Global Warming

We just set a record for the lowest "high" temperature today.  We made it all the way up to 6 degrees in Boston (out here in Walpole, we enjoyed a balmy 15).  I didn't really pay attention to the weather report or what the lady was saying, but I did hear something about coldest high temp ever recorded for this day (Dec 28th).  The records go back 100 years, so for this year's Dec 28th to be the coldest ever...well...that's saying something.  Ain't it ain't something good.

Tonight's temps are going to drop even lower tonight so maybe we'll set a new record.  And, the temps don't look like they're going to climb out of the cellar for at least a week.  Awesome.

We don't usually see these kinds of temps until mid-Feb and while it sucks, it at least signals Winter has reached its peak. From there on out, the temps usually begin a maddeningly slow increase, but at least; upward.  Having these temps so early in the season makes me kinda nervous about what kind of winter we're in store for.

On a lighter note, Kate, Zig and I are heading out to Olean tomorrow, for New Year's.  King texted today to say that they had sub-zero temps going on, so we're not exactly improving our warmth factor but getting to see all those great friends will go a long way toward warming us up.

Here's wishing everyone a fantastic close-out to 2017, and a healthy and happy New Year's!

(Wishing I was able to) Ride Hard, Take Chances

Winter Solstice

As I'm sure many of you know, today is the winter solstice.  AKA; the shortest day of the year.  Sunrise is 7:10 am and sunset is 4:15 in the afternoon.  That's right; in the afternoon!  It's still the afternoon when we lose our favorite ambient light source!  But thankfully that will begin to change - very slowly of course, but still; the days will begin to get a tiny bit longer each day.

That's the great news.  The bad news is that today is also the official start of Winter, so while our days will be getting slightly longer, they'll also be getting colder and snowier.  (It's already been a shitty season so far; lots of salt and black ice, meaning the bike has been parked for a few weeks...hence the onset of winter anxiety I'm feeling).

Oh well, we gotta take the good with the bad I guess.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

RIP Dana

Obviously I'm not doing so well on keeping up on the blog, but at the same time it feels somehow appropriate that my last post was in memory of Russell, an now this next post is in memory of you, Dana.  I hope you, he, and the rest of the crew are all up there and having some laughs while looking down on us as we fumble our way through our days.

Just as with last year; there are a few of us heading out your way in a little over a week.  We'll stop by and say hello of course.  Wish it was at a bar, and over some cold ones, though.  It's been 20+ years since the whole crew was together up in Maine.  Seems so long ago but at the same time; where has the time gone?

Bottom line is we miss you guys and wish you were still down here with us.

RIP Dana

Russell Remembrance

Why do these anniversaries seem to come so quickly?  Why do the years seem to pass so fast?  How can it be 11 years already since we’ve seen your smile?  11 years since we’ve enjoyed your tales, spoken in a manner that would captivate a room, or an entire clearing?  11 years since we’ve heard your laughter – so infectious that no matter who was around, they would find themselves caught up laughing as well!?!

Victrola!!

In light of that, this year’s remembrance will focus on Russ’ laughter…

I forget what year it was, or even what time of the year it was at.  It wasn’t Labor Day because I was the only one up there.  Russ and Gretchen were still together and doing well, so I guess it must have been a fair amount of years ago.  There was some kind of barn party going on at one of Russ’ friend’s places and we were headed there for the evening.

Something else to keep in mind; at the time, Russ was still on his kick to try and replicate Tommy’s (from Olean) amazing steak sub sandwiches.  He’d….perfected (??) his attempt and had locked down his own personal recipe and while it wasn’t very close to what Tommy was serving, it was a damn respectable sandwich on its own.  Cabbage, special red hot dogs, thin sliced meat (not SPAM), special hot sauce, etc., etc., etc.  Those of you who’ve had them before, you know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, back to the remembrance.  We’d gone food shopping during the day and collected all the various odds and ends needed for the sammiches and had spent most of the afternoon cooking them up just right.  We ate a few of the first batch while preparing the second and third batches.  Hell, it was going to be a long night, we needed to get a good base established!

Eventually, all the ingredients had been doled out, all the sammiches had been broiled, some had been eaten, some had been put away into the fridge, but 6 of them…yes, the finest 6, dare I say…those were individually wrapped in foil and placed with care into a cooler, along with some ice, to be brought with us.  Sure our bellies were full at the moment, but there were MANY hours still ahead of us, and we needed to make sure we could counter our future hunger pangs with solid sustenance!

