Modern Vespa

Nice hat Bill!

Seriously, has to be so nice for both your mom and the kids. You can't take them for granted at that age.

Mom's closing in on 91. Let's see how far she makes it. She's an optimist....

Bill,

That is quite a gaggle of Leutholds. Good looking group. So,
are you the youngest brother?

Darn, we just don't get the oysters selections up here in Frost Bite Falls.

Bob Copeland

I asked the server to take the photo after delivering the crabs and oysters.

She, obviously, is not a photographer, getting the light fixture placed exactly over my head.

Bill I am actually number three, seven years older than Scott on the right of the photo.

Luckily my hair has stayed put, mostly, and not gone gray yet.

But my beard has a bit of gray.

Bill

I got an email from the insurance company last week, saying they were reviewing my policies to check for irregularities, which might incur some costs for me.

Email today saying they owe me money


Also untrimmed bush lady left me a note in the mailbox telling me exactly how far my hedge was protruding and that there was a group of them that objected to my incursion onto their cherished footpath. Some of the money that I get back from the insurance company will pay to get it framed.

even better, make a sign and adorn it with a fake brass plaque. but make the plaque just small enough that you have to stop to read it and make sure it's snarky.

I'm tempted to wander up and down the street with chalk and a ruler measuring and marking all the overhangs that are more offensive than my own.
But I know how these things can escalate.

A simple thing: had a decent birthday that didn't completely and totally suck ass for the first time in years. I am now in a self-induced food coma, and officially on the lower end of Old, when all the age-specific party decor is offered in black.

znomit,

My blushing bride's parents had a corner lot with a 50 foot hedge next to the
sidewalk. That hedge would over grow and hang over half of the sidewalk.

About every other year, I would rent a chainsaw and give that hedge a short
hair cut. There was so much debris, I had to hire a full sized dump truck to
haul it away. The hedge also circled the property in the back. That darn thing
grew like a weed. The hedge would be 6 feet tall. I would cut it down to
four feet each time. Beautiful, but a pain in the behind.

Bob Copeland

my wife had surgery on her lipoma yesterday! finally got it removed after years of pain. she had trouble finding doctors to operate on her, they all turned her down because it was at the top of her spine, so its a tricky area. but eventually a doctor stepped up, and got 'r done! now shes relaxing and healing up. thats whats cheering me up today have a good day guys! <3

What is cheering me up today?

I have both a new car and scooter on order. Due within 30 days. There
once was a time you could walk in and buy right off the dealer lot. Due
to the chip shortage, my Honda Dealer (Large one in Twin Cities MN) had
one new vehicle on the lot. In the past, they would have 300 on the lot with
all models and colors. I am happy with anticipation.

Bob Copeland


2022 Honda HRV

2022 kymco 550

I thought that was your party hat for the day!

I just got back from a neighborhood walk after a nice country ride on the scoot on a sunny day. I'm looking forward to fajitas for lunch. My new hypotension meds make all these things possible.

Casual update. I just don't want to start a thread of my own. Today is 2 weeks after surgery number 3. They put more hardware and screws. So far I am doing great and hoping that this is really going to be the last hip surgery I have.

Glad it went well!

Max6200

Bless you Max and heal well.

Bob Copeland
Minnesota

I was just looking at the "What's pissing you off thread?" and realized... I'm pretty sure I've never posted in it. So that's cheering me up.

Life is too short to waste time and energy on the negatives, or on reliving grievances. Better to just deal with whatever I need to deal with. Then I can dedicate my time and energy on keeping my eyes on the prize, and enjoying the ride up.

A month from now will be the ten year anniversary of my father passing. There is nothing I can do about this, but enjoy today for him since he can't.

Things could always be better, but more importantly.... Life is good!

Kids being kids, in this case Amish children in my county. The kiddos used ladders, shovels, buckets and plywood to create this 30 foot tall Frosty in front of their school house. The plywood was used for the flat surfaces. To give you an idea of size: make note, the nose is a traffic cone, and, a shovel at the base. The local news channels are starting to pick up on it. Kids being kids and full of ingenuity.

