Reflections

Two days ago (Monday, January 29, 2007) we had our dog Killian’s teeth cleaned, plaque and tarter. (“Remember; there is no plaque in the Dental-Hall-of-Fame.”)
This is rather traumatic, since it requires putting the dog under anesthesia — in this case, gas; first time was injected general anesthesia.
I can just imagine trying to clean the teeth of an awake dog. It’s hard enough administering pills.
This is the second time.
The first time was so traumatic I didn’t want to put him through it again.
But the vet promised gas was less traumatic than injected general anesthesia.
And plaque was building up on Killian’s teeth. Thankfully it’s not building up on Sabrina. I don’t think I’d want to put her through such a thing. Sabrina is 11; Killian is younger, and spunkier.
Nevertheless, the procedure made Killian wonky; perhaps not as wonky as the last time, but utterly smashed.
We went skiing yesterday afternoon and left the dogs home. I went skiing last weekend and Linda walked the dogs (i.e. before the procedure) — although it was more like running; I can ski that fast.
Killian is recovering slowly — doing a lot of sleeping. Monday night we had to cover him with a blanket. I’m sure his mouth hurts.
Today (Wednesday, January 31, 2007) we might go for a walk at their beloved elitist country-club.
Every time I suggest a walk, his tail starts thumping enthusiastically. In fact, it starts thumping enthusiastically the second I show up, despite wrong snowblower, wrong running-shoes, wrong ‘pyooter, wrong motorcycle, wrong breakfast-food, wrong politics, wrong operating-system, and on-and-on; world without end — amen, amen.
What I find interesting is that it starts thumping enthusiastically despite my being a brain-injured wreck. He doesn’t seem to have been clued in by my loving siblings.

“World’s Fastest Indian” is drifting slowly away.
Cycle-World and I have been carrying on a furious game of phone-tag. I called a few days ago, left a message, and they called back and left a message.
I called a second time, left a message, and again they called back later and left a message.
So far, no charges to the credit-card account, so it sounds like my online purchase attempt crashed.
So in the words of Dubya: “what, me worry?”
I wasn’t that desperate for that tape anyway. If I get it at all, it will probably be at Vast’s el-cheapo link.

“In Search of Steam” is also drifting away.
Again, no credit-card charge, and I got the predictable blathering “We’re working on it” response to my e-mail inquiry.
But more than anything I realized I might already have it downstairs in a box in the cellar.
It’s an old book; this most recent a reissue with probably an updated introduction.
But why in the wide, wide world would I want an updated introduction? It’s the content that matters; and I may already have that in our cellar.
No charge; so again, “what, me worry?”

Principal maintained our deferred-income account at the mighty Mezz. When I retired, I rolled over the entire deferred-income balance into an IRA at Principal.
The other day I got a 1099-R from Principal declaring the entire balance had been distributed to me, but of course, I hadn’t received anything.
So I called them up — an 800-number — and after waiting a few minutes and listening to various plugs for their fabulous all-caring services, was told by a service-rep they had to issue a 1099-R even though the entire deferred-income balance had been rolled over into an IRA.
I had noticed the 1099-R said nothing was taxable, and there also was a code on the back that indicated the deferred-income balance had been rolled over into an IRA.
I also was told the mighty Mezz is ending their relationship with Principal — probably from the transfer of ownership.
No matter: the money sits (about $28,000) until I’m advised otherwise. We don’t need it.

We have joined the Canandaigua YMCA. No discharge-letter yet from the PT-gym, so no written apology yet. But I ain’t mailing it without a hard-copy discharge-letter. I don’t think the Bluster-King would either — despite going over-the-top with me.
And so my dreaded discharge from the PT-gym has lead to what I feel is a better option. The Canandaigua YMCA costs half as much, and has better equipment.
So the fabulous PT-gym drifts into the filmy past, victims, I feel, of their own over-reaction. It’s lead to a better deal.
Whatever; working-out at the PT-gym got me in better shape, enough to improve my skiing, and put the almighty Bluster-King on-the-trailer at the mighty Curve.

My sister-in-law (my brother’s wife) in Delaware goes by the nickname “Vast Right-Wing Conspirator.” She likes to surf the Internet for el-cheapo ways of buying things, and then browbeat you for “spending too much.”

blogger follies

The new free Messenger web-site, instituted some time ago replacing the paid web-site I did, has six bloggers on it, actually hot-links to their blogs.
I don’t look at the new site much. It has so much on it it’s an intimidating mish-mash. And I’m not the only one who has said so.
Plus a lot of what it has wants players downloaded. I have enough players; and I’m not interested.
The players are for TV video-clips and ads. Ho-hum. Amtrak through Claymont was worth downloading a player for, but otherwise PASS.
Apparently the six bloggers are all Messenger-employees, alhough one has left, leaving a hole.
“Hey Grady; I hear you do a blog,” a reporter, also a blogger, said.
“Yes I do,” I answered.
“So what’s it about?” she asked.
“Whatever comes into my head,” I said.
“Oh,” she said, somewhat deflated.
The blogger who left was blogging about local entertainment spots. They were hoping for someone to fill that gap.
“Well that ain’t a blog,” I thought to myself. “Sounds more like an assignment, or in reporter-lingo ‘a beat.’”
Plenty of Messenger employees maintain blogs. The so-called “Hasidic-Jew” maintains a blog called “Land O’ Ledley.”
Former employees Marcy Dewey and her betrothed Bryan Mahoney maintain blogs.
I can’t imagine the mighty Mezz hot-linking to the blogs of former employees but they’re not linking to Land O’ Ledley either, and he’s an editor.
I’m sorry; what the mighty Mezz bloggers are doing sounds more like a beat.
It may be written in blog-format, and be looser than newspaper-reporting, but it ain’t a blog as I know it.
“We might want to hot-link to your blog,” the reporter/blogger said.
I doubt it. I’m not covering a specific subject.

“Grady” was my nickname at the mighty Mezz.

My sister-in-Floridy surveyed a picture of Messenger-Post Editor Dave Wheeler (“Ledley”) and allowed he looked like a “Hasidic-Jew.”

My nephew posted a video-clip of an Amtrak Metroliner speeding south at 100 mph through Claymont, Del. on the Northeast Corridor. It required Windoze Media-Player.

www.ozone.com

Last night (Saturday, January 27, 2007) I decided to try and order the book “In Search of Steam” by David P. Morgan and photographer Phil Hastings.
Morgan was the editor of Trains Magazine for 33 years. He’s long dead, but had an appreciation of railroading very similar to mine (i.e. he probably didn’t know what the “Flying Bubba” was).
The fact he was editor was the major reason I became a long-time subscriber to Trains. His magazine also had good writing, unlike others I’ve never subscribed to; e.g. “Railfan & Railroad” and “Railroad Magazine.”
“In Search of Steam” is an assemblage of Trains Magazine articles wherein Morgan and Hastings went out in search of the few remaining steam-operations in the late ‘50s — e.g. Norfolk & Western and Union Pacific over Sherman Hill.
One is fabulous pacing of a New York Central Hudson (pictured) at 90 mph across rural Indiana. The railroad is long since abandoned; all that’s left is the right-of-way.
I’ve always wanted to get that book, and here it was, specially promoted in Trains and Classic-Trains (I get both): “order it online at www.classictrains.com/promo; enter promo-code IK73K3.”
So I cranked www.classictrains.com/promo into my IE, then cranked IK73K3 into the promo-code box, and promptly got sent to www.ozone.com.
Okay, so we try a different browser, Netscape 7.0 — I’ve had IE bomb before. “Ooops! You have entered an invalid promo-code.”
So Linda tried it on her PC: “Ooops! You have entered an invalid promo-code.”
She fired up FireFox: “Ooops! You have entered an invalid promo-code.”
So I fired off a question to their webmaster: “I crank both ‘IK73K3’ and ‘1K73K3’ into the promo-code window, and ‘Ooops! You have entered an invalid promo-code;’ www.ozone.com. I guess I gotta use your 800-number.”
“Ain’t technology wonderful?”

My brother-in-Boston (“Bubba”) loudly claims he’s more a railfan than me because he knows what the “Flying Dude” is — and of course I didn’t.

www.ozone.com is a valid web-address.

“Getting cleaned up”

The other afternoon (Thursday, January 25, 2007) I visited Hairman for the first time this year; the whole shot: permanent, beard-trim, haircut, 60 smackaroos; what I call “getting cleaned up.”
—“Getting cleaned up” because I look like the Wild-Man-of-Borneo before. If it were just a haircut it would be $15.
I’m sure part of the added cost is the beard-trim. I grew a beard so I could discontinue shaving, which was horribly abusive at the time.
I shave about every 10 days — just my neck — and shaving is much less abusive than it was. Without a beard it would be every day or two.
I abstained from blue-rinse or hair-dyeing. Despite the noisy blustering from West Bridgewater, I don’t even know what blue-rinse is. I also don’t slather my hair with Grecian Formula.
Thursday’s visit was a bit challenging, since it was my first since Hairman’s wife Linda was diagnosed with cancer.
“Boy-oh-boy, I sure am glad to see you,” I said, seeing Linda as I walked in.
She looked rather haggard and hollow-eyed, but perhaps the same as last visit when I wasn’t looking.
It’s serious, but at least her doctors consider her a candidate for surgery — i.e. they haven’t thrown up their hands and said “we can’t do anything.”
But Hairman and Linda are scared. My visit was filled with nervous chatter.
Apparently they’d flown to Boston, referred there by her doctors.
But at least it was actually a hospital; unlike the abandoned mini mall where my brother had his vastly superior colonoscopy.
Of course the visit was perfunctory. “I don’t know why we flew out there, at great expense, just to be interviewed?” Hairman said.
“I don’t think I could face that surgery without you at my side, Joseph,” Linda said.
This is not the Linda I’m used to hearing: snide-remarks and back-bites and pot-shots about what a reprehensible person Hairman is.
There was complaining about the cost of the taxi from Logan to the hospital. “You never said anything about the cost of my dentures, the stent, or the reconstructive surgery on my hands,” Hairman said (all thousands of dollars); “yet complain about $40 for a taxi.” I guess it was a city-taxi, which costs more. A speed-bomb would cost less, although still a lot. (Cue Bluster-King; the self-proclaimed Boston taxi-authority I’m sure.)
“We could have ridden the T,” Linda exclaimed.
The surgery would be performed in Boston, but rehab/etc in Rochester.
Involved would be staying in Boston for the surgery: “—I don’t know why they don’t have a Ronald McDonald House. We can’t afford an apartment” (even at $60 per visit).
I was their only customer at the time. Usually Linda sets my hair, but Hairman (who has trouble with his hands) did instead while Linda sat in a chair.
More tests are scheduled — another trip to Boston. “Just driving there is two tanks of gas: that’s $80.”
The testing is to see if it’s spread to her lymph-nodes. If it hasn’t, the chemo would just be a chemical washout during the surgery. If it’s spread to her lymph-nodes, she’ll need chemo.
“So what do I do in five weeks?” I asked.
“Call us up,” Linda said.

