Modern Vespa

Mating calls?

Oh great! Now I have to use some mental floss to get that image to go away

Now if only the rest of the world would follow suit.

This cheers me https://www.instagram.com/reel/C-pgSD8P9j-/

Call from the insurance assessor. Seems to think my scooter is fixable. If so I will throw the 190 kit at it when I get it back. It's been sitting on the shelf waiting since 2019!

Starting day 18 of my road trip. I'm enjoying exploring new roads in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee.

Did a little maintenance at a friends garage over the weekend. Oil change, new drive chain, and new intake manifold o-rings.

Walking back from the gym this afternoon I came up on a Marine riding a Kawi Vulcan S broken down on the side of the entrance to my neighborhood. A bolt holding the shifter / peg bracket sheared off and the entire assembly became inoperable.

I ran home, grabbed a few zip-ties, we got him buttoned up enough to roll through one of the pedestrian gates and down the hill to my driveway.

From there we took the assembly apart, backed out the sheared bolt piece, and a neighbor happened to have a bolt (from a washer machine) that when cut down was a perfect fit. Upon reassembly the second bolt sheered and we had to do it a second time. Luckily the washing machine had two bolts!

We got that Marine back on the road and home. He had just finished up a 36hr shift on base and just wanted to go home, have a shower, and get some sleep.

Feeling good about helping a serviceman, fellow rider, and a really nice guy.

A round of applause to you Sir, that cheers me up!

I think I mentioned earlier that I've gone back to school to pursue a Bachelor's Degree (BA in Graphic Design). I'm "attending" Southern New Hampshire University online. I'm currently in Week 7 of the 8-week term. I'm taking two classes, GRA-200 Digital Design Tools, and IDS-105 Cultural Awareness and Online Learning.

Throughout the first 6 weeks of the term, we've been submitting our Project Drafts for IDS-105. We were provided a Word template with all of the questions on it, and indicated spots for our responses. Our instructor gives us written feedback about improving it.

Week 7's assignment is to incorporate the feedback into our Draft to make it a Final submission.

I've received 100% on all of my Drafts. When I read through all of the feedback yesterday to prep for my re-write, ALL of it consisted of variations of "Amazing work!" and "you clearly understand the concepts." There were no suggestions for edits.

In this week's announcement, she stated that if she didn't have any suggested edits, then there was no need to edit anything.

So it looks like I can simply submit it as-is, and concentrate on my GRA-200 assignment. According to the Progress Tracker, if I don't submit anything else for the rest of the term, including this final project, I'd get a C+. Even if she only gives me a 90% on it, I'll end up with an A.

I'm also averaging an A in GRA-200. I'm having a great start to my return to college.

Another thing that's cheering me up:

After 19 months of being unemployed, my wife accepted a job offer on Wednesday. She's going through the new hire paperwork process, and has to pee in a cup, so she should start in a week or so.

The pay rate is about 2/3 of what she would want in an ideal job, but it's not her ideal job. She likes to quote her Dad, who would say that sometimes you just need to put beans in the pot, meaning, take the job that is being offered so that you can have income, and keep looking for something better.

She's going to be the front counter person at the main production location of the printing company that I worked for before I got my current job. she has worked for them twice before, each time for about a year. The first time was in 2008, the second was in 2011. They laid her off the first time, and she left for a better job the second. She's looking at this position as a good "soft relaunch" back into the working world. And as I pointed out, the pay she's getting is 100% more than what she has been getting for the last year and a half.

nope

Right there with you, Skids. Four years into out marriage and the first of four children came along. After a year at home she went part time. After the birth of the next, she took off 2 years, then part time again. Third child, three years off, the fourth came 12 years after the first and she took off 17 years. On my part, I worked full time, as a plasterer, worked on scoots nights and weekends at home so I could stay to watch my children grow up. I also had a lawn business on the side for a couple of years, but that was too much as I was never home. I am glad we were able to get by with my wife at home but it was a never ending struggle. On the upside I got to be around them all, especially when they were young. They all learned to work on cars some. They also leaned to work hard and know what the value of a dollar is.

nope

nope

The thing about my wife losing her job last year was that she had tied her whole identity to her job.

She was the Web Developer for the local Catholic Diocese. It was her dream job. She liked to say she "tweeted for Jesus." During her 11 years there, she had taught three Bishops how to use Social Media. One of them is now a Cardinal in Rome. All three are still active on Facebook and Twitter.

Then it was abruptly taken from her. And to make matters worse, the paperwork had the date of Friday, December 30, 2022, but it had ben crossed off and the actual date of Monday, January 8, 2023 written in. They delayed her termination because Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI died on the 31st, and they needed her to update their website for it. But they didn't even have enough respect for her to reprint the document with the new date.

