Shop Teacher Bob's Latest Adventure

 Our bike trip on the Cowboy Trail will be starting in Norfolk, Nebraska. We'll get shuttled to Valentine and then start the 200 mile ride back to Norfolk. We're looking at four days on the trail plus a couple of days out and back. The weather looks dry but hot. As long as we travel at an easy pace and stay hydrated, should be OK. I've got a fresh tube of SPF 50 sunscreen. Depending on how things work out we might stop at the Museum of American Speed on the return trip. It's not too far out of the way but it'll depend on the timing of things more than anything else.

I weighed my duffle bag after packing and it was only 19 pounds. Since that's all the weight I'll have in the trailer, I put my self-inflating mattress back in and took the little pad I use for back packing out. All told with my food, cooking gear and clothing I've got right at 30 pounds total for the trailer and the panniers. That's about as low as I can comfortably go. I've got some additional weight in my saddle bag with tools, first aid kit and spare tube and patch kit but those are a necessity.

Happy Trails, Y'all!

Saturday Nights Are For Fighting

Took three fighters to an event Saturday night. We couldn't make a match for one of them, one of them got his ass handed to him and the third one fought to a decision that went his way. The kid that got beat should have gotten an academy award for his performance when he went down. I won't say he took a dive but he sure as hell didn't want to get back up. This is the second time I've worked this guy's corner while filling in for Jimmy and it looked like we were on some reality TV show both times. That's it for me. I'm quits with that guy. Our winning fighter fought real well, getting better every round. He needs to work on his breathing but for a guy who has only had seven fights, he looks real good. He has a classic style - throws well with both hands, puts the shoulder behind the right hand, keeps his feet under him and he's all business in the gym and in competition. Night and day difference between the two fighters.

A couple of real positive things from the night: Our losing fighter was actually crying after the fight. His opponent's mother came over to him and gave him a nice consolation/pep talk and when she finished she told him. "now give me a hug". Classy lady. The referee for the evening was one of the best I've ever been around. He called all the fighters together before the bouts began and gave them his instructions. He repeated his instructions to all the fighters prior to the bouts starting, checked on the fighters between rounds and did a fine job of controlling the action, protecting the fighters but still allowing them to fight. When our winning fighter came back to the corner after the bout, he was hanging on the ropes huffing and puffing while I pulled the gloves and his headgear off him. The decision hadn't been announced but the referee came over and told him to stand up straight and look like a champion. And you could tell he meant it in the nicest possible way. Also he told my guy before the fight started while checking his equipment and repeating his instructions, while looking at me, to pay attention to the old crusty guy, he's been around long enough to know something about boxing. I got a chuckle out of that.

I'm about down to my fighting weight now. I used to be a middle weight - 165 lbs. That's what I weighed when I graduated from high school and when I got married. While I'm a ways off from being a middle weight, I could make weight as a light heavy now. I'm floating around 177-178. My goal is to make 175 by July 7th. Shouldn't have any trouble making that after the bike trip. I've still got a bit of a belly, probably have to get down under 170 for most of that to disappear since I'm not carrying the muscle I used to. Regardless, I'm in pretty good shape for a guy who'll be attending his 50 year high school reunion soon. It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the old dudes held up.

What's Been Going On

The well drilling outfit. It cost a pretty penny to drill the well but when you look at the equipment being used, there's a bit of overhead. There were two guys with two trucks and about a half day of time invested putting the well in.

Another two guys came back to connect everything from the well to the pump in the basement. The little excavator made pretty quick work of the trenching operation but he did have a little trouble with the sides of the trench collapsing in the soft sand. Fortunately it worked out OK without collapsing on anyone but he had to cut the sides back more than he wanted to. 

They showed up about 9:00 and left about 1:30 and I didn't see them stop working the whole time. They were all business and did a pretty nice job of filling in the trench and cleaning up when they were done. They ran a conduit for an electric line at the same time so when my pump fails, it will be relatively easy to swap out with a new submersible pump. I'm hoping that'll be something the next owner can worry about.

The top photo is a heavy bag from the gym. Nothing exciting about this, just put new chain on it. But that's one of the many reasons I need a truck. Seems I'm always hauling something around. Bottom photo is the sidecar wheel with the new tire fitted. It's mounted up on the sidecar now, so everything on that is finished except trimming the windscreen for clearance on the brace. I'm starting back on the bike itself now. 

I bought a Sirius radio tuner for the truck but ran into a snag there - why doesn't that surprise me? The manual says there's an auxiliary jack and a USB port to connect things but there is no auxiliary jack and the Sirius radio kit doesn't have anything that'll connect to the USB port. I need to get an adaptor and then I can finish that up. I found one on eBay for $1.60, shipping included but it won't be here for four to six weeks. Maybe try Radio Shack instead.

I've about got everything ready for the bike trip. I still need to pack my clothes but the bike is ready and the panniers are packed with food and cooking gear. The laundry's all done so it's just a matter of deciding what I'm taking along and packing in into the duffel bag. I checked the weather out there and as of now, it looks promising. No rain and temps in the mid to high eighties. We'll be doing roughly fifty miles per day, so it shouldn't be too tough on an old man.