(My brother in Boston is a self-proclaimed knower of all things.)

T-shirts

This morning (Friday, January 26, 2007), I tried on the two new T-shirts I received from whitehorsepress.com, an outlet for motorcycle stuff.
One is Triumph; one is Norton. Both are black, and look pretty spiffy. The Norton T-shirt replaces one I bought long-ago and has worn out.
The T-shirts cost $21.95 each.
I can see it now: Vast shrieks and immediately redirects her ‘pyooter to Froogle.
“I coulda got them T-shirts for $10.95 each at “deepdiscountedtshirt.com,” “t-shirts-for-less.com, or tshirtcentral.com.”
A few months ago I noticed a Buffalo-Bills T-shirt on a rack at Weggers. It probably cost more than $21.95 — this is Weggers, after-all; they’re selling ambience.
There it was, hanging in front of me on the rack, right size, the whole kabosh.
All I had to do was toss it into my cart and pay for it. Saved driving home without it and spending an hour Froogling, $50 shipping-and-handling, and probably finding only cheap imitations made by Chinese child prison-labor.
So Jack walks into the Pasties store, and the staff licks their lips lustily in fevered anticipation.
Every time Jack strides into Monty Python’s Harley-Emporium, it’s “toss another steak on the grill, Martha. Here comes that Hughes-guy.”
I know Vast means well, but every time my sister-in-law flies to the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower, she regales us with the puny price she paid for airfare on Granny’s Airline and Storm-Door Company, where they toss you over the side of their wheezing Curtiss Jenny at your destination with a parachute.
As far as I’m concerned, the convenience is worth the inflated price.

My brother-in-Delaware’s wife goes by the nickname “Vast Right-Wing Conspirator.”

The Harley-shop my brother-in-Boston patronizes is “Monty’s.”

“The shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower” is where my 91-year-old mother-in-law lives in north Floridy.

The “Pasties” are my brother-in-Boston’s beloved New-England Patriots football-team. Family-members renamed them “the Patsies,” and my brother misspelled it “Pasties.”

DVD-follies

La-dee-DAH!
I have received my first DVD: “Ultimate Tehachapi” from Pentrex.
What a pain-in-the-neck!
Seems a DVD presumes you’re sitting down and viewing the entire video in one shot.
Um, “Ultimate Tehachapi” is an eight-hour video.
What has happened in the past is I would view 5-10 minutes of a tape while eating, and then eject the tape.
Naturally, it would eject at the place in the tape where you ejected it, so that you could reinsert the tape later, next time, and pick up where ya left off.
Can’t do that with a DVD — or so it seems (cue all-knowing DVD experts).
Eject a DVD after a few minutes, reinsert, and whole DVD loads again, and starts from the beginning. It ain’t picking up where ya left off.
Ya also can’t fast-forward a DVD, or back-up to replay a part ya wanna replay. (Maybe ya can, but fast-anything also includes the sound; the announcer yammering at gibberish-speed. Fast-anything with a VHS cuts out the sound.
Now that I know all this, I ain’t sure I wanna dub my valuable VHSs to DVD. The best one I have has a panning-shot of AT&SF diesels running parallel to Cajon Blvd. I always play it twice or even three times. Eight diesels are on the point. The diesels are doing about 50, and the camera pans from one diesel to the next — one after another back-to-front; eight all-together.
I always back it up and play that segment over. Don’t know if I could do that with a DVD.
Segments of my Amtrak Corridor cab-rides get played over-and-over.
I ain’t so sure DVD was an advance.

Looks like the Canandaigua YMCA it will be......

Yesterday afternoon (Wednesday, January 24, 2007), hooked up with two other errands in the Canandaigua area, we reconnoitered the Canandaigua YMCA.
We had to park in a tiny, cramped parking-lot behind the building; a parking-lot from the ‘50s. Belknap’s F250 would have needed two spots, and docking it would have been near impossible.
We then had to walk around the entire building, because what we thought was the entrance was marked as an emergency-exit — gongs will clang, sirens will whoop, the Fire-Department will be called, and various traumatic dramas will ensue.
While circumnavigating the building, I noticed the cornerstone said 1959, which seemed fitting, as the building was straight from the ‘50s — Springer Junior-High revisited — a low, flat-roofed brick building, with misted aluminum-framed windows, and a big white fluorescent-lighted sign on top with red-and-black lettering.
At the official entrance we were greeted by a nice receptionist that seemed older than us.
“We’d like to consider your exercise-equipment,” we said.
The receptionist was otherwise occupied, but directed us to the Nautilus-room.
It looked somewhat intimidating, and Bono was loudly serenading all-and-sundry: “BA-BOOM; BA-BOOM; BA-BOOM; BA-BOOM!”
There were at least five treadmills — only two in use — plus five recumbent bicycles; three in use.
Two girls were blasting furiously away on the recumbents; plus the treadmills could monitor heart-rate; by comparison the PT-gym’s treadmill is an old clunker, and can’t monitor heart-rate.
A young kid was earnestly cranking the bicep-machine.
Back at the receptionist-desk, the lady consented to show us around: first the vast gym with its basketball-court and running-track above, and then the pool (beastly humid, and at least 80°).
“I’d have to circle that track at least a ‘hundered’ times,” I said.
“22 and 1/3rd laps equals a mile,” she said.
Walking back, my wife asked “What if we’re seniors?”
“Well, I didn’t know you were seniors,” the lady said. “Senior-membership is substantially discounted.”
“We may not look like seniors,” I said; “but are.......” (Cue Bluster-King.)
So the two of us will cost half what it was at the PT-gym.
Plus the Y has much better equipment, and more of it.
What I really need is a treadmill and a recumbent.
They also have at least five step-machines, although they’re more like running than climbing steps. (A thick-legged girl was pumping away.)
And that’s just the Nautilus-room. There is a separate cardiovascular room with more machines.
I belonged to the Y in Rochester; Transit paid half my membership.
A bus-driver who has since died (he was older than me) used to show off on the bicep-machine. Another driver tried to max-out the quad-machine.
I also got to listen in the locker-room to frustrated fathers complaining about their teenage daughters. “I’m tempted to swat her one.” “Don’t!”

Triumph, of sorts.........

Linda Hughes.

Today (Wednesday, January 24, 2007) was a triumph, of sorts.
We went cross-country skiing at the so-called elitist country-club.
“Triumph” because two years ago, the last time I skied, I was down to about two feet per stroke — barely mushing. I wasn’t aware of it, but I’m told I was.
“Boy, it does my heart good to see you ski like that,” Linda said. “It’s that PT-gym.”
We engineered various work-arounds to correct the challenges of yesterday that made skiing impossible.
1) was going to the bathroom before setting out; and 2) was putting on the skis inside the car-door. I tried putting them on inside the car-door yesterday in the garage, and ascertained that indeed it could be done. (All of this cuts out having to attach the skis in the snow — which is almost impossible; usually impossible.)
Today was about 4-5 feet per stroke. Plus glide.
There is a gully you have to cross (the road is graded above it); so I attempted the first downhill. Made it! Got up to about 25 mph — and didn’t fall.
Coming back you cross the gully again, but the downhill on that side is very fast and curves at the bottom.
Cross-country skiing is work. My turtle-neck was soaked with sweat, and the old ticker was a-poundin’. Makes ya breath hard too.
Much more so than walking the dogs.
Most depressing about this whole gig is that we have to leave the dogs behind. Let Killian loose and we’d never see him again. Sabrina would wander off in search of rotting carcasses and deer-pucky.

MotoGP

My February 2007 issue of Cycle-World (which contrary to the fervent wishes of my macho brother in Boston doesn’t worship Harley-Davidson, and is therefore reprehensible) has an interesting article on MotoGP racing, and the motorcycles therein.
The article was written by Kevin Cameron, the best writer the magazine has on its staff, primarily because he’s technically-oriented.
Last month he did an analysis on the S&S X-Wedge, and explained its engineering-superiority to the Harley-Davidson clones.
It was very interesting to me, since it explained the limitations of the hoary old Harley design; that S&S decided to improve it.
MotoGP replaced 500cc two-stroke that was burning up the motorcycle grand-prix.
The 500cc two-stroke had turned into a grenade; it developed so much explosive power, which hit like a light-switch, it burned up tires and/or spit riders off.
MotoGP, 990cc four-stroke, was more civilized; except it was burning up tires too.
So this year MotoGP was reduced to 800cc, but the manufacturers responded by making their motors as powerful as 990cc.
How did they do this? Rev the motor to 18-grand, at which point it generates as much power as 990cc at 15-grand.
All but Yamaha are doing V4s; Yamaha’s an inline four.
Even Ducati is a V4, but has desmodromic valve gear.
Which is why I find the article interesting, because one of the manufacturers, Suzuki, has gone to pneumatic valves.
Mechanical valve-actuation, with return-springs, has limitations.
The opening ramp of a cam has to be easy enough to not bounce the follower off the cam. Steep enough the valve bounces into the ozone.
Tight return-springing can offset that, but invites deterioration of the cam-surfaces and the followers.
Desmo is mechanical too, but adds a second cam to close the valves (instead of return-springs), and makes the followers follow the cam.
My 1980 900SS Ducati was desmo, although only single overhead-cam and two-valve. Desmo allowed the opening-ramps to be steep, so even the idle was ground-shaking.
I’m sure the straight-through mufflers contributed, but a HUGE-AAAH intake-charge was being processed by the motor.
Both Desmo and pneumatic (I think) dispense with return-springs. Pneumatic is common in Formula-One auto-racing.
I can’t comprehend pneumatic valves — I suppose it’s reaction to how sloppy air-brakes are on a train.
Air-brakes were a HUGE-AAAH advancement over the individual braking of “brakies” riding the car-tops — in that the train-engineer could brake the entire train (instead of having to rely on “brakies” sliding over rocking, icy car-tops).
But application of the brakes over an entire train takes minutes — requiring compensation for its engineering limitations. In fact, passenger-trains rely on electrical actuation of the air-brakes in the cars, so that braking-action is much quicker, and smoother, when induced by the engineer.
If passenger-trains had the same brake-gear as on coal-cars, the train would bunch up as the lead-cars began braking. SLAM-CRASH; throw the passengers on the floor.
My impression of pneumatic valves is that actual activation could be erratic — that activation would be sloppy and imprecise.
But I guess it’s more precise than mechanical — we’re talking about micro-management.
I had the same feelings about fuel-injection. Volkswagen’s original fuel-injection (the FI on my Dasher and Rabbits) was continuous; i.e. the FI was always pumping gas, including when the individual cylinders didn’t need it.
But pollution-requirements required more precise gasoline metering — off-on — such that the FI delivered gas to a cylinder only during the intake-stroke.
The idea of metering out such precise amounts of gasoline at such high speeds was incomprehensible.
But that’s what’s done; technology has advanced to the point that precise off-on metering can be done at thousands of cycles per minute.
So the idea of pneumatic valves, though incomprehensible, is doable; and better than mechanical — especially if it dispenses with return-springs.