We stocked a separate cooler with our beers for the evening and off we went.

Arriving at the party, we were welcomed in as if weary travelers returning from a long trip away.  But this was normal whenever I was with Russ; no matter where we went, if they were friends of Russ, they always welcomed him and whoever he was with, as if they were brothers.

The crowd was sizeable, there was a band playing, we made lots of rounds saying hello to people.  The beverages were flowing well, and as is often the case when excursioning with Russ, the mantra of “Maine; The Way Life Should Be” was running through my head.

After a bit, we found ourselves a place to pull up some floor and relax for a bit.  I was destroying the beers, Russ and Gretchen got their smoke on (if you know what I mean), and we were all kicking back and laughing ourselves silly.  After a bit of that, Russ was hit with a full-on bout of the munchies and decided he needed one of the sammiches.  He reached in, grabbed one and pulled it out…and there was some water dripping from the end of it.  What the…damn, the ice had melted (duh) and the ends of the sammiches – wrapped in foil – weren’t exactly water proof, so the sub rolls had soaked up some of the melted water.  I was quite certain that this would render the lower half of the sammiches as inedible, but Russ, not to be deterred in his smokey state of mind, unwrapped the foil and gave the soggy end a mighty bite.

I peered at him with serious anticipation – how was it?  Was the wet part; disgusting?  I was getting pretty hungry at this point and was loathe to think that half of our food supply had been ruined!  But Russ assured me that oddly enough – the sammich tasted amazing!  But there’s no way that wetting a sub roll would make it taste any better?  He couldn’t explain it, but for whatever reason, he exclaimed the sammich to be more delicious than ever!  And then he accentuated his argument by taking an even larger bite, and savoring it with moans of delight and what appeared to be a near swoon.  I was sold!

I grabbed one of my sammiches, tore the foil off of the soaked end, took a humongous bite and chewed with reckless abandon, eagerly awaiting the moment when the new, enhanced flavors would coat my tongue and send ripples of satisfaction to my brain.

But…something was wrong…this didn’t taste good…  This…this tasted…TERRIBLE!

I froze in mid-chew and looked at Russ with what must have been a pathetic look of confusion and revolt.  My brain, in its beer-muddled state, was unable to figure out what was going on.  How could Russ’ sammich taste so amazing while mine tasted so god-awful??  I looked at Russ and managed to garble around the stuff in my mouth; “…but…this thing tastes like SHIT!?!?”

But then it all became clear to me because I could see Russ' face register the disgust and confusion on my face as I stared at him with this half-chewed mouth full of sammich, and he immediately burst into full-throated laughter.

Now when I say full-throated laughter, only those of you who have seen Russ when he’s been hit by one of these fits will understand what I’m saying.  When I tell you that he was beside himself with laughter, he was almost unable to breathe from laughing so hard.

When he was able to summon half a lung of air, he paused to look at me and say, “Of COURSE it tastes like shit, it’s soaked with COOLER WATER!” before succumbing to another fit of amazingly contagious, hearty laughter.

I could not spit that stuff out of my mouth fast enough, and seeing me trying to paw that crap off of my tongue only sent Russ into deeper fits of laughter.  There we were; me trying to hack this soggy sludge out onto the ground, Russ literally almost pissing himself from laughter, and Gretchen just caught up in the whole spectacle and laughing herself silly, too.  Folks around us were looking over and trying to figure out what the hell was going on.  For all appearances, it probably looked like I was choking, and Russ and Gretchen were laughing themselves to death at the sight of me struggling.

The whole thing had been a joke at my expense.  Of course the soggy part of the sammich tasted like shit!  But rather than let on, he’d built it up and suckered me into falling for it.  And man, did I bite!! (Pun intended.)

It took us quite a while before we all finally gathered ourselves and got the laughter fits under control.  Suffice to say that we cut the soggy ends off of the rest of the sammiches, but for years after that, whenever one of us was hungry, we would joke about the soggy sammiches, and it would send us into brief sessions of laughter at the memory.

God I miss that laugh…

Victrola Brother!!!

