You get what you pay for...

So, as I posted a while back, I got myself a Harley.  She was beautiful when I bought her...

...but I wanted to make a few changes.  The turn signals are gone, replaced by integrated mirror LED lights...

...the barn-door windshield has been replaced by something sportier, the bars are now black T-bars with Avon grips...

...the wimpy Fox shocks were ditched in favor of stouter (and lower) Progressive Suspension units...

...the taillight is now a smoked LED box and the rear signals are smoked red LEDs at the ends of the fender struts...

...and I have forward controls.  Or, I should say, I had forward controls.

I figured they were a great deal.  About $280, and they'd bolt right up to my Dyna.  Yeah, well, they did bolt right up, but that was the best thing about them.

A couple of weeks after I put them on, I was riding to work, went to downshift and...nothing.  The lever went right down and stayed there.  Oh, crap.  I nursed it into the Maverick station with much swearing and clutch abuse, parked it and tried to figure out what happened.

OK, the pinch bolt on the lever worked loose.  No big, I'll just get that sucker tightened up.  I had a set of 4" grip pliers, so I clamped them on the bolt and gave it some muscle.  They did nothing but chew the bolt up.  I couldn't get enough grip to close up the gap properly.  I'd find out why later.

First things first, I had to get to work.  So I grabbed the linkage, put it in second and headed for the hardware store, powershifting by hand all the way and getting there seven minutes before they closed.  My tool bag now has a complete set of allen keys, which I should have had in the first place.  I cranked the bolt down, finally getting enough purchase, and headed to work.

So now the pinch bolt looks like the north end of a southbound dog.  I figured I'd get a new one and replace it.  This was the point where I should have left well enough alone.  Here's what these cheap Chinese pieces of junk ended up looking like.  Not only did the threads inside the lever strip out, but the splines rounded right off the inner lever!!

See all those dents?  That happened when I was desperately trying to close the gap by smacking the lever with the only tool I had:  a cheapo 4" monkey wrench.  I could see scratching the chrome, but flat-out denting the thickest part of the lever??  And now, looking at those splines, it's small wonder I couldn't get the freakin' thing to grip.

This is not metal.  This is chrome-plated cheese.  Until the Chinese get a handle on how to make actual steel, I'm buying American, thanks.  New forwards are on the way, and I'll post an update when they're on.

'Tis the season

I'm not arachnophobic.  I generally leave most spiders alone, outside of Black Widows, Brown Recluses and Wolf Spiders.  I don't really have an issue with tarantulas--in fact, I kind of like the creepy little hairballs.


However, when one crawls up out of the defroster and starts running around on my dashboard at 70mph, I don't like 'em that much.  Yes, a bit of a freakout occurred, I pulled over and commenced swatting at him, and he lost a leg before disappearing down the vents again.  Hopefully he left the premises, or at least died quickly.  It was only an adolescent, and I kind of feel bad, but you scare the humans at your own peril, dude.


Funny how this has never happened to me before, and now, right around Halloween?  Try and tell me I didn't just get punked by God.  :)

Time flies...!

Mea culpa, I haven't been keeping up on this blog as much as I wanted.  But I had to share my 3rd Anniversary gift:

For those who don't know, Cardhu is the base of every Johnnie Walker blend.  It's a truly awesome whiskey, and my lovely wife sought it out for me just to be that wonderful.

(As an aside, part of why I haven't been updating is that I couldn't post pics for the longest time.  I figured out that I have to use Chrome, whether I want to or not.  Grr.)

Midlife Crisis

Yep...after riding Jap bikes for almost 30 years, I finally did it...I'm a Harley boy now.  '97 Dyna Low Rider with 11,000 on it for $5500.  Pretty nice score!

Playing with fire

So I got a birthday present from my wife...something I've wanted for years.

 

Yep, it's a welder.  It won't build a battleship or anything, but it's pretty good for anything I'd need to do.  Once I got everything set up, I decided to take a couple of lengths of scrap rebar and an old washer and make my first project.

 

It now hangs on my garage wall.  Thank You, Lord, for all the blessings You've bestowed upon me.  Please help me never to take them for granted.

Restaurant find: San Diego

Well, my wife and I decided to take a weekend jaunt to San Diego(pictures to follow), and we found a truly wonderful sushi joint right off the beach.  Since I love good food in general and sushi in particular, I had to share this with all my nonexistent readers.

We entered Sushi Kuchi and were greeted and seated pleasantly and promptly.  Edamame with sea salt was provided as an appetizer.  For beverages, my wife had a Coke and water and I had an Asahi.

Dinner was the Salmon & Shrimp Roll for Jen and the Rose Roll for me.  Both were fantastic, in presentation and flavor.  The Salmon and Shrimp Roll came on a square plate with a lemon topped with literally flaming pink sugar. 

It had a subtle, delicate interplay of flavor and texture that kept every bite interesting.  You can see some of the Rose Roll in the background.  Its presentation was a bit more understated, but that certainly didn't harm the experience at all.  The Rose Roll has a spicy kick which--while authoritative--never crosses over the line into being overpowering. 

