Oh, and another reason I'm out of money is paying 6 large for an air conditioner. (heat pump actually, since it's Florida) Not that it's unexpected, as it's been dying since I bought the house, and I've been saving. The outdoor compressor seized and the indoor coils in the air handler have a nice crack to leak all the Freon out.

I got a jump on the season by doing it now, before it gets hot and EVERYBODY notices their A/C doesn't work.

Friends said I could save a lot by putting it in myself, but they had to bust some ass putting that unit in, since it barely fit where the 25-year-old piece o'shite went. They had to rework the closet, add an intake plenum on the bottom, and add an intake vent through the wall on the side. The outdoor unit is the size of my refrigerator.

On the good side, standard size filters actually FIT and no need to stuff things in the side. Plus since it no longer breathes through the closet doors, there's no BANG every time it starts up and shuts down.

I have a nifty new digital thermostat, which my roommate can't operate since it has more than two buttons.

I think I got my $6K worth.

Plus, being in Florida my house insurance just doubled, and that's due too. Nice. I think it's time to go insurance shopping.

No taxes though. I filed those in January and my refund helped pay for the A/C.

Now that I have the SV running (at great effort) it's FREEZING out there!! It's 48deg right now.

Oh well, that's what I bought the DL-650 and handguards and a big windscreen for. I was hoping to not have to ride my old man's bike for a change.

On the I-really-didn't-have-money-for-that front, I bought a Nokia N800 pocket computer. I'm tired of my Palms crapping out, and I don't want to deal with Microsoft PocketPC brain damage.

The learning curve appears to be like an F-16 in a vertical climb. The "docs" are a single sheet of paper basically saying "here's all the buttons and stuff. It's a computer. You DO know how to use a computer, don't you?"

I fixed the rear brake and I can ride the SV again.

Boy, I hate working on brakes. Brake fluid is just really a pain in the ass to deal with.

Well, you know a couple weeks ago I had the bolt on my torque arm come off, and so when I used my rear brake (which I rarely do, it's almost useless on that short-wheelbase SV) my caliper swung all the way around until it hit the top of the swingarm, ripping up the hose and breaking off a bleeder. Didn't hurt the swingarm or the caliper though! And didn't lock up the rear wheel, thankfully.

So last week all my parts are here, and I've been putting it off so I figure it's time.

So I look at the rear fluid reservoir, and found out I have to take off all the rear plastic to get to it. And to do that I have to take off my air horns, the turn signals, the rear rack, and the side racks. Do you have any idea what a 3D chinese puzzle those racks are?

Just to be able to put brake fluid in.

Now while I was doing this, my new OEM clutch plates came in, so I tossed the EBC crap and put those in. I can change a clutch in under 20 minutes, but it's a 3 hour job to add brake fluid. Alrighty then.

So while I have the plastic off, I figure I shouldn't have to put up with this is crap and had Mr. Zona saw and Mr. Coping saw cut a notch so I don't have to go through all this ever again. I cleaned it up with the Dremel tool and a fine bastard file and it looks good, but it doesn't really make a difference because this is all covered by the seat.

Kawasaki put in a notch on the ZX-7s. The 2nd gen SV puts it right down by the master cylinder, so they must have fired that junior designer.

I thought a long time about moving the reservoir somewhere else, but I eventually decided there wasn't anywhere better. Moving it inboard would be a big hassle with the line, and to move it down to the master cylinder I'd have to buy a 2nd gen reservoir. An hour with the saws was cheaper.

Anyway, so I extract the broken bleeder, replace the ripped hose, install speedbleeders, put in the new special $10 bolts & nuts on the torque arm, put it all back together, bleed the brakes, and adjust the brake light switch. While I was in there, I rip out the Scott-Oiler and pick up a barb fitting at Lowe's to splice the vacuum line back together. It's all done.

Bleeder weeps when I apply brake. A lot. It puts out a nice trickle. Even when it's really tightened down. Shit.

I swapped the speedbleeder with a stock bleeder and it still weeps. So I have to remove the caliper and inspect for debris or a damaged hole. Of course it's all tiny and crap, and I have to borrow some lenses from the camera so I can see what the hell is going on in there. It looks like a ton of black stuff and so I dug that all out with an awl and needlenose and some kleenex. I get out my 155-bit kit from Harbor-Freight and twirl a drill in there with my fingers to clean up the seat. I start with a #1 drill and keep going down to a #7.