All In The Famiily

This past Saturday, I was invited to be part of a group-themed costume party.  Aaron and Chrissy were going to check out the band Tigerlilly (the same band that we befriended at the 'Vous a number of years ago), at a bar out in Milford.  The place was throwing a Halloween contest, and hell yeah; I wanted in!

Making things even easier; they had Lurch (Aaron), Morticia (Chrissy), Cousin It (a prop that Aaron made) and Wednesday (Therese).  All they needed was a Gomez or an Uncle Fester.  It was an easy choice for me; Uncle Fester!

The outfit would be simple; a bald cap and a cloak from the party store, and some black makeup around the eyes.  But there was something else that was associated with UF; a lightbulb!  And not any lightbulb, but one that lit up when he put it into his mouth.  Hmmm....I bet I could rig something up...

It took me a while (Radio Shack, permanently closed?  How did I not know about this!?!?) but I finally found a place up in Needham that sold LED diodes.  I also picked up a couple of coin batteries to make a pack out of, and headed home.

First off I needed a couple of lightbulbs to work with.  The first one, I broke the glass and then carefully removed all remnants, leaving me with just a usable base...

Next, I needed a usable bulb, so I Dremmeled the end off, then proceeded to slice the threads and peel the rest of the base off...

Next, I carefully cut around the base of the bulb so that I'd have access to the inside...

Last, was to carefully clean the paste off.  Man, this stuff didn't smell poisonous at all!!

Once that was all set, I messed with several methodes of creating the battery pack.  First I tried zip ties but they made the thing too big to sit inside the base so I had to cut them off.  Then I tried tape, which worked for about 2 minutes, but the finagling with the wires as I was trying to connect the diode, worked the connections loose and made the light flicker.  Last, I tried wrapping with a coil of wire (over the tape, and pressing down on the connecting wires) and twisted the wire super tight with pliers, to really compress things and hold the wires tightly against the batteries.  (Ideally, I would have used Aaron's soldering gun but I was running real short on time.)  Then I twisted the wires to the diode leads and things looked like they were gonna work for me.

Next; insert the battery pack into the base and fit the bulb down over everything.

I had a glue gun ready to go but was so short on time that I had to resort to using duct tape to hold the thing together, but it worked!!

 It was pretty cool, and it lasted the whole night so it worked as needed.

I really liked making this and there are lots of room for improvement.  I would definitely solder the wires together, rather than twisting everything.  Also, I'd use a third wire and run a circuit that I could connect/disconnect, to make the light turn on and off.  And lastly; I'd hot glue everything together to make it nice and solid (the tape worked loose part way through the night and had to keep being pressed together).

But that's for down the road.  As for a dry run (and on the spot, no less), it was a great success.

Oh yeah; our group won first prize at the contest!  It was a gift card for the bar, which came in very handy toward paying down our tab.  O:-)

And here we are in all our glory.  What a glamorous family we are!

I love this time of year!!

Cognex Costume Contest - Conquered!

As is par for the course, I spent the past month and a half being overwhelmed with the annual budget, all while knowing that Cognex's Halloween contest was looming large.  And as is also par for the course, I waited until the budget was done before turning my attentions to trying to come up with a costume - this meant I had about a week to come up with something and get it created.  As I've said before; I work well under pressure, and the creative juices really start flowing when things get down to the wire.

I knew I'd done very well two years ago when I incorporated the stilts into my costume as the Scarecrow.  I'd landed 2nd place and many folks (myself included) felt I'd been robbed because the person who won was a "favorite" of the owner, and the owner has final say in the standings, so...yeah.

Anyway, I looked on-line for costume ideas that stilts would lend themselves to and after discarding several silly ones, I opted to give Jack Skellington a try.  I've never seen the movie (Nightmare Before Christmas) but was familiar with the character, and I thought maybe I'd have a chance to create something that resembled it, kinda sorta.

First thing was to try and find as much of the outfit at the party store as I could.  Looking online, they stores said they sold the pants and the jacket - cool!  I'd buy two sets and use one set of pants to cover the stilts.  Well come to find out the stores lied because after checking three different locations, it turned out that all they sold was the suit jacket.  No pants.  Damn.

Ok, on to some thrift stores to buy pinstriped dress pants.  The only problem was the pinstriping was extremely light in comparison to the jacket so something had to be done...

