Another Member joins the Old-As-Dirt-Club

Ed had a milestone birthday this past Saturday - he turned 50. Ha ha, ok, so it was only 40, but he looks good...for 50.

Alright, enough kidding around. Anyway; Sue had asked us (the crew) to get Ed out of the house for a few hours on Saturday afternoon so that she could set up and also have folks come by and surprise Ed when we brought him back. The plan was to have us show up unannounced at his house, tell him to get his ass on his bike and come out for a birthday ride. Everyone was on board, the weather was looking like it would cooperate, things look good!

Then Saturday morning arrived and the weather forecast changed; cold and showers in the afternoon. Bleah. Then, Sue mentioned that Eddie had commented about dropping his bike off at the dealership for some work, that morning. Egads, we can't force him to go on a ride if he doesn't even have his bike! To make things harder, Ed was working on a side job and we couldn't really figure out what he was going to do - would he have his bike or not?

The confusion was piling up so Sue made the (smart) exectutive decision to just go ahead and tell Ed about the party. This way, not only would he be there when we arrived, but his bike would be there, too. The departure time arrived and we swung over and grabbed Ed for a few hours to get him out of Sue's way and also to share some pavement - it was the first time all of us had ridden together this year; Flex, Zig, Brother Bill, Mike and myself. Oh, and Ed, or course.

We kept the route simple and local - after all, this was just a diversion for a few hours, nothing more. A few of us peeled off early to retrieve 4-wheeled vehicles for the late night that lay ahead of us, finally meeting back up and settling in for the par-tay. And what a par-tay! We whiled the night away with good friends, a bit of fire on the deck, and more good memories.

And that was Saturday - and a fine Saturday at that.

Welcome to your 40's, Ed. Good luck. LOL

Russell's Road

I keep a running list of odds and ends that I'd like to blog about at some point and, having a few minutes this afternoon (and wanting to blog something quickly to wrap up the week), I thought I'd give that list a glance. I happened upon one item which I should have mentioned long ago, but what the hell, the person that this is about will still get a kick out of it (do they have internet access in the afterlife?).

Our dear departed brother; Russell Arey. He's the one 'responsible' for us Massholes and those "damn New Yorkers" meeting each other and becoming such great friends. This same Russ Arey loved his Harley's over the years, and loved the trips and memories he made along the way. So it was more than fitting that he mount one of those novelty street signs on his driveway which read; "Harley Road" (he'd tried his damndest to find one that said "Bullshit Boulevard" but had no luck).

As I understand the story, shortly after he posted this sign at the end of his driveway - a rather lengthy driveway at that - who should come along but the folks that were mapping out all the highways and roadways for the on-line mapping community. Did he happen to converse with them and get them to join him in a prank? Or did they just make an innocent mistake? (I like to think it's the first one.)

Anyway, you can guess what happened - they recorded his driveway as a legitimate road, and named it "Harley Road". I'm not kidding; do a search on Google Maps (or Yahoo Maps, if you prefer) for "Harley Road" in South Thomaston, ME, and it'll pull up Russ's driveway.

I know that Russ is up there somewhere, chuckling to himself about this.

Ride Well, Russ. Ride Well, and Ride Hard.

Naming the Dead

Each work day, I drive past the final resting place of many poor souls who were patients at a mental institution. That may sound like the lead-in for a joke, but it's true; my commute takes me by the grounds of what used to be the Medfield State (Mental) Hospital.

This sign stands at the edge of a field overlooking a scenic wildlife area.

I've read articles on-line about the cemeteries at these institutions; overgrown and lost, the interred; nameless and forgotten. Recently, groups have formed that are raising awareness of these situations and are working to identify the deceased, as the practice at these institutions was to just bury the dead with nothing more than a single stone marker. What was on these markers? Not a name, but a mere number. Pretty sad when you think about it.

The access road to this cemetery appears in decent-enough condition and I often wondered what the cemetery itself looked like. Well this past weekend, I found out.

Approaching the grounds, I could see that this cemetery had been salvaged; the overgrowth had been cleaned out and, overall, the grounds were kept up and had a nice surrounding fence and a memorial stone at the entrance.