Not surprising at the scale of it, ever see how their parents can build a barn in a day or two?

Not Amish but Mennonite not far from me a few years ago. Old two story brick house, wind storm tore off roof. I drove past about 7 AM and the place was swarming with workers removing what the wind left. Drove past about 4 PM same day and shingles were over half way done on the new roof. Many hands make light work!

When I got my current bike, I got a lot of flak from the sales manager about adding a bash plate to a Bonneville-family "street" moto. Insisted it was pointless and would only make my oil changes take longer.
Today, it did its job on a brief stint off pavement in gravel. Choice vindicated.
I'm 100 miles away from the next service interval, so I'm looking forward to the reaction.

Apologies in advance to sensitive readers.
South Africans are known to deal with tragic events by means of dark humour.

Today marks the 8th anniversary of the onset of a previously unknown mental condition named Pistorius Neurosis.
It is characterized by the sudden, unexplained and excessive fear of sleeping over at your boyfriend's house on the eve of Valentine's Day.
There is no cure for the condition other than changing the boyfriend.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Pistorius

PS - RIP Reeva Steenkamp

I had a dream last night that I changed the oil in the Primavera, and used half proper stuff and half gearbox oil, and was just kinda, "Oh well, won't make a difference". For some reason I found this hilarious upon waking.

Usually when I have dreams that involve oil they don't include the Vespa.

There have been many time I've had strange dreams but not sure I would want to share them!

Bring it to the Modern Vespa Oil Counselling Center for advice.

Operators are on call.

Reminds me of the time back in Junior High when we visited my grandparents at their farm just outside of Wisconsin Dells. It had snowed so much that year that my dad got the bright idea of building a snowman in the yard. As we rolled the snowballs for the base, we kept rolling, until we got one that was about 6' tall. Realizing we couldn't lift another one on top of it, we simply rolled another one and parked it next to it. Then we made a much smaller one that my dad helped us lift up and set up as a head, and we put four even smaller ones on the corners of the now semi-rectangular body. My dad fashioned a single horn on the nose of the head, and we ended up with the Albino Rhino. It lasted well into mid- to late-spring. I wish I had pics of it.

tk you both

When it could fit both the Things making you happy thread and the Things making you angry thread, do you get double points?

The mirror stem is too narrow to for the new horn bracket to fit nicely. So I initally used a piece of garden hose around the the stem to fill the space, it worked ok but eventually came loose. Don't know why. Can't tighten the screws too much as its only cheap dodgy plastic.
The hose replacement is a strip of pink kitchen sponge wrapped tightly round the stem and while compressed fit the horn bracket. So far so good.
Ideally should have used yellow sponge but you can only use what you've got.

I was going through some old WhatsApp posts to clear phone memory
and found a remark I love.

"Grandchildren are the dividends you receive from investing in children."

If you have any grandchildren, you will know what I am talking about.



PS - Apologies if I have repeated a previous posting.

I forgot.

Does it still count if I skipped the middle part? Wife had an 18 year old daughter when I met her!

Did you invest in her - education, love and affection, food and shelter ?
Has she provided you with a grandchild ?

Dividends paid.

Fud,

I can tell from your remarks that you are a super family man. I think
family is everything. I want to say this correctly because everyone is
open to make their own choices. For some reason, family and its positive
attributes for society seems to be losing strength. 28% of household in
the USA are single parent. When I grew up it was 13%.

I have not yet been blessed with grandchildren. My son and his delightful wife
are off on the career thing and have indicated they are not having children.
My daughter is single and has some health issues.

I was always real independent. I look back and miss all those large family gatherings
were we laughed, debated and learned a whole lot about being responsible.

So. it up to the rest of you to bring on the next generartion.