Food-Fight

Mega-pulp........
Last week Linda did not get to go to the store.
Linda goes to the MarketPlace supermarket in nearby Honeoye Falls and does 50-60% of the grocery-shopping. It’s about 5-6 miles away.
I do the remainder of the grocery-shopping at the mighty Canandaigua Weggers, about 15 miles away, mainly produce, milk and meat (chicken/turkey, fish, whatever).
As such, Linda buys the orange-juice, and MarketPlace sells Florida’s Natural as well as Tropicana.
Weggers sells Tropicana and its own brand. No Florida’s Natural.
But since Linda didn’t get to shop, we had to buy orange-juice at Weggers, in this case the infamous jewel-in-the-crown, the Pittsford-Plaza Weggers, the store so big you need a powered cart, and the vast parking-lot has limo-service.
Thanks to our vaunted free-market system, the simple act of buying orange-juice has become a monstrous hairball.
Florida’s Natural sells orange-juice with calcium and “some-pulp;” which is what we buy.
Weggers only had pulp without calcium, or calcium without pulp.
Tropicana had calcium with “lotsa pulp;” so that is what we bought.
So all week we’ve been drinking juice with a thick layer of pulp on top — so thick you think you’re drinking sawdust.
We had three gallons of mega-pulp to consume — that’s three half-gallons mixed with water into gallons.

The great taco experiment........
Usually we have bought tacos at Taco-Bell (BONG!).
But Taco-Bell is accused of delivering toxins, and we’ve always wanted to make tacos on our own.
We made tacos some time ago, but made the mistake of using crunchy shells.
Soft-shell tacos can be managed.
We had a small packet of taco-seasoning, enough for 12 tacos it said. One each for us is a meal.
We thawed some ground-round, cooked it, and mixed in the taco-seasoning. It looked like about four meals, so we froze half.
We had soft tortillas, so made the tacos with diced tomatoes, chopped lettuce, and shredded cheese.
Bearable, I guess; although I got too much meat on mine.
They were suggesting salsa, but I used the mixed ketchup and salsa I put on fish (not salmon-steaks).
The only remaining hairball is Taco-Bell’s (BONG!) mild “Border-Sauce.” We had a few packets left, so used them. No idea what to replace them with — we don’t want fire-sauces.

Follies

www.abyss.com........
I tried this morning to order a DVD from shop.cycleworld.com: “The World’s Fastest Indian.”
I have two browsers: IE and Netscape 7.0. I usually try IE first, as occasionally Netscape locks up, plus IE has “autofill.”
The other night I tried to order two T-shirts online from www.whitehorsepress.com, and made it as far as confirming my order. Then we went into www.abyss.com.
The next morning I tried ordering online with Netscape, and completed the order.
But then I was worried about a double-order, so ended up calling their 800-number.
Sure enough, my Netscape order had to be deleted. My IE order had completed too, despite www.abyss.com.
“The World’s Fastest Indian” went to www.abyss.com too. I got as far as “processing order,” which was www.abyss.com.
No Netscape this time; I ain’t double-ordering. I guess I hafta call their 800-number — which of course is Schwarzenegger-time. Ain’t technology wonderful!? Every online-order goes to www.abyss.com. I might as well hit their 800-numbers first — I end up calling them anyway (“punch one for customer-service — punch two to bellyache; all our representatives are busy at the moment — your call will be answered in the order it was received. Please hold during the silence: ‘boom-chicka-boom-chicka-boom-chicka-boom-chicka......’”

More www.abyss.com........
I cranked a number of links into the “Food-Fight” story. Who knows if they work? The MarketPlace link is to a Yahoo map site — I guess the Honeoye Falls MarketPlace doesn’t have a site.
The Yahoo MarketPlace link had other links on it, but all went to www.abyss.com.
A second link was Florida’s Natural, but that went to a black site with a big white window. Cranked into Netscape (the browser I use with MyFamblee), it showed the same black window, and wanted me to download a FlashPlayer.
Pass! I already have enough FlashPlayers, and I ain’t that desperate.
So I don’t get the Florida’s Natural site — so what!

We went to the so-called elitist country-club this morning, without the dogs, to attempt cross-country skiing.
Not taking the dogs is very depressing — they would love it — but trying to hold back a leashed dog on cross-country skis would be impossible.
But cross-country skiing is nearly impossible too — we had to give up.
The bindings on my skis are almost impossible in the cold. Indoors they work easy-as-pie, but in the snow they’re impossible.
We got them attached in the parking-lot, and advanced the 50 yards to the Porta-John, but then they had to be removed to use the Porta-John. Getting them back on after the Porta-John was beyond-the-pale.
I’ve done it before (two years ago), but they’ve always been a challenge.
I guess we have to go back and get bindings that work in the snow. The ones I have make it impossible to ski.

MotoGP

My February 2007 issue of Cycle-World (which contrary to the fervent wishes of my macho brother in Boston doesn’t worship Harley-Davidson, and is therefore reprehensible) has an interesting article on MotoGP racing, and the motorcycles therein.
The article was written by Kevin Cameron, the best writer the magazine has on its staff, primarily because he’s technically-oriented.
Last month he did an analysis on the S&S X-Wedge, and explained its engineering-superiority to the Harley-Davidson clones.
It was very interesting to me, since it explained the limitations of the hoary old Harley design; that S&S decided to improve it.
MotoGP replaced 500cc two-stroke that was burning up the motorcycle grand-prix.
The 500cc two-stroke had turned into a grenade; it developed so much explosive power, which hit like a light-switch, it burned up tires and/or spit riders off.
MotoGP, 990cc four-stroke, was more civilized; except it was burning up tires too.
So this year MotoGP was reduced to 800cc, but the manufacturers responded by making their motors as powerful as 990cc.
How did they do this? Rev the motor to 18-grand, at which point it generates as much power as 990cc at 15-grand.
All but Yamaha are doing V4s; Yamaha’s an inline four.
Even Ducati is a V4, but has desmodromic valve gear.
Which is why I find the article interesting, because one of the manufacturers, Suzuki, has gone to pneumatic valves.
Mechanical valve-actuation, with return-springs, has limitations.
The opening ramp of a cam has to be easy enough to not bounce the follower off the cam. Steep enough the valve bounces into the ozone.
Tight return-springing can offset that, but invites deterioration of the cam-surfaces and the followers.
Desmo is mechanical too, but adds a second cam to close the valves (instead of return-springs), and makes the followers follow the cam.
My 1980 900SS Ducati was desmo, although only single overhead-cam and two-valve. Desmo allowed the opening-ramps to be steep, so even the idle was ground-shaking.
I’m sure the straight-through mufflers contributed, but a HUGE-AAAH intake-charge was being processed by the motor.
Both Desmo and pneumatic (I think) dispense with return-springs. Pneumatic is common in Formula-One auto-racing.
I can’t comprehend pneumatic valves — I suppose it’s reaction to how sloppy air-brakes are on a train.
Air-brakes were a HUGE-AAAH advancement over the individual braking of “brakies” riding the car-tops — in that the train-engineer could brake the entire train (instead of having to rely on “brakies” sliding over rocking, icy car-tops).
But application of the brakes over an entire train takes minutes — requiring compensation for its engineering limitations. In fact, passenger-trains rely on electrical actuation of the air-brakes in the cars, so that braking-action is much quicker, and smoother, when induced by the engineer.
If passenger-trains had the same brake-gear as on coal-cars, the train would bunch up as the lead-cars began braking. SLAM-CRASH; throw the passengers on the floor.
My impression of pneumatic valves is that actual activation could be erratic — that activation would be sloppy and imprecise.
But I guess it’s more precise than mechanical — we’re talking about micro-management.
I had the same feelings about fuel-injection. Volkswagen’s original fuel-injection (the FI on my Dasher and Rabbits) was continuous; i.e. the FI was always pumping gas, including when the individual cylinders didn’t need it.
But pollution-requirements required more precise gasoline metering — off-on — such that the FI delivered gas to a cylinder only during the intake-stroke.
The idea of metering out such precise amounts of gasoline at such high speeds was incomprehensible.
But that’s what’s done; technology has advanced to the point that precise off-on metering can be done at thousands of cycles per minute.
So the idea of pneumatic valves, though incomprehensible, is doable; and better than mechanical — especially if it dispenses with return-springs.

Misadventures

This morning the outside temperature was 9° — too cold for dogs.
So we decided instead to go to mighty Weggers, via the 93-year-old nosy neighbor who has been in Thompson Hospital about a week.
The ambulance took him last weekend, although it wasn’t an emergency (i.e. no lights, no siren).
He had fallen a week-or-two ago, and had difficulty walking — he had cracked his pelvis, it was ascertained.
He had taken to staying in his lift-chair (that dumps ya on the floor), and was wearing a diaper, and had fallen again. I guess he had spilled his pee-pot, and was trying to clean it up.
In the chair, he was essentially inactive, so that he wasn’t walking, and hadn’t been outside for weeks.
His only son Billy (in his 70s) from Pittsburgh, had been up since Thanksgiving — afraid to go home.
Billy decided he couldn’t take care of him, plus the hospital was to give him rehab.
So off to the hospital he went — next step rehab at a nursing-home.
He was still in the hospital this morning; and Billy was fixing to go home — since his daughter (the 93-year-old nosy neighbor’s granddaughter) was on-hand to take care of the 93-year-old nosy neighbor’s wife — who seems to be getting better.
And so we proceeded towards Thompson Hospital, although first we had to hit the infamous Bloomfield (Holcomb) post-office to dump some letters in the outdoor drive-by boxes.
I drive up 5&20 into Bloomfield, and turn left at a cross-street that intersects the street that eventually goes by the post-office.
As soon as I made my left-turn, an intimidator in a white Jeep fell in behind me and climbed my bumper.
Intimidator was exceedingly angry I wasn’t negotiating the street at 152 mph, so roared unsignaled off onto an old one-way side-street that cuts the dogleg.
He was already blasting out onto the street that goes by the post-office as I stopped at it.
As he disappeared into the distance in a cloud of tire-smoke and dust; yep, sure-enough; W-04 on the back of the Jeep.