Walking around any cemetery is always a bit thrilling - not in a disrespectful way at all, but when you stop to look at the names and think of the lives that folks may have had, it can be interesting, if not a bit cheerless. To think that the folks buried in this (and other institution) cemeteries didn't even receive the respect of being buried with their name, is disheartening. It was good to see that this cemetery has been revived; the numbers had been researched and the appropriate names and birth/death dates had been recovered and were engraved on individual marker plaques.

The size of these trees adds relevance to how long ago some of these folks passed away.

Overall, this cemetery looks nice and it was good to see these people's names and living time had been salvaged.
Many other cemeteries at state institutions (in Mass and around the country) have not had as much luck. Other institutions' records have been lost or destroyed, and for those locations, the dead will never be identified.

Here's a link on this cemetery, if interested. http://dsmc.info/gmedfield.shtml

Not bike related, but I thought this was interesting enough to post about.

Wetsand - great for finishing furniture...

...not so great for motorcycles. Toss some leaves into the mix and you've got some real fun...especially when your rear tire is a slick and needs serious replacement. All in good time!

'Course, when the temps fall and all that wet sand then freezes, well you have a whole new set of problems to deal with, don't you...

Oh well, I'm hardly complaining - I'm riding the bike every day and life is good again. I did a quick scan of my last post and at the end I promised a soon-to-follow post that was motorcycle related. I'm afraid my Alzheimer's must be kicking in because I have no frikkin' idea what I was going to blog about.

Work kicked me in the ass again these past couple of weeks, hence the lack of posts (Sorry!), but things have settled down and voila; here I am. Did ya miss me? Awwww, thanks!

The only other thing going on is the basement project was started up again - the past couple of months have seen a steady bit of improvement going on, which is always nice. 'Course, it also drains the bank account, so things are on hold for the moment until my tax return comes in. Once that happens, I can go ahead and get the walls and plastering done. The washing machine has been moved over to what will be the official laundry room, the drainage is all hooked up and I'm happy to report that the ejector that I sunk into the floor last year, is working fine. Sweet!

I'll try and get some pics up here of where things stand down there - it's pretty impressive, actually. Well ok, it still looks like a wide-open, unfinished basement, but to the trained eye (read: those of us that have been looking at this thing for the past year), there are a lot of improvements.

I had to move just about all of the bikes out, to make room for Gary; master carpenter extraordinaire, to move around. The Electra Glide, my Fatboy, John's Shadow, and my Rebel are all taking up space in the garage. The rolling frame of the Shovelhead is taking up residence in a shed right now. The only two bikes left in the cellar are Flex's and Bills. I believe Flex is coming by soon for his, and Bill's will also come up to the garage soon. The good news is that Kevin came by this past weekend to check out the Rebel and he's going to buy it. That'll free up some much-needed room. Whew!

I'm taking next week off from work to do a bunch of stuff around the house - scraping, painting, cleaning, sorting, donating (to charity), junking, etc. Gotta get things looking good - as Lynner texted me yesterday; only 50 days until this year's party.

Ok, I believe that about catches everyone up on things that are happening on this end. I will try to do some posting while I'm on my (working) vaca next week, but don't hold me to it. My to-do list is pretty long!

Hope everyone is enjoying Springtime...you know; racking up the miles!

Let's get the good times rolling!

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Quick Rant

Sorry folks, been slammed at work. The next few days should be slightly less hectic so I’ll try to get a couple of posts up. For now, here’s a quick rant that occurred to me on my way in this morning. I’ll even paint another picture for you…

Driving along behind some d-bag (I’ll make our d-bag "gender-neutral" for today, as I’ve found this scenario carried out by both women and men). Our d-bag is driving much slower than they should be, allowing a great empty space to develop between themselves and the vehicle in front of them. And what happens with empty spaces? Why, they get filled up by other vehicles that are entering off of side roads. Which adds to the congestion in front of me, which slows things down, which extends my commute time. See where I’m going here?

Back to the d-bag; they continue to drive slowly…a car pulls out in front of them and the d-bag slams their brakes on. We start moving again, and the d-bag again goes too slowly, another large space develops, another car enters the stream from a side road, d-bag hits their brakes, drives slower, another space develops, another vehicle comes in, etc., etc., etc.

