NH Repairs

Last weekend, me, McCarthy, Bill, Nelly and Storm went up to the house in NH to fix the stairs which a nighbor's tree had destroyed when it fell over the winter.

McCarthy, Bill and me rode up on Friday morning full of ambition and drive.  We stopped at the food store along the way for supplies and made decent time in getting to the house.

During the inspection process (to see exactly what we were facing), we found some other things which needed attention, including a small set of stairs for the garage, as well as a new entry porch to the house.  Both of these things needed to be completely demo'd and replaced.  On top of that, there were a couple of other items that needed attention, too; removing an old AC unit and replacing the wooden panel that was in the window with it, as well as tightening up the deck on the lake side to make it more sturdy.

The weather wasn't doing us any favors (cold and rain) but we managed to clear the tree as well as demo the parts of the stairs that needed to be removed.  From there it was a parts and supplies run to Home Depot...which is an hour away...

On our way back, we stopped at Hawg's Pen for a late lunch (it was about 3 by now), and that wound up setting the pace for the rest of the day.  We left there, headed to the house and got things unloaded as best we could.  It was getting dark, and was still rainy and cold, so we opted to hang inside for the night (Nelly and Storm arrived about 10).

The next morning the rain had slowed to a steady misty/drizzle and the temps were still pretty chilly.  It took us until early afternoon to finish the stairs - something that I'd thought we'd be able to knock out in a couple of hours.  Humping the materials up and down the stairs didn't do anything for my mood - I was farkin' miserable.   How the hell do people work in this kind of weather?!?

From there it was on to the other projects, a couple more supply runs to Home Depot by Bill and Storm while the rest of us kept at things.

We put in a good solid day's work on Saturday and got a lot accomplished.  I'd honestly thought (hoped) that we'd have had everything done by end of day, but we still had to finish up the garage stairs and the entry porch to the house.

Saturday night was much tamer.  We were pretty beat and just hung in, watching a couple of movies.  Before long, most heads were drooping and it was time for our respective beds.

Sunday brought chilly temps again but no rain or drizzle, which was welcome.  The sun had actually broken out as we were cleaning up the night before, and was soon greeting us again this day.  By late morning, the last screws were set, and the tools began being put away.

Inside, we did a decent clean on the place, got the laundry and dishes done and hit the road.  It'd been a long weekend, we were ready for home.

The cold and wet led me to come down with a cold which I've been fighting all week, but I'm finally feeling better...just in time to head back up there this weekend.  I'm heading up from work in about a half hour, McCarthy and Michael will be heading up when they're done with work, and then Steph and Ally will be coming up tomorrow.

The focus will be to pull off the front fascia on the garage above the door.  When we arrived last week, we saw that it was rotted, so that has to get opened up so we can see what kind of mess awaits us there.  Fingers crossed that it's nothing serious, as that's the main support beam for the front of the garage.

No real miles on the bike lately, but not for lack of want.  Hopefully next week - although now that I think of it, I've got Thursday and Friday off for the Olean Regatta.  So it appears the mileage will remain low for a while.

"Pics or it didn't happen", right?  So here you go...

Staircase fixed...

I know, right?  It doesn't look like there was that much to do, but believe me, it took hours an hours.

New stairs for the garage.

New entry porch.

AC and panel removed, new window in its place.

Some carriage bolts, some spacers, and that railing won't budge again.

The best for last; McCarthy in his Sunday best, cooking breakfast for us ungrateful slobs.

That's it for now, Happy Friday.

Annual Marathon Monday / Red Sox Outing

I had Monday off for our annual Marathon Monday / Sox game extravaganza.  We were in line at Game On (Boston bar) @ 7:45, and seated with a frosty in-hand at 8:06.  Not a bad way to start the day.  (We took the train in, so no driving!)

We stayed there for a few hours then headed off to the Sox game.  They were playing some team from some other city (big baseball fan here), and wound up winning, so that was a good outing.  Got to see a young kid a few rows in front of us catch a ground-rule double (it bounced out of play and into the stands, basically right to the kid).  He was pretty stoked as everyone around him kept congratulating him.

The forecast was about as optimal as it could be - well...for us at least.  The runners weren't too crazy about the mid-70's and beaming sunshine, but we loved it.  Sitting in the stands, watching these grown men getting paid millions of dollars to run around and play a childhood game.  Do I sound jealous?  Because I'm jealous!