(FYI, speedbleeders are these cool bleeders with a one-way check-valve, so you don't have to do the "push lever. hold lever. open bleeder. let lever go down. hold lever. close bleeder. lather. rinse. repeat." crap. With these you just crack them open and start pumping the lever, and close them when bubbles stop coming out. Very Trick. Very Schweeet.)

Of course now I have to rebleed everything and now my pads are nice and contaminated because brake fluid just goes everywhere. Lovely. I'm just coated in brake fluid.

Oh yeah, and while I'm doing all this brake bleeding, I have no one to make sure the reservoir has fluid and doesn't suck air, which is important because it has all the capacity of a beer cap. I ordered "bulkhead fittings" from McMaster-Carr and put them in the top of a mason jar. When I screw the jar lid on, it's airtight and I can flip it upside down and stick the end of the fitting in the reservoir, and it trickles out fluid when the level goes below the fitting. Of course the jar is glass, so I can keep an eye on the level. I thought of that myself.

I didn't mention the gymnastics I had to do to get the rear master cylinder into a position where I could crack the banjo bolt and let the air out. At least the return spring comes off easy.

I actually had a can of brake cleaner and I took the pads out and cleaned the disc and everything. I put it all back together and ride it.

The rear disc is roasting hot even though I didn't use the rear brake.

Of course since I never do use it, the pistons are frozen with gunk. I re-bled the brakes, but that's solid. So I take the pads out and extend the pistons until I see nice bronze color and clean them with the cleaner. It's opposed-piston so I put a wrench in there so I can push them back out, plus one wants to come out and the other one doesn't.

Then I spend an hour pushing them back in since they're opposed-piston and none of my retractor tools will fit. I have to push them all the way in so they extend before they hit the disc and the seal is in the proper position. Boy, doing that and not scratching the pistons was a whole lot of fun, let me tell you.

On the other hand, I have a brand new clutch that finally rides like a brand new clutch, and the brakes don't drag at all. I went to PetSmart and came back, and the disc was cool as a cucumber.

Yay. That makes it all worth it.

I need to update more often, since I usually just let the days go by in a blur, and this is not good. On the good side, nobody I know is probably going to read this, and I can prattle on aimlessly.

I met an old friend for dinner, he works at Lockheed now and so we decided to get together. That went really well, then at the end, my mother called. Turns out she wants me to send her $250/week to live off of. I guess this means my uncle has gotten her cut off from the money she gets from my grandmother.

That's a soap opera you want to stay clear of! My mother hasn't worked a day in her life, and she's going to be surprised if she's expecting Social Security money. It's sad. She got a degree in computer science back in the '60s then trotted back home to live with her parents, and my grandmother has controlled her ever since.

My grandparents owned a big Western store in Ocala, and made some decent money from it. My mother worked there, but it was all under the table of course.

Life with my mother was a continual battle, and she would beat the crap out of me at the drop of a hat. I got tired of that, and I was glad to move to Orlando to go to UCF. In all the years I've been here, she's only visited me twice, and once was to beat me up over getting a job and buying my motorcycle. This was because they would only pay to fix my car if I was a good boy and did everything they told me. Screw that.

Once when I went home to visit, it was freezing cold, so I froze my ass off for 90 miles since I was too broke to afford a decent jacket. I was hungry when I got there, and so I was going to pick something up for us at Wendy's or something. So then my mother goes off on how I'm "not riding that bike around and waking up the neighbors." I wasn't in the mood for this sort of crap, so I said I was leaving, and as I was going out the door, she ripped the phone out of the wall and threw it at me.

That was 7 or 8 years ago and I haven't heard from her since.

Then one night in March she calls me from out of the blue and I find out that the hurricanes trashed her house and she's living in a trailer. Yup, the old oak over the kitchen window totally destroyed the roof. At this point I would like to say "I told you so" to all concerned.

Anyway she wants me to call around and get it fixed. I have no idea how to do this, and I don't think it can be fixed. The insurance company gave her money, but I'm not sure how much it is, or how much of it she's spent. It's that "she won't talk about money" crap all over again. Well fine. She can sit in her trailer.

