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.
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.