I bought a white fabric marker which (according to its label) would make short work of brightening the lines but alas; the marker sucked a bunch of eggs.  You couldn't see the lines any better, even after dragigng the marker back and forth several times.  So now what...well, let's see what I have for paint in the cellar.

Score!  I've got some leftover KILLZ mildew-resistant paint (bright white!).  Couple that with a small, fine-tipped paintbrush, and I was off and running...

Well, "running" is not the right word for it.  This was a slow crawl! It took me almost 6 hours of painstaking line tracing before I had a double set of pants that would work - and I was only painting every other line! 

But at least they were done.  Next up; the head and Bat Tie.  I managed to find some hard-sided foam board which I doubled up and then cut out the shape of the Bat Tie (bow tie), as well as scribed and then painted (with KILLZ) the bat face and the erratic lines that apparently are a trademark of Jack's silly Bat Tie.

Now the head...But what to use?  I'd found a simple mask at one of the party stores, but man, that thing was lame as anything.  There was no way I could use that - I'd laugh myself out of the contest, let alone what anyone else would think.

A trip to a hobby supply store with a coworker turned very fortuitous; she found a couple of large styrofoam half spheres which she suggested I use.  Had I seen these, I would have dismissed their viability, but she seemed confident they'd work, and the more I thought about it, I thought sure, why not.

So it was home to Google Image Search some pics of Jack's face...and then I took a stab at things.  And I'll tell ya, I was pretty surprised at how well things came out...

A quick trip back to the hobby store for some black paint for the eye sockets, and voila!

 

While at the hobby store, I'd also bought some black screen material to cover the eyes from the inside so folks couldn't see my eyeballs.

Then it was off to wrap the stilts with the 2nd set of painted pants (the pic came out very dark, but I think you can make it out)...

Hmmm...now how to hold the two head halves onto my own head.  I thought magnets would work great; glue magnets to one side, and glue/insert roofing nails into the other half (roofing nails because they have large, wide heads - all the better for attracting the magnet).  I Googled using superglue on Styrofoam and was given the green light, so I drilled out a countersunk hole for the magnet to sit flush, applied a healthy dollop of superglue and set the magnet in with a healthy press, and set things aside.

About 10 minutes later, I came back to check on things and OH NOOOO!!!!  The superglue was dissolving the Styrofoam and it had almost created a huge hole in the top of the head!  I quickly dabbed at the still-working superglue with some paper towels to stop the chemical reactions and fortunately caught it in time that the almost-hole through the top was held to a paper-thin layer of Styrofoam left.

So now what?  Well, I needed to put some tape across that almost-hole to protect it, and since I'd bought white duct tape as a backup plan, that seemed like my best option as this time.  So, I laid a strip across the top, from one half to the other, then laid a solid strip horizontally (parallel to the seam between the two halves) laying it on top of the vertical piece I'd laid first, and everything was held in place like a nice hinge.

So that was the top.  What about the bottom?  Well, I'd need it to be something easy and quick to secure and remove, so I just applied a small strip at the bottom, on each side of my neck hole (oh yeah; I'd cut the bottoms of the halves to they would fit snugly around my neck), and I was in business! 

Next was how to affix the Bat Tie to my jacket....I opted to go with using velcro...

I quick selfie and hot damn - this thing is coming together!  (I tried wearing the gloves for the pic but my phone wouldn't recognize my fingers while they were covered in the material so I had to opt for gloveless.)

It was time for a celebratory beer! 

The next morning was go-time.  I got everything transported to work, got myself set up on the stilts, checked all the connections, connectors and other assorted things, put my head on, stood up and did my first walkabout.

The reception was amazing - folks were asking to take my picture, and take their pictures with me.  Hey, this seems like a pretty good sign that I may do well today!  But what's this?  About 5 minutes in, it hit me that my head was overheating - quickly!  I mean sure; Styrofoam is an insulator but I (foolishly) hadn't expected things to be THIS warm!  Hold crap, after only 10 minutes, I needed to head back to my desk for a breather.

Undoing and removing the head was like heaven; cool, fresh air!  But I knew that exposure is key to doing well, so after I'd cooled off, it was back with the head, and back out and about.  But again, I only lasted about 15 minutes before the sweat was literally dripping down my face and into my eyes.  (I'd considered putting one of those small PC fans into the back of the head, but that would have really taken away from the whole "solid head" appearance, so I scrapped the plan.)