I did fix the toilets so she doesn't have to crap in a bucket in the shower any more.

I was planning on going back, but I'm not going to miss MotoGP, the lawn needs to be mowed, and I had to take the DL-650 into the shop. It's developed some sort of surging problem. The tech says it's a dirty air filter, but the damn thing only has 6k on it total.

My other bike, the SV-650 needed some clutch work. I needed to put stock springs in, clean up the edges of the clutch basket fingers, and adjust everything. I discovered that you can pull the clutch out w/o draining the oil if you leave it on the sidestand. BONUS!

I even set up my portable A/C unit and put a flood light on a camera tripod. The parts looked so cool I took pictures of everything. You can reach in and spin the gear for the oil pump. You can also see the shift cam, and the gear on the end of the crank, and the cam chain. Very neat!

So everything goes swimmingly, until I go to adjust the cable mechanism on the other side, and the goddamn work stand drops the bike on it's side on the floor! I found out I couldn't pick it up, so I yelled for Mike to help, and he and the next door neighbor helped me pick it back up. It wasn't damaged, thank god.

I distroyed the work stand with a pipe cutter, so I'll never use that damn thing again. I was so absolutely furious I just went and crashed out for a couple of hours.

I got up and leaned the bike the other way on a jack stand so I could get to the mech I needed to adjust. I put it back together and rode it around, and it's MUCH nicer. I went to Baskin-Robbins for a celebratory banana split.

Let's see... oh yeah... I also got a little electric toy helicopter, and I've actually learned to fly it. It's really stable for a helicopter and it's a blast to fly. I can hover it in the living room.

I also got my house refinanced fixed-rate, so I don't have the floating interest rate looming in the horizon any more. I had crap credit so I had to accept a crap mortgage, but it's getting better now. Yay!

Hm. Well, that's about all the exciting things going on.

Oh my gawd. What a weekend. What a month.

Well I survived Bike Week. 20 people did not. But then with all the idiot driving by all the sprotbike & Harley morons, I'm not surprised. It's evolution in action... average human intelligence goes up by a fraction of a percent. I tagged a GSXR that filtered through all the other bikes and appeared on my left just as I started to turn left. I nailed his front tire with my saddlebag and dropped him like a bad habit. It took some damn good timing and watching him in my mirror to get that done. Score!

I did the Sargent Cycle open house thing on Tuesday, since I'm a sleepyass and can't get out of bed when I want to on Monday. I used the GPS to help me find the place, which was good since all the maps I printed out from Google blew away at a rest stop.

I got the factory tour. It might be in an old '60s auto body shop, but they've got it all computerized and down to a science. I also got to try out the prototype seat for the DL, which is the reason I went. It's nice, I'll be buying one.

AND I WON $200 OFF MY NEW SEAT!! YAY! I never win anything! They had a prize drawing for anyone that showed up, where you drew a card and scratched it off. First prize was a $200 gift certificate which is what I won. Go me!

Afterwards, I asked where a guy could get something good for lunch. They asked if I liked good Mexican food, and sent me around to a place on the opposite corner of the block. So I get there, and there's an ambulance and about a dozen police cruisers! I almost kept going, but there was no flashing lights or yellow tape, so I stopped.

Wow. That was some good eats. The place is about the size of my living room, but for $6 you get a huge chimi, and enough sour cream and guacamole to feed 20 people at Taco Bell. I'm really glad I stopped. It's even better than Tijuana Flats. I left a $5 tip.

Man, Jacksonville is so poor and illiterate! Holy crap, it's worse than Ocala. I wanted a Streetfinder so I stopped by 3 different malls on the way back, and not one of them had a bookstore. Everything is so beat up and run down. It's so sad looking. It's like after a nuclear war or something.

On the way back, since I was going down I-95 and cutting over to I-4 in Daytona, I stopped by the speedway. I didn't expect anything since they only had vendors at the end of the week last year, but they actually had tents and everything set up. Yamaha had one of Rossi's M1s in the bumblebee colors, so I took pics of that.

I drove back again on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and bought some stuff. All the jackets were crap. So were the gloves and boots, and everything else. Not that I expected anything else. Oh well. I did find an Airhawk seat cushion for $150 instead of the usual $200 rip-off. I found a nice jacket that really fit at BMW but it was hot enough for the Antartic, much less Florida.

