Modern Vespa

Delayed gratification, at its best! Enjoy!
I took a similar path, and it's paying off now, big time!

If you look up "Parcheggio della rotonda 21 Aprile" on your mapping partner of choice thats the roundabout. It's about 3-4 min drive from the Lambo museum.

Which is stellar.

JBlacklund said his wife indicated he was a crabby bastard when going through withdrawal from cigarettes. In my Summer job on cement construction, the owner of the company would try to quit smoking. He was Bat Crazy during this time. I was sitting down holding a line to square the basement on the footings.
The boss thought I was loafing off and came up behind me and kicked me pretty hard in the butt. Well, my boss yelled at the owner "Don". I turned to Don and told him, "for what you are paying (High Union Wages), you can kick me all you want".

That quiting smoking is tough. What cheered me up - I could almost cover my entire college expense from those summer jobs. I graduated with no college loans.

Bob Copeland

One of the eeriest walks I've ever had. People just appearing out of the fog. Hearing boats go by but unable to make them out.

On the train back now hoping it's better tonight. We'd like to do some night photography and tonight/tomorrow nights are our best bet for it.

Costume work tomorrow though, off to San Marco for Caffe Florian (because costumes).

63 and sunny today, almost mesh jacket weather. Rode to the local cycle store to look at all the pretty new bikes. Still haven't seen anything I like better then my Liberty 150.

OFG

This is what's cheering me up today. Took a bit of effort to install, but totally worth it.

(And yes, that is actually a wooden Vespa on my mantelpiece).

I'm just mesmerized by the moon.

And thus, all the readers of the thread were mooned.

Its upside down.

Maybe for you. NASA says otherwise

(I did actually check before I hung it up).

This cheers me up because Bob Wallace was a Kiwi. Note the capitalisation, native New Zealander, not small furry fruit.

Now that it's almost dark outside, it looks even more impressive glowing in the living room.

And here it is oriented for the people who are standing on the wrong side of the globe, looking up down at the sky:

We like the moon, cuz it is close to us...

Horrible song. You won't get that 1:29 back. You were warned.

I finished up the mid peg risers for my old chopper today. One of the brackets on the frame was welded on just slightly out of square many many years ago. Being a bit OCD, I know that the peg not being square would make me twitch every time I looked at it. So I took a couple of thick washers and used a flat file to create a bevel that corrects the peg position. The peg is now at a 90 degree angle to the frame rail. My OCD is satisfied and I'm cheered up!

This is a super comfortable riding position for me. I always hated having my feet out in front of me.

I know this feeling all too well.

Nice solution!

The other option was to adjust the front/back faces of the bracket itself. That would have been much more involved and require removing a lot more material. This was the more time efficient option.

Time well spent

Gonna play havoc if you live with a werewolf!

Oh, crap!

Time to go do a thing.

What is the info on this? It would look great in our mid century living room.

It's on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1G9M4Y1

And it comes in sizes up to about 39".

There are others that are similar, too -- this one stood out for being the right size for my wall and also somewhat modifiable for my particular installation.

Intrigued, to say the least.

Jess,

That moon is amazing.

Bob Copeland

I've never enjoyed being mooned so much!

Friend of mine got some prescription to quit smoking (drug that blocks nicotine receptors in the brain). Worked perfectly. He smoked as regular, but after a month he didn't want to smoke anymore. Stayed smoke free for four years, then bought a pack while drunk. Smoked for about a year. Went and got another prescription. Stayed smoke free for something like five years. Smoked for about a year. Went and got a prescription. Got different drug. Got sick from that. Still smokes.

One year ago today was a very bad day for me. I wrecked my left knee skiing The injury was pretty severe (complete ACL tear, partial MCL tear, compound meniscus tear, and a fractured tibial plateau). Today was a much better day celebrating a full recovery on 2-1/2 feet of new snow at North Lake Tahoe. I'm very cheered up to have put this behind me!

Good for you!!!

We were absolutely MOBBED. Have a friend who's a pro photog who came along and most of the photos are on her camera for a while yet. But here's a few teasers.

pretty cool!

If I ever get there, it'll just be a red duffle coat costume for me

Here's a pic I snapped from my view in Michigan. Yours is pretty close.

Finally getting my bike back from the shop. Part of the holdup was insurance absolutely gobsmacked that I would have Denali lights on my forks (to throw some light on the road). -I didn't. I had cheapo Amazon lights that hadn't worked in some time. Shop didn't realize they weren't the real deal and I've gotten away with something making all my trouble worth it.

Much-anticipated trip to Caffe Florian.

My Insurance has gone down by £50.00

In other News a friend of mine and I went to a Hotel for Breakfast which we tend to do every other weekend.

Running the Restaurant was a lovely guy called Reece who we hadn't seen at this particular venue before.

Reece had the most impressive, well groomed and trimmed beard,and it was so impressive we had a long conversation about it and then we enjoyed our respective Breakfasts.

As as Reece had finished his night shift he bode us both a good day and left for home but after we had finished and left to pay only to find out that our Breakfasts had been paid for by the Hotel, by Reece.

Bless you Reece. You are a true Gentleman.

I got my oil tank back from the welder yesterday. Put the bike back together today. I'm just doing a quick patch to the paint. It's mostly hidden behind the rear exhaust pipe and I don't want to get into painting the entire oil tank.

Getting the oil tank back in the frame and the bike almost completely back together again is cheering me up today!

This is awesome.

/jealous

I'm confused about the purpose of the stud. And the pad. Wasn't it just flat there before?

(I might have missed some point you made earlier...)

There was always a stud there. Well, I added the stud back in 2003. My earlier photos were taken after I ground off the weld that held the stud to the tank and removed it. You couldn't see the cracks clearly with the stud in place.

A bracket for the rear exhaust pipe is attached to the stud. This vibration from 20 years and 160K+ miles of riding eventually led to the failure. I added the thick pad to absorb and distribute the vibration across a much broader area of the tank. The previous stud was welded directly to the tank with no pad. This should resolve the issue of a crack developing at the base of the stud. I'll likely be dead before another crack ever occurs, so it will be someone else's problem.

EDIT: I found a photo of the old stud mounted to the tank.