As we finished, we were treated to a deep-fried dumpling of lobster and crab, cut in half, sort of like an after-dinner mint for two.  Jen decided to have the Green Tea Ice Cream, which came in a just-right portion, topped with whipped cream and drizzled with chocolate syrup.

And the whole experience came to less than thirty-four bucks.  (You'd better believe we tipped well!)  The night before, we'd eaten at our hotel restaurant, which was about ten bucks more expensive and consisted of preprocessed frozen crap.  Thank heavens we discovered this gem of a place, to end our vacation on a high note.

If you're in San Diego for any reason, I cannot recommend SushiKuchi enough.  For quality, presentation, taste, service and value, I give them five 'Forks Up!'
 

Dang, I'm old.

I remember when the only modifications I cared about involved vehicles that went very very fast...now I'm concerned with modifying a sprinkler system.  Yep, I'm officially an Old Fart.  I'm still not rocking the black socks and garters with bermuda shorts, though...yet.

So I've got four sprinkler systems on this house.  The previous owner set them up on two different timers, for reasons I will never comprehend.  Here's the timer he had operating the lower two sets:

Yep, it's an old mechanical timer, which you actually had to screw pins into, in order to set.  On the back, it's engraved "Property of Fred Flintstone," which gives you an idea of what I was dealing with.  A while back, I was wandering around the local Ace and found a timer on clearance that didn't involve screw-pins, wheels or pterodactyl spit.  So I replaced Timer Number One.

OK, that worked well, but the upper sprinklers were still:

a)  On another timer

b)  On a timer that had been beaten to hell by the wind and wasn't working great anymore. 

So, time to get rid of this thing that had been unceremoniously tacked to the phone pole out back.

When I opened it up, it just got me more curious about the mental capacity of the previous owner.  This thing has 12 terminals.

He could have run every sprinkler in town off this one box, yet he went with the Stone Age POS pictured earlier, for the lower system.  Apparently, it was easier than running 100' of wire.  Maybe in his world.

It took me a while to get it all set up.  I tore apart the old wiring, put it together using the new input wires to the Orbit timer, ran the ground to the old ground in the upper system and couldn't understand why it wouldn't work.  I ran around in circles, both physically and mentally, until I realized:  "Common Ground" means COMMON, you jackass!!  So I ran another ground wire from the lower system ground and it worked like a charm. 

And so now all the sprinklers run off one timer.  A more pathetic thing to be proud of, you will probably never find, but I'm happy about it.

For my next trick, I'm going to do something about this...

At least I know my way around bikes better than household electrics.

Relationship Danger Signs

This is an article I should have read and memorized at the age of 13.  Unfortunately, it wasn't written yet, so I had to learn the hard way.

Read and pass on to any youngsters in your life.  Many of these tips work for both genders.

Knowing that your judgment is clouded, it’s important to enter any serious relationship with both your head and your heart. You need be able to distance yourself from the powerful emotions you’re likely feeling in a new relationship so that you can notice any red flags that might indicate that you’re destined for a relationship from hell. This is doubly important if you’re considering marriage.

But what sort of red flags should you be on the lookout for? While every man has his own personal relationship red flags or deal breakers, psychologists and marriage experts have found there are a few general red flags you should be aware of. Most of these are patterns of behavior in your partner that will likely (not definitely) result in a troubled relationship down the road.

Because people are usually on their best behavior at the beginning of a relationship, some of these red flags won’t appear for awhile. According to Dr. Van Epp, it’s usually around the three-month mark that deep-seated patterns start to manifest themselves. This delay is why he and other relationship experts recommend that you take romantic relationships nice and slow.

RTWT.

What Mrs. Wraith puts up with

Mrs. Wraith:  I bought some intellectual reading material yesterday.  Holds up a copy of Astronomy magazine, with a big headline reading, "When Stars Go Bang."

Wraith:  You know what happens when stars go bang.  Astronomers film it and they make star porn.

Mrs. Wraith:  Omigod...

Wraith:  Bowm-chicka-wow-wow...

Mrs. Wraith:  Heads into the bedroom.  I'm not listening to you...

Hey, she had her chance to run away, and she still said "I do."

It's not an unexcused absence!

The dog ate my homework cold ate my plumbing.  Really.

The moron who built this place ran all the water on the property through a shed out back, with a shutoff valve that was nonfunctional.  So when the uninsulated pipes blew up from the recent cold snap, there was no way to stop Prescott Falls other than shutting off all the water to the house.  This is not helpful for such things as cooking, washing the resulting dishes, flushing the toilet, or basically anything.

Now, there was a positive side, at least for me.  When the first thing you see in the morning is a beautiful naked woman standing in the bathtub looking like an even hotter Venus on the Half Shell, that can't help but make your day a little brighter.  When said woman is doing so for the purpose of taking a shower from a couple of cooking pots with stove-warmed water(and definitely NOT happy about it), however...