I got moved to a nice new building and cube, which was nice to come back to on Monday. I ran into Paul Sync and the rest of the entire team has been laid off. Whee.

Last night, I changed the oil in my SV-650. It's got 39,690 miles on it. I've been using synthetic bike oil in it, since the clutch REALLY REALLY doesn't like automobile oil. So I rode around the local area for about 45 min, and came back, popped it on the race stand, and took out the drain plug.

It was like a cow pissing on a flat rock.

I've never had oil come out like that. It was like a garden hose turned on full. It splashed everywhere and got my tools so I had to go wash them off and try to mop everything up with paper towels. Fortunately it didn't get me. I didn't have any kitty litter, but I did a relatively decent job of cleaning up.

It's kind of strange. I mowed the lawn this afternoon and I noticed that the oil stains on the concrete were gone except for a faint outline. I don't know if this is because it's synthetic or what.

I got a cell phone yesterday, too. I had a brick about 2 years ago and it was such a hassle to carry around that I didn't, which defeats the purpose of a cell phone. My roommate renewed his T-Mobile, and got a nice little phone that'll live comfortably in a pocket with my wallet. I got that after shopped around a bit at all the other cell phone services.

I woke up at 4pm Saturday, and I couldn't sleep at all last night, so I finished up my RC211v model and put on all the decals. It's a piece of shit, but it's better than I've ever been able to do otherwise. I learned a lot about glue and things from it. I'll do better next time. Heck, I might even get an airbrush and paint things.

My mother called, which was a shock since I haven't heard from her in 5 or 6 years, and she doesn't have a phone. She wants me to come up to Ocala next week, so I guess I'll go do that. Supposedly the house got trashed by the big oak tree in the hurricanes, so she's been living in a trailer for a couple years. I'm sure that's going to get interesting, in a Chinese sort of way. We'll see what happens.

I've been trying to fix my dryer vent and I finally managed it today. The washer/dryer nook is in the smack dab center of the house, so there's no choice but to run the vent up to the roof. The brand-new dryer takes 2 hours to dry a couple of t-shirts, so I knew something was wrong. I disconnected the vent hose and it works like a charm, so I've left it that way for a couple months. My fear of heights won't let me get on the roof, so I went up inside the attic. The vent hose was easy to find, and it turns out that it just slips into the metal vent on the roof.

EWWWWWW!!!! The entire external vent is clogged with 15 years of crap. Think of the stuff from your dryer filter, packed hard and tight something like 4 inches thick. At least I've found the problem and I can fix it cheap. Next weekend I'll pull out the washer & dryer and clean up all the crap that's accumulated.

Well it's bedtime now. I'm not sleepy of course.

YEAHHHHH!!! IT'S BIKE WEEK!!! BOO-YAH!!

SCHVEEEET! Can you tell I'm excited?

You can already see the guys trickling into town. This morning I woke up really early, early enough to get breakfast at Denny's, and there was a Hardly-biker group there. I came home after work and immediately crashed out, so now it's 4am and I'm washing clothes.

I'm taking the whole week off from work this year, instead of just Thursday/Friday as I usually do, to hit the vendor tents at the track and see what goodies they have.

I'll be looking for gloves, boots, a new jacket, and a smaller topcase for daily stuff on the DL. I have $4k from the IRS to help the shopping! Wheeee!! PAR-tay!

I'll also be heading to Jacksonville for the Sargent Cycle (sargentcycle.com) open house. These are the folks that made the really nice seat and quick-release system for my SV, and they'll be having the prototype V-Strom seats for riding.

They have less quality-control issues than Corbin, which is why I switched brands. "Corbins are good, except when they're bad" and that about sums that up.

It'll be cool finally taking the DL for a nice long stretch, where I don't have to be anywhere in a hurry.

Well I suddenly had Friday off so I went back to the museum. My boss said I'd hit the limit and I'd start to lose vacation time, and he'd get in trouble. You don't have to tell me twice to take a day off!

I noticed they're no longer selling the "photograhpy" passes, now you only get the red arm band. I asked about the pass and got an ugly look from the ticket girl, so I guess I have a "rare collectable"

There was only 4 other people there. A couple on a date, it seems, and a guy into bikes dragging his wife there, who was definately NOT into bikes.