From there it was off to the new Tilted Kilt Boston.  I'd heard of this chain many times; supposedly a slightly better version of Hooters, as the descriptions went.  Well...we were completely unimpressed.  Service was terrible, food was so-so, and the sights weren't impressive at all.  Am I bashing the ladies?  Not at all, because I know for a fact that I'm no prize.  But when an establishment bills itself has having a certain type of workforce, I think that should be lived up to.  Even the girls who were with us said they were unimpressed.  (See?  We're not complete pigs, we had girls with us!).

From there it was back to the train station for the long, relaxing ride home...

...and the knowledge that we had to be at work all-too-soon.  Nelly had it the worst; he had to be up at 3:30.  I was lucky - I shut my alarm off, skipped the gym, and was able to delay my arrival until 7:30.  Ahhhh, bed.  I love it.

I need to hit the lottery so that every Monday can be like that one.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Return of the Assless [sic] Chaps

I was doing some closet cleaning a few months ago and stumbled upon my old set of chaps.  I wore these things for years and years, spanning from the Shovelhead, all the way up to the Electra Glide (when I finally broke down and bought riding pants).  During that time, I'd had the chaps resized twice because I was doing the powerlifting thing and my legs kept getting bigger.  (I remember the guy at Walter Dyer even commenting that I was going to need my own cow at the rate I was going.)

Anyway, once I stopped powerlifting, I lost a lot of the size so the chaps got loose on me...then I went to the riding pants thing, so I tucked the chaps away....for ages.

Well, this morning as I was getting dressed for the ride in, I was going to go with the usual plan; sweats under the jeans for the ride in (it's 50 out now, but gonna be 75+ on the ride home), but then it hit me...

I should give the chaps a try!  Yeah!  Let's see how they fit!

Well, the waist was disappointing because I wasn't able to draw it as tight as I used to.  And the legs?  Yeah, they fit just fine.  But I haven't been doing any powerlifting so that must mean all the beers and burgers are stacking up just nicely.

And the snaps on the bottom of the legs?  I'd forgotten that 5 out of the total 6 were broken.  So there I was this morning, riding in and right leg bottom (one working snap, at the bottom, thankfully) was holding on for deal life, while the left leg bottom (no working snaps) was flapping in the breeze, slowly causing the zipper to work it's way upward.  By the time I got to work, the thing was unzipped almost to my knee.  (shrug)  They worked well enough to keep my comfy for the ride in.

Maybe it's time I broke down and got myself a new pair of chaps.

The assless kind, of course.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Has Spring Sprung?

They say April showers bring May flowers, and at the rate we've been gettting rain, May is going to have some serious bloomage going on.  But hey, at least it's not snow.

Tomorrow looks to be overcast and then back to the rain, possibly right through the weekend.  So we have that going forus.  :-\

The only other thing I've got for ya is my trusty riding pants suffered a severe blowout on Sunday; one of the leg zippers kept hanging up for no reason that I could discern.  Then the zipped part suddenly pulled apart so I gave up, threw them in the corner, and went with my backup set.  I've owned the backup set for probably three years but have never worn them.  Well...they suck.  The materials they're made of don't allow for an easy donning or doffing, the zippers are tiny, and the waist is not a good design.  (But aside from all of that, they're wonderful.)

I tried working on the old pair last night but then the zipper revealed why it wasn't working correctly; it had split on one side.  When I started futzing around with it, the thing just let go and split apart completely.  So now it looks like I'm stuck with the new pair.

At least until I get fed up and buy another set, anyway.

So...yeah.  Still not much going on but I felt the need to put something up here.

Happy Tuesday

Absentee again

Yup, I've been MIA again.  Not much going on to report so no need in boring you with senseless ramblings.

I'm still working on a new tat design for my leg and have some ideas which I think will work, it's just a matter of making the time to draw something together that I can bring to Jerry and discuss with him.

Bike project; Stu (build guy) explained the sheer volume of headaches that our lovely state of Mass has in place for do-it-yourselfers who want to build a bike.  In an effort to combat building with stolen components, it would take me an untold number of trips to the DMV, to meet with State Police and review every single receipt for every single component I was using.  And when I say 'receipt', I don't mean something hand-written, or simply printed out from a catalog, or even my own receipt for buying something.  I would need the source receipts from whoever supplied me with components.  For example; if I bought a set of handlebars from my good buddy Jon Cook, I'd need him to supply me with a copy of his receipt, from the maker, showing that he'd ordered and received them, and then sold them to me.  I would have to satisfy this for everything that was going on my bike.

Thus, my plan has morphed once again.  Now I'm just looking for something that's already built and titled, and which I can then bring down to what I want it to be.

So if you happen to come across a rigid with a shovelhead engine in it, please let me know.

Thanks, have a great day.