To keep a long story from being too much longer, I managed to make it through the day, using short burst appearances before disappearing back to my desk to cool off.  Later in the afternoon, the email went out for us to cast our votes (on-line) for our favorite costumes, and then it was off to the party.

The wait seemed like forever, but eventually the top vote-getters were called up on stage to show off our stuff, and then the winners were called out, starting with the bottom and working up to #1.  As the names were called and I was still unnamed, my hopes got higher and higher.  And then there I was; just two people left and there was a pause...the other person was called as 2nd place, and then my name was finally called out!  The place went wild!  Yeah, Dave finally won!  After all these times of being robbed, he'd won!  (A friend of mine later commented that I was the Susan Lucci of the Cognex Costume Contest.)  :-D

Later in the evening, when things had settled down, one of the girls in charge of tallying the votes pulled me aside and said that not only had it been a landslide with the employee vote, but it'd also been a landslide with the execs, too.  Sweet!!

So what did I win?  I landed myself a 65" Samsung Flat Screen TV!  (I don't yet know where to put it in my house, but hey; First World Problem, right?)

I'd love to think that I'll ease back now and maybe even go into semi-retirement next year.  Go with something nice and comfortable, rather than the usual over the top, very hot and uncomfortable thing that I always seem to do to myself.

But I know that come next year, I'll probably want to try and defend my title, so we shall see.

I've got 362 days to think of something (yeah...I know; I'll probably wait until 5 days beforehand again.)

But that's next year's problem!  For now, it's time to enjoy the win!

Fright Hard, Take Home First Place! 

Repeat Of Fender

Most of you have seen the damaged front fender that I've been riding around with for a couple of months now...

How the damage happened isn't important.  Suffice to say that at the end of the day; it's considered my fault so let's move on.

Removal was super easy; 4 bolts and my bike was on it's way to being a bobber!

I dunno...whaddya think?

Yeah, it looks kinda silly with all the other stuff still on there.  Ok, I'd better get a fender back on there.

I'd looked it up on Harley and it was going to be about $840 for a new one (man, that paint is expensive!).  So instead, I've been keeping an eye out on Craigslist, eBay, and FB marketplace.  FB is where I wound up finding one - a guy out in Kansas had one and sent me some pics.  It looked in fine shape to me (one tiny ding on the back end which would be out of sight, anyway) and he was only charging $275.  I tossed him an extra $20 for shipping, and was soon in possession of a 'new' fender to slap on!

A few short minutes later, and I was back to looking good as new!

Hopefully I'll be able to keep this one undented.  Wish me luck...

Ride Hard, Take Chances

The Flags Return to the Bike!

My Electra Glide had an aftermarket receiver system which bolted to the frame, and allowed me to fly two large (3' x 5') flags for runs and such.  When I switched to the Street Glide, I was out of luck. Nobody made an aftermarket setup for flying large flags.  So, each year I'd kick around ideas, as well as look on-line for anything that would allow me to fly flags again.  And I kept coming up empty.

Fast forward to yesterday morning.  A friend of mine forwarded me a run flyer and said "See you there!".  I looked at the flyer...what the...its staging at our Post...on Sunday morning?!?!?  How come I haven't heard anything about this?  So I reached out the Post leadership and guess what?  Nobody knew anything about it!!

Oh boy...

What was the run?  It's a rolling rally for our National Anthem, in response to all the bullshit that's been going on with NFL players and their protesting.  The event is asking for bikes, cars, trucks - all heavily adorned with American flags, to come join us.  The ride will leave our Post, ride past Gillette Stadium, then return to the Post.  It's being organized by a Boston PD officer, and co-supported by the Boston chapter of the American Infidels.  Come to find out they've been doing press releases on this, they've got a local country star singing the Anthem, they were working on having a radio station broadcast from there....yeah; this thing was gonna be big.

So what happened?  How come we didn't know about it?  Well, long story short, it turns out they had cleared it with our bar manager, but she'd neglected to pass the word along to anyone else.  Egads.  Can you imagine the bad impression it would have given everyone if they'd arrived tomorrow morning to find an empty and locked Post?!?

