Modern Vespa

Great looking piece of work!

7800km

Thank you!

Today was a beautiful day to ride. I took NV341 from Reno to Virginia City, then NV342 to Carson City and old US395 back to Reno to complete the loop. Perfect weather and temps cheered me up!

That's some beautiful scenery right there!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5AiBdrso7e/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

The meme stonks are back baby!

Nice work !
Those space savers are uncommon in South Africa.
I love the ones where there is a desktop attached that folds down with the bed so you don't even have to move the laptop when you open out the bed.

Last Friday I made a big mistake. So, that beautiful CMM I posted the picture of ... I broke it.

I was in a hurry and looked at the computer screen as I was moving it with the joystick when there was a horrendous cracking noise followed by bits bouncing onto the floor. I had driven it with my own hand into the top of the fixture I was working on and made contact with a portion of the probe without an emergency stop sensor. In more than 30 years doing this I have never done this.

Fortunately, my quality manager was not in the plant on Friday, so I had to take the issue to our corporate director. You'd think that would be a bad thing, but it isn't. He was on the phone, so I mouthed the words, "It's bad news" to him. He immediately told the party on the phone that it was someone "with bad news" and hung up.

I told him exactly what happened and what it was going to cost to fix. About $6.6K. His first response was, "You had me worried. I thought you were going to tell me you were leaving."

That felt pretty good.

To lighten the blow, I told him I had already gotten a quote for an RBE (repair by exchange) when we had the machine calibrated in March. The head was on its way out anyway, and I was limping along with it because I knew money was tight.

He didn't bat an eye, had the PO cut by Friday afternoon and I just received the new one this afternoon. I have the new head installed, squared and calibrated and just finished my first part check.

The lesson? No matter how long you've been doing something or how good (you think) you are at it, you can still make rookie mistakes. The other lesson? Always try to be cooperative and friendly at work. It can go a long way.

NFL schedule drops tomorrow!

I got an email from some random person who definitely intended for it to go elsewhere. Since my name definitely isn't Megan (and my real first name appears when using this email address) he'll suffer no illusion that something has gone awry at the academy. But hopefully it puts a smile on his face. And if it doesn't well I tried.

My latest ride.

Before I ever threw a leg over a motorcycle I raced mountain bikes for 20 years. I hung my bicycle up when I bought the first motorcycle and haven't touched if for a decade now. This spring I decided it was time to pedal again, pulled it down and found that time had not been kind to it. Unable to find the parts to repair a nearly 25 year old bike, I donated it to a charity that will use the parts that are good to help kids fix their bikes, and teach them mechanical skills in the process. Then I went out and found a good deal on a Rocky Mountain Vertex.

It's a far better bike than I had before, with a full carbon fiber frame and high end components. I took my first trail ride on it after work today, and other than the effects of a decade worth of sloth to work off, it was a spectacular ride. I'm excited to re-learn my mountain biking skills.

We blocked off August 2026 on our calendars today (at least she said we need to when she came home) for the solar eclipse with totality over ibiza.

So that's two bucket list items in one fell swoop....and one HELL of a way to do it.

Are you going to take a pill while there?

i'm retiring from the military on 30 sep, and will no longer be pursuing any sort of employment with the USG or within the cleared community at all.

so yes, probably.

The kit to make it work was this:
https://www.amazon.com/TOPOWN-Hardware-Folding-Queen-Size-Vertical/dp/B08BL3FNMX

We found two twin bed bases on Nextdoor for $50 the pair:
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/loenset-slatted-bed-base-30278732/

The louvred doors were free on Nextdoor. Free on Nextdoor or at the side of the road has supplied most of our appliances!

Just had to buy two sheets of 3/4" maple-faced ply (the plans call for four, plus 2 sheets of 1/4" ply but I ignored that), and a few primed 1x2 and 1x3s. Oh, and a quart of paint.

Every project needs some new tool or other - this time it was a set of Forstner bits:
https://www.amazon.com/Irwin-Tools-1966892-Drilling-Forstner/dp/B07145HBPL

I'll be set for winter ...

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C597RfvLa4o/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Fixed a rattle on the Aprilia. It just really started annoying me, so I decided to actually dig into it. Nothing more than the glove compartment door and the fix was a self adhesive foam pad. Stupid fix, but I cannot tell you how noticeable the lack of rattle was this morning.

Amazing what we become accustomed to.

I can relate. I've had a weird high-pitched rattley noise out of my transmission case that I've dealt with for a few years. Considered everything, and maybe I'm just desperate, but I'm pretty convinced it's the pulley at mid-belt doing it. If so, it's a much simpler fix than say, replacing the clutch. Now I just have to get around to trying that.....in the meantime, I don't pay it much attention....

I just finished checking my gas mileage, out of curiosity. I went from a high of 106mpg to a low of 73mpg, and an overall average of 91mpg. That comes from driving on pretty much the same roads, but a different speeds. Curiously enough, the faster I rode, the better the gas mileage. After pondering this odd fact, I finally concluded that at the lower speeds (25-30mph), the CVT was still in a lower ratio, and at the higher overall speeds the CVT reached its higher ratio. Riding at the lower speeds was like driving a car around in second gear.
Now, I don't really care much what the mpg is, but curiosity got to this cat.
I'm cheered up by having these trivial matters resolved, and from now on will probably ignore the whole mpg thing, and just ride on.

I think you'll also find that if you ride WOT on the freeway for any length of time, your MPG will drop precipitously.

True! However, this little bike and I don't do freeways, just back country roads with lots of hills.

What's the best speed to go if you're not sure if you will reach the next station?

It's a great question! I don't have the data on it, but a wild-ass-guess would be about 30-40mph.

^^^^ This - the slowest speed with the variator in 'top gear'.

Great to know - and confirms my gut feeling on it. I've been wondering about that, too.

Often it's negative.

Wide open, you can coast further.

The exact same speed as the truck that is half a yard in front of you.

while you are hanging on to it by the side rail step.

I fail to see any problem with that economy measure...

Coffee with a view

A breathtaking view!

When my headlight on the smallframe fell out today on the way to work in rush hour traffic the wires held it dangling.

I'm so pleased.

Great way to start the day

To balance the Universe I resolved the Kymco's charging issues.

Yay.

This is why all my bulbs are now blown!

And fucked is my team talk on the benefits of simplicity and how awesome not having seemingly unnecessary complications like batteries and regulators.

Alanis Morissette may well have said something about that.

I got word Monday morning that I'm being "made redundant", as my Brit company puts it, but they're asking me to hang about until my options fully vest in a month or so and help the remainder of my team transition to their new boss, when they find and hire one. The UK part of my team is still there, the US guys were all let go Monday.

The interesting part is that I fully intended to leave the instant my options were fully vested, and was going to tell them in a few weeks, but knew that they'd immediately try their best to screw me in any and every possible way. Now I don't need to worry about the timing of my notice to them.

And I have absolutely no intention of finding another job. THAT is cheering me up today.

Jump right in.

The water is lovely.

Don't go back.

Not only have I successfully repaired our electric shower I have won a coffee machine in a raffle. Boom