Well, it is what it is.  Luckily, one of our brothers in the Eagles is a plumber, and managed to solve the problem once and for all, at a more-than-reasonable price.  Once it gets warmer, I'm tearing that damn shed down so that one stone may not stand upon another.  I'll use the lights, sink and AC in the garage, the siding to fix some broken skirting, the frame for firewood, and the leftover drywall and shingles to throw at solicitors who ignore the sign.

As for the leftover concrete pad?  Maybe a big-ass BBQ pit, or if we can score a great deal on a hot tub...

Anyway, I'll be back in full swing in short order.  And Glock just jumped up in my lap and farted.  You probably didn't need to know that, but if I have to suffer through it, you at least have to read about it.

Cats and Christmas presents

I was Goth when Goth wasn't cool.  This was back in the late '80s, when you couldn't just go down to Goth In A Box Hot Topic and buy a ready-made look.  You had to find stuff yourself, make it yourself or know someone who could.  We were known as "Darksiders" and "Grave Rockers," and persecution was ten times worse than today.  Not only did the general public look at you askance, but the punks, skins and hessians would gladly kick your ass just for being Goth.  So I confess to a smirk when today's Goth kids cry about being misunderstood and persecuted--kid, you have no idea.

Damn, I got old somewhere.

Anyway, my ex-wife sent me a great blast-from-the-past Christmas present--a double-disc set by one of my favorite bands from back then, The Mission.  It's Carved In Sand and Grains Of Sand, with a whole mess of bonus tracks that I'd never heard before.  Great lady, my ex.

(Apparently, if you don't use Chrome, you can't upload your own images on Blogger anymore.  Good to know, I guess.)

So I've been travelling back in time on my way to work lately.  Part of me wishes I could literally do so, so I could slap the hell out of my younger self and tell him to get off his ass.  But I think most people would welcome the chance to do that.

I'm fixing to try my hand at Korean food tonight, so I'll post up the results soon.  And one more thought...

I know I wanted to stay out of politics with this blog.  But, since the entire nation is once again obsessed with victim disarmament 'gun control,' I'll just say this:

You can have my Glock when you pry him from my cold dead lap!!

(Yep, that's Glock the cat.  Feline Labe.)

Thank you, Lord.

Today, while driving to work, I saw a delivery van on the shoulder.  A mile later, I saw the driver heading toward the nearest gas station...three miles away.

In a T-shirt.

In eight-degree weather.

Of course I pulled over.  I got him to the station for some diesel, made sure he had things in hand, and just made it to work on time.

Thank you, God, for giving me the opportunity to serve You.

Something new in the sky?

Looks like we're going to see at least one very noticeable comet next year, maybe more.  I can't wait, myself...this one's apparently going to make Hale-Bopp look like a sparkler!

When you consider the distances and physics involved, it's amazing to realize just how fortunate we'll be to witness this.  Unless someone digs up an ancient calendar that stops next month, in which case the whole world will end.

The blogrolls expand

Y'all know how it is when starting a new blog--things look so empty on the sidebar.  (Unless you've started a blog for the sole purpose of directing people to other sites which pay you for hits, in which case you suck and I hope your hard drive explodes.)

My six foot, 150lb. frame may not show it, but I love to eat.  I grew up around lots of Asian and Pacific cooking, and that stroke of good fortune opened my mind to a world of possibilities beyond McDonald's and meatloaf.  So I search for cool food blogs specializing in all sorts of different cuisine, just to spread the joy of good food you might not have tried before.  It's hard to be grouchy after a great meal.

A little gem I've just discovered is a cute and sparkly Korean lady named Maangchi, who ought to be snapped up by the Food Network immediately!  She gives us detailed instructions on cooking real Korean food, where to find authentic ingredients, and video demos you just can't help but smile upon watching.  Seriously, her site is a professional-caliber labor of love, and well worth the visit.

For those of you who've never had Korean food, try bulgogi just once and tell me you're not instantly addicted.

Anyway, there's the Cats bloglist, the Cooking bloglist and the Chaos bloglist, which is composed of random blogs I read dealing with everything from science fiction to commentary to philosophy.  (Some of the Chaos blogs have some damn good recipes as well, but that's not their sole focus.)  And below, a selection of my favorite comics.  All of these will be expanding in due time.

Meanwhile, God bless you and yours, and have a Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all!

If there's one thing I'm certain of, it's that God has a sense of humor(although, sometimes, man doesn't quite get the joke).  So, in that context...

(From Ty Templeton's Art Land)

Returning to the blogosphere

I had a blog for a couple of years.  I gave it up.  It was a political, liberty-oriented blog that I started because I thought it might help change things.  I've since discovered that America is simply too far gone.  We're witnessing the decline and fall of the United States, and however it ends, it ain't gonna be pretty.

So be it.  In the meantime, I'm going to keep living my life.  So, welcome to my new blog, where I'll focus on cats, food and lots of completely random and weird stuff that you might find interesting.  Political topics, however, will be few and far between.

I have no idea where this is going.  Let's find out!