The 93-year-old nosy neighbor was glad to see us — especially me — probably lonely and bored-to-death. “They ain’t givin’ me no rehab,” he said. “Nuthin’!”
“And when ya gotta go to the bathroom, yer supposed to ring up the nurse.”
“When they finally showed up: ‘too late.’”
“One time I rang the bell, and waited almost an hour,” he reported.
“A nurse walked by, so I threw a plastic cup at her on the floor.”
“‘Were you tryin’ to hit me?’ she screamed. ‘Got your attention, didn’t I,’ I said.”
“And if ya fall, the whole hospital shows up. ‘Whadja try that for?’ they shriek.”
“I don’t know; it’s crazy, I tell ya.”
We jabbered for at least 45 minutes. Who knows; this may be the last motel; although he’s rather ornery.
A seeing-eye dog visited, and he asked the dog why it wasn’t wearing a white coat.......

Next stop was mighty Weggers to buy groceries, as I would have done anyway.
Leaving I had to back out of my parking-slot, and a beige Altima started backing out as soon as I started.
“Woops!” Linda shouted; “I guess we better wait for Mr. speed-demon;” who had backed out without looking.
I dutifully waited for Mr. speed-demon, and fell in behind him at an access-road parallel to 5&20 (Lakeshore Blvd.) that tees into another access-road that intersects with 5&20 at a traffic-light. I noticed the beige Altima had a W-04 sticker on the back. DUBYA-STICKER ALERT! We proceeded to a stop sign at the road that accesses the traffic-light; and that road also goes straight-across into the old Chase-Pitkin (now closed).
So the drill is to yield-right-of-way to anyone coming straight across 5&20 from the old Chase-Pitkin into Weggers.
The traffic-light changed, and the beige Altima, turning left (unsignaled) onto 5&20, lunged headlong right in front of a full-size Chevy pickup coming straight across the intersection. (The pickup had to slam on its brakes.)
The W-04 sticker was on the back of the beige Altima, so how could the Chevy-driver see it and take cover?
“HOOOOONNNNKKKK!” One-finger salute time; smackdown time; the Chevy pickup had a W-04 sticker too.
What happens when two Dubya-supporters are at odds? (NUCLEAR ARMAGEDDON ALERT! BLAZING UZI ALERT!)

(My brother in Delaware brags his turbocharged Volvo will do 152 mph.)

Haircut

Obviously a noisy discussion has broken out pertaining to the relative worth of an individual as indicated by how his-or-her hair is cut.
I find myself pilloried as a cheapo skinflint for laying out $60 to have my hair done in a salon, whereas my brothers live-large pinching out $10.95-plus-tip patronizing haircut-mills.
I’ve yet to see where $60 is more cheapskate than $10.95.
I guess it’s because I’m not REPUBLICAN, and use a MAC, for crying out loud. Perhaps it’s my WRONG running-shoes, and WRONG breakfast-food, or my Honda snowblower and motorcycle (“I can still see that oily, black pillar-of-smoke towering above that ship”).
My first haircut, at Joe’s Barber-Shop in Erlton, probably cost less than $1.
I don’t remember exactly how much they cost until I started patronizing the shop myself, at which point they cost $1.
Back then you didn’t need an appointment.
You’d walk in and sit in the lobby, maybe one or two ahead of you.
Joe added a second chair shortly after I started, making two chairs.
You also had to hope the fire-siren didn’t go off at the Erlton Fire Department, in which case Joe had to drop everything and run across the street, as he was a volunteer.
Part of the drill was that you were slathered with Wildroot Creme Oil when finished.
Joe would comb in a front pompadour, which with Wildroot Creme Oil looked like the grill of a ‘49 Buick.
It apparently was part of the cherub-look — my parents were always trying to make me look like a cherub.
“Joe-the-Barber” was my hairman clear until we moved to Delaware, where of course we had to find a new hairman.
I don’t remember the name of the shop, for which I’m sure I’ll be loudly excoriated for failing memory; but I do remember a barber-shop in the middle of the east end of Fairfax Shopping Center (this is only Mitchell’s, but it should ring a bell — BONG).
It had glossy pebbled walls painted a putrid hospital green.
By then a haircut was $1.25 or $1.50.
Inflation was at work here.
Used to be you could buy a new car for $2,500 — in the ‘30s a new car might cost $700.
Now a new car costs $20,000 or more; often a lot more.
Part of that is gumint requirements: airbags and crash-testing, etc.
But most is inflation. Our TR250 cost $4,500 in 1968; the bucktooth-bathtub over $30,000. Take out maybe $1,000 for gumint requirements, and we’re talking about cars of maybe equal value.
Other hairmen weighed in beside Fairfax Shopping Center.
At Sandy Hill (it’s no longer Morning-Cheer, but the mansion-house is on the home-page) my hair was trimmed by Lowell Hildreth, head of the Sandy Hill kitchen-crew, and chief-cook.
Lowell gave me my first flat-top, a haircut I stuck with all through Brandywine.
Then I went to Houghton, where my hair was cut by a droll Christian with a tiny shop hard by (perhaps next to or in) Barker’s funky General-Store.
Barker’s tried hard to be funky; scented candles for the college-crowd.
The barber wanted to make us all look like zealots, but was under increasing pressure from the Beatles.
The Beatles (and Rolling Stones) were determining hair-length, which to the barber was too long.
He also was under pressure from the zealots that ran the college to quash long hair; since his bread-and-butter was college-students.
After college and moving to Rochester I first patronized a haircut-mill.
Never again! My haircut was lopsided. I looked like I’d been hit by a lawnmower.
The good people at the National Clothing Company tailor-shop, where I worked, recommended a barber on the tenth floor of the Lincoln-Alliance-Bank tower across the street.
They did a nice job, but were always trying to make me look like a bank-employee.
By then the charge was probably $6-$10.
I don’t remember when I switched to Golden-Razor; I may have continued patronizing Lincoln-Alliance even after I no longer worked in downtown Rochester.
It would have only been a matter of parking, which I could have done in Midtown Garage.
Or riding the bus downtown. Our dentist was downtown at first; and that was after the tailor-shop. (I remember getting a dental-hygienist all bent-out-of-shape because I was late. “You have to allow extra time taking the bus.”)
Golden-Razor was because I was tired of looking like a bank-employee.
I let my hair grow wild at first, but it looked too messy — imagine my mother’s hair growing wild; it’s her hair — wavy and full.
My stylist at Golden-Razor was Angelo; a booth-renter. He kept advocating a permanent.
Finally I tried it; and thought it looked great.
Angelo hung around for a while, but grew tired. I suggested he try being a letter-carrier at the post-office; and that’s what he did. So much for Angelo.
The Greek thug came aboard at Golden-Razor, also a booth-renter. Golden-Razor had three booths, but only two were occupied. I think the Greek thug came aboard before Angelo left; so that I was switched to the Greek thug when Angelo left.
I never really liked the Greek thug much; he seemed rather uncaring — at least compared to Angelo.
But he did okay, enough for me to keep patronizing the place even after we moved to West Bloomfield.
But only a little while. Golden-Razor was too far away.
A coupon was in the local pennysaver for “Hair Designers,” the salon owned by Joseph Cotteleer (“hairman”) in nearby Honeoye Falls.
So we tried it, and thereby switched; no longer patronizing far-away Golden-Razor.
“Hairman” is of course the owner of the shop. He’s also into ‘pyooters and radio-control model-airplanes, so we’re on a shared wavelength.
His wife Linda shared the shop with him; and did the shampooing and often the hair-setting.
I guess Linda is wife #2; and they get along fairly-well — despite the continual put-downs.
Linda is only 57 (I think Joseph is 65), but is the one with lung-cancer; so may soon expire.
Joseph has four chairs and rents at least two on the weekends.
My fear is if Linda dies, he retires and he sells the shop, I may have to move on to another hairman; which perish-the-thought may be one of his renters; who’s a blowhard.
Job-one at Hairman was probably about $40. Over the years it’s ratched up.
Whatever; I still can’t see 60 smackaroos as being skinflint compared to $10.95.

Slow transition to OSX

Earlier this week (August, 2006) two books arrived from Amazon; “Little MAC Book, OSX Tiger” and “OSX for Dummies.”
My current rig, the twin-processor G4, has both OSX and 9.2 on it. You can choose what it boots up. I switched it to OSX, but was utterly buffaloed. The mighty Mezz uses 8.6, which 9.2 is very similar to. So we switched it back, since I do well with 8.6, and didn’t have time to figure out OSX.
So I’ve been using 9.2 for some time, but have always wanted to switch to OSX.
I was introduced to “Little MAC Book” at Visual Studies Workshop. It was a fine introduction to the dreaded MAC world for Windoze people.
So “Little MAC Book” was my choice regarding OSX, since it’s so helpful.
I never read much of “Little MAC Book” for Visual Studies Workshop, since I really didn’t need to. “Little MAC Book” is rather basic, almost for ‘pyooter-users starting from Square One. “Little MAC Book, OSX Tiger” is almost the same way, although so far it’s helpful. “Gee, OSX is a lot like 9.2; it just looks different” — which probably means I could have figured it out without books. But I didn’t have time — and 8.6 was what the mighty Mezz used.
“OSX for Dummies” is Linda — although as far as I’m concerned it might be more help than “Little MAC Book, OSX Tiger.” “Little MAC Book, OSX Tiger” had a comment that 9.2 was terrible — as likely to lock up as Windoze 95. Well, I don’t know; maybe so. I never worked that much with Windoze 95, but our lone PC at the mighty Mezz had it, and wouldn’t shut down unless you pulled the plug. 9.2 sure bombed on me enough times; supposedly OSX cures that by segregating the system-memory used by apps. So the app may crash, but not the entire rig.
OSX is also based on a Unix kernal, and will supposedly even do the Unix command-prompt; something Linda is familiar with. The fact it’s Unix-based is what makes it stable. People have switched to Linux (a free Unix) because under Windoze an app might freeze the entire rig.
So what’s happening is that OSX is turning the personal computer into a mainframe; a rig that never crashes.
I’ve always wanted to run OSX, primarily because all the software upgrades I want to do want OSX. The ones I have are 8.5 or better, but not OSX. I can run my old apps under OSX-Classic Mode; but all my apps are years old.

