Snippets

[sportsterpaul]

Each of the lifts in my breezeway have these HF chocks, work great.https://www.harborfreight.com/media/...9/69026_W3.jpg

[Crusty]

Christmas In January


I got my new (to me) lift yesterday. It’s a Harbor Freight lift with all its inadequacies and I love it! Yes; the front wheel vise sucks and is woefully inadequate and it’s not anything like a Handy lift, but it’s a lift and it works! I’m happier than a tornado in a trailer park!

Yesterday, I felt like a kid on Christmas. The anticipation had me almost twitchy. I had to restrain myself from texting Matthew with numerous, “Where are you?” texts. Then, at about 9:45 he texted me with the message that ETA was at 13:30. All I had to do then was watch the clock and try to relax.

Matthew arrived on schedule. We unloaded the lift and got it into the garage. Then, we went and got lunch. Matthew asked if he could impose on my hospitality and stay overnight and I was quick to say, “Yes; certainly!” He also had brought some additional gifts; a travel mug and some Benton’s Bacon and his last sticker of Glitch kicking the Reaper’s butt. That will go on the windshield once I get the Express back up and running. The travel mug is really neat; it has a design that I had sent out in a joke e-mail a few days ago. I’ll put a photo of it at the end of this Snippet.

We went to Big Boy and had an early lunch. We were going to hit Velvet Smoke for dinner, so we ate light. after lunch, we came back to the house and moved the lift into the basement and brought the Express into the basement and put it on the lift. I’m going to rearrange the LED lights so that there’s more light on the bike.

David had given me one of those screw in LED lights that puts out about a brazillion lumens for Christmas, and that helped enormously on one side. Once I move one of the 4 foot fixtures, I’ll have better lighting on the lift and the left side of whatever bike is on it.

Anyhow; Matthew and I headed out to Velvet Smoke so that we would be there when they opened at 4:30. When we got there, there was a notice on the door that because the Bengals were in a Playoff Game, their hours were changed for the day to Noon to 4:00 PM. They were closed. So we came back to the house. We finally decided to hit an Outback Steak House. Matthew had Prime Rib and I tried their New! Meatloaf. We also got some Tater Tots that were the size of tennis balls with a dipping sauce. Everything was pretty good. Then we came back to the house and watched Stagecoach (the original 1939 movie) and The Outlaw Josie Wales. Matthew is another one of us weirdos who enjoys sleeping on a recliner, so both of my recliners got use for a change. I enjoy sleeping on a recliner enough that it’s hard for me to understand why most folks don’t.

Anyway; Matthew left a little while ago. The temperature warmed up a little bit overnight to a balmy 26º F (-3º C) There’s snow showers in the forecast, but I looked at the weather radar and he’ll be well below the snow all the way back to Georgia.

I really want to say Thank You!!! to Joe, Mike and Matthew. The gift of a lift is enormous and I very much appreciate it along with the logistics of getting it from Florida to Cheviot.

Now; Here’s the bike on the raised lift :



And here’s the side that’s going to have light fixtures relocated :



And here’s the Travel Mug:

[sportsterpaul]

That’s simply great John, karma coming to play, happy for you!

[Crusty]

Breakfast or Brunch?


I have a bad habit. Actually, I have several; but I just want to talk about one at the moment. Sometimes, I like to have dinner items for breakfast.

You see; it’s the beginning of the month. Not calendar wise, but money wise. My Social Security deposit comes in and I pay my bills and go grocery shopping. I tend to make a quantity of main dishes and freeze them. Most items are portioned to feed a family of four, so I make them and freeze individual portions. A pound of ground beef makes 4 quarter pound patties or 4 portions of seasoned meat for tacos. I buy Family Packs of pork chops and put each chop in a freezer bag. Then, there’s Beef Stew. I like to fill the crock pot with meat, potatoes, onions, carrots and magic dust and put it on low before I go to bed. When I wake up, I have a month’s worth of really tasty stew.

Yesterday, I made spaghetti sauce with sausages. I had spaghetti for dinner and there are four portions of sauce and sausages in the freezer. Last night, around 10:00 PM, I started making pulled chicken in the crock pot. That makes 8 portions for pulled chicken sandwiches. Since I bought a Family Pack, it also leaves me with a lot of boneless, skinless chicken that I portion out and freeze for roasted or broiled chicken. I’ve also done several other items when the mood strikes. Bacon wrapped pork tenderloins are really good as is Italian sausage meat pressed into patties.

