Modern Vespa

Power to our house came back on yesterday and as a big bonus, Wi-Fi returned as well.

Was able to order a $8.00 bearing as apposed to a $169 idler pulley.
That made my day.

$169?? Holly hell!!! They go for 48€ here...

I have been given the run-around since August by an incompetent traffic official that messed up a vehicle data verification red-tape process I need to transfer ownership of a bike to the buyer. Excuses and calling for more information, wanting to re-inspect (bike is now 1000 miles away with buyer) asking for close-up verification photos...
Finally he called me yesterday to ask for the DataDot certificate for the vehicle.
"Yet another duck and dive delay!" I thought.

I sourced the document and rode out to the testing grounds this morning.
The guy had called in sick, so his supervisor was filling in.
Relating the saga to him, I could see the anger and embarrassment rise in his face.
"My apologies sir. This matter will be attended to immediately!"

Sadly, despite this and many other similar failures of the said official,
I expect he will keep his job.

Picked up a new, unused Akrapovic exhaust from a friend. He bought it intending to put it on his GT60 then decided that wasn't appropriate. About 20 - 25% of new price in New Zealand. Proper win.


Still in its bubble wrap.

New plate ♥️🛵♥️

Attending an autumn wedding in beautiful Canmore, Alberta, Canada.


It's a lovely morning.

Fall's usually the time for oil changes, and biennial coolant and brake fluid changes. 3 scooters...got through the coolant fine, then onto brakes. Front on the LX easy peasy, then the GTS, lost and regained pressure, then saved worst for last.....front went well, then on to the rear....got messy, but in the end got pretty good, maybe not perfect results. Whew!

After the 5 000km service, my HPE still shuddered and growled on a standing start.

Vespa guru and I had it up on the lift in his garage this morning, took the covers off and started removing bits and pieces.

The clutch bell housing was glazed as were the clutch shoes.
A light sanding on the shoes and a flapper sanding disk to the bell and the glazing was gone.

"While we have the covers off..." he said.

Out of his garage cupboard he produced a new Malossi power spring kit.
In went the Malossi spring and it all got put together again.
Covers on, I took it for a ride to the local coffee spot for a couple of take-out Grande Long Black cups.

Growl and shudder GONE !

Sold my Vespa S to a 70 year old little Italian man. He has a scooter from Suzuki, Yamaha, and Honda, and now he has a Vespa to complete his collection.

When I delivered it he gave me the "hey, while you're here..." and next thing you know I spent 15 minutes working on his Suzuki for him lol. My Italian dad passed away before he ever got old enough to struggle with things, so it was nice to be able to help out.

Belt and rollers changed for the Primavera. Found where my old dribble is coming from (rocker cover so no biggie).
I installed the 12.5g rollers down from 15. No noticeable pick up difference on my blat around the neighbourhood but seemed pretty smooth.

Thanks to Robot for the Youtube.

My Rugby team Wasps RFC may of been saved from extinction, I have read this morning that the stricken club that last week made 167 people redundant has had a bid accepted by the Administrators.

Not going to get too excited yet as the Governing body (RFU) needs to do it's checks on the validity of the buyers finances but this is the best news the clubs fans has had for weeks.

It was bad enough with Worcester going udders vertical, but I was sad to hear about Wasps drowning. I always thought it was a mistake to have moved to Coventry at huge expense.

New clutch installed for traffic light hooliganism...

...fitted with a new bright red stubby air impact wrench (well, removal anyway). The sound is awesome (the power, not so much so, lol). zzzzt... zzzzt! 🏍

Actually, rashers and eggs for breakfast was the best bit. Ignore the above.

Many people have said it was a mistake for Wasps to move to Coventry and yes it was a venture that ultimately didnt work out but what most people dont realise was that they were right on the brink of extinction 8 years ago before the move and we have had some great times in the last few years which wouldnt have happened without the rescue of the club and the move to Coventry.

Thanks for your remorse on my club and Worcester, hopefully both teams will survive to fight another day at the top table of English Rugby.

See at 'Quins one day.

To avoid being political, Good news coming in this morning for the Amazon Rainforest.

I've got my PMP3 emulator fully working . PMP3 is the Bluetooth protocol on the GTS 2023 (and some other new piaggio scoots). So should have my app supporting this soon 😀

Oh yeah, and I've done this without access to a PMP3 scoot because I've got Skillz 😝

My vacation ended yesterday, so I'm back at work today.

I had 70 unread emails waiting for me. Now I have 0. Took about 2 hours to get through all of them.

Now to actually produce the work those emails generated.

We drove to NW Arkansas last week Monday and spent time with my MIL. We hired a pet sitter to watch the three older cats, and took the younger, special needs cat for my MIL to watch. On Wednesday, we drove to St Louis. My wife is a member of a religious group, and they were having their annual meeting. She was going to be consecrated as a full member at the meeting, so it was kind of a big deal. I was just along for the ride.

I got to have dinner with a friend from junior high. We went to a local brewery and had some great pumpkin beers (salted caramel, cheesecake, chai tea). I also was able to visit two yarn stores and pick up some nice yarn at both.

We got back on Monday, and spent yesterday resting from the trip and doing a little laundry.

My MIL always warns us to watch out for deer in Oklahoma. We didn't see any on the drive up to Arkansas, because it was pouring rain. On the drive between Arkansas and St Louis (and back), I saw about 2 dozen carcasses on the side of the road, but no live deer. On the trip back to Dallas on Monday afternoon, we saw 38 live deer grazing, and one carcass.

I had two sores on my hand removed and cauterized.The lab found them to be squamous cell carcinomas.
Glad I went to the doctor!

