they couldn't hear me. The cops weren't even ready for us to start so of course it caused a pretty big hiccup.
After the run, I tried to find out who the guy was but nobody claimed any knowledge. I guess we just have to chalk it up to one more thing to add to the list for next year. (Every year, ya think you've got every possible shithead move covered, but then some shithead comes along and throws a new wrench into the mix.)
What else...The bicycle I bought on line arrived safely. I figured; it's a bike, I used to work on them and rode them before, how hard can it be. Well, I didn't take into account that it's been about 39 years since I owned one (don't do the math, it's just depressing) and that all kinds of technological advances would be made in that amount of time.
After a couple weeks of trying to figure out how to assemble the stupid thing, I finally gave up. (It was the derailleur that ultimately beat me.)
I gave in and brought it to the local bike shop, the2 employees of which managed to politely keep their snickering to a minimum. I picked it up tonight and then spent the next 20 minutes riding around in my back yard, getting acclimated to it. (I dared not do it in public for fear of falling on my face.)
I suppose it shouldn't have been surprising; everything came back just like the saying says (just like riding a bike). It was exhilarating, and I can't wait to get out there again and really burn off some calories.
That's gonna have to wait a bit, though. I'm off to Bentley's tomorrow morning. Yep; despite being jammed at work, I managed to take a day off. (No offense, but I guess this is where "prioritizing" applies.)
It was originally 3 of us as definites, with 5 additional possibles. We made our reservations months ago, and then went on with our summers.
And now the time is near, and the forecasts haven't been kind. We've had weekend upon weekend upon weekend of fantastic weather but now that it's time to go camping, the much-needed rain has seemed intent on returning.
In turn, that has led to the dwindling of our attendees. What was once a potential 8, dropped to 7, then to 4, then to 3...and then at noon today, it dropped to 2. But it will drop no further. It's down to Greg and myself,  and we're gonna see it through.
Besides, tomorrow night is Angel Night at Bentley's. :-D
You don't know what Angel Night is?
Well, you need to come up to Bentley's with us next year...

I think this about catches you up on things. It may be a while before I post again, so until next time; get out there and get some miles on.

Daylight is getting shorter, temps are getting lower.

Don't waste the time we have left in the season.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Happy Birthday, Russ

We had a nice Labor Day celebration this year, Russ.  It's definitely not the same party it used to be, but we had a lot of fun - and did talk about you a bit.  All good stuff, so no worries.

Still wish like hell that you were around to share the laughter with us.

Victrola, Brother.

20 Years!

What a refreshing change; something in my mailbox that wasn't a bill!

Ok, so now my phone is fucking with me, too. (I swear I'm not doing the sideways-pics on purpose.)

20 years. Hard to believe I've had that much fun. Looking forward to the next 20!!

Ride Hard, Take Chances

2016 Labor Day Maine Event

 

McCarthy and family were heading up on Friday morning, as was I, so it just made sense to go up together.  We went back and forth between leaving super early to beat the traffic, or wait a while and let traffic die down.  Well, when Thursday came and we were both excited about the weekend and wound up staying out late (not together, we each had our own plans), so it was agreed that we’d go with the later departure.

We agreed it’d be easier to meet up along the way so I sat on a 95 overpass and waited for them to come along.  Before long, there they were so I shot down the on-ramp to catch them, assumed the sweep position, and off we went.

The only section of heavy traffic we encountered was at NH, at the tolls.  This may initially make sense but wait; the lanes which were crawling were the high speed EZ Pass lanes.  You know; the lanes that are sectioned off and have signs posted to maintain 65mph?  Yeah, those lanes were traveling at about 10 miles an hour, for several miles before the actual toll spot.  The other lanes?  The ones which lead to the manned booths, where you have to stop and pay?  Those were zipping along at full highway speed.  Awesome.

