Modern Vespa

Definitely going to have a good week. Boss gave me an easy job. Engine came back from the builder. I love doing these installs, it's easy and satisfying when finished and all back together and better than before.

Oooo! I like the high view point.
Mine looks messy right now. Replaced our washer/dryer and microwave on Friday, so the old units are listed for sale. Hopefully someone comes to get them quickly. They're cramping my style. But new appliances cheer me up! 😂

Finished up my oil tank repair! I did some cutting and polishing on the paint to blend the repaired area this morning. Good enough for a greasy old chopper. 100% put back together again. Just need spring temps (not that I'm in a hurry, I love winter). This is cheering me up today!

Not quite in my case.

I attended the University of Southern California (USC) school of music and attended every home football game. Four Rose Bowls in a row.

I am minimally interested in basketball and not at all in baseball.

Or soccer.

My son-in-law, who just moved in next door, is an avid (rabid?) soccer fan and couldn't care less about American football. My four-year-old granddaughter is already learning to play soccer, so I'm sure there will be many games to attend in my future.

Hey wheelsmith, great repair and paint! Thought you'd give us a side pic including your new front pegs. I got in a little ride Saturday on the T Sport to deliver some parts. Starting to warm up but looks like rain this Sunday and Monday for me.

Is that an old Gibson ES on the upper right there? And why would ANYONE need THREE (or more) 12 strings? And I'd swear that's an old Stella next to the Telecaster up on the left. And I'm counting eight pegs on the Ovation there. Mandolin, I take it?

You need to give a complete rundown and history of every object in that room.

Nicely done.

Starting with that Peavey amp.

Here? To list all of my crap I'd probably need to start a specific thread, but this addresses the ones that you mentioned.

It's definitely not a Gibson. It's a Jay Turser archtop that I found in a pawn shop last year. It needs some minor work to be a halfway-decent guitar.

The 'Stella' is an old Silvertone, so it might be a shirt tail relative to a Stella. It's another hock shop
'treasure'.

The black Fender a/e 12 string is, yes, another pawn shop guitar, while the Taylor 12 string is a fresh purchase from a local music store.

There are two of them because the black Fender is kept in an open tuning, while the Taylor is in standard tuning.

The electric semi-hollow 12 string is there because other than the blue color finish, and that it's not a Guild or Gretsch, it looks just like the 12 string that Michael Nesmith played with The Monkees. I could have chosen a 'blonde' one like Nesmith usually was seen with, but was a sucker for the metallic blue.

The 8-string is an 'Applause' a/e mandolin...and yes, yet another pawn shop instrument. It suffers from a broken nut, and is awaiting repair.

I was close up to get the paint detail so the pegs were cut out of the frame. But I did do a quick walk-around video while I was warming her up before going for a ride (who cares if it's 40F). Someone picked up the washer/dryer that was blocking my exit from the garage! That cheered me up today!

I had always wanted one of these Peavey 'Wiggy' guitar amps ever since I first became aware of them, probably fifteen to twenty years ago(?).

They were sort of expensive, and I just never put getting one as a priority over the other things I was interested in....such as motorcycles.

This pretty decent one popped up on Reverb about five years ago for around $600+ some shipping costs, and it just happened to be at a time when I had enough loose change laying around to buy it.

I should mention that I was basically in love with the styling of the thing, with its automotive theme and glowing red dials disguised as engine gauges, etc.

I had then, and still have now, about as much need or use for a 100 watt half-stack amplifier as I would a golf cart in Antarctica, so it sits in a corner of the room and ingloriously serves as an awkward place to lay my capos and tuner.

In the five or so years I've owned this amp, I don't think that I've plugged a guitar into it more than maybe five times, and then, for no more than a few minutes at a time.

It's truly my 'Elephant in the room' object.. beautiful to look at, but useless for my kind of playing, which is 'Folky Fingerpicker'.

I'd sell it, but it would be such a pain in the butt to pack up for shipping, and then hoping it wouldn't be destroyed enroute that it's not worth the trouble and worry.

It's damned heavy too.

Mr Swift won.
Disappointing because I'm sure there was another Grammy album in a loss.

The rifle is a 1936 Russian Mosin-Nagant.

I use it to chase the errant Box Elder 'stink bugs' out of the room at bayonet-point...but I don't hurt them, much to Trixie's disappointment.

Unfortunately i missed it too but I heard there was some guy called Swift who had great performance.

Honestly, that does look like a good time. I worked as a bicycle and then motorcycle mechanic before and during my university years. I always enjoyed the work, but the money wasnt great. I never thought about working on aircraft. I think that would have been even more interesting and likely would have paid better too.

This thread has already made my whole day.

Scored a few picks last night.

Being reminded by a post by fledermaus of drinking Huber back in the day has cheered me up.

It was a basic lager, and tasted great. And it was cheap. I seem to remember my dad being able to get a case of 12oz returnable bottles for less than the cost of a 12-pack of Coke.

My HS girlfriend and best friend would come over and we'd drink Huber (& Black Label) and read Trivial Pursuit questions to each other randomly. The only one I remember being asked was when I pulled a card and addressed the Geography question to my GF (because I knew my best friend would know the answer). The question was, "What canal connects the Mediterranean and Indian Oceans?" She thought about it for a moment, then replied, "I don't know, Guadalcanal?"

Here's a pic of my best friend from one of those nights:

You got it going on! Next you'll be teasing us with some Pappy Van Winkle!