So after a flurry of emails and phone calls to get everyone on board (as well as get an off-cycle delivery from our distributor so that we're stocked up!), it looks like we are good to go.  Post will be open early, staffed to help anyone that needs it, parking lot and yard have been cleaned up, along with a myriad of other logistics - all set to go.  In fact, we even went above all of that; we're gonna throw a cookout for everyone, afterward.

The organizers are aware that they caught us with our pants down (thanks to our bar manager!), but they're more than impressed with how quickly we've gotten everyone on deck and are throwing the welcome mat out for them.

Ok Dave, this is all well and good, but what does it have to do with the title?  Something about flags returning to your bike?

Oh yeah!  Thanks for reminding me.  Well ya see, after all the crazy running around yesterday and this morning, I was like "Dammit...I GOTTA figure something out so I can fly the Flag!!"

And then it hit me...I could use parts of the receiver setup that was on my Electra Glide...

and mount them to one of the detachable back racks...

All I'd need to make it secure was some steel underneath to bolt to.  Hmm...this could actually work!

A quick trip to my local Home Cheapo and I had some flat stock in-hand.  It was go-time!

Some measurements, a mark to cut on...

Let's see...where did I leave that hydraulic cutting shear...
Oh, here it is...

Yep; that shear sure makes short, easy work of cutting steel....

It was when I was drilling out the holes that I discovered that not only did I not have a drill bit that was big enough, I didn't have a drill with a big enough chuck to drive the bit, if I did have one that big!

Damn.  I know!  I'll call Aaron!  (There's a reason he's called "I got a guy", because whenever you need something; Aaron has the solution.

A short (and somewhat wet) ride over there and soon we were in his neighbor John's workshop, drill-pressing a 9/16's bit through my steel (sounds kinky!).

Some dry-fitting on the bike to make sure things would line up properly...

...and a couple of longer-than-stock bolts, also courtesy of John, and I was in business!

Back home (more wet!), some cloth cut as a softening shim to protect the chrome, and things bolted together nicely!

 Viola!  A rack for flying flags!!

TAAAA-DAAAAAA!!!!

I do believe I should be good to go for tomorrow!  Wa-Hoo!!

Ride Hard, Take Chances...And Stand For The National Anthem!!!!!

Happy Birthday, Russ

You missed another good one, Chum.  This year's Labor Day Maine Event was a grand time, even though you and Dana decided to wet us down on Sunday for the ceremony (thanks for the love).  I imagine you guys had some chuckles over that, but we perservered through the raindrops, as you knew we'd do.

We all made sure to visit with you and talk to you a bit, each inour own way.  (I hope my inner ramblings didn't bore you too much.)

Anyway, we still think about you - and miss the hell out of you.

Happy Birthday, Brother.

Overdue Labor Day Maine Event Writeup

You all owe Jerry a thank you.  He sent me a letter (we write back and forth) and in it, he asked about a writeup for this year's Maine Event trip so I promised him I would get it done this week.

Friday greeted us with great weather, and I met up McCarthy and Micheal out on 95.  McCarthy had commented previously about stopping at the state liquor store, so we did, then hit the roads again.  We made decent time (barring one of the longest backups in Wiscasset I've ever seen), and were soon in Rockland making some supply runs.

A very interesting thing happened; a guy drove up with a trailer, started some small talk, then asked if we could give him a hand.  The whole time he was talking to us, I couldn't help but think he looked familiar for some reason.

Anyway, it turned out that he creates horse statues out of driftwood and there was a bit of a gallery/showing/event going on in downtown Rockland and he needed to bring one of his creations to it.  We said sure, and off we went (it was just down the road a little).

He had quite a herd of these things, and man...something about them looked familiar, just as he did.  I couldn't put my finger on it but then he said something and it all clicked.  He said he had another location where he did the same thing (driftwood horses) out in California.  California!  That was it!  I asked him if his other location was up in the Napa Valley and he said yes.  Bingo.  Patty and I had met this guy, 7 years ago when we were out there!  And here he was, on the opposite side of the country, and we happened to bump into him.  Unreal.  (I texted Patty to tell her about it and she, too, thought it was pretty amazing.)