I hope you washed your hands before posting that!

I don't know what "squamous" means and too lazy to google it but does not sound good. Glad you have it taken care of!

It's a highly treatable skin cancer when found early.

I was installing a shelf in the lean-to where I park my bikes.
The sloping floor made the shelf unit topple on to Becky, my yellow and black HPE

I took the Vespa to a friend is the auto spray trade for a repair.
As he had to mix a minimum paint quantity, he had surplus paint.
While he was busy, he colour-matched the passenger foot pegs for me for a cleaner look...

Sweet! If you'd have asked me to find the detail, it might have taken some time, but pointed out, yes, it's nice!

Arghh....hate it when something stupid...and usually preventable happens.

This falls under the 'What Cheered You Up YESTERDAY?' (11/3) discussion.

I was on my way home from San Diego airport heading north on the 5. Right where the 5 merges with the 805 I came up on a guy on what looked like a 150!

I initially thought it was a 300, but the rear turn signals were the shape of the 150, and the frame seemed smaller. I guess when you're on one of the widest stretches of freeway (22 lanes total north and south?) in the country a 300 would seem like a 50!

Rider had a white MOMO helmet and a white jacket.. and all of my respect!

Yesterday was especially windy. Gusts coming out of the west at 20+ mph.

Great spotting!

Made me think of Palladin. Remember him? He insisted that his 150 was made for LA freeways. That always stimulated some discussion.

Yeah, he's been gone from here for a while. Met him once -- nice guy.

150cc Vespas are ok on freeways if you pick your times and conditions (gridlock or light traffic), and are prepared to bail out to surface streets ASAP if traffic starts getting both heavy and fast. Can be nerve-wracking if you're caught up in fast traffic with no easy way out...

Interesting! IIRC he'd had some serious heart problems, so guessing that took him off the road....

Coming home yesterday the engine started running unevenly , losing power . Managed to limp home and thought that it must be the spark plug at fault which did'nt exactly fill me with joy , not a simple task on an ET 4 to change a plug . At this point , before I looked at the plug , I decided to look at the ignition coil which is far easier to access. Hey presto , both spade connectors to the coil almost fell off , so I crimped the connectors on the wires until they felt tight when I pushed them back onto the coil. Started up and runs like a dream . Now I have the smile back on my face . . This was following the advice of a mechanic friend given to me many years ago , who advised me to check the easy stuff first , it could save a lot of time and effort . In this instance it certainly paid off.

🐈🛵

Makes sense. I was taught when troubleshooting to explore any hypothesis from general to specific and from cheap to expensive. Seems to work, and the easy stuff gets tested first.

I once ran a shop and had a mechanic who would make ridiculous assumptions and jump to errant conclusions that very often turned into a waste of time and money. He wasn't around very long.

When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.

Or unicorns.

I work by myself in a lab where there is - unfortunately - a lot of ambient hiss. Most of this is from the factory floor and I don't have any control over it.

I broke down and bought a set of Sennheiser Momentum 4s.

The ANC is great, the sound is great, the comfort is great. I say all of this not having anything to compare them to. But I know I am listening to music at low volume right now and I'm able to hear things that I never would have heard even with te speakers I have in the lab.

Lots of controls and customizations.

I've worked in the printing industry for 30+ years, and have developed tinnitus.

I've tried using noise cancelling headphones, and they make it worse.

Well, considering that Monday was a right crappy day.... the main issue at hand is my biennial professional licensure certification. Due by December 14 or I'm on vacation... Saturday for the first time I took an online course, and expected some confirmation of it....crickets. Emailed our state association that gave the course, then decided to just call, and got an answering machine. Meanwhile our state licensing agency is having issues with their website functionality. On top of that all, I looked at the transcript summary and saw two courses listed as "NA" instead of the number needed to report. A lightbulb went off and I thought that the courses weren't approved (our Board can be pretty funny about that sometimes) and my assumption that they counted was wrong after all. No contact yesterday, so today, rolled up my sleeves and called again.

I got through to a human, they were swamped dealing with all of the issues at the moment, but got my online course info, and told me that the NA courses did indeed count and I would get numbers shortly.

So, much relieved, and now I just have to wait for the state to get their act together so I can actually register. But at least I don't have to do a last minute weekend out of town to get extra hours!

Since my wife went from COVID+ to COVID- in 11 days, and yesterday was Day 11 for me since testing positive, I figured I'd do another home test.

Still positive.

What's cheering me up about it is that the two red lines aren't as bold as they were. My wife's tests were doing that, too. They were really bold when she first was positive, then after the antivirals, the lines would be lighter each time she tested, until she finally tested negative. Mine have been bold up until Tuesday night. I didn't test on Wednesday, and last night's result was positive, but not as bold. I'll probably test again on Monday.

Other than sinus congestion/drainage, an occasional cough, and getting fatigued easier than normal, I feel great. Still masking and keeping as much distance as possible around others.

That
's pretty good, if not great, news!

I ordered 4k envelopes because I needed to print 3901 of them for a job.

I lost 4 envelopes due to setup, and a 5th was damaged by being handled with dirty hands.

I had 88 left when I was done, so the vendor only supplied 3994.

I'm happy with them being 0.15% short.

My wife and I have been the very happy victims of an offspring conspiracy plot...!

My son Steven and son-in-law* Marius arrived in stealth yesterday
all the way from Melbourne Australia for a ten day visit.



(*same sex marriage)

Nice surprise! I'd be curious how my wife would react as she's usually pretty insistent on a 24 hour advance notice....but she'd get over it, lol.