Little bumpy things

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Ya know those little bumpy things on the road? They are those reflector type objects that they stick on the lines. I remember a day when there were no bumpy things on the roads. Then like overnight, there they are. I thought they were a great idea. In the rain or the dark you could more easily see the lines. Well now that I'm riding a motorcycle like half the time I'm starting to really hate those damn little things. Ya know those times when you turn the corner and are already in second gear at about 7000 rpm and are laid over at a steep angle. Well when you hit those damn bumpy things it's a little un-nerving. Kinda like grooved roads. I'm sure it's safe and all but it just feels really weird. And we all know how I feel about things that feel weird. :) Anyway, just thought you should know that I hate those things now.

To much government!

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So you know when a former military guy says enough is enough where the government is concerned that there is something to that. I really think the FCC is outta control right now. Something about having a little power and thinking you know what's best for everybody. I am an individual and can think for myself. Was I happy to see Janet's boob flop out while I was watching the superbowl with Brandt, no, but ya know what, boobs are a part of life. We are the only country in the world that would freak out over something like this. Anyway, check out StopFCC.com

New Server

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If your seeing this entry then welcome to the new home of the journal. I've moved it from my local RedHat box up to my hosting service. I figured it was a good time to move the journal to mysql. I'll be moving most of the web site up here in the coming weeks. This is for a couple of reasons. First of all, I'm paying for it I might as well use it. Secondly I'll be making the move from RedHat to Suse since RedHat got a case the the MicroSoftizm up thier ass or something. An lastly, but probably the biggest reason is because I have such limited bandwidth at home on the dsl that this way would provide a much faster response on the site. The only thing that will be staying locally with me is the ftp site. That's mostly due to space limitation on the hosting site. For some reason they don't want to give me 20GB of space to host my "Stuff". Anyway, let me know if this works better....

Sometimes I forget….

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A lot of ppl don't know this, but there are secret clubs out there. If your not a member then you may not ever even know they exist. You can also be a member and not even realize. The first time I noticed was when I had my Jeep. Every time I passed someone in another jeep they'd wave to me. If you were stopped someplace, there is a pretty good chance that someone will pull up next to you and engage you in some sort of conversation about your vehicle. Well the same thing exist with motorcycles as well. I had forgot all about that. The motorcycle club may be even tighter than the Jeep club. I dunno, it's a close call. Anyway......

P.S. Just for the record.... "Ohhhh yeaahhhh" That's all I have to say about that!

My Truck doesn’t know what to do!

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So the weather finally got nice. It's been dang near a month since I got my bike and it's been crappy weather ever since. Well yesterday It finally got nice (nice = over 50 degrees). In the last two days I've already got over 100 miles on the thing, ya know "driving to work" and stuff. My truck doesn't really know what to think being all parked in the garage and stuff. I guess I could have washed it before I abandoned it. :) I've been told that bikes are chick magnets. I haven't seen any evidence of that, YET! But I'll keep my eyes peeled for it. :P It's kinda a good thing that the weather was bad for a while. The guy that owned it before me tried to do an upgrade on the speedo, tach, and water temp gauge that went way wrong. I mean it looks really cool but none of the gauges were anywhere near correct. Well all that extra time on my hands let me formulate a couple of really trick ways of calibrating those gauges. I've got them just about 100 percent correct. I had a slight oil leak yesterday. It had been happening for a while. The previous owner thought it was anti-freeze coming from a small crack in the radiator overflow. He replaced the overflow jug but the smell he was smelling came back. Last night I tracked it down and found out that it was missing an o-ring on the oil fill cap. Kawasaki wanted almost $10 for the o-ring. I stopped by Lowes (Go JImmy) on my way home and picked up a wide assortment of o-rings for $1.99. Problem solved!

Micro$oft is EVIL

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So in the past, I've always been of the mind that you should pay for any, or at the very least most, of the software you use. There are just a couple of exceptions to that rule, for instance, shareware cuz, well most of them are crap. I've always kind of liked to at least think about paying for software that I use. Well after my little conversation with "Maryland" at the Micro$oft authentication department today, my whole view has changed. See I really don't care which auth code goes one which computer. All I want is for it to work. Well little miss Maryland must have had a stick up her ass cuz she could not cooperate to save her life. So form now on my attitude has changed. If you can get it for free.... Be my guest. Those greedy bastards will never get another penny of my money that's for sure....

Legal at last….

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So the motorcycle is legal at last. There were so many things that could have gone wrong, but none of them did. We signed the bill of sale on Sunday. That pretty much covered me from most bad things that could have happened. It was structured in a way to protect both me and the other guy. My insurance went pretty smooth. No big hicups there. We did it all over the phone and the fax machine. And my trip to the DMV was way easier than it probably should have been. I was the first one in line at the door. As soon as they unlock them suckers I was in there and didn't even have time to pretend to get in line and they were calling me over. The lady was really pretty nice for working at the DMV. She said I had everythign I needed and if I'd just cut her a check I'd be on my way. I did, and I was... :) So right now I wanna drive home for lunch and slap the tags on and ride it back but I know that's not a good idea. It's cold and almost rainy and the time frame for lunch would be pushing it. I don't think that's a good idea. Anyway, more pics to come soon.

Yeah….. Keep your kids off the sidewalk!

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Well I think it's finally going to happen. I'm getting the motorcycle. I'm not 100% sure when, but it should be tonight or in the morning. Either is fine with me. Anyway, I think I'm going to keep in right there in the neighborhood for a few days. I've rode a lot of motorcycles over the years but It's been about 6 years since my last Nija experience. Well ya know, cept the 20 minutes I had on it a couple of weeks ago. Anyway...

Good news, Bad news

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Well I really don't know how to take this all. Today I got my tax paperwork from my mortgage company. On the good news side I've only been in the house 6 months and I've already paid over $1400 in principal. I think that's pretty good for my first 6 months of a new loan. Then the bad news. My payment is going up almost $50 a month. It's cuz the taxes and on top of that they are just getting ready to most likely pass a school bond which will jack it up another $15. That's going to take a big chunk outta the extra money I've been putting into this thing. Oh well, what can ya do?

Yeeee Haaawww! More Power

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OK... so here is the deal. One of Brandt's teachers is making him to a very stupid project. It's not so much the project is dumb it's how they handled it. They didn't give the kids any time to plan for it, and they want them to do it all in class. That's all fine but they want something that's really advanced and takes time. Their project was to build a working catapult. Well you know me. I'm off to Lowes to try and steal that big giant Jimmy sign they have there in front and while I"m there I'll pick up some wood and screws. At this point we didn't even really know what we wanted to do. Well we knew what but not how. Well after thinking about it, I talked with Brandt and we decided to build the biggest, baddest catapult the sixth grade has ever seen. And we did! We used the wood we bought, plus we recycled a little shelf set I had from the kitchen and we began to create. It wasn't my idea, it wasn't Brandt's. I was truly a combination of us both. I was in charge of a lot of the power tool work. But heck, by the end, I was pretty much just a clamp so Brandt could do the power tools. It's amazing what you can do with a Dremel and a cutoff wheel. :) Anyway we built it and test fired it. It didn't work very well. It was pretty but not much power. Anyway, after thinking about it we realized that we needed a stop. We had been using the rubber band as a stop but it was stopping the arm two late causing the payload to be launched straight into the ground. Slapped us in a big beefy brace to stop the arm from going fwd and magic happened. We could launch a rock a good 30 feet. And we could even get the cat to get some hang time if we tried. Anyway... Here's the pics..... Brandt's Catapult