Tamara Toumanova & Other Royalty

Tamara Touvanoma - she was starring in the film Days of Glory with Gregory Peck on TCM the other morning. I don't recall seeing that movie before, which is pretty surprising. It's not often I get a chance to see a "new" black and white movie, especially since TCM is my number one go-to station on television. Beautiful woman who appeared in several Hollywood films but was better known as a ballerina. Not by me of course. My knowledge of ballet is very limited. The Wikipedia article mentioned George Balanchine, who I'd heard of, but it also mentioned Burr Tillstrom, who if you grew up in the Chicago area in the fifties, would recognize as the man behind Kukla, Fran and Ollie. That says something about my lowbrow upbringing I suppose.

Saw this on a Facebook page for Royal Enfield owners. The bike looks cool but I'm afraid it falls into the category of "lipstick on a pig". If this thing runs like mine it'll be lucky to run with 250cc bikes even though it's 410cc. I was looking at the ABATE website for an advanced rider course but unfortunately, they don't seem to offer one. They do, however, offer a dirt rider course that looks like fun. I haven't done any off-road riding since I was a young man and that's been many a year ago. Might be fun to sign up for that and get the Himalayan a bit dusty.

Another Royal Enfield from social media. Apparently the new 650 twins have been well received. I'd like to take a test ride on one just to see how it feels. The price of these bikes are very reasonable and would make a good starter bike or commuter. Be good for an old fart like me who doesn't need to have the fastest thing out there or something that you would need three of your riding buddies to help pick up if it fell over.

The weather's been damp and cold but progress is being made in both the shop and around the shack. Not a blistering pace by any means but moving forward. I started on the taxes yesterday. My system of throwing all my receipts and records in a box all year long is not the most efficient but it's what I've done my whole life. No point in changing now. It does make it a little time consuming trying to sort everything out prior to meeting with the tax lady but I don't suppose there's anything that's going to make me appreciate all the nice things the government has done with my money without my explicit permission. Maybe if they allowed me to take a deduction for car/motorcycle parts and guns and ammo I'd be a bit happier.