Spring!

Beautiful day yesterday, after the torrential down pour about six in the morning that is. Weatherman said this is the second wettest May on record and it's got a few more hours to go for the win.

Top photo is a gardenia I bought at Menards yesterday - only $22.00 for a good size plant loaded with buds. I love these plants. Hopefully I can keep it alive. I've got a small orchid I got about three years ago that's doing well. I'm hoping it'll bloom this year. In spite all of the rain, or maybe because of it, everything is blooming around the shack now. The various lilacs, iris and the old fashioned roses are exceptionally pretty. The lilacs and roses are very fragrant as well. Maybe all the rain has washed the pollution out of the sky so the fragrance shines through better.

Bottom photo is the Sperry Rail Service car that came through yesterday. Most all of the trains running on these tracks are coal drags feeding the power plant a few miles away. There is the occasional local but not much freight these days. The power plant is scheduled to close in a few years. When that goes, that'll be it for these tracks. It'll give me a chance to ride my railbike for a while until they rip up the tracks.

I went out to the shop the other night and the first thing I noticed was it smelled like raccoon piss. I thought maybe with all the dampness in the air, maybe it was a leftover from the mess I had last year. Nope - another raccoon has somehow managed to get in there again. I set the trap again yesterday. Damn you trash panda! Now I need to clean the mess before I can work out there again. I don't know what their urine is made of but it's really nasty stuff.

Leon Redbone passed away yesterday. I saw him a couple of times in concert. The one time he had laryngitis and couldn't sing so he played quite a few songs and showed shadow puppets on a screen. He also had a young guy on the banjo with him who could really play. Not what I expected but a great show just the same. RIP Mr. Redbone.
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This & That

I posted a quick thing on the Zeigarnik Effect once before. I'm surprised I even remembered it when I came across this here. If you follow the link back there's a more in depth explanation that's pretty interesting. I can say with all sincerity that these constant reminders my mind sends me to finish tasks can be pretty damn annoying, however. My mind sends me reminders to finish things while also talking me into starting something new. I wish we could all agree. It's a bit stressful at times.

I came across a video showing a ball turret with a pair of 50 cal. machine guns mounted up that looked mighty fun. You can crawl inside and shoot up a couple hundred dollars worth of ammo in a matter of a few seconds. The same outfit has a bomber camp as well. It all looks like fun - expensive - but fun.

No Zeigarnik Effect here. I mounted up my new case guards on the Himalayan last evening. Pretty straight forward. They bolt to the top engine mounting bolt and into a threaded boss on the frame tubes. The bolts for the bottom mounting came with them. There weren't any lock washers so I put some Locktite on them. I also put a little never-seize on the engine mounting bolt since it's steel and it passes through the aluminum engine. Cheap insurance on being able to remove it in the future if need be.

I managed to get the lawn mowed yesterday. That's usually not much to brag about but this year if you can fit mowing into your schedule when it's not raining, you're doing pretty good. I got sprinkled on a bit while mowing, it rained harder later in the afternoon and then again about 10:30-11:00. And they're still talking rain for the next couple of days. There were also some tornadoes not too far from us Monday. Crazy stuff. I'm hoping for a decent weekend - got things to do and places to go.

Decoration Day

Cuzzin Ricky and I did the dead relatives tour yesterday. The weather wasn't the best but the forecast was better than what they were calling for today. We got sprinkles but nothing serious. It did make the job of cleaning the grave markers and planting the flowers muddier than what we normally encounter, but the next dry day looks like Thursday or Friday. Not much of a sacrifice compared to what our relatives gave up during the war years.

After I got home I watched the Indy 500 and then spent the rest of the day relaxing. The sun did come out later in the day but rained again later on. More chores and a little time spent out in the shop on the agenda today.

Remember those who've given their all for our freedom and those poor souls impacted by all this wild weather.

Race Days

On a mini vacation Wednesday and Thursday. Sprint cars in Terre Haute on Wednesday, Silver Crown (champ cars) on Thursday. The weather cooperated nicely for the races. Like most everywhere else, the weather has been way outside the normal conditions for this time of the year. Tuesday it was 45 when I woke up at 6:00, hit a high of 55. Wednesday, up into the 80's. Rain on Tuesday into Wednesday morning, cleared up and we had a beautiful evening for racing. Same thing again on Wednesday night into Thursday morning - cloudy with a chance of showers later in the day but cleared up nicely in time for the race to go off.