After we finally got clear of that nonsense, traffic moved pretty well for a Labor Day weekend Friday.  We arrived in Rockland and headed to the Trade Winds and got Steph and Ally settled.  They’d be hanging at the clearing with us, but then coming here to sleep in comfort.  No rain to worry about, hot showers, soft beds.  Smart girls.

After that, we realized we were pretty hungry so I suggested Waterworks.  I thought this place brewed their own beer but that was not the case (it’d been a while since I’ve been here).  They had a semi-decent selection of brews so all was not lost.  The menu was so-so and the food was road worthy but that’s about it.  (I think I’m going to scratch this place from my Rockland rotation.)  But the beer was at least good...

A quick stop at the Beverage Barn for some hard stuff and we were off to the clearing!  Aaron, Chrissy, and his daughters Skylar and Jayden had arrived the night before, as had Dave, Karmen and Olivia.  The NY crew had arrived earlier in the afternoon and Rob was there with Kyle and Natalie.  Oh yeah!  Brian (Sir Curious George) was there, too!  It’s been 23 years since he’s attended and it was great to see him.

So with so many people already in attendance, suffice to say we were a bit late to the camping party but we found decent spots to set up and were soon settled in and kicking back for the night with good friends, good stories, lots of laughter and even a bit of a fire to complete the atmoshphere.

 

Almost as soon as I arrived, Natalie came up to me with some Shrek Cotton Candy (a stick covered in spider and caterpiller webbing) so of course I pretended to eat it.  Then she threw one of those plant burrs at me which of course stuck right away.  I managed to peel it off and toss it back, and it stuck in her hair.  Oops.  So a couple of us were gently removing it when Kyle appeared with a humungous clump of them!  He lobbed it at me, I dodged...and well...now Natalie had an even bigger issue...

Fortunately, we managed to get her untangled completely.  The only down side was that these things leave little barbs in the things they get stuck in, so there were a bunch of them stuck in her shirt, which was aggravating her skin.  Once she changed shirts, she was good to go.

Saturday, we milled about, got some cleanup done on the clearing (most of the stuff had already been done before we arrived but there’s always a few small things to touch up when you’re out in the woods).  I hadn’t packed well for the trip; I’d neglected to pack snacks on the bike and had been pretty starving the night before, so I headed out on the bike to find me some breakfast and then hit the grocery store for supplies.  I tried McDonald’s first but the idiots in line annoyed me too much (the first guy went back and forth with the amazingly patient and polite young man behind the counter.  The patron kept questioning his order, the kid kept politely explaining and listing out his order, even printing the receipt and showing the patron each item in order, but the guy was too frikkin’ stupid to understand that everything he’d wanted, was on his order.  That took about 10 minutes.  Then up comes a lady fresh from Walmart (judging from her outfit), wanting to buy a coffee and charge it to a gift card.  Ok, no problem.  Then she wanted to recharge the gift card.  Ok, no problem.  She’d used something like a dollar for the coffee, but wanted to charge $10.97 on her credit card and put that on the gift card.  No, wait, she wanted it on a different credit card, and wanted only $9 and change.  No, wait, the first card, and now it’s back to $10.97.  After about 5 minutes of this (all while the kid was again patiently smiling and being helpful), I gave up and went across the street to Burger King and went with the 2 for $10 Whopper meals.  (I ate them back at the site, and yeah, all that fat and crap probably took a year off of my life but man was I hungry and man did they taste good.)  After the BK stop I hit the food store to stock up on snacks and ice for the cooler, and headed back to the site.

 

I did stop to snap this cool pic along the way...

Here's a swing that only Dave and McCarthy could put together...

The wheelchair has been foating around the clearing for years and years, and between the ropes that Dave and McCarthy had with them, they were able to rig up this scary looking thing.  I kept waiting for one of the kids' heads to bounce off of one of the support trees but it never happened.  I even took a turn (for weight testing, of course) and while it did twist a tiny bit, it remained straight between the trees.