Bob Copeland

My dad has been married four times. His first wife is the mother of my two brothers and myself. His second wife was only in our lives for a couple of years (that's a whole other story). He married his fourth wife when I was 21 (I was his best man at their wedding). He had no children with anyone else, due to having a vasectomy after my younger brother was born.

His third wife entered our lives when I was in 2nd grade. They divorced when I was a Sophomore in HS, but she remained in my life. She is the woman who raised me. I freely refer to her as Mom, because that's what she is to me. I love her as my mom, and she loves me as her son. My wife and I have chosen to not have children, for a variety of reasons.

She got remarried to a widower about two years after she divorced my dad. He had been married to his first wife for 30 years before she died of cancer. They had 5 or 6 children. He was already a grandfather when he met my mom and married her. His last grandchild was born after he married my mom. That grandson only knew my mom as his grandmother, while the others knew their biological grandmother. He loved my mom as his grandma, and she loves him as her grandson.

So she has a son and grandson (and I think she might have a great-grandson by now). In my opinion, she is more deserving of the titles of mom and grandma than my biological mother is. But again, that's another story for another time.

As Fudmucker said, if you've cared for her as if she were your own, then yes, it counts.

I never had kids and at 60, married a woman with three adult kids, seven grandchildren and various fringe characters. After living alone, it took a while to adapt to all the happiness and love. Kids are impressive.

I'm actually genuinely working on trying to go back to school, and I had to take a couple of placement tests today. I haven't done anything officially academic for over 20 years. I did just as well as I expected to on one (absolutely killed it), and way better than I even hoped to on the other (somehow, killed it as well).

Well by the time we got real serious she was done with the education and was working and living on her own so the education, food and shelter were taken care of by herself. About all I could offer was the love and affection. And yes about eight years back I was made an honorary grand dad!

I'm a bit jealous of the kid as he has been able to spend more time with his grand parents in just over seven years than I did in all my years, last grand parent passed when I was only 35 and she lived half the country away so had little time with her. Only grandfather that lived till I was born passed when I was only 12 and he too lived half way across the country so only spent maybe a few weeks total with him!

Brake fluid change on the Primavera done today.

20 minute job for someone moderately competent, took me about an hour and a half. First time taking the headset off, much less traumatic than the LX. I missed one set of the underneath screws on the first pass, and then one of them was spinning in place and I didn't realise it was loose, and of course I couldn't find my nice magnetic bleed bottle that I had stuck to the side of a shelf four or five years ago.

Nice that the screen mounting hardware doesn't need removing to get at the brake reservoir, same with the mirrors.

Brakes now have some feel. This may have been the first time it's been done ever.

My Dad died way back in '84, leaving Mom and I behind.
I had a younger sister who died in early childhood. I was raised as an only child - that was the way it was in the 50's when you had a sibling in permanent care with no probability of recovery or development.

My Mom married 5 years later to a man with 3 children and 11 grandchildren,
so she got the big family thing to enjoy in her golden years.

I have three kids and one grandchild from my older son.
My younger son is gay and married - so adoption is the only possibility there.
My daughter is single and not looking for her own offspring- she seems to be the go-to "maiden aunt" godmother for all her friends with babies.

So just the one grandson dividend for three investments.

We adopted two new kitties this weekend!

Meet Walter & Tobias. Walter is a 9-year old long haired male, who has seen a thing or two in his life. He's incredibly gentle, and loves being held & petted. He readily purrs, and is also very chatty. Tobias is a 2-year old short haired orange tabby. He had a traumatic accident as a kitten, leaving him partially blind in his right eye, and he has a steel pin in his left front leg. It doesn't seem to affect his attitude, though, as he's very affectionate.

Our other two cats are slowly getting used to them.


Walter

Tobias (Toby)

Monogodo,

You are a good soul for taking in those two. It warmed my heart.

Bob Copeland
Frostbite Falls Minnesota


My tuxedo cat Jack would say hello - after he got miffed about another cat in his house.