I found out that the museum shop is just cast-offs from the Mississippi show. They don't have anything new. Last time I wanted a Honda "Wing" shirt and all they had was medium. I asked and "of course we'll be getting new stuff.... er, soon..." Yesterday they had even less of the same old stuff. This time it was a different person, and she let slip "that's all they had left from the Mississippi show..." I'm glad I got the big glass paperweight with the 3D sportbike laser-etched inside it because those were gone.

They had several different "Art of the Motorcycle" books, so I asked what the difference was, and they couldn't tell me. I finally figured out they were detailing each exhibition, e.g. Las Vegas, Chichago, Mississippi, etc. They're obviously very different as the Vegas one is VERY thick and $45 and the Chicago one is only $25 and not so much of a weapon.

When I first went, I said "where the hell is the V-MAX? or the BMW R1200C? and no British Sunbeams? GP bikes? Honda Interceptors?" - it looks like Vegas got those bikes.

On the other hand, Orlando did get a CBX-1000, and $DIETY I love those bikes. We also got a bright red Hayabusa, instead of the more usual grey & tan ones. I've never seen one of those on the street.

One of the security girls saw me drooling on the Hondas and asked me "why did people diss Harleys and love the Japanese bikes?"

I wasn't at all prepared for that... I stammered out something like "well, the Japanese are obviously concerned about function and quality, and Harley is just a rich guy's playtoy that's more just for show"

I thought it was kind of interesting that she noticed. She said a lot of the people were that way.

There's NO coverage of the exhibit anywhere locally. I've asked the local rag (Orlando Sentinel) and a couple of the local TV news sites, and they don't consider it worth covering!

It's a shame it's being handled so poorly, but that's what Orlando is best at. Look at our basketball team. And our hockey team. Oh that's right, we don't have one anymore. Go Solar Bears!

I'm glad I went yesterday, because it POURED all day long. So I slept in until 4pm!

So I'm working on stuff here, and I accidentally right-click on an rxvt window, instead of left. This kills the window.

Well, since bash is a total piece of shit, this kills all the child processes.

So 12 emacs windows, 17 mozilla windows, 4 gimp windows, and 5 xsane windows all disappear, leaving me with a totally empty screen.

"ohhh, you little piece of shit, you're gettin' a beatin' NOW!"

After 10 hours at work today, I am not in the mood for this sort of thing. Not at all. I'm pissed enough to make it my personal mission in life to fix this crap.

You MIGHT think there's an option to turn this off, like csh, ksh, zsh and anything else non-prehistoric have evolved. Or, failing that, you MIGHT think there's a compile-time option for it.

Nope.

It's screwed me like this before, and I've had enough.

So I wander around with Google, and see many many people have complained about this fact, and how it screws them to the wall all the time. And I see the developers either ignore them or tell them to piss off.

THEN I go into the source, find the goddamn function that kills everything, and stick a "return" at the very beginning and recompile the fucker!!

Fire up mozilla. Right-click on the window. Window dies. Mozilla however, does just fine.

THERE. FIXED. Don't MESS with the man with the SOURCE.

Anyway, you'd think I'd be in a better mood. I got my title for the bike today, showing it's all paid off. One of the things I was trying to do was scan in a copy of the title.

I wish I could have a loan-paying-off party or something, but I guess I'll settle for shredding all the left-over payment coupons and burning the shreddings. Unless somebody else has a better idea.

Yesterday I had to take my roommate to pick up his car from the repair shop. He paid $350 in parts and $1100 in labor, so I gave him a little shit about a) bikes are MUCH cheaper and b) bikes are MUCH easier to work on.

I did find out a DL-650 isn't much for 2-up, but then again, Mike's a pretty big guy.

My brakes started squealing, so I took a look at them. It took me only 30 minutes and 4 tools to pull off both calipers, pull the pads, find a small bit of "something" stuck in a pad and remove it, and put everything back together.

Ah, that's fun. I enjoy the hell out of things like that.

The disk is scored a little, but not enough to catch a fingernail, so it's ok, I guess.

It got me thinking about how important little things are. There's a pin that holds the brake pads in, and this pin is kept in the caliper by a *tiny* little clip that probably costs less than a dollar. But if that clip wasn't there, I'd be in a world of hurt. This clip is so small it easily fits on a fingernail.