Cuzzin Ricky had his name drawn by the nice folks from Amsoil, so we got new tee shirts and got to watch the race from "Inside the Oval". Actually, our seats were better up in the grandstands but we got our picture taken with the race winner Chase Stockon in the winner's circle. That was pretty cool. Since I won at Kokomo last year and Rick won this year, we decided we won't sign up any more this year. It was great race and we visited the Grand Traverse Pie Company restaurant for lunch, breakfast and, of course, pie.

Thursday we headed over to Indy planning on going to the Speedway Museum before heading over to the fairgrounds. Things looked to be more crowded than we wanted to deal with so we went down 16th Street a few more blocks to the Royal Enfield dealer. He told me he fixed my Suzuki and sold it to a young man who's happy as a clam with it. Glad to hear that. It was a nice bike. Surly took great care of it and I didn't hurt it any while I had it, if you don't count falling off of it while loading it up to trade it in. I wanted to ask him a couple of question concerning the servicing for the warranty and a couple of other things, so I got  my answers and I bought a pair of case guards. I had seen them online and was thinking about buying a pair so it didn't take much convincing to buy them when the boss man said he had a couple of pairs in stock. As we were leaving, I said he should have some Royal Enfield tee shirts. He acknowledged that would be good but he didn't have any. However, his helper dug out a couple of koozies for us.

We headed over to the fairgrounds after that. They had a bunch of vintage midget, sprint and champ cars on display and which ran on the track later in the evening. Again, the racing was great - 100 lap feature with the "big cars". Hard to beat, especially on a one mile track. Unfortunately, this was the last Hoosier Hundred. The track is going to be used for horse racing in the future. The driver I was rooting for, Kevin Thomas Jr. had the field covered right from his start from the pole position. However there were two red flag stoppages and at least a half dozen yellows which allowed the field to catch up to him each time. He stayed in front until the last red flag with about eight laps left. He got passed in the first turn and had to settle for second place.

Great couple of days but it looks like it's going to be raining again for the next week or so. We've already had about 9-10 inches of rain for the month of May - don't need any more for awhile. I'm caught up on the chores for the most part, so hoping to get back on a few things in the shop as well as making some headway on a couple of projects around the shack.

Enjoy your weekend and remember all those who have given us our freedom.

Baffling

The photos show the before and after - actually the after and before - of the baffle on the front of one of the mower decks at the new gig. I'm guessing someone ran into an immoveable object at a fairly good rate of speed and bent/twisted the baffle. The baffle is held on with carriage bolts and lock nuts with no room to get a ratchet on them. Of course that didn't really matter because most of the bolts started turning before I could get the nuts off. I had to cut them off with a cut-off wheel that had just enough diameter to get up in there. Once I got the piece off, I brought it home to straighten it out. Six inch vise welded to a steel column, 36" pipe wrench and a sledge hammer made short work of getting it straightened out. Installing was a bit of a struggle, though. One of the bolts was a pisser to get in due to the limited space but once I got that one in, the rest was a straight forward bolt-up.

The question here is, where would you take this to get it repaired if you didn't have a cracker-jack handyman at your beck and call? Take it to the dealer? Take it to a welding shop? Take it to the dealer and he farms it out to a welding shop. Knowing what would be involved after looking at it, I'd head to the local repair/welding shop even though there would be no welding involved. Out here in farm country there are a few general repair shops that could probably tackle this type of work. However, where do the guys capable of doing this learn their skills?

When I taught at the high school I tried to give the students a wide range of jobs to work on, whether it was a repair such as this one, or fabricating jobs. We rarely did anything close to this at the college even though all of us had the talent and experience to handle it. The biggest impediment to our taking on outside jobs was the lack of time. There was barely enough time to teach the actual welding skills necessary to prepare them for their welding certifications. This is one of the complaints employers have with tech school graduates. They can do OK in the welding booth but throw them out in the field with less than ideal conditions or encounter something that requires repair work or know what to do when the boss says "dog it into place" when there's a bit of miss alignment on a butt joint and they're lost.

There are solutions out there, most of which require more employer input. Serving on advisory committees, offering internships, apprenticeships, part-time after school and summer work, etc. There's definitely a need for people with these skills. Repairing a damaged mower is not very glamorous work, but there's plenty of this type of work out there. Something to think about during this season of graduations.

At Least It's Not Snowing

Going to be a busy week - working two days and going to two open wheel events, if they don't get rained out or snowed out. 45 degrees and raining this morning, calling for a high in the mid-fifties.