We got him loaded up and then made our way to the Time Out Pub for some grub.  We started out with beers, but Jr switched to mixed drinks so I followed suit and opted for an Angry Balls (Angry Orchard + Fireball whiskey).  The bar had one of those cooling machines like the ones you see with Jagermeister, but this one had Fireball.  She flipped the tap on it and - I'm not kidding - did a full 10-count before closing the tap.  Man, what a drink!  (Jr switched to Angry Balls as well, once he saw that!)

From there we headed off to the Clearing and got set up for the weekend; tents, cooking area, canopies, etc.  Coolers were stocked, friends were arriving, and we settled in for a great night of laughter and revelry.

Saturday also greeted us with great weather and we did a bit of riding.  Tim had thought ahead and looked up some sightseeing things for us to choose from.  Marchall Point Lighthouse was only about a half hour away so we did a nice scenic cruise to check it out.

It was very nice - the light itself was a small stone tower out on the rocks, and the house was back up on land.  Inside the house was a mini museum, displaying lots of granite quarrying tools and implements, as well as buoys and other artifacts from the region's history.  One item which grabbed my attention was an old spinning wheel which had a picture on it of the woman who'd owned it.  Her maiden name was Arey!

I asked the curator if he'd known Russel, but he didn't (nor his children).  However, after describing Russell to the curator, he did say that a number of years ago, some fellows had arrived on motorcycles and come in to the museum.  They'd also seen the picture and had gotten to talking about family lineages, and one of the guys realized that this woman was his great grandmother!  It's fun to think that maybe this was Russell, arriving with the Olean crew.  I didn't think to ask King about it, but I did include that question in my letter I sent to Jerry today.

From there we headed back to the Clearing and settled in for food, campfire, and more laughter.  We played quite a number of one-card games, and I actually managed to win two games in a row.  Wa-Hoo!

The weather was calling for rain on Sunday, and sure enough; overcast and chilly was what we were greeted with when we roused ourselves that morning.  We made the best of things by keeping the campfire going, as well as prepping for the big feast.

Fortunately, the cooks did a fantastic job and had everything done, dished out, and cleanup done before the rain started (the forecast had said noon - Dave Leary predicted 3pm...it started precisely at 3:05, so Dave won that round).

The rain was pretty steady for the rest of the night and it brought everyone under the canopies for the afternoon, as well as for the ceremony that night.  We had some great stories shared about Russell, as well as the event itself, before toasting ourselves, and the whole forest around us, with The Toast.

The party went long into the evening, as it's wont to do.  It got to be almost midnight when it dawned on me that I was going to be up very early for the ride home, so I bid my good nights and headed in to the tent.

The next thing I knew, I was woken by my alarm.  What the hell....I'm on vacation, I should have shut my alarm off!  Wait...I set this last night, on purpose, to make sure I was out on the road in decent time.  And with that, I got my stuff packed up, checked if Jr was riding home with me (he said no), and I was off.

Thankfully the rain had basically moved out and it was just damp and overcast for most of the morning.  I made great time and was home by about 10:30, plenty of time to get laundry done, do some food shopping, and get a nap in.  All in all; not a terrible day, even though it signaled the end of this year's Maine Event.

Pics!!

Packed up and ready, a quick stop at the ATM and then it was off to catch the McCarthy's on the highway.

The requested stop at the state liquor store.  This was the first pass through the aisles.  :-)

 Horse sculptures!

Marshall Point Lighthouse...

The rocks had some really interesting patterns and composition.
These first two pics, the rocks seemed to have disintegrated in spots.

Wild striations through some of the rocks closer to the light tower...

An old anchor...

A memorial to sailors lost at sea...

Front side of the memorial...

Back side...

Memorial bench, there were three of these in the bushes around the memorial.

Storage building for the oil used in the lamp, back in the day.

On our way back from the lighthouse, we saw this old parade float...

It's a whale, jumping up on to the trailer!

The tail was pretty slick; it was a separate section, attached via a hinge and a bunch of springs so that as this thing was rolling down the road, the tail would have bounced up and down, giving the impression of the whale being alive.  Slick!!

A quick stop for food on our way back to the Clearing.  This was a small place on the side of the road, but they offered a full compliment of German food, as well as a quick language lesson on the menus.

My boots!  They have survived yet another year!

Yep, this about says it all.  One at a time, Michael!  (Ok, not really).

That's all, Folks.  It was another really fun year, with awesome people.  Looking forward to doing it again next year!!

Ride Hard, Take Chances