RE: “Small-time house-builder”

Yep; our house-builder was small-time. Like most house-builders he wasn’t trying to build us a Three-Mile Island or a Nine-Mile Point.
Before us, he had built three houses, one for himself, one for his parents, and one on speculation. Part of my judgment was to analyze what he had done before, and it looked pretty good.
All the houses were on abandoned swamp-land he had bought for a song in a tax-sale. He had previously worked for Kodak, and apparently became aware of the tax-sale because his previous house, a suburban tract-house, backed up on it.
He filled in the swamp with a bulldozer, and dug drainage-swales. He subdivided the lot into four lots, but actually only built on three. The fourth lot received an old house moved from the city.
He also redid our kitchen on Winton Road, and did a good job considering what he was up against; like the foundation was a foot off square.
He had to tear off the old roof and build anew. There also was the hairball of fitting a countertop into an unsquare corner. Countertop #1 was horrible. He thought so, and recommended I refuse it. We did. His countertop supplier had to eat it.
So indeed he was small-time, and I always felt that worked in our favor. A big-time builder would have tried to make me eat that countertop, and accept his short-cuts building our house.
Various Mexican standoffs arose in the building of this house.

First was the windows. He had gotten the shell up and roofed, and now the window-supplier had delivered. I looked at the windows (not hung yet — still in the cartons) and raised the roof. They weren’t even casement; they were double-hung. “I specified casement.” Back they went.
Turns out the window-supplier had delivered the wrong order (or was hoping to reduce inventory at our expense). I have a hunch a big-time builder would have tried to make me eat them double-hungs.

Then there was the grand stand-off over the vapor-barrier. We had specified 10-mil, but all the builder could get locally was 3-mil. He wanted me to cave. “Well we specified 10-mil; it must be available someplace.” So we got on the phone and got it from someplace in Minnesota next-day UPS. The vapor-barrier is 10-mil; much stronger than 3-mil.

And then there was his perfectionism about appearance. A big-time builder would have cut the roof off at the shell-ends. But our small-time builder preferred a two-foot overhang. So did I: that was what was in the plans. It adds almost 200 square feet of roofing-material and plywood.

And there was the issue of the soffits. The builder was planing to add framing to the roof-trusses, which were to be squared off at the shell.
“Why bother?” I said. “The trusses can have the soffit-framing integral if the trusses aren’t squared off, and are wider than the shell. And the soffit-plywood is nailed to two-foot centers.
No noisy posturing about superior knowledge. That’s what he did.

There also was the issue of garage-windows. The garage had a 9-foot-plus ceiling. “Do you want garage-windows even with the others, or the correct height above the floor? If they’re the correct height above the floor, they’ll be lower than the others, and look weird from the street.”
I agreed, so the windows have a seven-foot reach to the top latch. He took my advice. I don’t think a big-time builder would have even asked. “Weird; so what? We don’t sweat the small stuff!”

And then there was the pit vent-pipe fiasco. The Town wanted the pit vented, so the builder had to install a 12-inch PVC pipe.
It cost $500. He didn’t even bat an eye. “Fair is fair,” he said to himself. “I bid them $2,500 for that pit. It ain’t their fault (foult) I blew the vent-pipe.”
I think a big-time builder probably would have tried to pass along a cost-overrun.

And there was the grand fiasco of the final $50,000. This was because he was building the house the same way he built his previous houses: 30 days cash for materials. I.e. every month or so he would bill us for what he had done so far, and we’d pay.
This emptied out our savings, and used the proceeds of our house-sale in Rochester. The final $50,000 was the mortgage. But the bank wouldn’t pay until we had a CofO. The town-inspector wouldn’t issue a CofO until the house was finished, and without the mortgage-proceeds the builder couldn’t finish the house.
So he had to finagle store-credit, hold off his creditors, and not pay his crew until the house was finished.
We had to move in before the CofO; it was like camping. No countertops in the kitchen, and the only water was in the master-bath shower. We had heat, but the floors were bare plywood.
-So I think we did pretty good with our small-time builder. Our house is probably the last one he ever built (his crew-control was poor), but it reflects his integrity and perfectionism, which reflects my perfectionism. (I still think it’s a class act.)
We also had the advantage of owning the property and what he had built. He was only supplying a service; he couldn’t stuff it to us and sell to someone else. A big-time builder would have only built on speculation. Add $3,000 or so for his cost of credit.

“CofO” = certificate-of-occupancy.

smoking a pipe

When I moved to Rochester in the fall of 1966, I tried to take up smoking a pipe.
This was early — the first few weeks, like before I got a job, when I was surviving on my meager savings, eating at Critics Restaurant in “Bull-Haid,” and watching trains on the Water-Level.
Seemed like a really hip image: the professorial type coolly sucking on his pipe.
But I gave it up. It was awful. The pipe would fill with spit, and make the tobacco soggy. I bought various kinds of pipe-tobacco, but they all tasted awful.
No matter what you did, you were burning the stuff and inhaling the smoke. It was unbearable.
I also bought cigars, but they were awful too.
Mahz-n-Wawdzzz was where I first drank beer. I remember the inordinate joy among Billy Gardiner and Padgett they had got Tommy’s son to join the legions of sinners. It was on a floating-roof tank in the old Sinclair refinery in Marcus Hook. (And the world does indeed have an armpit — it is Marcus Hook.)
I transferred my beer-drinking to Houghton, but never developed a lust for boozing. My friends shared a six-pak at the Watkins Glen Grand Prix in 1964, but not me.
I’ve been drunk only once — six bottles of Lowenbrau Dark Special — but it seemed rather silly. I threw it all up into the toilet.
I also didn’t like being tipsy. Amtrak served us complimentary wine on our trip to Floridy on the Silver Meteor back in the early ‘80s, but I didn’t like it making me tipsy.
There were also various parties at the mighty Mezz where beer was served, but I began to avoid it.
At one party I tried O'Doul's, and the most recent I drank water.
So now on medical questionnaires when they ask if I drink alcoholic beverages, I say “hardly ever.” For all intents and purposes it’s “not any more.”

“Mahz-n-Wawdzzz” is actually Myers & Watters, the place I worked summers while in college.

“snippets”

Last evening’s (Monday, 4/10) snippets were “Wife Swap.”
I say “snippets” because we don’t actually watch “Wife Swap;” an utterly stupid program pandering to the American taste for the salacious.
What we’re actually watching is a VCR-replay of the news, which we have to stop to get another dinner entree.
When we do, the TV, and VCR, revert to current programing, which in this case was “Wife Swap.”
We didn’t walk the dogs until 6:50 p.m., but before supper. After supper is still too dark; although it remains light longer.
Sometimes we watch the news live, or play it back on top of “Entertainment Tonight” or “Friends.”
These aren’t too bad, although ET can prompt “for crying out loud,” “shaddup,” or “too bad she couldn’t finish her dress.” “Friends” is reruns of programs we’ve seen over-and-over.
But “Wife Swap” is even more ridiculous than “Extreme Home Makeover,” where they always demolish the house.
The pretext of “Wife Swap” was obvious from the outset: a fat, lazy liberial against a God-fearing zealot.
The wives exchanged houses, and the liberial was saying “this house is too clean — do I dare walk on the carpets?” and “bor-ing........”
Zealot had a fit: “each kid has a TV,” and “what filth.”
Zealot pointed out her treadmill: “every morning I get up and do a half-hour.”
We also saw zealot pointing out parental control: “You didn’t do your homeworky? No Internetty.” Poink!
Zealot and hubby were appalled at web-sites the liberial’s kids accessed.
Liberial apparently didn’t smoke, but she roared off to work in a white Z28 Camaro, leaving her house a shambles.
How the God-fearing zealot would allow herself to be part of such shenanigans is beyond me.
The liberial picked up a calendar-datebook, and solemnly intoned “too organized........”

My brother in Boston loudly claims “liberal” is spelled “liberial.”

Social Security

(Wednesday, 1/18)
So here were are cruising placidly down Routes 5&20 in our bucktooth-bathtub, making the long haul to the Geneva Social Security office, the only SS office in our county.
It’s about 25 miles. Supposedly the idea was to consider signing up for our gumint handouts, but what actually happened was to make an appointment to show up at a later time.
(Sure, dial up SS to schedule an appointment, and thereby avoid an extraneous trip. Once I got a busy-signal, once they weren’t open yet [it was 8:30 a.m.], and all the other times [at least five other tries] no one answered the phone. And I let it ring 89 bazilyun times. Not even a voicemail.
Going to Geneva means driving east of Canandaigua, going under two long-abandoned railroad bridges.
Utterly true to form, as I have done for over 38 years, I identified each railroad: #1) “that was the Pennsy-branch to Canandaigua;” #2) “that was the Pennsy line to Sodus Point.”
Both are originally Northern Central, which was taken over by the Pennsy about 1900. I think NC originally built to Canandaigua, where it could intersect with NYC and the Peanut, originally the Canandaigua & Niagara Falls, originally built to 6-foot gauge. Apparently there was some Erie in this. The Erie was originally 6-foot gauge too. The idea was to deliver coal to the Niagara Frontier (which includes Buffalo).
The line to Sodus Point came later; i.e. a line to deliver coal to Lake Ontario where it could be transloaded onto ships. Pennsy had a huge trestle-dock at Sodus Point. It’s gone; and the railroad’s gone too. (Pennsy had a small yard.)
North of Stanley, the old Pennsy line to Sodus Point is torn up as far as Newark (the Water-Level). From there on the Ontario Midland shortline has it as far as the old Hojack: the old NYC line originally Fonda, Johnstown & Gloversville. It branches onto two spur-ends of the Hojack: one east to Sodus and one west to Webster. The remainder of the Hojack is gone. The old rotating truss over the Genesee is still there, but abandoned.
So in essence both the old Pennsy NC branches are gone. But the grade is still there, as are the two bridges.
Other lines swamped Geneva too; including the Lehigh Valley line to Buffalo, and the old Corning-Secondary, Lyons to Corning. Lehigh Valley is gone. Most of the lines are operated by shortline Finger Lakes Railway. It operates a lot of the old NYC Auburn Road (the original railroad across the state). There is a small piece of the old LV main that junctions with FLR and goes west to Victor — that’s another operator. The old Auburn north of Canandaigua is gone too. I think the Corning Secondary is Norfolk Southern. I know FLR has trackage-rights to attain the old Pennsy line to Watkins Glen, where it services a salt-mine or two.
“I can’t imagine you forgetting that Reading branch to Chester, if we had actually driven next to it,” Linda said.