Not much else going on. Still working on getting things ship-shape around the shack. I hired some domestic help to speed up the progress. She's taking a room at a time and working her way around the house. The plan is not only to get a deep cleaning but also to force the Missus and I to start getting rid of some of the clutter. We're both collectors, so that's going to be tough trying to decide what goes and what stays but it's time to start on the downsizing.

I've about got the family history project finished. I added a few bits of info over the weekend and proofread the whole thing. Looks good. I've got a couple of things I'd like to add before I turn it over to my brother to get it printed, however. Hopefully I can that that finished before my trip out his way.

That's it for now.

PSA

I rode the Himalayan uptown this morning to cash my check and get a new spray nozzle for the garden hose and came across this - grass clippings across the whole width of the road. You can see there are farm fields along both sides of the road. Absolutely no reason to leave this in the road. I also came across a couple of more spots right down the road from my house with grass in the road. Point the damn discharge chute into the field or yard. Give us cyclists a break!

On the return trip, there was more grass in the road on the corner where the car is in the photo by the way. Of course it's also planting time. Lots of slow moving farm equipment on the roads out in the country and lots of dirt on the road where the farmers access their fields. I don't have a gripe with those folks. That's just part of living in the country but they do create a hazard.

Bikers always have to be careful out on the roads but be extra careful rounding those corners this time of the year.

Working Without A Parka - Finally!

Beautiful day yesterday - just what a Spring day should be. Temps were right around 70 degrees, blue sky with some nice white clouds, perfect. I spent the majority of the day picking things off the to-do list, including bolting the brackets I made on to the panniers. I went with the Plasti Dip to cover them. Menard's only had red in stock. I would have preferred black but on the plus side, I can tell in an instant which brackets are on the panniers - bicycle or motorcycle. They mount up nicely on the Himalayan and with a couple of coats of the Plasti Dip they shouldn't scratch the tank guards on the bike.

Cuzzin Rickie and I will be heading to Kansas in a few weeks. My Ford doesn't have much room behind the seat like my Dodge did so I needed to figure out where we could stow our luggage on the trip. Surly brought this tool box down to clutter up my barn a few years back. It had some casters bolted on to one end and the factory locks have been ripped out but it does have a hasp mounted on each side to lock it up. The box is just a bit too deep to clear the bicycle carrier I've got in the bed so I cut a 1x4 to raise it up enough to do the trick. I painted the board both to preserve it and to make it a little less noticeable. The "J" bolts for mounting it were inside the box so the whole operation went pretty smooth. I don't know how water-tight this thing is but we can wrap our luggage in a plastic bag and we should be golden. If I want to remove it, shouldn't take more than about five minutes.

The negatives from the roll of film I shot over the weekend came out looking good. This is Fuji Acros 100 film. I had read some good things about the film so I bought a five pack last time I ordered film and chemicals. I went online to see about the developing times and I found the developing info and the suggested exposures at the Fuji website but I also discovered this film has been discontinued. It was pretty cloudy the other day when we were out, so I shot most of these at 60th @ f5.6. The negs look like they'll be easy to print - contrast and the exposures look good. It's supposed to have a fine grain, so they should make nice enlargements. These aren't newspaper photos. Don't need a grainy faced young lady. I need to see how I'm fixed for chemicals and if good, maybe print a couple of these over the weekend. My darkroom is only dark after the sun goes down, so I always pick a time to print when I can stay up late.

I still have a bit more to put away after cleaning out my locker at the college. I had a ton of stuff in there - welding helmets, cutting shields, ear muffs, gloves, inspection tools, hand tools and my lesson plans and hand outs, etc. Also some material for a couple of jobs I was working on. I got most of it put away and organized. All of it, other than the inspection tools, is extra stuff I don't really need. I already had duplicates of everything at home. Maybe get the grandsons set up with a welding kit each.

My Mind Is On Vacation

As well as my body. Time to get used to the new schedule - not exactly vacation but something much better. I'll still be working two days a week but I don't have to worry about running out of vacation days and I can pick and choose my days to work. I don't know how long the new gig will last but for now at least, I'll be back on a regular schedule of my own making and can get back to working in the shop and exercising like I should.

I've been looking for a massage therapist to pound the knots out of my back and found one last week that worked me over pretty good. The craziness with my chest has been bothering me quite a bit due to the back muscles tightening up. I don't fully understand what's going on but as long as the back stays loose, the chest is only a minor source of irritation. So I got the back worked on Thursday, went to the boxing club Saturday and then walked a few miles Sunday with my running buddy. I checked my resting pulse rate this morning and it was 58 bpm, so I'm not in too bad a shape. Time to build on that and add some muscle building exercises for the upper body to the mix. If you don't use it, you lose it.