By this time, I’ve basically pushed through the windshield; my head is stretched out over the hood, my voice screaming promises of vengeance against d-bag’s entire family, neck veins stretching the very limits of human skin tensile strength…in other words, I’m taking things pretty calmly.

Just when it seems this d-bag has no idea where their accelerator pedal is, we approach a traffic light. The light is green…for the moment. We’re still a fair distance away, but I know what’s about to happen; the light goes yellow and the d-bag floors it. Lurching forward like it’s been shot out of a catapult, their car rockets through the intersection, dragging any vestiges of yellow light along with it. What’s left? Me; sitting at a red light and now extending my curses upon d-bag’s descendents as well.

Such is life on the commuting trail…can’t wait for riding weather to get here so I can get the bike back into action. Then I can show ‘em. I’ll show ‘em all!

(Evil laugh emanates forth…)

RANT!!

Yes, it’s that time again – time for another one of my rants!!

Let me paint a picture for you. It’s a picture that presents itself to me time and time again. While the picture may not always be exactly the same, the scenario, is.

For this demonstration, let’s go with; being stuck at a traffic light. The light turns green. I'm in the third car back. The first car moves all the way to the left side of the lane, and has even gone so far as to pull out to the center of the intersection. That leaves car number two just standing there with the driver’s thumb up their ass. There is plenty of room to go around, but they’re sitting there, barely inching forward, head swiveling back and forth, looking to gauge their clearance between the curb and the bumper - both of which are MILES away from the sides of their car. An inch forward, slam on the brakes and then head-swivel to check their clearances. I assure you; your clearances are just as vast as they were a second ago. Another inch forward and the brakes are fully engaged yet again. More head swiveling, leaning, straining to look out both windows. Another inch – no! Only a half inch this time before the brakes are immediately clenched to their maximum capacity.

And there I am behind you; envisioning the marching bands that I could parade down both sides of your stupid f’ing vehicle, you’ve got so much room.

You’ve got so much room; the city is planning on painting some new road lines and making multi-vehicle travel lanes on both sides of your stupid f’ing car.

You’ve got so much room; real estate developers are arguing over who can build the biggest houses on both sides of your stupid f’ing car.

You’ve got so much room; airplanes are using the free-space as landing strips on both sides of your stupid f’ing car.

Folks, can we please learn the dimensions of our own vehicles? Please? If you don’t know how to drive your own vehicle, then please do the rest of us a favor and stay off of the g** damned roadways!

Thank you, I feel better.

For the moment...

WTF!!

I'm currently in the middle of the same band of cold air the rest of the northern half of the country is enjoying. The temps have been slowly creeping lower the past few days, but the full brunt of the air mass arrived overnight, and walking out the door this morning was rather un-frikkin-pleasant. The chill couldn't have gone through me faster if I'd taken a cold shower and then walked right out my back door (still bare assed), laid down and made a snow angel. Holy Mother of All That is Warm - please take pity on those of us who are now under the spell of the Frost Miser.

And where the hell is this thing they call Global Warming?? The weather folks tell us that this blast of frigid air is coming from the Artic Circle. So please tell me how the HELL we're supposed to believe that ice is melting up there? My house is something like TWO THOUSAND miles away from the Arctic Circle, and there's not a chance in hell that any of that ice on my driveway is melting today. So how are we to believe that anything is melting all the way up there?

(For those with a serious bent; yes, I understand the complexities of global warming. My intent here is for humor, so please bear with me. Your understanding is appreciated.)

Chatting with King and TEP from Olean, they've got a ton of snow on the ground, with another foot coming today, and wind-chills in the negatives. Michigan Paul says they're enjoying AMBIENT temps in the minus range...we won't even discuss their wind-chills.

I'd meant to bring my camera in this morning to take a pic of cars driving around on the roads. They look like they've been painted white, and there's so much salt down that cars are actually stirring up little white clouds when they drive around. I forgot the camera, but then realized I probably don't need to take a pic of that stuff. If you want to see it, you probably only need to look out your own windows.

So in closing, I would like to again say WTF is up with the weather? We don't usually get this kind of cold air until early February. Someone owes us! I'll be expecting things to warm up nice and early this year. You hear that, Heat Miser??? Get off your ass and start walking north.

I'll have the beers ready and waiting.