Bike Project and Tattoo Defect

Winter has decided to stick around for a while longer.  Yup; those record setting warm temps we had a couple weeks ago are nothing more than a fond memory at this point.  We had snow yesterday/last night - only a few inches, but ya see...there's this thing called a Nor'Easter that looks like it's going to hit us on Tuesday into Wednesday and is bringing a whole ton of white fun with it.  Good times, good times.

So what's a guy to do when he's going stir crazy inside?  He sets his mind to dreaming of things like his long-overdue bike build project, and also on a new tattoo piece.

First; the bike.  I pulled the trigger and am meeting with Stu (The Harley Healer) this morning to get a plan moving.  I've got all kinds of components picked out (frame, engine, transmission, oil bag, rims, primary, etc.), and will discuss other things like wiring, hand controls, oil/brake lines, etc. with Stu.  I want this to be an experience where I learn the process instead of him just doing the work so we'll see what kind of schedule we can line up.

Secondly; the tat.  After getting the last one, the ink itch was renewed and I've been thinking of what to get to fill in the rest of my lower leg with to make it a complete half-sleeve.  I wanted to tie something in with the Elric image, and a dragon seemed the obvious way to go.  I've been looking fro cool dragon drawing ideas for a couple months now, and had found one that was amazing;

I loved the snarling face, the back ridges, the sweeping cloak-like wings...it was perfect!  Just needed a little modification to it's positioning to make it fit the space I had, and we'd be in business.  I had an appt with my tat guy this morning to get some appointments put into place.

And then yesterday morning, I was fiddling around a little more, gonna print some close-ups of the face and the feet so the detail wouldn't get lost in the transition from paper to skin.

I'd found the image once, and had copied it to my PC, and had been working off of that.  But to get some close-ups, I wanted to go back to the original image, so back to the interwebs I went.  It took me a while but I finally found it.  This time, instead of doing a screen grab, I pulled up the actual photo.

And that's when I saw it...

Down in the lower corner was a title/tag.  What the...??!?!?

Back to the interwebs...I need to see if this is true....

Dammit...it WAS true.  This tattoo...the one that had the length to fit what I needed, had the perfect look...was from a movie.

What movie?

*Sigh*..."Girl With The Dragon Tattoo".

Son of a bitch.  :-(

I obviously couldn't get this for my tattoo now, so it was a mad scramble back to the interwebs to try and find a suitable replacement.  The clock was ticking - my discussion appointment was in 24 hours!  I looked, searched, hunted the corners of the interwebs, but found nothing that both fit what I needed and which caught my eye.  I had no choice.  I let my tat guy know what had happened and that I needed to postpone. (If he was laughing, he didn't let on.)

So the search continues.  I still love many aspects about that image so I may wind up using it as the template and changing some aspects to make it more "mine", but I don't know how well that will go.  I'm not an artist by any means.  Hell, stick figures give me a hard time.

So one project is moving forward, the other is on temporary hold.  Better than nothing.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

A Misfire Of A Different Kind

The indoor range I've been renting guns at has placed itself officially on my no-fly list.  I've been going there for weeks, either on Saturday or Sunday mornings.  Normally it was me and someone else but last week, nobody else was available so I went by myself.  I was eager to try out the S&W 9mm, as I haven't shot that one yet.

I went through the normal process, checked in with my ID, then said I was going to be renting again.  The guy asked if I had any of my own guns with me.  (I'd planned on bringing my shotgun with me but at the very last second, had opted not to, so I didn't have any of my own with me.)  He says no dice; if I come in alone, I need to bring in a gun of my own in order to rent one.  I said Ok, no problem - I thought once someone's been coming for a while, it'd be ok to come in an rent on my own?  No, he says; you have to have a gun of your own, with you.  Ok, sounds good, I'll try again next week and bring my gun with me.

Fast forward to this morning.  I was excited once again to go try the S&W, and I made sure to bring my shotgun with me.

I get in, hand over my ID, tell the guy (different guy)  I want to shoot shotgun, as well as a rented handgun.  No problem, the guy starts to reach for a lane card...

...then the douche from last week (working a different register) calls over and says a shotgun won't cut it, that I need to bring in a handgun.

Huh?

That's not what you told me last week, I said.  Last week you said I needed to bring my own gun - here's my own gun (lifting my gun case to show him).  Nope, he says, it's gotta be a handgun.

WTF.  Last week's wasted trip was my fault, but this week it felt like the prick was just making up rules on the fly.   So, I won't bother going there again.  I'm sure they won't care, or miss me, but at the same time, that's about $75 a week (range time + ammo)  that I'll find some other place to spend it at.

So feel free to spread the word.  American Firearms School in North Attelboro.  They can kiss my ass.