Have a good weekend.

Cycle Camping

We did the shake-down cruise to see what condition are conditions were in. About 25 miles each way. The trail is very nice but you have to use the highway for about 1-1/2 miles to get to the park. It's a busy road but most of it has a wide berm so it's not too dangerous. My only problems were my old sandals fell apart and leaving the park on the return trip you have to make a couple of steep climbs without any real warm up. At my age and with my medical history, I prefer easing my heart rate up. We got rained on both down and back but the timing worked out so we missed the big storms that came through before we hit the trail. When we got to the park the man in charge was kind enough to put us in a spot right next to a pavilion and close to the bath house so we could stay dry and had shelter if it got real bad. Fortunately, it didn't. My legs held up well with no soreness pulling the trailer around.

When we were getting ready to leave an old dude was cutting grass and we got to talking to him. Come to find out he used to race motorcycles and knew a couple of the same people my buddy and I know. He said he was 80 years old, gave his street bike to his son last year. Cool old dude. That's the kind of conversations you have when traveling on two wheels.

I'm typing this on the newly repaired computer, by the way. The local shop got me fixed up in a timely fashion and at a very reasonable cost. The Geek Squad was going to take three weeks to replace the hard drive and they wouldn't transfer my files unless I ended up paying something in the neighborhood of $150.00. The computer is supposed to be under warranty but apparently the hard drive is under warranty but the programs and the files are software and the warranty doesn't cover that. I'm thinking that's a load of crap. I doubt seriously that I'll be buying another Dell computer nor will I be taking any of my business to Best Buy.

Things are now pretty much back to normal around here. I've got a computer and water, so that's good. Still got a huge list of things that need done around the shack and on the projects but that'll probably always be that way .Looking forward to the upcoming bike trip now.

We Have Water

The well guy showed up and made the hook up. The pump cycle time is much shorter and you can tell when it's running that it's pumping water rather than sucking air. Glad that's over with. I've got quite a bit of work to do to repair the damage done to the yard and the sidewalk but I knew that was coming.

Doing a shake-down cruise on the bike. Going to ride the Panhandle Pathway, camp for the night and then come back the following day. It's been awhile since I did any bike touring but I think I've got everything packed up that I'll need, not only on the shake-down cruise but also for the Cowboy Trail, except for additional clothing and provisions.

I should get my other computer back in another day or two, when that happens I'll post a few pictures of what's been going on around here.

Been having a bit of trouble in the computer department. I've got the big one out for a hardrive exchange and the laptop is still plagued by a lack of memory. Some am I, truth be told, but there's probably not much I can do about that.

The well guy finally showed up and got the new well drilled last week. He was supposed to come back the following day for the hook-up but there was an emergency at one of the dairy farms that took precedence. Hopefully he'll be here on Monday so I can get that job wrapped up.

I got the new tire on the sidecar wheel, so that job is just about finished. Time to start on the bike.

Due to the computer issues, I went into the college the other day to write up a recommendation letter and to take care of a few other things while I was in the neighborhood. I ran into my boss while typing up the letter. One of the instructors has taken a new position and the boss was not too subtlety feeling me out about coming back and teaching a few classes again. He said he was really pleased with how I handled the Fab class and he'd really like for me to teach it again. Have to see about that.

Happy Father's Day to all you Daddy-O's out there. Stay cool.

Service Economy, My Ass

I called Sirius radio yesterday. Since I'm paid up until February, I went ahead and bought one of their portable radios to put in the truck. I wish I could have talked to a native English speaker, however. Working in weld shops and around hot rods and race cars all these years, my hearing is not all that it was, and when you toss in someone from a service center located in India it's a bit tough for both of us. It got worse when I called Dell.

The little laptop I bought in March ran low on memory about the time I took it out of the package. Windows has a couple of updates which basically brought the thing to the point is was barely useable. After being on the phone with their service rep for about 45 minutes he fixed it up so it no longer works at all. He was very nice but I had even more trouble understanding him. After he gave up on the fix he transferred me to someone else who said since it wasn't a hardware problem, he could fix me up but I would be charged for the service. Again, he was hard to understand but I understood enough to know I'm not going to pay to upgrade something that's only three months old. I think I'll scrap it first. Or mail it back to Dell and tell them what they can do with it. I did fill out the online form for problem resolution. Maybe I'll get somewhere with that. In the meantime my big computer was getting a message about the hard drive going bad. I filled out the form and they're sending me a new hard drive. Since it too is a Dell and less than a year old, I'm not too happy with them. 

I hate talking on the phone. By the time I was done talking with the "service" people, I was about as frustrated as a cardiac patient needs to be, so I had a bite of lunch and then headed to the shop. Did some cleaning and putzin' around, including sharpening some drill bits. Good therapy there. As was going to the gym working the heavy bag and the mitts last evening. Still waiting for the well guy to show up also. Be nice if service economy actually offered some decent service.