Our visit to Geneva Social Security went fairly well. We were greeted by a ‘pyooter as we walked in the door. “Please sign in,” the sign said. “Punch #0 if you have an appointment, #1 to get a reissued SS card, and #2 if you don’t have an appointment.”
I punched #2 and was issued a number-slip. “Please have a seat and wait until your number is called.”
An older couple arrived after us and promptly lost it trying to deal with the machine. A security-guard severely excoriated them and made them try again.
I’m left wondering whether Jack could handle this. I was about to order a sub with the Sheetz ‘pyooter-terminal in Altoony, and Jack bulled in grabbing a sales-clerk saying “I speak English!”
Whatever, I have ordered subs over that there ‘pyooter-terminal many times since. It ain’t rocket-science. Plus if you use the terminal; the service is much quicker.
“You can access Social Security 24/7 at www.SocialSecurity.gov.” So what if Granny doesn’t have a ‘pyooter?
The clerk, who weighed about 350, and had hairy forearms, was nice — as well they could be: there were behind bullet-proof glass.
We will jaw about gumint handouts on Friday, 1/26. Another trip under the two abandoned railroad bridges.

cryptic letter

We are in receipt of a cryptic letter from Linda’s mother.
Well okay; the fact she’s almost 91 explains the degradation to tortured chicken-scratch (are they free-range chickens?).
But she also likes to drop names out of the clear-blue-sky, and be incensed we have no idea what she’s talking about.
What prompted this letter was Linda’s off-hand mention AirTran was going to begin flying into Daytona, which is closer to the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower than Orlando.
I don’t know if it’s advantageous, since Orlando is direct, and Daytona would involve a plane-change in Atlanta.
Orlando isn’t that far away, and would be easier now that we’ve been there recently.
Whatever; we now have a map clipped from a phonebook, and written directions impossible to follow.
A stroke-effect is in play here.
I have to be able to visualize in my mind what we’re doing. Written, and verbal, directions are almost impossible to follow.
Then too there is the impossibility of following directions when you’re supposed to see that “the first possible right-turn” should be onto a street, not a condo parking-lot at the end of a street.
Her directions mentioned an indecipherable which looked to me like “Richard Petty.”
The Daytona airport is right next to the Speedway, so putting two-and-two together, I decided “Richard Petty” might be a valid street-name.
Linda, of course, had never heard of Richard Petty, and I’m sure Linda’s mother had no idea why the road was named after the greatest NASCAR-driver of all time.
Makes you wonder if there’s an “Intimidator-Alley” or an “Ironhead Lane......”
Or perhaps a byway named after the little twerp.

My brother in Boston always calls Jeff Gordon “the little twerp.”

Last July when in Boston, my brother gave me directions to Logan. I was lucky to find it on time.

“Shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower” is where Linda’s mother lives; Florida Lutheran Home in De Land.

Zapped

The Keed.

So here we are, quietly waiting for the power to come back on, and the cable (Internet) to come back on.......
No matter what the almighty Bluster-King blusters, when neither I nor Linda can get the Internet, and the cable-TV is dead, that tells me the problem is on their end.
We are running on the stand-by generator — which is to say, the electricity dove about 45 minutes ago. We are having an ice-storm; freezing rain. Which probably means a tree-branch fell across the power-lines and took them out.
Such an outage usually tanks the cable too: TV and Internet — the cable-station out here has also lost power.
Our cable feeds a cable-modem, which feeds a wireless-router: hard-wired to my MAC, wireless to Linda’s PC.
No Internet limits what I can do; e.g. the famblee-site, and anything else that comes off the Internet. Linda upgraded her Button-site at MyFamblee.com, and got a print-out that doesn’t give the exact amount they charged. To get that I need to fire up the Visa site — but that’s Internet, so updating my Quicken-Visa is on hold.
My ‘pyooter-clock says 1:09:57 a.m. 1/1/1904; and I can’t update it for lack of Internet.
We also wanted to install our new combination DVD/VCR, and probably will, but can’t see if the cable works when it’s dead-bro.

The Keed.

So what I’ve done so far is what I can do without Internet; like print my Excel tax-spreadsheets for 2006, which per usual took about 3-5 attempts each. We have to select the print-area (i.e. not miss anything), and then scale it so that the horizontal content of a spreadsheet fits on one page. All my income-spreadsheet fit on one page scaled at 60%. My expenses-spreadsheet took two pages taped together, scaled at 55%; but all horizontal content fit on one page at that scale.
I also learned that turning the paper-feed 90° isn’t what you do when you print landscape. The paper still gets fed portrait, but prints landscape.
Trouble is, I only print this once a year; so probably won’t remember the drill next year. It’s like the mighty Mezz; do things every day, and things go hunky-dory. Not do it for a while, and your faced with a monstrous learning-curve.
One of the things I could do was process all the ice-piks I took. That’s not Internet — it’s PhotoShop, an in-home app.
While taking the ice-piks, a giant willow-tree in the woods behind our house collapsed. It was a wye, so was an invitation to collapse. Snap-crackle-pop! Sounded like gun-shots, but “TIM-BERRRRRR!!!!!!!” Both sides collapsed. Thankfully it’s not on the mowed part; so there it will sit. The last ice-storm pruned the willows on our trails — we had to have a guy process it all; chips from those trees are on our paths.

“Dead-bro” is one of the comments of Stevie Circh, a former editor at the mighty Mezz.

combination-DVD/VCR player

The Keed.

The new combination-DVD/VCR player (pictured), which also records in both modes, and apparently does everything except start your dinner from across-the-universe, is installed.
Unfortunately, it does not have a “reality-regenerator” button like our old VCR, which we can now retire. The old one still works, so maybe we should give it to some charity.
We never knew what that reality-regenerator button did, although we pushed it once, and strange things happened at the mighty Mezz and in Ashburnham, Mass.
Installation was fairly simple. The wiring was the same as our old VCR, a reprise of an earlier trial-run shortly after we got the new one.
It’s different than the old VCR in that all the functions are done with the remote.
Our old VCR also had case-front buttons. About all I did with its remote was set the timer and the clock.
Once wired I had to get it to play the cable. It was apparently “cable-ready” like our old VCR, so the cable hooks directly into the VCR.
The VCR then feeds a video-output to the TV; no cable-to-cablebox-to-TV.
Our TV isn’t a $7,000 plasma-baby — we hardly watch TV at all — so it’s very small: only nine inches wide. (My ‘pyooter-monitor is 13.5 inches wide; I use that much more.)
We are sitting about two feet from the TV; within fingertip range of controlling a VCR.
Except the new one has no case-buttons; everything’s on the remote.
Getting it to play the cable was a challenge; we were into an area that wasn’t in the quick-start guide. —Perhaps it was in the thick official manual, written and translated by Japanese monkeys.
But I didn’t have all day to peruse that.
So we resorted to the infamous Connor-method: pushing various buttons on the remote, and seeing what happened.
I noticed a “TV/video” button, pushed that, and got video-noise (and audio-noise).
I inadvertently pushed it again, and viola; Oprah.
I tried the same drill again, and again Oprah.
I pushed “system menu,” toggled to “timer,” and set that to record the news on a VHS-tape.
The old VCR stayed put, in case the new one wasn’t recording the news — but it did.
I then tried one of my train-tapes; which it played.
And when playing is stopped, it reverts to the cable; just like our old VCR.
Why, I’ll never know.
Watching the news later, I fast-forwarded the ads just like I did with our old VCR.
“Looks like you have the hang of it,” Linda said.

1) My brother-in-Boston brags loudly about his HD-TV; he calls it his “$7,000 plasma, baby.”
2) “Ashburnham, Mass.” is where my friend Charlie Gardiner lives. He graduated with me from Houghton College back in 1966.
3) “Connor” is my mother’s maiden-name. My Uncle-Bill (oldest brother of my mother), claimed he built the giant Philadelphia suspension-bridge, which opened back in 1926, single-handed with only a toothpick.

Bitsa

The Keed.

The world’s oldest Citation

It appears the world’s oldest Citation (pictured) has covered it’s last mile.
As I pulled out our driveway this afternoon (Sunday, January 14, 2007) to go to the mighty Canandaigua Weggers, the world’s oldest Citation had its front-tires on a dolly behind a Chevy pickup.
The world’s oldest Citation was previously owned by neighbors up-the-road, and they put it up for sale last spring: $500 (the picture).
Randy Willard (our mighty Mezz carrier) looked at it and passed. It was bought by our neighbors to the immediate south, apparently as a car for their kids.
It got quite a bit of use, and occasionally we would see it parked at Michael Prouty Park nearby when walking our dogs.
The kids would be inside doing who-knows-what — probably dispensing beer-bottles for us seniors to exchange. (“That’s five cents, man......”)
Come winter and it got parked; resting forlornly under a tree.
This afternoon we heard the muted rumble of a motor, seemingly in a car trying to slide around on the ice. It sounded like it was stuck.
What it probably was was the world’s oldest Citation being driven onto the dolly.
Got itself up there, apparently — just like our Dasher going to Goodwill on three cylinders.
I don’t know if it’s actually the world’s oldest Citation. A few weeks ago I saw another I was tempted to photograph. It looked older than the world’s oldest Citation. It was a silver two-door, and, like all GM silver paint, the hood had gone black.
The world’s oldest Citation was a four-door, and was an ‘86. The silver one was an ‘84.
Months ago, when owned by the neighbors up-the-road, the world’s oldest Citation was at Michael Prouty Park occupied by a fat girl reading a paperback. “The world’s oldest Citation,” I said.
She heartily agreed.

At Weggers I overheard some lackey bossing another. “Ya gotta move things along, or go home,” he loudly commanded.
As I walked away, I heard “here’s the scenario. Ya gotta move things along, or go home. It’s pushing 3:30. Ya gotta move things along, or go home.”
Who knows what they were talking about, but all I could think of was mighty Jack and his contractors. Think yer boss, and ya gotta be bossy. How does Weggers ever get to be the best place in the entire world to work?

Coming home I was followed by a glowering intimidator in a big black Dodge Ram pickup. His headlights were glaring in my mirror; he was right on my bumper — I guess I wasn’t going fast enough; like 152 mph.
He finally roared past, giving me the one-finger salute. Doing so meant riding on the other side of the double-yellow climbing a hill.
As he cut in front of me, sure enough, “W-04” on the tailgate.