That sort of thing actually happened to Eddie Lawson when he went into a turn at Laguna Seca at about 150mph and... no brakes. They later found the pads on the track. Fortunately he only had a broken heel, but getting back on that bike must have taken some big brass ones.

I think of that every time I work on a bike.

> Please post a little bit about what you ride, where, how long you've
> been riding, etc. If you don't currently ride, say something about why
> you should be a member of SGMC anyway. Anything to let me know you're
> actually interested in SGMC will do.

Well... let's see here...

I had a girl get me interested in bikes in college, and my roommate rode a SWEET limited-edition GSXR-750 with a dry clutch. So I picked up a Honda CB450SC Nighthawk and took the MSF course. The roommate later got a ZX-10 which was an absolute monster.

Since then I've had a Honda VF750F Sabre shaft-drive V4 with the full Hondaline fairing, a Yamaha 550 Vision (the one with the crap car-style downdraft carbs), a Yamaha RZ-350 street 2-stroke, a shaft-drive Suzuki GSX1100G, a really BEAT shaft-drive Suzuki GS1100GL, a GS550EF (the one with the siamese carbs), an NT650 Honda Hawk GT (the one with the single-sided swingarm), and right now I own a '02 Suzuki SV-650 and an '05 Suzuki DL-650.

The SV and the DL have the same engine, except the SV is carbureted and the DL is fuel-injected. The SV has almost 40,000 miles on it.

I haven't owned a car in 15 or so years. I guess I've been riding a little under 20 years? I have a permanent parking spot at work that's mine because I'm the only guy to ride to work every single day, rain or shine.

The GS550EF and Honda Hawk were both stolen.

I've done my share of wrenching. My first was fixing the forks on the CB450SC when I bent them. I got the GS550EF for $200 because it didn't run. It had stuck rings, and I rebuilt the top end. The RZ-350 got a rough edge on a gear and started eating shift forks so I split the cases, rebuilt the transmission and replaced the bad gear and shift fork. It's nice having an engine you can plop in your lap and work on. I replaced a head gasket in the Hawk. A couple of friends bought the GS1100GL as a basketcase, and it turned out to have a totally destroyed transmission as well as lots of other problems. It's the only time I've poured the insides of a starter motor out as sand and wire bits. I still have shredded tranny parts from that as "trophies" I do all my own maintenance.

I helped a friend go to racing school in Talladega and race his RZ-350 at VIR near where he lives now in DC. I've taken CR250s to the nuclear labs Oak Ridge, Tennessee and ridden them in the snow! Much fun!

I've also had my share of life threatening experiences. The GS1100GL did the guided-missile bit into a Subaru that turned left in front of me. I went over the top and slid about 170 feet. I bent the Subaru in half and put the driver's husband permanently in a wheelchair with a shattered pelvis. Better him than me! The RZ was an absolute blast, but it tried to kill me just about every time I rode it. The GSX1100G was totalled when an car ran a stopsign. I wasn't badly hurt except for a dislocated shoulder.

I go to Bike Week every year, and just about every year I have to convince a new manager at work that yes, I'm going to Bike Week, and no, I'm not putting it off this year. I usually watch some of the races and hit the vendor tents outside DIS. One year I got laid off right before Bike Week, so I did the whole kit and caboodle and saw some very interesting stuff in the beginning of the week. This year I've hooked up with some of the people at Sargent Cycle to check out a prototype of their seat for the DL-650, so I'll be heading to Jacksonville.

One of the reasons I bought the DL is I want to finally travel a bit, to places like Key West, DC, the Blue Ridge, etc.

I watch 500GP/MotoGP religiously, and follow the AMA, WSB, TT, British Superbike stuff somewhat.

I'm fortunate enough that the Orlando Museum of Art is hosting the "Art of the Motorcycle" exhibit from the Guggenheim from February to July. It's very very nice.

"Ah. Well... I attended Juilliard... I'm a graduate of the Harvard business school. I travel quite extensively. I lived through the Black Plague and had a pretty good time during that. I've seen the EXORCIST ABOUT A HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN TIMES, AND IT KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER EVERY SINGLE TIME I SEE IT... NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT YOU'RE TALKING TO A DEAD GUY... NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK? You think I'm qualified?"