So she ended up in a severe depression for what I thought was 6 months, but was actually probably closer to a full year.

I understood what she was going through, because I went through a similar experience when we were dating and I got fired from Kinko's after 9.5 years. My whole identity was "Kinko's Coworker." I thought of myself as a Kinkoid. I cashed out my 401k and lived on that for 4.5 months, wallowing in depression. When the money ran out, I forced myself to get a job. It was a crappy retail job (Assitant Manager at Wherehouse Music, a CD & DVD retailer), but it was income. I suffered through it for a year until they filed bankruptcy for the 3rd time. While going through the liquidation process, I found a job in the printing industry for better pay, and jumped ship. This new job might be her Wherehouse Music job.

Because I knew what it was like to have that taken from me, I emotionally supported her throughout her recovery. It's only been during the last 3-5 months that I've been strongly encouraging her to find gainful employment. I've done the math on our budget, and let her know that even if she picks up a part-time job, whether in person or online, if she can have $1k/month in take-home pay, we'll be able to slowly rebuild our savings. Anything over $1k/month is gravy.

So I'm happy she's found this position. And she appears to be happy about it, too.

nope

nope

Road trip days 18-20: Visited the Wheels Through Time museum on Thursday. This is the premier museum for USA built motorcycles in the country. The collection is incredible!

Friday I planned to hit the road again, but found out the generator on the bike had given up. It has ~170,000 miles on it, so I certainly got my money's worth. But Friday isn't a good day for this to happen.

I called Cycle Electric in Ohio to see if I could get a replacement generator. Left a message for tech support and Carl called me back within a few minutes. He said he'd have to check to see if they had the generator I needed in stock and would call me back. About 30 min later he calls. No generator in stock, but they checked and they had all the parts to build one. So they built me a new generator from scratch and got it out to FedEx for overnight Saturday Delivery. Amazing customer service!

The new generator arrived around 1pm on Saturday and by 2pm it was installed and tested. I'm ready to hit the road again!

That's an incredible amount of miles on that generator! I love Cycle Electric. That's some real customer service. Glad you're doing well on your ride!

Cycle Electric is top shelf all around. Quality products and service. I could get an import generator for 1/2 the price. But it would never last 170,000 miles and there would be nobody to call on Friday to get a replacement overnighted in an emergency.

If this generator goes another 170,000 miles, it will out live me. 😳😂

Hang on to the old one and rebuild it when you get back home. Not a terribly hard job, I did a few for a Ironhead Sportster. I won't think one for the Pan would be all that much different.

Absolutely! The old one is packed up and ready to ship back home (I'm not gonna lug it around with me the rest of my trip ). I've rebuilt several original H-D 6V 3-brush generators. This is a slightly different beast, but the basics are the same. Rebuilding this one in my hotel room just wasn't something I wanted to get into.

Famcy dinner nite.

Nice to see you out and about. That knee brace works pretty well with that getup.👍

Yeah it compliments the crutches nicely. People get out of my way and shit it's great.

I didn't know that Jason Statham still had a modelling career.

Exactly what i thought!

Roll on summer...

For those who think all i do is ride in mud.

Country riding in Australia (Post 2698191)

Google recently added their Gemini AI stuff to their messages app.

Thankfully they also added an off switch in the settings.

I've had a long and storied history with Swiss Army knives, but cutting to the more recent, I'd lost my #2 at an apple orchard a couple of years ago (carrying too much stuff and lost in the trash there. They were able to recover it and mail it to me. Celebrated a bit at the near miss, then within 6 months it went missing-again.

I decided I was NOT going to buy a new one (IIRC I'd read they'd outsourced production to China and it seemed ironic.....but I digress). Maybe I was just feeling cheap....but anyway, found a good used one on fleabay and I was happy.

Yesterday, fixing a standing fan found curbside with a cut cord, which my kid seemed interested in for their college apartment, needed my soldering iron so dug it out, popped open the case, and, well, there it was. So now I have two.

Can't imagine losing BOTH of them again......

Don't count on it 😉.

OFG

The menu (more or less) matches my boots.

It's a sign.

Alternately, it means that your food will be 3 months late.

Bourbon was on time that's all i was worried about.

Which brings us nicely to that old joke


"Get me a crocodile sandwich, and make it snappy"

Just more proof that shows Marines break everything you give 'em.

That's kind of what they're trained to do, though.

I've heard that a Marine could break an anvil. Just a rumor, though

I'm a little late to the party but you nailed it Bill! The armedferret IS Mr. Statham and he hurt his knee during a new movie action sequence. I bet there was a souped up BMW outside with a ferret on the dash. This dapper guy has all the Gucci kit! Yeah, I'm a little jelly.