At mighty Weggers I saw what appeared to be the Faithful Hunda — although I don’t think it was. It had hubcaps, and the Faithful Hunda’s hubcaps are still in our garage — i.e. I took them off long ago when rotating tires.
I circled around, to see if it had the telltale rust-mark on its tailgate, but there was rust all over. The tops of the wheelwells were rusted through, and there was lots more rust on the tailgate.
So it might have been the Faithful Hunda — sure looked like it, and the Faithful Hunda was not damaged much — but if so, the owner had got hubcaps for it. The rust looked like what it would be after another winter (last winter — and even part of the one before that).

At long last, my shampoo-brush is being consigned to the Flint landfill.
That shampoo-brush is 11 to 12 to 13 years old. The one I had before the stroke disintegrated shortly after I came home.
Oh, woe is me. The fact I can’t remember exactly when or where I got this most recent shampoo-brush is surely indication of failing memory; that I can’t possibly remember that mysterious Reading railroad-facility I never passed, and my memory of a toilet-paper roll-shaped water-tower atop the Scott-facility across Industrial Highway from the Philadelphia airport is obviously confused. (And I didn’t attend no prom; and if I had, I’d probably remember who I took. I took Linda Lily canoeing — that’s one date.)
The back came off the most recent shampoo-brush shortly after I got it, but the bristles were still fine, so I kept using it.
But recently the bristle-backing disintegrated, so that it was resisting my attempts to clean it.
So in the trash!
Shampoo-brushes don’t cost hardly anything, so my old shampoo-brush has been replaced.

Tonight we set up online viewing of our Chase-Visa statement. Nice idea. Means I can update my Quicken Visa account as charges are added to it, which means reconciling in no time — same as our checking-account.
But it wouldn’t work in IE; only worked in Netscape. I have to remember what browsers work with what sites: e.g. our checking-account only works with IE; Visa with only Netscape. When I order online, I use IE because Netscape often bombs, and sometimes locks up the machine. So Visa is a Netscape toolbar favorite, and CNB (checking-account) is an IE toolbar favorite. It’s the old curser-insertion waazoo. No curser-insertion under Netscape in the checking-account; no curser-insertion under IE in the Visa. Thank ya, Gates!

My brother Jack in Boston is a boss.
My brother Bill in Delaware bought a turbo-Volvo a few years ago, and proudly proclaimed it would do 152 mph.

“Big-Block”

My February 2007 issue of Classic Car Magazine has a technical treatise of Chevrolet’s storied “Big-Block” motor.

Big-Block crate-motor

Automobile manufacturers were fielding bigger and bigger motors in NASCAR racing, and to satisfy the American thirst for performance — prompted by cheap gasoline and an underused highway system.
Ford was marketing a Police-Interceptor 390 cubic-inch V8, and eventually brought out a 406-cube version of the same motor.
Chevrolet was falling farther and farther behind. They had a 348 cubic-inch truck-motor, which was introduced in 1958 cars, and it could be tuned for performance. (I got a tech-sheet from Chevrolet that rated a triple-carb, solid-lifter 348 at 335 horsepower in 1959.)
But at 409 cubes the 348-block was stretching it. Blocks had to be hand-picked for the 409 displacement.
Cylinder-walls we so thin they were subject to porosity. For a larger displacement Chevrolet had to address the porosity issue.
A new engine would also allow taking advantage of ball-stud rockers.
Previously all valves in an overhead-valve engine worked off a common rocker-shaft, so all the valves had to be lined up in a row.
The infamous Chevy Small-Block introduced ball-stud rockers (as did Pontiac — it was their idea), but still all the valves were lined in a row.
The rockers in a ball-stud rocker engine were individually pivoted on ball-top studs, so that theoretically the valves could be canted this-way-and-that to enhance breathing.
This was the main advantage of the Big-Block motor; not just that it was a bigger engine, but the valves were individually canted in the cylinder-head thanks to ball-stud rockers.
The motor was almost a Hemi, although Chrysler’s Hemi used shafts for the valve-rockers; with longer rockers to reach the exhausts.
The Hemi’s high-end breathing was fantastic, but so was the Chevy Big-Block.
Chevy first gave the motor to Junior Johnson for the 1964 Daytona 500. It’s canted-valve arrangement earned it the nickname “porcupine-head.”
It was so strong it was outlawed; although why I can’t remember — I think because only Junior had it.
The infamous porcupine motor may have only been experimental, but those canted-valves made their way into the Mark IV Turbojet 396, the first Big-Block in 1965.
The Big-Block went on to ever-larger displacements: 427 (1966) and then 454 (1970). Now you can get Big-Block crate-motors up to 8+ liters — that’s 488 cubes (I think I’ve seen them at 512 cubes).
The Big-Block was very heavy, but Chevrolet got around that by introducing aluminum versions of it — the motor that dominated Can-Am racing before Porsche blew it into the weeds with turbocharging.
The Big-Block, as a big engine, also has a prodigious appetite for gasoline. It’s not something you buy groceries with, or take the kids to school or piano-lessons.
My brother in Boston has a 1971 Chevelle with a Big-Block 454, and the premium gasoline he got for it cost $6.99 per gallon. Fill your tank for over 100 smackaroos.
Fine, except it was jumping all over. Rumpeta-rumpeta-rumpeta-rumpeta! Too much motor in a blowsy old antique. Sure, take Granny to church in that.

the all-powerful Tim Belknap

Yesterday morning (Wednesday, January 10, 2007) was my visit to the humble abode of the all-powerful Tim Belknap far out along Gulick Road in the Bristol Hills.
Belknap still works for the mighty Mezz as City-Editor, responsible for a legion of head-strong female local reporters. He’s about my age, maybe slightly younger, and plans to retire in 18 months. He also, like me, is a car-guy.
Long ago (like during the ‘70s), when Linda and I rode bicycle, I used to think of east-west 5&20 as the southernmost extent of the Rochester area.
It was about 20 miles from our house. Now we live in sight of 5&20.
Going further south, 20A (also east-west) seemed to border the next area, and south of it were the Bristol Hills.
The Bristol Hills are more-or-less the start of the Appalachians. From ridge-top to valley-floor may be 1,000 feet.
The Bristol Hills are very remote and sparsely settled. There are no suburban developments.
Anyone living there is pretty much on-their-own. A homestead has to be carved out of the wilderness. The only utilities I saw were electricity and phone-service; wiring suspended from poles.
The visit was pleasant but a tiny bit strange — but only because I woke them up; or rather their dog Bailey did, furiously protecting the property.
I didn’t even have to knock. Bailey was giving me a hearty welcome, roaring and snarling through the front-door window-pane.
Fortunately he didn’t break it. Years ago on Winton Road in Rochester our dog Casey did once serenading Charlie Cahill the mailman.
After a few minutes Tim showed up in his bathrobe, apologizing for oversleeping.
“If you’re this far out,” I said, “you need a dish if you’re partial to watching TV.”
“Actually we have two,” Tim said; “one for the TV and one for the Internet.”
As a cushy suburbanite I guess I’m fairly attached to civilization, as we have cable for both, plus water and gas.
Tim began stoking up a wood-burning stove.
So far this winter he’s heated his house with only firewood, culled from his forested property.
His wife Susan appeared — dressed — and was lassoed into making coffee; notable to me only because I am so used to making it myself.
Tim turned to look at our CR-V, parked below on a small apron next to his beloved Dakota.
“What’s that?” he asked. “Looks pretty nice.”
“Well actually we were thinking of trading it,” I answered.
“Why would you do a thing like that?” he asked.
“Because it’s a truck,” I said. “Rides high like a truck; unbalanced like a truck; very car-like, but still a truck.”
“Well I would think that’s what you’d want,” he responded.
“Not just me,” I said; “but also my wife.
“It’s her car. Mainly she’s the one that drives it. We already have a van. We’d rather have a car instead of the CR-V.”
I also had to explain that the CR-V isn’t dog-friendly: that the rear-seats fold up in the way of the rear side-door entrances.
And the floor in the rear is about three feet above the ground — too much for an old dog to jump.
Ostensibly the reason for the visit was to check out the fabulous ‘95 F250 Ford pickup Tim inherited from his recently-deceased younger brother in Vermont.

The Keed.

It looks rather plain, but like all Ford pickups it could handle anything you throw at it.
It’s very basic, but outfitted with a trailer-towing package, and 89 bazilyun fancy bits.
I once had a ‘79 E250, a three-quarter ton van; and thought the world of it. That thing was indestructible — Old Henry would have been proud. It had a HUGE-AHHHH 460 cubic-inch motor that swilled gas at 10 mpg — every 300 miles; 30 gallons.
Yet the front swing-axles could have been remade into wrenches to turn the crankshaft nuts on a railroad-locomotive.
We drove that thing out west in ‘87 — saw the Grand Tetons at dawn, drove through Yellowstone, and drove up the Pikes Peak Road.
That thing also carried a lot of our stuff when we moved from Rochester to West Bloomfield. It also was the first vehicle on our property — first in our driveway when it was still dirt.
Our E250 wasn’t much to look at either, but boy-oh-boy.
Tim’s F250 is the same way — overkill.
He commented his brother probably would have been better off in a Corolla, but fancied himself as a Marlboro-Man, so had the F250.
Four-wheel-drive, heavy-duty tranny, 8,000 GVW; an impressive machine.
Tim had it parked in a tiny cul-de-sac under an umbrella of Norwegian-spruce — would have fit a car just fine, but occupied by an “aircraft-carrier” (that’s Tim) it was overwhelmed.
I had to hang onto the truck as I walked around it, lest I tumble down an embankment.
The F250 has a few minor dings and scratches, and minor rust; but looks good for another 15-20 years.
And it has two gas-tanks; 40-gallon total capacity. If those tanks catch fire it’ll make Baghdad look placid.
Navigating the homestead was also a bit intimidating; primarily because there was about two inches of snow on top of ice; and everything was a downslope. Not a cliff, but I had to watch my footing. —Managed to not fall.
The most unfortunate outcome was that Belknap probably never got to eat breakfast. I already had, so we abstained.
Yet Belknap had to be at the mighty Mezz by 11 — I left about 10.
Came away with three car-racing books — one of which I’ve wanted to read for years. Who knows if I ever will; I hardly have time to read any more.
The F250 also isn’t the beloved Dakota, which is a ‘93. The Dakota doesn’t use near as much gas.
“All I want to do is tow my boat — limit my driving to a few miles around here, and up to the Adirondacks; once I retire. This F250 is a fabulous match; the Dakota will get retired to hauling firewood. Don’t need a license for that.”