I took a camera with me on the walk yesterday - an old Mamiya twin lens with the 105 lens. These cameras are the only medium format twin lens reflex cameras that have interchangeable lenses. They used to be common for wedding and portrait photography. I was looking for a 105 lens a few years back when all the pros were making the switch to digital. The lenses were still going high but I found a camera with that lens cheaper than I could find just the lens so I went that route. Now that I'm going to have more free time, I want to get back into some black & white photography along with some alternative process stuff.. With the saddle bags on the new bike I can load up a camera and go out on a nice day, shoot a roll of film with the medium format or a few sheets of film with the 4x5, come home and spend an enjoyable evening in the darkroom. I've got the roll I shot yesterday in the can already, just need to mix up a fresh batch of developer and then see how I did when I was guessing my exposures.

Have a good week.

I'm Bringing Home Good News

That's it - all she wrote. My teaching career is over so I'm bringing home good news. Forty-three years total. Thirty-six at the high school and seven at the college. I shouldn't have gone back this year because my heart really wasn't in it, but the boss was in a bind and he's been good to me. He's going to miss me when I'm gone but he's had an extra year to find someone to take my place. It wouldn't have been so bad except another guy left last minute before the semester started last fall. If that hadn't occurred, I'd have stayed home.

So I'm retired again but still working. I'll see how the new job pans out now that it's the only obligation I have. If it gets to be a pain in the ass, I'll drag up and that'll be the end of it. For now, though, just glad to be out from under the teaching gig.

Working Thoughts - Thoughts on Working

There was a book review in the WSJ the other day about Late Bloomers. Looks like it could be an interesting book, but what I found interesting were a couple of quotes from the book:

Janet Evanovich discovered writing in her 30s, then spent the next 10 years piling up rejection slips. In her 40's, she spent two years drinking beer with "law enforcement types, learning to shoot, and practicing cussing."

Pretty interesting way to prepare for a job. It certainly worked for her - she's a best selling author now. I was intrigued enough to check one of her books out from the library. Easy read and they have a bunch of them on the shelf. I'll work my way through the rest of them since I've read all the Robert Parker novels they have.

Also in the book review there's a quote from Bill Walsh of the Super Bowl champion 49ers:

In my whole career I've been passing men with greater bravado and confidence. Confidence gets you off to a fast start. Confidence gets you that first job and maybe the next two promotions. But confidence stops you from learning. Confidence becomes a caricature after a while. I can't tell you how many confident blowhards I've seen in my coaching career who never got better after the age of forty.

I've worked for a few of those guys over the years both in education and in the welding fields - especially in the education field.

I came across an interesting video at Budget Machining about the philosophy of working. The video is about 12 minutes long but it presents an alternative take on the work smarter rather than harder idea. I don't know that I've ever thought too deeply about this but I think it goes a ways to explaining why I took the new job. Check it out if you're interested in the philosophy and reward of manual labor.

The nice weather came and went. I got up Monday morning and it was already 70 degrees, going up to 78 by about 10:00. However, it cooled off to about 55 by the early afternoon with a bit of rain thrown in. I was able to get out on the both the bicycle and the motorbike, though. The Enfield still has less than 100 miles on it but the weather has to improve one of these days. I did pick some rhubarb and made a couple of loaves of rhubarb bread. Good weather for baking. I've got lots of rhubarb - maybe make a couple more loaves for the freezer later this week while the weather is cold and rainy still.

Only one more day left at the college - yippie-skippie!

Beautiful Weather - Finally!

Beautiful spring day yesterday. Plenty of sunshine, nice warm temperatures, slight breeze. Perfect.

I spent most of the day just picking things off the to-do list. Planted my pepper plants, went up on the roof to check on the flashing around the chimney and tar anything that looked a bit questionable. Got the road bike out, aired up the tires and took it for a little spin. Picked up some sticks under the willow tree that prevented me from mowing that area the other day.

Finished the mechanic's stool that I made in the Fab class recently. I've got two of these here at the house, so this one's going to the new job. I painted it on Saturday and put the seat and tray on yesterday. They're made from scrap lumber I had laying around. I put a coat of varnish on the seat just because. Looks pretty sexy and the total cost was less than ten bucks.

Not sure what's next on the agenda but I'll get going on something today. I've got to take the dog to the vet this afternoon and I've got a couple other errands to run but this nice weather has me raring to go. Looks like it might rain on my parade again this week though. The long range forecast says another good weekend coming up, though. I'll take it.