How many is a few?

I dig it! I had some bog-standard Peavey amps back in the 80s. But this one is bee-aahhh-ootiful!

Three. A WFP, a Trace (which is incredibly light and totally different from "normal" buff trace) and a Blantons that has a bit more white and black pepper on the finish, also "lighter" than the usual bottle.

All Jack Rose picks (biggest publicly available collection in the US, second largest in the world).

Probably not.

I've never been impressed with it at the price point everyone claims "it goes for". Yet i never see it actually GO for that much. Just sits on the shelf lol.

If i saw it at retail sure but even then, it's decent juice but loads out there better for less.

Excellent! This? https://www.washingtonian.com/2020/03/19/jack-rose-is-selling-off-one-of-the-worlds-largest-whiskey-collections/

Yessir thats them. Bill told me a couple months agkothat ore covid he was moving over 10,000 bottles a year......By the dram.

Then when covid hit they opened a bottle shop to keep some revenue flowing to help employees not working with groceries/rent/etc. Proved wildly successful so they kept it going.

Jackroseindc on instagram

I'm surprised they're still going at it! Seems like the stock would evaporate (heh) pretty quickly. Are they still buying new (old) stock on the back end?

You guys have some real cool stuff going on

My day's a lot more boring, BUT, I really enjoy this website/tool:
https://tiresize.com/calculator/

Great for when you're thinking about changing tire sizes, or in my case, working on a youtube video about tire sizes and need a tool to help you visualize the changes (see pic below).

oh definitely. he does 2-3 weeks quarterly on the trail at all the distilleries doing picks. i was at an ardbeg tasting last year and their distributor came in to deliver a Willett purple-top he completely forgot he even had coming.

(i bought one of those too, it's the highest willett's ever seen at 148.2 i want to say? pick is called "haz matters")

That's a great site. I was just there a couple of weeks ago.

I gave away my old Volvo 240, but not the 14" snow tires I have up above in the garage. My FIAT is a 15" wheel, but if I could get 14"s to fit I would have been more than happy to do so if the OD were the same. Turns out, the 15's on the FIAT have a smaller OD than the 14"s on the Volvo because of the aspect ratio.

I used it, too, when I bought some used tires from a Volvo XC and wheel adapters for the 240.

Super helpful site when working with tire sizes.

This cheered me up yesterday. I left for work in the SUV, too cold for scoot, and got 3 miles down the road before I remembered that I forgot to put out the trash. Turned it back around and took care of it. This put me late for work, but it also put me here at just the right time. It was worth it.

Brown County Indiana between Nashville and Bloomington on Hwy 46.

Yeah man right on. I love it.

I used it first when I bought an Infiniti which was improperly advertised as having 100,000 km... Turns out it was 100,000 miles.

Luckily I got to drive it for 90 days and return it for a full refund... Which was good because it was enough to scratch the itch for a car that only takes premium... And then get it out of my system a short while later lol

In the mean time I had bought some winter tires for it which I could use on my next vehicle, but I wanted to know how accurate or inaccurate the speedometer would be. Site came in handy.

Most recently using it now to demonstrate the differences between the tires on a 17" mag wheel Triumph Bonneville 865 versus a 19" spoked wheel Bonneville T100 to help people understand why one bike handles so much better than the other. Great tool for all things tire.

I've never bought the missus a card. Throughout the year I make her cards or recreate items (last year it was Ralph's empty Valentine's Day box from the Simpsons, etc).

It takes longer, doesn't look as good, but it's been years and now she has a box full of them that kind of reflect where we were at over the years, what we were really into at the time, etc.

Both new scooters are past the break-in interval and ready for the first service. My local (Tacoma) shop had a couple of light shop days this week, and offered to do them both the same day, so with a forecast yesterday for "mostly sunny", I rode them each up and back, about an hour each way, and they both are now ready to ride.

During the second visit, I walked down the block to a local brewery (7 Seas) for lunch, and enjoyed a good smashburger and a pint of very serviceable amber ale. Beautiful sunset over the sound on my way home, and arrived intact in the same number of pieces with which I left.

Bonus: the round trip was over 80 miles so I'm piling on for the Winter Mileage Challenge.

Even though the forecast didn't quite unfold as presented, this is definitely cheering me up.

Bob

Our 2001 VW New Beetle 1.8T required premium. When it got totalled and we were looking into getting a replacement, my wife's main request was that whatever we got, it had to take regular.

I'm glad that my Hyundai Santa Cruz 2.5T also does not require premium.

My GTI takes premium. I also fill up at Costco so it's Shell gasoline (Top Tier or whatever the third-party trademarked term is that makes people think it's "better" than "pleb" premium) for nearly a buck less per gallon. Right now in my AO the Costco 93 is about 8 cents more than 87 anywhere else. And it's looking like I'll be able to have a few days of riding for the commute next week, plus more as we get further into spring.

(Vespas take premium only too )

Them's fightin' words!

(Apparently).

Always store old used tires in the attic! It keeps them out of the sun and if the house does catch on fire it will burn to the ground and be a total loss as the fire department will not be able to put it out. Instead of just paying for fire damage the insurance company will be on the hook for a total rebuild.

Plus like I said it keeps them from deteriorating in the sun. This is important to remember when the insurance company asks why there were so many old tires in the attic.

I'm cheerful because I managed to NOT slide the bus off the road in the ice and slush this morning, though some did.

Well that's a relief!