 

Around 1, the crew was hungry again so we jumped on the bikes and headed to The Slipway for the traditional lunch on the pier.  The place was jam-packed!  I’ve never seen it so busy, and we actually had to wait for a table to open up but it wasn’t too long of a wait and we were soon seated, libations in hand and food on the way.

Our view from the parking area...

 

After that it was back to the site where we pretty much settled in for the rest of the day, played lots of cards with the kids, and had a truly enjoyable, relaxing Saturday.

 

Oh yeah!  Remember my boots?  The ones I'd left here (on purpose) about 15 years ago?  They were pretty worn out and I didn't need them for the ride home, so I'd left them on a big rock just to see what would happen to them.  Each year, I'd go check on them and even snapped a pic at one point (which is down on the basement wall).  Then one year, I went to look for them and they were gone.  I asked around and Karmen said she'd found them when cleaning the area and had tossed them out.  Damn.  Oh well...

 

But then this year, Dave found them!  He was off....seeing a man about a horse, and happened to stumble on them.  He didn't know whose they were but did comment to the group about having found an old pair of boots.  No way!  Could it be?

 

Yep!  It's them!!

 
My phone is still playing games with me (sideways pic) so here's another one.

Karmen must have not tossed them but just moved them, instead.  These are absolutely my boots!  I thought this was all kinds of cool and now the experiment can continue.  Let's see how many more years they will last.

Sunday was breakfast on-site, courtesy of Master Chef Robbo, and some more cards.  We kicked around for a little bit, getting things ready for the Sunday Feast.  Soon the lobsters had arrived and too many chefs (myself included) set to trying to help Charlie, Dave, Rob and McCarthy get the food all cooked and served.  The feast was as awesome as always and our bellies were completely happy.  After cleanup, and with a good solid base in our stomachs, we set to emptying the coolers with reckless abandon.

When the sun began to settle, we got the chairs gathered ‘round the stage and the torches set and lit...

 

 

King and I had discussed things earlier and there was to be a knighting this year.  Also, Jerry had elected to pass the Sheriff torch to someone else, since he is no longer able to attend in person (we miss Jerry!).

The ceremony began with the usual greetings and salutations, followed by a moment of silence.  After that was the presentation of all knights and ladies to the group, followed by the knighting…of Aaron!  His given name shall hence forth be; Sir I Got A Guy (Aaron usually is “the guy” to get stuff done but whenever something comes up that he can’t take care of, “he’s got a guy” that can).

Next up it was time to announce our new Sheriff…it’s Olivia!  Jerry had written her a letter to let her know ahead of time, and he also sent out his official sidearm, and a new badge, just for her.  It was pink, and looked very cool.  Oliva was pinned, handed her weapon and given her charge (both for the pistol, and for her duties).  She took them quite to heart and without much encouragement, went on to shoot McCarthy 8 or 9 times during the night (he’s apparently very resilient).

From there, we invited folks up to share stories and memories of Labor days past.  We had several takers and while there weren’t a lot of stories told, there were many laughs in the group as well as many fond memories stirred as well.

Lastly, the closing of the ceremony.  We all gathered ‘round for The Toast, gave a hearty rendition of it to the sky and woods around us, and then disbanded to continue the revelry long into the evening.

For some reason, this apparently seemed like a great pic to take at some point in the late evening...

The next morning, we got off to a slightly later start than usual.  Rather than the normal 7am departure, it was about 8am when our tires were rolling along toward home.  McCarthy’s son and I were able to make a little better time due to being on two, and were soon skimming around cars when chances would allow.  We hit some traffic at the Maine tolls (to be expected) and into NH (also expected) but aside from that, made decent time despite the solid volume of vehicles sharing the pavement.

It was another great year up in the woods of Maine.  We actually had a larger group than last year.  It didn’t rival the heydays of when Russ was alive, but it was definitely a good showing.

I already wish it were time to do it again.

Ride Hard, Take Chances