Welding Job

I'm finally able to post a photo of a welding job. Not a very good photo, unfortunately. This was taken with my new phone I bought prior to going to Ireland but I think the lens is already scratched up. It might have had some moisture on it but it looks like I need to keep carrying my little digital with me again. It doesn't take the best of photographs but it would have done much better than what I ended up with above. And what is that you ask? Trailer job at my new employer.

The cage on the front of the trailer needed to be raised up seven inches to accommodate a new mower the boss purchased. I made up the leg extensions and a couple other required pieces ahead of time. A couple of us picked the cage up after unbolting it and laid it over onto the forks of the fork truck. I welded on the new legs and then we got it stood back up again and bolted in place after drilling some new mounting holes. There really wasn't much to it except for the welding machine I was using. It's an old Miller "buzz box" - not much of a machine but I had some fresh 6011 rods I brought with me, so I didn't figure I'd have any trouble. I started getting a little concerned when one of the other guys said the machine had "issues". Yes, yes it does. I had a hell of a time keeping the arc established. It sounded like I was sending Morse code. If I'm going to be doing much welding around there, he's going to have to invest in a new machine. I've got my portable welder but it would be a lot more work loading it up into the back of the truck than what I want to get involved in for the money I'm making there. Anyway, I enjoyed working on the trailer. I was tired when I got home but it felt good putting in an honest day's work.

The weather was just beautiful yesterday. Got some indoor chores done in the morning and then cut the grass and tried out the new lawn sweeper on the front yard. It's supposed to rain again starting this evening and then rain on and off for the next four days again. So I'll be mowing and sweeping next weekend again. The yard's starting to look like a lawn. It's not much extra running the sweeper over the yard but it's way too much to rake by hand - which, of course, is why I never bothered and explains the need for dethatching. As much as I hate to do it, I need to put some kind of weed killer on it. I hate the thought of putting nasty chemicals that might end up in our well water on the lawn, however.

I've got one more week at the college and then I'll be done with my teaching career - this time for sure. As soon as I wrap that up I'll make myself a schedule and start getting back into a routine. I'm planning a trip to Kansas with Cuzzin Rick to see my brother and maybe we can plan out a trip to Nevada while traveling west. My saddle pal/running buddy is going to be putting on a 5K in September as a fundraiser for a group she's affiliated with. I'd like to do well in that one. Need to start working on my cardio and get my legs back in shape. Hopefully, this 5K will motivate me to keep training. Lots to do in the shop and around the shack also. I did get a bit more done on the slip form roller the other day. Definitely need to get back in a decent routine though.

Hooray, Hooray, The First of May

and you know what that means - my older brother's birthday for one thing. And that it's raining again, and will be tomorrow, just like yesterday and the day before. Glad I got the grass mowed on Sunday and I got some grass seed planted Monday afternoon in between the rain drops.

The Missus and I were gone most of the day Monday in order to meet up with one of her cousins about a two hour drive away. The cousin's wife passed away recently, had a nice lunch with him, in spite of the circumstances, and then went to the cemetery where her ashes will be interred and where several other of my wife's relatives are buried. While I realize everyone dies, the wife and I are at the age when it's becoming a game of who's next. Just need to keep on pushing and pick up the pace on getting rid of superfluous crap - that was a subject that came up while talking with the wife's cousin just before he handed over a couple of keepsakes to my wife. While these have great sentimental value to the wife and it was very kind of him to pass them along, one of these days either her or I will  be in the same situation.. Really need to not just start thinking about that but taking action.

In other news:

Article about how college is an overpriced scam. I'm certainly not opposed to college but if it's going to put you in debt for the next twenty years, you should definitely do a cost/benefit analysis before signing for a student loan. Especially since the feds are in charge of the loan business these days.

I read an article in the WSJ the other day how PG&E is planning on shutting off power to certain areas in California for up to five days when the wind starts blowing hard in order to prevent wildfires. They're currently working out the details to prevent shutting off the power to those requiring electricity for medical issues, etc. According to the article they did a bit of that last year and caught quite a few people unprepared for the result. One helluva business model. When I was in California recently, while only seeing a small percentage of the state, I don't think I need to go back for any reason, unless it's for a midget race in Ventura. I've seen about all of that state I need to.

With all the rain and the dethatching, the yard looks nicer than it has in several years. I bought a lawn sweeper that came yesterday. I'll get that together in the next few days and see about using it when the grass gets high - like it surely will be by the time it dries out enough to mow again. I'm going to try and make this a year to get the shack looking good both inside and out. So far at least I've got a decent start.

Keep your powder dry!