Anyhow; to get back to the bad habit, I just had a pulled chicken sandwich for breakfast. After smelling it all night long, I was powerless to resist. And it tasted wonderful. Actually; I often have lunch or dinner items for breakfast. Or Brunch is more properly what it is. I usually eat two meals a day; Brunch and Dinner. The closest I come to having a Breakfast is when I’m on the road. I’ll stop at McDonald’s and get a Sausage McMuffin. And I have been known to get a Breakfast on occasion. The last time that I recall was in Blairsville, Georgia when a bunch of us went to the Hole In The Wall for that purpose. The closest I get at home is when I have a BLT; which is going to be pretty frequent for a while. I just got two pounds of Benton’s Bacon, and I also just bought a package of Wright’s bacon because it was on sale for $7.99. At $4.00 off, I figured it was too good a deal to pass up. A BLT works well as an anytime meal; Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner - it tastes great. I had a BLT made with Benton’s for dinner with seasoned, roasted potatoes Sunday night. (I had eaten the leftover spicy meatloaf from the Outback for brunch)

Other Brunch items that aren’t “Normal” that I enjoy include Tina’s Red Hot Beef Burritos slathered with Newman’s Own Salsa or the time I made Bacon Wrapped Jalapeño Poppers and ate the whole lot (They were so good, I couldn’t stop). Cheeseburgers are another regular item. And Kayem Natural Casing Franks on Martin’s Potato Bread rolls are almost orgasmic with a cup of good coffee. And if there’s leftover pizza, it trumps everything else.

Good Blueberry pancakes with real Maple Syrup and good country sausage patties are a treat, but that almost fits in the dinner category. And I used to love the London Broil and eggs at IHOP for dinner, before they discontinued it.

Hmm; now that I think about it, I guess I just don’t care whether what I’m eating is considered a breakfast or dinner food. It all depends on what I’m in the mood for.

On a day when the outside temperature is 4º F (-15.5 º C) things like this are good things to think about.

[Crusty]

7:00 AM and 2 Degrees


2 º F is -16.7º C. That’s freakin’ cold to be out on a motorcycle. However; I plan to take the Cussed’em to the supermarket in a couple of hours. There are things that I need to get like Milk and Bread!!! I actually do need 1/2 & 1/2 and burger rolls, but I also need to get several other items like cheese, ketchup, Chili Beans and such. I won’t be going any farther than is absolutely necessary, however. I was hoping to buy a sh*tbox car this year, but when the Express died, my financial efforts got redirected. Oh, well. I have my priorities and being without a bike to buy a flipping’ car is on the opposite side of the scale from having a bike without a car.

2º is quite a bit colder than the forecast was calling for. Then again; we got four times as much snow as the forecast predicted. I’m convinced that the weather people would have trouble accurately predicting a Sunrise. Yeah; I know. It’s not an exact science. I wish I could be as wrong as often and get paid as much as they do. In the jobs I’ve held, that usually means getting canned.

A bit of excitement that I had this morning was an e-mail I got from a friend. He found an engine from a 2015 1200 for short money. It had me thinking, but once I got past the initial excitement, I realized that if I got it and put it in the Express, I’d always have the nagging fear that it was going to take a dump on me. I’ve had two bad cranks out of three engines in my rubbermounts; After I changed out the engine in the Roadster, I always had that lingering fear that the replacement engine was going to die and every time I heard an unusual sound, my ears would perk up. I never fully trusted that engine. I thought that the MoFoCo had addressed the problem and that bad cranks were a thing of the past, but then the engine in the Express died an early death. I think that the design of the Sportster engine is good, but in the quest to build a Sportster for a lower cost, the bean counters have found a cheaper and less reliable method of building crankshafts.

With all the positive reviews of Dark Horse that I’ve read, along with the personal recommendation of a friend who had his crank done by them, I think I’ll once again have an engine that I can trust. Reliability is paramount. I’ve had two engines out of 3 die (I haven’t had the Cussed’em long enough to count). I want an engine that I can rely on to get me to the Arctic Ocean and beyond.

So; I just checked the temp again. It’s risen all the way to 5º F (- 15º C). By the time I shovel out the driveway and sprinkle some ice melt on it, it might rise all the way to 10!

[sportsterpaul]

You go John, bad ass biking for sure. We know it can be done there’s just not many that do it! I may head down to Greg’s,(Sprink), for a coffee after the game.

[Crusty]

It’s Affordable!


I just got off the phone with Andrew at Darkhorse Crankworks and discussed the engine work needed to build an anvil of an engine. It’s going to take all my savings and I’ll have to do a little bit of financial juggling for the next couple of months, but I can do it!

I told him how I ride and that I’m not looking for any extra performance, but I want super reliability and he said that that’s what I’d have. I’m going to bring him the entire bottom end. I won’t have to split the cases. They’ll do all the case bearings and build me a good crankshaft/rods assembly and I’m even going to go for a bronze oil pump gear upgrade.

I’m happy!

[sprink]

That's good news!

[Steve9]

It will be great to have an "anvil" based motor. Some bullets just gots to be bit...

[sportsterpaul]

Good on you John, and that bronze gear upgrade is a good one with the miles we put on!