(A little while ago I mentioned Tim Belknap as an editor at the Messenger newspaper to my tub-thumping brother in Boston, and he decided Belknap edited the entire newspaper, explaining why the Messenger was so reprehensible, since Belknap had made a few spelling mistakes (which are nothing if my brother makes them). Belknap is one of many editors.)

“bike-in-the-box”

The finished motorcycle. Upswept 2-into-1 D&D exhaust is stylishly sporty but hellaciously loud.

My February 2007 issue of Cycle-World has the conclusion of their two articles on a “bike-in-the-box” kit-bike.
It was a nice idea: a manifestation of every sport-biker’s dream; a sport-bike powered by a souped-up Harley V-twin.
Using the Harley (clone) motor required certain limits: e.g. the design of the frame (no massive spars), and not a single-shock rear-end.
Still the end-result is not that far off. Quite a few sport-bike accouterments remain; like light weight, and excellent brakes and tires. (And of course, the motor makes gobs of torque.)
The bike came as a kit to the CW garage, everything in a large crate.
That included a massive 110 cubic-inch Harley-clone motor by RevTech, an offering of CCI (Custom Chrome Inc.), supplier of the kit. 4-inch bore by 4&3/8th-inch stroke; 114.6 horsepower at 5,600 rpm.
I no longer have the issue (May 2006) that had article #1, the build, but I do remember they were amazed that everything was there — usually parts are lacking; parts instrumental to completion of the build (like a wiring-harness, for example).
They also commented the build would need a good mechanic; which the writer was. He was the one that put it all together.
The only problem was the chainguard/fender, which they finally used after replacement #3 centered over the tire; but the chainguard still didn’t center over the chain.
Once assembled, and registered (massive hairball), testing could be done, during which they ascertained two things: A) the Harley-bits activating the brakes were a poor match, B) the massive Harley foot controls liked to scrape the pavement, and C) despite mounting the motor in rubber (the Harley-system), it was a heavy vibrator — poorly matched to the lighter weight.

Sparks a-flyin’.

There is a photo of the bike leaned over in a turn and those foot-controls are throwing a shower of sparks.
The writer also commented his left-foot boot was shoved out so far by the Harley clutch-cover, the pavement would knock his boot clear off the peg.
CCI was bought-out by another investor that refused to allow CW to test. —It was their bike. —Plus CCI stopped selling kit-bikes; the “bike-in-the-box” was now an orphan.
So CW had to buy the bike, and register it, to test it.
Registration was a massive hairball; insanity compliments of the California DMV.
The bike was “specialty construction,” requiring a number of inspections by DMV drones. The writer was required to get DMV-certification of the brake- and taillights, and of course such a certifier was nonexistent.
Final certification required observation and approval by the California Highway Patrol, and the writer was sent around Robin-Hood’s barn trying to do this.
Months passed, but finally a CHP-inspector came out and glanced at the bike — loaded dead into the back of a pickup — and approved it (about five minutes).
So registered, it was tested. It would do 137 mph.

two things

We have completed phase one of the installation of the combination DVD/VCR.
Last night’s (Sunday, January 7, 2007) foray was not so much to install it, but to start installation.
We started about 8 p.m., and the combination DVD/VCR lobs various hairballs I wanted to avoid so there wouldn’t be immense pressure to complete the entire installation within a very short period of time.
So the drill was to get it out of the box, put it in front of the TV, and see if we could get it to drive the TV, which isn’t even stereo.
Hookup was fairly simple, the same as our current VCR — although I think the TV is only playing one sound-channel; was previously.
And it drove the TV with either VHS tapes or DVDs (we have a few).
What it wouldn’t do is play the cable-feed by default (defoult). Our current VCR played the cable by default (defoult); but it appears the combination DVD/VCR has a menu-driven setup.
I’ll attack that next foray. I only had about an hour; so baby-steps.
Plus Linda wants to paint the wooden box I made long ago for the VCR and the TV. The new combination DVD/VCR will fit inside the box, so there’s no sense making another installation-attempt until the box is painted.
It also appears all the functions are on the remote. Our old VCR had most of the functions as buttons also on the case-face. So we never did much of anything with the remote. (The VCR was two feet away; arm’s-reach.) Remote/Re-shmote. Ya still have reach over and put the playing medium into the gizmo.
The new combination DVD/VCR also lacks a “reality-regenerator” button; our old VCR had it. We never knew what it did, but pushed it once causing weird things to happen at the palatial mighty Mezz offices, and in Ashburnham, Mass.
So we are back to where we were before it came out of the box — old VCR driving the TV.
I can’t just drop everything to set it up. And the dreaded manual was written and translated by Japanese monkeys, so isn’t much help.
I’d invite the all-knowing bluster-boy to come out, but I’m leery of his ballpeen hammer.

The need for daily naps seems to be winding down.
Used to be we’d eat breakfast after walking the dogs at so-called elitist country-club; but we switched to breakfast first.
I usually had to take a nap after the so-called elitist country-club, but no more — not enough time.
Or perhaps I should say I feel I can get by without a nap.
I’d come home from the mighty Mezz utterly bushed .
Driving the Messenger web-site was a mental monster. 89 bazilyun things could go wrong — in which case I had to science out the problem on my own.
“If you have a problem, call the Webmaster or the ‘pyooter-guru — let them handle it.”
But they were swamped, and just threw up their hands. I could do it, so “you’re on your own.”
So I’d come home so mentally wacked-out I had to take a nap.
Poor physical condition was apparently causing fatigue too.
But my condition has improved enough to apparently curtail the naps.
I take one once-in-a-while, but I can usually get by without one.
(Cue almighty Bluster-King, who stokes himself with gallons of caffeine and giant sugar-hits, and apparently doesn’t work his brain enough to need a nap. —He also hasn’t had a stroke.)

My brother in Delaware loudly insists Route 261 has always been spelled “Foulk” Road, but in 1957 (when we moved there) it was spelled “Faulk.” (1957 is one year before he was born.)

Brian Kolb

Yesterday (Friday, January 5, 2007) the infamous Brian Kolb strode into the PT-gym, apparently as a patient.

(Left) Brian Kolb doing his earnest-face.

Brian Kolb is our local New York State Assemblyman, a tub-thumping REPUBLICAN Conservative zealot.
Although that portrays him as more extreme than he actually is. Tub-thumping bellicose Texas Conservatism doesn’t fly in Western New York, so Kolb has had to mellow quite a bit to stay in office. (He’s also gained about 60 pounds.)
The tub-thumpers are of course crying “sell-out.”
“Was that the infamous Brian Kolb?” I asked the Physical-Therapist as I was leaving.
“Yes, it was,” she said.
“You notice I stayed quiet as a church-mouse,” I said.
“Yes,” she said; “and I was deathly afraid you might make some snide remark.”
“I could have told stories,” I said.

The best Brian Kolb story is the supposed interview he circulated to all the local media-outlets.
Local TV-personalities could dub in the questions, and the TV-camera shown in the interview was actually Kolb’s camera, which stations could brand as their own with software.

Another Brian Kolb story is how he accused the mighty Mezz of bias because we wouldn’t publish his self-congratulatory press-releases.
No matter we also refused to publish similar press-releases of his opponents — even though they were less strident than his.
-What I didn’t do was tell Kolb I was the guy who wrote the Op-Ed piece on motorcycling despite age.
He wrote me a personal letter cheering me on.
I guess Kolb is having trouble with his knees; not pain but instability.
He deluged the Physical-Therapist with a torrent of detailed questions — what I would have done years ago — in a feeble attempt to appear intelligent and thereby in his own mind in control of the situation.
Maybe he needs to see a shrink.

My macho brother in Boston is always telling me I need to see a “shrink.”

Gulick Road

Today (Friday, January 5, 2007) was my reconnoiter of Gulick Road (actually Cumming Nature Center, which is on Gulick Road)
Gulick Road is far out in the sticks, up in the Bristol Hills; reportedly the longest town-road in the United States — actually it goes through three towns.
It’s between two main roads: State Route 64, and Hunt Hollow Road.
The reason for this foray was to visit the all-powerful Tim Belknap, City-Editor of the mighty Mezz, and fellow car-guy. He’s almost retirement-age.
Belknap is about the only one that responds to all my e-mails to the vaunted ne’er-do-wells. He therefore knows all about the almighty Bluster-King.
Apparently Belknap was bequeathed a HUGE-AHHH 1995 F250 Ford pickup by his brother, who recently died; and thinks the world of it. (1995 isn’t the new pickup; it’s this.)
Belknap has a fairly large rural spread, and is cutting his own firewood. He also has an ancient Dodge Dakota pickup, which is on the road, but I guess the F250 isn’t — although it could be.
It still has the Vermont plates, and a gas-appetite that would bankrupt Tim.
Belknap’s spread is so far out, he probably has a well. And his gas is probably bottled propane.
He warned me of deerys, and cougars; and has sighted a bear. No deerys, no cougars, no color-blind old coots, as his wife calls him.
I found the dreaded F250, big as an aircraft-carrier, parked in a dark umbrella of Norwegian spruce — looking rather plain. No raised suspension; no light-bar; no gimcracks. He claims it’s blue; but his wife insists it’s dark green — looks green to me. (I guess I’m not colorblind yet — although I think his wife is just making a potshot.)
Finding Gulick Road “from northern climes” was nearly impossible. I must have put a “hundered” miles on the bucktooth-bathtub.
I had a map which didn’t have Gulick Road on it — or not so labeled. It had a road that I thought was Gulick Road, but it wasn’t. (It was County Road 33.)
I had to drive all the way to Naples (this is Google-maps), where I knew I had passed a Gulick-Road intersection on Hunt Hollow Road in the past. But that’s the south end of Gulick Road: “southern climes.”
I had driven there from the vaunted Canandaigua Weggers, so went down State Route 64 past Bristol Mountain Ski Center, onto County Road 34 which becomes County Road 33. (33 continues on south to Naples.)
Gulick Road angles north off of Hunt Hollow Road, and continues north a long way to Pinewood Hill Road — which I wasn’t aware of. Pinewood Hill Road begins as County Road 33 off of East Lake Road south of Honeoye.
I passed “Pinewood Hill Road” a few times, but didn’t know Gulick Road came off of it. I guess it starts at a kink.
I managed to find Belknap’s spread — the house-number is on the mailbox. I could verify the location by the F250 with its Vermont plates.
Getting there from West Bloomfield is about 30-40 minutes.
There’s no way I could have found it without a prior reconnoiter.